Christmas at Carnton (Carnton 0.5)(64)

The gelding took a decided step toward Green. And another. Then lowered his head as if giving Green permission to touch him.

Ridley exhaled. “Well, would you look at—”

High-pitched laughter cut through the darkness and Ridley instinctively brought his rifle up. He put a finger to his lips. Robert Green nodded. The stallions tossed their heads as though sensing the tension around them, and the gelding edged closer to Green.

Ridley motioned to Green to gather the reins of the thoroughbreds, but the slave already had them in hand, as well as the gelding’s.

More cackling laughter and occasional whoops annoyed the night’s silence, the telling sound of liquored-up Confederate soldiers. Ridley crept through the trees to get a better look, betting they weren’t as drunk as they sounded. It occurred to him again that, with one hearty shout, Robert Green could use this chance to turn him in. The slave might try to work a bargain—the Rebs would get the thoroughbreds, the gelding, and one Federal lieutenant, and Robert Green might go free.

But Ridley knew the chances of Green going free were close to nil. He only hoped Robert Green knew that.

Watching through the trees, he could see the patrol passing by on horseback not twenty feet from where he stood. The rhythmic plod of their own mounts provided coverage, but if the thoroughbreds—or the gelding—spooked . . .

One of the Reb’s horses snorted and pulled up short, no doubt smelling—or at least sensing—the thoroughbreds. Ridley tensed.

The soldier swore and dug his heels mercilessly into the mount’s flanks, spewing a curse-laden tirade about “the worthless piece of horseflesh” beneath him.

Ridley didn’t dare look away but wondered how on earth Robert Green was managing to keep their horses so quiet. Then a thought occurred. He jerked his head back to make sure Green hadn’t—

The slave and the horses were just where he’d left them.

Not realizing he’d been holding his breath, Ridley slowly let it out and then filled his lungs again, willing his pulse to slow. He waited. The patrol passed. As did a full minute. Then another. But he knew better than to let relief come quite yet.

These Rebs . . . they were sly, some of them. This could be a trick.

Ridley allowed a full five minutes to pass—silently counting and glancing back on occasion to check on Green.

“I think they’s gone, sir,” Green finally said, his voice a feather on the wind.

“I think they are too,” Ridley whispered back. “But we can’t go the way I was planning.” Not when that way meant trailing the patrol party.

“What you gonna do, Lieutenant . . . with the general’s horses?”

“I’m taking them back to camp, near the capitol building.”

“Aw, no, sir. Please, sir. These is too fine’a horses to be cavalry mounts, Lieutenant.”

Ridley sighed, admiring the man’s stab at persuasion. “They’re not meant for cavalry mounts. They’re to be presented to officers as gifts.” At least that’s what he’d been told, but he wondered again, as he had at the outset. His commander had said they wanted to make an example of General Harding. How far his superiors would go to do that, he didn’t know.

But looking at the thoroughbreds now—at what fine animals they were—he questioned those lengths.

One thing beyond question was the trust this slave had earned with these animals. Looking at the black stallion—Olympus, Green had called him—Ridley would’ve sworn the animal was thinking something intelligible. What, he didn’t know. But the disquiet he’d felt earlier that night returned a hundredfold.

He couldn’t define it. He only knew he couldn’t set it aside. Not without a cost. And for reasons he couldn’t explain—and knew were a far cry short of sane—he walked over and reached out to touch the stallion.

The animal flinched and took a backward step, the whites of its eyes visibly stark against black pupils. Then Green’s voice came, hushed and gentle, whispering whatever it was he said to calm them.

Green looked over. “You ain’t earned his trust yet, Lieutenant Cooper. That’s all. Trust takes time and lots of doin’. You got to prove yourself worthy of it, sir.”

Feeling rebuked by this man, yet appropriately so, Ridley said nothing at first. “You didn’t try to bargain with the patrol, Mr. Green. Or turn me in.”

“Oh, I thought about it.” Green’s smile was briefly lived. “But I knowed me too many white men who’s thirsty for blood. I reckon I best take my chances with one who don’t seem so eager to spill it . . . sir.”

There it was again. That sense of unease. Ridley looked at the thoroughbreds and felt a deliberation inside him, warring against his judgment, against what he knew he should do as a Federal officer. “Has it always been this way for you, Mr. Green? With horses?”

Green didn’t answer immediately, his focus on the thoroughbreds. “’Fore I could walk, I knew how to ride a horse. That’s what my papa said anyway. I was right about three years along when my mama woke in the night. Couldn’t find me nowhere. She and Papa went lookin’.” Green’s smile was full of memory. “Say they found me sleepin’ in the barn. Hunkered down with a stallion, right between his hooves.”

Ridley studied him. If anyone else had told him that story, he’d have discounted it without a second thought. But he couldn’t. Not with it coming from this man.