The Unvanquished Read Online Free PDF Page A

at all, it was Louvinia that saw that too—a colonel, with a bright short beard and hard bright gray eyes, who looked at Granny sitting in the chair with her hand at her breast and took off his hat. Only he was talking to the sergeant.
    “What’s this?” he said. “What’s going on here, Harrison?”
    “This is where they run to,” the sergeant said. “I’m searching the house.”
    “Ah,” the colonel said. He didn’t sound mad at all. He just sounded cold and short and pleasant. “By whose authority?”
    “Well, somebody here fired on United States troops. I guess this is authority enough.” We could just hear the sound; it was Louvinia that told us how he shook the musket and banged the butt on the floor.
    “And killed one horse,” the colonel said.
    “It was a United States horse. I heard the general say myself that if he had enough horses, he wouldn’t always care whether there was anybody to ride them or not.And so here we are, riding peaceful along the road, not bothering nobody yet, and these two little devils.…… The best horse in the army, the whole damn regiment betting——”
    “Ah,” the colonel said. “I see. Well? Have you found them?”
    “We aint yet. But these rebels are like rats when it comes to hiding. She says that there aint even any children here.”
    “Ah,” said the colonel. And Louvinia said how he looked at Granny now for the first time. She said how she could see his eyes going from Granny’s face down to where her skirt was spread and looking at her skirt for a whole minute and then going back to her face. And that Granny gave him look for look while she lied. “Do I understand, madam, that there are no children in or about this house?”
    “There are none, sir,” Granny said.
    Louvinia said he looked back at the sergeant. “There are no children here, sergeant. Evidently the shot came from somewhere else. You may call the men in and mount them.”
    “But, Colonel, we saw them two kids run in here. All of us saw them——”
    “Didn’t you just hear this lady say there are no children here? Where are your ears, sergeant? Or do you really want the artillery to overtake us, with a creek bottom not five miles away to be got over?”
    “Well, sir, you’re colonel. But if it was me was colonel——”
    “Then doubtless I should be Sergeant Harrison. In which case I think I should be more concerned about getting another horse to protect my wager next Sunday than over a grandchildless old lady—” Louvinia said his eyes just kind of touched Granny now and flicked away “—alone in a house which in all probability (and for her pleasure and satisfaction I am ashamed to say I hope) I shall never see again. Mount your men and get along with you.”
    We squatted there, not breathing, and heard them leave the house; we heard the sergeant calling the men up from the barn and we heard them ride away. But we did not move yet, because Granny’s body had not relaxed at all and so we knew that the colonel was still there even before he spoke:—the voice short, brisk, hard, with that something of laughing behind it: “So you have no grandchildren. What a pity, in a place like this which two boys would enjoy—sports, fishing, game to shoot at, perhaps the most exciting game of all and none the less so for being possibly a little rare this near the house. And with a gun, a very dependable weapon, I see.……” Louvinia said how the sergeant had set the musket in the corner and how the colonel looked at it now, and now we didn’t breathe. “——though I understand that this weapon does not belong to you? Which is just as well. Because if it were your weapon (which it is not) and you had two grandsons, or say a grandson and a negro playfellow (which you have not), and if this were the first time, which it is not, someone next time might be seriously hurt.But what am I doing? trying your patience by keeping you in that uncomfortable chair while I waste my time