Sandy Cole nodded gloomily. “Reckon he is,” he said. “Ain't no use to say Forrest ain't here. I knows him too well fo' that. Any place where there's big trouble, Bedford Forrest, he gonna be there.”
“You seen the man yourself? You know his face?” Robinson asked.
“I seen him, all right,” Cole answered. “Ain't I a Tennessee nigger? Any Tennessee nigger ever been sold, chances are he been sold through 01' Bedford Forrest's slave lots in Memphis. Yeah, I seen him.”
“How'd he treat you when you was there?” Having been sold himself, Robinson had a morbid curiosity about such things. No part of slavery was good, not from the slave's point of view. But being in a dealer's hands, being between masters, was worse than most of the rest. A dealer didn't need to worry about you for the long haul. He just wanted to turn you into cash as fast as he could.
But Sandy Cole said, “Coulda been worse. He give us enough to eat-not fancy, but enough. We had mattresses-didn't got to sleep on the ground. He let us wash-now and again, anyways. Weren't too crowded. Yeah, coulda been worse. “
“Sounds like it,” Robinson agreed. He'd known slave pens where none of what Sandy said held true. But it gibed with other things he'd heard about the C.S. general. Forrest wasn't cruel for the sake of being cruel, the way some dealers were. He was in the business for money, not for sport, and he'd made a pile of it. Even so, the colored sergeant said, “Shame we gots to keep the truce.”
“What you mean?” Cole asked.
Robinson pointed out toward Forrest. “There he is, damn him.
That man deal in slaves. He deal in niggers. You done said so your ownself. Powerful good general, too-likely the bes' general the Rebs got in this part 0' the country. An' there he is. Don't got to be no great shot to put a minnie through the God-damned son of a bitch. Can't hardly miss, not at this range.” He mimed sighting a Springfield at the big man on horseback, mimed pulling the trigger, mimed Bedford Forrest falling over dead.
Sandy Cole laughed, but he sounded a little scandalized, or maybe more than a little. “Can't do that, Sergeant, not with the white flags up.”
“I know.” Robinson sighed. “But dat's how come it's a shame we gots to keep it.”
He might as well not have spoken. Cole went on, “'Sides, s'pose we shoots the general. An' s'pose the Secesh gets inside the fort then. What you reckon they do to us after that? You tell me they don't shoot everyone of us, 'less mebbe they hangs some or burns some? I ain't brave enough to shoot no Bedford Forrest with the truce flags flyin'.”
He had a point. Ben Robinson wished he didn't have to admit, even to himself, how strong a point it was. But he said, “Do Jesus, Sandy, what you reckon the Rebs do to us if they gets in even if we don't shoot Forrest? We ain't sojers to them. We's jus' niggers. Onliest difference 'tween us an' the pigs is, they don't smoke us fo' bacon.”
“No, sub.” Sandy Cole shook his head. “No, suh. There's another difference-damn big difference, too.” He patted the barrel of the gun they served. After more than half an hour of quiet, it was cool enough not to burn his palm. “Difference is, now we kin shoot back. “
“Uh-huh.” Sergeant Robinson had thought that was a wonderful thing when he first put on the blue uniform. He still did. But it had a drawback he hadn't seen then: “What if we shoots back an' they licks us anyways?”
By the way Cole's face puckered, he might have bitten down on a green persimmon. “Can't let them bastards lick us. Can't do it, Sergeant. They licks us, it's like they really is better'n we is, like they say.”
“Long as I kin serve this gun, ain't no white man better'n me,” Robinson said. “Mebbe they kin kill me. Do Jesus, I knows they kin kill me. Like I say, they kin lick us. They gots mo' men out there'n we gots in here. But if they kill me, they gots to kill a man who's fightin' back. They ain't gonna kill no nigger, no darkie, no coon. You hear what I'm tellin' you, Sandy?”
“I hears you, Sergeant.”
“You believe me?”
“I… I'm tryin' to, Sergeant,” Sandy Cole said, which struck Robinson as honest enough. The other colored artilleryman eyed him. “You believe your ownself?”
'Course I do. The automatic reply sprang to Ben Robinson's lips. But Cole had given him the truth-or he thought so, anyway. He felt obligated to pay back the same coin: “I's tryin' to, too.”
A Federal lieutenant approached the Confederate truce party on foot. Quietly, Captain Goodman said, “That's their post adjutant, sir. His name is Leaming, Mack Leaming. He's been carrying messages back and forth. “
“I thank you,” Nathan Bedford Forrest said, also quietly. Then he raised his voice so it would carry: “Well, Lieutenant Leaming? What does Major Booth say? He used up all the time I gave him, by God!”
And it didn't do him one damn bit of good, either, Forrest thought. Booth must have been banking on the Olive Branch. Too bad for him-that bank had gone bust. The steamboat full of soldiers was leaving Fort Pillow behind. The plumes of smoke on the Mississippi to the north were closer now. Forrest didn't worry about those ships. If this skipper didn't dare to try forcing a landing, theirs wouldn't, either.
Mack Leaming started when Forrest called to him. Forrest wondered what he was so nervous about. Had Major Booth made up his mind to fight? Forrest wouldn't have, not in the Union man's position. But if he had, he had.
“Here is my commandant's reply, sir.” Leaming held out a grimy scrap of paper.
Forrest unfolded it. He scowled at the scrawl he had to try to read; it might have been worse than his own hand, something he had trouble believing. “'Your demand… does not produce… the desired effect,'“ he said slowly. Even after he'd read it, it left him unhappy, or worse than unhappy. “This will not do,” he told Leaming. “Send it back, and say to Major Booth that I must have an answer in plain, unmistakable English. Will he fight or will he surrender? Yes or no!”
Lieutenant Leaming turned red. He gave back a salute of drill-field precision, a salute so grand it was almost an insult. “I shall do just as you say, sir,” he replied, and did an about-face every bit as fancy. He strode off toward Fort Pillow.
Fussy fellow, isn't he? Forrest thought. He almost laughed at Leaming's retreating back, to see if it could get any stiffer than it was already. He had his doubts. Turning to Captain Goodman, he said, “People go on and on about how I'm an ignorant, uneducated son of a bitch, but by God, Captain, I know how to say what I mean! “
“Yes, sir, you sure do,” Goodman said with a small smile. Captain Young and Lieutenant van Horn both stirred, but neither U.S. officer said anything. After a moment, Goodman went on, “Sir, you've done all you need to do right up here-all you need to and more. Might be a good thing if you moved farther away from the fort.”
“Ah?” Forrest needed only a heartbeat to understand why. “Reckon so?”
“I do, sir.” Goodman pointed up toward the earthwork. “The niggers yonder who' re skylarking… Well, they're a bunch of damn fools, but they're only a bunch of damn fools, if you know what I mean. But the ones looking our way, and the ones pointing our way… One of them's liable to pick up a Springfield and point with that instead of his finger. I know they're nothing but niggers, but they don't need to be sharpshooters to hit at this range. “
Again, Forrest didn't need long to think about it. He fought ferociously and exposed himself to all sorts of dangers, but that was when his blood was up. It wasn't up now. He could see the good sense in what Captain Goodman said. “All right. I'll do that,” he said. “Bring me the Federals' answer as soon as they deliver it.” He touched the brim of his hat to Young and van Kirk. “Gentlemen.”
“General,” both officers said politely. John Young saluted-not to show him up, as Leaming had, but to acknowledge respect even for an enemy.
“You think Major Booth will give up the fort, sir?” Captain Goodman asked as Forrest turned his horse toward the south.