Devil's Dream

by Madison Smartt Bell

  Harried by their mounted captors, prisoners from Freeman’s battery ran or tried to run in a herky-jerky slow motion across the field to the water maples lining the riverbank. Something bad was going to happen or already had. Freeman was heavy, used to riding with his caissons; he could not keep the pace. He sank to one knee, blowing in the sodden grass, a Federal soldier turned back, raised a pistol; the captured surgeon there at Freeman’s side threw up one of his hands—Forrest was going to finish his story later, or no, he had already finished it, at Parker’s Crossroads in December, about four months before. Was the past the part that had already happened, the future still to come? That battle would be, had been similar to this one, at least in some of its particulars …

  They’d spent the days around Christmas tearing up railroad track up and down the line between Jackson and Union City, rolling kettledrums and building ghost campfires each night to make their weakness look like strength. Forrest had come into West Tennessee short of two thousand men, and made the Federals believe he had ten times that many. In fact the Federals in the region outnumbered him by five to one and were doing their clumsy best to hem him in against their gunboats on the Tennessee River. Forrest, meanwhile, slipped east toward McKenzie, meaning to hook around and strike the railroad again south of Jackson, if he could avoid a fight till then.

  Year-end weather was miserable with icy rain. Crossing the Obion River they had to use captured sacks of coffee and flour to give the wagon wheels traction through the mud—a sacrifice which depressed the quartermasters. But they still had plunder enough to slow them down and when Forrest saw he was on a collision course with the Federals south of McLemoresville, he concluded to give them a whuppen if they wanted one. The Clarksburg and McLemoresville roads crossed in the front yard of the Reverend John Parker’s house; Forrest sent his brother Bill with his Forty Thieves to lure the Federals under Dunham toward the crossroads. On the morning of New Year’s Eve, he opened fire on Dunham’s line, first with a single cannon rushed to a ridge above the Federal position, and then with Freeman’s and John Morton’s batteries working in close concert. By afternoon the artillery barrage and a couple of charges had separated Dunham from his own cannon and trapped him in a timber lot a little ways south of the Parker house. Forrest sent in a demand for surrender and was resting and waiting for a reply when rifle fire broke in their rear.

  A courier rode up with his horse in a lather to announce that fresh Federal troops under Sullivan had broken in among Forrest’s horse-holders in the peach orchard on the back side of the Parker house. Dunham must have been stalling for this development; from having his enemy surrounded Forrest was now pinned between two lines of hostile infantry.

  “What’ll we do, General?” the messenger panted, and Forrest snapped back at him, “Charge both ways.”

  He drew out the double-edged sword he’d taken at Trenton a week or so back, and spurred up his horse to ride to the rear. Henri followed him, with Kelley and Anderson. At their heels ran men who’d dismounted to do battle with Dunham’s infantry, now desperate to recover their horses from the Federal surprise, but this movement looked less like a charge than a panic.

  In the peach orchard there was a sudden flurry of skirmishing, but Forrest was directing a retreat rather than a real charge, as some of his men did recover their horses; there was still a path open to safety to the east. Sweeping the sword with his left arm, Forrest pointed them the way. As the troops began filtering out of the trees, he steered his horse nearer to Henri’s.

  “Ornery, did I never tell ye?” he began. “Back when I was naught but a shirttail boy, I had me a little spotted pony we called him Whiskey. Smarter’n a whip and mean as a snake. Did I kill me some snakes back in them days? Seem like Bedford County was all over snakes then, specially in the springtime. Copperheads, rattlers, cottonmouth too we used to see … I wouldn’t kill a black snake though, account of a black snake keeps down varmints.”

  Raising his sword, he twisted in the saddle to shout a command to Dibrell, who was forming up men for retreat along the road toward Lexington. Then he returned to Henri with his ordinary speaking tone.

  “It warnt all work back in them days, when we still had that farm on Caney Spring Creek, back afore my Daddy died. Work aplenty, but we had good play times too. They was other boys had ponies round that way and we used to ride all over the county. Hit wasn’t hardly fenced up then, not like it is now.

  “They was one time a pack of dogs took after us. Nigh on a dozen of’m I wouldn’t be surprised, and big, ugly too … the biggest stood might near tall as our ponies. They got to running us and made our ponies run.”

  By now almost all their men had cleared the orchard. Forrest drew up his horse before a corpse splayed on its back: the young cavalier who’d objected to his sharpening the back side of the captured blade at Trenton.

  There was something unlucky about peach orchards, Henri thought, remembering Joe Johnston’s bloody boot. At this season the branches were wiry and bare; horseshoes had scuffed up a few bony pits. Forrest dismounted and planted his sword in the ground by the dead youth’s head.

  “Well now, Orville,” he said. “How’d ye git yoreself kilt back here? I’d sooner thought to find ye forward, up front with the flags.”

  Kelley and Anderson exchanged a glance across his empty saddle. Forrest crouched, considered, then turned back the dead man’s lapel. A whiff of lavender came with the handkerchief he drew from the inside pocket, as if it might have been a lady’s favor. Forrest opened the cloth and covered the dead face. He stood up and shook the dirt from his sword.

  “I never did take to a good-looken feller,” he said with a frown. “I don’t know why that is.”

  Between the orchard and the Parker house was a small cemetery set about with a hedge. Here they halted for a moment, looking down at the weather-worn humps of limestone. Kelley took off his hat and held it to his breast. His pale lips moved in a cold wind from the west. Forrest’s face was still clouded from the meeting with the corpse.

  “I tell ye panic oncet gits started good in a pack of what have ye,” he said, “hit moves like fire afore the wind. Well I know you seen that yore own self plenty of times since we started in fighten these damyankees. That was a mean pack of dogs, that day I named. We all of us boys known’m. Half-wild. Hell I think some of’m was all the way wild. We known them to pull down cattle sometimes …”

  A squad of blue cavalry rode out of the orchard, an officer calling for them to surrender. Forrest turned his horse toward them.

  “I already have done surrendered,” he said. “I’m jest getten my people collected to come in.”

  The Federal officer hesitated. “If you’ve surrendered,” he said, “then why is your sword unsheathed?”

  As if in surprise Forrest glanced down at his left fist gripping the sword hilt. “It’s right handy for explainen folks whar to go at.” He grinned. “Don’t fret—I’ll fetch hit to ye fore ye know it.”

  With that he trotted his horse away around the Parker house toward the crossroads, the other three riders following him. Henri felt a cold spot between his shoulder blades that grew to the size of Jerry’s black skillet. He forced himself not to look back.

  When they’d once faded into the trees south of the roadway, Forrest wriggled his whole spine like a hound stretching. “Boys,” he said, “I thought we was done for, back thar.” But he was addressing Henri alone, for Kelley and Anderson had drifted away. “Goddammit!” Forrest said suddenly. “It’s scarce half an hour they was afixen to surrender to me.”

  John Morton swung in beside them then, his biscuit-pale face warm with action. He and Forrest saluted each other. Henri recalled how Forrest had sent him away when he first appeared to join their company, not wanting Freeman to be troubled by this whey-faced upstart. How Forrest would come to depend on Morton absolutely once Freeman had been killed. But Freeman would not die till April—

  Forrest’s horse reared at the crack of a shot that sound
ed like it had gone off between Henri’s ears.

  “General,” said Morton. “Are you all right?”

  Forrest calmed his mount and took off his hat. A minié ball had notched the brim. “By the hardest,” he said. “That was mighty damn close.”

  “Are we not going to charge them both ways, then?” Henri blurted.

  “Today?” Forrest laughed shortly. “Today we won’t and say we did.”

  TODAY WAS the spring of 1863 and Captain Freeman could not keep up his lumbering run. He sank to one knee, breathless in the trampled pasture short of the bank of the Harpeth River. Doctor Skelton raised his hand to ward off the shot and the bullet passed through the center of his palm before it smashed into Freeman’s face.

  When Forrest overtook the scene, Freeman’s body lay bulky as a bear’s. He got down to raise the dead man’s head; the exit wound was so engulfing it bloodied his arm to the elbow. His face twisted.

  “That’s dirty work by damn,” he said. Tears ran from his eye sockets down into his beard. He would not see Forrest weep again, Henri realized. Not for Lieutenant Gould. Not for his brother Jeffrey. Whose deaths were still to come.

  “By damn I’ll get some for ye,” Forrest said as he withdrew his hand from Freeman’s head. “Goddamme if I don’t.” He wiped his forearm on the flank of his horse, remounted and rode toward the riverbank.

  HE COULD HARDLY believe the dogs could keep up with the panicked ponies, frightened beyond a gallop into a dead run. But some of the dogs were long-legged, tall enough to snap at Forrest’s bare heels. He was riding bareback too, and he could feel himself losing his seat as the pony bucked, kicked at the dogs, landed in still a faster run, leaving Forrest in the empty air behind his whipping tail.

  He landed on his back with a slam, half his breath knocked out of him, but curling up his head automatically so it wouldn’t strike the ground. The dogs scattered, startled by his landing in their midst like a bombshell. A stone came under one hand and he threw it. A stick under the other; he flailed it, screaming in their jaws. Keep up the skeer. The dog pack broke and ran yipping into cover of the thornbushes all around. “Hell,” Forrest said, with his rasping laugh. “Them dogs was more afeart than me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  November 1864

  ACLEAR NIGHT: Orion masterfully striding across the dome of the winter sky. Among the others of Forrest’s escort, Henri and Matthew lay wrapped each in the remaining tatters of his blanket, on the same ground their hobbled horses nuzzled for pale shreds of winter grass. Since they crossed into Tennessee they’d had some kind of fight every day, trying to slow the retreat toward Nashville of the Yankee troops under Schofield and scout their movement and intentions for General Hood at the same time. Just as darkness fell that evening they’d laid an ambush that had thrown the Yankees into disarray, and more than likely they’d be moving again before dawn—maybe toward Mount Pleasant where the Yankees were supposed to have a depot, thinly guarded.

  So Henri should have been taking these couple of hours to soak up all the sleep he could, yet he lay wakeful, eyes open, expectant of something. Forrest’s tent was nearby, its canvas glowing from the orb of a lantern inside, and Henri could hear muttered voices of a conference between Forrest and Majors Anderson and Strange. The tent went quiet when the two officers came out, but Forrest didn’t snuff his light.

  There was something watching from a line of pale and leafless oaks, flanked by dark cedars, and when Forrest’s conference had ended it detached itself and moved softly toward the tent. Man-sized, something familiar in the step. Matthew rolled to a crouch. There’d been rumors for months that Sherman had assassins on Forrest’s trail, though now that Atlanta had fallen to the Yankees, Forrest’s threat to the railroads that ran south from Nashville mattered less than it did before.

  As Matthew darted forward, Henri drew a short knife and went after him. Cold ground shocked the arches of his bare feet. The prowler was beside the tent when he turned quickly, showed his empty hands. The lamp glow through the canvas caught the unscarred side of Benjamin’s handsome head.

  “You were gone,” Matthew hissed, and Ben motioned furiously for silence.

  Henri beckoned them away from the tent. “It’s all right,” he said to Ben. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  All three of them returned among the horses. Matthew’s mount raised its head to snuffle and blow hot air into the bib of Benjamin’s overalls.

  “You were good gone,” Matthew said.

  “Halfway home,” Ben said. “Ain’t it the truth? But I kept feelen that cold down my back. Ain’t right to run off without taken no leave. Ain’t like I was runnen north noway.” He turned sideways, slipping the horse’s muzzle from his chest. “Got no sugar for you today,” he said. “Ain’t got no nothen.”

  Henri found a chunk of cold cornbread in his sack and handed it to Ben, who bit into it sharply, nodding his thanks.

  “He done give free papers to some,” Ben said thickly, through his food. “I knows it. Some from Coahoma plantation same as me.”

  “You came all the way back for a piece of paper?” Henri said. “When you’ve got as good a chance at a hanging noose or a ball between your eyes?”

  “I come back for an understanden,” Ben said. “Look the man in the eye one time. Like he do me.”

  “He never gave me any free paper,” Matthew said.

  “Huh.” Ben looked at him carefully, in the watery light of the winter stars. “You ax for one?”

  “Not exactly,” Matthew said.

  “Come on with me when I goes in there,” Ben said.

  “What makes you think I have any pull with General Nathan Bedford Forrest,” Matthew said. “I’m a thing he owns the same as you.”

  “I ain’t but his slave and he got plenty,” Ben said. “You his blood son. You knows it. He knows it. Everbody knows it. They might not say it but they knows it.”

  Matthew stared at him.

  “You ain’t obliged to say a mumblen word,” Ben told him. “You’ll stand there with me, won’t you?”

  Henri followed them to Forrest’s tent. When the other two were admitted he hung back, but he could see plain enough through the open flap. Forrest was studying maps by the light of his lantern; his papers spread on a folding camp table. He looked at Ben.

  “Brought ye a whole delegation, I see.”

  Ben pulled himself straight and caught his lower lip in his teeth. “Thought you done left me,” Forrest said.

  “Reckon I started,” Ben said. “Next I thought I cain’t do that. I needs to ax leave.”

  “Aint like ye was a sojer,” Forrest said. “You’re a teamster, more like.”

  “Hell if a mule deserts you go after him,” Ben said. “Never mind a man.”

  “Notice I ain’t come after you,” Forrest said.

  Ben laughed almost inaudibly. “Figured you jest hadn’t come yet.”

  “Don’t think I didn’t notice though,” Forrest said, as if he hadn’t heard. “Watching you leave was like seeing birds go before a storm. Low to the ground and fast as a bullet. Hit’s a sign.”

  He laced his fingers behind his head, and looked up at the sag of canvas over his head. “We’ve looked right po’ly for quite a spell, since Atlanta went down, and I know what all Sherman’s doen down to Georgia—I might of stopped that bastard if they let me. But right now, I’d still say we got a chance to whup it. We’re bout to get the drop on Schofield, and if Hood can take back Nashville after that, why boys, hit’s gone be a whole new day.”

  He looked at Ben inquiringly, out from under the deep shade of his brows.

  Ben straightened again. “I come to ax your leave to go home, General Forrest.”

  “All right.” Forrest leaned into his camp table, dug awkwardly at a clean sheet of paper with a pen crabbed painfully in his left hand. He took a long time to finish and sign.

  “Benjamin,” he said. “I’ll give ye this here free paper. No, I won’t say that. I’ll say ye
earned it.”

  Ben reached for the document. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Say hidy to Nancy and the chirren when ye git thar,” Forrest said.

  “I’ll be sure and do that,” Benjamin said. Forrest still held the paper not quite in his reach.

  “If ye’ll wait till morning I’ll have Major Anderson copy it out fair.” Forrest grinned. “Ye know I hadn’t got much of a hand fer writen.”

  “That’s all right,” Benjamin said. “I’ll be more’n happy with what you wrote.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  THE ASHES of Ginral Jerry’s fire had gone cold. He hunkered on his heels, scouring the iron with a handful of sand, without looking at the work his hands were doing. Instead he peered across the dead embers into the hollow of the dead tree there on the hilltop, white-stubbled chin lifted, his watery brown eyes alert.

  From the stump on which he sat, Henri followed the direction of Jerry’s gaze. The candle that sometimes burned in the hollow had gone out—it looked as if the wick had consumed itself all the way to the end, leaving lacy, wraithlike wings of white wax melted to the wood. Around the wax came a cold boneless movement, muscle pouring itself through a loop inside the hollow of the tree. Henri was startled enough that he froze, and his breath stopped for a moment when he realized it was a snake that wore those colored bands. In these parts he could recognize the copperhead, moccasin and rattler, also the green garter snake and the speckled chicken snake. The serpent in the tree was none of these, and Henri could not find its head, to know if it had the wedge shape of a viper. Then presently the snake’s head rose up from a crockery bowl that had been set at the bottom of the hollow place. The head was narrow and its color was duller than the rest, as if it had been dipped in … milk. How would Jerry have come by milk in this country?—which between the Rebels and the Yanks had been scraped as dry as that black skillet scoured with sand. The ribbon of black tongue flicked in, out of the scaled mouth slot. The colored body of the snake dripped off the convolutions of the inner wood, until the whole creature had disappeared into a lower crevice of the tree.