“You know what kind of women those are?” Potter asked in a whisper.
Luke knew. It was pretty obvious. They ranged in age from late teens to early thirties, he judged, although soiled doves led such hard lives they often looked older than they really were. Such women always followed the armies. Union, Confederate, it didn’t matter. Luke figured such women could have been found with the Greeks outside the walls of Troy. “Must be Yankees around here. Otherwise those women wouldn’t be here.”
“I don’t care about that,” Casey said. “I just want to go say howdy to them.”
Potter grunted. “I want to do a hell of a lot more than say howdy.”
Luke understood. He was as human as the next man, and the sight of all that wet, bare, female flesh made him react just like Potter and Casey. But they had other things to worry about. “We’d better leave them alone. We’d just be asking for trouble if we start bothering with them.”
“You’re not in charge here, Jensen,” Potter snapped.
“No, but the colonel wouldn’t want—”
“The hell with the colonel! Come on, Ted.”
Before Luke could stop him, Potter straightened, stepped out of the trees, and called, “Howdy there, ladies.”
The women in the creek shrieked and giggled in surprise, but the older woman on the wagon seat instantly swung up her shotgun and pointed it across the stream. “Howdy yourself, you damn Rebel. You come a step closer and I’ll blast you to hell!”
Potter held up his hands. “Whoa, there, ma’am. I don’t mean any harm. I just came along and saw all these beautiful young fillies, and I had to say hello.” As Casey stepped out of the trees, Potter went on. “My friend here feels the same way.”
“That’s right,” Casey said with a broad grin on his face.
Still under cover, Luke saw what was about to happen. “Casey, no!” He started forward, but was too late.
Casey’s hand came up with a gun in it. The revolver roared, and across the creek, the woman on the wagon rocked backward as the bullet drove into her. One barrel of the shotgun boomed as her finger jerked on the trigger, but the weapon was angled upward and the load of buckshot went harmlessly into the air.
The woman swayed forward, dropped the shotgun, and pitched off the wagon seat, landing on the creek bank in a limp sprawl. Luke could tell by looking that she was dead.
The screams that came from the whores in the creek weren’t playful any longer. The girls were terrified.
Potter drew his gun and said in a loud voice, “Shut up! Nobody’s gonna hurt you!” He glared at Casey. “Why the hell did you shoot the old woman?”
“I don’t like people pointin’ guns at me,” Casey said. “Anyway, you heard her call me a Rebel. She was a Yankee madam, nothin’ to be worried about.”
Even though Luke had seen far, far more than his share of violence over the past four years, the callous way Casey had murdered the woman sickened him. He was about to draw his own gun and coldcock the varmint from behind when footsteps rushed through the trees toward them. He looked over his shoulder and saw Remy and the other men coming to see what the commotion was about.
“Hold your fire!” Lancaster called, even though no one was shooting. “Damn it, what’s going on here?”
As they emerged from the trees, the man all gaped at the women in the creek, who were now huddled together in frightened silence. Even Lancaster stared at them.
Casey holstered his revolver and said coolly, “That old biddy over yonder by the wagon tried to blast us with a shotgun, Colonel. I stopped her.”
“I heard those shots,” Lancaster said, “and so did any Yankees within a mile of here! Come on. We have to get moving while we still have the chance.”
“No offense, Colonel,” Casey said, “but I’m not goin’ anywhere until I’ve had a chance to get to know one of those gals a mite better. That one with the yaller hair, I’m thinkin’.”
Luke saw how things were shaping up. Stratton and Richards had drifted toward Casey and Potter. Remy, Dale, and Edgar had moved up alongside Luke. Lancaster was in the middle.
The colonel realized it wasn’t a very good place to be and stepped back quickly. “I’ve given you men an order. By God, I expect you to carry it out!”
They were standing on the knife-edge of bad trouble, Luke sensed. He had felt such impending violence in the air many times, and seldom did it end well.
However, something intervened. From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the soiled doves break away from the others. The blonde Casey had mentioned, in fact. She scrambled out of the creek onto the bank and snatched up the shotgun the older woman had dropped.
With their attention focused on each other, none of the other men saw it happening until it was too late. Potter finally noticed the blonde and twisted toward her, his hand clawing for the gun at his waist.
Luke’s revolver came out with blinding speed. He leveled the barrel at Potter and drew back the hammer. The sinister metallic sound made Potter freeze.
“Don’t do it,” Luke warned.
Across the creek, the blonde screamed, “Get out of here, damn you! One barrel of this scattergun’s still loaded! I’ll cut you all down! I ought to do it anyway, for killin’ Maddy!”
Potter’s gun was in his hand, already cocked, but it was still pointed at the ground. He looked at Luke through eyes slitted narrow with hate. “You’re takin’ the side of a bunch of damned whores over your friends?”
“I don’t recall you and me being friends, Potter,” Luke said. “We just have the same job to do, that’s all.”
“And that job’s in danger the longer we stay here,” Lancaster said. “We have to go. Now.”
For a second Luke thought Potter was going to lift his gun and pull the trigger, anyway. If he did, the creek bank would erupt in gunfire. They might all die, especially if the blonde cut loose at the men with that shotgun. She very well might do just that, considering the other whores had scrambled out of the creek and taken shelter behind their wagon.
Potter laughed and shook his head. “I’ll never figure you out, Jensen.” He lowered the hammer of his revolver and stuck the gun back in his waistband. “But I reckon you and the colonel are right. There might be a Yankee patrol gallopin’ toward us right now, so we better light a shuck.”
“But, Wiley—” Casey began.
“I said we’re goin’.”
Casey cast a regretful glance at the blonde. Clearly, he might have dared that shotgun to get at her. But too much else was against him at the moment. He nodded. “Yeah, come on, fellas.” He pointed a finger across the creek at the blonde and added, “I’ll see you again one of these days, darlin’.”
“You better hope I don’t see you first,” she said as her mouth twisted in a snarl.
Luke didn’t put his gun away until the men had gone back to the wagons. He saw Potter glancing at him several times as they got ready to move. It was hard to read the man’s expression, but Luke knew he had made an enemy.
The outriders mounted up, and the drivers and guards climbed onto the wagons. With no Yankees in sight, they moved out smartly, still heading south.
Remy brought his horse alongside the wagon where Luke and Dale were riding. “The next time those girls see Yankee soldiers, they’re gonna tell them about us.”
“I expect you’re right,” Luke said.
“And that blond belle, she be a smart one, Luke. She heard Casey and Potter call the colonel by his rank, and she heard him givin’ us orders. She’ll figure out that, civilian clothes or not, we’re soldiers. Confederate soldiers.”
Luke nodded. He knew Remy was right.
And because of what had happened at that creek, he knew their mission had just gotten harder.
CHAPTER 8
The rest of that day, everyone in the group kept looking behind them fairly often, checking their back trail. The same thought was in their minds: one time, they’d look back and see Yankee cavalry chasing them.
