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[Continuing chapter five]
Then God spoke to him, and at the same instance the sun emerged from cloud. With a wordless cry of praise Walker leaped to his feet. Of course! Everything has a purpose, he thought. Thank you, Lord, for showing me your Way and your Purpose in this. He stepped down from the porch and walked over to the tree where Fontaine sat, whittling a twig and sipping carefully from a jug.
“I believe, Major, that God has shown me a way of hastening our progress,” he said, struggling to keep his enthusiasm in check. “Tell me: do you think you could move faster if the wagons were less heavily loaded and there were fewer of them? Perhaps if we hitched six mules instead of four to each wagon and used eight instead of twelve wagons per company? How much faster do you think we could move?”
“I don’t know,” Fontaine said. “Maybe another eight, ten miles a day. But for how long? I’m assuming you’re not going to throw out the guns, balls and powder. That means dumping food supplies—ours or the animals’—doesn’t it?”
“Exactly. But we will resupply ourselves as we travel. God will supply us as surely as he supplied the Israelites in the desert.”
“You suggesting it’s going to rain oats?”
“Very nearly.” Walker couldn’t suppress a satisfied smile. “We’re in territory in which are resident a number of ungodly sorts, the kind of men who would oppose our purpose were they aware of it. God has told me that we may safely requisition from these people such fodder as we need for our animals. This will allow us to leave a considerable portion of our supplies here rather than having to carry them with us.”
“Safer to have them with us and know we’ve got ‘em if we need ‘em,” Fontaine said softly; he might well have been speaking to himself alone. “How are we going to know who it’s safe to steal from?”
“It’s not theft if we pay for it, Major,” Walker said. “I intend to leave notes promising payment for all whose grain we requisition. As for identifying the likely suppliers, there’s a man who’s helped me move Captain Nelson’s company here. Pickett’s his name. He knows this country, and he knows the people. He’ll be my guide.”
“No doubt we’ll move faster if we can leave a few of the wagons behind,” Fontaine said. “What do we do if these people resist? If they don’t quite see it as God’s will that we empty their barns and silos?”
“Resist? Who would resist? We are an army, and we’re offering payment. I don’t anticipate any trouble, Captain.” Walker thought a moment. Texans could be a stiff-necked people. “If there’s trouble, though, God will guide our hands.”
“And our aim, presumably,” Fontaine said. He dropped the twig he’d whittled from a small branch, and slid his knife back into its sheath. “Wish Wheat would get here. I’m getting tired of setting.”
“We’ll find him soon enough,” Walker said, and then as if in answer he heard a shout followed by a distant, but recognizable, whoop. He ran, Fontaine following him, and by the time he’d reached the gate onto the red-dirt road there came Chatham Wheat, his horse stained past the knees with the red mud, and more mud up past his boots and along most of the length of his trousers.
“What’s everybody drinking?” he laughed. “I’m buying, I guess.”
“What happened?” Walker asked.
“What didn’t?” Wheat replied. “I got to my crossing and discovered that the ferry wasn’t there anymore. Found a farmer who told me there hadn’t been a ferry there for six months.” Walker scowled; he had been promised by the Texans he’d dealt with that the information he’d been given was accurate. “So we had to build a couple of rafts and borrow some boats to get across. Lost a wagon, I’m afraid. Didn’t lose any of the guns, though—I had to unload the wagons to get them across the river, then reload them on the west bank.”
Wheat took off his wide-brimmed hat and wiped the wet, stringy hair from his forehead. “On the bright side, nobody was there to see us cross, so I could put all of the men to work. On the dark side, the road we were supposed to take doesn’t seem to exist either. Unless it was just drawn badly on the map. The fellow who was supposed to guide us turned out not to know the country so well after all. And we took a couple of really bad wrong turns before we finally connected with the main road completely by accident.”
“At least you’re here,” Walker said. “Well done, under the circumstances, Captain.”
“I’ll take the compliment a lot better, Colonel, after I’ve had a drink and washed up a bit.” Wheat dismounted slowly. “I’m afraid, though, that it’s going to be a while before my company’s in shape to move.” Before Walker could remonstrate, Wheat turned to face him. “We’ve been on the move for nearly twenty-four hours straight, Colonel. It’ll probably be another hour before I can get all of the stragglers into the compound here and start watering the animals. I can tell you right now, sir, that the men won’t be in the mood to march again until they’ve had a hot meal and some sleep. Hell, I won’t move until I’ve done that.”
Walker made a quick calculation. Perhaps I can put this set-back to some good use, he thought. First, I’ll have to send someone out after Pickett.
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