Fort Pillow

by Harry Turtledove

  “You're a civilian?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Don't look like no soldier, do I?” Bradford said. Technically, as the lawyer's side of his mind noted, that wasn't a lie. It also wasn't a direct answer to the question.

  That wasn't the reason it didn't satisfy the Rebel officer. “You weren't shooting at us earlier today?” Some of the sutlers had picked up Springfields and joined Fort Pillow's garrison. Much good it did them.

  As for Bradford, he shook his head. “Not me,” he said. “I'm a what-do-you-call-it-a noncombatant, that's the word.” As soon as he spoke, he started to worry. An attorney would know that term, but would a sutler?

  “Yeah, sure you are,” the Confederate jeered. But then he shook his head. “What else are you going to say? I can't prove you're a liar, so get the hell out of here.”

  “Thank you kindly, sir,” Bradford said. The lieutenant just gestured impatiently. Touching one finger to the brim of his hat in what wasn't quite a salute, Bradford hurried away. He kept looking down at the muddy ground, as if to avoid stepping into a puddle or tripping over a corpse. And he didn't want to do either of those things, but most of all he didn't want to be recognized. If the Rebs should catch him now, in civilian clothes, violating his parole… Whatever happened to him after that, they could claim he deserved it.

  “Come on, you men! What are you standing around for?” The loud, angry voice that split the night made Bill Bradford flinch as if the cat o' nine tails had come down on his back. There stood Nathan Bedford Forrest himself, not twenty feet away, still trying to get work out of his men at a time when almost any victorious officer would have let them relax and savor what they'd done. If he turned around and saw Bradford, everything came to pieces.

  But he didn't. Someone said, “Sir, we've found some more crates of cartridges over here. “

  “Have you, by God?” Forrest sounded delighted. “We'll bring' em away with us. Can't very well fight a war without minnies. Let's see what you got.” Despite a limp, his long legs ate up the ground as he strode over to look at his men's latest prize.

  And Bill Bradford scurried across the plank bridge the Confederates had thrown across the ditch outside the rampart. How many Federals, white and black, lay in the ditch waiting for somebody to shovel dirt over them? I spared Theo that fate, anyhow, Bradford thought. He won't lie in a mass grave with a nigger on top of him.

  Someone groaned. Bradford's blood ran cold again. He thought the sound came from the ditch below him, though he couldn't be sure. If the Rebs set prisoners to burying those bodies, would they be burying some men alive? He would never know.

  His shoes stopped reverberating on the planks. They thumped on the dirt beyond. He blew out a great sigh of relief. Now that he'd made it this far, the Rebs were much less likely to know him even if they saw him. And they were much less likely to see him-torches out here were few and far between.

  For the first time since Theodorick fell, he began to hope. He might get away. He might yet live to avenge his brother. As quickly and quietly as he could, he headed away from the bluff and out toward Gideon Pillow's long-abandoned first perimeter.

  Corporal Jack Jenkins hated everything and everybody. He'd always hated homemade Yankees and runaway slaves who thought they were soldiers. He'd fed the fires of that hatred today, fed them and slaked them at the same time. He didn't know how many men he'd killed in the fight for Fort Pillow. He did know the number wasn't small.

  And he knew one more man he wouldn't mind killing: Lieutenant Newsom Pennell, the miserable, no-good son of a bitch who'd exiled him here. Napoleon on whatever the name of his island was couldn't have been in a more miserable, more godforsaken spot. Did Napoleon have to worry about muddy boots and owls hooting like mournful ghosts in the tall trees? Jenkins didn't think so.

  He wanted to wander off and see if that other sentry had some more popskull in his canteen. And he wanted to curl up right where he was and go to sleep. Only one thing held him back: animal fear of Nathan Bedford Forrest. If he broke regulations and something bad happened and Forrest found out about it… He shuddered. He didn't want to think about that.

  And so he held his ground, certain he was holding it needlessly. Who would come out of the dark from the torch-lit bluff by the river? His own forces had a road, or at least a path, they were using, and it took them nowhere near him. That was all right. He didn't much want to see anybody.

  As for prisoners, they would have to be lunatics to try to get away. They'd managed to get captured by men who would rather have killed them. Why would they risk that now? If they had any sense, they would be on their knees thanking God for every breath they took.

  And then, just when a yawn stretched and wriggled and looked around to see if it was safe to come out, he heard soft, quick footsteps coming his way. His hands tightened on his rifle musket. So somebody was trying to sneak by after all, was he? I'll fix the bastard! Jenkins thought.

  There he was in the moonlight-some skulking shitheel with his hat pulled down low. “Halt!” Jenkins called. “Who goes there?”

  The footsteps stopped. The man looked wildly this way and that, trying to see where the voice was coming from. He couldn't; Jenkins stood in deep shadow. The corporal wondered if he would have some more shooting to do after all. If that fellow started to run, he'd never make another mistake afterwards.

  He must have realized the same thing because he stayed where he was. “My name's, uh, Virgil Simms,” he said shakily. “I was a sutler at the fort. They said I could go, so I'm getting out of here before they change their mind. “

  “Who's 'they'?” Jenkins demanded.

  “One of your officers-I think he was a lieutenant,” the sutler said. “I didn't ask what the devil his name was. I just went.”

  “Well, Simms, advance and be recognized.” The automatic military phrases fell naturally from Jack Jenkins's lips.

  He heard Virgil Simms's breath catch. Slowly and reluctantly, the other man came forward. He got within about fifteen feet of Jenkins before he stopped and said, “Where are you? I can't see you.”

  Jenkins stepped out into the light. The sutler gasped again. Jenkins brandished his rifle musket, enjoying the way the cold, pale moonbeams glittered off the bayonet's polished steel. By the way Virgil Simms gulped, he didn't enjoy it one bit. “You can see me now, by God,” Jenkins said. “Come on over here and let me get a look at you.“

  Even when Simms did, Jenkins couldn't see much. The brim of the sutler's slouch had shadowed his face. His clothes didn't fit him very well, but Jenkins's clothes didn't fit him very well, either. His nose wrinkled; Simms was long overdue for a bath.

  “Wonder if I ought to take you back to that lieutenant,” Jenkins said musingly.

  “Whatever you want to do.” The sutler didn't sound very happy. Then again, Jenkins wouldn't have been happy hearing that, either. After a moment, Simms went on, “Long way back in the dark. I almost broke my neck a couple times getting this far. “

  “Yeah.” Jenkins had tripped and almost fallen two or three times coming out to take his sentry's post. He didn't really want to go back to Fort Pillow again. He'd just thrown out the words to see if he could rattle Virgil Simms's cage. “Hell with it,” he muttered, and then spoke louder: “All right, pass on. Reckon you won't be dumb enough to go on selling shit to the goddamn Federals from here on out.”

  “Not me.” Simms held up his right hand as if taking an oath. “I have plumb learned my lesson.”

  Jenkins gestured with his rifle musket. “Get the hell out of here, then.”

  The sutler touched a finger to the brim of his hat. He walked out past the old perimeter to Fort Pillow, and hadn't gone more than a few paces before a cloud passed in front of the moon. Darkness swooped down on the world. By the time the moon came out again, Simms had disappeared into the woods beyond the fort. Jenkins ducked back into his shadow and waited to see if anyone else would come along.

  “What time is it getting to be?” Nathan Bedf
ord Forrest asked.

  Captain Anderson pulled out his pocket watch. “Sir, it's getting close to eight,” he said.

  “Thanks. That's about what I reckoned from the moon,” Forrest said. “Where in blazes is that damned Major Bradford, then? How long does he need to bury his blasted brother?”

  “His brother was blasted, by God,” Black Bob McCulloch said. Pausing to scratch at his thick, dark beard, the brigade commander went on, “Captain Bradford, whatever the hell his name was-”

  “Theodorick,” Anderson said helpfully.

  “I knew he had some kind of damnfool handle,” McCulloch said.

  “His brother the major had him signaling down to the New Era. When we broke into the fort, Theo-whatever took three or four minnies all at once. He died quick, anyway.”

  “And he's getting buried slow,” Forrest growled. “Either Bill Bradford's taking his own sweet time or he's gone and flown the coop on us.“

  “If he has, we better not catch him again.” McCulloch tilted back his head and slashed a thumb across his throat.

  “Well, we won't find out standing around gabbing about it. Let's go look.” Forrest drummed the fingers of his left hand against his thigh. “I felt sorry for the man, even if he is a Tennessee Tory, on account of I know what he's goin' through. But if he went and took advantage of me after that…” Those fingers drummed some more, ominously.

  “And of me,” Colonel Robert McCulloch added. “I'm the man who's holding his parole. If he ran off…” His big hands folded into fists.

  “Come on,” Forrest said. “His precious Theo was laying over here somewheres. “

  He didn't need much prowling before he found a freshly dug grave. Next to it, he found a cavalry trooper sound asleep-or rather drunk and passed out, for he stank of whiskey. There was no sign of Major William Bradford. Forrest started to kick the trooper right where it would do the most good. Before he could bring his booted foot forward, Captain Anderson said, “What do you want to bet Bradford fed him all the tanglefoot he could hold, and a little more besides?”

  Forrest left the kick undelivered. “I bet you're right, dammit. Hell, of course you are,” he said, angry at himself now. “We knew all along he was a sneaky son of a bitch. We should have watched him closer. Easy enough for him to make one private act the fool and then take off.” He drank whiskey himself only rarely, for medicinal purposes; he knew what it did to a man who liked it too well.

  Colonel McCulloch bent down and shook the trooper. “Come on, Ward! Wake up!” he said.

  The cavalryman- Ward-muttered and stirred. Slowly, his eyes came open. “Wahsh up?” he asked blearily.

  “That's what we want to find out,” Forrest said. “Where the devil's Bradford? “

  Ward looked around. His eyes fixed on the grave for a moment, but even in his fuddled state he realized the man in it was the wrong Bradford. Theodorick wasn't missing, nor would he ever be. No matter how plastered Ward was, he took Nathan Bedford Forrest seriously. Anyone who didn't made a dreadful mistake. “Sir, he wahshwas-right here.” The young cavalryman looked around in obvious, even if sozzled, confusion. “I don't know where he could've gone, or how he could've gone anywhere. He was drinking as much as me, honest to God he was.” He hiccuped.

  His words puzzled Forrest, the near-teetotaler. They didn't puzzle Black Bob McCulloch. “Jesus wept!” the colonel burst out. “That's the oldest trick in the world. Make like you're drinking, only don't swallow-more likely, don't even let it get into your mouth at all.”

  “Oh.” Bedford Forrest's voice held a grim rumble.

  “Oh!” Ward, by contrast, sounded horrified. “I reckon I messed up.”

  “I reckon you did,” McCulloch agreed. He turned to Forrest.

  “What shall we do with him, sir? He's one of mine. The blame lands on me.“

  “Let it go,” Forrest answered. “He didn't know Bradford was a snake in the grass, and the reptile” — he pronounced it rep-tile” — went and hornswoggled him. Way he'll feel come morning, that'll make sure he remembers he got took.”

  “Maybe we should have had another Tennessean watching Bradford, not a man from Missouri,” Charles Anderson said. “Anybody from this state would have had a better notion of what the man is like.”

  “We all got fooled,” Forrest said. “Every last one of us did, by God. I felt sorry for Bradford on account of I lost my brother, too. Colonel McCulloch trusted him enough to accept his parole. That sneaky goddamn note he sent out this afternoon should have warned the lot of us. 'Your demand does not produce the desired effect.''' He made a horrible face. “Anybody who could write anything like that, he shows you can't trust him from the git-go.”

  “I fed the man.” Colonel McCulloch sounded disgusted with himself. “I offered him a place to sleep in my own tent. I'm lucky he didn't cut my throat in the night, I reckon.”

  “Wouldn't be surprised.” Bedford Forrest nodded. “He might've done it if he didn't get loose this way instead. A reptile, like I say.”

  Private Ward sat on the ground with his head in his hands. By the way he looked, he already felt bad; he wouldn't need to wait till morning. “I didn't mean to let him get away,” he said-by the wonder in his voice, he was talking more to himself than to the officers standing over him.

  “What you mean is one thing. What happens is something else,” Forrest said, not unkindly. “Now we've got to deal with that. Sure as hell, Bradford's got away from Fort Pillow. What'll he do next? Where'll he go?”

  “Memphis.” Colonel McCulloch and Captain Anderson said the same thing at the same time.

  Nathan Bedford Forrest nodded again. Memphis was the great Federal bastion in western Tennessee. The United States had taken the city early in the war, and hung on to it ever since. Any Union sympathizer in these parts would head that way. “What are our chances of

  catching him?”

  “How well does he know the country?” Anderson asked in return. “Pretty well. He's from these parts,” Forrest said unhappily. He tried to look on the bright side of things: “Still and all, ain't but one of him, and there's lots of us. Now that we know he's loose, we've got a chance of running him down.”

  “He'll be sorry when we do.” Black Bob McCulloch didn't say if. Bedford Forrest smiled. He liked men like that. Had William Bradford seen that smile, he would have run even faster than he was running. Well, maybe he would see it before too long. No-Forrest took his cue from McCulloch. Bradford would see that smile, and soon, and no maybes to it.

  XV

  After Corporal Jack Jenkins let the sutler pass, he figured his excitement was over for the night. For a couple of hours, he was right. The moon sank toward the Mississippi. Jenkins yawned several times. He didn't lie down. He didn't even squat. He didn't doze-not quite, anyhow. But he'd ridden through the previous night and fought a battle the day before. He wasn't at his brightest and most alert. He didn't think he needed to be.

  He yawned again, wider than ever, when the moon set. Darkness came down, a veil of black so thick he could hardly see his hand in front of his face. But he had no trouble picking out the party of horsemen who rode out from Fort Pillow, torches in hand. One of those riders was conspicuously bigger than the rest. If that wasn't Bedford Forrest, Jenkins would have been surprised.

  And if that was Forrest… then what? Then something's gone wrong somewhere, Jenkins thought, never imagining that whatever had gone wrong had anything to do with him.

  The riders went along the bank of Coal Creek till they came to the northernmost sentry along Fort Pillow's old outer perimeter. Then they started working their way south, toward Jenkins. As they drew closer, he could hear them talking with the sentries, but couldn't make out what they were saying.

  They headed his way. Whatever they were looking for, they hadn't found it yet. He showed he was awake and alert by calling, “Halt! Who goes there?” — as if he wondered.

  A dry chuckle came from Forrest. “I'm your commanding general, by God!”
/>
  “Advance and be recognized sir,” Jenkins said.

  “Here I am.” Forrest and his aides slowly rode forward. He held up his torch so that it shone on his face. “Well, soldier? D'you recognize me?”

  “Uh, yes, sir,” Jenkins answered hastily.

  “Who are you? Can't quite make you out in the darkness,” Forrest said.

  “Jack Jenkins, sir, corporal in the Second Tennessee Cavalry, Colonel Barteau's regiment.”

  Forrest laughed again. “I know who that regiment belongs to. You'd best believe I do. You were over by Coal Creek before. I've got a question for you, Corporal. Did you let anybody — anybody at all — past you since you came on duty?”

  “Yes, sir. One sutler,” Jenkins said.

  The officers with Bedford Forrest all exclaimed. He held up a hand for quiet. As usual, he got what he wanted. “When was this? What did the fellow look like?”

  “Hour and a half ago-maybe two hours,” Jenkins said. Forrest's aides exclaimed again, in dismay. A couple of them swore. Jenkins went on, “Couldn't hardly see him-he had his hat pulled down kind of low. He sure smelled bad, though; I'll tell you that.”

  “I bet he did,” Forrest said. “I don't think he was a sutler at all. I reckon you let a polecat get through. Major Bradford broke his parole, and he's nowhere around.”

  “Bradford!” Jenkins said. “That was Bradford? God damn it to hell! If I knew it was him, I'd've got some more blood on my piece.” He held up the rifle musket, which he still hadn't cleaned.

  “Don't know for sure yet, but that's the way it looks.” Forrest eyed not the ghastly weapon but Jack Jenkins himself. “Why'd you pass him through?”

  “He said an officer inside Fort Pillow told him he could go,” Jenkins answered uneasily. If his own officers wanted to, they could blame him for letting the Federal get away. And what they'd do to him if they did… Trying not to think about that, he went on. “He just seemed like a no-account fellow. And I never reckoned a major could stink like that, neither.”