FORT PILLOW

“Ain't got nothin', huh?” Jenkins scooped up the money the way a redtail flew off with a chick wandering around the farmyard. The ten dollar goldpiece went deep into his own pocket. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a gold coin. Even silver was in desperately short supply in the cash-strapped South. Federal greenbacks passed for hard money these days, though even they sold at a discount against specie. As for the banknotes Southern banks issued… They were like weevily hardtack. You held your nose, you closed your eyes, and you went ahead and used them. “Got any more?” Jenkins barked.

“So help me, that's it,” the Negro wheezed, hand pressed against his ribs again.

“Last chance, coon,” Jack Jenkins said. “I'm gonna search you. If I find more, you go straight into the goddamn river.”

“Ain't got nothin',” the colored artilleryman said. Jenkins patted every pocket he had, felt his chest to see if he was hiding a bag around his neck, even took off his socks and threw them away. He didn't find anything. Either the Negro was telling the truth or he had a devil of a good place to stash stuff.

Corporal Jenkins kicked him once more, almost for good luck. “That's what you get for lyin' to me the first time,” he said, and went off to see if he could find another Federal who hadn't been properly frisked. Ten dollars in gold! You could buy a hell of a lot of Confederate paper money for ten dollars in gold. Or you could buy a hell of a lot of things-if anybody in these parts had them to sell.

The sun was going down. Mack Leaming watched it sink with indifference marred by pain and bitterness. The sun is setting on me, he thought. If he didn't get someone to help him, if he had to lie on this cold, wet, miserable slope till morning, he feared he wouldn't see the next sunrise.

He'd done everything he knew how to do. Several Confederates went past him, skipping goat-like down the side of the bluff and slogging back up from the riverside. He called out to them-and they paid him no heed.

He even raised his arms in the three motions to shape the Grand Hailing Sign of Distress, but either none of Bedford Forrest's followers was a Freemason or Confederate Masons were a cold-blooded lot indeed, their hearts hardened against their Union brethren. He would rather have believed the former than the latter; Freemasonry was supposed to transcend national allegiances. But regardless of whether the truth lay in ignorance or in malice, it seemed all too likely to kill him.

Leaming must have dozed-or passed out-for a little while.

When he returned to himself again, the sun had dropped closer to the Mississippi and the trees beyond it. He had to look at his arms to see if they still shaped the Grand Hailing Sign. They did, not that it seemed likely to matter.

Someone in boots came down the slope. Leaming didn't bother to turn his head at the sound. But, where so many Confederates passed on the other side like the priest and the Levite in the Book of Luke, this man stopped. Mack Leaming looked up at him. He wore the two bars of a first lieutenant on either side of his collar. Was he, could he be, a Samaritan in this hour of need?

The Confederate officer studied Leaming as he lay there on the ground. After a pause that had to last more than a minute, the Reb coughed a couple of times and asked, “Are you by any chance a… traveling man, sir?”

Hope flowered in the wounded Federal. That was a question a Freemason might ask a stranger to see if he too belonged to the order. Careless of the pain, Leaming nodded. When he first tried to speak, only a dusty croak passed his lips. He tried again, gathering his feeble reserves of strength. “I travel.. from West to East,” he got out-the East was the direction from which enlightenment came.

“I thought so,” the C.S. lieutenant breathed. “A man does not shape the Grand Hailing Sign by accident. No doubt our forebears chose it for just that reason.” He knelt by Leaming. “Well, brother, I will do what I can for you. Where are you hit?”

“Below the shoulder blade,” Leaming answered. “I was shot from the top of the bluff, so the minnie went down…” He had to gather himself again before asking, “Could I have some water, please?”

“Of course,” the Confederate said, where all his comrades told Leaming no or pretended not to hear him. The man undid the tin canteen at his belt and held it to Leaming's mouth. It was captured U.S. issue, with a pewter spout. Never had Leaming tasted anything more delicious than the warm, rather stale water that ran so sweetly down his throat.

“Thank you,” he said when the enemy officer took the canteen away. He could hear how much more like himself he sounded with a wet whistle. “From the bottom of my heart, friend, thank you. You are the good Samaritan come again.”

“I doubt it. I doubt it very much,” the Reb said. “When we attacked this place, I wanted to see every man jack in it lying dead at my feet.”