my hands on this kind of money since before the war.”
Jeff’s chuck order was ready when he rode back to the store. He checked it off as the store clerk filled the saddlebags on the packhorses. “How much do I owe you, mister?” Jeff counted out gold and silver coins to the delight of the goateed old storekeeper, who was gleefully rubbing his hands together.
“My Lordy, Sergeant, I ain’t never sold this much money’s worth of goods at one time since I been in the selling business. I do thank you kindly.”
Arm-carrying the three dozen eggs and leading the two packhorses took some maneuvering. The pack pony loaded down with chuck fixin’s didn’t much wanna leave his warm stall, so he took some coaching as Jeff left the sleepy little town of Westvale and within it the two happy merchants with gold and silver money weighing heavy in their pockets.
His troopers were deep in sleep when Jeff rode back into camp. He carefully sat aside the basket full of brown eggs he’d been arm-carrying, and then unloaded the saddlebags of food fixin’s next to the smoldering coals of the campfire. Jeff hobbled the packhorses, unsaddled his gelding, and rubbed him down. Jeff placed a bag full of oats over the nose of his tired friend and laid his bedroll nearby. Jeff lay down with his arms folded behind his head and counted the dark night’s stars till his bay finished his oats, then after removing the bag, he patted his tired old bay on his neck and rolled up in his blanket nearby, and he and his gelding slept like two babies till dawn.
Chapter Seven
“Hot damn. Lookit all this food fixin’s! Hey, we got us some hen eggs too! We done had an early visit from Santee Claus, fellers!”
“Where’d we be gitting all this stuff, Cor’pral?”
“Maybe one of ya oughta go ask Sergeant Nelson where those fixin’s come from. He’s the onliest one who left our camp last night. The rest of your jaybirds were rolled up in yer blankets, the last I looked. Besides, those fixin’s weren’t free. Either he stole ’em or he bought ’em, and I don’t reckon our good sergeant stole ’em, do you?”
“Nah, I reckon he bought ’em.”
“Well, while them lowly privates are cooking up our grub, why don’t one of y’all go over to him and tell our Sergeant that you’re grateful he’s done it for y’all?”
“Why don’t you go tell him for us, Corp’ral?”
“Because I already told him I was grateful he done it for me, ya knucklehead. You all go thank him for y’all’s selves, now.”
Later, traveling west after breakfast, Jeff’s two forward scouts run smackdab into some marching rebels when they rode over a hill. Before they could turn their mounts and ride out of musket range, they’d been fired on. One scout took a side belly wound but stayed in his saddle, and the two of ’em came galloping back over the next hill to warn Jeff. One trooper trained as a medic dropped out of his saddle and tended to the gut shot trooper.
“He’s gonna live, Sarge,” the trooper yelled out to Jeff. “He ain’t shot up too bad.”
“Good, let him stay here. We’ll come back for him shortly. Let’s git, men!” Jeff kneed his mount and he and his horse soldiers lit out; they halted just under the hilltop.
Jeff turned in his saddle and spoke, “Okay, you men, listen up! We’re gonna take these rebs just like we was trained to. We got nineteen men, us four will lead off. We’ll hit ’em two by twos, we four. Zigzag left to right, got it? You fifteen men back there, you come in right behind us, in threes. First three, zigzag right to left. Next three, zigzag left to right. The last of you, y’all do the opposite of each other. You men understand me?”
“We understand, Sergeant Nelson, we’ll whip those rebel butts for you, good and proper!”
“All right, men, now remember, let’s confuse the enemy as we’re shootin’ ’em. Send ’em to hell from both your weapons. We take no prisoners. Understand? We shoot to kill. Remember, keep low in your saddles, boys, just like we trained. God be with you all. Okay, you horse soldiers. Let’s go shoot some rebels.”
The rebel foot soldiers were ready for battle. They were deployed behind trees, rocks, and bushes when Jeff and his cavalrymen came yelling and galloping over the hill. They were fired on en masse, but no troopers fell from their saddles. Jeff and his pistoleers, their two six-guns, one in each fist, swept down the hillside into the rebel infantry, pistols blazing fire and sending lead into their hides, dispatching rebel soldiers, right and left. Jeff heard the whiz of a ball past his left ear; he spied the man who fired at him standing on a big fallen log. He was hurriedly reloading his musket.
Jeff aimed both his pistols at the soldier and fired. Both his bullets took the soldier in his chest, and he summersaulted over backward off the log. Jeff kept galloping. One trooper passed him, low in his saddle. He dropped two rebels firing both his pistols. Jeff felt a tug at his right thigh muscle, he knew he’d been grazed by rifle fire. He kept firing until his Colt was out of bullets, so he stuck it in his waist belt and pulled out another. He dropped two more rebels and galloped through their line. He turned his mount with his knees and started back as two of his troopers swept by him, firing their pistols.
Jeff saw two more rebels fall as he kept firing. He was now in the middle of the battlefield. Jeff spun his mount with his knees as he shot another soldier in the back who’d dropped his musket and was running across the battlefield. Suddenly the gunfire stopped. Jeff looked around. His troopers were all over the battlefield, and Jeff saw no gray coats standing. The ground was littered with dead men. Jeff halted his mount.
Both Jeff’s side Colts was out of bullets again. He stopped and quickly reloaded them. He aimed one and fired, dropping the wounded rebel who was trying to stand. He knee-whirled his mount around again and then patted his horse on his neck. He dropped the reins that had been between his teeth. Jeff took a deep breath. The battle was over. All the rebel soldiers were dead on the ground and Jeff had lost no trooper. God, it seemed, was still on their side of the war.
While his men were sitting around the cooking fire after supper, congratulating each other’s luck to have survived the day’s battle with the rebel soldiers, Jeff remembered his thigh muscle. His pants had a long rip where the glancing bullet had entered, skimming across the top of his leg. He’d just lost some skin and a good pair of britches. Not a big thing. Jeff was lucky. In fact, all his men had been lucky. No one in his troop had so much as a scratch, except Jeff and the kid who’d been shot in his side by a rebel’s ball this morning. That young kid would have to suffer on KP duty for a while. He had indeed been lucky though.
Fall came. Thanksgiving went by. One of his men shot a fat wild turkey but they had to leave it and ride away when they were fired on by a superior rebel force. Then they’d spent Christmas Day sitting out a snowstorm, eating canned salted beef and hardtack in a cold South Carolina barn.
Chapter Eight
Jeff and his men continued to engage rebel forces all summer, some superior, some less, and their luck was still holding up. His men had received a few minor wounds but nothing serious, and he still was commanding twenty able bodied troopers. Just this morning, they’d been fired on by a superior force of ragtag shoeless rebels. Applying their tactics of zigzag firing, they’d routed their enemy in only minutes and sending them scurrying back into the underbrush from whence they’d come. Now, with sentries posted, Jess and the rest of his men were enjoying their evening’s relaxation before rolling up their blankets.
That day in March had been cold and drizzling rain. It’d found Jeff and his troopers almost back to Virginia’s soil before dark that evening. The sentries yelled halt and then allowed two mounted bluecoats into their campfire. They identified themselves to Corporal Smith as scouts for General Benjamin J. Travis’s Union Army of foot soldiers. Tomorrow they were gonna have a head to head battle with a rebel army that was camped just down the road. Federal soldiers would be in Jeff’s camp within the hour to bivouac for the night. The corporal hurried to inform his