Raiding With Morgan Read Online Free Page B

for. If her father supported the blue bellies, his fate was sealed, no matter which fence he jumped. He prayed the biblical axiom “The truth shall set you free” resonated somewhere in the heavens.
    â€œI’m no marauder. I’m Private Ty Mattson, of General John Hunt Morgan’s Confederate Cavalry. I’m to report to General Morgan at Garnettsville as soon as possible.”
    Skepticism replaced anger in the purple eyes watching Ty. “Do you have written orders? My paw was a soldier in the Mexican War. He says a soldier on duty doesn’t do anything without written orders.”
    She was smart and not easily fooled. Ty didn’t doubt that if so inclined, she would shoot him. He decided to throw all his cards on the table. He needed to be convincing, and then make his move and risk being killed far from the battlefield, the sorriest excuse imaginable for a yet-to-be Morgan raider.
    â€œMiss, I am what I claim to be. I didn’t steal your horses, and I’m not a marauder. I don’t have written orders. My destination is General Morgan’s camp at Garnettsville and I don’t dare disobey him. I’m going to mount up and ride out of here. You may shoot me, if you wish. I’ll not be cast aside like hog shit for no man . . . or woman.”
    The purple eyes softened. Was that a twinkle Ty saw?
    â€œWhy, you’re the most brazen man I’ve ever met,” the sprig of a female said, lowering the hammer of her flintlock. “Damned if you ain’t.”
    The smile she flashed Ty was genuine. “You don’t look like those turds that took Paw’s horses. You’re too prettied up and clean. And, for certain, you aren’t a blue belly. Paw and I don’t favor any of those shooting each other—and with him missing a leg, he ain’t about to join in.”
    Butting her flintlock, the sprig laughed deep in her scrawny chest and said, “Off with you, Private Ty Mattson. Just make sure you ride straight past the next place with a white barn. No reason for Paw to learn I had my sights on a possible horse thief and didn’t fetch him home. Paw’s judgments are less lenient and a heap harsher than mine. He might hang you just so he’d feel better about losing his prize mares.”
    Ty lowered his hands, scooped up his hat and Reb’s reins, looped the reins over the gelding’s head, then mounted. Without saying a word, he turned the gray, pointed him toward the Garnettsville Road, and rode into the shielding trees. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, he was thankful he’d never had to share a table with her unnamed family.
    Hadn’t Boone Jordan, reflecting on his Texas years, warned that a man fast and loose with a rope was to be respected and avoided?
    Be best to add his children, too, Ty thought, for he sensed the young female’s decisions matched her father’s more often than not.
    Once clear of the woods, he urged Reb into a trot. He took time, then and there, to thank the Lord for allowing lady luck to share his saddle.
    He surely owed her a big kiss for not deserting him.

CHAPTER 2
    â€œH alt or be shot from the saddle!”
    Ty brought Reb to a standstill with a light squeeze of the reins. The Texas drawl, reminiscent of Boone Jordan’s, soothed nerves strung to the breaking point after hours of hiding from irate locals pursuing the marauding irregulars, a mail carrier, a doctor in a buggy, a Yankee patrol, a peddler with pots and pans clanging together on the canvas walls of his cart, and two Union Army freight wagons. But all that lonely, stealthy riding was behind him. He’d found General Morgan’s raiders!
    â€œWhat’s the password?”
    At close range, the road was darker than the back side of a fastened belt. Ty could not spot the sentry stationed in a copse of oak trees. Ahead, a mile up the road, he made out what seemed a thousand flickering campfires. It was the smell of wood