FORT PILLOW

Anderson laughed. “Heaven forbid!” he said. “You Yanks have it worse than we do there, I believe, on account of you're richer than we are-and you have more men to spare for dotting every i and crossing every t. We've got to make do without so much in the way of spit and polish. “

“I'm sure you miss it,” said the captain of the Platte Valley. He winked at Charles Anderson-Leaming saw in most distinctly.

“Well, now and again I do, to tell you the truth,” Anderson replied. “I was a merchant up in Cincinnati before the war, and after that I worked for the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. I like having things just so when I can. But when there's no time, and not enough men even if there were time… Well, sir, all you can do is your best.”

“I suppose that's so.” The steamboat skipper pointed up toward the bluff atop which Fort Pillow lay-or had lain. “From what my men say, you Rebs did your best there.”

“We shouldn't have had to storm the place, sir,” Captain Anderson said. “I gather Major Booth fell early in the fight, and Major Bradford, I'm afraid, didn't have the sense God gave a goose. He thought he could hold us out with Tennessee Tories and niggers, and forced us to prove him wrong.”

“Well, you did that, by thunder!” The captain of the Platte Valley sounded as respectful-no, as admiring-as if he and the Confederate cavalry officer were on the same side.

Despite the laudanum, dull anger slowly filled Mack Leaming. This plump, easygoing fellow had no business getting so friendly with the enemy. They were doing everything but drinking brandy together. Captain Anderson took out a cigar case and offered the steamboat captain a stogie. That worthy bit off the end, stuck the cigar in his mouth, and scraped a lucifer on the sole of his shoe. Once he had his cheroot going, he gave Anderson a match. They smoked for a while in companionable silence.

What was happening over on the Silver Cloud? Was Acting Master Ferguson-a real U.S. Navy officer-as friendly toward the Rebs as this fellow? Was he complimenting them in a professional way for the skill and thoroughness they'd shown in slaughtering the Federals inside Fort Pillow? Leaming didn't-couldn't-know, but he wouldn't have been surprised.

Some Federal and Confederate officers were friends because they'd gone to West Point together or served side by side in the Old Army. Leaming could understand that even if he didn't like it. But it wouldn't be true of someone still wet behind the ears like William Ferguson. All the same, though, to Leaming 's way of thinking Union officers too often bent over backwards to extend all the courtesies to their Confederate counterparts.

That dull anger inside him grew sharper and hotter. He was damned if he would ever give any Confederate more than the minimum due him under the laws of war-if he lived to fight again. Had the Rebels given the men inside Fort Pillow even so much? He didn't think so.

Not far away, a colored artilleryman lay groaning. A bloody bandage only partly covered a huge saber cut on his head, and another wrapped his hand. He was in a bad way; Leaming didn't think he would get better. What would Negroes make of the fight at Fort Pillow? Wouldn't they want to swear bloody vengeance against Forrest's men in particular and Confederate troops in general? Leaming had seldom tried to think like a Negro, but so it seemed to him.

In and around Fort Pillow, the Confederates methodically went on wrecking and burning anything Union forces might possibly use. Forrest's men weren't going to try to hold the place against a U.S. attack. That made more sense than Mack Leaming wished it did. The Federals hadn't been able to keep the Rebs from storming the fortress; the Confederates were unlikely to have any better luck unless they brought in enough troops to man Gideon Pillow's outer perimeter. And what was the point of that?

Smoke from the burning swirled across the Platte Valley and the Silver Cloud. It made Leaming 's eyes sting and burn. It also made him cough, which hurt in spite of the laudanum. He tried to breathe in little shallow sips.

Maybe that helped some. It also made him take longer than he might have otherwise to realize he wasn't just smelling wood smoke. The other odor was scorched meat. His stomach did a slow lurch when he recognized it.

He wasn't the only one. “What are you Rebs doing there?” the Platte Valley's ornately dressed skipper asked Captain Anderson.

“Burning things, sir,” Forrest's aide answered matter-of-factly.

“Burning things.”

“Things-that's fine.” The steamboat captain made a horrible face. “Smells like you're burning people, too.”

“Not live ones,” Anderson said. “I don't know if we got all the bodies out of some of those huts before we fired them. To tell you the truth, I don't much care, either. I am not one of those men who believe the body must be perfect to render Resurrection effectual. My view is that God can provide in such circumstances, and that He will.”