They had ridden most of the night to get there by morning. He’d been pushing his men hard for several days now and they deserved a rest. He’d give them the day. Word had reached him that Jesse McQueen had gathered the abolitionists at Buffalo Creek and was preparing to take them north. McQueen was a fool. No matter where the abolitionists attempted to escape, Roberts’s Knights could easily overtake a bunch of frightened Yankees in mule-drawn wagons. If they chose to make a stand, so much the better. With the Yankees outnumbered and outgunned, his men would sweep over the column and destroy it. The patriarch of Honey Ridge rode up Main Street. The men behind him were a hard-looking bunch dressed in a mixture of buckskins and Confederate military attire. Some wore short-brimmed caps, others broad-brimmed gray flannel hats and waist-length coats. There were Creeks with close-cropped hair and Cherokees whose long black locks hung free and trailed in the wind like the manes of the horses they rode.
