Through Darkest America

than a snick had been there.

Pardo looked back over his shoulder at the first streaks of morning, then faced Hacker. “I reckon that’s real interest- in’ if you got time for it,” he drawled lazily. “But it appears to me we got a sight more to do than sit here talking ’bout yesterday. I figure today’ll be excitin’ enough for everybody.” He grinned at the riders around him and they laughed with him.

Hacker didn’t smile. “I think yesterday’s got a lot to do with today,” he said stiffly.

“Meanin’ what?”

Hacker shook his head irritably. “Godamn, Pardo, don’t sit there and tell me you figure there wasn’t nothing wrong with that business last night!” He leaned forward on his mount, his face growing redder than ever. “I don’t think much of you and I sure don’t trust you no further than I can throw you, but I don’t figure you’re an ignorant man, either.”

Pardo shrugged wearily. “Hacker, I got no damn idea why we wasn’t all killed up there or what Colonel Monroe’s got up his ass. Maybe he figured we’d scare easy. Maybe he knows more about that column of yours than you figure he does. Might be he just wanted to spook us a little ’til he can catch us in the open.” He grinned crookedly, and winked at the Rebel leader. “Reckon he done a fair ’nough job of it, too.”

Hacker gaped at him.

“Now just hold on,” Pardo threw up his hand, pushing air before him. “Ain’t no need for us to get all riled up at one another. We’re both still sittin’ in the same stew.”

“And you’re stirring it with a knife, Pardo,” warned Hacker. “I ain’t goin’ to sit here and…”

Pardo jerked his horse abruptly, and galloped off down the rise. His men followed, leaving Hacker swallowing dust. Howie, a few mounts behind, heard the whole thing. He figured Pardo was likely right; one way or another, it sure was going to be an exciting day.

Hacker dispatched six of his riders out across the mesa. He was plenty anxious, now, to meet the strong Rebel forces. Monroe had shown he was close by and ready to fight. And he’d sure as hell hit the column again before the Rebels got there, if he could. And there wasn’t anything stopping him.

A scout returned just before noon. He hadn’t found the Rebels, but he’d seen signs of Monroe’s troopers. He swore he’d read the tracks right and that there hadn’t been more than fifty mounted men in the force that hit the camp. More than that, after they’d broken off the fight they’d headed northwest for a while, paralleling Pardo and the Rebels, then suddenly veered off to the southeast.

Southeast? That didn’t make any sense at all, thought Howie. Why would they head away from the column, back toward Roundtree? Even if they were part of a larger force, which they pretty well had to be, why drag along behind somewhere?

No one even slowed down for the noon meal. Every rider grabbed what he could in the saddle. Pardo and Hacker kept the column tight and sent men on scout duty to all points of the compass.

Low clouds had formed in the north just before midday and now a strong, high wind pushed them to the south. A wide band of darkness rushed down to meet them, shutting out the sun. Ordinary colors turned peculiar shades of brown and blue, and everything on the mesa seemed strangely sharp and distinct—as if something in the storm had finely etched the world below. White veins of lightning searched the ground far to the north and men counted the seconds it took the sound to reach the column.

“Ain’t never been in a storm up here, have you?” grinned Harlie. He watched Howie sniff the air.

“I been in storms before,” Howie told him.

“Not up here you ain’t.”

“What’s different about here?” Howie wanted to know. “It’s goin’ to dump all over us and get everybody wettern’ hell and I seen that once or twice.”

Harlie shook his head smugly. “What it’s goin’ to do, boy, is come down like rocks instead of water. So fast and hard you can’t breathe without near drowning. It’ll drive you to the ground, pound the flesh off your back, and after it’s over you’ll think you been beat with a godamn stick.” He looked over at the other rider beside him. “Now, ain’t that the truth, Bo?”

Bo nodded grimly at Howie. He was a short, stout man with sad eyes and wiry hair matting his head and face. “Likely to,” he said solemnly. “’Course if it comes down hard enough, we won’t be findin’ them Rebels, an’ we’ll be sittin’ out here without no help when ol’ Monroe gits us.”

“Bo… Harlie looked pained. “If we can’t find them Rebels, Monroe sure as hell ain’t goin’ to find us, neither.”

“Well, maybe,” Bo said glumly.

Klu trotted by and glared at the three of them; reminding them that they were being paid to keep their eyes open, not to sit around jawing like whores out of work.

The wind picked up, stirring cold sand in the air. A few drops of rain splattered the ground and it was hard to see what lay more than a few hundred yards away. The column slowed, and Howie saw the ground ahead was getting rough and choppy. Shallow gullies cut the mesa like wrinkles in an old man’s face. The land was the same as far as he could see; there was no place else to go unless the column turned back on itself, and he didn’t figure either Pardo or Hacker were about to do that.

Hacker didn’t like the gullies. It was a surprise he hadn’t counted on and he looked accusingly at Pardo, as if he might have put them there. “That’s goin’ to be just real fine,” he said acidly, squinting against the sand. “We get ourselves caught in one of them things with Monroe on top of us and there’ll be nothing else for it.” He ran a quick finger past his throat to make the point.

“I ain’t as worried about Monroe as I am about that,” Pardo said flatly, looking at the sky.

“What? The rain?”

“Rain and what comes with it in this country, if you don’t know. The land up ahead is some higher. If the storm hits up there it’ll fill them gullies like a floodin’ river ’fore you know it. Monroe and them bastards can sit back and watch us float by.”

Hacker bit his lip. “There’s high ground ahead. We got scouts out. They’ll see water coming.”

“Naw, I don’t much like it,” Pardo shook his head.

“And I don’t much like sittin’ up here plain as day, either.” He looked darkly at Pardo. “I guess I feel better worrying about water than I do thinkin’ about Monroe hitting us ’fore we find the column. He sure ain’t goin’ to see us down there.”

“Hacker…” Pardo frowned painfully and turned in his saddle to face the Rebel. “I’m telling you, it’s too godamn risky. I ain’t goin’ to lose my head or them guns inino gullywasher—an’ that’s just what’ll happen. We come too far for that.”

Hacker yelled something at him but his voice was lost to Howie on the wind. Pardo leaned over and said something to Jigger that sent him trotting to the rear of the column.

The wind was moaning over their heads like a banshee and the black clouds were so low Howie could watch dark tendrils reach down to touch the earth. He jerked his mount around out of the wind, and moved over to help Harlie quiet the pack animals. He’d stayed clear of Kari all day, but now he squinted back along the column to find her. She’s crazy as a damn owl, he told himself crossly, and doesn’t care any more about me than a stone, but if the whole world is going to come to an end out here there isn’t anybody else going to help her but me.

A shout ahead brought him around. A Rebel rider came curling through one of the gullies, waving his arms wildly,. Howie reached for his pistol, then relaxed. The whole column broke into a ragged cheer. Behind the scout Howie could see the first riders from the Rebel detachment. Hacker and his officers broke from the column and galloped down to meet them.

It was a strong force. Howie tried to count them as they trotted out of the gully into the wind. There must have been two-hundred riders in all, more men on horses than he’d ever seen at one time. The Rebels mingled with the raiders and shouted at one another. A soldier no older than Howie rode up to him and leaned out of the saddle to shake his hand. Howie grinned and the soldier said something he couldn’t hear. He looked past the Rebel to the north, at the black clouds pushing solid sheets of rain before them. Dark torrents pounded the ground and tossed dry dust in the air. The whole horizon was a veil of black clouds, gray rain, brown dust. And—what else? Howie leaned into the wind and studied the broad band where the earth met the sky. There was—something. More than just dust running before that rain.

Suddenly, his stomach turned upside down and he was sure he was going to lose everything he’d ever