Sergeant Brett zimmer's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

They rode until they found a farm at first light. A low barn, a sagging fence, a house with smoke rising. Brett halted the three horses in the trees and looked at the animals under him. Army-branded. Broad in the chest. No plain farmer owned three like these. He needed to trade them before any ford, but he had no coin and no safe way to ask. "We can't just walk up and offer them," Joel said. His brother still spoke like the uniform was under his shirt. "Man sees these horses, he runs for the patrol." "Then we don't offer three," Brett said. "We offer a story." A farmer came out to the barn. Older, bent, leading a black-and-white dog by no leash at all. The dog trotted at his heel with a sleepy face. In the corral behind him stood two farm horses, thick-legged and dull-coated. Beside them, under a lean-to, sat an old truck with an open hood, its orange body faded, its white roof streaked with rust. Brett left the animals with Joel and Peter and walked out alone, palms open. Brett told him half the truth. Three brothers heading home. Fine horses they couldn't feed. He'd trade all three cavalry mounts for two farm horses and no questions. The farmer studied the branded shoulders a long moment. He knew what they were. Everyone did. "Patrol was through yesterday," the farmer said. "Asking about horses like yours." He spat. "My boy's still south somewhere. Union or no, I don't help men who chase tired soldiers home." He waved a hand at the corral. "Take the two. Leave me yours. I'll turn 'em out in the back pasture and file the brands come winter." Brett brought Joel and Peter down. Peter came slow, thin and watchful, a man who'd thanked every stranger who'd fed him. He ran a hand along one farm horse's neck and looked at Brett. "Two horses," he said quiet. "Three men." That was the catch. Brett had won the trade and lost a mount in it. He looked at the sleepy hound curled now in the shade, then at his men. "Joel rides one. You take the other," he said. "I walk the dog and lead on foot behind. Two riders and a farmhand draw no eyes." They stripped their saddles and left the branded horses in the farmer's corral. Joel swung up on a dull bay. Peter mounted the second. Brett took the hound's collar and started up the road on his own feet. No army horse now marked them. But walking, they moved at a man's pace. The nearest ford lay hours off, and the patrol had passed that way just yesterday. Slow men on plain horses were still men crossing water that Union riders watched. Brett set his boots to the road and led them north, exposed and on time to nothing.