FORT PILLOW

Ice in his belly, Bradford stopped and turned. A young, officious-looking C.S. lieutenant bustled up to him, waiting importantly for his answer. “You people already went and cleaned me out,” he said in surly tones, staring down at his shoes so the Reb wouldn't get a good look at his face. “Ain't much point to sticking around, not when I got nothin' left to sell.”

“You're a civilian?” the lieutenant asked.

“Don't look like no soldier, do I?” Bradford said. Technically, as the lawyer's side of his mind noted, that wasn't a lie. It also wasn't a direct answer to the question.

That wasn't the reason it didn't satisfy the Rebel officer. “You weren't shooting at us earlier today?” Some of the sutlers had picked up Springfields and joined Fort Pillow's garrison. Much good it did them.

As for Bradford, he shook his head. “Not me,” he said. “I'm a what-do-you-call-it-a noncombatant, that's the word.” As soon as he spoke, he started to worry. An attorney would know that term, but would a sutler?

“Yeah, sure you are,” the Confederate jeered. But then he shook his head. “What else are you going to say? I can't prove you're a liar, so get the hell out of here.”

“Thank you kindly, sir,” Bradford said. The lieutenant just gestured impatiently. Touching one finger to the brim of his hat in what wasn't quite a salute, Bradford hurried away. He kept looking down at the muddy ground, as if to avoid stepping into a puddle or tripping over a corpse. And he didn't want to do either of those things, but most of all he didn't want to be recognized. If the Rebs should catch him now, in civilian clothes, violating his parole… Whatever happened to him after that, they could claim he deserved it.

“Come on, you men! What are you standing around for?” The loud, angry voice that split the night made Bill Bradford flinch as if the cat o' nine tails had come down on his back. There stood Nathan Bedford Forrest himself, not twenty feet away, still trying to get work out of his men at a time when almost any victorious officer would have let them relax and savor what they'd done. If he turned around and saw Bradford, everything came to pieces.

But he didn't. Someone said, “Sir, we've found some more crates of cartridges over here. “

“Have you, by God?” Forrest sounded delighted. “We'll bring' em away with us. Can't very well fight a war without minnies. Let's see what you got.” Despite a limp, his long legs ate up the ground as he strode over to look at his men's latest prize.

And Bill Bradford scurried across the plank bridge the Confederates had thrown across the ditch outside the rampart. How many Federals, white and black, lay in the ditch waiting for somebody to shovel dirt over them? I spared Theo that fate, anyhow, Bradford thought. He won't lie in a mass grave with a nigger on top of him.

Someone groaned. Bradford's blood ran cold again. He thought the sound came from the ditch below him, though he couldn't be sure. If the Rebs set prisoners to burying those bodies, would they be burying some men alive? He would never know.

His shoes stopped reverberating on the planks. They thumped on the dirt beyond. He blew out a great sigh of relief. Now that he'd made it this far, the Rebs were much less likely to know him even if they saw him. And they were much less likely to see him-torches out here were few and far between.

For the first time since Theodorick fell, he began to hope. He might get away. He might yet live to avenge his brother. As quickly and quietly as he could, he headed away from the bluff and out toward Gideon Pillow's long-abandoned first perimeter.

Corporal Jack Jenkins hated everything and everybody. He'd always hated homemade Yankees and runaway slaves who thought they were soldiers. He'd fed the fires of that hatred today, fed them and slaked them at the same time. He didn't know how many men he'd killed in the fight for Fort Pillow. He did know the number wasn't small.

And he knew one more man he wouldn't mind killing: Lieutenant Newsom Pennell, the miserable, no-good son of a bitch who'd exiled him here. Napoleon on whatever the name of his island was couldn't have been in a more miserable, more godforsaken spot. Did Napoleon have to worry about muddy boots and owls hooting like mournful ghosts in the tall trees? Jenkins didn't think so.

He wanted to wander off and see if that other sentry had some more popskull in his canteen. And he wanted to curl up right where he was and go to sleep. Only one thing held him back: animal fear of Nathan Bedford Forrest. If he broke regulations and something bad happened and Forrest found out about it… He shuddered. He didn't want to think about that.

And so he held his ground, certain he was holding it needlessly. Who would come out of the dark from the torch-lit bluff by the river? His own forces had a road, or at least a path, they were using, and it took them nowhere near him. That was all right. He didn't much want to see anybody.