FORT PILLOW

“They won't never lick us, not if we have to fight 'em the next hundred years,” his friend said. “Ain't nobody never gonna tell me no niggers as good as I am. Just on account of Abe Lincoln looks like an ape himself, that's how come he loves them black gorillas so much.”

“Expect you're right.” Eb spat again. They walked on.

Ben Robinson didn't breathe more than tiny little sips of air till he could hear their footfalls no more. He already knew how Southern whites felt about Negroes. If they didn't feel that way, would they have bought and sold him? And the more whites in the C.S.A. swore at Abraham Lincoln, the more they convinced blacks he was the answer to their prayers. Lincoln wasn't even on the ballot in most Southern states, but if Robinson could have voted…

Me? Vote? The more he thought about the idea, the better he liked it. If he was a free man, shouldn't he be able to do everything free men did? He didn't have his letters, but so what? Plenty of white men didn't have their letters, either, but that didn't stop them from voting. And maybe he could learn. Free men could go to school, after all. Teaching them to read and write wasn't a crime, the way it was with slaves in South Carolina.

Then another cloud passed in front of the moon. Darkness poured down on the riverside. New fears filled Ben Robinson-new and at the same time ancient, far more ancient than the simple fear of having Bedford Forrest's troopers smash in his head. Darkness was the time of witches and ghosts and hants, and he lay here helpless, unable to get away.

White men talked about believing in hants and all the other terrible things that prowled the darkness. White men talked about it, but they didn't really do it, not down deep, not where it really mattered. Ben did. He believed in his belly, in his balls. Something just out of sight always lay in wait in the dark, ready to reach out and grab, to terrify, to possess, to frighten to death. How many people died all of a sudden, without a mark on them, without a sign of sickness? Too many, far too many. If a conjure woman didn't spell them into the grave, if a hant didn't drag them down into it, why weren't they still alive? Who could answer a question like that? Nobody.

Something buzzed past Ben's ear. Maybe it was only a mosquito. Yes, maybe. But did a mosquito really sound just like that? Robinson didn't think so. It might be a hant, waiting for him to fall asleep or just to let his attention lapse.

“Go 'way. Go 'way, bad thing.” Those quietly desperate words didn't spring from Ben's throat, but from that of some other Negro not far away. He wasn't the only black man with night terrors, then. Oddly, the other man's fear helped ease his. He realized he wasn't alone. If a hant did try to grab him, somebody might come to his rescue. And, a lower part of his mind added, if he wasn't alone out here, the hant or the ghost or the witch might decide to torment somebody else.

The moon came out from behind a cloud. Pale, cool light spilled across the land. The moon's reflection, shattered and rippled a thousand thousand times by the current, danced on the river. Moonlight was better than darkness… wasn't it? Or did it give the things still lurking in black shadow the chance they needed to find a victim?

He didn't know. He was only a man, a frightened, wounded, painfilled man. Daybreak just past seemed much further away than the moon. The things he'd done since then! The things he'd seen! The things he'd lived through!… And the things so many of his comrades hadn't lived through.

Would he live to see the sun rise tomorrow? That seemed even more distant than the dawn that was shattered by Confederate gunfire. If he reached it, he promised he would praise the Lord.

A lot of people must have made a lot of promises while the fighting in Fort Pillow raged. A lot of the people who made those promises were dead now, more than a few of them shot trying to surrender. What did that mean? Were the men who'd made those fancy promises and then died hypocrites and sinners?

Or did God listen to the Confederates instead? No doubt they'd been praying and promising, too. Most of them were alive and well and enjoying the spoils of victory. Did that mean God was on their side? But they were losing the war. If they weren't, the Federals wouldn't hold Memphis. The United States wouldn't have held Fort Pillow.

What did it all mean? The more you looked at it, the less sense it made. Robinson thought of himself as a good Christian man. How could God favor people who wanted to keep him in bondage? But he'd seen enough to know that Forrest's troopers honestly couldn't imagine God favoring someone with black skin at their expense.