Read Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1954 for Free Online Page A

there?”
                 “Friends,”
replied Grimes cheerfully.
                 “One
of you get down and come forward.”
                 Grimes
tossed the reins to Barry, got down and walked toward the men. He felt inside
his blue jacket and produced an envelope.
                 The
soldier who had challenged opened the envelope, took out a paper and looked at
it with a frown.
                 “Naturally
you don’t understand,” said Grimes. “Who’s in charge?”
                 “Sergeant!”
called the soldier. “Sergeant of the guard!”
                 Out
of the tent swaggered a big man with three stripes on his arm and a visored cap
pulled over his deep-set eyes. He looked at the paper, and finally returned
with Grimes to the buggy. Barry felt as though ice-water trickled in his veins,
but Grimes sauntered as confidently as ever.
                “We haven’t heard about your special
assignment,” the sergeant was saying.
                 “Of
course not,” agreed Grimes loftily. “But look at the signature on my order.”
                 The
sergeant did so. “I can’t read it,” he complained.
                 “Nobody
can read the way Ulysses S. Grant signs his name,” said Grimes.
                 The
sergeant blinked, goggled and looked again. “By gravies, that’s who it is,” he
growled in awe. “You’re to go south, eh? What are you up to?”
                 “Tell
me your name and your regiment,” said Grimes, his voice suddenly cold.
“Headquarters will want to know about your challenging General Grant’s orders.”
                 “I’m
not challenging anything,” the sergeant pleaded quickly, and pushed the paper
back into Grimes’ hands. “It’s just my duty to stop everybody. I’m supposed to
look into your buggy.”
                 “Why
not?” said Grimes hospitably.
                 The
sergeant peered in, and poked a bag in the rear seat. “What’s in that?”
                 “Clothes,”
said Grimes. “Want to open it?” He began to unstrap the bag.
                “No, don’t bother. Go ahead.” The
sergeant looked hopefully at Grimes. “Listen, you won’t make a bad report on
me?”
                 “Not
this time,” said Grimes, smiling as he climbed back into the buggy. “Let’s go.”
                 The
soldiers stared as Yonder ambled past them. “Bluff’s a
valuable thing in this business,” commented Grimes, still unruffled. “I made
that poor sergeant feel so guilty he didn’t worry about whether Grant’s
signature was genuine. Now we’ll be all right. Just below here’s the state of Mississippi , and no more Yankees unless we run into a
cavalry patrol.”
                 They
ate noon dinner
near Holly Springs , at a log house where the owner and his
wife thought Grimes was a Union soldier and eagerly insisted that they were
good Unionists. From there they drove toward Hernando, and as evening
approached came to where the road crossed a railway. Suddenly men with rifles popped
into view from behind the embankment.
                 “Pull
up!” roared a man in a wide, rumpled hat and a butternut-dyed jacket. “You’re
our prisoners!” “No prisoners here, boys,” Grimes assured them, laughing.
“Who’s in command?”
                 “I
know that voice!” shouted another man, leaping over the embankment. A saber
belted this man’s gray frock coat. “It’s Captain Ab Grimes!”
                 “Right,
Lieutenant,” said Grimes. “Your men were only challenging my uniform. I had to
wear it to get out of Memphis .”
                 Now
cries of excited recognition rang out, and half a dozen men pressed close
around Yonder and the buggy. Barry stared with
exultation at the first fighting