You couldn't. And so he lay shivering, knowing how long this night would be.
Major Bill Bradford looked down at Matt Ward, who lay snoring and curled up like a dog beside his brother's grave. Ward had one protective arm flung over his rifle musket, but Bradford didn't think the cavalry trooper would notice if someone lifted it. He didn't think Ward would notice if a cannon went off beside his head. The Reb had finally drunk himself blind.
“Took you long enough, you son of a bitch,” Bradford muttered. He wanted to kick Ward in the face, but didn't have the nerve. The man might wake up in spite of all the rotgut he'd guzzled, or someone might see, or… Bradford had no trouble finding reasons not to dare.
The most important one was, he wanted escape even more than vengeance. No one was paying any attention to him now. If he couldn't seize this moment and disappear, he feared he would never get another chance.
He feared… That said it all. The sport the Confederates had with him after Fort Pillow fell, the bullets lashing into the Mississippi all around him… He didn't trust any offer of safety from Nathan Bedford Forrest and his officers. It was as simple as that. His parole? Better to get away now and renew the fight another time than to stay a prisoner and suffer an unfortunate accident. He was sure that was how Bedford Forrest would mention it in his reports-if Forrest bothered to mention it at all.
Quick, furtive glances to the right and left convinced Bradford nobody was watching him. Even so, he couldn't just walk away, not in the soaking-wet uniform of a major of the V.S. Cavalry. As casually as he could, as casually as if he had every right in the world to do so, Bradford strolled toward the sutlers' stalls. The Rebs were still ransacking some of them. Others, though, were dark and quiet, which probably meant they'd been picked clean.
Or they'd been picked clean of what the Confederates thought of as plunder, anyhow. Bradford smiled thinly. Right this minute, he was easier to please than Bedford Forrest's troopers.
Looking around again to make sure he went unnoticed, he ducked into one of the dark, deserted stalls. He went behind the counter and felt around there. Nothing. He swore under his breath. Why couldn't this be easy? Why couldn't anything be easy?
Farther back in the stall was the nasty little room where the sutler slept. Bradford wrinkled his nose against the stench when he went in there-didn't the man ever wash? He found what he needed, though: civilian-style trousers and shirt. They too reeked powerfully of their former owner, which might have been why no Confederate lifted them.
Bradford couldn't afford to be fussy. He took off his own soggy pants and the nine-buttoned tunic that made him so proud, then put on the sutler's clothes. They were big and baggy on him; the sutler must have been a larger man. But better too big than too small. If he cinched the belt up tight, the trousers wouldn't fall down, which was all that really mattered.
He started to go, but then abruptly stopped himself. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “I almost forgot about my hat!” It was still wet, too, but that wouldn't show. He pulled off the feather, the gold cord with the acorn finials that marked an officer, and the crossed-swords cavalry badge. That done, he set it back on his head. Now it would pass for an ordinary civilian slouch hat. If he hadn't fixed it, though, it would have betrayed him as soon as the first Reb got a good look at it.
Out of the stall he went, as fast as he could. Fort Pillow always smelled as if several hundred men had been living in it for weeks — and they had. But the air outside seemed sweet as nectar beside what he had been breathing.
A Confederate sergeant walked past him. His heart leaped into his throat. But the Reb strode by without a second glance. Bill Bradford smiled. The Confederates didn't necessarily recognize him, then
they recognized a U.S. major. If a frowzy civilian tried to leave Fort Pillow, why should they care? No reason in the world.
Logic might tell him that was so, but how far could he trust logic? If anything went wrong, he was dead.
Yes, and if you hang around here you're dead, too, he reminded himself. Not all Confederates recognized him, but some assuredly did. And he was violating the parole he'd given Colonel McCulloch and General Forrest. If he was going to do that, he couldn't very well do it halfway.
Out of here, then. He hadn't gone more than a dozen paces toward the rampart that had proved so useless before somebody called, “Hey, you! Yes, you in the dirty shirt! Where in blazes you reckon you're going?”
Ice in his belly, Bradford stopped and turned. A young, officious-looking C.S. lieutenant bustled up to him, waiting importantly for his answer. “You people already went and cleaned me out,” he said in surly tones, staring down at his shoes so the Reb wouldn't get a good look at his face. “Ain't much point to sticking around, not when I got nothin' left to sell.”
“You're a civilian?” the lieutenant asked.
“Don't look like no soldier, do I?” Bradford said. Technically, as the lawyer's side of his mind noted, that wasn't a lie. It also wasn't a direct answer to the question.
That wasn't the reason it didn't satisfy the Rebel officer. “You weren't shooting at us earlier today?” Some of the sutlers had picked up Springfields and joined Fort Pillow's garrison. Much good it did them.
As for Bradford, he shook his head. “Not me,” he said. “I'm a what-do-you-call-it-a noncombatant, that's the word.” As soon as he spoke, he started to worry. An attorney would know that term, but would a sutler?
“Yeah, sure you are,” the Confederate jeered. But then he shook his head. “What else are you going to say? I can't prove you're a liar, so get the hell out of here.”
“Thank you kindly, sir,” Bradford said. The lieutenant just gestured impatiently. Touching one finger to the brim of his hat in what wasn't quite a salute, Bradford hurried away. He kept looking down at the muddy ground, as if to avoid stepping into a puddle or tripping over a corpse. And he didn't want to do either of those things, but most of all he didn't want to be recognized. If the Rebs should catch him now, in civilian clothes, violating his parole… Whatever happened to him after that, they could claim he deserved it.
“Come on, you men! What are you standing around for?” The loud, angry voice that split the night made Bill Bradford flinch as if the cat o' nine tails had come down on his back. There stood Nathan Bedford Forrest himself, not twenty feet away, still trying to get work out of his men at a time when almost any victorious officer would have let them relax and savor what they'd done. If he turned around and saw Bradford, everything came to pieces.
But he didn't. Someone said, “Sir, we've found some more crates of cartridges over here. “
“Have you, by God?” Forrest sounded delighted. “We'll bring' em away with us. Can't very well fight a war without minnies. Let's see what you got.” Despite a limp, his long legs ate up the ground as he strode over to look at his men's latest prize.
And Bill Bradford scurried across the plank bridge the Confederates had thrown across the ditch outside the rampart. How many Federals, white and black, lay in the ditch waiting for somebody to shovel dirt over them? I spared Theo that fate, anyhow, Bradford thought. He won't lie in a mass grave with a nigger on top of him.
Someone groaned. Bradford's blood ran cold again. He thought the sound came from the ditch below him, though he couldn't be sure. If the Rebs set prisoners to burying those bodies, would they be burying some men alive? He would never know.
His shoes stopped reverberating on the planks. They thumped on the dirt beyond. He blew out a great sigh of relief. Now that he'd made it this far, the Rebs were much less likely to know him even if they saw him. And they were much less likely to see him-torches out here were few and far between.