Fort Pillow

by Harry Turtledove

  Captain Anderson looked at Ben Robinson again. “What did you do to earn those three chevrons, boy?”

  “Made myself the best soldier I could, I reckon,” Robinson answered. Emboldened by the truce, he answered, “I sure blew some of your sojers to hell and gone while we was fightin'.”

  “You lost,” Anderson said.

  “Yes, suh. But we put up the best fight we could with what we had,” Robinson said.

  The Confederate officer plucked at his beard. “A pity we didn't kill more of you.”

  “Me, I reckon it's a shame we didn't kill more of y'all.” Robinson wouldn't have been so bold if the Reb hadn't tweaked him. He also wouldn't have been so bold if the Federal gunboat weren't lying right offshore. He didn't think the Confederate officer would murder him in cold blood with men from the U.S. Navy watching.

  When the Confederate's hand dropped to his revolver, Ben wondered if he'd just made his last mistake. But Captain Anderson let it fall to his side. “Yeah, talk big now, nigger. God help you if we ever catch you again, though.”

  “I ain't afraid.” Ben Robinson intended that for nothing more than a snappy comeback. But he felt the truth and the power in the words and repeated them, throwing them in Anderson's face: “By God, I ain't afraid!”

  Sailors started taking wounded Federals aboard the Silver Cloud and the Platte Valley. The men who came for Robinson didn't have a stretcher-nothing but a plank that they carried between them. They set it on the riverbank by the wounded man. “Climb aboard,” one of them said. “We'll get you back to the gunboat.”

  “Thank you kindly,” Robinson said as he gingerly flattened himself on the plank. “I is much obliged to you gentlemen.”

  “Doin' our job,” the white man answered, and paused to spit a stream of tobacco juice. Then he said, “You ready, Zeke? We'll lift him on three. One… Two… Three!”

  They lifted together. Both of them grunted. Zeke said, “You sure never missed no meals, did you, pal?”

  That reminded Ben how ravenously hungry he was. “I ain't had nothin' a-tall for a whole day,” he said. “You got a hardtack you can spare?”

  “You want one of those damn things, you must be hungry,” Zeke said.

  “Wait till we get you in the boat,” the other bearer added. “Don't want to have to put you down and then pick you up again.”

  Robinson couldn't complain about that; it made too much sense.

  As soon as they carried him to the rowboat, the sailors each gave him a hardtack. The square crackers tasted like cardboard and weevils, the way they always did. He didn't care. They seemed wonderful.

  More wounded Federals filled the rowboat. He was the only Negro in it. Many more whites than colored men seemed to be left alive. The Confederates hadn't murdered so many whites trying to surrender, or after they were already wounded. Oh, they'd killed some, but fewer. The wounded whites were also delighted to gnaw on hardtack.

  When the boat was full, sweating sailors rowed the short distance out to the Silver Cloud. More men there hauled the soldiers from Fort Pillow up onto the gunboat's deck. The ship's surgeon took a look at Robinson's wound. “Well, you're not too bad,” he said, and went on to the white corporal next to him.

  Ben wasn't offended. In fact, he found himself nodding. As long as he was on a U.S. Navy vessel, as long as Bedford Forrest's troopers couldn't kill him for the fun of it any more, he wasn't bad at all.

  The sun was up, bright and cheerful, promising a day much warmer than the one just past. Bill Bradford wished it would have stopped in the sky before it ever rose. But he was no Joshua, to turn his wish into a command. He would have to make the best of things-if he could.

  He still had no horse. He hadn't found a chance to steal one. He hadn't even found a place to buy one, though he would gladly have used the double eagle he'd managed to keep in his pocket. Staying on foot, in a country patrolled by Bedford Forrest's troopers, was asking for trouble.

  If I can get past Covington… But he'd already had to duck off the road three times to keep mounted Confederates from spotting him. If he was careless even once…

  And things could go wrong even if he wasn't even slightly careless. Bradford found that out the hard way early in the morning when a shout rang out behind him: “Hey, you! Yeah, you in the scruffy clothes! Hold up, there!”

  He whirled. He almost jumped out of the sutler's clothes he'd taken. Four troopers in butternut and gray came trotting toward him. Two carried rifle muskets, or possibly carbines (he wasn't drawing fine distinctions just then), the other two revolvers. He couldn't possibly have seen them, because they'd just ridden out from in back of a stand of oaks he'd passed himself only a couple of minutes before. They must have turned on to the southbound road from a smaller crossroad, because they hadn't been following him before.

  What to do? It boiled down to running or bluffing. If he ran, they would ride him down and shoot him. That was only too plain, for he saw no good hiding places he could reach before they caught him. It would have to be bluff, then.

  He waved to the Rebs and waited for them to come up. “Mornin',” he said.

  His smile didn't seem to warm their hearts. “Who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?” one of them demanded.

  “Well, my name's Joe Peterson.” Bradford picked something ordinary, but not, he hoped, so ordinary that it roused suspicion. “I'm home on furlough from Braxton Bragg's army. And I was out sparking my girl last night, if you want to know the truth.” He smiled again, his expression this time half embarrassed, half ingratiating.

  All his acting talents were wasted on the hard-faced Confederate. “On furlough from Bragg's army, are you? Let's see some papers, then.”

  Bradford went through his pockets. He found no papers of any sort. Even if he had, he couldn't have displayed them-they would have authorized his presence at Fort Pillow. That was the last thing he could afford to do. It was, he judged, much worse than showing that his name wasn't Peterson.

  “I seem to have left them in my other pair of pants,” he said sheepishly.

  “Oh, yeah. I just fuckin' bet you did,” the trooper said. He was one of the pair who carried revolvers. He aimed his at Bradford's face. “That other pair of pants-was it gray or blue?”

  “I don't know what you mean,” Bradford got out through lips numb with fear.

  “Hell you don't, you lying son of a bitch,” said one of the Confederates with a longarm. He pointed his weapon at Bradford's midsection. “Sure as shit, you done run off from somebody's army. Only question is, you a deserter from our side or the Yankees'?”

  “You've got me all wrong,” Bradford said. “I-”

  “Shut up,” the Reb with the pistol said flatly. “We're rounding up deserters. Too damn many fair-weather soldiers reckon they can disappear whenever they find somethin' better to do. That ain't how it works, not when there's a war on. We got three, four other sorry bastards waitin' down in Covington. Take you down there, too, let Colonel Duckworth cipher out what to do with you.”

  “What to do to you,” the other rifle-toting soldier added. His voice held a certain grim anticipation Bradford could have done without.

  Bradford also could have done without meeting Colonel William Duckworth. The commander of the Seventh Tennessee Cavalry (C.S.) was much too likely to recognize him. And that won't be good, Bradford thought desperately. No, that won't be good at all.

  “You've got me all wrong,” he said again.

  “If the colonel says so, I'll believe it,” said the Reb who did most of the talking. “I wouldn't believe you if you told me it was daytime. Roy, why don't you hand me your six-shooter there? That way, this bastard can ride behind you without getting any smart ideas.”

  “I'll do it,” Roy said, “but I'll make damn sure he's not carrying anything, either.” He got down from his horse, handed over his revolver, and then walked up to Bradford. “Stick your hands in the air, whoever the hell you are.” Numbly, Bradford obeyed. He wasn't armed, so
he didn't have anything to worry about on that score. Roy frisked him with a skill that suggested he had practice-and with no respect for his person whatsoever. The Reb nodded. “You'll do. Get up on my horse and slide back of the saddle. You can hang on while I tend to the horse. “

  “You've got no business doing this to me,” Bradford said as he mounted. “I'm on furlough, and I was just going about my business. You've got no right.”

  “Hell we don't,” said the trooper who seemed to be in charge. “Furlough, my ass. You're somebody's runaway nigger, sure as I'm a Christian. Don't know whether you ran out on Abe Lincoln or Jeff Davis, but I reckon we'll see.” He nodded to Roy, who'd seated himself in the saddle and taken hold of the reins. “You ready?”

  “Ready as I'll ever be,” Roy answered. The Confederates booted their horses forward. They went at a walk, so as not to wear down the animal carrying double. They care more about the horse than they do about me, Bill Bradford thought bitterly. That wasn't quite true. The Secesh soldiers cared about whether he escaped and whether he could do anything to the man he rode behind. They cared very much about such things. But, without a doubt, they liked the horse better than they liked him.

  Because they rode slowly, they took more than an hour to get to Covington. That only gave Major Bradford more time to worry. The seat of Tipton County put him in mind of a lot of other county seats in western Tennessee. The courthouse faced the central square; the couple of blocks around it were given over to businesses. They grew more cotton around Covington than almost anywhere else in Tennessee, and several plantation owners had second houses in town almost as fine as their homes out in the countryside.

  The troopers rode down Main Street toward the courthouse. They tied up their horses in front of the brown brick building. Even the columns of the portico were faced with brick. Bradford thought that was excessive, then wondered why he worried about such trifles when his neck was on the line. He supposed it was to keep from worrying about his neck-but he did anyway.

  Sentries in front of the door called, “Who y'all got there?”

  “That's what we're trying to find out,” Roy answered. He gave Bradford an elbow in the ribs. “Get down, you.” As Bradford awkwardly dismounted, Roy went on, “Is the colonel inside?”

  “He sure is,” the sentry answered. He eyed Bradford with a frown on his face. “This fellow looks familiar, hell with me if he don't.”

  “Hell with you anyway, Boone,” Roy said. The sentry laughed, which meant they were friends. Roy got down from the horse, reclaimed his revolver, and aimed it at Bradford's chest. “Go on in, you. Colonel Duckworth'll decide what to do with you.”

  As Bradford walked to the door, he fiddled with his hat, tugging it down as low as he could. That might not do him any good, but it couldn't hurt. The troopers herded him along toward the courtroom. A Confederate junior officer stood outside that door like a gatekeeper, which was probably just what he was. “Who's this fellow?” he asked.

  “Reckon he's a deserter, Lieutenant Witherspoon. Says he's with Bragg's army and on furlough, but he's got no papers,” answered the other soldier with a pistol-Bradford thought his name was Hank, but wasn't sure. “Colonel ought to have a look at him. “

  Witherspoon rubbed his chin. He was so young, his brown beard was soft and thin. After a few seconds, he nodded. “Well, all right. Bring him in. One way or the other, it won't take long. “

  “Right,” said Hank, or whoever he was. “Come on, you.” When Bradford hesitated, another Confederate trooper gave him a shove.

  William Duckworth sat behind a table, as if he were a judge. He didn't look like a judge, though. He looked like a Scottish Covenanter, or perhaps more like a slightly deranged Biblical prophet. He was about forty, with dark hair and a dark, scraggly beard that tumbled down his chest to the third pair of buttons on his double-breasted tunic. For reasons known only to himself and possibly to God, he shaved his upper lip. His eyes… Bill Bradford would have said they were the coldest and grayest he'd ever seen had he not made the acquaintance of Nathan Bedford Forrest only the day before.

  “Well?” Duckworth said, and Bradford had all he could do not to burst into startled laughter, for the Rebel colonel's voice seemed much too high and thin to spring from such a stern, forbidding visage. “Who've you got here?”

  “Says his name's Peterson, sir. Says he's on furlough from Bragg's army,” Roy answered. “We came across him north of town. Says he was sparking a girl last night, and that's how come he was on the road.” Colonel Duckworth's left eyebrow rose, which only made him look

  more formidable. “Tell me another one,” he said.

  Roy nodded. “Yes, sir. That's what we thought. He done run off from somebody's army, sure as hell. Don't know whether it's ours or the damnyankees', but somebody's.”

  “No doubt.” Duckworth studied Bradford with those January eyes. Bradford looked down at his shoes, as he had at Fort Pillow the night before while talking to the lieutenant who let him leave. It didn't work this time. “Shed the lid,” Duckworth said sharply. “Let me see who the devil you are.”

  A sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Bradford took off the slouch hat. He looked straight at Colonel Duckworth. If the Confederate officer didn't know him by sight, he still had a chance. But if Duckworth did…

  And he did, damn him. He did. That eyebrow jumped again, now in surprise, not sarcasm. His eyes widened slightly. He nodded to himself, as if to say that yes, he really was sure. Then he spoke aloud: “You're Major Bradford, aren't you?”

  Behind Bradford, Roy and Hank and the other two Rebs all inhaled on the same startled note. The Federal stood there for a few seconds, wondering if he had any chance to brazen it out. He wished he thought he did. Deciding things would go worse for him-if they could go worse for him-if he tried to lie, he gave a weary nod. “Yes, I'm afraid I am.”

  “I heard Fort Pillow fell,” Colonel Duckworth said, and Bradford nodded again. The Reb went on, “So you got out alive, did you? I wouldn't have bet money on that, and there's the Lord's truth.”

  “We could take care of it for you real quick, Colonel,” Roy said.

  Hank and the other two were quick to add loud, profane agreement.

  But Duckworth shook his head. “Can't do it now, not in cold blood-the Federals would raise a stink, and they'd have the right to, dammit. Don't want them murdering our officers if they catch 'em. That's a feud-it isn't war.”

  “Well, what shall we do with him, then?” Hank asked.

  The commander of the Seventh Tennessee Cavalry (C.S.) frowned, considering. Elisha might have frowned that way while deciding whether to ask God to have the people who'd mocked his baldness torn to pieces by lions or bears. But Colonel Duckworth, though he had worse than lions and bears at his disposal, seemed milder than the Hebrew prophet of days gone by: “We'll send him on up to Brownsville, that's what. We've got some other prisoners going there tomorrow, anyhow. General Chalmers can figure out what happens to him after that. He'll likely send him on to General Forrest. “

  “He'll get what he deserves then-hell with me, if he won't.” Hank had what was, in Major Bradford's biased opinion, a truly wicked laugh. Of course, Bradford was less than eager to make Bedford Forrest's acquaintance again.

  “Where'll we stash him in the meantime?” Roy asked.

  That made Duckworth frown again. “Down the hall here, there's some jail cells,” he said at last. “We better stick him in one of those. Meaning no disrespect, Major-it's for your own good. There's plenty of men on my side who'd turn handsprings to string you up.”

  “I'd give my parole,” Bradford said. Duckworth didn't know he'd already broken it once. If he could slip away, he might still make it to Memphis.

  But the Confederate cavalry officer shook his head. “Afraid I don't trust you that far. You lied about who you were to my men here. You might do some more lying to get away. Or maybe you already did some more, and that's how you got away from Fort Pillow.” Despite his
wild man's beard, William Duckworth was nobody's fool. He nodded to Bradford's captors. “Take him away. Lieutenant Witherspoon will show you where the cells are.”

  “Yes, sir,” the troopers chorused. Roy-or possibly Hank-stuck his revolver up against Bradford's backbone. “Get moving, you. “

  Out in the hallway, Witherspoon gaped. “You're Major Bradford? Well, I'll be a son of a bitch.”

  I wouldn't be surprised, Bradford thought, but he held his tongue.

  The jail cell was small and dark and dank. The roof must have leaked, because the mattress on the iron cot was damp. Nobody offered to get Bradford another one. He looked out through the barred window and saw… the far wall. Experiment proved he couldn't shift the bars. Even if he could have, the window was too small to crawl through. So was the one set high in the wall. He tried pushing at the door-gently, so as not to make any noise. No matter how hard he pushed, the padlock wouldn't give. He'd feared it wouldn't; that lock had looked stout.

  Damp or not, he sat down on the cot. Here he was, trapped like a rat. Tomorrow, Brownsville. After that, like it or not, another meeting with Nathan Bedford Forrest.

  Mack Leaming watched Federal sailors and Confederate troopers work together to take the U.S. wounded aboard the Silver Cloud and the Platte Valley, which had pulled up alongside the gunboat. Now the Rebs seemed to be on their best behavior. When he croaked out yet another request for water, one of them gave him some. As it had before, it worked wonders in making him feel better.

  Eventually, his turn came. Two sturdy sailors lifted him. When he groaned, one of them said, “Take it easy, Lieutenant. We'll get you onto the steamer in jig time.”

  “Thanks,” he got out. No matter what they told him to do, being moved still hurt like fire. He hoped the wound wouldn't start bleeding again.

  The sailor who had hold of his feet said, “Looks like those sorry, raggedy Rebs stole just about everything but your toenails.”

  “If they could have got those off, they would have taken them, too,” Leaming answered. Both sailors laughed, but he wasn't joking.