“Captain,” he said quietly, “do you figure on staying here with them?”
“Yep.”
“Best you leave me with them. Lose you, and the whole company will melt away like maple sugar in the rain. But lose me and folks will hardly notice.”
“I’d notice.”
Tarlok ignored the reply. “By now, everyone knows what you’ve done. You get yourself killed, and people from Gormin Town to Three Forks to the Saw Pit Valley will lose heart. While most of them never heard of me.” Tarlok turned to the others and called out. “Men! Anyone here think the captain lacks guts?”
The chorus of noes was emphatic; there was even laughter, as if the thought was ridiculous. Tarlok nodded, satisfied. “Captain,” he said, still loudly, “you don’t need to stay here because it’s more dangerous. What you need to do is ride on with the column, for the same damn reason.”
The man sat easy in the saddle, eyeing his commander. Macurdy nodded, and without answering verbally, nudged his horse with his heels, passing the halted rebels to the head of the column. There he paused just long enough to call out, “All but Rensey’s squad—move out!”
They rode. At the break of the draw, Macurdy paused. The road had shrunk to little more than a broad, well-beaten trail, though there still were cart ruts. Looking back toward the head of the dust train, he could see the leaders of the pursuit column. After the last of his drovers had passed, urging the cattle with voices and staffs, he turned his back on Tarlok and the chosen squad. For the first time really aware of how these men looked at him.
It was a burden he hadn’t recognized before. It seemed to him now that he owed them at least as much as he owed Varia and himself.
When Blue Wing came back, Macurdy rested the column briefly while he took the bird’s report. The reeve’s company was on its way again, continuing the pursuit. Yes, some of the ambush squad had gotten out alive, riding upstream; four of them, he thought. (He could handle the smaller numbers well enough.) Some others had probably sneaked away on foot. The reeve’s company had lost more. Blue Wing concentrated, then guessed that “ten or more” horses or men had fallen.
More important than that, his pursuers had lost time. The picture Macurdy put together was that the initial flight of arrows had felled several. And instead of driving through, the soldiers had fallen back and discussed it; apparently they had little stomach for casualties. Finally they’d sent their own flights of arrows toward the ambush, but from long range, skewering dirt and trees. Meanwhile they’d sent out strong detachments to enter the woods above and below the ambush, and flank it.
Then the reeve’s main force had charged again, and experienced no further archery until almost to the woods, when more men and horses went down at point-blank range. The rest rode into the woods and dismounted, presumably to kill or run off whoever had been shooting at them, instead of doing what they should: riding on through, continuing their pursuit. In fact, no one continued up the road until the flanking parties arrived.
It seemed to Macurdy that whoever led them suffered from an acute case of stupidity, losing track of the objective.
Aloft again, Blue Wing spied their pursuers coming harder than before, closing the gap. “All right,” Macurdy said to him, “we’ll hit them again at the next wooded draw. Go tell Wollerda what’s happened. You’ll probably get to him before the courier I sent on horseback.”
According to Blue Wing’s earlier report, the next woods was a broader band, also following a stream, and as Macurdy visualized it, not more than two or three miles ahead. Now, as he rode, he shouted his plan to his men, then let them pass and repeated himself to the packers and drovers.
All of them pushed their tired horses a little harder. This next stand, Macurdy told himself grimly, would be their last chance. If even a dozen soldiers kept going and caught up with the pack animals, the raid would turn into a fiasco that could wound the rebellion badly, perhaps fatally. Even reaching the forest didn’t guarantee safety, if the reeve’s commander was willing to follow. Then another thought came to him, easing his grimness. They won’t know there aren’t some of us still with the pack train. If we down enough of them, they’ll turn around and go back, especially if they lack the stomach for casualties.