Under the Stars and Bars Read Free Page B

reins so that their split ends dangled downwards over his palm, gripped between his thumb and forefinger. 6 Slackening his grip so that he did not make a sudden jerk at the black’s mouth, he stood in his stirrups and twisted his torso in the direction from which the missile had come. What he saw caused him to growl a curse, turn to the front, sink back to the saddle and prepare to increase speed.
    Some twenty blue-clad riders had topped the incline. One of them had a Springfield carbine at his shoulder, smoke curling from its .58-calibre muzzle. Going by the way the lieutenant and sergeant of the Yankee party turned on him, the soldier had opened fire without orders. Certainly he had not done his companions any favour, for his actions had deprived them of the best chance they would be likely to get of taking the Confederate officer by surprise.
    ‘I’ll bust your guts when we get back—!’ threatened the sergeant.
    ‘You stupid son-of-a-bitch!’ screeched the officer, then swung from the man to see their proposed victim’s horse increase its speed. ‘Get after him, men!’
    Letting out excited yells, sounding almost like a pack of hounds receiving their first sight of the prey, the Yankees started their horses running down the incline. Last to move was the man whose shot had set them up for a long chase instead of what they had hoped would be an easy capture.
    Settling down on the saddle instead of posting, Dusty loosened his reins and nudged the stallion’s ribs gently with his heels. It was a signal that, taken with the slackening of the pressure on the bit, the horse fully understood. Building up momentum, its gait changed from the diagonal-striding, two-beat time of the trot. Instead the right hind hoof struck the ground, then the off fore and left hind simultaneously, and lastly the near fore came down to start the sequence again.
    From a trot, the stallion began to canter then opened out to a full gallop. Under-foot, the ground was ideal for fast travelling; the grama grass, short, springy, cushioning the impact of the hooves. Crouching forward at the waist, but maintaining perfect balance and control, Dusty kept his mount collected and prevented its inborn tendency to rush onwards at an ever-increasing speed until it was bolting rather than galloping under his command.
    No more shots came, but that did not cause Dusty any especial joy. From what he had seen, the Yankees belonged to the New Hampstead Volunteers. Raised and financed by General Buller, as a means of obtaining his rank—and the social benefits that went with it in time of war—the regiment was not the best outfit in the Union’s Army of Arkansas.
    Under normal conditions, Dusty would have been in little or no danger of capture. On his other missions into the Yankee territory east of the Ouachita or Caddo Rivers, he had his full Company along. With those sixty expert fighting men at his back, he could have routed the outnumbered Volunteers. Even on the outward journey to Pine Bluff, the situation would not have been desperate. He and his two companions were not only travelling with the bare essentials, but each had ridden a three-horse relay.
    As his men had greater distances to cover, Dusty had loaned each of them one of his reserve mounts. In that way, Sergeant Kiowa Cotton and Corporal Vern Hassle could attain a higher speed. It had been a sound decision, for the two non-coms had the better chances of finding one or more of the ‘tin-clads’ at their destinations.
    So Dusty was left with only his black stallion. Apart from a couple of blankets rolled in a rubberised-cloth, water-proof poncho, strapped to the cantle, his saddle had no other burden. He had left his Henry rifle—a battle-field capture—at the Regiment’s headquarters and at that moment his field-glasses were headed towards Arkadelphia with the mount loaned to the corporal. Unfortunately, the stallion was far from fresh after covering so many miles. If the Volunteers should