That sounded reasonable-to him, anyway. It didn't satisfy any of the men who flung the question in his face. They didn't really want an answer. They wanted somebody to blame… and there he was.
His temper, always short, soon started to fray. Before long, he stopped giving a reasonable answer when people asked him how he let Bradford escape. Instead, he said things like, “It just happened, goddammit. Bad shit happens all the time. This time it happened to me. “
He got no sympathy. He didn't expect any. He wouldn't give anybody else much sympathy for letting Bradford slip through his fingers. The same miserable question came at him even more often.
His answer changed again. He looked around and growled, “Oh, shut up, goddammit!” That did some good. Most of Forrest's troopers were leery of pushing him too far.
“You look like a treed coon,” one of them said.
“I feel like a treed coon, too,” Jenkins replied-that was one of the few things he'd heard that made sense to him. “Got all these bastards around the tree bayin' their damnfool heads off.”
On they rode, into the morning. Every time somebody with a fast horse came up to Jenkins, he heard the hateful question again. And he heard it every time he caught up to somebody with a slow horse. And when they weren't just coming out and asking it of him, they were talking about him and pointing at him. “There's the fellow who…”
“Aw, shit,” Jenkins mumbled. Yes, he was likely to stay the fellow who for the rest of his life. Some mistakes were too damn big to let anybody ever get out from under them. Had he made one of those? He didn't think so, but what he thought didn't matter here. What everybody else thought did. And those nudges and murmurs and pointing fingers went on and on.
“Hey, Corporal, aren't you the one who let Bradford get away?” “Puck you up the cornhole!” Jenkins roared. Only after the words
were out of his mouth did he realized he'd cussed out a captain. The officer started to say something. Then he got a good look at Jenkins's face. His mouth hung foolishly open for a moment, as if he were a frog catching a fly. He booted his horse up to a trot and rode away.
I bet I had murder in my eye, Jenkins thought, not without pride. I know goddamn well I had murder in my heart.
For some little while, nobody bothered him. Oh, people went on pointing and went on talking behind his back, but he knew he couldn't do anything about that. When a newcomer tried to ask him something-and he knew what it would be-somebody softly explained to the man that that wasn't a good idea. Not if you want to go on breathing, it isn't, Jenkins thought.
And then every trooper around was cussing a blue streak, and none of it had anything to do with him. He was swearing, too. Whoever was leading them east had led them astray. The path petered out in the middle of a swamp. They were going to have to double back and try again. “God, I didn't need this,” somebody groaned, and that summed things up just fine.
“How the hell did we bollix this?” Jenkins demanded. “Lord almighty, it ain't like we're the first bunch to go back to Brownsville. Shouldn't whoever was at the front of this bunch have known where he was going, the rotten skunk?”
Whoever had been at the front of that group of soldiers didn't want to admit it. In his shoes, Jack Jenkins wouldn't have wanted to admit it, either. Something nasty would have happened to him if he did.
Because it had to double back, the group of cavalrymen from Barteau's regiment with whom he was riding didn't get to Brownsville till the late afternoon. By then, the people in the small town had had bands of troopers of varying sizes riding in for hours. Some houses still had the Stainless Banner and the Confederate battle flag and the outdated Stars and Bars flying or hanging on their porches, but no ladies were standing in the street offering the soldiers food, the way they had when the regiment rode west to attack Fort Pillow.
“Rein in, boys!” a first lieutenant called. “We may as well spend the night here. We don't need to ride in the dark today, and we'll make it to Jackson tomorrow any which way.”
That was the first piece of good news Jenkins had heard in a long time. Even if he couldn't get a bed for the night-which didn't look likely-he could sleep on a floor or in a shed or somewhere else under a roof. Roughing it was fine when you did it on purpose every once in a while-when you were going hunting, say. When you had to do it day after day after day, it wore thin.
He'd just dismounted when some soldiers came up from the south.
“Y'all got lost worse'n we did,” he jeered.
“We're not lost,” one of them replied. “We're up from Covington with prisoners. We'll take' em on to Jackson in the morning.”
“Prisoners?” Jack Jenkins looked them over. That some wore blue hadn't meant much to him-he'd just thought they hadn't had a chance to dye Yankee plunder. One fellow had on ratty-looking civilian clothes. Jenkins stiffened. He'd seen those shabby clothes before, by moonlight. As casually as he could, he asked, “Need somebody else to help bring 'em in?”
The shabbily dressed prisoner jerked on the horse to which he was tied. He recognized Jenkins's voice. The Confederate captain in charge of the captives nodded. “Sure, Corporal. You can come along.” Jenkins smiled like Christmas.
XVIII
Matt Wardhad watched the Silver Cloud and the Platte Valley steam away late the afternoon before. Chugging north against the current, the gunboat and the steamer she escorted weren't very fast, but they looked as if they would get where they were going.
Here today, Fort Pillow wasn't a fort any more. It was nothing but a bluff next to the Mississippi. Captain Charles Anderson looked around and nodded in satisfaction. “That about does it,” he said to Ward and the rest of the Confederates still at the battle site. “I reckon we've done every single thing we set out to do.”
Bedford Forrest's aide was bound to be right about that. Forrest's men hadn't just taken the place. They'd run off the Federals' horses and captured all the cannon here. They'd taken more than three hundred rifle muskets; the rest probably lay in the river. They had as much of the rest of the movable property as they could carry away. And now they'd wrecked and burned all the buildings and huts in and around the fort. The Federals wouldn't have anything at all to use if they tried to put men in here again.
Another Federal steamer went by. Maybe it would find Union soldiers who'd got away and were hiding along the river. Ward eyed the smoke pouring from its stack, which mixed with the smoke still in the air from the fires of the day before. “We ought to have boats on the Mississippi ourselves,” he said.
Captain Anderson still stood close enough to hear him. “We've got a few,” he said. “We can move things across from Louisiana and Arkansas now and again. But we have to sneak, because we can't make ironclads to fight the damn yankees.”
“Why not, sir?” Ward said. “They can do it.”
“They can build them anywhere along the Ohio or the Mississippi and send them downriver,” Anderson answered. “We haven't got any foundries on the river to do the job.” He made a sour face. “Hell's bells, we haven't got any towns on this side of the river. The damnyankees sail up and down, doing as they please. They've cut us in half, may they rot in hell for it.”
“That's not good,” Ward said.
“No, it isn't,” Captain Anderson agreed. “Kirby Smith is doing everything he can over in the Trans-Mississippi, but what he does and what we do don't have a whole lot to do with each other on account of all those Federal gunboats in between.”
“What can we do about that, sir?” Matt Ward could look across the Mississippi into Arkansas. If he cared to, he could take a rowboat and get across to the other side-to the Trans-Mississippi, Captain Anderson called it. But if you wanted to move an army's worth of soldiers from one side of the Big Muddy to the other, how would you go about it? You couldn't, not unless you wanted those damn gunboats swarming around you like flies around a fried chicken in summertime.
“What can we do about it?” Anderson echoed. “Keep fighting the Yankees as hard
as we can. Keep licking them. Keep making them sweat. Keep making them bleed. Abe Lincoln is up for reelection this fall. If we make the North decide the war is more expensive than it's worth, if we make it decide the war is more goddamn trouble than it's worth, they'll throw that Lincoln son of a bitch out on his ear. Whichever Democrat they put in will make peace and send the blue bellies home. And we'll have our own country then. That's what we can do, by God.”
“I understand, sir.” Ward looked respectfully at the officer, who wasn't that much older than he was. “I really do understand. When I joined up, I did it so I could fight the damnyankees.”
“Who doesn't?” Anderson said.
“Yes, sir. But that was all I thought about, you know what I mean?
What you said, I didn't think about that even a little bit. How the war and politics fit together, I mean. And they do. They truly do.”
“You'd best believe they do,” Charles Anderson agreed. “Way things are now, we won't ever drive the United States off our land with guns. Maybe we could have once upon a time, but we lost too many chances. But if we can make those Yankee bastards sick of fighting us, they'll give up and go home. And we win that way, too. So that's what we've got to try and do.”
Ward looked at the remains of what had been Fort Pillow. “Well, sir, seems to me we gave them a pretty good tweak right here.”
“Seems the same way to me.” Captain Anderson eyed him. “When you let Bradford liquor you up so he could get away, I reckoned you were one of those fellows who' re good in a brawl but not so good at thinking, if you'll forgive me. But you aren't that way, are you?”
“I hope not, sir. I like to find out how things tick,” Ward answered. “Bradford… He tricked me, God damn him. I wonder if the son of a bitch got away. Sweet Jesus, I hope not. I'd feel like hell. “
“If he did, he'll run into a minnie some other way, that's all.” To Matt's relief, Anderson didn't seem to hate him. “For now, we've still got our own war to fight. You ready?”
“Yes, sir!” Matt said.
It's all in your mind, Major William Bradford told himself over. You're making it up to give yourself something to worry about. He laughed sourly. As if he didn't have enough already! Here he was, locked up in the Brownsville jail the way he had been the night before in Covington. Some time tomorrow, he'd head for Jackson and a new confrontation with Nathan Bedford Forrest. That wasn't anything to look forward to with joy and eager anticipation.
But right now it seemed the least of his troubles. He couldn't shake the feeling that the corporal who'd volunteered to join the guards on the way to Jackson was the fellow he'd cozened into letting him out past the original, extended works around Fort Pillow.
Had that fellow out there on sentry had two stripes on his sleeve? For the life of him-yes, for the life of him-Bradford wasn't sure. His voice seemed much too familiar, though. And the man had a devil of a nasty leer, the kind of leer that said he might not have known who Bill Bradford was before but by Christ now he did, and somebody was going to pay because he knew.
“Somebody,” Bradford muttered. “Me!” What had the Rebs done to that corporal when they found out he'd let the enemy commander get away? How much did he have to pay back? And how much did he hate Bradford for tricking him, for taking away his pride? A lot of Southern men were touchy as so many greasers about their pride. If you wounded it, they would pay you back no matter what it cost.
Maybe he's not the one. Bradford tried to make himself believe it. He stretched out on the lumpy, musty-smelling cot in the little cell and tried to rest. It'll be fine tomorrow, his mind insisted. You're getting yourself all worn to a frazzle over nothing. But even though he closed his eyes, sleep wouldn't come.
Except it did. When his eyes came open again, the gray light of dawn seeped into the cell through the little barred window. Outside, a mockingbird trilled and whistled. Why not? The bird was free.
The jailer gave him bread and butter for breakfast. The butter was just starting to go off. He could eat it, but it left a sour aftertaste on his palate that the bad coffee he drank with it couldn't erase. The jailer watched him eat through the window set into the door. As soon as he finished, the man unlocked the door to get the cup back. He had a pistol. Two more men with guns also covered Bradford. “I wasn't going anywhere,” Bradford said.
“Not while we can shoot you if you try,” one of the guards said. At noon, Bradford got more bread and butter and coffee. The butter was further gone by then. He ate it anyhow. Time dragged on. The cell got warm and close. Sweat rolled off him. At last, late in the afternoon, the jailer unlocked the door again. “Come on out.” That pistol added persuasion to the words.
Out Bradford came. The jailer gestured with the gun. Numbly, Bradford walked outside. The mockingbird he'd heard before-or maybe another one-flew out of a nearby oak, white wing patches flashing every time it flapped. The other Federal prisoners waited out there; they hadn't had to spend the time in jail. The guards who'd brought them up from Covington waited there, too. So did the corporal who'd volunteered to join them.
Was he…? Bradford eyed him with fearful fascination. He couldn't tell. It had been dark, the moon still young and going in and out of the clouds.
“Get up on your horse, Bradford,” said one of the Confederate soldiers. “Get up, and I'll lash you aboard.” By the way he talked, the Federal officer might have been a sack of dried peas.
“You don't need to tie me-I swear it,” Bradford said.
“You swore you wouldn't run off from Fort Pillow, too, you lying
son of a bitch.” That wasn't the guard who was busy binding Bradford's legs beneath him. It was the newly met corporal. He sounded like a man who knew what he was talking about. Bradford bit his lip. He couldn't even tell the Reb he was wrong. The other trooper tied his hands and tied them to the reins.
“That ought to do it,” he said. “Let's ride.”
Off they went, not at any particularly fast clip. By now the prisoners, even Major Bradford, were afterthoughts. No need to hurry with them. The battle was won. Sooner or later, they would get to Jackson. When they did, Bedford Forrest would deal with them as he got around to it.
Had Bradford not been a prisoner of war, had he not been tied to the horse he rode, he would have savored the glorious spring day. It was perfect: not too cool, not too hot, with the sun shining cheerily in a sky powder-puffed with scattered white clouds. The grass and growing bushes were green, greener, greenest. So were the leaves on some of the trees. Others, not yet in leaf, remained bare-branched and skeletal.
More mockingbirds sang. Catbirds yowled. A robin hopping around after worms chirped. Somewhere deeper in the woods, a wild turkey gobbled. Once the riders got away from the town stinks of Brownsville, which didn't take long, the very air smelled fresh and clean and pure.
Yes, it would have been a pleasant ride, a more than pleasant ride, if not for the ropes around Bradford's wrists and ankles-and if the corporal who'd added himself to the guard party hadn't kept talking to the other Confederate troopers in a low voice. Every so often, he would point Bill Bradford's way, which did nothing to improve the Federal officer's peace of mind.
“Are you sure?” one of the other soldiers asked, loud enough for Bradford to hear him clearly.
“Sure as my name's Jack Jenkins,” the corporal answered. “Sure as that son of a bitch…” His voice dropped so Bradford couldn't make out what he said next. Whatever it was, the Federal didn't think he wanted it applied to him.
They'd come perhaps three miles, perhaps five, when one of the troopers said, “We'll stop here for a little bit. Anybody want to ease himself? “
“I do,” a Federal said. He swung down from his horse and went off to stand behind a tree. One of the Confederates lit a pipe. The soldier in blue came back buttoning the last button on his fly. He pointed to the pipe. “Can I have a couple of puffs of that?” The Reb passed it to him. He smoked for a little while, then gave it back. “Thank you kindly.�
��
“How about you, Bradford?” the corporal named Jack Jenkins said.
Bradford considered. He didn't particularly need anything, but if he said no the Rebs might use it as an excuse to torment him later by refusing to pause. He nodded. “All right. You'll have to let me loose.”
The trooper with the pipe untied him. After Bradford dismounted, he stood by the horse for a moment, opening and closing his hands to work more feeling into them. Then he started for the woods. Jack Jenkins and four other Rebs, one a lieutenant, came with him. “Don't want you wandering off, now, the way you did at Fort Pillow,” Jenkins said.
“I wasn't going anywhere,” Bradford said, as he had early that morning. His lips were suddenly stiff with fear. That was the sentry he'd tricked, and the man knew him for who he was. “Please,” he whispered. “I wasn't.”
“Well, you damn well won't.” The Reb gestured with his rifle musket. “Go on.”
Terror making his legs light, his knees almost unstrung, Bradford went. The Rebs urged him deeper into the woods, so that trees hid the path down which they'd been riding. “Let me… do what I need to do,” he said at last, when they'd gone about fifty yards.
A little to his surprise, they did, spreading out to all sides around the oak he chose so he couldn't get away no matter how much he wanted to-and he did, with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might. At last, after what seemed a very long time, he finished. He did up his trousers and stepped away from the tree.
“Look!” Jenkins said loudly. “Son of a bitch is getting away!” He swung up his rifle musket. So did the other Confederate soldiers.
“No!” Bradford cried. He fell to his knees. “Treat me as a prisoner of war, please! I fought you as a man, and-”
The guns spoke in a stuttering roar. Hot lead slammed into him from three directions at once. He slumped over. The ground came up and hit him one more blow in the face. He tried to get up, but only his left arm seemed to want to do anything his brain told it to, and it wasn't enough, not by itself.
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