way the cold, pale moonbeams glittered off the bayonet's polished steel. By the way Virgil Simms gulped, he didn't enjoy it one bit. “You can see me now, by God,” Jenkins said. “Come on over here and let me get a look at you.“
Even when Simms did, Jenkins couldn't see much. The brim of the sutler's slouch had shadowed his face. His clothes didn't fit him very well, but Jenkins's clothes didn't fit him very well, either. His nose wrinkled; Simms was long overdue for a bath.
“Wonder if I ought to take you back to that lieutenant,” Jenkins said musingly.
“Whatever you want to do.” The sutler didn't sound very happy. Then again, Jenkins wouldn't have been happy hearing that, either. After a moment, Simms went on, “Long way back in the dark. I almost broke my neck a couple times getting this far. “
“Yeah.” Jenkins had tripped and almost fallen two or three times coming out to take his sentry's post. He didn't really want to go back to Fort Pillow again. He'd just thrown out the words to see if he could rattle Virgil Simms's cage. “Hell with it,” he muttered, and then spoke louder: “All right, pass on. Reckon you won't be dumb enough to go on selling shit to the goddamn Federals from here on out.”
“Not me.” Simms held up his right hand as if taking an oath. “I have plumb learned my lesson.”
Jenkins gestured with his rifle musket. “Get the hell out of here, then.”
The sutler touched a finger to the brim of his hat. He walked out past the old perimeter to Fort Pillow, and hadn't gone more than a few paces before a cloud passed in front of the moon. Darkness swooped down on the world. By the time the moon came out again, Simms had disappeared into the woods beyond the fort. Jenkins ducked back into his shadow and waited to see if anyone else would come along.
“What time is it getting to be?” Nathan Bedford Forrest asked.
Captain Anderson pulled out his pocket watch. “Sir, it's getting close to eight,” he said.
“Thanks. That's about what I reckoned from the moon,” Forrest said. “Where in blazes is that damned Major Bradford, then? How long does he need to bury his blasted brother?”
“His brother was blasted, by God,” Black Bob McCulloch said. Pausing to scratch at his thick, dark beard, the brigade commander went on, “Captain Bradford, whatever the hell his name was-”
“Theodorick,” Anderson said helpfully.
“I knew he had some kind of damnfool handle,” McCulloch said.
“His brother the major had him signaling down to the New Era. When we broke into the fort, Theo-whatever took three or four minnies all at once. He died quick, anyway.”
“And he's getting buried slow,” Forrest growled. “Either Bill Bradford's taking his own sweet time or he's gone and flown the coop on us.“
“If he has, we better not catch him again.” McCulloch tilted back his head and slashed a thumb across his throat.
“Well, we won't find out standing around gabbing about it. Let's go look.” Forrest drummed the fingers of his left hand against his thigh. “I felt sorry for the man, even if he is a Tennessee Tory, on account of I know what he's goin' through. But if he went and took advantage of me after that…” Those fingers drummed some more, ominously.
“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.”
“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.
