They watched the smoke until it disappeared, and when they turned there was a herd of cows ahead of them, lumbering across the road. Tim was about to look for cover when he noticed a boy of six or seven in the middle of the herd. He stared at the fugitives, openmouthed.
The cows kept moving across the road but the lad stood still until the last of the cows had passed. Then, finding himself alone in the road, still facing the men in tattered blue, he wheeled and ran.
To their right the land rose gently. It offered little cover. It would be folly to retreat along the road. Tim motioned left toward the railroad track. “That’s as good a way as any. At least there’s a little cover there.”
They ran across a field and into a grove of scrub oak and pine. They dashed pell-mell down a steep little hill and across a brook and up toward the ridge where the railroad ran. They heard the sound of horses’ hoofs crashing through the undergrowth across the stream. They ducked behind a clump of weeds. The riders came into view and jumped the stream. They reined in and looked along the little valley and up the hill.
Tim and Red watched unmoving as the men talked in low tones. One was well past middle age, thin and handsome. He was hatless, his face was tan and his head was covered with a thick mat of snow-white hair. The other man was big and burly, a giant of a man. A gray slouch hat sheltered his eyes. Both were armed.
The big man shouted, “You better show yourselves. We know you’re in this place. We saw you high-tailin’ it across the fields.”
Tim whispered, “We better give up to save our lives.”
They stood with their hands in the air and the rifles came up. The horses moved close.
The white-haired man spoke with a hint of a burr. “Are you the soldiers who escaped from the jail in Columbia?”
“We are,” said Red.