“Kiowa’s wig-wagging, Cousin Dusty.”
Almost before Lieutenant Red Blaze finished speaking, Captain Dustine Edward Marsden Fog raised his right hand in a signal which brought Company C’s V-shaped formation to a halt. The tanned, gray-clad riders sat on their horses like statues, making no chatter as they scanned the range around them or looked ahead to where their outfit’s forward scout stood by his mount looking in their direction and signaling to the column.
How close did the Dragoon’s description fit the man who had carved himself such a name throughout the war-torn country?
The black stallion between Dusty Fog’s knees stood only seventeen hands high, but a matter of four inches could be overlooked. However, Dusty could hardly be described as a great big feller when he stood a mere five feet six inches in his Jefferson boots. Not that he was puny with the small size. His shoulders had width that hinted at strength, he tapered down to a lean, fighting man’s middle, with straight, powerful legs. A white Jeff Davis hat rode his dusty blond hair, its broad brim offering shade for his tanned, intelligent, handsome young face. Cut of good quality material, the uniform he wore emphasized his physique although it did not entirely conform with the Confederate States Army’s Manual of Dress Regulations. True, the stand-up collar bore the required triple three-inch long, half-inch wide gold braid bars of his rank, but he did not wear the black cravat at his throat. Instead a scarlet silk bandana, tightly rolled and knotted, trailed its long ends down over the cadet-gray of the jacket. While the double row of buttons, seven to the row, ran up his double-breasted jacket and its sleeves bore the double strand gold braid decoration of a captain, it lacked the skirt “extending half-way between hip and knee” expected by a strict adherent to regulations. His tight-legged breeches conformed to regulations, the yellow cavalry stripe running down the outer seam. His weapon belt did not conform, for instead of a single revolver in a close-topped holster and a saber, the wide brown belt, worn lower than normal military fashion, supported a matched brace of bone-handled 1860 Army Colts butt forward in open-topped holsters. Not that Dusty ignored the arme blanche of the true cavalryman. He sat in a range saddle, low of horn and with double cinches; a long Manila rope strapped to one side of the horn, and at the other hung a Haiman Brothers saber, made to his own specifications by one of the finest companies in the world.
The Yankee Dragoon did not come very close in his description of Dusty Fog. Not a great, big, black-bearded feller, but a youngster of eighteen—yet one full grown in the arts of war.
“Hold up the company, Cousin Red,” he ordered. “Let’s go, Billy Jack.”
Red Blaze, a pugnaciously handsome, freckle-faced youngster with a fiery thatch of hair that showed from under his pushed-back hat, nodded. Dressed in a similar manner to his illustrious cousin, he topped Dusty by a good six inches and had a powerful frame. Yet he never gave a thought to his superior size when Dusty gave him an order. Like most people, maybe more so as he grew up with Dusty, Red never thought of the other in mere feet and inches. To the admiring Red, that small Texan stood the tallest of them all and he felt no envy or jealousy at his cousin’s fame.
Tall, gangling, his mournful-featured face and prominent Adam’s apple giving him a hang-dog, care-worn appearance, Sergeant-Major Billy Jack followed his captain as the other rode towards the lead-scout.
Despite the strangulation of the Union blockade upon Confederate ports, the men under Dusty’s command all appeared to be well mounted, dressed and armed. They relied upon the Yankee army for most of the necessities of life, raiding to replenish their supply of arms, powder and lead, or whatever commodity happened to be needed. Although few of them had heard of it, they were by birth, upbringing and training, ideally suited to follow the Napoleonic way of making war support war.
Organized and financed by rich men of the Lone Star State, the Texas Light Cavalry was commanded by officers who knew the rudiments and refinements of horseback fighting through much personal experience against exponents of the art such as Mexican banditos and Comancheros or the various hostile Indian tribes who roamed their State’s vast area. Every man in the regiment had been reared with a horse as a means of survival instead of a mere method of transport. Skilled almost from teeth-cutting days in the use of firearms, they came to war with at least as much experience as a regular Union Army outfit and far more than any of the volunteer regiments the Yankees used to maintain their hold on the northeast land beyond the Arkansas River.
Kiowa, a tall, lean, Indian-dark man in the uniform of a sergeant, had halted his horse back from the edge of a slope and stood looking down. While nobody, except possibly his mother, would call him handsome, he possessed all the keen senses and knowledge of an Indian brave-heart warrior and made an ideal scout upon whom Dusty never failed to trust the safety of the company.
“Yankees chasing a gal,” Kiowa remarked, an unusually long speech for him.
Which, while not gabby, explained everything happening below. Moving forward cautiously, Dusty and Billy Jack looked down the slope and witnessed the final stages of the chase. They saw Belle Boyd start her lathered, leg-weary horse on the difficult climb up the slope.
“She’ll not make it,” Dusty remarked. “Let’s go help her.”
Returning to their waiting horses, the three men made rapid mounts and urged the animals down the slope. All showed their considerable riding skill in staying afork their horses on ground most people would either have ignored or walked down. Seeing the girl look up, Dusty expected her to make farther efforts to reach them. Instead she reined the horse in a turn and only succeeded in bringing it to a sliding halt. Her right hand went down and drew the revolver she wore. Guessing that sweat blinded her, or at least prevented her from recognizing the cadet-gray of his uniform, Dusty let out a ringing rebel yell.
Never had any sound come so sweetly to Belle’s ears than did that wild “Yeah!” Dusty let forth. Two shots crackled from below, but the bullets went wild. Having ridden hard, fast and far, the Yankee soldiers were in no shape for fancy revolver shooting. Apparently they realized that and saw their danger, for they turned their leg-weary horses and started to gallop back towards the safety of the Coon Fork bridge.
“Take after them!” Dusty ordered. “We don’t want them stirring up the whole damned country.”
“Yo!” answered Billy Jack, throwing an admiring glance at the girl as he and Kiowa passed her in their reckless ride down the slope.
Belle thrust away her Dance and gave her full attention to regaining control of her horse. With that done, she raised a hand to rub the sweat from her eyes. Being in good physical condition, the girl soon had her breath back and could think clearly once more. Studying Dusty, she reached rapid, and correct, conclusions. The uniform told her some of it, but not quite as much as the insignia on his hat. One did not need to be a student of military matters to recognize that silver star in a circle as the badge of the Texas Light Cavalry.
From Dusty, the girl turned her attention to where Billy Jack and Kiowa had reached the foot of the slope and now urged their horses after the fleeing Yankees.
“Can your men handle it?” she asked.
“Unless there’s a whole lot more Yankees close up they can,” Dusty replied.
“The nearest are almost two miles off.”
“Then the boys’ll have caught up with those three before they reach help.”
Watching the expert manner in which the two Texans handled their racing horses, Belle could understand her rescuer’s quiet confidence. Even mounted on fresh animals, the Yankees would be hard put to out-ride the pursuing Texans. She turned her eyes to Dusty.
“I suppose you are wondering who I am and why the Yankees were after me.”
“The thought had hit me,” Dusty admitted.
“May I ask who you are, sir?”
“The name’s Fog.”
Belle glanced at Dusty’s collar bars and then looked him over. Being a shrewd judge of human nature, she saw beyond his youth and small size to the real man underneath. However, it did take some believing that he really was—
“Captain Dusty Fog?”
“I’ve been called that at times.”
Shots sounded from the foot of the slope and ended any more conversation for a few moments. Turning, Belle and Dusty looked down to see how the two non-coms fared against the trio of Yankees. It seemed that the Texans had managed pretty well. Even as Belle looked down, she saw one of the blue-clad soldiers slide sideways from his horse and crash to the ground. By all appearances the Yankees decided flight would not save them and turned to make a fight. Fighting offered them little better chance when matched by a couple of highly skilled horseback warriors like Kiowa and Billy Jack. When the second soldier took lead in his shoulders, the third decided to yell “calf rope” and surrender. Throwing aside his revolver, he jerked his arms into the air—just in time to stop Kiowa cutting him down.
“They didn’t get far,” Belle remarked.
“I never figured they would,” Dusty replied. “Let’s get back to my company.”
Although Belle could hardly hide her delight at learning that the fates threw her in with the very aid she needed, she managed to conceal her emotions. “What will you do with the Yankees?” she asked as they turned their horses up the slope.
“Take them with us until we get where we’re going.”
“May I ask where that would be?”
A smile flickered on Dusty’s face. “May I ask what you said your name was?” he countered.
“Would you believe me if I told you that I’m Belle Boyd?”
“A Southern gentleman never doubts a lady’s word, ma’am,” Dusty replied, “but I’m a soldier—and they like proof.”
“When we get to your company, I’ll give you proof,” Belle promised.
On reaching the company, Belle found that she would not be given an immediate chance to prove her identity. Dusty showed a commendable reluctance to staying out in such an exposed position and prepared to move on. Although he could see his cousin seething with unasked questions, Dusty let Red stew for a time.
“We’ll be making a long halt at the foot of the slope, ma’am,” Dusty told the girl. “I reckon your horse’ll make it that far. When we move on, you can use one of our reserve horses—if you can handle it.”
“If it has hair and the usual number of legs on each corner, I can handle it,” Belle answered.
Although Belle’s arrival and appearance caused something of a stir among the soldiers, discipline remained and they kept their comments down to low mutters while moving off. Belle had long since stopped feeling embarrassed at the attention her revealing riding clothes attracted among members of both sexes.
At the foot of the slope Billy Jack and Kiowa stood by their horses and guarded two dejected prisoners, one tending to the other’s shoulder. A still, blue-uniformed shape sprawled on the ground beyond them.
“Had to kill that one, Cap’n Dusty,” Billy Jack reported.
“It happens,” Dusty replied. “Take a point, Kiowa. We’ll make our long halt by that stream down there.”
“Yo!” Kiowa answered, going to his horse.
During her dash for freedom Belle had barely noticed the small stream. Surrounded by a force of skilled fighting men, she could allow her tired horse to drink in safety. She noticed that the two prisoners were in no way mistreated, but that an escort surrounded them and prevented any chance of escape.
Much as Belle wanted to lay her suggestions before Dusty, she set about attending to her horse first. To fail in such an elementary precaution was foreign to her nature, and she knew failure would lower her standing in Dusty’s eyes. While stripping off the bay’s saddle, she felt Dusty’s eyes on her. Belle Boyd had a reputation for being real good with horses and she had to prove it to an acknowledged master in that line.
After the bay had drunk its fill and indulged in a good roll, Belle accepted the loan of a feed bag from one of the Texans, collected some grain from the supply carried on a pack horse and fed her mount. All around her men carried out the same tasks, working with the minimum of supervision. Not until every horse had been cared for did the men prepare their own meal. Nor did the Texans relax and grow careless. On each side, far from the column but in sight of it, keen-eyed pickets kept watch for any sign of the enemy.
Opening one of her bags, Belle took out a pair of black silk stockings. She slipped a hand into the top of one and drew a slip of paper from where it had been concealed in a pocket carefully and cunningly built into the upper section. Handing the paper to Dusty, she watched him open and read it.
“It is genuine,” she remarked.
“I know old Stonewall’s signature. Nobody else could write that bad,” Dusty replied, looking again at the message identifying Belle Boyd and requesting all C.S.A. personnel to render her every assistance. “You’d get this from Colonel Cope in Atlanta, I reckon.”
“There’s no Colonel Cope in our Secret Service,” Belle answered, pleased that the other did not take the document entirely for granted. “I don’t often have orders but when I do, I get them from General Mandeville.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Boyd,” Dusty smiled. “May I present my second-in-command, Mr. Blaze. Red, meet Miss Belle Boyd.”
“Right pleased to know you, ma’am,” Red greeted.
“My pleasure, sir,” she replied. “Now may I ask what you’re doing here, Captain Fog?”
“General Hardin sent me up this way to create a diversion. Stir up the Yankees and draw some of their men out this way. He’s sending Company A in to destroy a Union supply depot near Little Rock. I figured on wrecking a bridge up there on the Coon Fork of the Arkansas.”
“That’s where I came from and picked up my escort,” Belle warned. “There’s a company and a Vandenburg volley gun guarding it.”
“We figured on at least that much,” Red put in. “Dusty’s taken better guarded things than that.”
“Would you be interested in hitting at an even more important target?” Belle inquired, smiling a little at Red’s open admiration for his smaller cousin.
“If it’s worthwhile,” Dusty agreed.
“Would you say raiding a U.S. Army paymaster with fifty thousand dollars in gold is worthwhile?” asked the girl.
Dusty and Red exchanged glances and Belle could see she had their interest.
“I can think of less important things,” Dusty finally said. “Let’s hear about it, Miss Boyd.”
“It began after I returned from Europe a few days back,” Belle explained. “I went to Washington and picked up some information from one of our agents. The U.S. Government is sending fifty thousand dollars in gold to the Indian Nations. It’s partly payment for troops there and the rest to be divided among the chiefs of the Osage, Pawnee, Cow and Arikara tribes as an inducement for them to keep the peace and resist the suggestions of the Cherokee Nation to take sides in the War. So I came straight out here and finished at the Dragoons’ camp near Russelville. I learned all I could, then headed for our territory. It would have been tight if I’d had to cross the Ouachita and find a Confederate outfit, but meeting you here gives us plenty of time. I know the route they’ll take with the shipment and the other details.”
“How big an escort will it have?” asked Dusty.
“The Yankees don’t want to attract too much attention to the shipment for obvious reasons. So ostensibly it will be merely guarding the carriage of a general on a tour of inspection. The escort will consist, in this area, of a large company of Dragoons, between fifty and sixty men.”
“A fair number,” Dusty remarked, thinking that his force numbered only forty and that at least six of them would be needed to guard the reserve and pack horses.
“Only Dragoons though,” grinned Red, his eyes glinting with the light of battle. “Comes to a fight, we’ve damned nigh got that many outnumbered.”
“That depends,” Dusty drawled, eyeing his impetuous cousin tolerantly.
“On what?” asked Belle.
“Whether we take them on under our terms and on our ground, or theirs,” Dusty answered. “Tell me about your activities. Everything you’ve done since you came out here.”
Speaking concisely and leaving out only the names of her helpers, a precaution Dusty admired, Belle gave the Texans a clear picture of everything she had done including her escape and how she covered her tracks.
“I’m sure nobody missed me in the excitement. And I reckon the sentry will insist he doesn’t know who hit him,” she concluded—which proved to be correct, for at that moment Private Hooley stood before his colonel and stoutly affirmed how he had been struck from behind by a person or persons unknown—“And if I know soldiers, they’ll none of them be willing to admit they don’t know how few men jumped them. In fact, I’d take money that they swear to seeing a Confederate company, probably your own, Captain Fog, jump them.”
Dusty accepted the tribute to his face without any comment, being more concerned with the practical side of the matter. “Then the Dragoons may be out looking for us, he pointed out.
“It’s possible,” admitted Belle. “However, I’d guess that Colonel Verncombe won’t bother. He’ll believe that, having over fifty of his horses, you’ll have made a fast run for the Ouachita, and will get right to clearing up the damage rather than waste time.”
“Only thing to do is find out where the Yankee general will be travelling then,” Dusty commented and walked to where his saddle lay on its side. Opening one of the pouches, he took out a folded map and returned to the others. Spreading the map Dusty looked at the girl. “Any suggestions, ma’am?”
“You might try calling me ‘Belle,’ ‘ma’am’ makes me feel old,” she smiled. “They’ll be going over the Crossland Trace.”
Examining the map, Dusty ran his finger along a line marking the Crossland Trace, a wagon route running to the north of Russelville and communicating with the Indian Nations’ forts. The map, looted from a Union Army camp, was good and carried enough detail for Dusty to be able to visualize the land through which the shipment travelled. For almost five minutes he sat studying the map, while Red and Belle left him to his thoughts. At last he looked at the other two.
“How long before the shipment comes through?” he asked.
“I’ll send a man to relieve Kiowa,” Red remarked, and rose to give the order.
“Red appears to know you,” Belle said and then answered Dusty’s question. “Captain Christie met it this morning and will be started out now. I’d say that we might pick it up the day after tomorrow. An escort and carriage won’t be travelling at any speed.”
“Reckon it won’t,” agreed Dusty. “All non-coms, Mr. Blaze.”
Knowing his cousin, as Belle said, Red had already given the order which brought the company’s sergeants and corporals gathering about their leader. Dusty told them their mission and eager rumbles went up among the half-circle of tanned, tough-looking men. Then he proceeded to explain his plan in detail, after scraping clear a piece of earth on which to draw a large-scale map.
Belle watched everything and her original relief at being rescued by Dusty grew to delight at her good fortune. Already she had made an estimation of Dusty’s capabilities and knew her judgment was correct. Not only was the small Texan a top-grade fighting man, but he also possessed a shrewd, calculating brain—and used it. If attention to detail guaranteed success, then their mission must be a success. However, Dusty’s plan surprised her in one respect and, when he finished talking, she brought up the point.
“I thought you might make your move further west.”
“And I would,” agreed Dusty, “if I could find a place so well suited to my idea. You’ll stay with the reserve mounts’ detail when we make our attack, Belle.”
“With your permission, I’d rather go with your party,” she objected.
“You, ma’am,” grinned a burly corporal. “It’ll be no place for a woman.”
Sighing resignedly, Belle came to her feet in a swift, graceful move and faced the man, but looked towards Dusty. “I have this trouble every time,” she remarked. “Well, it may as well be now as later.”
“You’ve left me behind, Belle,” Dusty answered.
“Every time I offer to take a hand in a fight, some big, strong man decides that it’s no place for a woman and I have to prove my point,” she explained, taking out her Dance and removing the percussion caps from its chamber. “Unload your gun, Corporal.”
After glancing to Dusty for permission, and receiving it, the grinning corporal followed Belle’s lead in rendering his right side Colt safe. Holstering his gun, he faced the girl from a distance of about four feet. Belle’s right hand lifted to hover over the butt of her Dance.
Watching the girl, Dusty smiled a little, although his gaze directed at her feet instead of her hand. Instead of the normal stance for drawing and shooting, Belle’s feet formed a T position about her shoulders’ width apart, the left pointed at the corporal, the right’s heel aimed at the center of the left, and both knees slightly bent.
Down stabbed the corporal’s hand in a smooth, fast move, fingers closing on and lifting the Colt. Even as his gun came clear, the corporal realized that Belle had not even attempted to draw her Dance. Instead she drew back her right leg, maintaining her balance with grace and agility. Straightening out her left leg, she raised herself on to her toes so as to gain added power to the right as it swung forward and up. Her toes caught the corporal’s hand just as the Colt came out. Giving a yelp of surprise and pain, he lost his hold on the gun. His troubles did not end there.
In a continuation of the kick, Belle came down to both feet, rotated her body in a swift pivot and delivered a rear stamping kick to the man’s stomach. Although she used less than her full strength, Belle doubled the startled soldier over. Again Belle pivoted, her right hand raising, clenched into a fist, and driving down so its heel struck the back of the man’s neck and sent him to his knees. Stepping back, Belle drew and cocked her Dance.
“Well?” she asked.
Roars of laughter greeted her actions and the corporal looked up with a rueful grin. “Reckon this’s no place for a man,” he said. “You wouldn’t’ve fooled Cap’n Dusty that way, I bet, ma’am.”
“Not being fooled is why he’s the captain and you’re only a corporal,” Billy Jack pointed out.
“How about it, Dusty?” asked Belle.
“You’ve made your point,” Dusty answered with a grin. “You ride with my party. Now if you’ve finished fooling about, we’ll go through the plan again.”