"Headin' for th' home corral, an' lookin' twice over each shoulder while
they do it," commented Kirby. "Was we to let out a yell now, they'd drag
it so fast they'd dig their hoofs in clear down to the stirrup
leathers."

Drew shook his head. "Those are General Wilson's men ... can't be sure
with them that they wouldn't come poundin' up, sabers out, tryin' to
take a prisoner or two. Anyway, we don't stir them up, that's orders."

Kirby sighed. "Too bad. Cold as it is, a little fightin' would warm an
hombre up some. You know, for sure, the only way we're gonna git outta
this heah war is to fight our way out."

Croff reined his patient mount around. "The big fight is comin'--"

"Nashville?" Drew asked, aware of a somber shadow closing in on them
all.

The Cherokee shrugged. "Nashville? Maybe. The signs are not good."

"It's when the signs ain't good," Kirby observed, "that fellas lean on
their hardware twice as hard. Heard tell of gunfighters knotchin' their
irons for each man they take in a shootout. Me, I'm kinda workin' the
same idea for battles. An' I have me a pretty good tally--Shiloh,
Lebanon, Chickamauga, Cynthiana twice, Harrisburg, an' a mixed herd o'
little ones. Gittin' pretty long, that line o' knotches." His voice
trailed away as he watched the disappearing Yankee cavalrymen, but
somehow Drew thought he was seeing either more or less than blue-coated
men riding under a sullen December sky.

Yes, a long tally of battles, and all those small fights in between
which sometimes a man could remember better than the big ones, remember
too often and too well.

"The wagons pulled out of the Letterworth place this mornin'," Drew
said. "They were gone when I stopped by at noon--"

"Goin' south? Any news of the kid?"

"They took him along." There was a faint ray of comfort in the thought
that Boyd had been judged well enough to be moved with the rest of the
sick and wounded up from the temporary hospitals and shelters in the
neighborhood. The seriously ill certainly could not be moved. But he
wished he could have seen the boy; there was no telling when and where
they would meet again.

"Well," Kirby pointed out, "if the doc took him, it means they thought
he was able to make it. He's young an' tough. Bet he'll be back in line
soon."

"They'll travel slow," Croff added. "Drivin' hogs and cattle and all
those wagons, they ain't goin' to push."

Forrest, along with his prisoners, wagons, sick and wounded, th