‘Howdy,’ Dusty said, stepping quickly through the drapes and letting them fall back into place. If anybody outside had seen the flicker of light, they ought to be unaware of its cause. Or too uncertain to think it worth investigating.
‘What the—?’ Trumpeter gasped, staring goggle-eyed and jerking his hand from the drawer. Shocked by the sight of an armed Confederate cavalry officer in his office, he continued with almost inane gravity. ‘Who are you?’
Verncombe did not need to ask. Small the newcomer might be in feet and inches, but he gave the impression of far greater size. More than that, the colonel had seen Dusty during the brief Snake Ford campaign. A cold, sardonic grin twisted at Verncombe’s lips; but he made no attempt to draw the revolver from his waistbelt holster despite Dusty’s empty hands. Instead he turned his eyes to the general and performed the introduction with almost correct formality.
‘General Trumpeter, meet Captain Dusty Fog.’
‘F-Fog!’ Trumpeter repeated and could not prevent himself from asking, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve come to make you call off those guerillas who got your bounty notes,’ Dusty replied.
Silence fell on the room, except for Trumpeter’s laboured breathing. Sitting rigid in his chair, he stared as if mesmerised at the small Texan, without saying a word. It was left to Verncombe to break the silence. Even he needed a good thirty seconds to recover from finding himself in such an unbelievable situation. Through it all Dusty stood just inside the room. Legs slightly apart, he balanced on the balls of his feet and every fibre of his being stayed tuned ready for instant action. Having answered Trumpeter’s question, he waited for the next move to be made.
‘And if he won’t?’ Verncombe inquired at last.
‘He’ll do it, colonel,’ Dusty answered, sounding gentle as a summer breeze. Yet under the soft-spoken words lay a greater menace than could have come from the screamed-out threats of a lesser man. ‘He’ll do it — or see if he can do better against me than Buller did.’
There the Yankee officers had the whole matter laid before them as plainly as if the small Texan had spoken volumes in explanation. Either Trumpeter rescinded his offer of the reward, or he faced Dusty Fog with a gun in his hand. Still the general did not speak and once more Verncombe took up the conversation.
‘You know about this letter then?’
‘I know,’ Dusty agreed. ‘Because of it, a girl of seventeen was murdered.’
‘How do you mean?’ Verncombe demanded.
‘A guerilla had one of the letters and figured to collect the bounty. A cousin of mine, a young, pretty girl, colonel, got dressed in one of my uniforms and walked through Prescott wearing it for a joke. Only she didn’t get all the way through. The guerilla saw her and, it was dark, figured he’d found me. He walked up and shot her.’
‘The hell you say!’ Verncombe breathed and glared at Trumpeter.
The words broke Trumpeter’s spell and he jerked himself upright in the chair. Up to then the shock of being confronted, in the supposed safety of his own residence, by the cause of his misfortunes had held him immobile, Seeing his subordinate’s cold contemptuous scowl jolted him back to reality. While aware of the peril, he also figured that it might help him out of his difficulties.
‘Take him prisoner, Verncombe!’ Trumpeter commanded.
‘You put that bounty on him,’ the colonel replied, little realizing that he was approaching another trap. ‘I don’t need the money, so do your own dirty work — If you’ve got the guts.’
A flat refusal, or even any hesitation to obey, was what Trumpeter had hoped would happen. Now he had the excuse he wanted to kill — no, carry out a justifiable execution of Verncombe. It would merely be an extension of a plot hatched earlier that day, The major difference was that the colonel had come unbidden instead of being sent for.
Everything had been arranged before Frost had arrived to say that Colonel Verncombe wanted an interview. After leaving them together, the aide was to go to the Provost Marshal and say that he feared trouble from the ‘drunken’ Verncombe. On reaching Trumpeter’s office, they would hear voices raised in anger. Then, as they burst in with drawn guns, Trumpeter would take the Smith & Wesson from the drawer and shoot Verncombe dead. With a court martial threatened over his failure to keep Rose Greenhow a prisoner, the Provost Marshal would be inclined to accept any version of the incident given by his general.
Dusty Fog’s presence would form only a slight impediment to the plan. He could not know of the revolver being so handy in the drawer. Anyway, he would be fully occupied with the two officers when they arrived. Possibly he would kill one of them, if the stories of how fast he could draw a gun were true. If so, Trumpeter hoped his aide would be the victim. Frost knew too much and would want more than a mere promotion to captain for his share in the Dragoon colonel’s death. Fast Fog might be, but one of the two was sure to get him while he shot the other.
First however, the stage must be set and the scene prepared. ‘Take him, Verncombe!’ the general bellowed, glancing at the door.
‘Why don’t you do it?’ countered the Dragoon.
‘Damn it, I’m not armed!’
No harm in fostering that illusion. A Texan, full of the idiotic chivalry of the South, would not fire on an unarmed man.
There it was!
The handle of the door turned slowly. Outside Frost and the Provost Marshal were waiting, guns drawn ready for use and the Texan still stood with empty hands.
‘This is the last time, Verncombe!’ Trumpeter shouted. ‘Take him. That is an order!’
As the door flung open and the two officers burst in, Trumpeter grabbed at the Smith & Wesson.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EVERYTHING might have gone as Trumpeter hoped, but for three unforeseen circumstances.
First: Dusty expected Frost to return and figured that he would not come alone. He even guessed at the aide being accompanied by only one man. While Trumpeter wanted ‘proof’ that he had acted within his rights, too many witnesses would be dangerous. One man, carefully selected, would tell a convincing story. The more involved, the greater the risk of confusion in their evidence.
Second: the small Texan knew about the hidden Smith & Wesson, so he was not fooled by the general’s protestations of being unarmed.
Third: and most important: Trumpeter had no conception of the lightning speed and ambidextrous dexterity with which Dusty could handle his guns.
Rushing into the room with their revolvers held ready for use, Frost and the Provost Marshal found a different situation to that which they had expected. They skidded to a halt, staring at the small figure by the window. Quicker than Frost to recover his wits, the Provost Marshall started to move his gun around towards the officer wearing a uniform of Confederate grey.
Across flashed Dusty’s hands, passing each other and working in perfect unison. The matched Colts swept from their holsters, angling outwards. Flame ripped from both barrels at almost the same moment; less than a second from when his hands began to move.
At the door, Frost saw Dusty partially disappear behind two swirling clouds of burned black powder’s smoke from which sparked red spurts of flame. Just realizing the implications of what he saw, the aide felt a savage impact against his shoulder. Pain roared through him and he spun around, screaming, to fall into the passage beyond the door.
Still turning the barrel of his Colt, the Provost Marshal saw the same as Frost. A moment later he died. The bullet from Dusty’s second Colt struck him between the eyes. In going backwards, he fired his revolver. Dusty felt the breeze of its lead passing his face.
Bringing the Smith & Wesson ready cocked from the drawer, Trumpeter started to point it in Verncombe’s direction. Although he guessed the other’s intentions, the colonel stood without a movement. Amazement twisted the satisfaction from Trumpeter’s features as he saw his ‘rescuers’ struck down by Dusty’s bullets. Suddenly, shockingly, he realized that the small Texan had ruined another of his carefully-made plans. Fear, fury and self-preservation drove Trumpeter to react. Mouthing wild curses, he forgot Verncombe and tried to line the revolver on the greater danger.
Cocking his Colts, Dusty twisted his torso towards the desk. Like extensions of his will, the long barrels directed themselves to the Yankee general. First left then right hand revolver roared, coming so close together that the detonations barely formed two separate sounds. Trumpeter’s head jolted as if struck by an invisible hand. The force of the two bullets’ arrival lifted him backwards. Disintegrating under his weight, the chair on which he had fallen let him sprawl lifeless to the floor.
Again Dusty drew back the hammers of his guns, although he did so as an instinctive, trained reaction rather than by conscious thought. Turning, he brought the Colts in Verncombe’s direction. The colonel stood with open hands dangling loosely at his sides, but Dusty knew it was not fear that kept him out of the fight. Career-soldier and man of honour, Verncombe could understand why Dusty had taken such a desperate chance. More than that, the colonel hated the deed which had caused the small Texan to come and face Trumpeter. As far as Verncombe was concerned, the War did not exist at that moment.
‘Leave the letter,’ Verncombe said as shouts of alarm and running feet sounded in the passage.
‘Sure, colonel,’ Dusty replied, lowering the hammers and twirling away the Colts. ‘Thanks.’
With that the small Texan turned and stepped through the drapes. Two strides carried him across the balcony. His work in Little Rock was done. With Trumpeter dead, Verncombe would rescind the offer of a reward for Dusty’s death. Now he must try to escape.
Down at the main gate, the two sentries faced the house, gesticulating and talking. If they had seen Dusty come through the drapes, they gave no sign of it. He stepped on to the balustrade and jumped into the tree. Landing on a branch, he climbed rapidly downwards. Just as he had hoped, all the activity was in the house. While men dashed to investigate the shooting, they stayed inside the building. That had been something Dusty had relied upon — or hoped would happen — when making his plans. Who could blame the Yankees for not realizing what had happened? Nobody could have foreseen that a Rebel would dare break into the private residence of the general commanding the Union’s Army of Arkansas.
Swinging from the lowest branch, Dusty dropped to the ground. He landed running, darting to the nearest of the decorative bushes and making for the east wall.
In Trumpeter’s office, Verncombe had moved towards the end of the desk. He looked at the first of the men to enter the room and barked, ‘See if there’s anything you can do for the general!’
Knowing that Trumpeter was beyond all human aid, the colonel sprang to the window, Passing through the drapes, he allowed them to fall back into place behind him. Striding along the balcony, he looked around, Drawing his revolver, he lined and fired it downwards.
‘Over there!’ he roared as the sentries ran towards the house. ‘He’s heading for the
west
wall!’
Satisfied that he had diverted the search, for he guessed which way Dusty had come into the grounds, Verncombe returned to the window and blocked the other men’s path as they tried to emerge,
‘Thanks again, colonel,’ Dusty breathed, continuing his swift, crouching run through the garden.
Approaching the wall, he saw that its top had changed shape. Two strange elongated humps lay on it. They stirred as he drew nearer and Betty’s voice came from one of them.
‘Jump, Dusty!’
Leaping up, Dusty felt his outstretched arms caught in Betty’s and Kiowa’s hands. Aided by the girl’s not inconsiderable strength, the power of the sergeant’s wiry frame took the strain of his captain’s weight. Bracing his feet against the wall, Dusty walked up it. From the top, Dusty and his helpers dropped down to where Billy Jack was discarding his borrowed disguise.
‘Over there,
pronto
!’ Dusty snapped.
Not until running towards the wall of the next building did Dusty notice that his cousin had been thinking of herself. The skirt was gone, leaving her legs clad in riding breeches and boots; which Dusty knew she had been wearing all the time. However, she had the unconscious sentry’s tunic on; its sleeves either rolled up or cut off to the desired level. Dusty wondered which of them had realized that the blouse’s white material showed up in the dark and would draw attention to its wearer.
The time was not suitable for Dusty to satisfy his curiosity. Already men from the adjacent house, disturbed by the shooting and noise from the general’s residence, were coming to investigate. Fortunately they made so much noise that it drowned out the sound of the Texans running feet. Flattening themselves against the wall of the building nearest to the edge of town, Dusty’s party watched soldiers streaming by. The men went towards the front entrance of Trumpeter’s house, so missed seeing the four figures. Nor did the rear wall’s sentries do better, their attention being concentrated on the inside of the grounds.
‘Are you all right, Dusty?’ Betty asked as they hurried away from the houses.
‘Sure,’ he replied.
‘How about Trumpeter?’ Billy Jack inquired.
‘He’s dead,’ Dusty answered.
‘Figured he might be,’ drawled the sergeant major. ‘Now we’ll have another fire-eater coming out here looking to make life miserable for us.’
‘I thought you enjoyed being miserable,’ Betty pointed out. ‘I do,’ Billy Jack confessed, then brightened up a little. ‘I never thought of it like that. Things ain’t so bad after all.’
‘It’s lucky that feller on the balcony got all twisted around like that,’ Kiowa remarked. ‘He sent them sentries off the wrong way.’
‘Real lucky,’ Dusty agreed.
The truth about Verncombe’s ‘mistake’ could ruin the colonel’s career, so Dusty would never tell what had really happened.
Nobody saw them leave town. Behind them the alarm bell clanged, but they rejoined Red and Sandy, mounted their horses and rode south-east without hearing any sound of pursuit.
In Trumpeter’s office, Verncombe looked at the assembled staff officers. All of them knew him and most of them respected him as a competent officer and good man.
‘It was Dusty Fog,’ the colonel told them and picked up the sheet of paper. ‘He came as a result of this letter which the general had circulated amongst the guerilla bands.’
While the letter passed from hand to hand, accompanied by startled or angry exclamations at its contents, Verncombe explained how it had been the cause of Georgina Blaze’s death.
Sitting on a chair in the corner of the office, having his shoulder bandaged, Frost watched and listened. It quickly became obvious that the senior officers present, the ones whose opinions counted in the final analysis, felt revulsion at the letter and disagreed with its purpose. Sick with pain and anxiety, he gave thought to saving his own skin. Deciding that his only hope lay in transferring the blame, he sought for a way of doing it.*
By the time the note had been read, the officer-of-the-day and sergeant-of-the-guard arrived to report that the search of the grounds had been without result. The officer was under the impression that the intruder had gone to the west, then doubled back behind the house to go over the east-side wall. The sentry from that section had been found, stripped of his overcoat and tunic, bound and gagged, against one of the adjacent buildings.
While that information was being digested, a breathless soldier dashed in to say that every telegraph wire out of town had been cut. Wexler had supplied men to help with that part of Dusty’s plan.
‘That’s Fog’s way all right,’ growled the Quartermaster’s Department colonel, bitterly aware that he would have to produce wire to replace the missing lengths. Like all members of his Department, he hated parting with any kind of stores.
‘Orders, sir?’ prompted the Town Major, looking at the senior officer present — and, with Trumpeter dead, acting commanding general of the Army of Arkansas.
‘First we must rescind this bounty offer,’ Verncombe stated firmly. ‘I want that starting now, without any delay, and completed as quickly as possible.’
Mutters of agreement followed the words. None of the older officers wanted it even thought that members of the United States Army condoned Trumpeter’s behaviour in placing the bounty. So they saw the urgency to make a public retraction.
‘Next we’ll organize a search of the town,’ Verncombe went on. ‘I want patrols ready to leave at dawn. They’d never pick up Fog’s trail in the dark.’
‘It will give him a good start over our men,’ the officer of the day protested. ‘We should alert the garrisons between here and the Ouachita River so that they can get out searching parties.’
‘That’s true enough,’ agreed the Town Major, an infantry officer with no clear idea of the difficulties involved in doing so.
Thinking of the superb riding skill and excellent horses of the Texas Light Cavalry, Verncombe doubted if any man in his command could reach the garrisons before Dusty Fog and party were safely by them.
‘Select your best courier, major,’ the colonel ordered. ‘Send him off as quickly as you can.’ He raised his eye piously towards the roof and continued, ‘I sure hope he gets there in time.’
oooOooo
* Frost later declared that Trumpeter and the Provost Marshal had conspired to murder Verncombe, but insisted that he had been an innocent pawn and had intended to warn the colonel. While nobody believed his story, it could not be disproved and it came in useful as a means of avoiding a too-close examination of Verncombe’s conduct after the shooting. Wishing to disassociate themselves from Trumpeter’s actions, the Union’s high command were anxious for the affair to pass over without complications.