At least the Confederates weren't going hell for leather now. They'd done what they set out to do. There were no Federals anywhere dose by to give them a hard time. They could move at their own pace.
“Wonder where old Bedford'll want us to kick the damnyankees' asses next,” somebody said.
“Wherever it is, we'll do it,” Jenkins said. He had confidence in Nathan Bedford Forrest, and he had confidence in the men with whom he rode.
Whether they still had confidence in him… “Got to make sure they don't trip you when you've got your foot back to kick,” one of them said.
“No damn Federal's ever gonna trip me again,” Jenkins said furiously. “Ever, you hear?”
The rest of the troopers looked at one another, but none of them said anything. The two stripes on Jenkins's sleeve didn't hold them back; they weren't men who feared sassing underofficers. The growl in his voice, the glint in his eye, the angry flush that reddened his badly shaved cheeks, the hunch of his broad shoulders… Any soldier who sassed him now would have to back it up, with fists or maybe with a gun, and some things were more trouble than they were worth.
A great blue heron sprang into the air from the edge of the swamp, a fish in its beak. The bird's wingspan was almost as wide as a man was tall. Jenkins followed it with his eyes. “Wish I could fly like that,” he said.
“Who don't?” somebody else said-that seemed safe enough to answer. “I've had dreams where I could flap my arms and go up into the air.”
“Me, I've had dreams where I could flap my feet,” another trooper put in.
“I believe that, Lou-they're big enough,” still another man said.
“You find a Federal with shoes that'd cover those gunboats?”
“Sure did-took a pair off a dead nigger,” Lou said. “Cryin' shame when a damn nigger's got better shoes than a white man-that's all I've got to tell you.”
“It is,” his friend agreed. “Well, they're yours now, by Jesus. That lousy black son of a bitch don't need 'em no more.”
“What I'd like to do is, I'd like to go up in a balloon one of these days,” another Confederate said. “Showmen'll take 'em up at country fairs sometimes. Don't know what they charge for a ride — a quarter-eagle, maybe even a half-eagle. Hell with me if I wouldn't pay five dollars just so as I could say I really flew.”
Jack Jenkins thought about doing that. It wouldn't be bad-if he had a five-dollar goldpiece, he figured he would plunk it down so he could see what going up in the air was like, too. But it wasn't what he'd had in mind when he spoke; it wasn't what he craved. A showman's balloon was tethered to the ground. Even if the line should break, the balloon was at the mercy of every vagrant breeze.
When he talked about flying, when he thought about flying, he meant flying the way you flew in dreams, flying the way the heron flew. He meant going from here to there because you were here and you wanted to get there. Where here and there were wouldn't matter; you could just hop in the air and go.
Nobody in all the world could do that. Jeff Davis couldn't. Neither could Abe Lincoln. Neither could Queen Victoria, and she had more money than both of them put together. So what did that say about a ragged Confederate cavalry corporal's chances? That they weren't what you'd call good, worse luck.
For that matter, almost anybody in the world could go from here to there on the ground, and where here and there were didn't matter. Not me, dammit, Jenkins thought. He was going where he was going because that was where Nathan Bedford Forrest wanted him to go. The privates riding with him were much more likely to pick a fight with him than he was to pick a fight with Bedford Forrest.
Riding to Forrest's will, his backside almost as sore from the saddle as if he were stricken with boils, he came into Brownsville from the west. Had he ridden into it from the east only two days before? That seemed impossible, but it was true. Would he be able to sleep in a bed tonight, or at least under a roof? After all he'd been through, that seemed impossible, too, but at least he could hope.
Pain dulled by laudanum, Mack Leaming lay on the Platte Valley's deck. The world would do whatever it did. For the moment, he couldn't do anything about it. With the brandy and opium coursing through his veins, he couldn't even care about it very much.
Captain Anderson walked along the steamer's deck with the Platte Valley's skipper. The civilian wore a uniform considerably gaudier than a Navy man's would have been. “You will give me receipts for all the men you take aboard, sir?” Forrest's aide said.
“Oh, yes, of course,” the skipper answered. “Got to keep the paperwork straight. We'll both wind up in hot water if things don't come out even. “
Anderson laughed. “Heaven forbid!” he said. “You Yanks have it worse than we do there, I believe, on account of you're richer than we are-and you have more men to spare for dotting every i and crossing every t. We've got to make do without so much in the way of spit and polish. “
“I'm sure you miss it,” said the captain of the Platte Valley. He winked at Charles Anderson-Leaming saw in most distinctly.
“Well, now and again I do, to tell you the truth,” Anderson replied. “I was a merchant up in Cincinnati before the war, and after that I worked for the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. I like having things just so when I can. But when there's no time, and not enough men even if there were time… Well, sir, all you can do is your best.”
“I suppose that's so.” The steamboat skipper pointed up toward the bluff atop which Fort Pillow lay-or had lain. “From what my men say, you Rebs did your best there.”
“We shouldn't have had to storm the place, sir,” Captain Anderson said. “I gather Major Booth fell early in the fight, and Major Bradford, I'm afraid, didn't have the sense God gave a goose. He thought he could hold us out with Tennessee Tories and niggers, and forced us to prove him wrong.”
“Well, you did that, by thunder!” The captain of the Platte Valley sounded as respectful-no, as admiring-as if he and the Confederate cavalry officer were on the same side.
Despite the laudanum, dull anger slowly filled Mack Leaming. This plump, easygoing fellow had no business getting so friendly with the enemy. They were doing everything but drinking brandy together. Captain Anderson took out a cigar case and offered the steamboat captain a stogie. That worthy bit off the end, stuck the cigar in his mouth, and scraped a lucifer on the sole of his shoe. Once he had his cheroot going, he gave Anderson a match. They smoked for a while in companionable silence.
What was happening over on the Silver Cloud? Was Acting Master Ferguson-a real U.S. Navy officer-as friendly toward the Rebs as this fellow? Was he complimenting them in a professional way for the skill and thoroughness they'd shown in slaughtering the Federals inside Fort Pillow? Leaming didn't-couldn't-know, but he wouldn't have been surprised.
Some Federal and Confederate officers were friends because they'd gone to West Point together or served side by side in the Old Army. Leaming could understand that even if he didn't like it. But it wouldn't be true of someone still wet behind the ears like William Ferguson. All the same, though, to Leaming 's way of thinking Union officers too often bent over backwards to extend all the courtesies to their Confederate counterparts.
That dull anger inside him grew sharper and hotter. He was damned if he would ever give any Confederate more than the minimum due him under the laws of war-if he lived to fight again. Had the Rebels given the men inside Fort Pillow even so much? He didn't think so.
Not far away, a colored artilleryman lay groaning. A bloody bandage only partly covered a huge saber cut on his head, and another wrapped his hand. He was in a bad way; Leaming didn't think he would get better. What would Negroes make of the fight at Fort Pillow? Wouldn't they want to swear bloody vengeance against Forrest's men in particular and Confederate troops in general? Leaming had seldom tried to think like a Negro, but so it seemed to him.
In and around Fort Pillow, the Confederates methodically went on wrecking and burning anything Union forces might possibly use. Forrest's men weren't going to try to hold the place against a U.S. attack. That made more sense than Mack Leaming wished it did. The Federals hadn't been able to keep the Rebs from storming the fortress; the Confederates were unlikely to have any better luck unless they brought in enough troops to man Gideon Pillow's outer perimeter. And what was the point of that?
Smoke from the burning swirled across the Platte Valley and the Silver Cloud. It made Leaming 's eyes sting and burn. It also made him cough, which hurt in spite of the laudanum. He tried to breathe in little shallow sips.
Maybe that helped some. It also made him take longer than he might have otherwise to realize he wasn't just smelling wood smoke. The other odor was scorched meat. His stomach did a slow lurch when he recognized
