The Blue and the Gray Undercover

by Ed Gorman

  “I’m looking for Rebels,” Buck announced.

  “Well, you won’t find any up there,” Swenk said. “Come along, I’m going with you.”

  “Won’t three men be rather conspicuous?” said Ball.

  “More so than two? I doubt it,” said Swenk. He glanced ahead to where the railroad crossed the Conococheague. “There was a picket at that bridge two days ago. We’ll be much better off away from the railroad.”

  “Mighty thoughtful of you to come and warn us,” Ball said, still frowning. “Those aren’t ripe,” he added as Swenk pulled an apple from the tree.

  The captain glanced at it, said, “You’re right,” and tossed it aside.

  A rustling and scraping issued from the tree, followed by Buck’s emergence. He landed in the road so close to Ball it made him jump. In Buck’s hand was his Colt revolver.

  “Put that away, you fool, before you hurt yourself,” said Ball.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Buck replied, aiming the gun at Swenk.

  The captain slowly put his hands in the air. Ball looked from him to Buck with an expression of fury.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I believe he thinks he’s capturing us for the Confederates,” said Swenk calmly.

  Buck grinned. “You’re sharper than you look, Captain. That’s exactly right. I’ll have your pistol, the one you keep in your pocket. Nice and easy.”

  Swenk handed over the weapon. Buck relieved Mr. Ball of his own defense—a wicked little knife—then smiled at them both in a friendly way.

  “Now, you two walk on up to the bridge there where my friends are waiting. I’ll be right behind you, so no tricks. Ain’t fired this gun in weeks, and I wouldn’t mind some target practice.”

  Captain Swenk looked at Ball, whose fury had turned his face purple. With a shrug, Swenk obeyed and started toward the bridge, a good quarter-mile away. Ball walked beside him, frowning intently at the ground.

  Buck started whistling, which seemed only to increase Ball’s rage. Captain Swenk managed after some moments’ effort to catch Ball’s eye.

  “On three,” Swenk whispered.

  Suddenly alert. Ball faced forward and gave a short nod. A step, another, then he and Swenk turned as one and grappled with Buck, who yelled in surprise. The pistol fired into the air, Swenk having made it his business to grab Buck’s arm and direct it skyward. The three of them tumbled to the ground, Buck kicking and squirming. At last Swenk wrested the pistol away and placed the barrel against the traitor’s chest, at which Buck lay still. Ball, pinning his legs, looked up at the captain.

  “You followed us on purpose. How did you know?” he asked, out of breath.

  “I only suspected,” Swenk said. “I didn’t know until he tried making a present of us to the Rebel pickets.”

  Buck’s eyes narrowed, but then he smiled wickedly. “Tried and succeeded,” he said, nodding down the valley.

  A half dozen pickets were running toward them from the bridge. The captain frowned, then looked back at Buck.

  “Sorry for this,” he said, and fired.

  Ball flinched at the sound, then gaped at the awful mess the pistol had made of McAlexander’s chest. The youth’s eyes went blank, and a haze seemed to film them over.

  Ball worked his jaws, but only managed to say, “Wh-wh—”

  “No time,” said Swenk, quickly retrieving his gun and Ball’s knife from the spy’s pockets. He handed the knife to its owner and dropped the gory pistol by Buck’s corpse, pocketing his own gun. “Come on,” he said, and with a glance toward the shouting pickets, took off running down the tracks.

  They sped along the cinders to the bottom of the hill, then Swenk left the tracks and climbed in loping strides up through the trampled fields of Ball’s farm. Ball kept up as best he could, the shouts of the pickets behind them and the occasional whiz of a musket ball serving to speed him.

  “Not my house,” he shouted to Swenk, gasping for breath.

  “I know,” called the captain over his shoulder. “The wood.”

  Ball followed him into a stand of oak that grew uphill of the house. The captain dropped speed, trotting through the wood, still angling uphill. The oaks climbed over the hilltop, affording some cover, at least, to their flight. Shouts came from behind and beside them now; the pickets were splitting up.

  At last they reached the crest of the hill and the tall, old oak. Both men picked up speed, the captain running, Ball stumbling downhill toward Mrs. Bannister’s house. The captain ran to the cellar doors at the side of the house and flung them open, leaping in. Ball, a hand pressed to his side, halted in the opening, gasping as he peered into the darkness.

  “Come on, hurry,” the captain’s voice called.

  Ball took a step down the sloping, earthen ramp. A jingling sound made him pause, then hurry forward.

  “Your mare’s been here all along?” he cried. “I thought the Rebels had taken her!”

  “Here,” the captain said, thrusting a bridle into his hands. “That’s Dobbin’s. I’ll get the saddle.”

  Ball moved to the plowhorse’s head and coaxed him to take the bit. “Was it necessary—” he began.

  “Yes,” Swenk replied, tugging at the girth, “If I’d let him go he’d have betrayed Judge Lemmik and the others, not just you and me.”

  Ball swallowed, and nodded, passing the reins over Dobbin’s head. “Captain Swenk,” he said, and paused to clear his throat. “I’ve been mistaken in you. I’ve not given you the credit you deserve.”

  “I thank you, Henry,” said Swenk, his grin a pale glow in the darkness. “But we’ll sort that out later. You must get to Lemmik’s and warn him. Wait two minutes while I lead the pickets off.”

  “General Couch—” Ball began.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Swenk said, mounting the mare. He had to crouch low in the dark cellar. Clicking his tongue, he eased her toward the light of the open doors. A figure appeared to bar his way, silhouetted by sun.

  “Get inside, Will!” the captain called harshly. “Remember what I told you to say if the Rebels come around.”

  “Yes, sir! I’ll close the door for you first,” said the boy.

  Swenk didn’t answer, but urged his mare up the slope. By the time Ball had followed, blinking in the daylight, the captain was galloping over the hilltop.

  Dobbin heaved a sigh and began cropping the grass at his feet. Will Bannister stared at the horse and its rider for a moment, then grinned and tossed Mr. Ball a salute before shutting the cellar doors and running for the farmhouse door.

  Gunfire sounded from beyond the hilltop. Sparing a glance for the house, where the widow’s face peered indignantly from one of the windows, Ball urged his mount forward, riding for Chambersburg.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, on July 10, the only Rebels remaining in town were either residents of the hospital that had been set up in the schoolhouse, or prisoners. News of the mighty battle at Gettysburg, a glorious victory for the Union, had set all the bells in town to ringing, and a huge crowd had gathered to watch the Fourth of July parade despite its having been delayed a week on account of the Rebel occupation. Nearly every person in town was present to view the spectacle. Among the few absent was the grieving Mrs. McAlexander, who remained at home, packing for a visit to her cousin in Clarksville.

  Henry Ball sat watching the parade from a place of honor on the reviewing stand in front of the town hall. Beside him sat Judge Lemmik on the one hand and Widow Bannister on the other. Mrs. Bannister, upon receiving Mr. Ball’s abject apology for the peremptory borrowing of her horse, had graciously bestowed her favor on him, expressing the belief that, short of losing her children or her home, she could bear any suffering in the cause of the Union. If thoughts of the convenience of joining his farm to the widow’s—they were adjacent, after all—had occurred to Mr. Ball, he was gallant enough not to voice them.

  “Here they come,” he murmured to Mrs. Bannister, who gave him a fl
eeting smile in return before shifting her gaze to the parade. The grand finale, a hay cart decorated to resemble a rowboat, with men pulling oars through imaginary waters as it passed majestically through the Diamond, boasted the proudly waving figure of Captain Swenk, dashing in the parson’s wig and a fancy coat covered in braid. If Washington had not crossed the Delaware in company with two small children—one a young scamp tootling on a fife and wearing a gory bandage about his brow, the other a pretty child in her best Sunday dress—none of the observers seemed to mind. Cheer after cheer rained upon the captain and his two recruits as they were carried through the Diamond.

  “He makes a fine George Washington,” Henry Ball remarked to the widow.

  “He is too broad-shouldered, I believe,” said the widow, but she deigned to smile on him nonetheless.

  Jane Lindskold grew up in Washington, D.C., and lived for a time in the Blue Ridge Mountains, not far from the Shenandoah Valley where this story is set. The author of over forty short stories and several novels—including Changer and Legends Walking—she lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband, archaeologist Jim Moore. Lindskold is currently at work on another novel.

  Mixing history with fiction in her story, she brings to life Captain Sandie Pendleton, Jed Hotchkiss, Howell Brown, and, of course, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson in this story of feint and counterfeint in Virginia.

  THE ROAD TO STONY CREEK

  Jane Lindskold

  If one of the cows hadn’t strayed, Katie Rowland might never have spotted the spies. The girl had been toiling up to the little copse where Princess took herself when she had a mind to be ornery, when she spotted two men on the road below, riding slowly along and talking in low voices.

  Immediately Katie hunkered close to the ground, taking shelter in mountain laurels that crowded the edge of the ridge. The ground was wet from recent rain, but even in late March the laurels were covered with dense green leaves that granted her ample cover.

  Both of the strangers were mounted, one on a blue roan, the other on a rather faded chestnut. The man on the roan was sitting in the saddle, one leg crossed over the other. He had a notebook and was busily sketching his surroundings as the horse ambled on. Seemingly he trusted the horse to carry him without guidance, for he never touched the reins.

  His companion didn’t seem as sure of the roan’s good sense for he kept a weather eye on the man with the sketch pad, even while doing incomprehensible things like dismounting to test the surface of the road or to measure the distance between two tail oaks at the roadside.

  Carefully angling herself so that she could glimpse what the man was drawing without herself being seen, Katie realized that he was making a map. It was odd to recognize in those dark penciled lines the familiar contours of the road, the twisting of the nearby creek, the neighbors’ farms.

  Now, Katie knew about the battle that had been fought about a week before at Kernstown; knew, too, that the Sesch forces under General Jackson had been routed by the Yankees, that they had retreated south to Rude’s Hill, not all that far from her own home. It didn’t take a great leap of logic to guess that these two strangers just might be associated with one or the other of the armies.

  She tried to guess which side these men were on, but for the life of her she couldn’t decide. They wore more gray than blue, but neither wore what she’d call a uniform. The man with the sketch pad didn’t even seem to carry a gun, but—given his tendency to cross one leg over the other right there in the saddle to give himself a better desk for drawing—Katie thought he might have trouble carrying one without hurting himself.

  The artist’s companion carried guns, though: a pistol at his belt and a rifle in the saddle holster. He was more aware of his surroundings, too. A couple of times Katie’d been worried he’d sensed her presence even though she’d made no more noise than a squirrel.

  Despite the one man’s guns, the pair looked more like civilians than soldiers to her, but, civilians or soldiers, they were too interested in spying out the lay of the land near the Rowland family farm for Katie’s comfort.

  Like many of her neighbors in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Katie Rowland didn’t particularly embrace the secessionist cause. Her family didn’t own any slaves, not since Mammy had died ten years before when Katie was just five. They didn’t really need slaves to farm their acreage on the rolling slopes near the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. Nor did they have any quarrel with the government in Washington except that the men there didn’t seem willing to let honest folks get on with their lives without meddling.

  But the Rowlands were Virginians born and raised, and when Virginia had sided with the Confederacy the previous April, they had, too. Katie’s father and older brother had left home just about at once and ridden north to Winchester to volunteer. Her grandfather probably would have gone with them, but he was old—past sixty—and his right leg below the knee was carved from wood.

  These days there were times Katie almost wished that her family did own a slave or two, because as spring came on and there was planting to do and young animals being born—as well as all the routine chores—she felt pulled in just about as many directions as could be.

  Last year, when Tod and Father had been newly departed, all the work had seemed more like a game. Katie and her mother had bragged about how they’d show the menfolk they could keep the farm going nearly as well without them. This year neither had much energy for smiles. Tod was dead and they hadn’t heard from Father for so long they’d stopped looking for a letter—though they couldn’t quite stop hoping.

  Katie’s younger sister Lorry was delicate and so Mother kept her close to the house. War had cost them Katie’s older sister, Beth, for she had gone south to Staunton in order to stay with their aunt who’d been left without any help at all and a baby at the breast when her husband had gone off to war.

  Katie’s younger brothers, Adam, Nathan, and Robert, tried to help but even ten-year-old Adam might forget to gather eggs or feed the livestock if not reminded. The littler boys were worse.

  So Katie was the oldest child left at home. Normally she was fairly responsible. Today, as she peeked down over the hillside at the two mapmakers, she forgot about the strayed cow, forgot about how the neck of the ugly homespun dress Mother made her wear for outside chores scratched her neck, forgot everything except the two spies.

  She crept after them—her up on the ridge, them down along the road. She was almost Indian-quiet despite the clumsy brogans—castoffs of her older brother, Tod—she wore since she had no better shoes for mucking outside. They were too big and so she had stuffed the toes with rags. In those shoes there was no way that Katie was particularly graceful, but there’d been rain or snow on and off for more than a week and the wet ground was forgiving.

  After a half mile or so, the road bent and Katie came to herself with a shock, realizing that the spies were approaching where the Rowlands’ farm road met the public road. She didn’t doubt they’d turn down that road. Once upon a time, two men wouldn’t have seemed much of a threat, but now, with the farm’s only grown man her grandfather, Katie felt suddenly afraid.

  She abandoned her watch and sped down the hillside toward the farm. The hill was so steep that she spread her arms out like wings to steady her balance as her feet thudded along almost faster than she could lift her legs.

  For a moment, Katie was a child again, running like blazes to try and beat Tod in a race. Tears burnt hot against her cheeks, but whether from grief for the brother who since Manassas would never come home again or just from the wind in her eyes, Katie didn’t admit even to herself.

  Arriving at the flatter pastureland, Katie spotted her grandfather coming out of the dairy barn. He was shading his eyes with one hand, looking up the slope of the pasture. Katie realized with a sudden flash of guilt that she hadn’t brought in the cow, but there was no time for that now.

  The spies would be awhile yet getting to the fork that led to the farm road—that is, if they kep
t ambling along at the pace the artist seemed to demand—but if they turned at the fork, they’d reach the Rowland farm soon enough.

  Katie grabbed her grandfather by one arm and practically dragged him into the relative privacy offered by a toolshed. From there she could still keep an eye on the road, but their conference wouldn’t be visible to a casual observer.

  “Kathleen Ann Rowland…” her grandfather began sternly, but Katie gasped, for she was still short of breath:

  “Grandpa, I saw spies on the road! I went up for Princess, ’cause she strayed again, and I saw spies. Two of them at least. They were making maps!”

  “Down on the road?”

  “That’s right.” Katie tried to talk slowly and carefully so he’d believe her. “Two men on horses. They were drawing maps. I followed them for a bit along the ridge, then I thought I’d better tell you.”

  “Federal or Confederate army?” Grandpa asked. It was one of his gifts that he didn’t waste time telling a child she had too much imagination.

  “I don’t know,” Katie replied. “They didn’t look quite like any soldiers I’ve seen.

  “Not,” she added honestly, “that I’ve seen too many.”

  That was true enough. Though there’d been fighting in the valley since Harper’s Ferry, much of it had been farther north, nearer to Winchester and other points so far away that they were just names on the rough map Mother had drawn for the family so they could have a picture against which to imagine the news they got from the newspapers or from neighbors.

  “Well, then,” Grandpa said slowly, “if you can’t guess their allegiance, there’s a chance that they’re as likely to be friends as enemies. There’s even a chance we can make friends of them even if they’re inclined to be enemies. Go to the house and tell your mother we may have two more for dinner. Then go get the cow.”

  “Yes, sir,” Katie replied readily enough, but she paused before obeying. “And what are you going to do, Grandpa?”