The lieutenant scowled at the trooper who'd been watching over Bradford. “What's your name, soldier?” the officer asked.
“Ward, sir. I'm Matt Ward.”
“Well, all right, Ward. You heard General Forrest-we've got to keep this bastard alive.” With Forrest out of earshot, he sounded downright disgusted. He went on, “We'll let him stick this other son of a bitch in the ground, since he's so damn hot to do it. And then we'll take him along with us. But I'll tell you something else.”
“Yes, sir?” Ward sounded as uninterested as a Federal private would have. You want to run your jaws, he might have been saying. Say what you've got to say and leave me alone.
“If he gets out of line – if he gets even a little bit out of line – you shoot him in the belly,” Forrest's staff officer said. “In the belly, you hear? He shouldn't just die. Let him die slow, and hurt while he's doing it. You hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Ward said. “I'll take care of it, sir.”
The lieutenant scowled at Bradford. “Do you hear me, you goddamned son of a bitch?”
“I hear you, Lieutenant,” Bradford answered, as coldly as he dared. “I have given Colonel McCulloch my parole. And do you recollect General Forrest talking about the laws of war? Deliberately abusing a prisoner goes dead against every one of them.”
“Bradford, if it wasn't for Colonel McCulloch and General Forrest, we'd roast you and smoke you over a slow fire till we came up with something to really make you suffer,” the Confederate officer said. “So thank the high officers and your lucky stars you aren't screaming right this minute. “
Major Bradford thanked Nathan Bedford Forrest for losing his brother. He couldn't imagine what he'd do without Theo; they'd been in each other's pockets their whole lives. Yes, the Confederate commander had lost a brother, too, but so what? Jeffrey Forrest really was just a Reb, after all.
And Bradford thanked Bedford Forrest for the loss of Fort Pillow. With the fort, he'd lost any prayer of advancing his own military career, even if he got exchanged. Who would give a fort to a man who'd proved he couldn't hold one? Nobody. And the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry (U.S.) was a ruin. All the men at Fort Pillow were either dead or captured. The rest… The rest would probably elect a new commanding officer as soon as they found out what had happened here.
Two Negroes came up, shovels on their shoulders like Spring?1elds. Forrest's staff officer scowled at them. “Damn coons got no business wearing uniforms and pretending to be soldiers,” he muttered.
“They didn't pretend. They fought.” To annoy the Confederate, Bradford concealed his own amazement that the colored artillerymen could do any such thing. One of them looked ready to go on fighting, too, restrained only by the presence of enemy soldiers in overwhelming numbers. The other black was a beaten man, but so were a lot of whites from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry.
“I want to know what you think, I'll ask you,” the C.S. lieutenant snapped. He turned to the Negroes. “Dig a hole, and we'll throw the dead Bradford in it. You want to dig a big hole so we can throw both Bradfords in, that's fine by me.”
Neither black man rose to the bait. The one who still looked to have fight in him said, “Jus' the two of us diggin', we ain't gonna be done by sundown.”
“Then keep digging till you are, damn you,” the Confederate said. “You need 'em, we'll have torches up so you can do the job right. General Forrest said we have to do this, so we will.” When he spoke of Forrest, he might have been quoting the Gospel.
The Negroes began to dig. Forrest's staff officer watched them for a while. Then, seeming satisfied they wouldn't slack off when his back was turned, he went away to do something else. A few minutes later, he showed up out of the blue to make sure they were still working hard. Bill Bradford nodded to himself. Sure as hell, the lieutenant was used to getting labor out of slaves.
As for Bradford… He watched the grave deepen. He watched the sun sink toward the horizon. And, parole or no parole, he watched for his chance.
Corporal Jack Jenkins looked at his rifle musket with a strange mixture of pride and revulsion. He'd never done more killing with the weapon, but it would be a bastard to clean. Not only was the bayonet bloody all the way to the hilt, but the stock was a mess of blood and brains and hair stuck on as if with glue. He'd used it to beat wounded Federals to death so he wouldn't have to waste more ammunition on them.
“Look,” he said now. “I've been smashing up niggers and Tennessee Tories.” He held up the rifle musket. Some of the strands of hair clinging to the stock were long and blond and straight, others black and tightly curled.
“That's about enough, Corporal,” said a captain he barely knew.
“You can hear they aren't shooting people up top anymore.”
“I wasn't shooting 'em down here anymore, neither, sir,” Jenkins said reasonably. “I was just breaking their goddamn heads.” He displayed the rifle musket again to prove his point.
For some reason, the gore-clotted weapon didn't seem to please the officer. He turned away, muttering to himself. After a moment, he made himself turn back. “Just don't kill any more Union troops,” he said. “That's an order.”
“Not unless they try and give me trouble, sir.” Like any soldier who'd served for more than a few days, Jenkins knew how to get what he wanted and seem obedient at the same time.
“Oh, no, you don't.” Like any man who'd been an officer for more than a few days, the captain knew when he was hearing disobedience in a compliant mask. “If one of these bastards tries to kill you, you can punch his ticket for him. To kill you, you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Jenkins said sulkily.
“All right. Otherwise, you can lift their wallets and clothes, but otherwise leave 'em be,” the captain said. “You understand that?” “Yes, sir.” Jenkins sounded even more reluctant this time.
He had reason to sound reluctant, too. The Federals alive and unwounded were cringingly anxious to stay that way; what odds that one of them would have the nerve to try to kill anybody? They reminded Jenkins of nothing so much as beaten dogs, rolling over on their backs and baring their throats and whimpering to keep from getting beaten some more.
Even robbing them wasn't much sport now. Almost all of them were barefoot; the ones who still wore shoes didn't wear any that were worth stealing. Jenkins wouldn't have thought Yankees could have shoes as ragged as any that belonged to one of Forrest's troopers, but he would have been wrong.
The same went for their trousers. The whites and Negroes who still wore them were welcome to what they had on.
I can have fun with 'em, Jenkins thought. That goddamn captain didn't say I couldn't. He strode up to a white man. “You a homemade Yankee?” he demanded.
Before the Federal trooper answered, his eyes flicked to Jenkins's fearsome rifle musket. If he'd thought about defiance, one look changed his mind. He nodded. “Reckon I am.”
“You a dirty, stinking Yankee son of a bitch?” Jenkins demanded. The captive stood mute. Jenkins knocked him down and kicked him in the ribs-probably not hard enough to break any, but you never could tell. Standing over him, breathing hard, Jenkins growled, “You a dirty, stinking Yankee son of a bitch?”
“Reckon I am,” the prisoner choked out.
“Say it out loud.” Jenkins kicked him again, harder this time. “Say it out loud, God damn you, or you'll be sorry. I'll make you sorry, you hear?” He kicked the white man hard enough to make pain shoot up his own leg.
“I'm a dirty, stinking Yankee son of a bitch!” the man bawled, plainly as loud as he could. It didn't fully please Jenkins, but it would have to do. He gave the fellow one more boot to remember him by, then moved on to the next closest prisoner, a Negro.
“How about you, Rastus?” he asked, hefting the rifle musket. “You heard that other fella, so what do you reckon you are?”