Read Online The Devil Gun by J. T. Edson - Free Book Online

Deacon knows that country pretty well.’
    ‘It’s a touch close to Fort Worth and Dallas,’ objected Ole Devil.
    ‘Over a hundred miles from the nearest, and Indian country at that,’ Ysabel replied. ‘No, sir. Was I asked, I’d say that’s our place.’
    Once again all the men gathered around and studied the maps. To experienced soldiers, the true meaning of the insignificant spaces upon the paper stood plain and clear. A thumb and forefinger might span from the Red River to the fork of the two tributaries of the Brazos, but all knew how many actual miles lay between the points.
    ‘With four days lead, they’ll be over the Red now,’ Hondo pointed out. ‘But with wagons they’ll be travelling slow. We might send a battalion—’
    ‘I can’t even spare a company, not and hold out here in Arkansas,’ Ole Devil answered. ‘And a company would travel too slowly to intercept them.’
    ‘A small party could move fast enough, sir,’ Dusty put in.
    ‘How small?’ asked Ole Devil.
    ‘I thought myself, Kiowa, Billy Jack and two more would do,’ Dusty said. ‘A party that size, mounted on the pick of our horses, could cover between thirty and forty miles a day even without taking remounts from any Confederate outfit we happened across.’
    ‘It’s getting on for three hundred miles to that fork, Dusty,’ Hondo warned.
    ‘Yes, sir, but if we’re lucky we’ll catch the Yankees before they reach it. How many men’ll be with the wagons, six, ten, a dozen at most. The Indians wouldn’t stand for many more than that. With surprise at our back, I reckon we can handle them.’
    Ole Devil sat back in his chair, the impassive mask dropping onto his face and warning all who knew him that he was thinking. Every man present understood the problem facing the grim-faced General. His orders were to prevent further Union advance in Arkansas, and if possible regain the territory already taken. While he could hold the Yankees beyond the Arkansas river and prevent their gaining more land, he needed every man to do so. Despite Dusty’s youth, he was a valuable fighting leader and a man not easily spared. To let Dusty go, even with only four men, would seriously weaken Ole Devil’s precarious hold on the delicately balanced position. Yet to refuse would be just as disastrous. Once the Indians took to the warpath, there would be no stopping them short of using considerable force. Nor would the blood-crazy, coup-seeking braves differentiate between soldier and civilian, or between man, woman and child. The Indians, would ravage Texas from north to south, leaving the country, already weakened by the number of men away at the War, a burning, bloody ruin. Ole Devil knew the result of such an Indian uprising and also realised that every Texan serving the Confederate Government would want to return home to defend, or avenge, his family once the news spread.
    So Ole Devil had to balance the temporary loss of a good officer against the possibility of the South losing thousands of badly needed soldiers. There could only be one answer.
    ‘Who do you want with you, Dustine?’ he asked. ‘And before you say it, I can’t let Mr. Blaze go with you. I need one of you to lead your troop.’
    ‘You’d best take Sergeant Ysabel, Dusty,’ Mosby put in. ‘He knows the country—’
    ‘And I’m kin to Long Walker, top war chief of the Comanche,’ Ysabel finished for his commanding officer. ‘It’s a pity Lon’s not here, Long Walker’s his grandpappy.’
    Like many of his kind, Sam Ysabel had taken an Indian wife; unlike some of the frontiersmen, he remained true to the Indian girl and grief at her death sent him from the Comanches, although he stayed in touch with them.
    ‘Be pleased to have you, Sergeant,’ Dusty said. ‘And for the other man—’
    ‘May I be the other man, sir?’ Marsden put in.
    All the Confederates in the room looked at the young Union officer. He read a mixture of surprise, inquiry, suspicion even in