“That's what we want to find out,” Forrest said. “Where the devil's Bradford? “
Ward looked around. His eyes fixed on the grave for a moment, but even in his fuddled state he realized the man in it was the wrong Bradford. Theodorick wasn't missing, nor would he ever be. No matter how plastered Ward was, he took Nathan Bedford Forrest seriously. Anyone who didn't made a dreadful mistake. “Sir, he wahshwas-right here.” The young cavalryman looked around in obvious, even if sozzled, confusion. “I don't know where he could've gone, or how he could've gone anywhere. He was drinking as much as me, honest to God he was.” He hiccuped.
His words puzzled Forrest, the near-teetotaler. They didn't puzzle Black Bob McCulloch. “Jesus wept!” the colonel burst out. “That's the oldest trick in the world. Make like you're drinking, only don't swallow-more likely, don't even let it get into your mouth at all.”
“Oh.” Bedford Forrest's voice held a grim rumble.
“Oh!” Ward, by contrast, sounded horrified. “I reckon I messed up.”
“I reckon you did,” McCulloch agreed. He turned to Forrest.
“What shall we do with him, sir? He's one of mine. The blame lands on me.“
“Let it go,” Forrest answered. “He didn't know Bradford was a snake in the grass, and the reptile” — he pronounced it rep-tile” — went and hornswoggled him. Way he'll feel come morning, that'll make sure he remembers he got took.”
“Maybe we should have had another Tennessean watching Bradford, not a man from Missouri,” Charles Anderson said. “Anybody from this state would have had a better notion of what the man is like.”
“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.”