Rifles for Watie (41 page)

“Lucy,” he murmured, “I've been wild to see you. I've thought about you every single day.”

Her soft arms were around his neck and her eyes were shut. He forgot all about the war. He forgot all about Clardy, the repeating rifles, or returning to the Union lines.

“Oh, Jeff,” she whispered, “I've been so worried about you. It's been fourteen months since I saw you last.”

As he held her close, Jeff's lips caressed her eyebrow, her cheek, her ear. He could feel her heart pounding beneath her bodice. This was something he never wanted to forget, a sweet miracle that couldn't happen again in ten thousand years. How wrong he had been to think Lucy didn't like him! Although she had her pick of all the swains and gallants in Watie's brigade, she was giving her heart to him. And making a rebel lieutenant wait inside while she did it.

Her eyes, soft and brown as pansies, were bright with emotion. A year and a half ago he would not have dared hope she would even speak to him. And now here she was, in his arms.

Her hands slipped down to his collar, absently tracing the button on his shirt.

“I've been worried to distraction about you,” she said, feelingly. “I asked Belle Lisenbee to try to find out from Fort Gibson where you were all this time, but all she could learn was that you had gone on scout and were several months overdue.” Her low, melodious voice, resonant as a deep-toned church bell, was vibrant with concern.

Sighing, she leaned back and looked up at him. “How tall you've grown, Jeff. I even asked Father to try to find you at the prisoner camp at Tyler when he went south to Texas several months ago. Then we left Tahlequah and refugeed south ourselves and I lost all trace of you—until now.” Tears were on her cheek.

“Jeff—to find you here in the army of the South is a pleasure I never hoped to see! Tell me—what made you decide to join us?”

A cold, chilling breeze blew through him. He looked at her and felt the blood surging to the roots of his hair. What a fool he had been. Lucy believed he had switched to the rebel side. No wonder her greeting had been so ardent.

He released her, his pulses pounding dully with despair. Tired of the subterfuge he had been living, he decided to tell her everything and get it over with.

“Lucy, I hate hurting you—but now I've got to. I'm not in the Southern army the way you think I am. I'm a Union scout—out of uniform—behind the lines.”

She stiffened and, in the yellow half-light of the window, regarded him with dazed wonder.

He told her how Bostwick's spur-of-the-moment remark had unwittingly enrolled both of them in the Watie cavalry, and how Bostwick had been killed at Honey Springs. He told her how, despite his illness, he had warned Blunt that Steele and Bankhead were moving on Fort Gibson.

Plunging resolutely on, he spoke of his own illness, and the Jackmans, and about Clardy's clandestine sale of the smuggled rifles. He described his enforced service with the rebel Cherokee cavalry, what fine comrades they were, and how much he had grown to like them. And when he told her of his fierce inner struggle, whether to go back to the fort or cast his lot whole-heartedly with Hooley, Heifer, and all his new friends, the color came back a little into her face and her dark eyes kindled with hope.

Earnestly she put her hand on his arm. “Then join us, Jeff,” she implored. “We're going to win, Jeff. I feel sure of it. We have been winning lately, you know.”

There it was, as plain as though this strong, intense rebel girl had written it herself on a blackboard. If he stayed with the South, he would have Lucy. If he returned to Fort Gibson, he would probably never see her again.

Now he had his decision to make all over again. And this time it was more agonizing than ever. He had to decide for all time between having Lucy or staying with his country. And he had to decide quickly. The thoughts tumbled wildly through his mind. His chest felt heavy. He saw that she was waiting, her face white.

“Lucy, I'm going back to the fort. I know my country has been wrong about a lot of things and that your people are fighting for their national existence. But Lucy, I'm just like you. I can't go back on my country or my state. In Kansas we're fighting for our existence, too. We're fighting to clean up the murders and bushwhacking over slavery and for the right to decide the kind of a state we want without the ballots being rigged by thousands of Missourians crossing the line to vote, or steal from us, or shoot us down. It's a nation-wide fight now and I think the only way it can ever be settled is for the North to subdue the South.” He guessed it sounded oratorical but he had said it the best he could.

He looked miserably down at her. His voice grew soft with longing. “I'm crazy about you, Lucy—you know that. I wanted us to be married some day and live together always. I know this means I've probably lost you forever. But it's the thing I've got to do.”

Lucy's small, oval chin lifted proudly. She stepped to one side, so he could pass.

Stricken, Jeff looked once at her, then walked quickly away.

“Jeff!”

She ran lightly to him. Crying softly, she came again into his arms, hiding her head against his breast. When her emotion had subsided and she raised her face, Jeff saw she had surrendered completely. All her fierce pride and violent patriotism was gone. For the first time in her life, she forgot the war and all its issues. She loved him, and that was all that mattered.

Swiftly she kissed him. Her eyes were large with fright.

“Good-by, Jeff. I hope you get away. Please be careful. I'll think about you every day until I see you again.”

“I'll come back and get you after the war, Lucy. Will you wait for me?”

“I'll wait,” she promised.

“It may be kind of a long wait. In the morning they may figure out why I left. If they do, they'll be after me. If they catch me, they'll hang me so high I could look down on the moon.”

He looked at her fondly. “Good-by, Lucy,” he said, kissing her cheek.

For a moment she clung to him. Then she let him go, watching his straight young body disappear from sight in the darkness. Even when she couldn't see him any more, she waited until his quick footsteps died away completely on the flagstone sidewalk. Then she turned and walked slowly back into the hotel.

Jeff decided to go first to his tent on the camp's outskirts and put food in his saddlebags. Hurrying, he saw ahead the headquarters tent with its fire blazing and its Betty lamps flickering brightly outside it. He would have to pass that way, but there was no risk because the sentries knew him.

Nobody knew he was leaving. And when they missed him in the morning, they still probably wouldn't know why he had left or where he had gone. He clenched his fists with satisfaction. If he stayed on the Texas Road and kept his eyes open, he shouldn't have any problems. He should be north of Limestone Gap by daybreak. Then he could cut straight across, riding into the fort by nightfall of the second day.

He didn't see the lone, fretful figure pacing the darkness outside Thompson's tent until he almost collided with it. Startled, the man gasped and cursed.

“Excuse me, sir,” Jeff stammered, the light full on his face.

“Bussey!”

Jeff recoiled and felt the blood draining from his cheeks. It was Clardy. His mind busy with plans for his flight, and with sweet thoughts of Lucy, he had forgotten all about the Union captain.

Instantly he knew all his plans had collapsed and his life was in danger. Clardy would tell Thompson that he was a Union spy. Thompson would check with Fields. Fields would remember that Jeff had been with the patrol that saw Clardy unload the rifles. In a few short moments the rebels would be after him like forty hen hawks after a setting quail. They had to take him before he reached Fort Gibson or they'd never get their eight hundred rifles.

Desperate, Jeff put his hand on his pistol. He had a lightning impulse to kill Clardy on the spot. Instead, he ducked into the hazel brush and began running toward the horse lot, two hundred yards away. Behind him, he could hear Clardy shouting for the sentries.

From the rack outside the horse lot, Jeff grabbed up a saddle, a bridle, and a blanket. Aware of his deadly peril, he tried desperately to salvage what he could from the disastrous situation. Carrying the saddle, he ran awkwardly and felt his riding boots chafe his feet. Now the whole camp was in an uproar. Jeff heard Fields bawling orders. Weighed down with the heavy saddle, Jeff tried to run faster.

Suddenly he heard hoofbeats approaching at a gallop. Somebody—probably Fields—was thinking lightning fast in the crisis. Digging his boot heels into the ground, Jeff slid to a stop. They had cut him off from the horses.

Frustrated and panting, he looked wildly around him in the dark. Of all the rotten luck! Now he was on foot with the whole rebel camp alarmed and looking for him. And Fort Gibson was 125 miles away.

Fighting down his panic, he dropped the saddle and the blanket but kept the bridle. Maybe he could find or take a horse on the way. If not, he would have to walk, and his riding boots would be useless. He spun around and, sprinting back to his tent, grabbed up a pair of old infantry shoes.

He scooped up two handfuls of shelled corn and filled his pockets. There wasn't time to take anything else. Hearing voices and the sentries' running footsteps approaching, he ran from the tent into the timber, thankful for the darkness that would hide him until dawn.

  
24

Flight

Tying his shoes around his neck, Jeff hurried toward the thickest part of the woods. He knew there would be fewer pickets there. His eyes quickly became adjusted to the darkness. Staying in the heavy timber, he soon put the noise of the aroused camp behind him.

He tried to calculate where his pursuers would look for him first. Probably the last direction they would expect him to go would be south, toward Texas.

So he headed south, walking fast. After he had gone a mile or two, he planned to cut straight east ten or twelve miles, toward Arkansas, then head northeast across the Gaines Creek Mountains and the Limestone Mountains to the fort. They would be after him at sunup from all directions. Without a horse the odds were heavily against him. He had to have a horse.

His feet began to hurt and he stopped and changed to his shoes. All he could hear was the whippoorwills cooing softly from the trees. Circling to the east, he came into a clearing and saw the red glow of the moon rising through the dark timber. It reminded him of the prairie fires he used to watch in Kansas at night. Now he could see everything more plainly. He was carrying his boots and the bridle. In his belt he wore the hunting knife and double-barreled pistol Heifer had given him.

After he had walked south a couple of miles, he bore straight east toward the rising moon, which had now cleared the treetops. He knew he had passed the last of the rebel pickets and had nothing to fear the rest of the night.

It was daylight he dreaded. Then the pick of Watie's men would be on his trail, men who could ride and track and knew the country and the people living in it. Jeff wondered where the Fort McCulloch Road was? If he was calculating correctly, he should cross it at any time.

Fifteen minutes later he saw its ruts gleaming darkly in the moonlight. Praise God, it looked empty. He listened carefully. From the grass clumps the katydids were singing their sad, bittersweet songs, as though lamenting the passing of summer. A coyote wailed lonesomely from the hills. But that was all.

Jeff felt a yearning and a discouragement that was almost intolerable. His thoughts kept straying back with pleasant melancholy to Lucy. At best he wouldn't see her again for several long months. And if the rebels ever caught him, his courting days would be over forever.

He felt for his pistol. Clardy, who sat in on all of Blunt's staff meetings, would know about the message Leemon Jones had carried to Fort Gibson. He would quickly acquaint Watie with the details. The rebels had more than one score to settle with Jeff.

He crossed the road and plunged into the timber on the other side. Tired of carrying the bridle, he tied it around his shoulders and under his arms. When he ran, he could feel the bridle's steel bit spanking him in the small of the back but he didn't care. He wanted to get back to the fort. He was unencumbered by baggage, and fear lent wings to his feet.

When the whippoorwills ceased marking the time and the owls took it up, Jeff struck a large creek which he judged to be Clear Boggy. The air was cool along the creek bottom. Taking off his shoes, he stayed in the water for three or four miles, splashing southeastward through the shallows or wading down the middle through the deep, cool mud. He knew there would probably be dogs on his trail in the morning. He aimed to make their work as difficult as possible.

When the moon began to drop behind him, Jeff left the creek, put on his dry shoes and stockings and began to walk northeastward again. He was growing tired but doggedly he kept going. He had to keep moving until he found a horse.