“General Forrest said that's enough,” a captain snapped. “You shoot anybody else, or you shoot this miserable son of a bitch again, I'll put you under arrest. Do you want a court-martial?”
“No, sir,” the soldier said grudgingly. “But I don't want some dumb fucking nigger trying to kill me, neither.” Forrest turned away so the trooper wouldn't see him smile. The captain was right, no doubt about it. Even so, you could always rely on a Southern soldier to speak his mind.
Forrest started to turn back, then stopped short. His pale eyes narrowed. The U.S. officer crouching beside a body had gold oak leaves on his shoulder straps. That made him a major. With Lionel Booth dead, he had to be Bill Bradford. Face grim as death, Forrest stalked toward him.
Major William Bradford had given his parole to a Confederate colonel. The Rebs deigned to take it after they couldn't quite kill him. The officer even gave him something to eat, though Bradford still had his soaked uniform on.
He didn't notice the thump of boots on damp ground till the noise was almost on top of him. He looked up in surprise-and up and up, for he didn't see such a tall man every day, or every week, either. That dark chin beard, that hard mouth, those smoldering eyes… With Theo dead, with Fort Pillow fallen, he hadn't thought any worse disaster could befall him. Now, as Nathan Bedford Forrest scowled at him, he wondered how long he could stay even as lucky as he had been.
His knees clicked when he straightened. Even on his feet, he still looked up at Forrest, who was at least six inches taller. “General,” Bradford said with such spirit as he could muster, and held out his hand.
The Confederate commander did not take it. Slowly, Bradford let it fall, his face hot with shame and rage. “You damned fool, why didn't you give up when you could?” Forrest demanded.
“Why?” Bradford shrugged. “Because I thought I could hold your men out. And because I feared they would act like beasts if they got in. And I was right, by God!” He pointed toward the heaped and tumbled corpses of Union soldiers, and toward the prisoners carrying bodies to the parapet and flinging them into the ditch.
“That never would have happened if you surrendered,” Forrest said.
“So you say now,” Major Bradford answered.
For a moment, he wondered if Bedford Forrest would strike him down where he stood. When Forrest grew angry, his whole countenance changed. He went red as hot iron, and seemed to swell so that he looked even larger than he was. “Are you calling me a liar, Major?” he asked softly.
If Bradford answered yes, he was a dead man. He could see that. “I did not trust your earlier assurances, sir,” he replied with lawyerly evasion.
“When I say I'll take prisoners, I mean it,” Forrest growled, some of that furious color ebbing from his face-some, but not all. “Over at Union City, Colonel Hawkins knew as much. He surrendered to my forces, and he and his men are safe today.”
“This makes twice he's surrendered to you,” Bradford said scornfully. “He's had practice, you might say.”
“Well, you're a damn sight worse off now than if you did show the white flag,” Forrest said, and Bradford winced. He could hardly deny that. The Confederate commander went on, “I told you I'd let you surrender, didn't I? Good Lord, I even said I'd let your niggers surrender, and that's something I've never done before and I'm not likely to do again.”
“I… had trouble crediting it when you did.” Bill Bradford picked his words with care, not wanting to inflame Forrest again.
“Too bad for you.” Forrest waved back toward the rises outside the Federal perimeter. “As soon as I got men on that high ground, I could cut you to pieces easy as you please. Your soldiers couldn't stick their heads up over the earthwork without giving my sharpshooters perfect targets. Any man with an ounce of sense would have seen as much, and thrown in the sponge.” One corner of his mouth twisted into a mocking smile. “Well, I reckon that leaves you out.”
“Gloat all you care to,” Bradford said wearily. He pointed to Theo's body. “All I aim to do is give my brother Christian burial better than chucking him into that mass grave as if he were a butchered beef.”
To his amazement, all the high color drained from Bedford Forrest's face. “That's your brother, Major?” Forrest asked, also pointing to the bullet-riddled corpse. Bradford nodded. Forrest startled him again, this time by taking off his hat and holding it over his heart. “Please accept my deepest sympathy,” Forrest said. “I lost my own dear brother, Jeffrey, down at Okolona, Mississippi, a couple of months back – you may or may not have heard. But I expect you will believe I have some notion of the misery you feel.”
Major Bradford had heard that Jeffrey Forrest was killed in action. It didn't mean much to him at the time: just one more Rebel officer dead, and the wrong Forrest at that. But with Theodorick lying there all bloody, everything changed. Bradford managed a stiff if soggy bow. “I thank you, sir. No one who has not experienced the same thing can hope to understand it.”
“That is a fact,” Forrest said. “You may give your brother the burial you like.” He turned and shouted for one of his aides.
The man came up at a trot-when Forrest said something, people jumped to obey. “What is it, sir?”
“Detail a couple of captured niggers to dig a proper grave for Major Bradford's brother here,” Forrest answered. “Even an enemy can bury his dead.”
“Yes, sir.” No matter what the lieutenant said, he didn't sound happy about it. He looked daggers at Bradford. “Then what do we do with the god damn son of a bitch?”
“Well, we captured him. He gave his parole.” Bedford Forrest didn't sound very happy about it, either. “Now that we've got him, I suppose we have to keep him.” No, he didn't seem happy at all.
“I fought hard, gentlemen, but I fought clean,” Bradford said.
“Shut up, you lying bastard,” snarled the C.S. lieutenant. “What about that poor fellow who didn't like Yankees, and said so, and got his tongue tom out on account of it?”
Major Bradford gulped. “My men never did anything like that.”
To his relief, General Forrest nodded. “He's right, Sam. That wasn't his regiment – it was Hurst's. Too damn bad I didn't catch him instead of running him into Memphis.” But his gaze grew no friendlier as he went on. “What about the women your soldiers molested, Bradford? The women whose menfolks chose the other side?”
“I never gave orders for any such thing, General,” Bradford said, as he had before. “As God is my witness, I didn't. They would be an outrage against the laws of war.”
But Nathan Bedford Forrest only laughed in his face. “Of course you didn't. However big a jackass you are, you aren't that big.” That was a sardonic twist on Bradford's own thoughts. Forrest went on, “But you don't have to give order when you've got your boys all set to do what they crave doing anyways. You just look the other way and turn 'em loose. And your hands stay clean.”
You ought to know. Bill Bradford didn't have the nerve to say it out loud, but he would have taken his oath it was true. Did Forrest order his men to slaughter the Federal garrison once they got inside Fort Pillow? Up until this moment, Bradford had thought so. Now he didn't. The Confederate general sounded too much like a man who knew exactly what he was talking about. He'd… How did he put it? He'd looked the other way and turned his troopers loose.
And his hands stayed clean, or clean enough, and the Rebs did what they wanted to do anyway. And if the troopers from Bradford's regiment and the colored artillerymen who fought alongside them suffered-Bedford Forrest didn't care.
“See to this fellow,” Forrest told the lieutenant, who saluted. Forrest walked off, his longs strides taking him away in a hurry.