The wash got shallower and shallower as it curved away from the endless repeater. He rolled out of it and behind a hollow stump. Doing his best to keep the stump between himself and the gunner, he crawled, scrambled, crawled again. He’d gone several hundred yards before bullets came snarling after him. He threw himself flat—better than flat, actually, for he landed in a hole in the ground. He waited a few minutes, then crawled on. When he decided the pine woods screened him away from the Rivington man at the gun, he got up and walked, steering by the stars till he came to a road he knew.
He’d started only six or eight miles outside Nashville, but the town clocks were chiming midnight when he came into town. Lewis made his headquarters at the courthouse. A sentry gave Caudell, now even filthier than he had been before, a dubious look. “You sure this won’t wait, soldier?”
“I’m sure.” Caudell put bite in his voice. He discovered he still had his wartime prejudice against anyone in a clean uniform. His growl sufficed to get the sentry to step aside. He went into the courthouse, found Lewis snoring on a pallet, “Captain Lewis, sir? Captain?”
Lewis grunted, then rolled over and sat up. “Who—?” He rubbed his eyes. The torches outside the doorway let him see who. “What the devil is it, Nate?”
As Caudell started to explain what it was, several horsemen rode into the town square, their harness jingling. A man with cavalry spurs on his boots strode into the courthouse. Caudell kept on talking to Lewis: let the damned courier wait his turn, he thought. Most of that breed were arrogant, eager to get their ever-so-precious words in first, but this one stood quietly until Caudell was through.
Captain Lewis yawned till his jaw gave an audible pop. Then he said, “If this Pleasants knows what he’s doing—and he sounds like he does—tell him to go ahead. Sounds like a good chance to get rid of that damned repeater, and we haven’t had much luck with it any other way.”
As Caudell saluted, the man behind him spoke for the first time: “Captain, Sergeant, the hell with one repeater. When you’re holdin’ four kings, you better not just raise a dime.”
Caudell whirled. He knew that voice, though he’d not expected to hear it in the Nashville courthouse. George Lewis sprang out of bed and to his feet. He was wearing his makeshift captain’s tunic, but only drawers beneath it. He came to attention and saluted anyhow. “General Forrest, sir!”
“At ease, Captain—and put on your pants,” Nathan Bedford Forrest added with a chuckle. “I rode in to see how things were on this part of the line around that goddam Rivington place, on account of they’d been pretty quiet till now. Reckon they’re gonna liven up some.” He rounded on Caudell. “Where is this mining engineer of yours, First Sergeant?”
“He ought to be along any time now, sir,” Caudell said uncomfortably. He told again how he, Pleasants, and Mollie Bean—though he remembered to call her Melvin—had set out at fifteen-minute intervals.
Forrest nodded. “Best you could have done, I expect. But if that engineer stops a bullet—Wait. He said one of those other miners could do the job, too, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but—” Caudell hopelessly spread his hands. Henry Pleasants was his friend. Mollie was a great deal more than that. Forrest might understand his feelings, but the man was—had to be, by the wreathed stars on his collar—a soldier first. Now that he had an idea, he would carry it forward with or without the person who first proposed it. To Caudell, the people mattered more than the idea. He waited and worried, waited more, worried more.
About three in the morning, when worry was turning to despair, Mollie and Pleasants came into the courthouse together. Caudell let out a rebel yell that likely bounced half of Nashville out of bed. He hugged Henry Pleasants first, which gave him all the excuse he needed to hug Mollie too, longer and more closely. “What the devil happened to you two?” he demanded.
“We got lost,” Mollie said in a small, sheepish voice. “My fault. I—”
“I don’t care a damn about all that,” Nathan Bedford Forrest broke in. He paused a moment to let himself, or at least his rank, be recognized, then said, “Which one of you is Pleasants?”
“I am, sir.” Pleasants drew himself stiff and straight. “Private Henry Pleasants, 47th North Carolina, formerly Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants, 48th Pennsylvania.”
“Is that a fact?” Forrest took a longer, closer look at the mining engineer. “Decided you liked it better down here, did you?”
“Some ways,” Pleasants said, and let it go at that.
Forrest did not press him; he had things other than politics on his mind. “Caudell here tells me you think you can run a mine under that big repeater up in front of you.”
“I can blow that goddamned gun just as high as you want it, sir,” Pleasants said positively.
“The hell with one repeater,” Forrest said, as he had to Caudell and Lewis before. “I want that mine. I want it bad enough to taste it, Colonel.” Pleasants beamed to hear his old rank used; Captain Lewis glared a little. Forrest plowed ahead: “About how long would you need to dig it?”
Pleasants’s eyes went far away; his lips moved silently as he calculated. He stayed in that brown study for several minutes. When his face cleared, he answered, “Give me the men, tools, and shoring timbers I’ll need—and a pump, in case the shaft is wet—and I’ll have it done in three weeks to a month.”
Forrest clapped him on the back. “You’ll get ‘em, by God,” he promised.” And you’ll have your old U. S.rank back as part of my staff, if that suits you.”
Now George Lewis glared more than a little. Pleasants grinned from ear to ear. “Thank you, sir! Maybe I should have voted for you after all.”
Caudell gulped, wondering how the notoriously hotheaded Forrest would take that. But the general’s answer, when it came, was low-voiced and serious: “Sir, if I’d known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have voted for myself. I was fooled into thinking America Will Break had the South’s best interests at heart, not its own.” He shook his head, plainly angry at being deceived. Then he grinned, too, an expression half mischievous, half savage. “Now I aim to fool those Rivington bastards right back.”
“How are you going to do that, sir?” Caudell, Mollie, and George Lewis asked at the same time.
“We’ve just been tapping at America Will Break down here south of Rivington,” Forrest answered, still with that predatory grin. “I aim to swing a good deal around to here, start pounding ‘em right about where that repeater is. The more men and guns we throw at ‘em, the more they’ll have to bring in to keep us from crackin’ ‘em. I’ll throw in more, and they’ll bring more, and by the time three weeks or a month have gone by, gentlemen, they’ll need a sight more than one repeater to hold us back. I’ll make them make that spot the linchpin of their whole position.”
It was as if someone had struck a match right in front of Caudell’s eyes. Dazzled, he exclaimed, “They can bring up all the fancy guns they want, because while they’re doing that, we’ll be digging. And when we’re done—”
“—we’ll blow every one of those fancy guns straight to hell,” Nathan Bedford Forrest finished for him. “That’s right, First Sergeant. Then we’ll smash through the gap and go straight for Rivington.” Forrest’s grin suddenly slid off his face, leaving him looking very grim indeed.” And if the Rivington men get word of what we’re up to because somebody blabs, I’ll kill the bigmouthed son of a bitch with my own hands. Does everyone understand me?”