The Seekers Read Online Free PDF Page A

an incompetent—
    Or a sodomite, he thought, making a disgusted face as Stovall wiggled his fat rump in his saddle and complained loudly about the heat.
ii
    The sun climbed higher as they advanced. Stovall owned a precious wilderness rarity, a pocket watch with a cheerfully painted sun face on its dial. He kept close track of the time.
    Eight o’clock.
    Nine o’clock.
    Nine-thirty—
    Lulled by the rhythm of posting, Abraham grew drowsy in the heat. Sprite’s flanks glistened with lather. He and the mare—in fact all of the dragoons and their horses—exuded a stench that grew riper with every passing moment.
    Ahead and to the right, half the Legion had already vanished into a line of trees running at a right angle between the woods on the far left and the river. The trees, a living wall that hid all the terrain beyond, marked the end of the corn bottoms. As the Legion foot disappeared into the dark green gloom, MisCampbell called a halt.
    The dragoons reined their horses. General Wayne and his command staff cantered past on their left, soon gone into the trees after the others. Lieutenant Stovall tugged out his pocket watch again.
    “Ten o’ the clock. The hostiles must have turned tail. Suits me perfectl—”
    Abraham stood up straight in his stirrups as Stovall’s sentence was punctuated by a rolling thunderclap of sound from the other side of the line of trees. Frantic orders rang along the end of the column of foot. The last of the infantrymen plunged into the woods at quickstep. Abraham saw smoke rising above the trees, but those same trees barred the dragoons from seeing the source of the firing.
    “Turned tail?” a dragoon jeered at Stovall. “Doesn’t sound like it!”
    “No, I don’t imagine Mad Anthony ordered musket practice just to while away the time,” said another. Stovall jammed his watch back in his trousers pocket, looking petulant.
    That muskets by the hundreds were exploding beyond the trees was not in question. But suddenly a new sound was added to the din: massed voices—yells—of infantrymen charging.
    A third sound made Abraham’s scalp prickle. Wild, ululating yells that could only come from the savages entrenched in the fallen timbers. The battle had been joined—
    A horseman burst from the trees, galloping straight toward MisCampbell. Bringing orders? So it appeared. Abraham’s belly knotted. His palms turned cold despite the heat.
    MisCampbell conferred with the arriving officer, then stood in his stirrups and drew his saber.
    “Listen to me!” he shouted, pointing his blade at the river. It shone like a brass mirror now that the mist had burned away. “There’s another cornfield along the bank beyond those trees. We’re to advance, drive into the enemy’s left flank and turn it that way—” In a shimmering arc, the saber flashed toward the forest on Abraham’s left. Smoke rose from its depths too. More muskets crashed. The Kentuckians had engaged.
    MisCampbell bent to listen to the courier again. Then: “The foot’s already in trouble among the fallen trees. So once we’re in there, formations be damned. Just kill the red whoresons.” Up went his saber, then down. “For-aaard—!”
    The dragoons thundered toward the trees nearest the river. Abraham breathed loudly through his mouth as his rump bounced up and down in the saddle. Sprite’s plaited mane stood out in the wind. She seemed eager to run—
    MisCampbell plunged into the trees, a gloomy place made gloomier by drifting smoke. Above the drumming of hoofs Abraham once more heard sounds on his left. Muskets. Men shouting and cursing in English. Other voices screaming in tongues he didn’t understand—
    The line of trees was not deep. MisCampbell’s men rode through in a matter of a minute or so, bursting onto level ground thick with ripe corn that grew nearly to the water’s edge. The world seemed to race by as Abraham’s mare carried him from semidarkness to blinding sunlight. He gasped at the