Devil's Dream Part 22

Forrest calmed his mount and took off his hat. A minie ball had notched the brim. "By the hardest," he said. "That was mighty d.a.m.n 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 pa.s.sed through the center of his palm before it smashed into Freeman's face. 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 pa.s.sed 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 d.a.m.n," 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 d.a.m.n I'll get some for ye," Forrest said as he withdrew his hand from Freeman's head. "G.o.ddamme 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. 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 bombsh.e.l.l. 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 Keep up the skeer. The dog pack broke and ran yipping into cover of the thornbushes all around. "h.e.l.l," 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 gra.s.s. 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. 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 gra.s.s. 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 a.s.sa.s.sins 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," gone," Matthew hissed, and Ben motioned furiously for silence. 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 good gone," Matthew said. 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."

"h.e.l.l if a mule deserts you go after him," Ben said. "Never mind a man."

"Notice I ain't come after you," you," Forrest said. Forrest said.

Ben laughed almost inaudibly. "Figured you jest hadn't come yet." 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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 doc.u.ment. "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. 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 sc.r.a.ped 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.

"Jerry," Henri said cautiously.

"King snake," Jerry told him. "Ain't pizen. Ain't no harm in'm at all ..."

The hilltop was contained in a pocket of mist, a pearly gray dimness like a cataract. Henry got up and walked the rim of the hill to the cardinal points. West: through the parting of the mist, he could see the distant figures of Forrest and his escort fighting a rearguard action to cover the retreat of Hood's decimated army, from the b.l.o.o.d.y disasters at Franklin and Nashville. South, Forrest sat his horse beside Charles Anderson, facing down a darkly wooded trail like a tunnel, debating whether to fly to Texas or Mexico and continue the doomed struggle there. These were not scenes Henri desired to enter.

Through the vapors to the east he saw, down a long brushy slope of the hill, young Matthew sitting on the tailgate of an empty wagon, swinging his long legs just an inch or so short of the ground, his head lowered despondently, rolling a revolver from one hand to the other. Henri nodded to himself and started down the steep slope toward the boy, picking his way through buck bushes and briars. He was halfway down when a fine big rabbit popped up practically at his feet and went bouncing away around the curve of the hill. By the time Henri thought to produce his own pistol the rabbit had lost itself in the ground cover.

He hung the pistol back on his belt and hopped out to the level ground where the wagon was stalled in its ruts. It was Benjamin's wagon, Henri noticed. Ben had carved the back of the box seat with two wildcat heads snarling and spitting to right and to left. Benjamin himself slept in the wagon bed, cus.h.i.+oned by a heap of tattered flour sacks.

Matthew glanced up briefly, looked back at his knees. He was rolling the empty cylinder in and out of the frame of his revolver. It made a sharp metallic click whenever it snapped back in.

"What are you back here brooding for?" Henri said. Back along the road the wagon had come from he could hear an intermittent boom of cannon; smoke rose on the horizon to mingle with dust in the setting sun.

Matthew shrugged. "No cartridges."

"You'll find plenty forward, I'd expect."

This time Matthew held Henri's eyes. "You?"

Henri turned to gaze upward at the Old Ones' bald hill, but it was gone; he seemed instead to have descended a much wider slope, a neglected pasture going to brush and blackberry bramble and the orange-blond sage gra.s.s. At the top of the pasture was a partly collapsing rock wall fence and above that the crown of the hill was covered with a tight bristling top knot of trees. By this landscape Henri could tell they were in Tennessee, and by the king snake colors of the leaves he knew it must be fall. "He don't need me for nothing," Matthew said. The cylinder rolled out of the pistol in his palm, clicked back.

"They don't really need me either," Henri said. It was November, he recalled, and Forrest was at Johnsonville, destroying the Federal supply depots there where the railroad met the Tennessee River. The startled Yankees had been spooked into burning their own boats before they scattered, while a thoughtful barrage of Forrest's artillery set fire to the warehouses east of the river. Thus the smoke ... Forrest himself was pa.s.sing the time by taking jocular charge of one of Morton's guns, one of the few instruments of war he had no real idea how to manipulate, calling out nonsensical comments and commands: a rickety-shay! Elevate the breech of that gun lower! a rickety-shay! Elevate the breech of that gun lower! A last merry dance on the brink of ruin. Those burning stores were meant for Sherman, but Sherman had already taken Atlanta. General Hood was already marching the Army of Tennessee north from that defeat toward its ultimate doom in the shallow ditch south of Franklin. There was nothing now, except pillage, between Sherman and the Atlantic Ocean. A last merry dance on the brink of ruin. Those burning stores were meant for Sherman, but Sherman had already taken Atlanta. General Hood was already marching the Army of Tennessee north from that defeat toward its ultimate doom in the shallow ditch south of Franklin. There was nothing now, except pillage, between Sherman and the Atlantic Ocean.

"He caught Willie horseracing again," Matthew said. "Punished him hard. Made him tote fence rails with the rest of the boys, until he was ready to drop."

"And so?"

"He didn't do a thing to me."

"And you're complaining about that."

"He didn't even see me," Matthew said. "Like I just wasn't there. I would have won the d.a.m.n race too, if he hadn't stopped it."

Henri looked up the slope again, wondering how many more rabbits might be hid in the wiry scraggle of buck bushes. His stomach folded in on itself. A gust brought a swirl of rust-colored leaves from the hilltop to settle among the patches of sage gra.s.s in the pasture.

"Don't tell me he didn't see you," he told Matthew. "He might not show anything about it but there's not much he doesn't see." "Here's one thing I can't stand about Willie," Matthew said.

"Just one?" Henri forced a smile.

"Just-every day of the week, every hour hour of the G.o.dd.a.m.n day, Willie knows who he is, or he thinks he does-no, he doesn't even bother to think about it. That idea never once crosses his mind-" of the G.o.dd.a.m.n day, Willie knows who he is, or he thinks he does-no, he doesn't even bother to think about it. That idea never once crosses his mind-"

"And you don't know?"

"How would I know? Am I soldier or a saddle-maker? White man or a n.i.g.g.e.r? A body can't be both, can they? Not both of those things jumbled up together?"

Henri c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at him. "You might want to try just being a man, and never mind the rest of it."

Matthew ducked his head. "It's different for you."

Well, that was true, Henri thought. Or maybe it was just half-true.

"I hadn't seen such a lot of Willie lately," he remarked.

"He's keeping him back." Matthew raised his pistol sharply, sighted it down the empty road, then lowered it again to his lap. "So he'll be keeping him back." Matthew raised his pistol sharply, sighted it down the empty road, then lowered it again to his lap. "So he'll be safe." safe."

Henri considered. It could be true. Forrest might indeed have grown more solicitous of his only son, since his brother Jeffrey had been killed in the pursuit of A. J. Smith.

"That's his Momma wants him safe," Henri said. "Forrest has got fighting blood. He wants his blood to fight."

"If I'm his blood," Matthew said, "he never has claimed me."

"He has," Henri said. "A time or two. I've heard him."

"If I'm his blood," Matthew said, "then why would he stick me in an old n.i.g.g.e.r shack at the bottom of Memphis? Where he slips around at night to f.u.c.k that n.i.g.g.e.r wench who plays like she's my momma though she ain't. f.u.c.ks the wench like she was a dog."

"Wait a minute." Henri raised a hand to dam the flow of ugly words. Benjamin was motionless on his pallet of sacks; only his eyes darted, beneath closed lids, tracking whatever he saw in his dreams ... Henri considered the Memphis raid, when Forrest had fallen behind them on Beale Street. In his inward eye he saw the woman with those little boys, recalled the liquid grace of her movement. Son Son. Dark honey in her voice. Why don't you hold the ginnal's hoss? Why don't you hold the ginnal's hoss? The thing that hadn't made sense then did now. He could see the woman and Forrest inclining toward each other like a pair of silhouettes cut from black paper. The thing that hadn't made sense then did now. He could see the woman and Forrest inclining toward each other like a pair of silhouettes cut from black paper.

"Does he do her like she was a dog?" He waited.

"No. I don't guess so." Matthew looked at the ground between his dangling feet. "It's like he can't get enough of her." He raised his head to the smoke-stained horizon. "Like she can't get enough of him."

Henri followed his eyes to the smoke. The dots in the air across the river must be buzzards.

"They act like they love each other." Matthew spat.

"Well," Henri said. "I suppose that's not much use to you."

"It's not much use to n.o.body," Matthew said. "You know he'll never claim the sons he got with her."

Henri looked away up the hill. There was no argument with that, he knew.