FORT PILLOW

“He'll be sorry when we do.” Black Bob McCulloch didn't say if. Bedford Forrest smiled. He liked men like that. Had William Bradford seen that smile, he would have run even faster than he was running. Well, maybe he would see it before too long. No-Forrest took his cue from McCulloch. Bradford would see that smile, and soon, and no maybes to it.

XV

AFTER CORPORAL JACK JENKINS LET the sutler pass, he figured his excitement was over for the night. For a couple of hours, he was right. The moon sank toward the Mississippi. Jenkins yawned several times. He didn't lie down. He didn't even squat. He didn't doze-not quite, anyhow. But he'd ridden through the previous night and fought a battle the day before. He wasn't at his brightest and most alert. He didn't think he needed to be.

He yawned again, wider than ever, when the moon set. Darkness came down, a veil of black so thick he could hardly see his hand in front of his face. But he had no trouble picking out the party of horsemen who rode out from Fort Pillow, torches in hand. One of those riders was conspicuously bigger than the rest. If that wasn't Bedford Forrest, Jenkins would have been surprised.

And if that was Forrest… then what? Then something's gone wrong somewhere, Jenkins thought, never imagining that whatever had gone wrong had anything to do with him.

The riders went along the bank of Coal Creek till they came to the northernmost sentry along Fort Pillow's old outer perimeter. Then they started working their way south, toward Jenkins. As they drew closer, he could hear them talking with the sentries, but couldn't make out what they were saying.

They headed his way. Whatever they were looking for, they hadn't found it yet. He showed he was awake and alert by calling, “Halt! Who goes there?” – as if he wondered.

A dry chuckle came from Forrest. “I'm your commanding general, by God!”

“Advance and be recognized sir,” Jenkins said.

“Here I am.” Forrest and his aides slowly rode forward. He held up his torch so that it shone on his face. “Well, soldier? D'you recognize me?”

“Uh, yes, sir,” Jenkins answered hastily.

“Who are you? Can't quite make you out in the darkness,” Forrest said.

“Jack Jenkins, sir, corporal in the Second Tennessee Cavalry, Colonel Barteau's regiment.”

Forrest laughed again. “I know who that regiment belongs to. You'd best believe I do. You were over by Coal Creek before. I've got a question for you, Corporal. Did you let anybody – anybody at all – past you since you came on duty?”

“Yes, sir. One sutler,” Jenkins said.

The officers with Bedford Forrest all exclaimed. He held up a hand for quiet. As usual, he got what he wanted. “When was this? What did the fellow look like?”

“Hour and a half ago-maybe two hours,” Jenkins said. Forrest's aides exclaimed again, in dismay. A couple of them swore. Jenkins went on, “Couldn't hardly see him-he had his hat pulled down kind of low. He sure smelled bad, though; I'll tell you that.”

“I bet he did,” Forrest said. “I don't think he was a sutler at all. I reckon you let a polecat get through. Major Bradford broke his parole, and he's nowhere around.”

“Bradford!” Jenkins said. “That was Bradford? God damn it to hell! If I knew it was him, I'd've got some more blood on my piece.” He held up the rifle musket, which he still hadn't cleaned.

“Don't know for sure yet, but that's the way it looks.” Forrest eyed not the ghastly weapon but Jack Jenkins himself. “Why'd you pass him through?”

“He said an officer inside Fort Pillow told him he could go,” Jenkins answered uneasily. If his own officers wanted to, they could blame him for letting the Federal get away. And what they'd do to him if they did… Trying not to think about that, he went on. “He just seemed like a no-account fellow. And I never reckoned a major could stink like that, neither.”

He got a laugh out of Bedford Forrest, but only a sour one. “Oh, you'd be amazed,” the general said. He turned to the men who'd ridden out with him. “Any point to beating the bushes for the son of a bitch?”

“Not till morning, sir,” one of them answered. “A million places he could hide in the dark. If we didn't trip over him, we'd never know he was there.”

“ About what I figured myself.” Forrest muttered under his breath. “I was hoping you'd tell me I was wrong, dammit.”

Jenkins listened to the mounted men with only half an ear. “Bill Bradford?” he muttered. “I had Bill Bradford in front of me, and he slipped through my fingers? Shit!” Bradford wasn't the worst thorn in the side of West Tennessee Confederates; that dishonor went to Colonel Fielding Hurst, who'd been in business longer. But it wasn't for lack of effort on the major's part.