Devil's Dream Part 11

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

June 1854 IT WAS SOMETIME after midnight when Forrest came out of the gambling house, but maybe, he hoped, not very long after. There was not light enough to see his watch, but at least he did still have his watch. He walked over to the riverfront for the stirring of air on the water. Someone hissed at him from the shadow of a low shed. after midnight when Forrest came out of the gambling house, but maybe, he hoped, not very long after. There was not light enough to see his watch, but at least he did still have his watch. He walked over to the riverfront for the stirring of air on the water. Someone hissed at him from the shadow of a low shed.

Hi you! Step over here a minute.

Forrest stopped, searching toward the voice. He stepped into the shadow of a building behind him, to hide his silhouette. One of the men across the way stepped clear of the shed and beckoned. Forrest paid gold coins through the fingers of his right hand in his pocket while with his left he touched the grip of a pistol in his waistband and then settled his grasp on the haft of his long knife-just as deadly and a whole lot quieter. He could see two of them now, just their heads and shoulders visible against the glow of slow-moving river behind them. A pale patch at the throat of one, a cravat maybe. These riverboat agents dressed like dandies oftentimes. They came and went like driftwood on the stream. There might have been a third man in the shadow of the shed. Come on, he thought, raising a heel to the sill behind him, setting himself for the first shock, Come ahead if ye mean to come. He felt keen, alert, the master of himself. He'd quit for once when he was ahead, and it would need more than a swarm of these river rats to rob him of his winnings. But the rats decided to stay where they were, whispering and scrabbling in the dark.

Forrest turned the corner and walked back into town. At the next corner he stopped and looked back once, then released his hold on his knife and went on, turning gold pieces over in his pocket. When he came in view of his house and saw the lamp still burning in the sickroom, his bubble of elation burst. He would have liked to go in the back gate and sit by himself a while maybe, on the edge of the cistern among the n.i.g.g.e.r pens. Aunt Sarah might come out and bring him water then. But the white folks had already seen him, looking down from his front porch.

The eerie twittering of a screech owl in a tree branch over the porch roof unnerved him rather, though it was only an owl. Resolutely he climbed the steps. His brother John's eyes were s.h.i.+ny with laudanum. Doctor Cowan's looked exhausted but clear.

"No better," Forrest said.

Cowan only shook his head at first. "She's awful weak," he said at last. "I'm sorry."

Forrest went into the house, set his hat on the rack and straightened his jacket. He touched his weapons and his gold, but felt no rea.s.surance from them. He went up the stairs to the second floor, empty hands swinging.

"Don't touch her." Mary Ann's voice was cold as winter stone. "I won't have your black hands on her."

He could see Catharine, standing in the doorway, lamplight soft on the glossy curve of her cheek, her kerchief neat above her brows, eyes empty, mouth expressionless-she was always so when so rebuked.

"Get out," Mary Ann said.

Catharine turned, walked past him, down the stairs. He watched her away, searching for any trace of insolence, a swing of her hip beneath the calico-there was nothing of the kind. Presently he heard the back door close and pictured her walking, straight and slim, past the cistern to the stall where her own healthy child slept calmly.

With an effort he crossed the threshold, into the stink of blood and runny s.h.i.+t. They had just cleaned up little Fan again and were tucking her up in the big bed. His mother came past him, carrying a tin basin out. The stench abated when she had gone.

Mary Ann's eyes pa.s.sed over him. She did not speak. But I won, Forrest thought to say, and wanted to justify himself still further. I won close on four hunnert dollars. And don't a man have a right to some relief? I don't drink whiskey nor use tobacco. I don't take laudanum. I don't pray.

Mary Ann lowered her head, and sat stroking the girl's hair and shoulder as she s.h.i.+fted and murmured in fretful sleep. No word was spoken until Mariam came back into the room with the basin washed and dried and empty.

"Mother Forrest," Mary Ann said then, pus.h.i.+ng her weight up from the bedside chair. "I have just got to lie down for a spell."

"Yes, child," Mariam Forrest said. "I know ye do."

"You'll call me if-?"

"Yes. I will."

Mary Ann went out without saying a word to her husband or looking at him. Slowly Forrest crossed the floor and lowered himself into the chair at the bedside. Mariam Forrest sat in a ladder-back chair against the wall.

"That gal has got a right to be weary," she said, with no particular inflection in her voice. Forrest looked across the bed toward her. She took up a basket from the floor and went on sh.e.l.ling b.u.t.ter beans, her eyes bent steady on her work. Forrest felt a little easier in his mind. Cain't afford to think about it he told himself. He laid a hand on Fan's forearm. The child had quieted and breathed easily in sleep.

b.u.t.ter beans pattered from basket to bowl. The quick nervous surge of his gambling adventure began to drain away from Forrest. His eyes were heavy. Poor Fan was breathing with her mouth open, a light rasp away back in her throat. The ticking of the beans slowed down and stopped and Forrest looked across at his mother, who was sleeping in well-disciplined silence, bolt upright in the straight chair except that her head had rolled to the right and rested against the wall. A vine of scar wrapped over her left shoulder. Her shoulders were almost as high and wide as his.

He'd dressed her wounds, that time the panther tore her back. It shamed him but he'd let no one else undertake it. In fact she'd told him what to do herself, between clenching her teeth on a rag to control herself at the pain of the liniment. Since then he'd never seen her bare. He had seen slaves aplenty though, with the weal-grids of whip scar raised on their backs-lashed there by himself sometimes. When he must and when there was no other way before him. The screech owl from its post just beyond the open window poured quicksilver gibberish into his ear. He wanted to reach through and wring its feathered neck, but it was thought to be bad luck to kill an owl. He saw himself standing over Catharine, her calico ripped down to her waist, her back still long and smooth and whole though a braided rawhide dripped from his hand and Mary Ann's resentment would make him leave it raw and b.l.o.o.d.y from a hundred cuts. With a s.h.i.+vering start he came awake. He would go and murder that owl, he thought. But it was due to happen, what he'd dreamed. He didn't want to think on that, but he would have to study it. He could not keep on keeping Catharine so close. In a few years' time, with a little luck and a lot more determination, he'd claw himself out of the slave trade altogether, and be a planter, like the gentry. Or be a planter anyway.

Downstairs in the parlor the mantel clock tolled three times. Mariam's head stirred, crus.h.i.+ng her cheek against the plaster wall, but still she slept, a bean pod dangling from her fingers. Fan had s.h.i.+fted in the bed and was reaching for him with both her arms, her dark eyes wide. Her mouth open too though she made no sound. He picked her up and held her against his collarbone. Her face burned against his throat. She didn't have the heft she'd had three days ago or four. She didn't weigh any more than a rabbit, he thought.

As he carried her down the stairs the owl's weird sibilant voice faded. Doctor Cowan and his brother were still sleeping in their chairs. He stood in the night air holding and stroking her back until it seemed she was cooling a little. Then he went inside and settled in a rocking chair before the cold fireplace. When Fan was well she would ride astride of his long s.h.i.+nbone, holding his hands and shrieking with joy with the wild gallop he would give her. Tonight he could only rock her so gently. The faint warmth of her breath on his neck as he slept.

When he came to, daylight had leaked into the room, and his mother stood behind the rocker. Fan's little arm felt hard as a wire across his shoulder.

"Let me have her," Mariam said. "You need to let me have her now."

"I don't want to let her go," he said. "I won't."

Mariam shook her head and set her teeth in her lower lip and then released it. "You have to let her go," she said. "Because, we have got to wash her now, and lay her out on the cooling board."

"The cooling board?" cooling board?" Forrest twisted in his chair, feeling how Fan's body moved against him rigid as a plank. Forrest twisted in his chair, feeling how Fan's body moved against him rigid as a plank.

"We air goen to have to bury her, Bedford. Ye cain't hold on to her thisaway."

"Where's Mary Ann?" Forrest said.

"She'll wake to sorrow," his mother told him. "Best let her sleep."

"Fan." Forrest rocked a little. "Fan."

"Bedford." Mariam put her hand on the back of his neck and squeezed. He felt the strength in her hand from all the cows she had milked in her life and was milking still. "Don't you break down."

He couldn't recall how he'd come to surrender the body, but presently he was standing on the porch, empty-handed with his chest and belly cold all the way to the spine. John and Doctor Cowan held their faces sunk in their hands, afraid to look at him, Forrest supposed. The sun was rising in the same place it would have if his dear daughter Fan had not died in the night. He walked down the porch steps and looked up. The screech owl slept now with its eyes squinched shut-a useless cupful of feathers. He no longer wanted to harm it, really. He only wished that enemies would fall upon him now, like the river rats from the night before, surging with the intent to kill, so that he could slash their throats and spill their entrails onto the ground, or tear the limbs from them bare-handed. Yet he knew even this would not relieve his feelings much or for long.

A day later he stood in the burying ground with a shovel hat jammed on his head, choking in a high tight collar, listening to the d.a.m.ned preacher mumbling ashestoashesdusttodust ashestoashesdusttodust, his own thoughts whirling around the same pin G.o.ddammit if there was any G.o.dd.a.m.n G.o.d why would he make a little girl that never did n.o.body no harm to die of the b.l.o.o.d.y flux? Answer me that G.o.dd.a.m.n your eyes. But his mother's eyes were firm upon him and he would not say these things aloud. Son Will was there on his right hand, and Mary Ann, with just a thread of golden hair leaking out of the net of her black veil to catch the summer sun, had tucked all her grief up under his left arm, against the rib cage where his heart beat on.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

June 1863 FORREST WAS PEELING a little green apple with a penknife when Lieutenant Gould came into the quartermaster's office, carefully moving the smaller of the two blades in a spiral around the knotty fruit, so the apple skin came off all in one curly piece. The nitpicking discussion of supplies and transport had paused as the several other men in the room watched the procedure, waiting to see if Forrest would get the peel off whole. Then Gould swarmed in, with a swirl of the tails of his long white duster, and pressed up against the edge of the table, vibrating. a little green apple with a penknife when Lieutenant Gould came into the quartermaster's office, carefully moving the smaller of the two blades in a spiral around the knotty fruit, so the apple skin came off all in one curly piece. The nitpicking discussion of supplies and transport had paused as the several other men in the room watched the procedure, waiting to see if Forrest would get the peel off whole. Then Gould swarmed in, with a swirl of the tails of his long white duster, and pressed up against the edge of the table, vibrating.

"General," he said. "The matter of my transfer."

Forrest took a bite of the peeled apple and found it, unsurprisingly, sour. He set it down on the blotter before him.

"All right, Mister Gould," he said. "Let's step out into the hallway where we can speak apart." He pulled the blade through his thumb and forefinger to clean off the apple juice, and snapped the knife shut as he stood up.

"I won't be a minute, boys," he said, and followed Gould out of the room, twirling the folded knife in his right hand.

They paced the corridor of the Masonic Hall, for Gould could not be still. It was a long hallway, and dim; at the east end a little suns.h.i.+ne leaked through a fanlight above the door. In the dusty eaves a handful of little bats hung upside down, asleep. Forrest kept spinning the closed knife in his fingers, kicking it with his thumb to make it turn, looking anywhere but at Gould, and wis.h.i.+ng he had never consented to their meeting.

Not long before, Gould had given up a pair of cannon to the Federals who charged him at Sand Mountain, during the long pursuit of Streight. I caint keep n.o.body on that'll let that kind of a thing happen I caint keep n.o.body on that'll let that kind of a thing happen, Forrest said in his mind, as if explaining it to a third party, John Morton perhaps, That's all they is to it and they ain't gone be no argument about it That's all they is to it and they ain't gone be no argument about it.

Gould's importuning kept breaking into his thoughts. "General, do you not see that this order amounts to an imputation of cowardice?"

"Hush a minute and listen to me," Forrest said, and looked down into the lieutenant's flushed face for the first time. "When you give up them cannon, son, the damyankees turned them right right around-they hurt us with'm and hurt us bad and you know that the same as me. They kilt a whole mess of my boys with them guns afore we got'm back. I cain't have no more of that, d'ye foller? Hit ain't nothing to me if ye're a coward or if'n-" around-they hurt us with'm and hurt us bad and you know that the same as me. They kilt a whole mess of my boys with them guns afore we got'm back. I cain't have no more of that, d'ye foller? Hit ain't nothing to me if ye're a coward or if'n-"

"No man can accuse me of being a coward and both of us live." Gould's face had broken up into pink and white blotches and Forrest was just thinking the words Gould's face had broken up into pink and white blotches and Forrest was just thinking the words peaches and cream peaches and cream when he saw, too late, a pistol-shaped object rising from under the lieutenant's duster-maybe the hammer snagged on the fabric or maybe Gould had intended to fire through the cloth. Forrest caught the hot barrel and twisted it down and away from him. He knew he was. .h.i.t though he hadn't yet felt pain; the first sensation was the sticky warmth of blood running down the side of his leg. He had opened the penknife with his teeth at the same time as the twisting movement that took Gould's pistol out of the compa.s.s of his body brought the two men toe-to-toe and without stopping he drove the longer blade of the knife between Gould's ribs and ripped it sideways. The hallway filled with the sharp bitter smell of a punctured gut. Gould sighed and dropped his pistol. He staggered toward the western door, pa.s.sing the men who'd flung out of the quartermaster's office at the sound of the shot and now stood with their mouths hanging silently open. The bats, startled by the report, fluttered in and out among the rafters. when he saw, too late, a pistol-shaped object rising from under the lieutenant's duster-maybe the hammer snagged on the fabric or maybe Gould had intended to fire through the cloth. Forrest caught the hot barrel and twisted it down and away from him. He knew he was. .h.i.t though he hadn't yet felt pain; the first sensation was the sticky warmth of blood running down the side of his leg. He had opened the penknife with his teeth at the same time as the twisting movement that took Gould's pistol out of the compa.s.s of his body brought the two men toe-to-toe and without stopping he drove the longer blade of the knife between Gould's ribs and ripped it sideways. The hallway filled with the sharp bitter smell of a punctured gut. Gould sighed and dropped his pistol. He staggered toward the western door, pa.s.sing the men who'd flung out of the quartermaster's office at the sound of the shot and now stood with their mouths hanging silently open. The bats, startled by the report, fluttered in and out among the rafters.

Forrest went out the opposite door, unconsciously wiping the knife blade on his pants leg, then dropping the folded knife into his pocket. He was in Columbia, Tennessee, he remembered that, and there was a doctor across the street. He stepped down into the roadway, wincing. Now he could feel the st.i.tch of pain around his waistline.

HENRI WAS STANDING beside Benjamin's wagon when Lieutenant Gould staggered out of the Masonic Hall, crumpled over the hand that clutched in his guts. A clear fluid, along with the blood, spilled through the cracks between his fingers, and the piercing chitterling smell was all wrong for the warm weather. The men from the quartermaster's office overtook him and supported him by the elbows. None had gone after Forrest, for none yet realized that Forrest was hurt. They led Gould into a tailor's shop across the way and set about making him comfortable, while a couple of other men ran further down the street to look for help. beside Benjamin's wagon when Lieutenant Gould staggered out of the Masonic Hall, crumpled over the hand that clutched in his guts. A clear fluid, along with the blood, spilled through the cracks between his fingers, and the piercing chitterling smell was all wrong for the warm weather. The men from the quartermaster's office overtook him and supported him by the elbows. None had gone after Forrest, for none yet realized that Forrest was hurt. They led Gould into a tailor's shop across the way and set about making him comfortable, while a couple of other men ran further down the street to look for help.

Henri looked up at Benjamin, who was sitting on the wagon box, slack reins across his knees. "What do you think happened."

"I ain't know." Benjamin shrugged and looked far off, between the revolving ears of his mule. "Might be Mist' Forrest cut 'm."

"But there was a shot," Henri said.

"Might be they was," Benjamin said. "Effen Mist' Forrest shot 'm, he aint gone be walken away."

A bat flicked out the door of the hall and took a crooked trajectory into the leafiest crown of the nearby trees. Henri pushed himself up from the wagon rails and walked up the steps into the hall. Once his eyes adjusted to the dim he saw Gould's pistol lying c.o.c.keyed where it had fallen. A blood spoor ran away from it, toward the door on the other side of the building where he'd first seen Gould appear. Drawing his own pistol, Henri moved to the eastern door and peered out around the frame. The blood trail continued across the street and up the steps to Doctor Yandell's porch.

THE SERVANTS HAD FLED, without a word, when they saw Forrest stalking toward them, his left trouser leg painting the porch steps with blood. Paying them no mind, Forrest rang the bell, then entered without waiting for any response. By the time Doctor Yandell came in, wide-eyed and shading his brow with one hand, Forrest had unfastened his britches and raised up his s.h.i.+rttail to display the wound.

"Well?" he said, with a fierce hook of his black beard. he said, with a fierce hook of his black beard.

"General Forrest ..." Yandell seemed not to know where the sentence should proceed.

Where was Cowan when you wanted him G.o.ddammit, Forrest was thinking just behind his teeth. Ye cain't hardly trust the first G.o.dd.a.m.n one of these here other sawbones Ye cain't hardly trust the first G.o.dd.a.m.n one of these here other sawbones. "I need ye to tell me if this here bullet hole is like to cause me airy serious problem."

Doctor Yandell bowed toward the wound. The ball had struck just above Forrest's hip and it seemed to the doctor that it had pierced the external oblique abdominal muscle, whence it would enter the lower abdomen. The wound's dark mouth was fringed with dark shreds of Forrest's woolen trousers and lighter ones from the lieutenant's duster.

"Yes, General," Doctor Yandell gulped. "I must tell you that has the look of a dangerous wound. You must get to the hospital as soon as may be, for in this hot weather it may carry you off. But first if you would stretch out on this divan so that I may-"

"What!" Forrest was already fastening his trousers, though blood spilled over his waistband. "You don't mean to tell me that yaller dog b.a.s.t.a.r.d yaller dog b.a.s.t.a.r.d has done kilt me. Not by all the fire and brimstone in h.e.l.l!" has done kilt me. Not by all the fire and brimstone in h.e.l.l!"

HIS VOICE CARRIED easily across the street where Henri lurked still in the entryway of the Masonic Hall, raised pistol hidden behind the door frame. Forrest burst out of Yandell's front door and bore down on him like a cyclone. His face was black as a thunderhead. His burning eyes seemed to center on Henri's pistol, even though he surely couldn't see it through the building wall, but as he crossed the threshold Forrest wrenched the weapon from him without even looking to see where it was, then stormed on down the hallway. easily across the street where Henri lurked still in the entryway of the Masonic Hall, raised pistol hidden behind the door frame. Forrest burst out of Yandell's front door and bore down on him like a cyclone. His face was black as a thunderhead. His burning eyes seemed to center on Henri's pistol, even though he surely couldn't see it through the building wall, but as he crossed the threshold Forrest wrenched the weapon from him without even looking to see where it was, then stormed on down the hallway.

From Forrest's hot eyes at that moment, Henri was left with a stream of dots across his own vision, as if he'd stared directly at the sun. Whenever this raging spirit took hold of the general there were only two people on earth who could calm him. Mary Ann his wife might do it, with a word or a touch or a glance. His mother, Mariam, would lay her hands upon his shoulders and hold his burning eyes with hers. When she spoke his name, Bedford Forrest would return to himself and the rage that seized his being would be gone. Henri had been especially struck with this power Mariam Forrest had, to lay on hands as a mambo sometimes might, when a stubborn angry spirit would not give up the human horse that gave him body in the world.

It was soothing too how Mariam Mariam might almost rhyme with might almost rhyme with Mary Ann Mary Ann. But neither of these women was on hand today. Henri followed Forrest across the street, keeping half a dozen paces back, but still pulled forward by the vortex of the other man's movement. Forrest kicked open the door of the tailor's shop. Lieutenant Gould had been stretched out across a sewing table, and the men from the quartermaster's office were trying to staunch his wound with wads of cotton batting which the tailor had in store. Doctor Wittke had also come to attend him. All scattered when Forrest burst into the room, roaring and drawing back the hammer of Henri's revolver with his thumb, except for Wittke, who only stepped back and said, calmly enough, "General, you have no need to kill him now, for he will surely die of the wound he has already had of you."

When Gould jumped up to run away the blood from his stab wound spurted out in such a jet that Wittke had to step aside so that it would not splash on his clothes. Forrest leveled the pistol and pulled the trigger and the box of the little room filled up with powder fumes. Over the deafening concussion Forrest was howling, "No d.a.m.n speckled sonofab.i.t.c.h d.a.m.n speckled sonofab.i.t.c.h can kill me and live!" can kill me and live!"

Gould had fallen sideways across the back doorstep. All thought him shot dead until he jumped up, ran across the back yard, sprang over the waist-high fence that enclosed it and kept on, flinging his heels up high behind him. Forrest, with as much agility, pursued, letting off a couple more uncharacteristically wild shots as he closed the distance.

Cautiously, Henri stepped down into the back yard of the tailor shop, which was halfgrown up in dandelions going to seed. His eye was on the wall of the house across the alley, where Forrest's first stray round had flaked a corner off a brick. Young Sammy Milton sat on his tailbone below, holding his left leg up by the ankle and peering at the underside of his calf, where the ricochet had left a red furrow.

"That's nothing to worry about," Henri remarked. "Only a crease. You're barely even bleeding, Sam."

"That's all right for you you to say," Milton squeaked. Henri kept going down the alley. to say," Milton squeaked. Henri kept going down the alley.

Four houses over from the tailor's, Gould had run out of breath and blood and lay facedown in a patch of bitterweed. Onlookers made a semicircle behind Forrest, who probed the body with the toe of his boot.

"Kin ye credit this sorry little piece of s.h.i.+t sorry little piece of s.h.i.+t has put the final end to me?" has put the final end to me?"

"No," said Henri, swinging his leg over another thigh-high fence to come from the alley into the yard where the others were gathered.

Forrest rounded on him. The black hole of the pistol barrel aimed with his eyes. Henri tried to count the shots Forrest had let off during the chase: possible as many as four but certainly less than six. The rage was still on him but it did not burn so brightly as before. And after all Henri already knew that no dark cylinder of Forrest's six held his own death today.

"What's that ye say?"

"No," said Henri. "n.o.body has put an end to you yet, General. You are not hurt so bad as you believe."

Forrest's eyes enclosed him then, large and dark as craters on the moon. As if they could pierce and probe out all his secrets, especially those Henri most fervently wished to remain undiscovered. He tried to return the stare with the same penetration, to know even as he was also known. But Forrest was a long puzzle. A hard one. A chanpwel might shed her skin and take the air and shrink herself enough to slip between the atoms building Forrest's skull and discover all the workings there-but what if there should be no workings? No machinery at all, but only intermittent flashes of a thunderous light?

"Ye mean to tell me I won't die today," Forrest had said.

"I do mean that. You won't."

When Forrest finally broke the gaze, Henri breathed deep, then noticed the general was holding his pistol out toward him by the barrel. Henri took it, looked at it briefly, then thrust it back into one of the holsters Forrest had found for him that first day, while they were smuggling guns out of Louisville.

Forrest turned away and left the yard. It was then that someone noticed that Lieutenant Gould was still just barely breathing.

"You seen seen that." As others began to scatter from the scene, Benjamin had slipped up to Henri and stopped with his big handsome head c.o.c.ked to one side, looking at Henri crossways. "You that." As others began to scatter from the scene, Benjamin had slipped up to Henri and stopped with his big handsome head c.o.c.ked to one side, looking at Henri crossways. "You seen seen the Old Man wa'nt gone die this time." the Old Man wa'nt gone die this time."

"He's not hurt bad as he thinks, that's all," Henri said, and looked down at the ground-it was true what he said but Ben was still lofting the question toward him with the crooked angle of his look, for both of them knew Henri hadn't told the part of the truth that Benjamin wanted to hear.

FORREST LIMPED into the house where he'd taken a room, with a couple of doctors cautiously trailing him. Once they'd had the chance to examine him properly, they let him know his wound was not so dangerous as it first seemed. The bullet had not cut into his vitals but lodged instead in the flesh of his hip, whence it could be safely extracted. Then Forrest rose up and drove the doctors off. "Let it alone then, why don't ye?" he shouted. "Hit's nothen but a d.a.m.n little pistol ball!" But the rage had left him altogether now, and his humor turned darkly inward. into the house where he'd taken a room, with a couple of doctors cautiously trailing him. Once they'd had the chance to examine him properly, they let him know his wound was not so dangerous as it first seemed. The bullet had not cut into his vitals but lodged instead in the flesh of his hip, whence it could be safely extracted. Then Forrest rose up and drove the doctors off. "Let it alone then, why don't ye?" he shouted. "Hit's nothen but a d.a.m.n little pistol ball!" But the rage had left him altogether now, and his humor turned darkly inward.

Lieutenant Gould, whose wound did fester in the summer heat, was two or three days about his dying. The doctors kept him mostly quiet with morphine. Sometimes in the night he screamed. John Morton kept him company when he could, for they were friends from boyhood. Leave out the war and they were hardly more than boys now.

"G.o.ddammit!" Forrest erupted, when Morton came to him. "Don't I know what a sorry situation hit is? If he'd shown that much s.p.u.n.k on Sand Mountain we'd not never had no quarrel in the first place."

Morton, whose pale round face was bluish with the small veins underneath the skin, spoke to him again in a low tone. Forrest took off his hat and looked into the crown as if maybe there was a crystal ball up in there.

"All right, John, all right," he said. "I'll go along with ye if that's what ye want."

When Forrest was most uncomfortably seated at the bedside, Lieutenant Gould groped for his hand and held it, and then in his weak dying voice he made a little speech he plainly had stored up in his mind ahead of time, saying he was sorry for what he had done, that the affair was begun in a reckless moment but if it had to end with one of them dead he was happy it should be him and not Forrest to die-it was better for the country that way.

Then Forrest looked Gould in the eye, and said in a voice that didn't quite crack, "I jest wish the whole thing never come about, son-don't ye know they ain't no way on earth I could be glad about doen in one of my own?" Gould didn't say anything more after that, but kept his weak clasp on Forrest's left hand, while Forrest covered his eyes with his right. The other men in the room looked at each other strangely. Forrest never spoke about wishes. He only said what wasn't, or what was.

After a time, young Gould drifted off, and Forrest got up and went out of the sickroom like Morton and the others there were invisible to him. In the night he woke crying, though he didn't know that he was. The saltiness running through his beard into the corners of his mouth only puzzled him. He had dreamed of three women on a brow of a bald hill in the nighttime. His mother, Mariam, leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. Her front was covered with a crumpled cloth but her rawboned arms and her shoulders were bare, her strong square hands turned palm-up to him. Mary Ann had settled behind her, with such a tender and sorrowful expression on her face; she was laving the scars that the panther had left, while behind her, where Mary Ann did not have to see her, Catharine stood holding the basin ready. Her Her face was lost in shadow, but he could see she wore a deep blue cloth tied over her head, with white specks on it s.h.i.+ning bright as the stars beyond the hill. face was lost in shadow, but he could see she wore a deep blue cloth tied over her head, with white specks on it s.h.i.+ning bright as the stars beyond the hill.

It was him or me, Momma, Forrest said. It was him or me It was him or me.

Oh now Bedford, don't take on. Her eyes deep and dark in the hollows of her head. I know it was. I know I know it was. I know.