FORT PILLOW

Another Confederate soldier wandered over and joined in. Not too surprisingly, he had a jug of his own. He was a friendly sort, and willing to share. After a healthy snort, Ward sat down on the ground. "How come you're shtill shtanding?" he demanded of Bradford, his voice thick and slurred.

"I've always had a good head on my shoulders." Bill Bradford wondered why Ward was still breathing, let alone talking and making some sense. The amount he'd put away… He'd pay for it in the morning. But Bradford wanted him to pay sooner than that.

Ward blinked now, his eyes shining in the moonlight, and shook his head. "You had a good head on your shoulders, you wouldn't be a homemade Yankee. You'd be on the right shide inshtead." He yawned, shook his head again as if annoyed at himself, and then wagged a finger at Bradford. "Don't you go nowhere," he warned. But that was the end. He slowly slumped to the ground and slept.

"About time," Bill Bradford breathed. Now he had a chance.

"You there! Jenkins!" That sharp, astringent voice could only belong to Second Lieutenant Newsom Pennell.

"Yes, sir?" Corporal Jenkins fought to sound properly respectful. It wasn't easy. He didn't like Pennell, and it cut both ways. Jenkins belonged to Company A and Pennell to Company F, but the junior officer went out of his way to find things for him to do, and came down on him hard when he didn't do them well enough to suit Pennell's persnickety tastes. That was how it seemed to Jack Jenkins, anyhow. He never stopped to wonder how it seemed to the lieutenant.

Pennell came up to him, there by the riverbank. The officer was almost too skinny to cast a shadow. He had a narrow, disapproving face, and wore a little hairline mustache that made him look like a French fop. Jenkins was used to beards that were beards and mustaches that were mustaches, not one that looked as if it were drawn on with a burnt match.

"We need a better perimeter around the fort," Pennell declared. "How come, sir?" Jenkins asked in honest surprise. "We done took the place."

"Yes, yes," Lieutenant Pennell said impatiently. "We took it, and now we have to make sure no one gets out of it."

"I thought we took care of that pretty good," Jenkins said. "We shot most of the bastards in there. The ones that ain't dead ain't goin' anywhere quick." He hefted his rifle musket. Even the moonlight was enough to show the grisly stains on the stock.

But Lieutenant Pennell ignored them, as he ignored Jenkins's comment. "I am going to send you out to the original line of defense around this place, the one that General Pillow laid out," he said, a certain somber glee in his voice. "You and your fellow pickets will stand watch through the night, allowing no one to pass through unless a Confederate soldier or provided with proper authorization. Is that clear?"

"Why'd you pick on me?" Jenkins didn't add, you son of a bitch, not where Newsom Pennell could hear it, but he thought it very loudly.

"When I saw you there, I thought how useful an underofficer might be among the pickets," Pennell answered.

When you saw me standing here, you reckoned you'd land me with a crappy duty. That's what it is, Jenkins thought. "Thanks a hell of a lot, sir," he said.

"You're welcome." Pennell either didn't notice the sarcasm – Jenkins's guess – or refused to admit that he did. "Now go take your place. God only knows how many Federals are trying to sneak away even as we speak. "

God knows it ain't very many. But, short of bashing in Pennell's brains with the gory rifle musket, Jenkins was stuck, and he knew it. With a martyred sigh, he said, "Yes, sir." He didn't salute as he stomped away from Pennell. If the lieutenant wanted to call him on it, fine. Pennell said not a word.

Even finding Fort Pillow's outer works by moonlight wasn't easy. He might never have done it had he not heard several other disgruntled pickets grousing with one another. They gave the two stripes on his sleeve suspicious looks-they had to wonder if he was coming to make them act like proper soldiers. But when he started discussing Newsom Pennell's unsavory ancestry and inflammable destination, they knew him for a fellow sufferer and relaxed.

One of them had a jug. He was willing to share it. "Leastways you brought a little something out of the fort," another picket said mournfully. "Me, I didn't get no loot a-tall."

"This should've been our chance," another man said. He drew on his pipe. The glowing red coal in the bowl lit up the top of his face from beneath: a strange, almost hellish glow. "Now we're stuck out here, and the others're getting all the goodies."

Jenkins already had some greenbacks and new shoes, and now a knock of whiskey. He didn't know what else he could expect to get, but he joined in the grumbling anyway. When the jug came around again, he took another good swig. Thus fortified, he found a place on the outer line that wasn't too close to anybody else's.