FORT PILLOW

Cartridge bitten open and rammed home. Copper cap on the nipple. Enfield half cocked. Ward nodded to himself. He was ready to shoot again. The smoke got thicker. He coughed and rubbed at his streaming eyes. Between the smoke and the black powder he got on his face whenever he reloaded, he hoped his fellow troopers wouldn't shoot him for a nigger.

The row of buildings closest to the fort was on fire. The damned Tennessee Tories had done that much, and Ward didn't see what he and his comrades could do but let those huts burn. The second row remained intact. The barracks there could still give the Confederates good cover… if the Federals didn't fire them.

Another indistinct shape came through the smoke. No, this fellow had a torch in his hand, which left no doubt whose side he was on. “Forrest!” Ward shouted, and fired at him.

To his disgust, he missed. Before, he'd sniped at men inside Fort Pillow from several hundred yards, and was pretty sure he'd scored hits. Here he could damn near spit on this bluebelly, but he missed him. It was embarrassing. It happened all the time, but it was still embarrassing.

“Jesus God!” the enemy trooper screeched when the rifle musket roared not thirty feet away and the minnie cracked past him. He dropped the torch and dashed back toward Fort Pillow in great terrified bounds, his feet hardly seeming to touch the ground. Ward didn't think a catamount could have caught him, let alone a mere man.

Missing him hadn't been so bad, then. He was out of the fight here, anyway. Matt Ward tried to console himself as he reloaded again. You could talk yourself into believing almost anything if you tried hard enough.

More and more men in blue uniforms ran back to the earthwork on the bluff. Unless the wind suddenly swung, it didn't look as if the second row of wooden buildings would catch. And if they stayed intact, Ward and the other Confederates who'd saved them would be able to go on peppering Fort Pillow from the cover they gave. That was the point of the clash.

For a little while, the smoke and flames rising from the nearer row of barracks buildings let Lieutenant Mack Leaming believe both rows were on fire. But the bullets still coming from the wooden structures soon disabused him of that notion. The men he'd sent out to burn both rows of buildings at Major Bradford's orders had torched the first row, but not the second. They wouldn't have the chance to do it now. They were falling back toward Fort Pillow. Some of them were running, scrambling up the forward face of the bluff as far as they could go. Others moved more slowly-those were men who would pause to shoot at the Rebs when they got the chance. Still others helped wounded comrades toward what they hoped would be safety.

A bullet whistled over Leaming's head. He didn't worry about bullets that whistled. They were too far away to be dangerous. Bullets that cracked by-those were the near misses, the scary rounds. People said you never heard the one that got you. Leaming didn't know if that was true, and didn't want to find out, either.

“Lieutenant, why are those men retreating?” Major Bradford demanded.

“Sir, there are probably too many Secesh troopers to hold off,” Leaming answered. “If they don't come back, they'll all get killed.”

“But they didn't do what I sent them out there to do,” Bradford said.

“No, sir,” Leaming said. Sometimes-often-the least answer you could give was the best one.

“But they needed to burn those buildings,” Bradford said. “We are in danger as long as Forrest's men can fire from them.”

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Leaming said. It wasn't as if Bradford were wrong. They were in danger from the Confederates in the barracks buildings. As if to prove as much, a minnie snapped past over the major's head. Bradford automatically ducked. So did Leaming.

“What are we going to do? We can't let them establish themselves there,” the commandant said.

We can't stop them from establishing themselves there, Leaming thought. We tried. It didn't work. Major Bradford had to know that as well as he did. Since Bradford had to know it, Leaming couldn't think of any answer for him. Then he had a happy thought. “Maybe the New Era can shell them out. “

“Maybe.” Major Bradford brightened. He had great faith in the gunboat in the Mississippi-more faith than its performance so far justified, as far as Leaming was concerned. “Go tell my brother to direct the gunboat's fire against those buildings.”

“Yes, sir.” Lieutenant Leaming tried to sound cooperative, not resigned. He'd given the major the idea, after all. He trotted over to Captain Theodorick Bradford at the edge of the steep bluff leading down to the river. “Your brother's compliments, sir, and he says for you to tell the New Era to pound the stuffing out of the barracks halls and drive the Rebs out of ' em.”