Under the Stars and Bars

by J. T. Edson

  So Aaron allowed the revolver to slip back into its holster and jerked his arm from the gaunt man’s grasp. Common-sense told Aaron that, even if Wightman did not stop him shooting the Texan, the long-haired scout would do it. There was another, almost equally effective way in which he might help his younger brother.

  Driven backwards by Dusty’s fists, Stap literally did not know from where the next blow was coming. Instead of trying to anticipate the next point to be attacked and guarding it, his hands fled to the last place on which his assailant’s hard fists had impacted. Caught by an almost classic left jab to the jaw, he nearly ran rearwards to escape further punishment. To his horror, he saw that the enormous Texan was following with the clear intention of continuing the punishment.

  In his eagerness to catch up with the reeling guerilla, Dusty did not notice that he was passing in front of the other men. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw Aaron lunging in his direction and felt the man’s hands close on his right wrist. Bringing himself to a halt with his weight on the right foot, Dusty did not try to jerk his arm free. Instead he threw his left leg to the rear, pivoting himself around. Twisting closer instead of attempting to draw away, Dusty hurled his left arm rearwards and up. It passed over Aaron’s clutching hands, propelling the clenched fist at his face. Once again Dusty reverted to karate. Knotting his fist so that the second finger’s protruding root made the impact, he crashed it against the philtrum collection of nerves immediately under Aaron’s nose. Sharp agony stabbed through Aaron’s head, numbing his brain. Opening his hands, he stumbled away with them flying to his damaged face.

  The respite had given Stap a chance to recover. Changing direction, he leapt from behind the Texan. Throwing his right arm across the back of Dusty’s neck, he bent the other for a headlock and planned to drive the left fist into his face. Up flashed Dusty’s left arm to Stap’s left shoulder and his right hand closed just as quickly on the upper inside of the guerilla’s left thigh. Throwing his right leg in front of Stap’s, before the young hard-case could carry out his second intention, Dusty ducked his left shoulder in the direction of the ground.

  So suddenly did Dusty respond, that Stap was taken by surprise and pulled off balance. Forcing the guerilla’s head down with his left arm, Dusty pushed strongly at the trapped thigh while subsiding. Stap’s feet left the ground, rose into the air and described a beautiful semi-circle. Coming to earth with a solid thud, he felt himself released and bounced away from his would-be victim,

  Once again Aaron tried to come to his brother’s rescue. Darting forward with his hands still trying to lesson the pain from his nose, he halted between Dusty’s spread-apart feet and raised his right leg. Although Aaron hoped to stamp his heel into Dusty’s groin, the attempt came to nothing. Hooking his right foot behind Aaron’s left ankle, Dusty drove the sole of his left boot against the other’s near knee-cap. By jerking forward at the ankle and pressing to the rear on the knee, Dusty sent the burly guerilla toppling away to crash on his back in the dirt.

  Before Dusty could rise, Stap had writhed around and plunged on top of him. Kneeling astride the small Texan’s torso, Stap smashed a right which twisted his head sideways. Then the young hard-case closed his hands about Dusty’s throat. Raising Dusty’s shoulders from the ground, Stap tried to crash his head against it. By bracing his neck muscles, Dusty lessened the impact; but he knew that he must escape.

  Then he remembered seeing the length of branch discarded by Charley and recalled something taught to him by Tommy Okasi, his uncle’s Oriental servant. Even as his upper torso was raised again, his right hand scrabbled for and found the stick. Down drove Dusty’s head, but again his braced muscles and Stap’s weakened condition saved him from incapacitation. Gripping the stick at its centre, Dusty lashed his right arm forward and up. The protruding butt end of the stick below the heel of his hand crashed on to the bridge of Stap’s nose. Instantly the guerilla’s brain seemed to burst into a searing white-hot fire. Screaming, he took his hands from Dusty’s neck and involuntarily began to rear upwards.

  Feeling the weight leave his body, Dusty braced his feet and head on the ground. Bowing the rest of his frame upwards, he caught Stap between the thighs and pitched the guerilla head-first from him.

  There was need for haste in escaping from beneath Stap. Already Aaron was starting to rise and Job was moving in. Aaron hurled himself through the air without regaining his feet. Bending his knees as he sank into a lying position, Dusty caught the man’s chest on the soles of his boots. Again the improvised yawara stick proved its worth. Devised by Okinawans, forbidden by their rulers to carry arms, the techniques of yawara fighting served the small Texan equally well. As Aaron’s weight pressed down on him, Dusty propelled the rounded butt-end as he had at Stap—except that this time he sent the hard hemisphere into his assailant’s temple. Aaron’s body went limp. Exerting all his strength, Dusty straightened his legs and flung the unconscious hard-case from him. Using the same impulsion, Dusty threw himself upright.

  A low, savage snarl from his right warned him of danger. Glancing around, he found that Job was rushing towards him. Already the man’s right fist flung at Dusty’s head. Gasping in breaths of air, Dusty dropped into a kneeling position that carried him beneath the blow. With his left leg thrust almost straight to the rear and right knee bent, he looked like a sprinter preparing to start a race. Using much the same methods as a sprinter leaving the blocks, he thrust himself forward. Shooting out before him, the ‘point’ of the stick—that part emerging ahead of his thumb and forefinger—ploughed agonisingly into Job’s groin.

  Giving a strangled scream of torment, Job fell with his body draped on Dusty’s head. Surging erect, the small Texan toppled the man over him. Clutching at the stricken area, and barely conscious, Job crashed to the ground behind Dusty.

  Turning, Dusty confronted Wightman, the scout and Charley. In a defensive crouch, he held the yawara stick ready for further use. Hissing furiously, Charley lunged forward. Thrusting out his left foot, the scout tripped the young man. Even as Charley sprawled face down, knife flying from his fingers, the scout drew right-handed and threw down on the small Texan.

  ‘Drop it, Reb!’ the plainsman ordered, with a slight jerk of his head in the direction of the cabin. ‘Do it fast!’

  Flickering a look that way, Dusty saw a medium-sized, lean guerilla with a revolver in his right hand running from the building. Even before he obeyed the scout’s command, Dusty noticed that the other had swung the Navy Colt in Wightman’s direction. Opening his hand, Dusty let the stick which had served him so well drop to his feet. He wondered what the scout intended to do next.

  ‘Tell your man not to shoot, Deacon,’ the long-haired westerner said, pointing his gun by what seemed an accident straight at Wightman’s belly.

  ‘Don’t shoot, Brother Herbert! Wightman yelped, knowing that the muzzle was turned his way by design not chance. ‘Do you help that Secessionist scum, stranger?’

  ‘He’s still my prisoner,’ the scout pointed out, then indicated a somewhat dazed Charley who had reached hands and knees but not stood up. ‘And I figured you didn’t want no more of your boys abusing.’

  Looking around him, to where the three brothers lay either rolling in agony or still and unconscious, Wightman felt that the scout had a point. While wild and without moral scruples, Charley was more dangerous from behind than in front. If that small—or was he small—Texan could lay low the three Maxim boys, he would make easy meat of the hot-headed Charley. Wightman had no wish for his small band to be further weakened, although that might not matter if— ‘Hey!’ the scout exclaimed suddenly. ‘Look where I’m pointing my gun. It’s sure lucky that feller you’ve got on guard didn’t shoot me or this ole Navy’d right certain go off.’

  And icy feeling rose in Wightman’s stomach at the words. Up to that moment he had been hoping that Gustav, up on the slope, would see what was happening and shoot the scout down. Now, with sickening clarity, Wightman realised
that such an action would have also caused his own death. The scout’s negligently-held revolver had its hammer drawn back at full cock under his thumb, while his forefinger depressed the trigger. If he had been hit by a bullet, those grips would have relaxed. Before the barrel could be deflected far enough, a fast-driven, conical-shaped piece of lead would have ripped into Wightman’s belly. He had seen too many men die gut-shot to relish the prospect of it happening to him.

  Turning fast, he saw the lanky sentry—never the swiftest of thinkers—raising the rifle.

  ‘All is well, Brother Gustav!’ Wightman yelled, anxiety adding a tinny note to his tones, Relief rolled through him as he saw the rifle lower and its owner run forward. Turning to the scout, he continued, ‘What would you have us do now, stranger?’

  ‘Best get the Reb there tied up safe in the barn, like we was going to,’ answered the plainsman. ‘I’ll tend to it while you and your “brothers” see to them three fellers’ hurts.’

  ‘It would be better—and safer for you—if we came with you,’ Wightman objected. ‘He has already shown himself mighty in sin and evil. So we will come and make sure he doesn’t try his Devil-inspired tricks on you. Take up your knife, Brother Charley and put it in its sheath.’

  Having regained an upright posture, Charley glared in amazement at his leader and felt prompted to protest. His habit of whittling pieces of wood had brought the Maxim brothers to grief and he felt that he should do something to avenge them. If he did, they might forget how his innocent pastime had affected them.

  ‘You mean you’re letting that peckerwood bastard get away with it, Parson?’ the young man squawked. ‘Hell! I’ll—’

  ‘Do like the Deacon tells you,’ the scout put in.

  ‘Yeah?’ Charley spat out, swinging to face the speaker and starting to raise his knife. ‘Who says so?’

  ‘I do,’ answered the scout. ‘If you go ag’in that Texan with the knife, he’s like to take it away from you and kill you— And if you don’t turn it away from me, I’ll lick him to doing it.’

  Suddenly Chancy found himself looking at the barrel of the plainsman’s gun. Beyond it was a tanned, cold, savage face which sent a chill of apprehension through the young hard-case. Chancy had seen enough killers to know the signs. There stood a man as dangerous, or maybe more so, as the worst of Wightman’s band. The .36 calibre muzzle of the Navy Colt appeared to have a bore the size of a Napoleon cannon as it pointed at his head.

  Almost griding his teeth in rage and frustration, Wightman forced himself to keep his temper in check. Schooling his face into what, for him, passed as an expression of benevolent friendship, he spoke to the others.

  ‘Peace, brothers. Let there be no more conflict between us.’

  ‘If you say so, Parson,’ gritted Charley, not regretting the chance to escape a showdown and returning his knife to its sheath.

  ‘Come, brothers,’ Wightman continued, promising himself revenge of the most violent kind if the scout had been lying about the presence of the Dragoons. ‘Let us secure this evil sinner before he works more mischief on us.’

  * * *

  Seated on the floor of a stall in the small barn, hands and feet securely tied with strong rope, Dusty felt a growing sense of apprehension and concern. Almost an hour had gone by since he had been brought into the building. So far neither the scout nor the guerillas had returned.

  There had been no hope for Dusty to escape while being escorted to the stall and fastened up. Nor could the scout make a move to save him. Wightman, Chancy Herbert and Gustav had fanned in a circle around them, too far apart for there to be any hope of jumping them collectively. Under the circumstances, the scout had taken the only way out and given cooperation to guerillas. Give him full due, that long-haired Yankee sure knew how to tie a man. Of course, there had been no other way in which he could have acted while watched so closely by the four guerillas. He had secured Dusty’s wrists at the rear, taking the end of the rope down to knot it on the loop about his thighs and connect to the fastenings about his ankles, held in that manner, Dusty found the scout had left enough play on the vertical rope for him to sit in reasonable comfort. There was no way in which he could set himself free.

  With the prisoner secured to his satisfaction, Wightman had led the others from the barn. Left to himself, Dusty rested his shoulders against the wall of the stall and let the effects of his exertions wear off. He thought of the information he had gathered outside Pine Bluff and wondered if his men had managed to evade the Yankees and deliver the warning. If not, the rocket battery might inflict heavy and ruinous losses upon Ole Devil’s already outnumbered Army of Arkansas and North Texas. It would not be a wild exaggeration to say that those losses might change the whole course of the War. Already the Union’s superior economic and industrial facilities were swinging the balance in their favour. If Arkansas was lost, the Texans serving on other battle-fronts would want to return and protect their home States. Even if they were compelled to remain with their commands, morale would be weakened.

  Yet Dusty could do nothing about the situation at that moment. He knew better than let a wave of despondency take control of him, for he would need all his wits about him if he hoped to escape. Should he not get away, he wondered what his fate might be.

  Unless the scout accomplished something in the near future, both he and Dusty could have mighty short life-expectancies. As soon as the guerillas knew for sure that the long-haired Yankee had been bluffing, they would do their damndest to kill him. Possessing their superior numbers, they most likely would succeed. After which, it would be Dusty’s turn. While he suspected that Wightman saw some benefit in keeping him alive, the Parson might not be able to hold back the vengeance-seeking brothers.

  Slowly the barn’s door opened and Dusty tensed. There was a surreptitious motion about the moving timbers which hinted that the man beyond them wished to avoid letting the hinges creak. Seated in the stall, Dusty tried to think how he might defend himself should whoever was coming be one of the guerillas sneaking in to avenge the injuries inflicted on his companions. That young cuss, Charley, might do it as a sop for the humiliation he had suffered at the scout’s hands, or to placate the brothers’ anger over the result of his discarding the so-useful stick.

  Although Dusty knew of ways to protect himself while his hands were tied behind his back,12 to put them into practice he needed to have the use of his legs and feet. Fastened in such a manner, there seemed little he could do.

  Stepping into the barn, with a final glance at the cabin, the scout closed the door. Dusty let out a deep breath of relief. Going by the fact that his gunbelt dangled from the Yankee’s left hand, he concluded that the time to escape had come. Crossing to the stall, the scout hung the gunbelt on its wall. Then he drew the knife from its boot-top sheath. While cutting Dusty’s bonds, he spoke in a soft, conspiratory manner.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, Cap’n. That blasted Charley was stuck to me like a burr to a blanket. Sort of took a shine to me, way he was talking—and how he talked. Hey, you sure worked them three over good, they’re only just about getting on their feet again and won’t feel like going a-dancing at a ball for a fair spell.’

  ‘I sure tried to get ‘em that way,’ Dusty answered, working his arms and feet as the circulation pulsed back through them.

  ‘Happen you’re up to it,’ said the scout, helping Dusty to rise. ‘Buckle on your belt. We may still have to fight our way out of here.’

  ‘Sure,’ Dusty agreed.

  Never had the leather of the gunbelt felt so comforting as it did as Dusty swung it about his waist. Swiftly he coupled up the belt buckle with its ‘CSA’ embossment, then knotted the pigging tongs about his thighs. After flexing his fingers a few times, finding them working with their usual fluid ease, he drew and examined the Colts one at a time. Realising how the gesture might appear to the scout, Dusty turned in his direction. The tanned face, framed by the long tawny hair, showed only complete agreement with w
hat had been an involuntary, but understandable precaution.

  ‘I’ve got my horses ‘n’ that black of your’n down by the corral, Cap’n,’ commented the scout. ‘That jasper you downed’s lucky. If you hadn’t stopped him, it’d’ve likely stomped his head down level with his shoulders.’

  ‘What’s our play?’ Dusty wanted to know.

  ‘Be best if we pull out sneaky-like. I’ll fetch some soldiers along here and tend to their needings.’

  Something in the scout’s tone brought Dusty’s gaze back his face. There was a tight-lipped grimness which added fuel to the small Texan’s earlier suspicions about the condition of the farm.

  ‘What happened to the folks who own this place?’

  ‘Those bastards killed ‘em,’ replied the scout coldly. ‘Man, his wife ‘n’ two children. I found a tin-type of ‘em and that young bastard come a-bragging to me’s how they’d shot ‘em ‘n’ planted ‘em in the hawg-pens. Lord! I don’t know how I kept from blowing his head off’s he stood.’

  ‘Buller’s not known for bothering what happens to our civilians,’ Dusty pointed out. ‘If he doesn’t get them, I’ll fetch my Company over here and we will.’

  ‘Sooner we go, better our chances of getting clear to do it,’ the scout suggested. ‘Let’s go. Given just a mite of luck, we’ll be mounted up and off afore they know it.’

  That ‘mite’ of good fortune was not to be granted to them.

  Walking from the barn side by side, the escaping pair found themselves confronted by—from right to left—Gustav, Wightman, Herbert and Charley. Slamming to a halt as if they had walked into an invisible wall, the guerillas glared in a mixture of shock, amazement and anger at the small Texan and the tall, long-haired Yankee scout. Of the six men only Gustav, carrying his rifle at what soldiers termed the ‘high-port’ position, held a weapon in his hands.