FORT PILLOW

Somebody close by was screaming for his mother. Ben Robinson couldn't tell if the cry came from a white throat or a black one, from a U.S. soldier or a Confederate. Badly hurt men all sounded pretty much the same. Maybe people should have drawn a lesson from that.

In fact, he was sure they should have. He was also sure they didn't. If they did, mad scenes like this wouldn't happen.

“Kill the niggers!” bawled somebody else much too close. Unlike the other, that cry would only come from a Confederate.

“Kill the traitors!” That might have been somebody from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, but was much more likely also to come from a Reb. Forrest's troopers hated the men who fought under Major Bradford at least as much as they hated blacks. When Ben Robinson came to Fort Pillow, he wouldn't have believed that was possible. After listening to Bradford's troopers talk for a while, he did.

And, after listening to them, he also believed the Confederates had some pretty good reasons to hate them. Some of the things the troopers bragged about doing… Of course, they had their reasons for doing those things-they were avenging themselves for other things Forrest's men had done to them and their kind and their friends. How long would that cycle of vengeance go on? How long could it go on, before everybody killed off everybody else?

Without Ben's even noticing, Charlie Key managed to reload his Springfield. When he fired, the muzzle of the piece couldn't have been more than six inches from Robinson's left ear. “Do Jesus!” Robinson yipped, and jumped in the air. “What you shooting at?”

“Damn Secesh bastard.” Mournfully, the other colored soldier added, “I done missed the son of a bitch.”

“Almos' didn't miss me.” Robinson's head still rang. Even after he'd fired the twelve-pounder more times than he could count, that rifle musket made an appalling noise, all the worse because it was so unexpected.

“Shit,” Sandy Cole said. “They's in behind us.”

Ben Robinson swore, too. The line of soldiers in blue wasn't a line any more. It had broken down into little knots of struggling men, like the one of which he was a part. Each knot fought for itself. Not enough U.S. officers remained on their feet to make the Federals fight as a group any more. And they were going to get defeated in… What was the word? In detail, that was it. Robinson felt absurdly pleased with himself for remembering.

But how much good would remembering do him? How much good would anything do him, with the Rebs howling like wolves and his own side falling one man after another? He tried to knock the rifle musket out of another Confederate's hands. He failed-the Reb held on to it. But the man didn't seem quite so eager to gut him like a butchered hog. The way things were going, that was a triumph of sorts.

Major Bradford couldn't even mourn the loss of his brother, not unless he wanted people to be mourning him, too, and in short order. He ran now here, now there, trying to rally the Federal soldiers wherever he could. For a little while, he hoped they could hold Forrest's men out and drive them back.

For a little while, yes-but not for long.

No matter what he'd thought, Bedford Forrest was in deadly earnest when he said his troopers could take Fort Pillow. Between the sharpshooters on the high ground looking down into the fort and the swarm of Rebs coming over the earthen rampart, the garrison had no chance to hold back the tide, any more than King Canute could in days gone by.

When Bradford fired at an oncoming Confederate, he found he'd emptied Theodorick's Colt as well as his own. “Son of a bitch!” he shouted, and then, because that wasn't nearly strong enough, “Shit!”

He threw the revolver in the enemy soldier's face. Whatever the Reb was expecting, that wasn't it. The pistol caught him right in the nose. He shouted, “Shit!” too, much louder than Bradford had. Clutching both hands to the wounded member, he slowly crumpled.

Instead of reclaiming the pistol, Bradford snatched up the Springfield the Confederate had dropped. The Colt was just a lump of iron now. He'd never have the chance to load in bullets and measure out charges of black powder and affix a percussion cap for each cylinder he wanted to fire. With a bayoneted rifle, he carried a spear longer than a man was tall. That was something, anyhow.

Something, yes, but how much? The Federals' defense of Fort Pillow was coming to pieces before his eyes. Things were falling apart. The center could not hold, and the Confederates poured in on both flanks as well. The flag had fallen. In a few minutes, Forrest's men looked likely to kill or capture every Union soldier in the fort.

Biting his lip, Bradford shouted the order he'd hoped he wouldn't have to give: “Down to the river, men! Down to the Mississippi! If the Rebs come after us, the New Era will give them canister!”