FORT PILLOW

“And of me,” Colonel Robert McCulloch added. “I'm the man who's holding his parole. If he ran off…” His big hands folded into fists.

“Come on,” Forrest said. “His precious Theo was laying over here somewheres. “

He didn't need much prowling before he found a freshly dug grave. Next to it, he found a cavalry trooper sound asleep-or rather drunk and passed out, for he stank of whiskey. There was no sign of Major William Bradford. Forrest started to kick the trooper right where it would do the most good. Before he could bring his booted foot forward, Captain Anderson said, “What do you want to bet Bradford fed him all the tanglefoot he could hold, and a little more besides?”

Forrest left the kick undelivered. “I bet you're right, dammit. Hell, of course you are,” he said, angry at himself now. “We knew all along he was a sneaky son of a bitch. We should have watched him closer. Easy enough for him to make one private act the fool and then take off.” He drank whiskey himself only rarely, for medicinal purposes; he knew what it did to a man who liked it too well.

Colonel McCulloch bent down and shook the trooper. “Come on, Ward! Wake up!” he said.

The cavalryman- Ward-muttered and stirred. Slowly, his eyes came open. “Wahsh up?” he asked blearily.

“That's what we want to find out,” Forrest said. “Where the devil's Bradford? “

Ward looked around. His eyes fixed on the grave for a moment, but even in his fuddled state he realized the man in it was the wrong Bradford. Theodorick wasn't missing, nor would he ever be. No matter how plastered Ward was, he took Nathan Bedford Forrest seriously. Anyone who didn't made a dreadful mistake. “Sir, he wahshwas-right here.” The young cavalryman looked around in obvious, even if sozzled, confusion. “I don't know where he could've gone, or how he could've gone anywhere. He was drinking as much as me, honest to God he was.” He hiccuped.

His words puzzled Forrest, the near-teetotaler. They didn't puzzle Black Bob McCulloch. “Jesus wept!” the colonel burst out. “That's the oldest trick in the world. Make like you're drinking, only don't swallow-more likely, don't even let it get into your mouth at all.”

“Oh.” Bedford Forrest's voice held a grim rumble.

“Oh!” Ward, by contrast, sounded horrified. “I reckon I messed up.”

“I reckon you did,” McCulloch agreed. He turned to Forrest.

“What shall we do with him, sir? He's one of mine. The blame lands on me.“

“Let it go,” Forrest answered. “He didn't know Bradford was a snake in the grass, and the reptile” – he pronounced it rep-tile” – went and hornswoggled him. Way he'll feel come morning, that'll make sure he remembers he got took.”

“Maybe we should have had another Tennessean watching Bradford, not a man from Missouri,” Charles Anderson said. “Anybody from this state would have had a better notion of what the man is like.”

“We all got fooled,” Forrest said. “Every last one of us did, by God. I felt sorry for Bradford on account of I lost my brother, too. Colonel McCulloch trusted him enough to accept his parole. That sneaky goddamn note he sent out this afternoon should have warned the lot of us. 'Your demand does not produce the desired effect.''' He made a horrible face. “Anybody who could write anything like that, he shows you can't trust him from the git-go.”

“I fed the man.” Colonel McCulloch sounded disgusted with himself. “I offered him a place to sleep in my own tent. I'm lucky he didn't cut my throat in the night, I reckon.”

“Wouldn't be surprised.” Bedford Forrest nodded. “He might've done it if he didn't get loose this way instead. A reptile, like I say.”

Private Ward sat on the ground with his head in his hands. By the way he looked, he already felt bad; he wouldn't need to wait till morning. “I didn't mean to let him get away,” he said-by the wonder in his voice, he was talking more to himself than to the officers standing over him.

“What you mean is one thing. What happens is something else,” Forrest said, not unkindly. “Now we've got to deal with that. Sure as hell, Bradford's got away from Fort Pillow. What'll he do next? Where'll he go?”

“Memphis.” Colonel McCulloch and Captain Anderson said the same thing at the same time.

Nathan Bedford Forrest nodded again. Memphis was the great Federal bastion in western Tennessee. The United States had taken the city early in the war, and hung on to it ever since. Any Union sympathizer in these parts would head that way. “What are our chances of

catching him?”

“How well does he know the country?” Anderson asked in return. “Pretty well. He's from these parts,” Forrest said unhappily. He tried to look on the bright side of things: “Still and all, ain't but one of him, and there's lots of us. Now that we know he's loose, we've got a chance of running him down.”