Fort Pillow

XIII

Matt Ward looked at the hole in the ground in which Major Bradford was burying his brother. By now, it was deeper than the colored grave diggers were tall. It looked blacker than they did, too; in the fading light, it might have gone all the way down to China. Sure as hell, Theodorick Bradford was getting the fanciest send-off of any Federal at Fort Pillow — fancier than the Confederate dead were getting, too.

When Ward glanced at Theo Bradford's body, that thought crossed his mind again. From somewhere, Bill Bradford had come up with a cloth to wrap his brother's corpse. Oh, the shroud was bloodstained here and there from the wounds the older man had taken. But for that, though, he might have died of natural causes.

"Why don't you have some carpenters build him a coffin, too?" Ward asked.

Sarcasm rolled off Bradford like water off a duck's back. "That won't be necessary," the U.S. officer answered. To the colored men roped in to help him, he added, "I reckon you've got it deep enough."

"I reckon we done got it deep enough a while ago now," one of the Negroes said. Both of them tossed their shovels out of the grave. One black climbed out at a corner, then reached into the hole to help his comrade out.

"Stick around," Bradford told them. "You'll need to fill it in when I'm done here." They looked at him. They looked at the shovels, and at their hands. They looked at the grave they'd just dug. Neither of them said a word. In their shoes (not that they were wearing shoes), Ward wouldn't have, either. Too easy to knock them over the head and toss them into the ditch outside the earthwork. Whatever happened to them, they wouldn't get a grave like this one. They wouldn't get much of a grave at all.

Major Bradford slid his brother's body into its final resting place as gently as he could. Then he pulled a small Testament from the left breast pocket of his tunic. Almost everyone who carried a little Bible carried it there, in the hope that it would stop an almost-spent Mini? ball. Once in a blue moon, it did. Ministers preached sermons about the pocket Testament that saved a life.

Like everything that had to do with Bill Bradford right now, the little book was soaked. He opened it anyway, and frowned. "Too dark to read," he said to Ward. "Would you get me a torch?"

"I ain't your nigger. You can go to the Devil, for all I care," Ward said indignantly. "You want a torch, you can damn well get your own."

"All right, then-I will," Bradford said. He wouldn't have to go far to find one. Plenty of them burned as the Confederates went on plundering Fort Pillow. He came back a few minutes later carrying not only a torch but also a jug. He set that down beside him and offered Ward the torch. "Would you be so kind as to hold it for me?"

Grudgingly, Ward nodded. "Reckon I can do that much." "Thank you kindly." Bradford went through the pocket Testament with care, muttering, "Hope the pages aren't too soggy and stuck together." Then he stopped and nodded. "Here we are." His voice grew solemn: "'Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whomsoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?' "

"I believe," Matt Ward murmured. The colored soldiers said something, too. The words were probably as familiar to them as they were to him and to Bill Bradford.

Ward thought Bradford would let it go there, but the Federal read some other verses from the Book of John: " 'I am the door: by me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture… I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep… I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so I know the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep… Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.' "

Major Bradford closed the pocket Testament. He looked at Ward. Feeling something was called for, the Confederate trooper muttered, "Amen." One of the colored soldiers echoed him.

The other one said, "You shoulda been a preacherman, Major. The words, they jus' come right on out."

"I'm putting my brother in the ground," Bill Bradford said. "I don't think I could talk like that for anybody else."

"You want we should cover him over now?" the Negro asked.

"In a minute," Bradford answered. "There's another way to say good-bye to him, too." He picked up the jug. It sloshed. "I managed to get my hands on this before anybody else did. Theo would have liked it this way." He pulled out the cork, raised the jug to his lips, and took a pull. "Ahh!" He handed the jug to Matt Ward. "Here you go."

"I thank you kindly." Ward remembered longing for whiskey early that morning. Had only a day gone by since then? It seemed more like five years. He swigged from the jug. Volcano juice ran down his throat. "Whew!" he said when he could speak again. "That's strong stuff." He started to give the jug back to Bradford.

"Let the niggers have a knock, too," the Federal officer suggested. Ward started to bristle at the idea, but Bradford quickly added, "There's plenty to go round, and they're doing the hard work."

"Well, hell. Why not?" What Ward had just drunk made him magnanimous-or maybe too tipsy to argue. He thrust the jug at the closer Negro. "Here, Go on."

"Much obliged, suh." The black man took the whiskey jug, tilted it back, and then passed it to his comrade. "Mighty nice." The potent stuff didn't faze him at all. Ward wondered if he had a cast-iron gullet.

When Major Bradford got the jug back from the second Negro, he wiped the mouth on his tunic before drinking from it again. Ward would have done the same thing; he didn't want his mouth going where a black's had gone before it. Weren't Federals all hot for nigger equality? He wondered why Bill Bradford, who acted like a Southerner, chose the other side.

Before he could ask, Bradford passed him the jug. Ward didn't mind drinking right after another white man. More tangleleg exploded in his stomach. He looked at the Negroes. "Get to work now."

"Yes, suh," they said together. They weren't rash enough to ask for another pull at the whiskey jug for themselves. They had to know they were lucky to get one. They set to work with the shovels, throwing the dirt they'd dug out back into the grave. It thumped down on Theodorick Bradford's shrouded corpse.

"He was a good man," Bill Bradford said. "He was one of the best." He nodded to Matt Ward. "You have a brother?"

"Not that lived." Ward's head spun when he shook it-that popskull was mean as the Devil. "Had one who died when we were both little. I got me a couple of sisters and a big old raft of cousins." He took another pull at the jug, then offered it back to Bradford.

"Thanks." The Federal officer raised it to his lips. "Cousins are all right, but they're not the same, you know what I mean?" He didn't seem like such a bad fellow once you talked with him for a while — and once you'd had enough whiskey to lubricate your brains a little.

"Like I told you, I can't rightly say." Ward eyed Bradford, as well as he could by the torchlight flickering here and there. Now he asked his question: "What made you choose the wrong side, anyways?"

"I don't reckon I did," the Tennessee Tory replied, stubborn even after disastrous defeat. "I believe in building things up, not tearing them down. The Union's lasted eighty-seven years now. There's hardly a man alive who wasn't born under the Stars and Stripes. Why go and tear that to pieces?"

"On account of that damn Lincoln wants to take our niggers away and tyr-tyr-tyrannize over us." Matt Ward had to try three times before he could get the word out.

"He didn't fire the first shot-you Rebs did that, at Fort Sumter. And we could have made some kind of arrangement about the niggers. We've had compromises before. We could have found another one. But Jeff Davis wanted to show what a big man he was, and we've been shooting at each other ever since."

He trotted the arguments out smooth as you please. Ward remembered hearing he was a lawyer. But he couldn't talk around one thing: "This here is a Confederate state. If you aren't for the Confederacy, you're nothing but a dirty old traitor."

"My loyalty is the old one. I'll stick to it." Major Bradford looked down at his brother's grave. "If you ask me to love the cause that killed poor Theo, I'm afraid you ask too much."

"Quibble all you care to." Ward hefted his Enfield. "You damn well lost. "

"And isn't that the sad and sorry truth?" Bradford managed a mournful laugh. He had no weapon, but hefted the whiskey jug instead. "A sorrow I shall try to drown." He drank.

"You already look drowned," Ward told him. "Let me have some more of that."

"How can I say no? To the victor go the spoils." The Federal officer surrendered the whiskey. Ward raised the jug and took a long pull. Then he took another one.

Next thing he knew, he was sitting on the ground. He didn't know how he'd got there. The whiskey jug sat beside him, though. That was funny. Laughing, he got up and drank some more.

Bill Bradford laughed, too. Ward remembered that.

"Come on!" Nathan Bedford Forrest shouted. "We've got to empty this place out, and we don't have a whole lot of time."

He might have been-he was-the best cavalry general in the war. He was proud that his men would throw themselves at the damnyankees sooner than risking his displeasure. But even the mightiest man bumped up against the limits of his power. Forrest's men had fought like fiends. They'd licked the Federals, licked them and plundered them and slaughtered them. Now… Now they didn't want to do much more.

Oh, they'd taken the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry's horses. You could never have enough remounts. And they would haul off the half-dozen guns they'd captured. Taking the enemy's cannon was proof of your own triumph. But…

Bedford Forrest tried again: "We've got all these supplies here. We've got all these cartridges. We need to haul' em away."

Nobody felt like listening to him. His soldiers had grabbed what they wanted and what they needed as individuals. Right now, he was the only one who seemed worried about grabbing what his ragtag army wanted and needed.

A lot of Confederates had got into the whiskey the Federals put out to nerve their men. Forrest was angry at himself for not laying hold of that as soon as his troops got into Fort Pillow. He should have known better. He had known better, but he hung back to let his men have their way with the Negroes and homemade Yankees here. Now he was paying for it.

"Hey, General!" somebody called, his voice full of good cheer and tanglefoot. "Look! We brung you your horse!"

They must have led the animal up the side of the bluff. That surely took a lot of work and trouble. If only they would put so much work and trouble into the things that really needed doing. Bedford Forrest seethed. The worst part was, he had to make them think he was grateful. "Thanks, boys," he said as he climbed into the saddle. Maybe getting up there would do some good. A man on horseback was harder to ignore than a man on foot, even a big, loud man on foot.

Forrest rode over a wounded black man. He thought the fellow was dead, but groans and a feeble effort to get away told him otherwise. The horse snorted and sidestepped; it was no more eager to step on a body, live or otherwise, than any other beast would have been.

Down the slope toward the river, a Confederate who must have been talking to some V.S. prisoners said, "You damned rascals, if you had not fought us so hard but had stopped when we sent in a flag of truce, we would not have done anything to you."

"We didn't reckon we could trust you," came the reply, probably from a Negro's throat.

"How could you have done worse than you did?" the Confederate replied.

"Kill all the niggers," another Confederate said-an officer, by the authority in his voice. A gunshot rang out-a tongue of yellow fire stabbing out down there in the darkness. Somebody screamed.

"No!" another officer shouted. "Forrest says take them and carry them with him to wait on him, and put them in jail and send them to their masters."

He was confused, but he had the general idea. Forrest rode to the edge of the bluff and called, "Yes, I do say that! There's been enough killing, dammit."

A startled silence followed. "Godalmightydamn, that really is Bedford Forrest up there," somebody said.

"Yes, it is. Come on up and help take things out of the fort,” Forrest said.

But then someone shouted for him from over near the sutlers' stalls. He started over there. The animal hadn't taken more than three or four strides before more guns barked, down by the Mississippi. A voice floated out of the night: "There's another dead nigger."

Forrest swore softly. He shook his head. The men didn't want to heed him or the officers set directly over them. What could you do? The river had run with blood for two hundred yards when the slaughter was at its height-so someone had told him, anyhow. Maybe that would demonstrate to the Northern people that Negro soldiers could not cope with Southerners.

The horse walked over that colored artilleryman again. His leg was all bloody, and glistened in the flickering torchlight. "What is it?" Forrest called to the lieutenant waving to him from the stalls.

"Sir, I caught this man pilfering goods." The young officer held a pistol on a middle-aged man in civilian clothes.

"Well, what do you need me for?" Forrest said. "Deal with him like he deserves."

"I was not pilfering, by God! " the man said. "I am Hardy Revelle." He struck a pose that suggested Bedford Forrest was supposed to know who he was and what that meant. Forrest stared back stonily. The civilian deflated somewhat. "I am a dry-goods clerk for Harris and Company, whose establishment this is."

"And so?" Forrest growled. "Come to the point and make it snappy, or you'll be sorry."

"After what I've seen today, the murders in cold blood, I am already sorry," Hardy Revelle said. "But I am not pilfering. For one thing, this is my principal's property, so I have more right to it than-" He was likely going to say something like you thieving Rebs, but he thought better of it, which was wise. "-than you do," he finished. "For another thing, one of your captains already made me give him a pair of boots. And then after I did, that there captain took me to General McCullough's headquarters-"

"He's Colonel McCulloch." Forrest bore down hard on the last syllable of McCulloch's name.

"Whoever he is, that's where I went." Hardy Revelle didn't care about the correction. He went on, "His surgeon made me show him where the goods were, and a lieutenant with him made off with a bridle and saddle and some bits, and-"

"Wait." Forrest interrupted again, holding up a hand. "What is the name of Colonel McCulloch's surgeon?"

Hardy Revelle frowned. "Durrell? No, that's not right. Durrett." He nodded. "There. Now I have it. And the lieutenant was a big, gawky fellow called Hay. "

Bedford Forrest nodded, too, for he was convinced. F. R. Durrett was the Second Missouri Cavalry's regimental surgeon, while J. S. Hay was Colonel McCulloch's ordnance officer. That left only one thing unexplained. "All right, Mr. Revelle-you got these things for the officers, like you say-"

"I sure did." Hardy Revelle might have been the very picture of righteousness.

"Well, fine." Forrest sounded mild-till he suddenly pounced: "So what in blazes are you doing here all by your lonesome? Looks like pilfering to me, by God."

"No, sir. No, sirree. Not me." Now the dry-goods clerk shook his head. "I was just keeping things safe, like."

"Sure you were." Forrest laughed. "Tell me another one."

"What do you want me to do with him, sir?" the Confederate lieutenant asked. "Shall I give him what he deserves, like you said?" He made as if to pull the pistol's trigger. Hardy Revelle quailed.

But Forrest said, "No, let him go for now. These really are his goods to keep an eye on. But if you catch him with his hands full later on, bring him to me again, and we'll see if I change my mind." Of course Revelle was pilfering from his boss's stall. But he did it with enough style to amuse the Confederate general instead of angering him.

"Thank you kindly, sir," Revelle said. "Good to see an honest man can still make his way, it is indeed."

"When you find one, let me know," Forrest told him. Hardy Revelle scratched his head. Forrest laughed some more.

Here came that damned horse again. Ben Robinson couldn't do anything to get out of its way. He had to lie there while Bedford Forrest rode over him for the third-or was it the fourth? — time. Forrest was telling somebody how he got rich trading niggers in Memphis, which wasn't exactly what the wounded black sergeant wanted to hear.

Don't step on me, he thought. Please don't. The horse didn't. It had missed him every single time. If it got him, wouldn't that be what they called adding insult to injury? He'd heard the phrase before, but never understood it till now. Getting stepped on by a horse was insulting, sure as hell, and he was already injured.

If he had to get shot to grasp a subtlety of the English language, he would just as soon have stayed ignorant. The wound to his leg hurt worse than anything that had ever happened to him before. It had finally stopped bleeding, or at least slowed down, but he didn't want to do a whole lot of moving around. He was sure that would start it again. Of course, with a gouge bitten out of his thigh he damn well couldn't do a whole lot of moving around.

And, at that, he was luckier than most. He could have been screaming for his mother, the way some horribly wounded soldier down by the Mississippi was. Or he could have been dead, the way so much of the Federal garrison was. Every so often, a new body would thud into the ditch beyond the rampart that hadn't helped.

He must have dozed off, because he almost jumped out of his skin when somebody said, "Here's another one of these goddamn nigger sons of bitches. "

"Well, you take his feet, and I'll take his head, and we'll fling him in the ditch," another Reb said. "The buzzards and the pigs can squabble over who gets more meat off him, and just what he deserves, too."

"Please don't throw me in dat ditch!" Robinson said. "I ain't dead-I'm only shot."

"Hell," one of the Confederates said, at the same time as the other was going, "Aw, shit." The first one added, "We can kill the bastard pretty damn quick. He ain't dead, but he's sure shot. It ain't like he can fight back."

Ben Robinson got ready to try. How he could fight when he couldn't even walk was beyond him, but he aimed to give it his best shot. Maybe he could pull one of them down, and then… And then what? he wondered. Then they shoot me or stick me, that's what. But he couldn't just let them murder him.

"General Forrest says we've killed enough of 'em for now," the second Reb said. Ben had never thought he would bless Bedford Forrest's name, but he did then.

The first trooper said something unflattering to his commanding officer. But he said it in a low voice, as if he didn't want Forrest to have any chance of hearing it. Robinson wouldn't have wanted Forrest to hear anything like that, either. The Reb went on, "Well, what the devil shall we do with him, then?"

"There's that hut over yonder, not too far," his friend answered. "We can tote him over there, leave him for the night, and kill him in the mornin'. Nobody'll give a damn about it then, chances are."

"Sounds like a pretty good scheme," the first trooper said, an opinion Robinson didn't share. "Let's do it."

They half carried, half dragged him to the hut. He bit his lip against the pain, but didn't cry out. He was damned if he wanted to show weakness in front of these white men. His wound did start bleeding again; he felt the warm blood trickling down his leg. But there didn't seem to be that much of it. If he could lie still for a bit, he thought it would stop.

When the Rebs got him inside, they dropped him like a sack of potatoes. He did groan then-he couldn't help it. "So long, nigger," one of the troopers said. They vanished into the night.

In spite of the torment from his wound, Ben Robinson started to laugh. Whites reckoned blacks were stupid. As often as not, that meant whites thought they could talk around blacks as freely as if they were by themselves. And thinking they could talk so freely made whites as stupid in truth as they thought blacks were.

We can put him in the hut. We'll come back tomorrow and kill him. Did Forrest's troopers really imagine he'd stick around once he heard that? If they did, they were dumb as rocks. Maybe they figured he was too badly hurt to move. Any which way, they'd be mighty disappointed when morning came and they found their blackbird had flown the coop.

Robinson still couldn't walk. That didn't mean he couldn't move. He wouldn't stick around here for anything, not if he had to crawl on his belly like a reptile to get away. And he damn near did: he hitched himself along on his elbows and one knee. They'd be raw and bloody before he got very far. He didn't care. He'd be a lot bloodier if he didn't get out while the getting was good.

Which way? he wondered once he made it out of the hut. Up on top of the bluff, the Rebs were still doing whatever they wanted. Things seemed quieter down by the Mississippi. And if rescue ever came, it would come by way of the river. Down, then.

Mosquitoes buzzed around him. They came out at dusk. They'd be worse a little further into spring, but they were bad enough now. He didn't care. Confederates with guns were worse than mosquitoes with pointy beaks.

When he went down the side of the bluff, he went slowly-slowly even for a crawling man. He could have rolled down the steep slope in nothing flat, but he didn't know what he'd fetch up against on the way to the bottom. He wasn't in a hurry. Every minute farther away from the hut and those Rebs felt as if it added another year to his life.

Here and there, wounded men groaned in the darkness. Once, Ben heard someone say, "Oh, shut the hell up, you goddamn nigger son of a bitch bastard!" The noise that followed might have been a rock falling on a pumpkin from a tall roof. It might have been, but it wasn't. It came again and again and again. Then the white man grunted-the sort of animal noise he might have made as he spent himself inside a woman-and said, "He ain't makin' any more noise."

Another Confederate's voice floated out of the dusk: "You heard what Lieutenant Pennell said about killing people, Jack."

"Yeah, I heard it. So what?" Jack answered. "That's Pennell. You gonna tell me a nigger in a Yankee uniform's a person? My ass! A nigger in a Yankee uniform is a snake, is what he is, an' I kill snakes every chance I get."

And snakes'll bite you, too, Ben Robinson thought. He knew damn well he'd killed and wounded his share — more than his share — of Bedford Forrest's troopers, both with the twelve-pounder and in the melee after the Rebs swarmed into Fort Pillow. He knew plenty of other colored soldiers had, too. Yes, they'd lost. But his fellow Negroes hadn't fought any worse than the whites who battled alongside them. The garrison was badly outnumbered, and commanded by a major who wasn't fit to carry General Forrest's boots. Of course they'd lost.

If he lived, if his leg healed up, Ben Robinson was ready to take on the Rebs again. He hated the trooper who'd just beaten a helpless black man to death. He hated him, yes, but he understood him, too. If he got the chance, he'd bite the Confederate States even harder next time.

Ragged wisps of cloud scudded past the moon, now hiding it, now letting it shine down on Fort Pillow. Nearing first quarter, it rode high in the sky, a little west of south. Its pale light would have been better suited to a happier scene, but Bill Bradford couldn't do anything about that.

His head spun. He wasn't so steady on his feet as he wished he were. He'd had to drink a good deal of the vile whiskey he took from the sutler's stall. He'd had to drink a good deal, yes, but he drank a lot less than he pretended to. He might be tiddly, but he wasn't smashed.

The Reb who was supposed to be keeping an eye on him, on the other hand… Bradford eyed the young cavalry trooper. The Confederate was still on his feet. All by itself, that said he was a man of impressive capacity. With so much redeye in him, Bradford knew he would have curled up asleep somewhere, like a cat in front of a fire.

Asleep the Reb was not. He was singing "0, Susanna"-loudly, and out of tune, in a voice most of an octave deeper than the one he used for ordinary speech. If he'd really had a banjo on his knee, Bradford would have plucked it off and broken it over his head.

Then the trooper stopped. He looked at Bradford. "You're not singing," he said, as if he'd noticed only now. He probably had. He'd been caterwauling away himself for quite a while.

"I just put my brother in the ground," Bradford said. "I don't feel like singing."

"You're a lousy homemade Yankee," the Reb said. "I bet you don't know how to shing-uh, sing."

"I sing in the church choir," Bradford retorted. That was true, even if he hadn't done much of it lately.

"Well, la-de-da," said the Reb-his name was Ward, Bradford remembered. "If you sing there, you can sing here." He wasn't too drunk to remember where his rifle musket lay. "You can sing, or I can blow your fucking head off. Who'd miss you?"

Bill Bradford fought the fear that welled up in him. "Your officers told you to keep me safe."

Ward only laughed. "If I tell 'em you tried to run off, nobody'll give a damn. Hell and breakfast, they'll likely promote me. You stupid son of a bitch, don't you understand that everybody in this whole state wants you dead?"

Everybody in this whole state wants you dead. Bradford knew it was an exaggeration. Tennessee did have its share of Union sympathizers-not enough to keep it from seceding, but enough to make trouble for the Confederate authorities. Even so, the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry (U.S.) and other outfits like it were a long way from popular with their neighbors. Ward might be exaggerating, but he wasn't lying.

"I can't sing-it wouldn't be right," Bradford insisted.

"You can if you drink some more." In his own way, the young Reb

was a practical man. Now he picked up the whiskey jug and thrust it at Bradford. "Here. Drink, you lousy, stinking bastard."

Bradford drank-some. Then he put his tongue over the opening and pretended to swallow more. That done, he gave the jug back. "Now you."

"What? You reckon I want to drink with a goddamn Tennessee Tory?" Ward scowled at him. Then he seemed to scowl at himself. "But I drank with you already, didn't I? And I sure do want to drink." By the way his Adam's apple worked, he wasn't pretending to pour the rotgut down. "Ahh!" he said, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "That's the stuff, all right." Bradford hoped he would forget why they were drinking, but he didn't. On a day full of defeats, here was one more. Ward scowled again. "Sing, God damn you."

And so, standing by his brother's grave, William Bradford sang "0, Susanna" with a drunken Confederate cavalry trooper who would sooner have shot him. Tears streamed down his face. Ward never noticed. By God, you'll pay for this-you and Bedford Forest and Jeff Davis, too.

When the song was finally over, Ward looked at Bradford. "Well, you can sing. Who would've thunk it? You may be a lousy, stinking bastard, but you aren't a lousy, stinking, lying bastard, anyways."

"I'm so glad you approve," Bradford murmured. No doubt luckily for him, that went right over the Reb's head. He gestured at the jug. "Have another knock, why don't you?"

"I will if you will," Ward said. "You've got to sing some more, too. You're pretty goddamn good, all right." He picked up the jug and swigged from it, then passed it to Bradford. "Damn thing's almost dry."

And you're still on your feet, goddammit. I thought you'd pass out on me right away. Do you have a hollow leg? Aloud, Bradford said, "I found that one. I expect I can come up with another one if I need to." He also drank-again, less than he pretended to. Pretty soon, the Reb would have to fall asleep… wouldn't he?

Not yet. "Sing," he told Bradford, and launched into "Camptown Ladies." Wincing, nearly sobbing, the Federal officer joined in. The tune was cheerful, even joyous. His mood was anything but.

Another Confederate soldier wandered over and joined in. Not too surprisingly, he had a jug of his own. He was a friendly sort, and willing to share. After a healthy snort, Ward sat down on the ground. "How come you're shtill shtanding?" he demanded of Bradford, his voice thick and slurred.

"I've always had a good head on my shoulders." Bill Bradford wondered why Ward was still breathing, let alone talking and making some sense. The amount he'd put away… He'd pay for it in the morning. But Bradford wanted him to pay sooner than that.

Ward blinked now, his eyes shining in the moonlight, and shook his head. "You had a good head on your shoulders, you wouldn't be a homemade Yankee. You'd be on the right shide inshtead." He yawned, shook his head again as if annoyed at himself, and then wagged a finger at Bradford. "Don't you go nowhere," he warned. But that was the end. He slowly slumped to the ground and slept.

"About time," Bill Bradford breathed. Now he had a chance.

"You there! Jenkins!" That sharp, astringent voice could only belong to Second Lieutenant Newsom Pennell.

"Yes, sir?" Corporal Jenkins fought to sound properly respectful. It wasn't easy. He didn't like Pennell, and it cut both ways. Jenkins belonged to Company A and Pennell to Company F, but the junior officer went out of his way to find things for him to do, and came down on him hard when he didn't do them well enough to suit Pennell's persnickety tastes. That was how it seemed to Jack Jenkins, anyhow. He never stopped to wonder how it seemed to the lieutenant.

Pennell came up to him, there by the riverbank. The officer was almost too skinny to cast a shadow. He had a narrow, disapproving face, and wore a little hairline mustache that made him look like a French fop. Jenkins was used to beards that were beards and mustaches that were mustaches, not one that looked as if it were drawn on with a burnt match.

"We need a better perimeter around the fort," Pennell declared. "How come, sir?" Jenkins asked in honest surprise. "We done took the place."

"Yes, yes," Lieutenant Pennell said impatiently. "We took it, and now we have to make sure no one gets out of it."

"I thought we took care of that pretty good," Jenkins said. "We shot most of the bastards in there. The ones that ain't dead ain't goin' anywhere quick." He hefted his rifle musket. Even the moonlight was enough to show the grisly stains on the stock.

But Lieutenant Pennell ignored them, as he ignored Jenkins's comment. "I am going to send you out to the original line of defense around this place, the one that General Pillow laid out," he said, a certain somber glee in his voice. "You and your fellow pickets will stand watch through the night, allowing no one to pass through unless a Confederate soldier or provided with proper authorization. Is that clear?"

"Why'd you pick on me?" Jenkins didn't add, you son of a bitch, not where Newsom Pennell could hear it, but he thought it very loudly.

"When I saw you there, I thought how useful an underofficer might be among the pickets," Pennell answered.

When you saw me standing here, you reckoned you'd land me with a crappy duty. That's what it is, Jenkins thought. "Thanks a hell of a lot, sir," he said.

"You're welcome." Pennell either didn't notice the sarcasm — Jenkins's guess — or refused to admit that he did. "Now go take your place. God only knows how many Federals are trying to sneak away even as we speak. "

God knows it ain't very many. But, short of bashing in Pennell's brains with the gory rifle musket, Jenkins was stuck, and he knew it. With a martyred sigh, he said, "Yes, sir." He didn't salute as he stomped away from Pennell. If the lieutenant wanted to call him on it, fine. Pennell said not a word.

Even finding Fort Pillow's outer works by moonlight wasn't easy. He might never have done it had he not heard several other disgruntled pickets grousing with one another. They gave the two stripes on his sleeve suspicious looks-they had to wonder if he was coming to make them act like proper soldiers. But when he started discussing Newsom Pennell's unsavory ancestry and inflammable destination, they knew him for a fellow sufferer and relaxed.

One of them had a jug. He was willing to share it. "Leastways you brought a little something out of the fort," another picket said mournfully. "Me, I didn't get no loot a-tall."

"This should've been our chance," another man said. He drew on his pipe. The glowing red coal in the bowl lit up the top of his face from beneath: a strange, almost hellish glow. "Now we're stuck out here, and the others're getting all the goodies."

Jenkins already had some greenbacks and new shoes, and now a knock of whiskey. He didn't know what else he could expect to get, but he joined in the grumbling anyway. When the jug came around again, he took another good swig. Thus fortified, he found a place on the outer line that wasn't too close to anybody else's.

Out in the darkness beyond, a whip-poor-will said its name. Jenkins said Lieutenant Pennell's name, loudly and foully. Nothing was going to happen out here. This was all a waste of time. Here he was, stuck. "I'll pay you back for this, Pennell. See if I don't," he muttered.