Confederate soldiers weren't just robbing blacks. They were stealing from white Federals, too, stripping dead and wounded troopers from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry (U.S.). One wounded white man who made a feeble protest got his teeth knocked out with a rifle butt.
Rafe and Willie dragged Robinson toward several bodies lying close together on the ground. Fear rose up in a choking cloud inside him-were they going to finish him off now? But the minnie or bayonet thrust didn't come. They hurried off to see what other loot they could garner.
Ben Robinson lay where they'd left him. As long as he stayed quiet near dead bodies, maybe Forrest's troopers would think he was dead, too, and leave him alone. Then he noticed he was lying next to Major Booth's corpse. The dead commandant stared at him out of dull eyes. Robinson wanted to reach out and close them; that set, unwavering gaze unmanned him. But he couldn't make himself touch the body. He turned his back on it instead.
Secesh soldiers had already stripped Booth's corpse. He wore only undershirt and drawers. Now that Robinson thought back on it, he'd seen a Reb sporting a tunic with a lot of brass buttons on it.
If that sharpshooter's bullet hadn't found the major… Robinson swore softly. Too late to worry about it now. Too late to worry about anything now, except-if God proved kinder than He'd shown himself to be thus far- surviving.
“Surrender? Hell, no, you fucking son of a bitch! You ain't gonna surrender!” a Confederate trooper yelled, and fired at Bill Bradford from no more than fifty feet away. The bullet cracked past the major's head. Bradford turned and ran while the Reb swore. The man who'd led the defense of Fort Pillow didn't know whether he led a charmed life or a cursed one. Every Secesh soldier wanted to shoot him on sight, but so far none of their bullets had bitten.
Not knowing what else to do, he darted into the Mississippi, even though wading out into the river hadn't done his men much good. The water was cold. He waded and floundered and dog-paddled out some fifty yards, then paused, panting and treading water. He could taste the Mississippi mud in his mouth, and prayed it wouldn't be the last thing he ever tasted.
“There he is!” a Reb shouted. “That's Bradford! “
“Blow his head off!” cried another soldier in gray.
An officer pointed out to him. “Come ashore, Bradford, if you know what's good for you! “
“Will you spare me?” Bradford asked. The officer just pointed again, peremptorily. They would surely kill him if he stayed out in the Mississippi. Sobbing from fear and exhaustion, he made his way back toward the riverbank. No sooner had he got to where the water was only waist-deep, though, than the Confederates started shooting at him again. He yelped in fright as bullets flew by and splashed into the water. Again, though, none hit.
The officer who'd ordered him ashore and several others stood around watching the sport. They didn't do a thing to stop it. Sobbing, Bradford dashed up onto the muddy land and started running up the hill. He pulled a soaked handkerchief from his pocket and waved it, again trying to give up. More bullets cracked past him.
At last, he almost ran into a Rebel trooper coming down to the riverside. The Confederate leveled his rifle musket at Bradford's brisket. “Give it up, you Yankee bastard!” he yelled.
“I surrender! Oh, dear, sweet Jesus Christ, I surrender!” Bradford threw his hands in the air as high as they would go. He had never imagined he could be so glad to yield himself.
Then the Reb recognized him. “You!” Now that Forrest's trooper knew the man he'd caught, he looked ready to end Bradford's career on the instant. But he didn't pull the trigger after all. Instead, greed lighting his face, he said, “Turn out your pockets, damn you!”
“I'll do it.” Bradford did, without the least hesitation. Being robbed seemed much better than being killed. “Here you go, friend.” He handed the Confederate more than fifty dripping dollars. If he held back a double eagle… Well, you never could tell when twenty dollars in gold might come in handy.
“I ain't no friend of yours,” his captor said, snatching the bills and coins out of his hands. A nasty smile spread across the Reb's face. “No, I ain't no friend of yours, but I like your money just fine.”
“Take it, then, and welcome,” Bradford said. He could always make more money. He sneezed. The wind on his soaked clothes chilled him to the bone.
Forrest's trooper gestured with the muzzle of his rifle musket. “Up the hill you go, Bradford. I'd shoot you my own self, but I reckon there's others who want you even worse'n I do-starting with the menfolk whose women your damn traitors outraged.”
Bradford licked his lips. He tasted more mud; his mustache was wet. But his tongue and the inside of his mouth were dry with fear. “I never gave orders for anything like that,” he got out.
“Yeah, likely tell, likely tell,” the Confederate jeered. “Now let's
hear another story-one I'll maybe believe.”
“Before God, it's the truth.” Bradford held up his right hand, as if taking an oath. The soldier in butternut laughed. It wasn't a goodnatured, mirthful laugh. A cat with a human voice might have laughed like that playing with a cornered mouse. The Reb urged Bradford up the side of the bluff again. Shivering, Bradford went.
It was the truth. No one-no one in his right mind, anyway, ordered his men to abuse the women on the other side. But, as Bradford knew and as Pontius Pilate must also have known long ago, there was truth, and then there was truth. West Tennessee was and always had been a Rebel stronghold. Forrest's trooper called the soldiers of the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry (U.S.) traitors. To Bradford's way of thinking, the men who were trying to break the Union in half were the real traitors.
If you stayed loyal to the United States, what did you do about treason? What could you do about it? You could put it down, that was what. If somebody wanted to see the Stars and Stripes cut down and the Stainless Banner flying in their place, what were you supposed to do? Stand by and watch while he took up arms against your country-against the country? Bradford shook his head as he climbed the steep slope. He didn't think so.
And sometimes the game got rough. It got rough on both sides. Plenty of men under his command had had relatives bushwhacked, houses burned, livestock killed or driven off. If they paid the Confederates back in the same coin, who could blame them? Not Bill Bradford, not for a minute. He wanted to make it hard on the Rebs, to remind them they were facing a power strong enough to defend itself, a power strong enough to make anyone who defied it sorry.
Some of the things that happened didn't happen officially. Taking women out behind the barn and doing what you wanted with them — to them — fell in that category. No, nobody would order it. But if you owed vengeance to a particular Reb, if you knew who he was, if you knew where his kin lived, wouldn't you do whatever you could to pay him back? Of course you would.
Some of the soldiers who did things like that bragged about them. Bradford had heard them going on about what they'd done. They fell silent when they noticed him, but often not soon enough. Had he done such things, he would have kept quiet about them till people shoveled dirt over his grave. But he was a lawyer-he knew that talking about something often made it twice as real. Being a lawyer, he also tended to forget that things stayed real even without testimony about them.
As he regained the top of the cliff, he saw a Negro wearing only shirt and drawers lying next to a white man who'd had all his outer clothes stolen. The colored soldier stirred. The white man never would, not till the Judgment Trump blew: Major Bradford recognized Lionel Booth.
Had the Rebs stripped Theodorick the same way? Bradford couldn't stand the idea. He hurried toward the place where Theo had fallen. “Where do you think you're going, you goddamn son of a bitch?” snarled the Confederate who'd captured him.
“To see my brother's body,” he answered, not slowing in the slightest. “Wouldn't you do the same for yours?”
The Confederate didn't answer. He also didn't fire. Bradford strode through the chaos of the sack of Fort Pillow. Rebs were busy stripping bodies and plundering sutlers' huts, stealing from the United States all the things their own gimcrack government couldn't give them.
Horrible screams rose from a tent the Federals had been using as a hospital for their wounded. Mixed in with them were shouts of hoarse, drunken laughter. Some of Forrest's troopers must have got into the whiskey Major Booth had ordered put out to fortify the garrison's courage. A couple of soldiers in butternut lurched from the tent. They both carried cavalry sabers dripping blood.
“You scalped that coon just like an Injun would!” one of them told the other. They both thought that was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. They had to hold each other up, or they would have fallen on their faces.
