“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.
XV
AFTER CORPORAL JACK JENKINS LET the sutler pass, he figured his excitement was over for the night. For a couple of hours, he was right. The moon sank toward the Mississippi. Jenkins yawned several times. He didn't lie down. He didn't even squat. He didn't doze-not quite, anyhow. But he'd ridden through the previous night and fought a battle the day before. He wasn't at his brightest and most alert. He didn't think he needed to be.
He yawned again, wider than ever, when the moon set. Darkness came down, a veil of black so thick he could hardly see his hand in front of his face. But he had no trouble picking out the party of horsemen who rode out from Fort Pillow, torches in hand. One of those riders was conspicuously bigger than the rest. If that wasn't Bedford Forrest, Jenkins would have been surprised.
And if that was Forrest… then what? Then something's gone wrong somewhere, Jenkins thought, never imagining that whatever had gone wrong had anything to do with him.
The riders went along the bank of Coal Creek till they came to the northernmost sentry along Fort Pillow's old outer perimeter. Then they started working their way south, toward Jenkins. As they drew closer, he could hear them talking with the sentries, but couldn't make out what they were saying.
They headed his way. Whatever they were looking for, they hadn't found it yet. He showed he was awake and alert by calling, “Halt! Who goes there?” – as if he wondered.
A dry chuckle came from Forrest. “I'm your commanding general, by God!”
“Advance and be recognized sir,” Jenkins said.
“Here I am.” Forrest and his aides slowly rode forward. He held up his torch so that it shone on his face. “Well, soldier? D'you recognize me?”
“Uh, yes, sir,” Jenkins answered hastily.
“Who are you? Can't quite make you out in the darkness,” Forrest said.
“Jack Jenkins, sir, corporal in the Second Tennessee Cavalry, Colonel Barteau's regiment.”
Forrest laughed again. “I know who that regiment belongs to. You'd best believe I do. You were over by Coal Creek before. I've got a question for you, Corporal. Did you let anybody – anybody at all – past you since you came on duty?”
“Yes, sir. One sutler,” Jenkins said.
The officers with Bedford Forrest all exclaimed. He held up a hand for quiet. As usual, he got what he wanted. “When was this? What did the fellow look like?”
“Hour and a half ago-maybe two hours,” Jenkins said. Forrest's aides exclaimed again, in dismay. A couple of them swore. Jenkins went on, “Couldn't hardly see him-he had his hat pulled down kind of low. He sure smelled bad, though; I'll tell you that.”
“I bet he did,” Forrest said. “I don't think he was a sutler at all. I reckon you let a polecat get through. Major Bradford broke his parole, and he's nowhere around.”
“Bradford!” Jenkins said. “That was Bradford? God damn it to hell! If I knew it was him, I'd've got some more blood on my piece.” He held up the rifle musket, which he still hadn't cleaned.
“Don't know for sure yet, but that's the way it looks.” Forrest eyed not the ghastly weapon but Jack Jenkins himself. “Why'd you pass him through?”
“He said an officer inside Fort Pillow told him he could go,” Jenkins answered uneasily. If his own officers wanted to, they could blame him for letting the Federal get away. And what they'd do to him if they did… Trying not to think about that, he went on. “He just seemed like a no-account fellow. And I never reckoned a major could stink like that, neither.”
He got a laugh out of Bedford Forrest, but only a sour one. “Oh, you'd be amazed,” the general said. He turned to the men who'd ridden out with him. “Any point to beating the bushes for the son of a bitch?”
“Not till morning, sir,” one of them answered. “A million places he could hide in the dark. If we didn't trip over him, we'd never know he was there.”
“ About what I figured myself.” Forrest muttered under his breath. “I was hoping you'd tell me I was wrong, dammit.”
Jenkins listened to the mounted men with only half an ear. “Bill Bradford?” he muttered. “I had Bill Bradford in front of me, and he slipped through my fingers? Shit!” Bradford wasn't the worst thorn in the side of West Tennessee Confederates; that dishonor went to Colonel Fielding Hurst, who'd been in business longer. But it wasn't for lack of effort on the major's part.
I could've been a hero, Jenkins thought, angry at himself and even angrier at Bradford for fooling him. Killing ordinary Tennessee Tories and smashing in niggers' heads was all very well, but he would have traded the lot of them for Bill Bradford. How many men would have pounded him on the back? How many would have plied him with cigars and whiskey? When word got out, how many pretty women would have smiled at him to show their gratitude, or maybe more than smiled?
“Shit!” he said again.
“We have men down in the south,” said one of the officers with Forrest.
“Oh, yes, I know,” the general commanding said. “Still and all, I don't much care to have to count on somebody else, not when he shouldn't have got loose in the first place.”
“I'm sorry, sir,” Jenkins said. “I'm sorrier'n I know how to tell you.” He was nothing if not sincere. Had he had the faintest notion who Bradford was, the homemade Yankee's body would lie at his feet. In that case, Bedford Forrest would be congratulating him. The way things were…