A FEDERAL-A WHITE MAN-begged for his life on his knees in front of Matt Ward. He had no pride. He had no shame. “Please don't shoot me!” he whined. “I don't want to die!”
Tears ran down his terrified face.
“You one 0' them bastards who learned niggers how to fight?” Ward demanded. For any Confederate soldier, that was the unpardonable crime.
“No, sir,” the bluebelly answered. “Swear to God I ain't! My name's Henry Clay, like the big shot from way back when. I'm Company E, Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry.”
A lot of Forrest's men were Tennesseans. They hated the homemade Yankees in the U.S. Thirteenth Cavalry at least as much as they hated Negro soldiers. Because Ward was from Missouri, he didn't hold so much against the white soldiers in blue. They were just damn yankees to him, not brothers and cousins and friends gone wrong.
He gestured with his bayonet. “All right, Henry Clay. Get up. Turn out your pockets. Whatever you've got in there, it's mine now.”
“I don't care,” Clay said. “Take it! I got me about ten dollars in greenbacks, and a couple of silver cartwheels, too. And you can have my spare cartridges-don't reckon I'll need 'em no more.” He was pathetically eager to give Ward everything he owned. “Got me some hardtack here, and some coffee beans.”
“You're a walking sutler,” Ward said. He couldn't do anything with the coffee, not till he had a chance to crush or grind the beans. But he broke a chunk off a hardtack cracker, stuffed it in his mouth, and started to chew. The double-baked dough reminded him one of his teeth wasn't as good as it should have been; it twinged when he chewed. His belly growled. His side always seemed to be on short rations, but the Federals had plenty. After he swallowed, he gestured with his Enfield again. “Go on back to the rear. They'll take care of you there.”
“Thank you. God bless you,” Henry Clay said, more tears drizzling down his cheeks. “You're a Christian gentleman, you are.”
“Go on-git. Keep your hands high,” Ward said. Clay lurched away, south along the bank of the Mississippi.
Do I feel better because I let him live? Ward wondered. He shrugged. He shook his head. The Federal just didn't seem worth killing. It wasn't the same thing at all. Clay was out of the fight now. That would do.
Another blue-clad soldier tried to give up. Ward might have taken his surrender, too, but a Yankee minnie cracked past his head. His own reaction was automatic. He ducked. Even as he was ducking, he pulled the trigger. The Federal screamed. He thrashed on the ground like a snake with a broken back, clutching his belly and crying for his mother. Ward felt bad about that. He hadn't meant to gutshoot the man. Well, no matter what he'd meant, it was done now.
He reloaded as fast as he could. Some of the colored soldiers and Tennessee Tories were still fighting, as that bullet proved. Fewer and fewer U.S. soldiers kept on shooting, though. A lot of them were down. Others went out into the Mississippi, mostly without their weapons, doing whatever they could to get away from Bedford Forrest's men. And quite a few were trying to give up.
Some, like Henry Clay, succeeded. Others, like the fellow Matt Ward shot without even thinking about it, didn't. The ones who died had only their own officers to blame, as far as Ward was concerned. General Forrest told them he couldn't answer for what his own troops would do if he didn't get a surrender right then. The Confederates' blood was up. Considering the men the soldiers in butternut faced, that was as near inevitable as made no difference. Blacks as soldiers… Ward ground his teeth at the very idea-carefully, because the hardtack had shown that that one was tender.
A handful of the bluebellies in the Mississippi were really trying to swim, or at least to float away, letting the current carry them downstream past the C.S. lines. Most just waded out and stayed there. Everybody said ostriches stuck their heads in the sand and left the rest of themselves in plain sight. The Union soldiers were just the opposite. Only their heads stuck out of the water.
Ward aimed at a Negro who had to be unusually tall to have waded as far out into the Mississippi as he had. Before he could fire, somebody else hit the black man. He shrugged. He had plenty of other targets to choose from. He had to swing his rifle musket only a little to the right to bring it to bear on a blond man with a long beard. He fired. The Federal sank into the river.
Bedford Forrest's troopers had already started plundering the enemy. Some of that was rifling pockets, the same kind of thing Ward did to Henry Clay. (The homemade Yankee's name still made him smile.) But much of it was more serious, more essential. Barefoot Confederates stole dead bluebellies' shoes. Troopers in ragged shirts and trousers took what they needed from men who wouldn't be worrying about clothes any more. And fine Springfields lay scattered on the ground like oversized jackstraws. Troopers who'd joined Forrest's force with nothing better than a squirrel gun or a shotgun got weapons as good as any their foes carried.
As good as any their foes here carried, anyhow-Ward silently corrected himself. He longed for a repeating rifle, a Henry or a Spencer. What Confederate cavalry trooper didn't? But the only way to keep a rifle like that in cartridges was to capture them. The Confederate States weren't up to making those fancy brass cases.
Just when Ward thought the fighting was over, it flared up again. A few Federals down here by the riverbank didn't want to give up and didn't think they could get away with surrendering. They seemed bound and determined to take as many Confederates with them as they could.
Ward didn't run toward the new skirmish. Plenty of other troopers were closer to it than he was. He'd already put himself in enough danger for one day. And those coons wouldn't last long any which way.
Sergeant Ben Robinson wondered if he would be the last soldier from Fort Pillow to go down fighting. He could do without the honor; he didn't want to go down at all. Sandy Cole had fallen with a bullet in the right thigh and another in the arm. Charlie Key was shot in the arm, too-if that bone wasn't broken, Robinson had never seen one that was. Aaron Fentis was down with bullet wounds in both legs. He lay groaning somewhere not far away. And somebody'd shot poor Nate Hunter right in the ass.
The little knot of Federals who were still fighting had Bedford Forrest's troopers coming at them from along the Mississippi and from the direction of Coal Creek. More Confederates went on shooting down at them from the bluff. By any reasonable measure, the fight was hopeless.
No matter how hopeless it was, the U.S. soldiers kept on loading and firing, loading and firing. Some were Negroes who'd seen what happened when other colored men tried to surrender. Robinson preferred dying with a gun in his hand to being murdered in cold blood. And some were whites from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry who'd avenged themselves on the Confederates whenever they found the chance and now feared like vengeance would fall on them.
They were a band of brothers now, those last couple of squads' worth of struggling Union soldiers. Race didn't matter any more; neither did rank. Some of them were wounded. Those men loaded Springfields and passed them to others hale enough to use them.
“Here they come!” somebody yelled-the Rebs from the Coal Creek side were dashing forward. The defenders fired a ragged volley of four or five shots to make them keep their distance. The Federals might have wounded one man. Robinson wasn't even sure of that. It didn't matter. The gunshots showed the men in blue hadn't given up. That was enough to stop the Confederate rush.
As if to make up for stopping, one of Forrest's men shouted,
“Gonna kill you bastards!”
“Gonna shoot you!” another Secesh soldier added.
“Gonna stick you!” said another.
Another Confederate flavored his words with almost obscene anticipation: “Gonna stick you sons o' bitches slow and watch you die an inch at a time.” Still others yelled more bloodthirsty endearments.
The white man closest to Ben Robinson grinned crookedly. “Really makes you want to throw down your piece and give up, don't it?”
“Huh!” Robinson said, a syllable half despair, half startled laughter. So many men were down… “Easiest thing to do might be to throw down your piece, all right, an' play possum in wid all the bodies.”
“Good luck,” the white trooper said. “What do you want to bet the Rebs go around and bayonet everybody on the ground? If you aren't dead beforehand, you will be by the time they get through with you.”
“Huh,” Ben said again, on a different note: all despair this time. That struck him as much too likely.
Some other white Tennesseans must have thought their chances were better if they laid down their arms. Two white men walked toward the closest Confederates with their hands in the air. Laughing, Bedford Forrest's troopers let them get close-and then shot them. The Federals' screams were as much of betrayal as of agony, though the Rebs put enough minnies into them to finish them in short order.
“You see?” said the trooper by Robinson. “Reckon I do,” the Negro answered.
Less than a minute later, a minnie thudded into the white man's chest. He fired one last shot at the enemy and died in grim, defiant silence. Only a few U.S. Springfields were still firing. The Confederates drew closer and closer.
Robinson was in the middle of reloading when a C.S. trooper shouted, “Drop it, nigger! Drop it right now, or I'll shoot you down like the mad dog you are.” The man had friends behind him. All of them were aiming their rifle muskets at the colored sergeant. A wild charge with the bayonet would just get him killed.
All the brave resolve leaked out of him. He let the Springfield fall in the mud. The Confederate hadn't said he'd kill him if he did surrender. Slowly, Robinson raised his hands.
Grinning and laughing, Forrest's trooper shot him.
“Do Jesus!” Robinson screamed, and fell heavily to the ground. Somebody might have dipped his right leg in tar and set it on fire-it hurt that much.
“That'll learn you, you damn coon,” said the soldier in butternut. “Just what you deserve. You try takin' up arms against white men, you pay. You'd fuckin' best believe you pay. You hear me?”
Only a groan came from Ben Robinson's lips. The Reb didn't seem to care. He walked on, looking for somebody else to kill. Robinson lay where he'd fallen, writhing and thrashing. He'd never imagined anything could hurt so bad. He clutched his thigh with both hands, as tight as he could. His own hot blood leaked out between his fingers. It leaked, yes, but it didn't flood. Litde by litde, as his stunned wits began to work again, he realized it wasn't a fatal wound unless it festered.
I'll live, he thought. Right at the moment, everything hurt so much, he wasn't sure he wanted to. A U.S. physician would have dosed him with opium or laudanum, or at least with a big slug of corn squeezings, to ease the pain. He didn't suppose a Secesh doctor would give him the time of day, let alone a painkiller. For one thing, the Rebs didn't have much in the way of medical supplies for their own wounded. For another, he was black. They were more likely to give him a bullet to bite on-or one through the head-than laudanum.
Robinson tried holding still, wondering it that would ease him. It didn't, not even a little. And even if it would have, he couldn't do it. He had to move, and to keep moving. His pain insisted on it. Moving, of course, held dangers of its own. Several Confederate soldiers stalked past him. Anyone of them could have decided to finish him off, but none did. Maybe they enjoyed seeing him wriggle and hearing him moan. He wondered about that only later. At the moment, he just thanked heaven.
“Hey, you! Hey, nigger!” The shout came from far away. For a while, Ben Robinson had no idea it was meant for him. Plenty of other colored soldiers were still alive. But then the cry came again: “Hey, nigger! Yeah, you down by the water, the one with the leg!”
He looked toward the top of the bluff. A couple of Forrest's troopers up there were staring down at him. They might have been soaring vultures staring down at a dying donkey. He waved to show he heard them. He didn't want to do that, but he was afraid they would start using him for target practice if he didn't.
One of the Rebs cupped his hands in front of his face. “Come on up here, boy!” he yelled.
“I can't!” Robinson yelled back. “I been shot!”
“You better, Sambo,” the Confederate said. “You don't want to get shot some more, you goddamn well better.”
They could hit him at that range with no trouble at all. He'd seen them hit men who'd waded out into the river, who were farther away than he was and exposing less of themselves. “I try,” he said. Could he crawl? How much would the wound bleed if he let go of it? But that, suddenly, wasn't the biggest worry on his mind. How much would he bleed if they shot him again, and where would they? His belly? His head? He could get better after this wound. Another one might well do him in.
“Come on, nigger! Get movin'.” One of the troopers at the top of the bluff started to raise his weapon.
Ben Robinson crawled. He was slow and awkward-even crawling, he couldn't put much weight on the injured leg. Dragging it along the ground hurt like a son of a bitch, too. He bit down on the inside of his lower lip till he tasted blood. Tears streamed down his face. He might have been climbing one of the tall mountains out West, not a riverside bluff.
Getting to the top took more out of him than fighting all day had. Of course, nobody'd put a hole in his leg when he was serving the twelve-pounder and trying to hold the Rebs out of Fort Pillow, first with the worm and then with a Springfield.
The Confederates who'd summoned him scowled fiercely. One was tall and skinny. The other was short and skinny, and so young that pimples still splotched his dirty face. The short one had breath that might have come from an outhouse. When he opened his mouth to speak, Robinson saw that two of his front teeth were black. He came straight to the point: “Give me your money, you damned nigger.”
“Money?” Robinson said. “I ain't got no money.” That wasn't true, but the words came out of themselves. He hoped the Rebs wouldn't kill him if they found out he was lying.
“Give me your money, or I will blow your brains out,” said the soldier with the bad teeth and the horrible breath.
“Hell, Rafe, he's just a nigger. He don't have no brains,” the other trooper said. By his loud, braying laugh, he wasn't long on brains himself.
“I ain't got none to give you,” Ben Robinson repeated. If he changed his story now, that would make them angry. No, angrier.
“Ought to shoot the son of a bitch anyways,” Rafe said. “We shoot all the uppity niggers, the rest'll cipher out they better not mess with us.”
“His clothes are pretty good. Let's take what all he's got,” said the other soldier, the tall one. He gestured with his rifle musket. “Lay down, you.”
Robinson obeyed. In truth, he couldn't have stayed on hands and one knee much longer anyhow. The Rebs pulled off his shoes. They both tried them on, and swore when they found out the heavy leather brogans were too big for Rafe and too small for his pal, whose name turned out to be Willie. The Confederates didn't give them back after that. They tossed them aside so other troopers could try them on if they wanted to.
“Skin out of your pants, boy,” Willie said.
“Do Jesus!” Robinson said. “What you want my pants for? They got bullet holes in 'em, an' I been bleedin' all over 'em.” They had his money, the money he'd denied owning.
“Skin out of 'em,” Willie repeated. “Blood washes out in cold water, and even with holes in 'em they're better'n what we're wearin'.”
He wasn't wrong. His own trousers were out at both knees, and inexpertly patched in several other places. Rafe's were worse. One of his trouser legs simply ended halfway between knee and ankle. The other was a tapestry of holes all the way up, including a big one in the seat that displayed his dirty drawers.
Sure the Rebs would kill him if he disobeyed and hoping to live, Ben Robinson undid his belt buckle and slid the pants off. He hissed with pain when he tugged them down over the wound. With the trousers gone, he got his first good look at it. Somebody might have gouged a finger-sized groove in the outside of his thigh. Getting shot was never good, but it could have been a lot worse. I ought to get over this, he thought. It's only a flesh wound.
He wouldn't get better if they shot him again or if they used their bayonets. And they could. Oh, yes. They could.
Rafe went through his pockets. He came out with a handful of greenbacks and some silver. “Ha!” he said triumphantly. “I knew the nigger son of a bitch was lying!” He kicked Robinson in the ribs.
“Ow!” Robinson howled, and wrapped his arms around himself. He was acting, acting for his life. Rafe could have kicked him harder. If he didn't pretend to be hurt, Forrest's trooper might decide to make sure he was.
“Hey,” Willie said. “Half o’ that money's mine.”
“Hell you say,” Rafe told him. “I found it.”
“I was the one that said we ought to halloo the coon up here,”
Willie retorted. “Try finding money in the pockets of niggers who ain't here, you're so damn smart.”
“Ought to be mine,” Rafe whined.
“I ain't askin' for all of it. I ain't greedy like some folks,” Willie said. “But you try and steal from me, I'll beat the living shit out of you, and I'm big enough to do it, too.”
Rafe reluctantly handed over some greenbacks and coins. With a smug nod of thanks, Willie stuck the money in a pocket of his disreputable pants. The Rebs worried about stealing from each other. Neither one of them cared about stealing from a Negro. Sergeant Robinson didn't point that out. The less attention Forrest's troopers paid to him, the less likely they were to shoot him or stick him or knock him over the head.
Confederate soldiers weren't just robbing blacks. They were stealing from white Federals, too, stripping dead and wounded troopers from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry (U.S.). One wounded white man who made a feeble protest got his teeth knocked out with a rifle butt.
Rafe and Willie dragged Robinson toward several bodies lying close together on the ground. Fear rose up in a choking cloud inside him-were they going to finish him off now? But the minnie or bayonet thrust didn't come. They hurried off to see what other loot they could garner.
Ben Robinson lay where they'd left him. As long as he stayed quiet near dead bodies, maybe Forrest's troopers would think he was dead, too, and leave him alone. Then he noticed he was lying next to Major Booth's corpse. The dead commandant stared at him out of dull eyes. Robinson wanted to reach out and close them; that set, unwavering gaze unmanned him. But he couldn't make himself touch the body. He turned his back on it instead.
Secesh soldiers had already stripped Booth's corpse. He wore only undershirt and drawers. Now that Robinson thought back on it, he'd seen a Reb sporting a tunic with a lot of brass buttons on it.
If that sharpshooter's bullet hadn't found the major… Robinson swore softly. Too late to worry about it now. Too late to worry about anything now, except-if God proved kinder than He'd shown himself to be thus far-surviving.
“Surrender? Hell, no, you fucking son of a bitch! You ain't gonna surrender!” a Confederate trooper yelled, and fired at Bill Bradford from no more than fifty feet away. The bullet cracked past the major's head. Bradford turned and ran while the Reb swore. The man who'd led the defense of Fort Pillow didn't know whether he led a charmed life or a cursed one. Every Secesh soldier wanted to shoot him on sight, but so far none of their bullets had bitten.
Not knowing what else to do, he darted into the Mississippi, even though wading out into the river hadn't done his men much good. The water was cold. He waded and floundered and dog-paddled out some fifty yards, then paused, panting and treading water. He could taste the Mississippi mud in his mouth, and prayed it wouldn't be the last thing he ever tasted.
“There he is!” a Reb shouted. “That's Bradford! “
“Blow his head off!” cried another soldier in gray.
An officer pointed out to him. “Come ashore, Bradford, if you know what's good for you! “
“Will you spare me?” Bradford asked. The officer just pointed again, peremptorily. They would surely kill him if he stayed out in the Mississippi. Sobbing from fear and exhaustion, he made his way back toward the riverbank. No sooner had he got to where the water was only waist-deep, though, than the Confederates started shooting at him again. He yelped in fright as bullets flew by and splashed into the water. Again, though, none hit.
The officer who'd ordered him ashore and several others stood around watching the sport. They didn't do a thing to stop it. Sobbing, Bradford dashed up onto the muddy land and started running up the hill. He pulled a soaked handkerchief from his pocket and waved it, again trying to give up. More bullets cracked past him.
At last, he almost ran into a Rebel trooper coming down to the riverside. The Confederate leveled his rifle musket at Bradford's brisket. “Give it up, you Yankee bastard!” he yelled.
“I surrender! Oh, dear, sweet Jesus Christ, I surrender!” Bradford threw his hands in the air as high as they would go. He had never imagined he could be so glad to yield himself.
Then the Reb recognized him. “You!” Now that Forrest's trooper knew the man he'd caught, he looked ready to end Bradford's career on the instant. But he didn't pull the trigger after all. Instead, greed lighting his face, he said, “Turn out your pockets, damn you!”
“I'll do it.” Bradford did, without the least hesitation. Being robbed seemed much better than being killed. “Here you go, friend.” He handed the Confederate more than fifty dripping dollars. If he held back a double eagle… Well, you never could tell when twenty dollars in gold might come in handy.
“I ain't no friend of yours,” his captor said, snatching the bills and coins out of his hands. A nasty smile spread across the Reb's face. “No, I ain't no friend of yours, but I like your money just fine.”
“Take it, then, and welcome,” Bradford said. He could always make more money. He sneezed. The wind on his soaked clothes chilled him to the bone.
Forrest's trooper gestured with the muzzle of his rifle musket. “Up the hill you go, Bradford. I'd shoot you my own self, but I reckon there's others who want you even worse'n I do-starting with the menfolk whose women your damn traitors outraged.”
Bradford licked his lips. He tasted more mud; his mustache was wet. But his tongue and the inside of his mouth were dry with fear. “I never gave orders for anything like that,” he got out.
“Yeah, likely tell, likely tell,” the Confederate jeered. “Now let's
hear another story-one I'll maybe believe.”
“Before God, it's the truth.” Bradford held up his right hand, as if taking an oath. The soldier in butternut laughed. It wasn't a goodnatured, mirthful laugh. A cat with a human voice might have laughed like that playing with a cornered mouse. The Reb urged Bradford up the side of the bluff again. Shivering, Bradford went.
It was the truth. No one-no one in his right mind, anyway, ordered his men to abuse the women on the other side. But, as Bradford knew and as Pontius Pilate must also have known long ago, there was truth, and then there was truth. West Tennessee was and always had been a Rebel stronghold. Forrest's trooper called the soldiers of the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry (U.S.) traitors. To Bradford's way of thinking, the men who were trying to break the Union in half were the real traitors.
If you stayed loyal to the United States, what did you do about treason? What could you do about it? You could put it down, that was what. If somebody wanted to see the Stars and Stripes cut down and the Stainless Banner flying in their place, what were you supposed to do? Stand by and watch while he took up arms against your country-against the country? Bradford shook his head as he climbed the steep slope. He didn't think so.
And sometimes the game got rough. It got rough on both sides. Plenty of men under his command had had relatives bushwhacked, houses burned, livestock killed or driven off. If they paid the Confederates back in the same coin, who could blame them? Not Bill Bradford, not for a minute. He wanted to make it hard on the Rebs, to remind them they were facing a power strong enough to defend itself, a power strong enough to make anyone who defied it sorry.
Some of the things that happened didn't happen officially. Taking women out behind the barn and doing what you wanted with them – to them – fell in that category. No, nobody would order it. But if you owed vengeance to a particular Reb, if you knew who he was, if you knew where his kin lived, wouldn't you do whatever you could to pay him back? Of course you would.
Some of the soldiers who did things like that bragged about them. Bradford had heard them going on about what they'd done. They fell silent when they noticed him, but often not soon enough. Had he done such things, he would have kept quiet about them till people shoveled dirt over his grave. But he was a lawyer-he knew that talking about something often made it twice as real. Being a lawyer, he also tended to forget that things stayed real even without testimony about them.
As he regained the top of the cliff, he saw a Negro wearing only shirt and drawers lying next to a white man who'd had all his outer clothes stolen. The colored soldier stirred. The white man never would, not till the Judgment Trump blew: Major Bradford recognized Lionel Booth.
Had the Rebs stripped Theodorick the same way? Bradford couldn't stand the idea. He hurried toward the place where Theo had fallen. “Where do you think you're going, you goddamn son of a bitch?” snarled the Confederate who'd captured him.
“To see my brother's body,” he answered, not slowing in the slightest. “Wouldn't you do the same for yours?”
The Confederate didn't answer. He also didn't fire. Bradford strode through the chaos of the sack of Fort Pillow. Rebs were busy stripping bodies and plundering sutlers' huts, stealing from the United States all the things their own gimcrack government couldn't give them.
Horrible screams rose from a tent the Federals had been using as a hospital for their wounded. Mixed in with them were shouts of hoarse, drunken laughter. Some of Forrest's troopers must have got into the whiskey Major Booth had ordered put out to fortify the garrison's courage. A couple of soldiers in butternut lurched from the tent. They both carried cavalry sabers dripping blood.
“You scalped that coon just like an Injun would!” one of them told the other. They both thought that was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. They had to hold each other up, or they would have fallen on their faces.
An officious-looking young Confederate second lieutenant rushed over to Bradford. “Where do you think you're going?” he demanded.
Then, recognizing the man to whom he spoke, he did a classic double take. “You!”
“He said the same thing.” Bradford jerked a thumb back over his shoulder at the trooper behind him. “I think I'm going to tend to my brother's body, that's what, and see that he gets Christian burial. You are a Christian, I hope?” By the way he said it, he had his doubts.
“I ought to blow your head off right here,” the lieutenant said, scowling. If he was a Christian, he didn't believe in turning the other cheek.
“I have surrendered. This gentleman accepted my surrender.” Bradford pointed to the trooper again. “If you care to make yourself infamous before God and man, pull the trigger. I shall not run.” Soaked and weary though he was, he struck a pose. He'd pleaded for lives before, but never for his own. All the courtroom tricks he'd used for others came back to help him now.
He succeeded in confusing the lieutenant, anyhow. “Don't you go nowhere,” the youngster squeaked.
“I am going to find my brother's body,” Bradford insisted. “I am going to see him properly buried.” And what I do after that is nobody's business but my own. When the Confederate lieutenant didn't tell him no, his hopes began to rise.
Mack Leaming lay where he'd fallen. He'd stuffed a pocket handkerchief into the hole below his shoulder blade. The linen square was soggy with blood now, but he did think he was losing less than he had before.
Secesh soldiers and their Federal captives scampered down the side of the bluff and trudged up it. Confederates plundered the dead and robbed the living. They weren't murdering so many as they had in the mad moments after the fort fell, but they hadn't stopped, either. A Negro dashed down to the Mississippi and tried to take refuge in the river. One of Forrest's troopers shot him just as he splashed into the water. His blood mingled with the greater flow of the stream.
Two more Confederates ran over and pulled him out of the water. “Come on, you stinking shitheel!” one of them shouted. “Get up and walk!”
Whatever the Negro said, Leaming couldn't make it out-it was too feeble. “You'd better get up, or you'll never have another chance,” the second Reb warned. The Negro managed to reach his hands and knees. Both Confederates laughed. “He crawls like a dog,” the second one said.
“He can die like a damned dog.” The first Reb put a revolver to the Negro's head and fired once. The colored soldier flopped down, dead. Bedford Forrest's men walked off, laughing still.
A soldier in ragged gray crouched down by Lieutenant Leaming.
“Got any greenbacks, Yank?” he asked hoarsely.
Groaning with the effort, Leaming reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Here,” he said, biting his lip against the pain. “Take it. Can I have some water, please?”
He might as well have saved his breath. The Reb was too busy counting his loot to pay any attention to the man the loot came from. “… Sixty… eighty… ninety… ninety-five… a hundred… a hundred an' one… two… three,” the trooper said in an awed voice. “A hundred an' three dollars! Goddamn! I'm rich!” He let out a whoop of joy. Then, like a fox that wanted more than one chicken from the coop, he stared hungrily at Leaming again. “All that money! What else you got?”
“Water?” Leaming said again. His throat felt rough as shagreen.
Forrest's trooper didn't care. He frisked the Union officer with ungentle hands, and whooped again when he found Leaming's gold watch. It disappeared into his pocket, along with its heavy golden chain. “Godalmightydamn!” he said, as reverent a blasphemy as Leaming had ever heard. “Wish I had me more days like this here one since I joined up. I am a made man, I am. If you wasn't so ugly, I'd kiss you. “
“Give me water,” Leaming told him. “I don't need a kiss.” Maybe because he was still bleeding, he felt drier every minute. He wondered how long he could last. It seemed to matter only in an abstract way, which probably wasn't a good sign.
He might have been a bank to the Confederate soldier, but he wasn't a human being. The Reb got to his feet. “I find me another Federal even half as loaded as you are, reckon I'm set for life.” Away he went, whistling the “Battle Cry of Freedom.” Both sides used that tune in this war, though they set different words to it. The U.S. chorus went,
The Union forever; Hurrah, boys, Hurrah!
Down with the traitor; up with the star.
While we rally 'round the flag, boys,
Rally once again.
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
By contrast, the Rebs sang,
Our Dixie forever; she's never at a loss
Down with the eagle, up with the cross.
We'll rally' round the bonnie flags,
We'll rally once again,
Shout, shout the battle cry of Freedom.
To the Confederates in Fort Pillow, freedom seemed to mean freedom to loot. Another Secesh soldier called on Leaming a few minutes after the first one left. “Give me your money, you lousy Tennessee Tory, or you'll be sorry,” he said.
“Then I'll have to be sorry,” Leaming answered. “Another one of your fellows already took everything I had. “
“Now tell me one I'll believe,” the Reb said, and searched him with practiced ease that suggested he was either a sheriff or a bandit by trade. Leaming knew which way he would have bet. The Confederate swore when he found Leaming was telling the truth. “Well, I'll get something for myself, anyways,” he said, and stripped off Leaming's shoes. They proved too small, which made him swear again.
Then he cheered up a little. “Maybe I can swap 'em with somebody else who's got a bigger pair.”
“If you are a Christian man, please let me have some water,” Leaming said.
“I am a Christian man, and I hope to go to heaven,” the C.S. trooper replied. “But if we met in hell and you were on fire, I'd give you kerosene instead of water. That's what you deserve, you cowardly Yankee piece of shit, for putting guns in niggers' hands and making, em think they can rise up against their masters. God and Bedford Forrest will punish you for that.”
He didn't say whether he trusted more in the Deity or his commanding officer. He did go away, Leaming's shoes in his hand.
The right side of his torso one vast stabbing ache, Leaming lay where he had fallen. He looked up at the sky. The sun was sinking toward the western horizon, but hadn't got there yet. He wondered if he would die before it did. So much had happened so fast. Only a few hours earlier, he was parleying with Nathan Bedford Forrest himself. He'd never imagined it would come to this, to Fort Pillow lost, to finding out what having a bullet hole in him was like.
He grimaced. Some kinds of knowledge were too dearly bought. He'd always been a bright and curious man, but this once he wouldn't have minded ignorance.
A shadow fell across his face. It wasn't a vulture circling close to see if he was dead yet, although the way he felt he wouldn't have been surprised if it were. Not a vulture with feathers, anyhow: another Reb, seeing if he had anything worth stealing.
The Confederate soldier gave him a rueful grin. “Looks like I'm just about too late,” he said. “My pals done took all the good stuff off'n you.”
“Water?” The more Leaming asked for it, the more he was refused, the more he craved it.
He asked in vain again. The Reb might as well not have heard him. “Reckon I can get more use out of them trousers'n you ever will,” he said. “Hike your bottom up so's I can get' em off you.”
“I'm wounded,” Leaming got out through clenched teeth.
“I can see that-it's why I don't want your damned tunic,” Forrest's trooper said. “Ain't nothin' wrong with your pants, though – hardly any blood on them. So hike up and let me have 'em.”
Leaming's wound mattered to him only in so far as it made thievery inconvenient. The Federal officer didn't – couldn't – hike up. His tormentor stole his trousers anyway. Leaming begged for water one more time. He might as well have talked to a deaf man. The Confederate went right on ignoring his pleas. He thought of trying to shame the man, thought of it and decided not to. The trooper who'd stolen his shoes had his own brand of righteousness, however twisted it seemed to Mack Leaming. This fellow might also. And if he did, he might decide to use bullet or bayonet to silence what he didn't want to hear.
And even with the anguish of his wound, Leaming wanted to live. He aimed to die at home, at a ripe age, surrounded by a large and loving family. This muddy bluffside in the flower of his youth? This had nothing to do with what he had in mind. What God had in mind for him… he asked himself more and more often as the sun slid toward setting.