Under the Stars and Bars Read Online Free PDF

‘Damned if I’m not catching the Billy Jack’s.’
    Having delivered that sentiment, he found a small hollow in a clump of bushes. Packing his hat with leaves, he set it down to be used as a pillow. Taking off his gunbelt, he removed the left-side Colt. Preferring to be cold than left without serviceable weapons, he removed his tunic and rolled the gunbelt in it. Then, with the Colt in his right hand shielded as well as possible by his body, he lay on his right side and went to sleep.

    * * *
    Despite the loosely packed soil among the bushes offering anything but a soft, comfortable bed, Dusty contrived to sleep all through the night. With the dawn’s first pink glow creeping into the eastern sky, he woke and sat up. Grunting a little, he came swiftly but cautiously to his feet. The chilly sensation rapidly left him. For all his gloomy, Billy Jack-esque predictions the previous evening, the weather had remained both warm and fine. Having spent many nights bedded down in the open air, although invariably with the protection of blankets and a water-proof poncho, he felt little the worse for his experience.
    As Dusty worked the slight stiffness from his limbs, he shook away the light sprinkling of dew that had settled on him. His eyes turned in the direction of the ford. Clearly whoever had camped there also believed in early rising. Already the fire was sending up a column of smoke that told of a recent refuelling. If Dusty intended to move in, reconnoitre and, given the chance, obtain a mount for himself, he must waste no time.
    Drawing a bandana handkerchief from his breeches left hip pocket, he carefully wiped all traces of dew from the Colt in his right hand. Fortunately Colonel Sam Colt’s workmen has produced a piece of machinery that stood up very well to mild wettings. Dusty knew that the percussion caps prevented moisture from seeping into the cylinder’s chambers through the holes in the cap-nipples. The larger openings at the other end of the cylinder were coated with grease, to hold the bullet firmly in position and to stop the flames from the uppermost charge reaching and setting off the other five’s loads.
    With that basic precaution taken, Dusty thrust the Colt temporarily into his waist-band. Unrolling the tunic, he produced the gunbelt. No damp had reached the second revolver, he noticed with pleasure. Returning the gun from his waist-band to its holster, he laid the belt across his hat and put on his tunic. After buttoning the double-breasted front, he strapped on the belt and tied down the tips of the holsters. Emptying the leaves from his hat, he returned the crushed crown to its normal shape and placed it on his head. Dressed and armed, he eased himself through the bushes and started walking with great caution towards the rising column of smoke.
    Making use of every bit of the skill and experience he had gained while hunting alert, elusive whitetail deer back home in the Rio Hondo country, Dusty passed through the woodland without a single unnecessary noise. Although many of Buller’s command were city-born, he had some country-dwellers. Most of Verncombe’s 6th ‘New Jersey’ Dragoons—despite their title—had seen service in Indian campaigns before the War. So it was possible that whoever was camping near the ford possessed keen ears and a knowledge of the danger presented by that kind of terrain. Dusty intended to take as few chances as he could manage.
    Watching where he put his feet, so as to avoid stepping on and breaking dry twigs, he ‘also made certain that his clothes did not brush against the trunks of trees or bushes’ branches. In the latter he was helped by the figure-hugging nature of his uniform and decided to comment to his striker upon one advantage of the skirtless, non- Regulations , tunic; the fact that it had nothing to flap about as he made a stalk through wooded country.
    Feeling the wind blowing into his face, coming from the direction in which he was headed, Dusty