FORT PILLOW

“After we git you, we git your sisters, too!” another Negro shouted. Forrest could imagine nothing better calculated to inflame his men. The colored soldier probably wasn't joking, either. White troopers from Fort Pillow had ranged through western Tennessee. They'd insulted more than a few women dear to Forrest's soldiers, and outraged more than one. Why wouldn't a black man want to imitate them?

A corporal not far from Forrest growled. “Those sons of bitches'll laugh out of the other side of their faces when we get in amongst 'em.” A couple of soldiers shook their fists at the U.S. soldiers inside Fort Pillow, but no one raised a rifle musket to his shoulder and tried to avenge himself upon them. Unlike the Federals, his men showed good discipline-or maybe they were more worried about what he would do to them for going against orders than they were angry at the enemy.

Captain Goodman rode back to him sooner than he'd expected. “What's going on?” Forrest called to him. “Has Booth given you an answer already?”

“No, sir-sorry,” Goodman answered. “But some of the Federals in the truce party are saying maybe you aren't really here at all. They're saying it's a bluff like the one Colonel Duckworth used in Union City.”

“Oh, they are, are they?” Forrest said. “Will it make ’em happy if I advance and be recognized?”

Goodman's lips quirked upward into something that looked like a smile but was knowing and unamused. “Well, sir, I don't reckon it'll make ‘em very happy, if you know what I mean, but it'll sure enough take their doubts away.”

“Then I'll do it,” Forrest said at once. “Lead on, Captain. I think things here are tolerable good-the Yankees won't be able to land, and it looks like they know it.”

He followed the junior officer forward, past the barracks buildings and up onto the higher ground that led to the inner position the United States had fortified. The U.S. flag still floated defiantly above Fort Pillow. Forrest felt a peculiar prickling of the skin above his breastbone. If a Federal sharpshooter wanted him dead badly enough to violate the truce, he was within range for a decent shot. But U.S. soldiers had tried to kill him since the war was new. His own horse had come closer to doing it a few hours earlier than most of them had. Captain Goodman pointed. “There they are, sir.”

“I see ‘em,” Forrest said.

“The big dark one is Captain Young-their provost marshal,”

Goodman said. “The other officer's Lieutenant van Horn. I don't see Lieutenant Leaming-he's the post adjutant. He must still be inside the fort, talking things over with Major Booth.”

“These fellows here can testify for me.” Forrest spurred past Goodman and rode up to the Federals. “I am General Forrest,” he said. “Will any of you know me by sight?”

“I do, sir.” The dark officer sketched a salute. “Captain John Young, Twenty-fourth Missouri Cavalry. Not the way I'd care to meet you, but…” He shrugged.

“You do know I am who I say I am?” Forrest persisted.

“Yes, sir.” Young did not seem afraid. He probably was – Forrest would have been, in his shoes – but he didn't show it. Most of the time, that was what mattered on the field. Forrest nodded with reluctant respect.

Captain Goodman pointed west toward the Mississippi, where the steamer moving up from the south had come level with Fort Pillow. Her name was painted on her side in huge letters: Olive Branch. Bedford Forrest chuckled under his breath.

“Look how many men she's got aboard her, sir,” Goodman said.

“They can give us a lot of trouble if she lands.”

“Don't worry, Captain,” Forrest said quietly. “She won't land.”

VII

TWENTY MINUTES?” MAJOR BRADFORD STARED in dismay at the note Mack Leaming had just handed him. He saw absently that it was in a hand different from the last one he'd received. “Twenty minutes!” he said again, in even more pained disbelief. “'If at the expiration of that time the fort is not surrendered, I shall assault it.' My God!”

“What answer shall I take back to the Confederates, sir?” Lieutenant Leaming asked.

“He doesn't even care about the New Era,” Bradford said. That had nothing to do with his adjutant's question, but he didn't care. He'd counted-he still did count-on the gunboat in the Mississippi to help his men hold their positions against the Confederates. To Bedford Forrest, the gunboat didn't matter at all.

Or Forrest said it didn't matter at all. That wasn't necessarily the same thing. The Confederate cavalry commander was as sneaky a man as God had ever set on the face of the earth. He might be running a bluff, trying to trick the garrison at Fort Pillow into quitting when they didn't have to.

But Bradford was running something of a bluff of his own. He was playing for time, hoping to hold the fort till reinforcements came. And there they were-he could see the Olive Branch out there in the river, almost close enough to reach out and touch.