FORT PILLOW

Or he hadn't cared who knew it. He didn't think he would be smart to go on about niggers and coons where that grimly determined sergeant could hear him. The way the blacks in Fort Pillow fought had surprised him. The way the colored sergeant was ready to go on fighting no matter how bad things looked astonished him.

If we were wrong all along about what Negroes can do, then it doesn't matter if the Confederates win this fight, he thought. It doesn't even matter if they win this war. Sooner or later, their cause is doomed, and it will fall to pieces. It has to, because it rests on lies.

On a cosmic level, that might well be so. Back here in the mud by the edge of the Mississippi, who won and who lost mattered very much, because it told who lived and who died. Some of the Federals started south along the riverbank, perhaps hoping to get past the Confederate troopers who'd helped drive off the New Era.

A couple of them looked back at him, as if wondering if he would try to stop them. He didn't. For one thing, he wasn't sure they would obey him. Why should they, when his orders had led them to their present sorry state? For another, he wasn't sure they were wrong. What were they supposed to do, wait here for Bedford Forrest's troopers to shoot them to pieces? Certain disaster lay down that road. Maybe, if they pushed hard…

And maybe not, too. Every choice Bill Bradford made that day, even keeping his mouth shut, proved wrong. The men in blue fired a few shots-hardly enough to dignify with the name of volley-at the Confederates. The roar of musketry that answered sent them reeling back in dismay. Some bled. Some limped. Some didn't even reel, but lay dead or badly wounded by the river.

“They're coming!” a white Federal screamed. “They're on our tails! “

“Dey gwine kill all 0' we!” shrieked a Negro beside him. The black's terror and his thick accent made the words almost incomprehensible. But no one could misunderstand the fear that made him push through the crowd of soldiers, that made him throwaway his Springfield to run the faster.

And the panic from the men who'd taken that blast of musket fire-and the whoops and Rebel yells from the Confederates who were indeed on their tails-stampeded the rest of the Union troops into motion. What point waiting here for the massacre they all saw ahead? The New Era wouldn't rescue them now-they all saw that, too. And so, more a mob, a herd, than anything resembling soldiery, they pelted north, toward where Coal Creek ran into the Mississippi.

One more spooked steer, Bill Bradford ran along with the rest.

A few of the men in Colonel Barteau's regiment along Coal Creek fired at the Federal gunboat as it steamed away from the fight. “No, goddammit! Don't waste your ammunition!” Corporal Jack Jenkins roared, along with other underofficers and officers. “Jesus Christ!” he went on. “You can't hit the son of a bitch at this range, and even if you could, so what? She's iron-plated, for cryin' out loud.”

“Have a heart, Corporal,” a trooper said. “Damn boat's been shootin' at us all day long. Least we can do is pay her back a little.”

“Blow 'em a kiss. Wave bye-bye.” Jenkins suited action to word. “Bastard's gone. That's all we've got to worry about. Now reload your damn piece, and don't go shooting at anything till you got somethin' to shoot at. “

The private scowled. He muttered. But not only did Jenkins have two stripes on his sleeve, he was also taller and wider through the shoulders and, without a doubt, meaner. If the soldier tried to give trouble, he'd end up getting it instead. He might be a grumbler, but he wasn't a fool. He could see that for himself. And he did need to reload, regardless of whether he needed somebody to tell him to do it. He went right on muttering, but he followed Jenkins's order.

And Jenkins was happy enough to leave it right there. Getting troopers to do what you told them was a never-ending pain in the neck. They always thought they had a better idea, and they were bound and determined to go ahead with it no matter what.

He wondered if he was such a pest before he got promoted. A reminiscent smile stole over his face. He was. Not a chance anyone ever set over him would say anything different. He wondered how sergeants and officers ever put up with him. But the answer to that wasn't hard to find. No matter how big a nuisance he'd been, without even trying he could think of a dozen men who were worse.

“What do we do now?” somebody asked.

“There's damnyankees round the bend of the bluff, down by the

Mississippi. You can hear the bastards,” somebody else said. “Let's go kill 'em. Them bastards what went up into the fort, they've had all the fun.”

Jenkins felt the same way. But a nearby lieutenant shook his head. “We'll just sit tight for a little while, is what we'll do. Aren't a whole hell of a lot of us. We might bite off a bigger chaw than we can get in our cheek.”