it.
He wasn't the only one. “What are you Rebs doing there?” the Platte Valley's ornately dressed skipper asked Captain Anderson.
“Burning things, sir,” Forrest's aide answered matter-of-factly.
“Burning things.”
“Things-that's fine.” The steamboat captain made a horrible face. “Smells like you're burning people, too.”
“Not live ones,” Anderson said. “I don't know if we got all the bodies out of some of those huts before we fired them. To tell you the truth, I don't much care, either. I am not one of those men who believe the body must be perfect to render Resurrection effectual. My view is that God can provide in such circumstances, and that He will.”
Leaming held the same view. That he agreed with the Confederate officer tempted him to change his mind. The skipper of the Platte Valley did incline to the literalist view of Resurrection. He and Captain Anderson fired Scriptural texts at each other like Mini? balls.
Several real gunshots interrupted them. “What the devil's that?” the steamboat captain exclaimed. “Your men aren't supposed to be carrying arms inside the perimeter. “
“I don't know what it is.” Anderson sounded strained. If the truce was falling apart, he might not be able to get off the Platte Valley.
“They are shooting the darky soldiers!” someone yelled from the shore.
“There is a truce, Captain,” the steamboat skipper said. “Your men shouldn't ought to be doing that now.”
“I know,” Anderson answered, his voice still tight. “If you will let me off this vessel, sir, I will do my best to quell them.” He knew his onions. Even if he meant what he said, once he got ashore, he couldn't be made a prisoner.
Don't let him go! Leaming sucked in smoky air to shout it. Before he could, a Confederate officer thundered up on horseback. “Stop that firing!” he roared. “Arrest that man! “
A couple of more shots were fired, but only a couple. “There went some more niggers, God have mercy on their sorry souls,” said a wounded U.S. officer standing not far from Leaming. Since he was able to stay on his feet, he could see farther than Leaming could himself.
“This is a bad business,” the skipper told Captain Anderson.
“It is indeed,” Anderson replied. “I do not know what provoked our soldier to commence firing-”
“Why do you think anything did, except that he was shooting at black men?” the steamboat skipper broke in. “If he was provoked, would your officer have wanted him arrested?”
Bedford Forrest's assistant adjutant general didn't answer, from which Mack Leaming concluded that he had no good answer. Instead, he said, “It's nothing that breaks the truce, anyhow.” He seemed relieved, as Leaming would have been in his place.
“No, I suppose not,” the captain of the Platte Valley replied. “We'll be able to get back to slaughtering each other soon enough, though-have no fear.”
“Er-yes,” said Charles Anderson. A little later, perhaps feeling he'd worn out what was to Mack Leaming much too warm a welcome, he went back ashore in the rowboat that had brought wounded Federals out to the steamer.
“Ask you something?” Leaming said as the skipper walked past him.
The man stopped in surprise. “Go ahead, friend. Ask me anything you please. I figured you were too far gone to talk.”
“I hope not,” Leaming said. “Now that you have us aboard, I was wondering where you'll take us.”
“I'm bound for Mound City as soon as the truce is up,” the skipper answered. “So is the Silver Cloud. “
“Mound City?” Leaming tried to make his pain-frayed, drugdulled wits work. He had little luck. “I've heard the name, but for the life of me I can't recall if it's in Tennessee or Kentucky.”
“Neither one. Mound City's in Illinois, just up the Ohio from Cairo,” the steamship captain said.
“Illinois!” Leaming started to laugh, even though it hurt. He'd been up in Paducah, Kentucky, before the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry came to Fort Pillow, but he'd never once crossed the Ohio River to go into illinois. Kentucky felt like home. illinois… He laughed some more. “Yankeeland at last.”
The click of a key in the lock on his cell door woke Bill Bradford from a sound sleep. He was amazed he'd slept at all. Gray predawn light was stealing into the cell through the little barred window in the wall.
With a screech of rusty hinges, the door opened. Three Confederates stood in the hallway. Two of them aimed revolvers at Bradford. “Come on, you,” said the third one, who still held the big brass key.
“Let me put my shoes on,” Bradford said around a yawn.
“Make it snappy,” growled one of the men with a pistol.
“He's a cold-hearted bastard, isn't he?” the other one said.
“Damned if I could lay there snoring my fool head off knowing Bedford Forrest was powerful ticked at me.”
Bradford looked up from tying his left shoe. “I don't snore,” he said with dignity.
The Rebs gave back raucous laughter. “Hell you don't,” one of them said. “Either that or somebody went and snuck a sawmill in here when Colonel Duckworth's back was turned.” All three of them thought that was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.
“I'm ready now.” Bradford got to his feet. “May I have something to eat before you take me to Brownsville?”
“Ought to feed you lead, is what I ought to do,” one of the Confederates said, and fear rose in Bradford like a choking cloud.
But another one said, “Duckworth said to give him breakfast.”
He got a hardtack and a tin cup of coffee that had to be mostly chicory. It was no worse than what they ate themselves, so he couldn't complain. After that, they herded him along to their encampment outside of Covington. “Got some more prisoners to take up to Brownsville,” one of them explained. “Don't reckon they'll try and run off, though, so we didn't have to jug 'em.”
“I wasn't going anywhere,” Bradford protested.
“Not in a cell, you wasn't,” the Reb said. “But you pulled somethin' funny to get away from Fort Pillow-you must've-so the colonel didn't trust you not to do it again.”
I would have, in a heartbeat, Bradford thought. Aloud, he said,
“That's not fair.”
“Too damn bad,” the trooper said. “You made your bed. Now you can lay in it.”
Lie in it, you ignorant oaf Bill Bradford knew the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. The Confederate soldier standing in front of him knew something else: he had a pistol, and Bradford damn well didn't. And when the country was torn in two, when Tennessee was torn in two, who had a gun and who didn't mattered a hell of a lot more than the difference between lie and lay.
The other Federal soldiers — there were four or five of them — looked at Bradford in surprise. He feared he knew what kind of surprise it was. You're still alive? they had to be thinking.
Yes, dammit, I'm still alive! He wanted to scream it. But that wouldn't do him any good. He made himself seem meek and mild. The less the Rebs worried about him, the better his chances would be. He had got out of Fort Pillow. If he watched for his moment, he would get out of this, too.
But, because he'd got out of Fort Pillow, his captors here weren't inclined to take him on trust. They let the other prisoners mount and ride without restrictions. After he climbed up on his horse, though, they tied his feet together under the animal and they tied his hands to the reins. They tied them tight, and they used plenty of rope.
“This is cruel,” he said. “What if I do fall off? The horse will trample me or drag me to death.”
“Then don't fall off, you son of a bitch,” one of the Confederates said. “Me, I'd pay five dollars in paper or even a dollar in silver to watch that, I would.”
“Come on-let's get going,” another trooper said. “All this jawin' just wastes our time. “
“How come you're so all-fired eager, Dud?” the first Reb asked.
“Anybody'd reckon you got yourself a lady friend up in Brownsville.” He leered.
