FORT PILLOW

First, though, he had to get to Memphis. Remember that, Bill, he told himself sternly. One thing at a time. If he made a mistake on the road south, all his hopes for vengeance would go glimmering.

He kept hoping he would run across some homestead out in the middle of nowhere, some place where a farmer scratched out a living with a few crops and whatever he could shoot or trap in the swamps. If the bumpkin had any kind of nag…

But he didn't come across any farmhouses, or even trapper's huts. No one seemed to live in these swamps. He knew people did. But one of the reasons they lived in a place like this was that they didn't want anybody from the outside world bothering them. They didn't come out much, and the outside world didn't come in. Bill Bradford suddenly understood why it didn't. It couldn't find anybody here.

Something slithered over one of his shoes. Copperhead? Cottonmouth? Rattler? Only a garter snake? A figment of his overheated imagination? It could have been anything. Whatever it was, it didn't bite. And he didn't yell his head off, though he couldn't say why he didn't. He shuddered and pressed on.

Sooner or later, I have to come out 0/ the bottoms… don't I? he thought. When he did, he would surely find a farmhouse. And then, depending on whether the farmer backed the U.S.A. or the C.S.A., he would borrow a horse or talk his way into using one or simply steal one, whichever looked like the best idea.

And then, Memphis. Once he got there, Bedford Forrest's friends would find out they weren't the only ones who could strike by surprise at dawn. “Oh, yes,” Major Bradford muttered. “They'll find out, all right.”

When the distant thunder of guns woke Mack Leaming, his first reaction was astonishment that he'd been able to sleep at all. He'd thought the pain from his wound would keep him up all night. His second reaction was a groan as that pain, of which he'd been blissfully unaware since whenever he dozed off, flooded back into his consciousness. Did it hurt any less than it had before he fell asleep? Maybe a little, he decided, but maybe not, too. It was still plenty bad.

All around him, other wounded Union soldiers were coming back to themselves with almost identical groans. No one had done anything for any of them all through the night. The only mercy the Rebels showed was not bursting into this miserable hut and murdering them while they slept.

The guns sounded again, closer this time. “What the hell's going on?” somebody said. “Who's shooting at what?”

“Have men marched up from Memphis to chase the Rebs away?” someone else asked.

“Why couldn't they show up yesterday, God darnn their rotten souls to hell?” another wounded soldier said.

“It's not men marching-it's a gunboat, dog my cats if it ain't,” another man said.

As soon as Leaming heard that, he knew it had to be so. “I love gunboat sailors,” he said bitterly. “They sail away when we need 'em the most, but then they come back again after the fighting's done. They're heroes, all right, every darnn one of 'em.”

That touched off some vigorous and profane swearing from his fellow sufferers. The guns on the river boomed again. Yes, they were definitely closer this time. “You reckon that's the New Era comin' back?” somebody asked. “Even though I got me a hole in my leg, there's a few things I'd like to say to the high and mighty skipper who sailed off and left us in the lurch.”

More obscenities fouled the early morning air. By all the signs, quite a few men had some things they wanted to tell Captain Marshall if they ever made his acquaintance. Lieutenant Leaming had several thoughts of his own he wanted to share with the New Era's commanding officer.

But another man said, “This here boat sounds like it's coming up from Memphis. The New Era steamed north, off toward Cairo”-like anyone from those parts, he pronounced it Kayro-” and places like that.”

A rifle musket near the Mississippi banged, and then another one. A minute later, the gunboat's cannon responded. “Can't be yesterday's gunboat,” a soldier said. “They're shooting at it, and it's got the gumption to shoot back.”

Several wounded men swore again. Mack Leaming was not behindhand-far from it. Some of the shells the gunboat fired burst not far from the hut. “I hope they blow the damn Rebs to hell and gone,” Leaming said.

As if in response, a Confederate outside yelled, “Come on, boys! Don't just stand there! If we have to pull back, to hell with me if I want the damnyankees to be able to get their hands on one single thing they can use. Burn these buildings, by God! We'll fix this place the way the Lord fixed Sodom and Gomorrah! “

That roused the men inside the hut. “Hold on!” they shouted. “Hold on! There's wounded in here! Let us come out before you fire this place! “

“Devil take your wounded!” the Reb answered. “We have to get rid of this here place right now. Lou! Daniel! Come on! Get moving!”