“We were lucky.”
Remy nodded. “Very lucky. Maybe the fates, they are smilin’ on us for a change.”
Luke thought they had been pretty fortunate the whole trip, but he didn’t point that out.
Colonel Lancaster said, “I don’t know if there are any more Yankees in this area, but if there are, they’re bound to have heard this battle. We need to get moving again quickly. Somebody move that old man’s body out of the way.”
“We could bury him, Colonel,” Luke suggested.
Lancaster shook his head. “There’s no time for that. Let’s go. We’ll all ride on the wagons until we catch up to our horses.”
Luke thought it was likely the saddle mounts had stopped to graze somewhere along the trail. Once they were away from the sound of shots and the smell of powder smoke, they would have calmed down fairly quickly.
The boy had gone back to the shack and disappeared inside. Luke and Remy picked up the old man’s body and carried it carefully off the trail. They had just returned to the wagons and climbed on when the youngster emerged from the cabin carrying an old squirrel rifle.
“You and your damned war!” he cried shrilly. “I hate all of you!” He started to lift the rifle.
Potter’s revolver streaked out and blasted. The slug smashed into the boy’s frail chest and lifted him off his feet as it drove him backward. Dust puffed up around him as he landed on the ground.
There hadn’t been time for the other men to do anything. Lancaster turned to Potter and said in a horrified tone, “You shot that boy!”
“He was about to point a rifle at me,” Potter said coolly as he reloaded the expended chamber. “Damned if I was gonna sit here and let him shoot me.”
Luke hopped down from the wagon and walked over to pick up the rifle the boy had dropped. The youngster lay a couple feet away, staring sightlessly at the sky. Luke tried not to look at those open, empty eyes.
He checked the rifle and said in disgust, “I don’t think this old relic would have even fired! You killed him for nothing, Potter.”
Potter’s shoulders rose and fell. “I didn’t have any way of knowin’ that, now did I?”
That was true, Luke supposed. He threw the squirrel rifle aside. The boy and his grandfather lay dead on one side of the road, more than a dozen Yankees on the other. Once again Luke and his companions were surrounded by senseless death.
After all the things he had seen . . . all the things he had
CHAPTER 9
The gold escort continued south, hoping the Yankees who’d ambushed them were the only ones on their trail. Luke thought it likely the women they’d encountered beside that creek had sent the soldiers after them.
Each day without an ambush or confrontation the Confederates became more aware the Yankees had other things to deal with, like the collapse of the Confederacy. The atmosphere of gloom and despair hung over the landscape like actual clouds. The air smelled of smoke, rotting flesh, and defeat.
It seemed to Luke like a month had passed since they left Richmond, but he knew it hadn’t quite been two weeks. “We’re getting close to Georgia now,” he commented to Dale one day. “Have to be.”
“I think you’re right,” Dale said. “What are you gonna do once we get where we’re goin’, Luke?”
“I guess that’ll be up to the colonel. Maybe he has orders for what we’re supposed to do next. If not, I guess I’ll stay wherever the new capital is and try to do what I can to help.” Luke shook his head. “No point in trying to go back to Richmond, even if we could get there.”
“I got a feelin’ you’re right about that.”
The trail entered a long, straight stretch between two mostly bald knobs. Luke frowned at the hills, thinking it would be another good spot for an ambush.
But when the trouble came, it popped up right in front of them through sheer bad luck. A Union cavalry patrol came trotting around a bend in the trail just beyond the knobs.
The Yankees regarded anybody who wasn’t wearing the blue as an enemy. Sunlight winked on steel as the officer in charge of the patrol whipped his saber from its scabbard and shouted, “Charge!”
Just like that, the Confederates were in another fight, and there wasn’t any good cover on either side of the road.
All they could do was shoot it out.
Luke brought his rifle to his shoulder, drew a bead on the officer leading the charge, and pressed the trigger. The rifle roared and bucked against his shoulder. Through the powder smoke stinging his eyes, he saw the Yankee topple off the galloping horse.
Their commanding officer’s death didn’t slow down the other cavalrymen. They kept moving forward, blazing away with pistols as they raced toward the wagons and the outriders.
Colonel Lancaster tried to wheel his horse around and gallop back to the cover of the wagons, but he jerked in the saddle as at least one bullet found him. A crimson stain bloomed on the colonel’s shirt as he galloped past the lead wagon.
Dale grunted in pain beside Luke, but he didn’t have time to glance over and see how badly his friend was hurt. He had his revolver leveled at the charging Yankees. As he squeezed off his last two rounds, another cavalryman fell, taking his mount down with him. Another horse ran into the fallen animal and upended as well. The trail suddenly became a welter of flailing hooves and swirling dust.
The back of the charge was broken. Only three Yankees remained mounted. They whirled their horses and fled. A few final shots from the Confederates followed to speed them on their way.
Luke turned to Dale and found his friend clutching a bloody left shoulder. “How bad is it?”
“Don’t know, but it hurts like hell,” Dale replied through clenched teeth. “I’ll be all right. See about Remy and Edgar.”
Luke twisted on the seat to look back at the other wagon. Remy was reloading and seemed to be all right. He glanced up and gave Luke a brief nod to signify as much. Edgar waved to indicate he was unharmed, too.
Lancaster had galloped past both wagons before coming to a stop. Luke had a feeling the horse had been running blindly, that the colonel was no longer in control. He glanced back to where the horse had stopped. Lancaster was still mounted, sitting hunched over in the saddle.
Casey trotted his horse back to check on the officer. He put a hand on Lancaster’s shoulder and leaned over to take a closer look at him. Then he turned and called to the others, “Hey, the colonel’s shot to pieces!”
“Get him down from his horse,” Luke said, “but be careful with him.”
Casey frowned as if he didn’t like the idea of Luke giving him orders, but he dismounted and reached up to take hold of Lancaster. Stratton got to them in time to swing down from his saddle and give Casey a hand.
They lowered Lancaster onto his back in the grass at the side of the trail. All the men gathered around him, even the wounded Dale Cardwell.
Lancaster was still alive. His eyes were open, and his mouth moved like he was trying to say something. He couldn’t get the words out, though. Nothing came from his mouth except trickles of blood at each corner.
The colonel’s shirt was so bloody it was hard to tell for sure, but it looked like the man had been hit at least three times. Clearly, the wounds were bad ones.
Luke figured Lancaster had only minutes to live, if that long. He dropped to a knee beside him. “Colonel, can you hear me? Colonel!”
Lancaster managed to make a sound, but it was just a choked, incoherent moan. From the look in his eyes, he wasn’t aware of anything except the pain that filled him.
“Colonel, listen to me!” Luke urged. “We need to know where we’re going. Colonel, do you have a map? Can you tell me—”
“He can’t tell you nothin’, Jensen,” Potter said. “He’s next thing to dead, can’t you see that? We’re on our own now.”
“Don’t say that just yet,” Luke snapped. “We can’t give up—”
A grotesque rattle came from Lancaster’s throat. When Luke looked at the colonel again, he saw that
