Fort Pillow

XII

When the firing at fort Pillow finally slowed, Nathan Bedford Forrest rode forward. His men had had their fun, or enough of it. He knew he couldn't have stopped them even if he wanted to. And he didn't want to. He'd warned the Federals he wouldn't answer for the consequences if they didn't give up. Every time he used that warning up till now, they either surrendered or beat back his men, both of which rendered the threat moot.

But it wasn't moot here. Fort Pillow did fall, and so it had to take the consequences. If he tried to hold his men in check after the fall — and if he managed to do it, which wouldn't be easy by a long shot — what sort of threat could he make the next time he wanted to shift some Yankees? He shook his head. None at all.

“Major Booth-no, Major Bradford-you are a damn fool,” he muttered.

“What's that, sir?” one of his staff officers asked.

“Nothing. Never mind,” Forrest said, annoyed the other man overheard him. He wondered whether Bradford still lived. He was inclined to bet against it, when the Tennessee Tory had so many men who wanted him dead. Bradford's bully boys had harried loyal Confederates in west Tennessee almost as savagely as Colonel Fielding Hurst's outfit. Well, they wouldn't any more-and neither would Hurst for a while.

Forrest's own men cheered him as he neared the position they had stormed. They whooped and grinned and waved their slouch hats. Some of them showed off the shoes and trousers and weapons they'd taken from the Federals. Forrest only grinned when they did. The Confederates had to make war pay for itself when they fought the richer United States.

One trooper waved to Forrest with a fist full of greenbacks. Forrest grinned at him, too, but said, “For God's sake, Lucas, stick that in your pocket! You want somebody to knock you over the head and walk off with it?”

“Anybody tries, I reckon he'll be mighty sorry mighty fast,” Lucas answered. With a pistol on one hip and a Bowie knife on the other, he looked ready to raise large amounts of hell.

“Put it away anyhow,” Bedford Forrest said. “The less temptation you stir up, the better off everybody is.”

Lucas thought about telling him no, then visibly thought better of it. Anyone who told Forrest no was likely to be sorry for it, and in short order, too. If Major Bradford remained alive, he had to wish he'd surrendered. And if he didn't, he would have gone on wishing it till his dying breath.

At the top of the bluff, Forrest dismounted. His horse couldn't cross the trench in front of the U.S. earthworks. But several planks now spanned the ditch. His troopers went back and forth as they pleased.

Under their orders — and under their guns — Federal prisoners were throwing dead U.S. soldiers into the ditch. Bedford Forrest nodded to himself. Why bother digging graves when they already had a big trench handy?

Two Negro prisoners picked up a body. One of them turned to the closest C.S. soldier. “Suh, this here fella, he ain't dead,” he said. “I done seen his hand move.”

“That's a fac', suh,” the other black agreed. “I seen it, too.”

“Set him down,” the trooper said. The Negroes obeyed. The Confederate soldier stooped for a closer look. His knee joints clicked when he straightened. “Pitch him in,” he told the prisoners. “If he ain't dead, he's too far gone for a sawbones to help. He'll be gone by the time they throw dirt on him-and if he ain't, it'll put him out of his misery. Go on-get your lazy black asses moving.”

The captives looked at each other. Then, with almost identical sighs, they obeyed. Nathan Bedford Forrest nodded again. What would happen if they refused? Their bodies would lie at the bottom of the ditch-and so would that of the prisoner, who, if he was alive, wouldn't stay that way for long.

More prisoners, these white men, carried the body of a soldier in butternut to lie with his comrades. A junior officer stood over the Confederates' bodies. “What's our part of the butcher's bill?” Forrest called.

“Sir, we've got about twenty dead,” the lieutenant replied, stiffening to attention when he realized who'd asked the question. “About sixty wounded, I've heard, but don't hold me to that.”

“All right-thanks,” Bedford Forrest said. The young officer saluted. Forrest returned it with a gesture more than half a wave. Then he crossed into Fort Pillow. The planks that bridged the ditch groaned under his weight-he was half again as heavy as a lot of the men who served under him. Some Yankee general said small, young, single men made the best cavalry troopers. On the whole, Forrest agreed with him. But he was not small himself, he had a wife, and the pain from his many wounds reminded him he wasn't so young any more, either.

He jumped down from the broad parapet into the fort. Men in blue carried the bodies of their comrades toward the ditch. Forrest's troopers urged them along. If the soldiers in butternut urged blacks more roughly than whites.. well, too bad. Bedford Forrest shrugged a broad-shouldered shrug. He had no love for Negroes trying to soldier, either.

Other Confederates went on robbing dead and living Federals. Forrest did nothing to stop them. Without Yankee loot, the Confederacy would long since have folded up and died. Having to plunder the enemy to keep fighting him made the war harder, but it went on.

And some of Forrest's troopers went on killing the men they'd overcome. Forrest scowled. “That's enough!” he shouted. “Enough, damn your black hearts! Stop it, or I'll make you sorry!”

Without looking over his shoulder to see who had spoken, a Confederate growled, “Who the hell do you think you are, to try and give an order like that?”

Bedford Forrest trotted up to him and knocked him to the muddy ground, then stood over him with fists clenched. “I'm your general, that's who,” he said. “Who the hell d'you think you are, to try and disobey me?”

He waited. If the trooper wanted a fight, he could have one. But he quailed instead. Few men did anything but quail in the face of an angry Nathan Bedford Forrest. “I'm sorry, sir,” the man mumbled.

“I'll make you sorrier than you ever thought you could be if you go disobeying orders again,” Forrest said. “You hear me?” Miserably, the soldier in butternut nodded. Forrest thought about stirring him with his foot, but held back. Treating the trooper like a nigger might make him lash out with no thought for what happened next. Instead, Forrest told him, “Get up and do what you're supposed to do, then.”

As the trooper rose, a gunshot rang out not far away. Somebody let out a shriek: a Negro clutching a smashed and bleeding hand. The Confederate soldier who'd shot him cussed a blue streak and started to reload. He'd been aiming for the black man's head, not his hand.

“General Forrest said that's enough,” a captain snapped. “You shoot anybody else, or you shoot this miserable son of a bitch again, I'll put you under arrest. Do you want a court-martial?”

“No, sir,” the soldier said grudgingly. “But I don't want some dumb fucking nigger trying to kill me, neither.” Forrest turned away so the trooper wouldn't see him smile. The captain was right, no doubt about it. Even so, you could always rely on a Southern soldier to speak his mind.

Forrest started to turn back, then stopped short. His pale eyes narrowed. The U.S. officer crouching beside a body had gold oak leaves on his shoulder straps. That made him a major. With Lionel Booth dead, he had to be Bill Bradford. Face grim as death, Forrest stalked toward him.

Major William Bradford had given his parole to a Confederate colonel. The Rebs deigned to take it after they couldn't quite kill him. The officer even gave him something to eat, though Bradford still had his soaked uniform on.

He didn't notice the thump of boots on damp ground till the noise was almost on top of him. He looked up in surprise-and up and up, for he didn't see such a tall man every day, or every week, either. That dark chin beard, that hard mouth, those smoldering eyes… With Theo dead, with Fort Pillow fallen, he hadn't thought any worse disaster could befall him. Now, as Nathan Bedford Forrest scowled at him, he wondered how long he could stay even as lucky as he had been.

His knees clicked when he straightened. Even on his feet, he still looked up at Forrest, who was at least six inches taller. “General,” Bradford said with such spirit as he could muster, and held out his hand.

The Confederate commander did not take it. Slowly, Bradford let it fall, his face hot with shame and rage. “You damned fool, why didn't you give up when you could?” Forrest demanded.

“Why?” Bradford shrugged. “Because I thought I could hold your men out. And because I feared they would act like beasts if they got in. And I was right, by God!” He pointed toward the heaped and tumbled corpses of Union soldiers, and toward the prisoners carrying bodies to the parapet and flinging them into the ditch.

“That never would have happened if you surrendered,” Forrest said.

“So you say now,” Major Bradford answered.

For a moment, he wondered if Bedford Forrest would strike him down where he stood. When Forrest grew angry, his whole countenance changed. He went red as hot iron, and seemed to swell so that he looked even larger than he was. “Are you calling me a liar, Major?” he asked softly.

If Bradford answered yes, he was a dead man. He could see that. “I did not trust your earlier assurances, sir,” he replied with lawyerly evasion.

“When I say I'll take prisoners, I mean it,” Forrest growled, some of that furious color ebbing from his face-some, but not all. “Over at Union City, Colonel Hawkins knew as much. He surrendered to my forces, and he and his men are safe today.”

“This makes twice he's surrendered to you,” Bradford said scornfully. “He's had practice, you might say.”

“Well, you're a damn sight worse off now than if you did show the white flag,” Forrest said, and Bradford winced. He could hardly deny that. The Confederate commander went on, “I told you I'd let you surrender, didn't I? Good Lord, I even said I'd let your niggers surrender, and that's something I've never done before and I'm not likely to do again.”

“I… had trouble crediting it when you did.” Bill Bradford picked his words with care, not wanting to inflame Forrest again.

“Too bad for you.” Forrest waved back toward the rises outside the Federal perimeter. “As soon as I got men on that high ground, I could cut you to pieces easy as you please. Your soldiers couldn't stick their heads up over the earthwork without giving my sharpshooters perfect targets. Any man with an ounce of sense would have seen as much, and thrown in the sponge.” One corner of his mouth twisted into a mocking smile. “Well, I reckon that leaves you out.”

“Gloat all you care to,” Bradford said wearily. He pointed to Theo's body. “All I aim to do is give my brother Christian burial better than chucking him into that mass grave as if he were a butchered beef.”

To his amazement, all the high color drained from Bedford Forrest's face. “That's your brother, Major?” Forrest asked, also pointing to the bullet-riddled corpse. Bradford nodded. Forrest startled him again, this time by taking off his hat and holding it over his heart. “Please accept my deepest sympathy,” Forrest said. “I lost my own dear brother, Jeffrey, down at Okolona, Mississippi, a couple of months back — you may or may not have heard. But I expect you will believe I have some notion of the misery you feel.”

Major Bradford had heard that Jeffrey Forrest was killed in action. It didn't mean much to him at the time: just one more Rebel officer dead, and the wrong Forrest at that. But with Theodorick lying there all bloody, everything changed. Bradford managed a stiff if soggy bow. “I thank you, sir. No one who has not experienced the same thing can hope to understand it.”

“That is a fact,” Forrest said. “You may give your brother the burial you like.” He turned and shouted for one of his aides.

The man came up at a trot-when Forrest said something, people jumped to obey. “What is it, sir?”

“Detail a couple of captured niggers to dig a proper grave for Major Bradford's brother here,” Forrest answered. “Even an enemy can bury his dead.”

“Yes, sir.” No matter what the lieutenant said, he didn't sound happy about it. He looked daggers at Bradford. “Then what do we do with the god damn son of a bitch?”

“Well, we captured him. He gave his parole.” Bedford Forrest didn't sound very happy about it, either. “Now that we've got him, I suppose we have to keep him.” No, he didn't seem happy at all.

“I fought hard, gentlemen, but I fought clean,” Bradford said.

“Shut up, you lying bastard,” snarled the C.S. lieutenant. “What about that poor fellow who didn't like Yankees, and said so, and got his tongue tom out on account of it?”

Major Bradford gulped. “My men never did anything like that.”

To his relief, General Forrest nodded. “He's right, Sam. That wasn't his regiment — it was Hurst's. Too damn bad I didn't catch him instead of running him into Memphis.” But his gaze grew no friendlier as he went on. “What about the women your soldiers molested, Bradford? The women whose menfolks chose the other side?”

“I never gave orders for any such thing, General,” Bradford said, as he had before. “As God is my witness, I didn't. They would be an outrage against the laws of war.”

But Nathan Bedford Forrest only laughed in his face. “Of course you didn't. However big a jackass you are, you aren't that big.” That was a sardonic twist on Bradford's own thoughts. Forrest went on, “But you don't have to give order when you've got your boys all set to do what they crave doing anyways. You just look the other way and turn 'em loose. And your hands stay clean.”

You ought to know. Bill Bradford didn't have the nerve to say it out loud, but he would have taken his oath it was true. Did Forrest order his men to slaughter the Federal garrison once they got inside Fort Pillow? Up until this moment, Bradford had thought so. Now he didn't. The Confederate general sounded too much like a man who knew exactly what he was talking about. He'd… How did he put it? He'd looked the other way and turned his troopers loose.

And his hands stayed clean, or clean enough, and the Rebs did what they wanted to do anyway. And if the troopers from Bradford's regiment and the colored artillerymen who fought alongside them suffered-Bedford Forrest didn't care.

“See to this fellow,” Forrest told the lieutenant, who saluted. Forrest walked off, his longs strides taking him away in a hurry.

The lieutenant scowled at the trooper who'd been watching over Bradford. “What's your name, soldier?” the officer asked.

“Ward, sir. I'm Matt Ward.”

“Well, all right, Ward. You heard General Forrest-we've got to keep this bastard alive.” With Forrest out of earshot, he sounded downright disgusted. He went on, “We'll let him stick this other son of a bitch in the ground, since he's so damn hot to do it. And then we'll take him along with us. But I'll tell you something else.”

“Yes, sir?” Ward sounded as uninterested as a Federal private would have. You want to run your jaws, he might have been saying. Say what you've got to say and leave me alone.

“If he gets out of line — if he gets even a little bit out of line — you shoot him in the belly,” Forrest's staff officer said. “In the belly, you hear? He shouldn't just die. Let him die slow, and hurt while he's doing it. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Ward said. “I'll take care of it, sir.”

The lieutenant scowled at Bradford. “Do you hear me, you goddamned son of a bitch?”

“I hear you, Lieutenant,” Bradford answered, as coldly as he dared. “I have given Colonel McCulloch my parole. And do you recollect General Forrest talking about the laws of war? Deliberately abusing a prisoner goes dead against every one of them.”

“Bradford, if it wasn't for Colonel McCulloch and General Forrest, we'd roast you and smoke you over a slow fire till we came up with something to really make you suffer,” the Confederate officer said. “So thank the high officers and your lucky stars you aren't screaming right this minute. “

Major Bradford thanked Nathan Bedford Forrest for losing his brother. He couldn't imagine what he'd do without Theo; they'd been in each other's pockets their whole lives. Yes, the Confederate commander had lost a brother, too, but so what? Jeffrey Forrest really was just a Reb, after all.

And Bradford thanked Bedford Forrest for the loss of Fort Pillow. With the fort, he'd lost any prayer of advancing his own military career, even if he got exchanged. Who would give a fort to a man who'd proved he couldn't hold one? Nobody. And the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry (U.S.) was a ruin. All the men at Fort Pillow were either dead or captured. The rest… The rest would probably elect a new commanding officer as soon as they found out what had happened here.

Two Negroes came up, shovels on their shoulders like Spring?1elds. Forrest's staff officer scowled at them. “Damn coons got no business wearing uniforms and pretending to be soldiers,” he muttered.

“They didn't pretend. They fought.” To annoy the Confederate, Bradford concealed his own amazement that the colored artillerymen could do any such thing. One of them looked ready to go on fighting, too, restrained only by the presence of enemy soldiers in overwhelming numbers. The other black was a beaten man, but so were a lot of whites from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry.

“I want to know what you think, I'll ask you,” the C.S. lieutenant snapped. He turned to the Negroes. “Dig a hole, and we'll throw the dead Bradford in it. You want to dig a big hole so we can throw both Bradfords in, that's fine by me.”

Neither black man rose to the bait. The one who still looked to have fight in him said, “Jus' the two of us diggin', we ain't gonna be done by sundown.”

“Then keep digging till you are, damn you,” the Confederate said. “You need 'em, we'll have torches up so you can do the job right. General Forrest said we have to do this, so we will.” When he spoke of Forrest, he might have been quoting the Gospel.

The Negroes began to dig. Forrest's staff officer watched them for a while. Then, seeming satisfied they wouldn't slack off when his back was turned, he went away to do something else. A few minutes later, he showed up out of the blue to make sure they were still working hard. Bill Bradford nodded to himself. Sure as hell, the lieutenant was used to getting labor out of slaves.

As for Bradford… He watched the grave deepen. He watched the sun sink toward the horizon. And, parole or no parole, he watched for his chance.

Corporal Jack Jenkins looked at his rifle musket with a strange mixture of pride and revulsion. He'd never done more killing with the weapon, but it would be a bastard to clean. Not only was the bayonet bloody all the way to the hilt, but the stock was a mess of blood and brains and hair stuck on as if with glue. He'd used it to beat wounded Federals to death so he wouldn't have to waste more ammunition on them.

“Look,” he said now. “I've been smashing up niggers and Tennessee Tories.” He held up the rifle musket. Some of the strands of hair clinging to the stock were long and blond and straight, others black and tightly curled.

“That's about enough, Corporal,” said a captain he barely knew.

“You can hear they aren't shooting people up top anymore.”

“I wasn't shooting 'em down here anymore, neither, sir,” Jenkins said reasonably. “I was just breaking their goddamn heads.” He displayed the rifle musket again to prove his point.

For some reason, the gore-clotted weapon didn't seem to please the officer. He turned away, muttering to himself. After a moment, he made himself turn back. “Just don't kill any more Union troops,” he said. “That's an order.”

“Not unless they try and give me trouble, sir.” Like any soldier who'd served for more than a few days, Jenkins knew how to get what he wanted and seem obedient at the same time.

“Oh, no, you don't.” Like any man who'd been an officer for more than a few days, the captain knew when he was hearing disobedience in a compliant mask. “If one of these bastards tries to kill you, you can punch his ticket for him. To kill you, you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Jenkins said sulkily.

“All right. Otherwise, you can lift their wallets and clothes, but otherwise leave 'em be,” the captain said. “You understand that?” “Yes, sir.” Jenkins sounded even more reluctant this time.

He had reason to sound reluctant, too. The Federals alive and unwounded were cringingly anxious to stay that way; what odds that one of them would have the nerve to try to kill anybody? They reminded Jenkins of nothing so much as beaten dogs, rolling over on their backs and baring their throats and whimpering to keep from getting beaten some more.

Even robbing them wasn't much sport now. Almost all of them were barefoot; the ones who still wore shoes didn't wear any that were worth stealing. Jenkins wouldn't have thought Yankees could have shoes as ragged as any that belonged to one of Forrest's troopers, but he would have been wrong.

The same went for their trousers. The whites and Negroes who still wore them were welcome to what they had on.

I can have fun with 'em, Jenkins thought. That goddamn captain didn't say I couldn't. He strode up to a white man. “You a homemade Yankee?” he demanded.

Before the Federal trooper answered, his eyes flicked to Jenkins's fearsome rifle musket. If he'd thought about defiance, one look changed his mind. He nodded. “Reckon I am.”

“You a dirty, stinking Yankee son of a bitch?” Jenkins demanded. The captive stood mute. Jenkins knocked him down and kicked him in the ribs-probably not hard enough to break any, but you never could tell. Standing over him, breathing hard, Jenkins growled, “You a dirty, stinking Yankee son of a bitch?”

“Reckon I am,” the prisoner choked out.

“Say it out loud.” Jenkins kicked him again, harder this time. “Say it out loud, God damn you, or you'll be sorry. I'll make you sorry, you hear?” He kicked the white man hard enough to make pain shoot up his own leg.

“I'm a dirty, stinking Yankee son of a bitch!” the man bawled, plainly as loud as he could. It didn't fully please Jenkins, but it would have to do. He gave the fellow one more boot to remember him by, then moved on to the next closest prisoner, a Negro.

“How about you, Rastus?” he asked, hefting the rifle musket. “You heard that other fella, so what do you reckon you are?”

The black man sang out with no hesitation at all: “I's a dirty, stinkin', Yankee son of a bitch!”

Jenkins knocked him down, too, and kicked him hard enough to make what he'd given the Tennessee Tory seem like a love pat by comparison. “Reckon you can get off easy, do you? Nobody gets off easy today, boy. What you are is, you're a lousy, shit-eating nigger dog. Now let me hear you say that, Cuffy, or else the Devil'll roast you even blacker'n you are already.”

“I's a lousy, shit-eatin' nigger dog!” the Negro said.

“Louder!” Jenkins kicked him again. This time, the Negro shouted it, tears running down his face. He still wore blue wool trousers. “Turn out your trousers,” Jenkins told him.

“I ain't got nothin' — Oof!” The black broke off with a grunt of pain, for Jenkins kicked him yet again.

“Turn 'em out, boy! You reckon you don't got to do what a white man says any more? You better think twice. You used to be a slave?” Jenkins asked. The colored soldier hesitated, no doubt trying to decide whether a lie or the truth would do him more good. “Answer me, you fucking nigger piece of shit!” Jenkins kicked the Negro hard enough to make him groan and clutch at his ribs. No, the captain hadn't said a word about shoe-leather. “Answer me!”

“Yes, suh! I was a slave! Do Jesus, don't kick me no mo'!” “Well, boy, if you was a slave, you know how you're suppose to act 'mongst your betters. I tell you to turn out them pockets one more time, by God, it'll be the last thing you ever hear. You reckon I'm funnin' you? You can find out-you bet you can.”

The Negro decided not to take the chance, which proved he wasn't so dumb after all. Out came a grimy handkerchief, some greenbacks… and a shiny gold eagle.

“Ain't got nothin', huh?” Jenkins scooped up the money the way a redtail flew off with a chick wandering around the farmyard. The ten dollar goldpiece went deep into his own pocket. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a gold coin. Even silver was in desperately short supply in the cash-strapped South. Federal greenbacks passed for hard money these days, though even they sold at a discount against specie. As for the banknotes Southern banks issued… They were like weevily hardtack. You held your nose, you closed your eyes, and you went ahead and used them. “Got any more?” Jenkins barked.

“So help me, that's it,” the Negro wheezed, hand pressed against his ribs again.

“Last chance, coon,” Jack Jenkins said. “I'm gonna search you. If I find more, you go straight into the goddamn river.”

“Ain't got nothin',” the colored artilleryman said. Jenkins patted every pocket he had, felt his chest to see if he was hiding a bag around his neck, even took off his socks and threw them away. He didn't find anything. Either the Negro was telling the truth or he had a devil of a good place to stash stuff.

Corporal Jenkins kicked him once more, almost for good luck. “That's what you get for lyin' to me the first time,” he said, and went off to see if he could find another Federal who hadn't been properly frisked. Ten dollars in gold! You could buy a hell of a lot of Confederate paper money for ten dollars in gold. Or you could buy a hell of a lot of things-if anybody in these parts had them to sell.

The sun was going down. Mack Leaming watched it sink with indifference marred by pain and bitterness. The sun is setting on me, he thought. If he didn't get someone to help him, if he had to lie on this cold, wet, miserable slope till morning, he feared he wouldn't see the next sunrise.

He'd done everything he knew how to do. Several Confederates went past him, skipping goat-like down the side of the bluff and slogging back up from the riverside. He called out to them-and they paid him no heed.

He even raised his arms in the three motions to shape the Grand Hailing Sign of Distress, but either none of Bedford Forrest's followers was a Freemason or Confederate Masons were a cold-blooded lot indeed, their hearts hardened against their Union brethren. He would rather have believed the former than the latter; Freemasonry was supposed to transcend national allegiances. But regardless of whether the truth lay in ignorance or in malice, it seemed all too likely to kill him.

Leaming must have dozed-or passed out-for a little while.

When he returned to himself again, the sun had dropped closer to the Mississippi and the trees beyond it. He had to look at his arms to see if they still shaped the Grand Hailing Sign. They did, not that it seemed likely to matter.

Someone in boots came down the slope. Leaming didn't bother to turn his head at the sound. But, where so many Confederates passed on the other side like the priest and the Levite in the Book of Luke, this man stopped. Mack Leaming looked up at him. He wore the two bars of a first lieutenant on either side of his collar. Was he, could he be, a Samaritan in this hour of need?

The Confederate officer studied Leaming as he lay there on the ground. After a pause that had to last more than a minute, the Reb coughed a couple of times and asked, “Are you by any chance a… traveling man, sir?”

Hope flowered in the wounded Federal. That was a question a Freemason might ask a stranger to see if he too belonged to the order. Careless of the pain, Leaming nodded. When he first tried to speak, only a dusty croak passed his lips. He tried again, gathering his feeble reserves of strength. “I travel.. from West to East,” he got out-the East was the direction from which enlightenment came.

“I thought so,” the C.S. lieutenant breathed. “A man does not shape the Grand Hailing Sign by accident. No doubt our forebears chose it for just that reason.” He knelt by Leaming. “Well, brother, I will do what I can for you. Where are you hit?”

“Below the shoulder blade,” Leaming answered. “I was shot from the top of the bluff, so the minnie went down…” He had to gather himself again before asking, “Could I have some water, please?”

“Of course,” the Confederate said, where all his comrades told Leaming no or pretended not to hear him. The man undid the tin canteen at his belt and held it to Leaming's mouth. It was captured U.S. issue, with a pewter spout. Never had Leaming tasted anything more delicious than the warm, rather stale water that ran so sweetly down his throat.

“Thank you,” he said when the enemy officer took the canteen away. He could hear how much more like himself he sounded with a wet whistle. “From the bottom of my heart, friend, thank you. You are the good Samaritan come again.”

“I doubt it. I doubt it very much,” the Reb said. “When we attacked this place, I wanted to see every man jack in it lying dead at my feet.”

“You've got most of what you wanted,” Leaming said. Prisoners were still carrying bodies off the slope and away from the riverside.

“With the force we had and the positions we soon gained, y' all were mad to try to resist us,” the C.S. lieutenant told him. Bedford Forrest had said the same thing when Major Bradford refused to surrender. As things turned out, the Confederate general had a better notion of what was what than his Federal opponent.

“We might have held you out in spite of everything if you hadn't moved men forward while the flag of truce was flying,” Leaming said.

“We brought them up to warn off the steamer, not to move against the fort,” the Confederate lieutenant said sharply. “You could have protested at the time if you thought we were doing anything underhanded, but you never said a word.” Leaming bit his lip, for that was true. He wondered if the Reb's anger would drive him away, but it didn't. The Confederate went on, “Let's get you taken care of, if we can.“

He straightened up from beside Leaming and shouted. Two colored soldiers hurried over to him. Both were barefoot; one wore only his drawers and undershirt. “What you need, suh?” they asked together. They spoke to the Reb as respectfully as if to a U.S. officer. Maybe they treated him like a master. Maybe they were just afraid he would order them killed if they got out of line even a little-and maybe they were right to be afraid that way.

The lieutenant pointed to Leaming. “Take him up to the top of the bluff. Be as gentle as you can-he's got a nasty wound.”

“Yes, suh. We do dat.” Again, the Negroes spoke together. One grabbed Mack Leaming's legs, the other the upper part of his body.

He groaned when they lifted him, not because they were harsh but because he couldn't help himself.

Up the steep slope he went. He groaned whenever a Negro's foot came down on the ground. He knew the blacks weren't trying to be cruel-on the contrary, in fact. But the slightest jolt made the long track the Mini? ball tore through his body cry out in torment. Tears ran down his cheeks. He bit the inside of his lower lip till he tasted blood.

“Here you is, suh. We lay you down on the ground now,” said the black who had him by the shoulders. Leaming yelped like a dog hit by a wagon wheel when they did. After lying still for a moment, he sighed. He still hurt, but with a steady ache, not the sudden, fiery jolts he'd known when they were moving him.

“Do you want some more water?” the Confederate lieutenant asked.

“Oh, please,” Leaming said.

“All right. I'm going to lift your head up a little so you can drink easier.” Leaming gasped when the Reb did that, but he couldn't deny it helped: not nearly so much water dribbled down the side of his face. And the smoothest whiskey in the world couldn't have done a better job of reviving him than that plain, ordinary water-so he thought, anyhow.

“God bless you,” he said, and held out his hand. He was not surprised when the C.S. lieutenant's grip matched his own. They smiled at each other.

A sergeant commandeered the two Negroes who'd carried him up to the top of the bluff. “Come on, damn you!” he yelled. “Don't stand there like lazy niggers, even if you damn well are. Plenty of bodies to dispose of.”

Both blacks looked toward the lieutenant. He just shrugged, as if to say he was done with them. Off they went. The sergeant wasn't wrong. Negro and white prisoners were carrying their comrades-in-arms' corpses to the earthwork and throwing them into the ditch in front of it-the ditch that so dismally failed to keep out the Confederates.

“There is a man who is not quite dead yet,” said someone: a white man, by his voice.

“Put him down.” By the authority in the answer, it had to come from a Confederate officer. “If he dies in the night, we can throw him in come morning. And if he's still breathing at sunup… Well, we'll worry about it then.”

Leaming started to say something to his fellow Freemason, only to discover the man no longer stood by his side. He looked around — where had the lieutenant gone? Leaming couldn't spot him. Was that his voice giving orders over by the sutlers' stalls? Leaming thought so, but couldn't be sure.

He also thought the other man might have done more for him: might, for instance, have hunted up a surgeon to see to his wound. But, although still weak, he no longer feared he would die right away. His wound finally seemed to have stopped bleeding and he felt much better for the water the Rebel lieutenant gave him. He'd been dry as the Utah desert inside.

Not far away, a Negro asked, “Reckon this here's deep enough, suh?”

“Make it deeper, if you please.” Mack Leaming blinked in astonishment. That was Major Bradford, sure as hell, and he would have expected Forrest's troopers to kill Bradford out of hand. But the commandant went on, “I want to make sure the scavengers can't get at poor Theo.”

“Whatever you say, suh.” The black man sounded resigned. Leaming heard first one spade, then another, bite into the ground. Dirt flew out and came down with wet smacking noises.

Bill Bradford still breathing! Leaming shook his head in amazement even though moving hurt. Bradford had done everything he could to make the Rebs in west Tennessee hate him, so why was he still alive after they went on their killing rampage? Try as he would, Leaming couldn't fathom it.

The sun slid below the horizon. Dusk deepened toward darkness.