Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith Page B

the hammer on his rifle and coolly pointed the bayoneted gun at his captain’s commissary department.
    With his finger on the trigger, Jeff looked Clardy squarely in the eye.
    â€œWhat are you doing back here yourself, so far away from the fighting?” Jeff asked. “At least I’ve got an excuse. A major just ordered me back to find the quartermaster. I didn’t want to come, but he ordered me to.”
    Hand tightening whitely on his saber, Clardy fixed Jeff with a look of hatred. Now Jeff’s own anger was rising and he felt a rash, uncontrollable urge to nettle the bullying officer, shocking him out of his attitude of arrogant authority.
    â€œWhat’s your excuse for being here instead of on the front?” Jeff taunted grimly. “Are you looking for some other widow’s eight hundred dollars?”
    Clardy’s face drained and turned a sickly yellow. Fear leaped into his face, and his right hand shook so badly that he almost dropped his saber. His breath began to come in little wheezing gasps. Jeff saw that he had shaken him clear down to the toes of his immaculately blackened shoes. It was Clardy whom Sparrow had been talking about!
    Clardy’s green eyes swept Jeff with murderous cunning.
    â€œWho told you that?” he snarled.
    â€œA little bird,” Jeff twitted him. “A little bird who flew into the widow’s barn when the rainstorm struck, and saw a wolf sneaking toward her house.”
    Clardy’s face glittered, suddenly triumphant. His voice went high and shrill, like a woman’s. He panted, “Sparrow! You must mean Sparrow. He’s the only man in my company from Osawatomie. You’ve been talking to Sparrow, haven’t you?”
    â€œRemember the storm, Captain? How the rain came down blindingly? It blinded everybody, even the Miami County sheriff.”
    Deliberately Clardy sheathed his saber. Still panting, he was very white now and spoke with terrible earnestness. “Better keep your mouth shut, boy, if you value your life.”
    Jeff felt the hair prickling on the back of his neck. He knew a deadly threat when he heard one.
    Clardy went on, “Never talk to me again as you have today, boy. Never talk to anybody else about me, either. You look like a sensible lad. I’ve been a little hard on you, I know. But I see no reason why we can’t be friends.”
    Keeping his bayonet in the captain’s belly, Jeff shook his head decisively. Clardy couldn’t buy him off with a cheap promise of favor in the future.
    â€œWhy not?” Clardy asked, a flicker of surprise coming into his face.
    Jeff said flatly, “Because I don’t want any kind of a deal with you.”
    The anger came back into Clardy’s face, leaving it bloodless again. With a final murderous glare at Jeff, he moved off through the gray light of dawn toward the front.
    Jeff was careful not to turn his back on him until he passed from sight in the timber. Laughing grimly to himself, he relaxed a little. Now that he had told Clardy off, he felt a little better.
    After wasting half the morning looking for the quartermaster, Jeff finally found him replacing a broken wagon wheel three miles in the rear. Quickly he relayed the major’s order to him and rode back with him in one of the wagons, hoping to find his outfit and still participate in the battle. But as they advanced along the road, they began to meet Union soldiers hurrying to the rear.
    Many of the men had lost their hats and their guns. Some were hurt and walked with wounds untended and still bleeding. Others wore crude bandages and used their rifles as crutches. All looked sick, defeated, and very tired.
    Astonished, Jeff jumped down from the quartermaster’s wagon.
    â€œHow’s the battle going?” he asked anxiously. He didn’t understand their haste and he saw no rebel prisoners among them. He put the question to man after man, but they just looked at him with