The Devil's Highway

by Stan Applegate

  The big man looked as if he was going to hit Zeb again. The captain said, “Hold it, Sergeant. Let’s find out some more about our little friends.”

  He looked down at Zeb. “Why did you call us horse thieves and murderers?” he demanded.

  Zeb glared up at him. “These horses all belong to my grampa,” he said. “You murdered him! You shot him and stole these horses!”

  Zeb hated to let these men see him cry, but he felt tears wind down his face as he thought about what they had done to his grampa.

  The captain looked down at Hannah and then at Zeb. “Who is your grampa, boy?” he said in a quiet voice.

  Zeb stood as tall as he could. “My grampa’s name is Daniel Ryan and I’m Zebulon D’Evereux!” he shouted.

  The sergeant stepped forward and grabbed him around the throat. “C’mon, Captain,” he said. “Let’s take care of these little varmints and get on our way.”

  “Let him go, Sergeant. It may be that he’s telling the truth, but I’m not yet convinced.”

  Zeb frowned. “I ain’t convinced you’re U.S. Army.”

  “I’ll prove we’re army,” the captain said, “and you prove you’re Dan Ryan’s grandson.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Sergeant

  The captain turned his head slowly, surveying the group of men and horses. “You’re right. We don’t look like an army patrol,” he said. “If you’re Dan Ryan’s grandson, you know that the army would never buy horses like these. They aren’t big enough or strong enough, and they don’t have the endurance we ordinarily need.”

  Zeb started to say something. The captain held up his hand. “But we don’t want to look like an army patrol,” he said. “Whenever the patrol is on the Natchez Road, the outlaws all disappear.”

  The captain looked at Hannah and then back to Zeb. “My name is Captain Paul Morrison. I know ‘Cracker’ Ryan very well. I’ve been trading with him for years. Now, prove to me that you two are Dan Ryan’s grandchildren.”

  Hannah spoke up for the first time. “My name,” she said in very proper English, “is Hannah McAllister. I am the daughter of Dr. McAllister of Yowani Medical Research Station.”

  She pointed at Zeb. “He’s not really my brother,” she said. “He rescued me from the Mason gang—”

  “The Mason gang!” the sergeant shouted. “Mason was killed years ago. There ain’t no Mason gang!”

  Hannah looked at him quietly for a moment. “You are very much mistaken, Sergeant,” she said. “The rest of the gang is still around. They used me for almost six months on the Natchez Road as a decoy.”

  Zeb noticed a subtle difference in the way the captain looked at her. It must have been the educated way she was talking. She surely didn’t sound like an outlaw.

  “How did you get away?” the captain asked.

  “The night they left for Franklin, they were all busy getting ready to head north. I just disappeared into the forest. They looked for me for a while and then gave up. Kept yelling that they were going to skin me alive if they caught me.”

  Zeb remembered the swollen switch marks on her legs. Her life with the outlaws must have been terrible.

  The captain suddenly showed a lot of interest in what Hannah was saying. “What are they going to do up in Franklin?”

  “They were planning a big robbery. Someone’s coming down from Nashville with a lot of money.”

  One of the men gasped, “The army payroll!”

  The sergeant looked at the captain and then at the other men. “There ain’t no way they could know about that,” he said.

  Captain Morrison glared at the men. “Only if one of you were talking too much!”

  The men stared at the sergeant as if they were expecting him to say something.

  The captain turned back to Hannah. “How is it you overheard what they were planning?”

  “They told me I had to be the decoy for it.”

  “When were they expecting the money?”

  “Between October seventh and tenth.”

  “We better get moving, Sergeant. Looks like they’re going to need us up north.”

  The men immediately began to collect their gear. Zeb was finally convinced that they must be army—they moved so quickly and so quietly, each man with a job to do.

  “Sergeant,” the captain said, “no point in trying to look like Kaintucks. Have the men pack for forced march. We’re not going to try to fool anybody.”

  Four of the men slipped into the woods while the other two kept their pistols pointed at Hannah and Zeb. The four returned with six rifles.

  Then two of the men ran into the woods. One returned carrying saddle holsters with bearskin covers and tubular leather valises. The end of each valise was marked with the initials USLD. The other man came back to the clearing, carrying six sabers in their scabbards.

  “All right,” Zeb said. “I can see that you’re army. USLD—that stands for U.S. Light Dragoons. But it’s not because of all the equipment. You could have stolen that from some army patrol.”

  The captain smiled. “What then?” he said.

  “It’s the way you’re doing things. That’s how the army acts when they come to the farm to pick up the horses. Everybody has a job to do, and it’s all done as if you’ve done it many times.”

  The captain looked down at Zeb. “You know a lot about the mounted Light Dragoons, but I’m still not sure about you,” he said.

  The sergeant interrupted. “He’s probably one of those deserters. That’s why he knows so much. We can hang him now, or take him to the army post and hang him there.”

  The captain looked from Zeb to Harlequin and smiled. “Tell you what. Cracker Ryan used to boast all the time about his grandson Zeb’s ability to ride. Thought he might be good for the mounted Light Dragoons some day. Why don’t you show the sergeant here how to ride that horse?”

  The sergeant grinned. “That’ll be a good one. That crazy horse’ll probably kill him.”

  The other men were already rolling their blankets into tight bedrolls. They stopped to watch Zeb work with Harlequin.

  Zeb turned his back on the sergeant and began to talk to Harlequin. They knew each other well. Zeb had ridden him every day until Christmas was old enough to ride. Harlequin was a joker. Grampa said he was the only horse he knew that had a sense of humor. But Zeb knew how to ride him. He was a walking horse. Never could be made to gallop for long. But he had a very fast walking gait.

  Zeb put the saddle on the ground and the saddle blanket on top of it. He gently rubbed Harlequin’s back. Unhooking the reins from the curb bit, he connected them at the snaffle. The sergeant jeered. “You gonna ride bareback and no curb bit? You do that,” he said, “and you won’t last five minutes.”

  Zeb couldn’t resist. “You want to make a small wager, Sergeant?” he said. “What kind of odds will you give me?”

  The sergeant reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. “My golden eagle to your half eagle or five silver dollars if ya got ’em.”

  Zeb looked at him and shook his head. “I have a better deal for you. I’ll bet my two pistols, the rifle, all the provisions, and the ten dollars I have left. If I can’t stay on for more than five minutes you get ’em all. If I can, I get to keep the horse for Hannah to ride.”

  The sergeant sneered at Zeb. “You’re a bigger fool than you look, boy. That girl’ll never be able to ride that horse. I thought ya knew a lot about the army. We can’t sell our horses, much less bet ’em. Besides, why should I bet my horse against that pitiful pile of provisions?” The sergeant looked at Christmas. “Now if you want to bet your horse….”

  Zeb shook his head. “You’re the one who doesn’t think I can stay on, Sergeant.”

  The other men stood behind the sergeant, arguing among themselves. Finally one of them stepped forward. “Go ahead,” he said to the sergeant. “If Mike Scruggs can’t ride that crazy horse, nobody can.”

  The sergeant looked at the men as if he weren’t sure that they
were sincere. When he turned back to the captain, one of the men elbowed the man next to him. They both grinned. Zeb was sure of it. These men were hoping that the sergeant would lose!

  The captain shouted, “You men! Get those horses ready and police this campsite! We’ll be leaving here this afternoon!”

  He turned to the sergeant and said, “If you want my advice, Sergeant, don’t take the bet. If this really is Zebulon D’Evereux, he probably can ride that horse. His grandfather says he can ride anything. If you want to take his wager, you can do it, but against my advice.”

  “But I can’t bet an army horse.”

  “These are not officially army horses. They’re not branded. If you lose, however, you will have to replace the horse.”

  The sergeant seemed a little less sure of himself. But Zeb wasn’t a horse trader’s grandson for nothing. He smiled as if he were sorry for the sergeant. “Course,” he said, “if what you were saying was just a lot of wind…. Maybe you don’t know how to ride as well as you thought.”

  The men stopped what they were doing to watch the sergeant’s reaction.

  The sergeant glared at Zeb. “I’ll take the wager!” he hissed. “That horse against all of your provisions, your pistols, and the rifle…. And throw in your saddle, too. The wager is that you can’t stay on for more than five minutes!”

  The sergeant already had Zeb’s two pistols in his belt. The saddle wouldn’t make much difference if he lost the bet. He suddenly had second thoughts. If he lost, he and Hannah would be traveling with no gear at all, no protection. He wished he could withdraw the bet—or at least part of it. Harlequin was always unpredictable. He had ridden the horse every day for more than a year, and every day it was a battle until the horse decided to give up and behave. Maybe Grampa was right. He took too many chances. He looked up to see Hannah watching him. She seemed very confident. He shrugged. “Done!” he said.

  Zeb turned back to the horse and began to talk to him quietly. The sergeant snorted. “He talks to horses like a Choctaw. He’ll be great in the U.S. Army.”

  Zeb ignored him. He continued to talk in a low voice while stroking Harlequin’s muzzle. He moved his hand slowly down the horse’s neck to the withers. Just as he expected, Harlequin jumped sideways, kicking out a hind foot and skittering forward. Zeb held onto the reins as the horse made a circle around him.

  The sergeant was laughing at him. “What’s the matter, boy? You afraid of that horse?”

  Zeb put his left hand on the horse’s back. Harlequin was so much smaller than Christmas, mounting was going to be easy. Staying on might be the problem, though. It was hard to know what the poor horse had been through with the sergeant.

  He pressed down with his left hand. As the horse shifted and began to move forward, Zeb vaulted on.

  The little horse tried all of his usual tricks, jumping sideways, bucking, and twisting. He ran as close to a tree as he could and tried to scrape Zeb off. His choppy and irregular gait kept Zeb bouncing on his back. Zeb just chuckled and relaxed. He talked quietly to him. “Thatta boy. Good boy. What a clown you are!”

  The little horse decided to behave. Zeb could feel Harlequin’s muscles relax. He squeezed his knees, to let Harlequin know he was in charge, and then Zeb walked him quickly around the clearing. Harlequin lengthened his pace, picking up his feet. Zeb sat erect, his hands soft, his only movement a slight twisting of his hips, matching the horse’s rhythm. He lengthened Harlequin’s stride some more around the clearing, relaxing the horse and encouraging Harlequin to trust him. When Zeb felt confident that the horse was at ease and compliant, he turned Harlequin toward the sergeant. The sergeant stepped back and pulled one of the pistols from his belt. Hannah gasped.

  “Sergeant! No!” the captain shouted.

  The sergeant ignored the captain’s order. He didn’t aim at Zeb. He raised the pistol high in the air, pointing toward the sky. Zeb knew what he was trying to do. The sergeant was going to try to spook Harlequin. But Harlequin had been raised with army horses. He had heard gunfire every day of his life. It was part of the schooling that the horses were put through.

  “Don’t shoot!” Zeb yelled. “That pistol ain’t safe!”

  The sergeant smirked at him and fired the pistol. There was a tremendous explosion, much louder than Zeb had expected. The sergeant screamed, dropping the pistol to the ground. He bent over, holding onto his hand. It was black.

  “You fool!” the sergeant groaned. “You put twice too much powder in that pistol.”

  Zeb rode over to the captain. “Is the five minutes up, sir?”

  The captain was glaring at the sergeant. Without turning his head, he nodded and Zeb vaulted off the horse. He led the horse over to Hannah and said, “This horse is yours now, Hannah. Let me give you a leg up.”

  Hannah looked at Zeb, her eyes wide with surprise. “Now?”

  Zeb nodded.

  Hannah grasped Harlequin’s reins in her left hand and stroked his neck with her right, talking to him in a low voice. Zeb helped her up.

  The little horse danced around, but Hannah sat him well, moving easily with his twisting and turning. Harlequin soon settled down. When she squeezed her legs against his flanks, he stepped out around the clearing.

  The sergeant held onto his injured hand, groaning with pain. “The whole thing is a trick!” he shouted. “These outlaws on the Natchez Road have a hundred ways to take advantage of people.” He turned to the captain. “He never proved he was old man Ryan’s grandson!”

  There was a tremendous explosion.

  The captain paused and then spoke to the sergeant in a low voice. “I will deal with you later, Sergeant Scruggs. I do not allow my orders to be disobeyed!”

  The captain mounted his own horse, and Zeb climbed up on Christmas. Zeb walked his horse over to the sergeant. “I’ll take those pistols back, Sergeant,” he said.

  The sergeant was still supporting his burned hand with the other. He grimaced as he let it go. He pulled the one pistol out of his belt with his left hand, handing it to Zeb muzzle first. Then he picked up the second pistol from where it lay on the ground. He stood close to Zeb, handing him the pistol with the muzzle pointed at Zeb’s chest.

  When Zeb leaned down and grabbed the still-hot barrel, the sergeant held onto it, drawing Zeb closer to him. “You and me will meet again, boy,” he growled. “And when we do, you’ll wish you had never tried to make a fool of me in front of my men.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Pigeon Roost

  Captain Morrison watched as the sergeant stalked off. “Tell me about your grandfather,” he said to Zeb. “What makes you think someone stole his horses?” Zeb told him everything that McPhee had said when he came back to the farm.

  “That man’s a liar!” the captain shouted angrily. “We bought these horses from your grandfather in Fort Dearborn about a month ago. We paid him in cash.”

  Excited, Zeb moved Christmas closer to the captain. “You saw him?” he asked. “He was all right?”

  “He was fine. He’s a hard man to put down. They don’t call him ‘Cracker’ Ryan for nothing. Not many men can get the best of him when he has that whip in his hand.”

  “I’ve even seen him kill a big rattler with his whip,” said Zeb. “He doesn’t believe in killing things, but the rattler was coiled, ready to strike one of the horses. But what good’s a whip against four armed men?”

  The captain shook his head. “I don’t know, Zeb. I’ve heard some amazing stories about your grandfather and that whip.”

  Zeb was now even more eager to leave. “We better be on our way, sir. We hope to reach Yowani tonight.”

  “You’ll never make it tonight, Zeb. You’re at Line Creek. Yowani is a full-day’s hard ride from here.”

  The captain moved his horse next to Hannah and Harlequin. He pulled her wooden club from a strap on his saddle. “Miss Hannah,” he said. “You’ll want this back. You’re pretty good with it.” He turned and pointed to the smoky campfire. “Why don’t
you two take some of those birds with you?” Zeb recalled that the smell of meat cooking was what originally had attracted him to the army camp. Now for the first time, Zeb turned to look at the fire. He was surprised to see that they were cooking pigeons. A pile of more than a hundred birds was stacked near the fire and at least a dozen were still roasting on skewers. “What are you doing with so many pigeons?” he said. “You can’t possibly eat ’em all.”

  “You’re right,” the captain said. “We can’t. We roast these birds to lure the outlaws. Make them think we’re just unarmed Kaintucks traveling north from the flatboats. If they come and just ask to share the meat, we give it to them. If they try to hold us up, they discover that we’re really armed. Then, it’s summary justice.” He pointed to the birds on skewers. “We’ve already eaten all we want. Go ahead and take what you can carry.”

  Zeb still could not understand. “But why did you kill so many? It must’ve cost a fortune in powder and ball. I can’t see killing what you ain’t gonna eat.”

  The sergeant, still holding his burned hand, broke in. “He sounds like one of those ignorant Choctaws. If he don’t want these birds, we’ll just leave ’em for somebody else.”

  “Sergeant Scruggs!” snapped the captain. “I will talk with you before we break camp.”

  The captain turned to Zeb. “You’ll understand why we killed so many when you travel another couple of hours down the Natchez Road. At this time of year, hundreds of thousands of them are in the trees. They call them passenger pigeons. If you use bird shot, one shot will bring down a dozen. There are more birds than anyone will ever use.”

  Zeb dismounted and picked up two of the skewers hanging over the coals, two large birds on each one. Handing both skewers to Hannah, he remounted and rode up alongside her. He took one skewer in his free hand.