On the morning of the sixth day of their journey, Ditch wished Pritchard a happy eighteenth birthday. They each had a sip of whiskey to commemorate the occasion. On the eleventh day the Ozark Mountains loomed ahead, and they knew for sure they’d departed Missouri.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

“Halt, or be fired upon!” a deep voice called out from the forest. The clicks of twenty or more hammers being drawn back echoed through the heavy fog.

Pritchard and Ditch stopped in their tracks. They were on foot, leading their horses to drink from a stream, when the challenge was issued. It was just after sunrise, and the early-morning fog permitted only a few yards’ visibility.

“Put up your hands!” the voice commanded further. “Iffen either of you move so much as a hair, you’re done for.”

The boys slowly raised their hands. Men in gray uniforms and kepis materialized from the woods. Almost all were bearing Fayetteville rifled muskets, most with bayonets affixed, except one who was armed with a dragoon revolver and saber.

Their horses were taken, and they were searched. The Confederate troops relieved them of their pistols and the Hawken.

“They’ve got food and water,” said a sergeant, rummaging through their saddlebags. “Whiskey, too, and almost forty dollars in gold.” He held the bag of coins and a bottle aloft.

“I’ll take custody of that,” the officer said, taking the bag of gold coins and tucking it inside his uniform. The enlisted soldiers circled and began passing the whiskey among themselves. The bottle was only half-full. Ditch used the other half, and the other bottle, cleaning Pritchard’s head wounds three times a day.

“That’s my property,” Ditch protested, as his money was confiscated.

“Who are you, and what’s your business?” the officer demanded.

“My name’s Dave Clemson,” Ditch spoke up. “This here’s—”

“—Joe Atherton,” Pritchard broke in.

“—my friend Joe Atherton,” Ditch repeated, though he looked quizzically at Pritchard. “We’ve come from Missouri to find my brother Paul. He’s fighting with the Fifth Regiment of Shelby’s Iron Brigade. We’re lookin’ to join up.”

The officer, wearing the insignia of a lieutenant, appraised them. “How old are you boys?”

“Twenty,” Ditch lied.

“And I’m Abraham Lincoln,” the lieutenant said. “Neither of you look more than a month off your mama’s teat. You have to be in long britches before you can fight in a war.” Several of the soldiers snickered.

“I killed one Union man getting here,” Ditch said, red-faced at the insinuation he wasn’t man enough to serve, “and Joe here sent three of the bastards to hell. Them revolvers you just took offen us? Every one of ’em was plucked from a dead Union man. We can carry our end.”

“Mule fritters,” the sergeant grunted. “You boys are lying. You stole them horses, all right, but you two ain’t never killed no four Union men.”