The Bloody Border Read online

  Out at sea, something streaked sparking redly into the air and burst into a brilliant white glow of light that drifted downwards again. Knowing it to be an illuminating rocket from the Yankee steam-sloop, the girl felt a momentary alarm. Then she realised that it had been aimed to explode over the beach, which meant that the enemy ship had not become aware of the departing Gabrielle. Probably the sound of shooting had carried across the water and the sloop had sent up a rocket to expose whoever did it. Telescopes would be pointing towards the beach, possibly some of them powerful enough to make out the nature of the fracas. In which case, seeing three obvious Americanos del Norte fighting with a bunch of Mexicans, an investigation would surely be made. There were sufficient deserters from both sides in Mexico to arouse the interest of the Yankee captain, without him guessing the true nature of the trio, and to cause him to attempt their capture.

  Clearly the Mexicans realised the danger, those in a position to do so. At the first warning glow of the exploding rocket, the two men still on their feet—one of them holding his bracelet-slashed cheek—turned and fled. Looking like a charging cougar, the youngster launched himself after them.

  “Let ‘em go, Lon!” barked the big man.

  At the words, the youngster skidded to a halt and turned. While the rocket’s glow had died away, the fire still gave sufficient light for the girl to study her rescuers closely. Hard, tough as nails, but without the vicious, inhuman cruelty of the Mexican attackers was how the big man struck her: and she prided herself as a judge of human character. For all his shaggy black hair, buckskins and generally unsoldierly appearance, she felt sure that she could identify him.

  Then she looked at the second of her rescuers. All the savagery had left his face. Suddenly it took on a handsome cast of almost babyish innocence, apart from the reckless glint that remained in the red-hazel eyes. Young he undoubtedly was, yet she gained the impression that he had spent hard, wild years of growing that had left an indelible mark. Walking across to the man he had killed, the youngster bent down. Such had been his actions on arrival that, taken with his Indian-dark skin pigmentation, the girl thought he meant to scalp his victim. From what she had heard, although her personal experience did not support it, Western men sometimes took scalps. However the youngster did no more than clean the blade of his knife on the body’s clothing, then dropped it back into the sheath at the lest of his belt.

  Before the reaction to her narrow escape, or to how the small Mexican had died, could strike the girl, the big man came up.

  “Southrons, hear your country call you,” he said, twirling the Dragoon’s four pounds, one ounce weight on his finger and dropping the big revolver butt forward in his holster.

  Relief flooded over the girl and the tact that the man’s words formed the opening line to General Albert Pike, C.S.A.’s stirringly patriotic version of Daniel B. Eminet’s song ‘Dixie’ did not entirely account for it. Maybe her rescuers looked as wild and reckless as the hairiest of the old mountain men, but the taller of them had given a password known only to a few.

  “Up lest worse than death befall you,” she replied. “You must be Se—.”

  “We’d best get going, ma’am.” the man interrupted. “There’ll be a Yankee ship out thatways, I’d reckon.”

  “Yes.”

  “Figures. No blockade runner’d be sending up rockets that ways. Warn’t there nobody here when you landed?”

  “No. I thought that you would be when I saw the beacon.”

  “Right sorry about that, ma’am,” the big man apologised, sensing the undercurrent of anger in her voice. “See, we’d just lit up when—.”

  “There’s a boat coming, ap’,” the youngster put in, nodding towards the bay.

  Swinging around, the girl stared into the blackness; but could make out no sign that he spoke the truth. However the man appeared satisfied with the warning.

  “We’d best get going, ma’am,” he said. “Grab a hold of that pannier, boy. I’ll take the other one.”

  “Beach ahoy!” bawled a voice from the bay. “Stand fast there!”

  “I’d as soon not,” drawled the big man, striding towards the trunks.

  A point the girl found herself in complete agreement with. However she did not wish to abandon her property. So she darted to where her skirt lay and picked it up, then snatched the parasol’s head from the sand. Just as she turned to follow the men, she remembered the wig.

  “Don’t like to keep on about a thing, ma’am,” the youngster remarked in a conversational tone. “But that boat’s coming up faster’n a deacon headed for a new still. If we’re going, now’d be a real good time to start, or sooner.”

  Glancing across the bay, the girl could see a shape darker than the surrounding blackness. Yet her wig lay where the little man dropped it, some distance from where she stood.

  “Stand or we’ll fire on you!” shouted the same voice, coming from the dark shape on the bay.

  “Come on!” barked the big man, swinging one of the trunks on to his shoulder. “Let’s get off afore he does it.”

  “Pappy’s right, like always, ma’am!” the youngster stated, turning and darting to the second trunk.

  Knowing that it weighed over a hundred pounds, the girl ran up and took the trunk’s left side handle.

  “I’ll help you carry it,” she said, holding her skirt and parasol in the other hand.

  Even if the youngster intended to argue, a shot from the approaching boat halted his words unsaid. The bullet passed between him and the girl as they lifted the trunk between them. Then they followed the big man, running through the circle of the firelight towards the protection of the darkness beyond. Another shot sounded and lead made an eerie ‘whap!’ in the air by the girl’s head. She felt the youngster forcing her to the left and realised that he wanted to put the fire between them and the Yankees.

  Two more shots sparked muzzle-blasts through the night, but where the bullets went was anybody’s guess. Certainly neither came near the running trio and a moment later they passed into the darkness.

  From all appearances the girl’s rescuers had made use of the bay and beach on previous occasions. Without hesitation the big man led the way to a level path which ran up the slope. Bushes closed in on either side once they left the smooth sand of the beach and the path curved through them. Rising into the air, another rocket illuminated the area. However the trio offered such a poor target among the bushes that the crew of the Yankee launch wasted no more bullets. Then the rocket, burned out and darkness descended once more.

  On drawing close to the head of the slope, the big man turned off the track. Followed by the other two, he moved a short way among the bushes and came to a halt.

  “Just hunker down here, ma’am,” he said, setting the trunk on the ground. “I don’t figure the Yankees’ll follow us too far.”

  Superbly fit though she might be, the girl was breathing heavily as she set down her end of the trunk. Looking back, she saw the thirty-six foot long launch run ashore and its crew, under the command of a midshipman sprang out. Armed with Sharps carbines, Navy Colts and cutlasses, the nineteen men fanned out and moved towards the fire. One of them went up to the small Mexican’s body and rolled it over. Jerking back as if struck, he turned and vomitted on to the sand.

  Turning to speak to the men, the girl suddenly realised that only one of them was standing by her. The youngster who had helped carry her second trunk had disappeared.

  Chapter 2

  There’s Fifteen Thousand Dollars In Them

  “Where is he?” the girl gasped, swinging to the big man.

  “Who. Lon?” he replied. “Gone back down there a ways to see what the Yankees make of it.”

  “But they might catch him!” she protested.

  “It’d take more’n any bunch of web-footed Yankee scaly-backs to do that, ma’am,” drawled the man with complete confidence. “He learned the game from the Comanche.”

  Satisfied, at least partially, the girl
turned her attention back to the beach. Some of the sailors were examining the bodies, two more had raised the girl’s first victim to his feet and were supporting him. Another of the party handed something which the girl could not see to the midshipman. For a moment the young warrant officer stood looking at the object, the sailor between him and the watchers on the slope. Then he swung to stare up in their direction. The girl caught her breath, wondering if her younger rescuer had failed to justify his companion’s confidence. Then the midshipman gave an order and his men returned to the boat carrying the injured man along with them.

  “They’re going,” breathed the girl, watching the launch withdraw into the darkness.

  “Figured they’d not stick around to look for us.” replied the big man.

  Landing on the Mexican coast in such a manner might be construed as an armed invasion; or at best be regarded as an intrusion against the other country’s territorial rights. To be caught doing so by the authorities would bring about a bitter exchange of diplomatic letters, if nothing worse. So the sloop’s captain had probably ordered his subordinate only to go beyond the beach if certain he could make a speedy capture. Seeing no chance of doing so, the midshipman wisely decided to return to his ship. While they took the Mexican along for questioning, the act could later be excused on the grounds that he needed medical attention.

  For five minutes after the launch departed, the man and girl remained silent. Then he turned to face her and she could see his teeth glinting white in a grin as he spoke.

  “Now we’ve time, I’d best introduce myself, ma’am. Sergeant Sam Ysabel, Mosby’s Raiders. Boy’s my son, Loncey Dalton.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you, sergeant,” the girl answered and spoke genuinely, not in the formal conventional reply. “My name is Boyd—.”

  “Boyd!” said the youngster, materialising at her side as soundlessly as he had disappeared. “Belle Boyd—The Rebel Spy?”

  Although the voice gave the girl a nasty fright, she restrained herself beyond the one startled gasp.

  “I’m Belle Boyd,” she conceded, a faint smile playing on her lips. “And they do call me the Rebel Spy, I’ve been told.”

  “This’s surely a privilege and honour, ma’am,” Ysabel stated and his voice held a ring of truth. “Mind you, I should’ve figured who you be as soon as I saw the way you handled that scum down there.”

  “Lordy lord!” grinned his son. “I’ve never seed a feller so all-fired took back as when that short-growed pelado1 laid hands on your head and the hair all come off in it.”

  Respect and admiration showed in both her companions’ voices. While pleased with it, the two men’s attitude did not entirely surprise the girl. Through the war years supporters of the South had much for which to praise and honour Belle Boyd’s name.

  Born of a rich Southern family, Belle grew up in a slightly different manner than many of her contemporaries. While receiving instruction in the normal womanly virtues and subjects, her education extended beyond those bounds. Possibly to make up for being unable to have a son, her father taught her many boyish skills. Being something of a tomboy, Belle became an accomplished rider—astride as well as on the formal side-saddle—skilled with pistol, shotgun, rifle or sword and very competent at savate, the combined foot and fist boxing of the French Creoles.

  Probably the skills would have been put aside and forgotten had it not been for the coming of the War. Shortly before the attack on Fort Sumpter occurred, a drunken rabble of Union supporters raided the Boyd plantation. Before the family’s ‘downtrodden and persecuted’ slaves drove off the mob, Belle’s father and mother lay dead and the girl was wounded outside the blazing mansion. Nursed back to health by the Negroes, Belle learned of the declaration of war and sought for a way to take her part. Her parents’ murder left a bitter hatred for Yankees that could not be healed by sitting passively at home—not that her home remained. So she eagerly accepted the invitation of her cousin, Rose Greenhow, to help organise a spy ring for the Confederate States.

  At first there had been considerable opposition to Southern ladies sullying their hands with such a dirty business as spying, but successes and the needs of the times gained their acceptance. While Rose concentrated on gathering information, Belle took a far more active part. Often in the early days she made long, hard rides through enemy territory to deliver messages and won the acclaim of old General Stonewall Jackson himself. More important missions followed, while Pinkerton and his U.S. Secret Service fumed, raged impotently and hunted Belle. Despite all efforts to capture her. Belle retained her liberty and struck shrewd, hard blows for the South.

  Standing in the darkness, Belle tried to study the two men who had saved her life and would be working with her on the mission that lay ahead. She knew little about them except that the Grey Ghost, Colonel John Singleton Mosby, claimed them to be the, best men available for her aids.

  Sam Ysabel belonged to that hardy brotherhood of adventurers who pushed into Texas and helped open up that great State. Objecting to the taxes levied by distant Washington on the import of Mexican goods, he became a smuggler running contraband across the Rio Grande. Then War came and he joined Mosby’s Raiders, to be returned to Texas for the purpose of resuming his old business when the Yankees took Brownsville. Many a cargo of goods brought in through the blockade and landed at Matamoros found its way to Texas, then on to the deep South, by Ysabel’s efforts.

  While none of the trio guessed it, young Loncey Dalton Ysabel was to achieve a legendary status equal to the Rebel Spy’s in the years following the War.2 Left motherless at birth, the boy grew up among the people of his maternal grandfather. His mother had been the daughter of Long Walker, war chief of the Pehnane Comanche and his French Creole pairaivo, head wife.

  With Ysabel away on man’s business, the boy was raised as a Comanche and taught all those things a Pehnane brave-heart must know.3 Under skilled tuition, he learned to ride any horse ever foaled, and get more out of it than could any white man. Ability with weapons, always a prime subject, took a prominent part in his schooling. While good with his old Dragoon Colt, he relied mostly on his bowie knife for close range work and called upon the services of a deadly accurate Mississippi rifle when dealing with distant enemies. In the use of both he could claim a mastery equal to the best in Mosby’s Raiders. Few white men matched his ability in the matter of silent movement, locating hidden foes or hiding undetected where such seemed an impossibility.

  All in all the Ysabel Kid—as white folks knew him— would prove as great an asset to Belle’s mission as he might have to a raiding party of the Wasps, Quick-Stingers, Raiders, all three of which names had been given by Texans to the Pehnane.

  Although interested in her companions and grateful to them for saving her from the Mexicans, Belle wondered why she found herself in the position of needing to be saved. However, knowing how little regard for discipline and orders such men usually possessed, she hesitated to ask a question that might mar their relationship, Almost as if reading her thoughts, Ysabel launched into an explanation.

  “Right sorry about not being on hand when you landed, ma’am,” he said. “We come down and got the fire started ready. Then Lon allowed he heard something, so me ‘n’ him went back to keep the hosses quiet. Didn’t want no French patrol sneaking up and asking fool questions. We left Miguel, one of our boys, to tend to the fire. He warn’t there when you landed?”

  “Those men told me they killed him,” Belle replied.

  “The bastards—Sorry, ma’am. Only Mig’d been with us a fair time. They must’ve been slick to get up close enough without him hearing. Time we figured whoever the boy heard’d gone by, you’d landed and the fuss started.”

  “You came in time,” Belle stated, satisfied with the explanation. Then she looked at the Kid. “What did the Yankee sailors make of it?”

  “Figured us to be Mexican smugglers tangling with deserters, from what they said,” he replied. “That wig of your’n sure got ‘em puzzled,
though.”

  “Damn that wig!” Belle snapped. “I knew I should never have left it.”

  “Too late for worrying now, ma’am,” Ysabel pointed out. “Go fetch the hosses up, boy. We’d best get going.”

  “But your friend—,” Belle protested, looking back towards the darkness around the fire.

  “He’s dead. ma’am. Scum like that don’t take prisoners—except maybe in a pretty gal’s case and they kill her when they’ve done. Sooner we pull out, the happier I’ll be. Those shots could’ve been heard by more’n the Yankees.”

  “Then we’ll get going,” Belle agreed, turning back to find that the Kid had made another of his silent, eerie departures.

  Soon he returned, leading four horses. All were fine animals, but one of them more than the others caught the eye. A big, magnificent white stallion, it looked almost as wild and dangerous as the youngster it followed; leading might be too strong a word in its case, for it walked free behind the Kid.

  “Don’t go near nor touch that white, Miss Boyd,” warned Ysabel, following the direction of the girl’s gaze. “My grulla’s bad enough, but I do swear that damned white’s part grizzly b’ar crossed with snapping turtle. Not that I need tell you anything about hosses.”

  “He looks that way,” Belle smiled, accepting the tribute to her equestrian knowledge. “Which horse shall I take?”

  “The bay. T’other’s ole Mig’s. We didn’t bring but him along. Figured the less who knowed what brought us down here the better.”

  “I agree,” the girl said, then a thought struck her. “But you don’t know why I’m here, do you?”