Devil's Dream Part 8

But Forrest was no longer paying attention to him, because his horse was melting underneath him, slowly collapsing to the right. Forrest reached down with his right hand and pulled his right foot clear of the stirrup and rolled away from the dead animal as it hit the ground. Lying on his back, he reached out a hand to touch the horse's blood-stiffened mane. Then he used both arms to turn himself over. The others watched him as if in a trance. All knew he would strike any man who moved to help him. Forrest pushed himself to his knees. Then somehow he was not only standing but limping toward the door of the hotel across the square.

"How in the Sam Hill is he doing that?" Kelley wondered. "That leg wasn't working a minute ago."

Cowan looked at him. "I don't have the least dreaming notion," he said. "But I reckon I better go try and find out."

MANY OF F FORREST'S ESCORT spent the remains of the day and the evening lingering on the square between the courthouse and the white hotel. The whole town hummed with General Johnston's death and the fear that the Yankee hosts would next strike there. Few had heard enough of Forrest to feel much alarm about his injuries. Presently Benjamin came with two mules, noosed rope around the gray's hind legs, and hauled the dead horse out of the square, leaving a drag trail smeared with blood in the dust. spent the remains of the day and the evening lingering on the square between the courthouse and the white hotel. The whole town hummed with General Johnston's death and the fear that the Yankee hosts would next strike there. Few had heard enough of Forrest to feel much alarm about his injuries. Presently Benjamin came with two mules, noosed rope around the gray's hind legs, and hauled the dead horse out of the square, leaving a drag trail smeared with blood in the dust.

Mary Ann Forrest arrived on the night train and hastened into the hotel, greeting the men on the steps with a thin smile, not slowing her quick step. Dr. Cowan had not been seen for hours. Now and then Willie came out the side door of the hotel, all the jolliness drained out of him, furtively taking a few drags at a cigar stump before he hurried back inside. Henri watched Matthew watching Willie's brief appearances, without so much of his usual hostility this time.

In the small hours Forrest sent for Kelley to come and bring a pen and paper. Some speculated on the courthouse steps that Kelley had been called to administer last rites or to take down Forrest's testament or both. But Kelley, if he came out again, came by a different door. The first man out of the hotel at dawn was Ginral Jerry, shambling and shuffling, head bowed down (but then he normally walked so, Henri thought), eyes red and a little rheumy (but didn't he always look so?).

How is he? Will he make it? The men cl.u.s.tered round. The men cl.u.s.tered round.

"He still kicken," Jerry said. "Ole Miss wif him now." He slipped through the others and walked toward the wagons where mules stood sleeping still in harness in a side street off the square.

The next man to appear was Cowan, raising a smashed minie ball high in a pair of forceps. The surgeon had washed his hands, Henri saw, but there was a crust of dried blood beneath his nails. The lump of crushed lead pa.s.sed from hand to hand. "Is he going to live?" somebody said.

"I think so," Cowan said. "Ask me, he's too mean to die."

Cowan went into the hotel to sleep. On the outskirts of Corinth, the roosters were crowing. The first real sunlight was staining the hotel facade when Kelley came up to the courthouse and dropped a bundle of newspapers on the lower step. He raised a hand to quiet the men spluttering questions at him, picked up a paper and folded it open.

"Hear this," he began.

200 Recruits Wanted!I will receive 200 able-bodied men if they will present themselves at my headquarters by the first of June with good horse and gun. I wish none but those who desire to be actively engaged. My headquarters for the present is at Corinth, Miss. Come on, boys, if you want a heap of fun and to kill some Yankees.N. B. Forrest Colonel, Commanding Forrest's Regiment When he had finished Kelley smiled faintly and handed the paper to Nath Boone, who stood tracing the words with a fingertip, lips moving slightly. When he got to the end he dropped the paper against his thigh. "Ain't it the truth?" he said to all. "Hit's n.o.body can tell us us what fun is." what fun is."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

August 1857 MARY A ANN HAD LAIN DOWN through the worst of the late-summer afternoon heat, but could not sleep. Where men perspired, ladies must merely glow, and yet she felt herself to be sweating like a horse through the thin sheets between which she restlessly reclined. It was near four in the afternoon when she began to hear the household coming back to life on the floors below. She sat up and arranged her clothing and went down. On her way to the porch she collected a basket of pecans lately sent to the Forrest family as a compliment from friends in Georgia, and a pie pan to hull the nuts into. through the worst of the late-summer afternoon heat, but could not sleep. Where men perspired, ladies must merely glow, and yet she felt herself to be sweating like a horse through the thin sheets between which she restlessly reclined. It was near four in the afternoon when she began to hear the household coming back to life on the floors below. She sat up and arranged her clothing and went down. On her way to the porch she collected a basket of pecans lately sent to the Forrest family as a compliment from friends in Georgia, and a pie pan to hull the nuts into.

Forrest's sister f.a.n.n.y was paying them a visit and had already settled herself on the porch with a bucket full of green beans to break. There too Mary Ann found Doctor Cowan, who sat on a rocker rolling an unlit cigar between his slender fingers.

"Too hot to smoke," he said ruefully, glancing up as Mary Ann came out to join them.

"Ain't it the truth," she answered, aware of her just brushed hair already going lank against her forehead. "I can scarce draw a breath."

She settled herself to crack and pick nuts, rocking gently as she worked-all three of them rocked, for the small motion stirred up the ghost of a breeze. Around the borders of the front yard a half-dozen magnolia saplings sagged, their limbs seeming almost too weak to support the glossy dark green leaves. A planting of gra.s.s in the yard had died out and the surface was going back to dirt. Too late for a watering to renew it.

Nut meats ticked against the tin. In the slave pens next door a commotion broke out. The sharply raised voice of John Forrest, a thump, a grunt, slap of a strap against something. A moment after these sounds had subsided, the high wooden gate of the pen creaked open and Catharine came out, unperturbed and moving languidly, carrying a twig broom. She came into the Forrests' front yard by the waist-high picket gate and began to sweep dead leaves and dust across the surface of sere yellow gra.s.s.

Mary Ann folded her hands over the nuts. "There are times," she remarked, "when I do wish my dear husband might take up some other line of work."

Bite your tongue, she thought at once, forbearing to steal a glance at f.a.n.n.y. It was the heat that made her feel quarrelsome, she thought.

"I don't know ..." Doctor Cowan raised a bushy eyebrow toward her. "Well, some of the family have thought so too, I reckon-You know your mother did."

"I know she does still," Mary Ann said, aware of a wry twist in her lips.

Cowan crossed his eyes on the tip of his cigar, then tucked it away in his breast pocket. "I won't deny I felt the same in the beginning," he said. "Everybody despises a slave-trader. It's like he was a man defiled. But then there's n.o.body in this country that don't depend on slavery-"

"Now that's a leaf right out of his book," Mary Ann said.

Cowan rocked, reflecting. "Well, but leave the slaves a minute. Consider this. You may buy yourself a fine horse. Trained up and schooled to the last inch, till all you practically have to do is think where you want her to go, and there she goes, before you even need to touch her with your hand or heel."

Mary Ann considered her own mare Nelly, whom Bedford Forrest had given her-the quick sensitive grace of all her movements. Animal knowledge. Half-consciously she watched the slave girl move through the yard, her back straight, head slightly inclined, expending the precise bare minimum of effort required to keep the dry broom whisking. Oh, and she was glowing, certainly; her sweat-darkened calico twinned with her hot flesh like sealskin.

"Who knows and cares for that mare the best?" Cowan said. "The one who uses her and rides her? Or the one who broke her and trained her to your service?"

How the Devil should I know? Mary Ann stopped herself from saying. Instead, feeling a cross knot tighten in the center of her forehead, she set aside the tin pan, stood up and dumped an ap.r.o.nful of broken nut sh.e.l.ls onto a patch of yard Catharine had just swept.

"Hmmm. Perhaps it's a little too warm, this afternoon, for philosophy." Cowan smacked his palms on the knees of his trousers, then pushed himself out of his chair. "Ladies. I believe I may attempt a stroll."

The picket gate didn't catch, but drifted open slowly once Cowan had gone out. A lean tawny dog paused to look in, eyes dull with the heat and tongue lolling over black gums.

"Git, you." Catharine stepped over to shake her broom at it, and snapped the gate firmly shut as the dog trotted off. Then she returned to sweeping up the nutsh.e.l.ls, with the same faintly indolent grace as before, expressionless. There was nothing about her comportment that Mary Ann could have fairly called sullen. The futility of her spite lumped in her throat. Though she might have given the girl some new command, she simply watched as Catharine swept her liquid way toward the magnolias at the far end of the yard.

"Don't you know he loves you?"

"I know it," Mary Ann said, before she thought to ransack her memory for where in the previous conversation this question might spring from-they'd been talking about horses, hadn't they ... or had f.a.n.n.y Forrest just read something straight out of her mind. She was Forrest's twin, and looked much like him if you took away the beard, tall and rawboned and with the same strong features thrusting from her face-good-natured but somewhat abrupt in her manner, "plain-spoke" as she'd have put it herself.

"But now sometimes I wonder about it too."

A couple of sparrows had landed in the shade of the magnolias now lengthening toward the porch across the yard. Mary Ann watched the little brown birds pecking in the dirt.

"Well," f.a.n.n.y said. "I know he loves you. More'n anything he's got. More'n me or Mamma, or anybody really."

She rocked, considering; her beans were done. "Except Fan, I reckon. How he loved little Fan ... Too much, maybe."

"Can a person love too much?"

f.a.n.n.y didn't respond to that. Mary Ann was watching Catharine, who had tucked up her broom and left the yard, and was moving at her mola.s.ses-smooth pace back toward the board gate into the slave pen.

"Suppose he loves her?" Mary Ann blurted.

"Well," f.a.n.n.y said. "Suppose he doesn't."

"Then he lies with her without loving her," Mary Ann said. "And which way would I rather?"

"Sister," said f.a.n.n.y. "If it's a thing you cain't know, you might be better off not to think about it."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

August 1864 THE RAIN HAD SLACKED a little when Henri came back into Oxford with a wagonload of corn foraged from the farmland east of the town. With Ginral Jerry and a handful of others from Forrest's escort he'd spent the better part of the day playing hide and go seek with Federals of A. J. Smith's command who were also scouring the country for supplies, and with better success since they were four times as numerous. a little when Henri came back into Oxford with a wagonload of corn foraged from the farmland east of the town. With Ginral Jerry and a handful of others from Forrest's escort he'd spent the better part of the day playing hide and go seek with Federals of A. J. Smith's command who were also scouring the country for supplies, and with better success since they were four times as numerous.

"Rosen-ears!" Lieutenant d.i.n.kins called out brightly, slipping up to the wagon to peel back a green shuck.

"Git yo' dirty paws offa that corn," Ginral Jerry told him. d.i.n.kins hunched his shoulders and pretended to slink away. Forrest looked toward them from where he stood with Chalmers on the lowest of the courthouse steps, his boots slathered to the top with tar-black Mississippi mud. yo' dirty paws offa that corn," Ginral Jerry told him. d.i.n.kins hunched his shoulders and pretended to slink away. Forrest looked toward them from where he stood with Chalmers on the lowest of the courthouse steps, his boots slathered to the top with tar-black Mississippi mud.

"That ain't no rosen-ears," he said. "That's hoss-corn."

"General," Chalmers called his attention back. "What do you mean for me to do while you are gone?"

"Play like we ain't gone nowhere." Forrest's dark eyes turned toward Henri. "Well, Ornery? Air ye ready to go?"

Go where, Henri thought. He said nothing. He had been riding around the country all day.

Forrest's whole face brightened. He grinned through his beard, then let out a wild cackle that brought every ragged soldier lounging under the eaves around the square to his feet, whether booted or bare.

"Come on, boys," Forrest whooped. "We're a-goen to Memphis!"

THE RAIN PICKED UP as night fell and the column moved west on the road toward Panola, two by two. Henri rode beside the wagon, watching water stream off the brim of his hat, trying not to listen to the growling of his stomach. as night fell and the column moved west on the road toward Panola, two by two. Henri rode beside the wagon, watching water stream off the brim of his hat, trying not to listen to the growling of his stomach.

"Cornbread," Lieutenant d.i.n.kins said suddenly. "By G.o.dfrey, I smell cornbread."

"Leave your dreaming," Henri said.

"No, Hank, but I swear I do. Hot pone at two o'clock and not three hundred yards forward."

"Hesh up," Ginral Jerry said from the wagon. "You maken me think I smells it too."

But around the next bend of the road they came upon a couple of dozen women of the country standing under a brush arbor by a long trestle table, handing up pieces of cornbread to every man as they pa.s.sed. Henri got a chunk the size of his fist. It had a drip of mola.s.ses on it to boot. The burst of saliva at the back of his mouth was painful when he took the first bite.

"Glory be," d.i.n.kins said, with real reverence, before he stopped his mouth with cornbread. Henri forced himself to eat slowly. He liked riding near d.i.n.kins, who was a cheerful soul. Scarce twenty years old, he still managed to live the war as a frolic. He never seemed to know that his feet were blistered to his iron stirrups, bleeding through the socks that were all he had to cover them. The rain poured down. Henri rode on, content with the bread still warm in his belly.

"When we once get to Memphis," d.i.n.kins said softly, "I mean to have me a b.u.t.termilk biscuit."

IT WAS STILL DARK when they reached Panola, but the rain had stopped at last and the birds were starting to tune up in shrubs and trees by the side of the road. They stopped to shed horses and men too weak to continue. Forrest sent back two cannon as well. The two remaining needed double teams to drag them through the mud. They crossed the Tallahatchie River with the rising sun warm on their faces and continued north, a slingshot west of the railroad track. Men who hadn't seen the sun for days cheered up as their clothes began to dry, and started to brag of all they'd do in Memphis. when they reached Panola, but the rain had stopped at last and the birds were starting to tune up in shrubs and trees by the side of the road. They stopped to shed horses and men too weak to continue. Forrest sent back two cannon as well. The two remaining needed double teams to drag them through the mud. They crossed the Tallahatchie River with the rising sun warm on their faces and continued north, a slingshot west of the railroad track. Men who hadn't seen the sun for days cheered up as their clothes began to dry, and started to brag of all they'd do in Memphis.

Above Senatobia, Forrest pulled up his horse and glared at swollen Hickahala Creek. On the far side a flatboat had drifted into a flooded field and snagged on a couple of hackberries in a fence row. Captain Bill reined up beside his brother.

"Where do you reckon Smith is at?" he said.

"Sixty miles back of us by this time," Forrest said. "I ain't worried about Smith. But we cain't set here and wait for this crik to go down." He turned toward the corn wagon. "Henry!"

In an hour's time they'd stripped plank from every gin mill and shack for a mile around and were making a bridge lashed together with grapevine, using the salvaged flatboat for a pontoon. Forrest spent the delay culling out more men and horses that couldn't hold the pace. He sent about fifty more back under command of John Morton, calculating this detachment should serve as a decoy if Smith had scouts alert enough to have spotted his quick movement north. In two more hours they'd trundled across the creek, toting their last pair of cannon by hand.

Seven miles on they struck the same situation at Coldwater River, a ford too flooded for them to cross. This water was wider and it needed more time to makes.h.i.+ft a bridge. A red fox came out of a canebrake along the bank and watched them as they worked. Henri watched back, a little uneasy. A fox was a shy creature normally speaking, and it was the season of hydrophobia. But this fox seemed in perfect possession of itself, sitting down quietly and licking its paws. When it had looked its fill it got up and went calmly back into the cane with the red brush of its tail waving high.

This bridge was longer, and thinner on planks. The horses went fetlock deep, boards bending under them as the men led them cautiously over, and one of the two remaining cannon nearly foundered the whole rig.

"Best leave this wagon," Major Strange said. "I do believe it's too heavy to make it across."

"I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.ned G.o.dd.a.m.ned if I'll leave this corn," snapped Forrest, who had been pacing the bank like a caged wolf for the last hour. "Horses are all half-starved as it is-they got to have a feed afore we go to Memphis." if I'll leave this corn," snapped Forrest, who had been pacing the bank like a caged wolf for the last hour. "Horses are all half-starved as it is-they got to have a feed afore we go to Memphis."

"Suit yourself," Major Strange said. "This wagon is apt to sink and the bridge along with it."

"Unload it then." Forrest was already reaching into the bed, wrapping his long arms around near a bushel of corn in the shuck. "Come on, boys. Step lively."

Matthew was quick to grab an armload and follow. Henri did the same and others fell in behind them. Matthew was near as tall as Forrest, and had the same long back and long legs, Henri noticed, as he crept over the bridge behind the two of them.

"Any man drops an ear is swimmen to git it," Forrest announced, without turning his head.

In fifteen minutes the empty wagon had crossed and been reloaded. By dusk that day they were riding into Hernando, where the people came out hallooing to greet them, and not only because it was Forrest's hometown. Smokehouses were opened to them all over the place, and as the cooking began the men fell to sh.e.l.ling corn for the horses. Men cooked bacon wound around sticks, holding hoecakes beneath to catch the dripping.

Legs hanging off the back of the empty wagon, d.i.n.kins chewed happily, jaws glossy with fat. "One thing I like about the Old Man-" He looked around to be sure Forrest wasn't in earshot. "If he eats, we eat too."

They'd come a long way in a large hurry, with twenty-five miles yet to travel to reach Memphis. Forrest gave his men two hours leisure. He rested between his two brothers, stretched on the ground. Captain Bill snored. Colonel Jesse fidgeted with a nickel watch and chain. Forrest himself lay with his shoulders propped on the s.h.a.ggy bole of a cedar, eyes half-shut, with just the whites showing, though it seemed to Henri, who had stretched in the back of the empty wagon, that somehow Forrest was still seeing whatever was there. Matthew, who still showed childish ways once in a while, was playing mumblety-peg with a couple of Hernando boys by the light of a sliver of moon. Since Willie Forrest had been left behind with Chalmers at Oxford, Matthew had seemed easier in his mind.

When the church bell rang out nine o'clock they set off again, with much gaiety-too much maybe, as Forrest kept having to shush their singing. Peas, Peas, Peas, Peas, Eating Goober Peas! Peas, Peas, Peas, Peas, Eating Goober Peas! No sooner had Matthew been shut up than d.i.n.kins would take it up again, or somebody else further back in the column. But four miles out from Memphis the fog from the river began to roll over them and they marched the rest of the way in strict silence. No sooner had Matthew been shut up than d.i.n.kins would take it up again, or somebody else further back in the column. But four miles out from Memphis the fog from the river began to roll over them and they marched the rest of the way in strict silence.

All quiet on a Sunday morning, a good two hours before dawn. Forrest called his commanders in: Captain Bill, Colonel Jesse, Colonel Neely. In low harsh whispers the plan was reviewed. With ten men picked from the troop they called the Forty Thieves, Bill Forrest, still wincing at times from the thighbone he'd got broken by a bullet at Sand Mountain, crept further up the Hernando road. When the first picket challenged them, Bill called that he was bringing in Rebel prisoners. With that ruse he was able to get close enough to knock the Federal silently down with the b.u.t.t of his Navy six. When they reached the second line of pickets, one of them got off a shot, and Forrest's men returned fire. Yaaaiiiieee! Yaaaiiiieee! the Rebel yell went up; it always made Henri's short hairs rise with it. He might scream himself till his throat was raw, yet never hear the sound of his own voice. the Rebel yell went up; it always made Henri's short hairs rise with it. He might scream himself till his throat was raw, yet never hear the sound of his own voice.

Forrest was holding in King Philip, a restless horse said to be as good as two men in pitched battle. He jostled into the bugler Gaus and ordered him to sound the charge. But the horn was almost lost in the yelling and pounding of hooves. They charged right into a muddy slough past the corner of Mississippi and Kerr Street, bogged down for a moment, soon pulled through.

Bill Forrest ran right over a small artillery post and turned his hors.e.m.e.n down Gayoso Street toward the river. Neely swept through an encampment of Federals east of the road, routing sleepy soldiers till after they had run for some distance they rallied at the State Female College and began to shoot back. d.i.n.kins came racing back from that engagement with a huge grin and a pair of new shoes swinging around his neck by their laces, just s.n.a.t.c.hed from a Yankee soldier's tent pole.

Memphis women were cheering the raiders from their windows, throwing up their sashes and leaning out. Some even dashed out onto the street. One leapt up at d.i.n.kins and gave him a buss, then sprang back abashed at her own audacity-a tousled honey-blonde still warm and flushed from her sleep, t.i.ttering around the fingers she'd stuck in her mouth. Pink nipples pressed against the damp cotton of her nightgown, looking out like a second pair of eyes. Ginral Jerry, who'd driven the empty wagon into town on the chance he'd find something to fill it with, gave the gaping d.i.n.kins a nudge.

"Go on," he said. "Ax her if she got a biscuit."

Jesse Forrest pounded across Desoto Street to Union to storm the headquarters of General Washburn there. Washburn tumbled out the window in his nights.h.i.+rt and ran like a rabbit to Fort Pickering, half a mile off on the South Bluffs. Colonel Jesse captured his dress uniform but without any general inside. Captain Bill rode his charger straight into the lobby of the Gayoso Hotel and wheeled, swinging his sword around the chandelier, while his men burst into General Hurlbut's room. But that officer, to his great good fortune, happened to be spending that night elsewhere. Bill's men tore into every room in the building, looking for Hurlbut and rounding up whatever members of his staff they could.

Day should have broken, but fog smothered the sun. It m.u.f.fled gunfire, shouts and hard riding, to the advantage of the raiders. Forrest overtook Henri and Ginral Jerry and d.i.n.kins at the corner of Beale Street. He was not in that state of possession he usually entered during a battle, Henri noticed. His eyes had not turned that wildcat yellow, though he did seem to be looking for something. Three or four blocks toward the river they could hear men shouting and women shrieking and gla.s.s breaking out of the windows of the Gayoso Hotel. But Forrest was looking the other way, at a woman languidly crossing Beale Street, leading two small boys along by the hands. A bigger lad trotted along behind. Henri couldn't make out her face through the mist, but no white woman ever walked like that.

"Tom," she called back in a low husky voice. "Why doan you hold the ginnal's horse?"

The biggest boy caught King Philip's reins just behind the bit. The horse tossed his head once, then subsided. Forrest turned his head to the others.

"You boys go on. I'll be right behind ye."

As they moved off, Matthew sat up in the wagon bed, and stared back at the boy holding the horse. The woman had moved close against Forrest's saddle skirt, and the pair of them were silhouetted in silver by the mist.

"That's curious," d.i.n.kins was saying. "Most of the time he's right out in front of us."

"Well," Ginral Jerry told him. "You best not worry bout it."