The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

the futile shame of those breaking lines at Selma.
    “Not you, suh!”
    That protest was picked up, echoed by every man within hearing. Finally the General yielded to their angry demands that he not expose himself to the danger of the night attack.
    They moved in around the house, and somehow confidence was restored by following the old familiar pattern of the surprise attack—as if in this small action they were again a part of the assured troops who had fought gunboats from horseback, who had tweaked the Yankees’ tails so often.
    Drew and Boyd were part of the detachment sent to approach the fire-lighted horse lot, coming from a different angle than the main body of the force. It was the old, old game of letting a dozen do the work of fifty. But before they had reached the rail fence about that enclosure, there was a ripple of spiteful Yankee fire.
    “Come on!” The officer outlined against one of the campfires, lurched and caught at the rails as the men he led crawled over or vaulted that obstruction, overrunning the Union defenders with the vehemence of men determined to make up for the failure of the afternoon. It was a sharp skirmish, but one from which they came away with prisoners and a renewed belief in themselves. Though they did not know it then, they had fought the last battle of the war for the depleted regiments of cavalry of the Army of the Tennessee. The aftertaste of Selma had been bitter, but the small, sharp flurry at the Godwin house left them no longer feeling so bitter.
    “Where’re we goin’?” Boyd pushed his horse up beside Croaker as they swung on through the dark.
    “Plantersville, I guess.” But something inside Drew added soundlessly: On to the end now.
    “We’re not finished—” Boyd went on, when Drew interrupted:
    “We’re finished. We were finished months ago.” It was true…they had been finished at Franklin, their cause dead, their hopes dead, everything dead except men who had somehow kept on their feet, with weapons in their hands and a dogged determination to keep going. Why? Because most of them could no longer understand any other way of life?
    There was that long line of battles General Forrest had named.… And marching backward through weeks, months, and years a long line of men, growing more and more shadowy in memory. Among them was Anse—Drew tried not to think about that.
    Now, out of the dark there suddenly arose a voice, singing. Others picked up the tune, one of the army songs. Just as Kirby had sung to them on the big retreat, so this unknown voice was singing them on to whatever was awaiting at Plantersville. The end was waiting and they would have to face it, just as they had faced carbine, saber, field gun and everything else the Yankees had brought to bear against them.
    Drew joined in and heard Boyd’s tenor, high but on key, take up the refrain:
    “On the Plains of Manassas the Yankees we met,We gave them a whipping they’ll never forget:But I ain’t got no money, nor nothin’ to eat,I’m afraid that tonight I must sleep in the street.”
    The Army of the Tennessee hadn’t seen the Plains of Manassas, maybe, but they had seen other fields and running Yankees in their time.
    Drew found himself slapping the ends of his reins in time to the tune.
    “I’m a poor Rebel soldier, and Dixie’s my home—”
    Croaker brayed loudly and with sorrowful undertone, and Drew heard a laugh, which could only have come from General Forrest, floating back to him through the dawn of a new morning.
    CHAPTER 18
    Texas Spurs
    The soft wind curled languidly in through the open church window, stirring the curly lock which Boyd now and then impatiently pushed away from his eyes…was a delicate fingertip touch on Drew’s cheek. A subdued shuffle of feet could be heard as the congregation arose. It was Sunday in Gainesville, and a congregation such as could only have gathered there on this particular May 7, 1865. Rusty gray-brown, patched, and with ill-mended tears, which no amount of painstaking effort could ever convert again into more than dimly respectable uniforms, a sprinkling of civilian broadcloth and feminine bonnets. And across the church a smaller block of once hostile blue.…
    As the recessional formed, prayer books were closed to be slipped into pockets or reticules. The presiding celebrate moved down from the altar, his surplice tugged aside by the wandering breeze revealing the worn cavalry boots of a chaplain.
    “For the beauty of the