[This is the only scene in chapter nine]
20 MAY 1851
UPPER BOX CREEK, REPUBLIC OF TEXAS
“I don’t even know that they’re together. They left several hours apart, and Cleburne gave me no reason to suspect that they’d planned anything.” Patton and Wheat rode along the edge of a rise just north and west of the camp. Wheat had insisted on coming up here, as though he thought it might be possible in Texas to see men riding several hours distant. He had taken the news of Merce’s—Mister Goodall’s—and Cleburne’s desertion with phlegmatic calm, even asking wryly why Patton had been left behind. It still seemed to Patton, though, that the news had disturbed the captain. “Should I have awakened you as soon as I heard? I’m sorry if I failed you, Captain Wheat. It’s just that I think that Cleburne’s discovered he’s got no more stomach for fighting, and I figured he’d be more of a hindrance to us in that state than he would a help. Besides,” he added, “the man saved my life in New Orleans. I think I owed him something.”
“Walker might not agree with you, Patton,” Wheat said. “But as it turns out, I do. And if it’s true that he ran because his wound frighted him, then I won’t worry about him.
“This Goodall fellow is another concern.” Wheat stopped his horse. “I’m sure that was an assumed name—there’s an Allan Goodall who’s a colonel in a Confederate regiment. Now, I don’t doubt that we have more than a few men among us who are traveling under false colors. I myself did that in Mexico and Cuba.” He scratched his chin, then wiped his forehead with the back of a sleeve; the sun was scarcely up and already the day threatened to be uncomfortably hot. “But a man under a false name and another who just sort of showed up a couple of days ago, who run off the same night—that worries me, Patton. What do you know of this Cleburne?”
“Not much, when I think of it,” Patton said. “He was a druggist in New Orleans. Said he’d served in the British Army. But while he certainly has a military way about him, he never gave me any proof of it. He claimed to have been wounded three times before yesterday, but I’m having a hard time believing that given the way he skedaddled last night. What soldier copes with three wounds and then runs after a fourth?”
“That,” Wheat said in a dry voice, “is the least surprising thing about the man. You never know where a man’s breaking point is.”
“If I’m going to be honest with myself,” Patton said, “he seems to have changed from the moment we caught up with you. He was certainly enthusiastic enough about Texas when we left Canada.”
“This concerns me quite a bit,” Wheat said. “God only knows what Colonel Walker’s going to make of it when I tell him—and I will have to tell him, Patton. If I know the colonel he’s not going to believe this to be an ordinary desertion. He will assume—and I have to agree with this—that our operation and intentions are no longer a secret.”
Patton felt a cold surge go through him. Could Merce have been spying on Walker? What will happen to me if Walker figures out Merce is my brother? His fear prompted another thought: Why should it matter if this liberation isn’t a secret? Aren’t the people of this country supposed to be wanting to see us?
He kept that worry to himself. “It’s been close to eight hours since I last saw Cleburne, it doesn’t seem likely we’d be able to catch him. I’ll try, though, if you want me to.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Wheat smiled. “Good of you to volunteer, but I’d rather have you riding with us. You can drill the men in the evenings.”
“They dislike me enough as it is.”
“Oh, no,” Wheat said. “You’ve plenty more scope for instilling dislike, or even outright hatred. But I’ve always suspect that we were going to have fight the army if we were going to pull this thing out, and even the Texas army is going to be more disciplined than our men have shown so far. You’ve had more recent experience with drill than any of us, so perhaps you can do something to make us into a more effective fighting force.”
He started his horse back along the way they’d come. “Let’s go give the colonel the bad news,” he said.
Next Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six
Chapter Seven Chapter Eight
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