Devil's Dream Part 17

"General Forrest." She took a barefoot step toward him. "Have you never thought to pray?"

"You know the answer," he said shortly. "I ain't never got down on my knees and hung my head to beg n.o.body for nothen. And I never-" He stopped. "The Lord he'ps those as he'ps themselves," he said. "Momma used to say that sometimes. I reckon it's the only prayer I know. And I say it standing on my own two feet."

He paused and thought for a minute more. "I don't want to be beholden to n.o.body."

Mary Ann raised her head. "Not even to G.o.d."

"To G.o.d least of all," Forrest told her.

She nodded. "So be it, then."

He had taken two steps toward the door when he turned back suddenly to catch her in his arms.

"I'm not about to leave you like that," he said. He lifted her chin with the ball of a finger. "I love you with all I got in me, Mary Ann, and I'll come back to you forever, while I live."

She tucked her cheek into his collarbone and they stood so for a moment there. Presently Forrest broke the embrace and left the room without waiting to look into her face again.

THE FIRE in General Forrest's bedroom had burned to ash. Jerry was suffering a touch of arthritis, so Henri and Matthew carried in fresh wood. Matthew tumbled down his load every which way on the hearthstone, but in spite of the clatter Mrs. Forrest didn't seem to look at him. in General Forrest's bedroom had burned to ash. Jerry was suffering a touch of arthritis, so Henri and Matthew carried in fresh wood. Matthew tumbled down his load every which way on the hearthstone, but in spite of the clatter Mrs. Forrest didn't seem to look at him.

She stood at the end of the neatly made half-tester bed, in a gown, and plain cotton slippers, and a shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders. It was scarcely cold enough for a fire at all but she held herself as if she were chilled, though without shrinking or stooping. She was straight and supple as a willow, her chin high and her gaze flowing out through the front windows and over the downward flow of the lawn.

As Matthew shoveled ash into a tin scuttle, a few coals came to a dusty red life. Henri pushed them between the andirons with the poker, laid a splinter or two of kindling and three chunks of red oak. He crouched on his hands and knees and blew an orange flame up from the coals. When he sat back on his heels, Matthew was already leaving the room with the scuttle, transparently as a ghost might have done, and Mary Ann Forrest was looking at Henri with a small flicker of interest in her eyes.

Dites-moi, Henri, she said. Pourquoi est-ce vous qui m'apporte du bois ce matin? Pourquoi est-ce vous qui m'apporte du bois ce matin?

Henri got to his feet as gracefully as he could manage. Parce que je voudrais vous servir, Madame Parce que je voudrais vous servir, Madame.

The countrified flavor of her French, which she had probably acquired at some finishing school in Nashville, amused him a little. Of course his own would have sounded provincial in Paris. He wanted to hear her again in his tongue, but her next words to him were in English.

"You may be a colored man, Henri, but you are certainly no servant."

"No ma'am. I have never been a servant, nor a slave." He inclined his head. "But I would serve you all the same."

"Then you are gallant." She turned and took a step toward him, and he admired the smoothness of her movement, how her head floated above her shawled shoulders, like a vase delicately balanced there. The women of his own country acquired such grace by carrying water on their heads. Perhaps Mary Ann had circled the parlors of her school in the same manner, balancing a book instead of a jar. Her lips were redder than he remembered, but then her husband had just left her. Henri lowered his head and poked at the fire. It was unwise to look at a white woman directly for too long, most especially the wife of General Forrest.

"Ah." She came nearer to him now, but only to spread her hands above the hearth. "Thank you-it is a grateful warmth."

Henri seemed to feel the glow of her body as much as the heat of the freshening flames. That was no more circ.u.mspect than the other thing. He crouched and began to collect the sticks Matthew had scattered and set them into the old ham boiler where they were stored before burning.

"You are distinctly tidier than ... your companion."

"Matthew?" Henri said. "I didn't know you would acknowledge him, even with your eyes."

That part slipped out. Henri stopped his breath.

"Oh," said Mary Ann, turning more tightly toward the fire. "That one may be better off if I don't see him."

Henri considered how this answer might be both wrong and right. No doubt it was a strictly truthful one, from her perspective. An admirable woman, Henri thought. He began to search his mind for a safe way of getting out of this room.

"Arise," Mary Ann said. The hint of playfulness returned to her tone.

Henri stood up. "A votre service." "Vous etes serieux?" "A votre service." "Vous etes serieux?"

Their eyes met for a moment, before Henri looked down. "As serious as you," he said. But he had seen she was not really playing.

"Well then." She walked from the fireplace toward the window, dropping her hands and letting them float freely at her sides. "General Forrest is going to call upon General Bragg. To put it more plainly, he is going to pick a dangerous quarrel with him."

"Madame, what would you?"

"I would have someone-" She caught her lower lip in her top teeth, then released it. Henri observed this action in the faint reflection of the sunlit windowpane. She turned toward him.

"Go with him, I suppose."

"I've heard that Doctor Cowan means to go."

"Yes, but Doctor Cowan can't control him."

A harsh, involuntary laugh barked out of Henri's throat. "You know n.o.body can control him. And I ... I can't control anything. All I can do is watch."

"Witness." She had found his eyes again.

"Indeed, Madame Madame, I have witnessed many things." He looked away and so did she.

"Very well," she told him. "Go witness this one."

IT TURNED OUT that Forrest had not yet departed for his rendezvous with General Bragg. Henry contrived to get himself and Matthew sent to deliver a dispatch to the headquarters at Missionary Ridge. Arriving late, they'd pa.s.sed the night there, and as nothing particular pressed them to return, they lingered still. The air was clear and the view was fine and they had got a very generous supper among a company of men they knew, whom General Bragg had recently transferred from Forrest's command to General Wheeler's. that Forrest had not yet departed for his rendezvous with General Bragg. Henry contrived to get himself and Matthew sent to deliver a dispatch to the headquarters at Missionary Ridge. Arriving late, they'd pa.s.sed the night there, and as nothing particular pressed them to return, they lingered still. The air was clear and the view was fine and they had got a very generous supper among a company of men they knew, whom General Bragg had recently transferred from Forrest's command to General Wheeler's.

Henri was sitting on a broken caisson, resting his back on the bark of a pin oak, dozing with one eye open, when Forrest rode over a crest of the ridge, his dark coat wrapped around him like a storm cloud and his deep-set eyes two holes into the black empty depths of the universe. Doctor Cowan rode to his left, wordless and pale as if he were on his way to a funeral that might be his own.

"I think somebody's going to get killed," Matthew hissed.

Both Henri's eyes were open now, and both he and Matthew had rolled quietly to their feet. Forrest swung down from his dappled gray horse while it was still walking forward and dropped the reins on the ground without looking as he strode toward Braxton Bragg's tent. Cowan dismounted to bring up his rear. Matthew ran to catch up the reins of the dappled gray and Cowan's mount and bring them to a halt.

An aide-de-camp popped out of Bragg's tent, pushing both palms forward as if he meant to block Forrest's approach. Henri saw Forrest's eyes a.s.sume their feral yellow glow, saw his body begin its automatic compression and coil. But the aide somehow melted out of his way before anything had touched him. Through the raised tent flap Henri saw Bragg starting up from behind his camp table, mouth open, one hand falling to his hip as Forrest transfixed him with an index finger which looked dark with blood. The same forefinger, Henri thought, that Forrest had used to close the hole in his horse's jugular on the fourth day of Chickamauga.

Cowan followed him in, and the tent flap fell behind them. The walls of the tent shuddered and appeared to glow red, as if everything inside were burning. During one of his crossings of the Central South before the war, Henri had come upon a black bear mauling a c.o.o.n dog. The sounds that were now coming out of the tent were just the same grumble and crunch and roar of that bear-only he didn't hear the screams of the dog this time.

At last Forrest stalked out of the tent, black in the face and still shaking with rage. Doctor Cowan stood just out of his reach, watching him carefully, as if in case Forrest should fall in an apoplectic seizure, Cowan would nick a vein with a scalpel in time to stop his heart or brain from exploding. But in a few minutes Forrest's face had simmered down to something like its normal shade.

"If you meant to get yourself drummed out of this army," Cowan said quietly, "I expect you might just have done it this time."

Forrest shook his head. "He'll never say a word about it." He took the reins of the dappled gray, just barely registering Matthew with his eyes. Before he swung into the saddle, he spat on the ground. "He'll be the last man to mention it, and mark my word, he'll take no action in the matter. I will ask to be relieved and transferred to a different field and he will not oppose it."

To that Cowan made no reply and no further word was spoken as the two men rode away, the hoofbeats of their horses fading down the ridge toward the river and the lowland.

FORREST HAD GONE on into Mississippi by the time Doctor Cowan rejoined his cousin at LaGrange. He reached the big house at the close of the day, and Mary Ann served him a bourbon and water, with a last green sprig of mint of the season, before she inquired what her husband had said to Bragg. on into Mississippi by the time Doctor Cowan rejoined his cousin at LaGrange. He reached the big house at the close of the day, and Mary Ann served him a bourbon and water, with a last green sprig of mint of the season, before she inquired what her husband had said to Bragg.

"Well." Cowan sipped, tilted his gla.s.s to capture a ray of sunset, swallowed. "To the best of my recollection ...

"I am not here to pa.s.s civilities or compliments with you, but on other business. You commenced your cowardly persecution of me soon after the battle of Shiloh, and you have kept it up ever since. You did it because I reported to Richmond facts, while you reported d.a.m.ned lies. You robbed me of my command in Kentucky and gave it to one of your favorites-men that I armed and equipped from the enemies of our country. In a spirit of revenge and spite, because I would not fawn upon you as others did, you drove me into West Tennessee in the winter of 1862 with improper arms and without sufficient ammunition, although I had made repeated applications for the same. You did it to ruin me and my career. When in spite of all this I returned with my command well equipped by captures, you began again your work of spite and persecution and have kept it up, and now this second brigade, organized and equipped without thanks to you or the government, a brigade which has won a reputation for successful fighting second to none in the army, taking advantage of your position as the commanding general in order to humiliate me, you have taken these brave men from me. I have stood your meanness as long as I intend to. You have played the part of a d.a.m.ned scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it. You may as well not issue any more orders to me, for I will not obey them, and I will hold you personally responsible for any further indignities you may endeavor to inflict upon me. You have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly. I dare you to do it, and I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life."

By the time he got to the end of his recitation, Mary Ann was laughing softly, in spite of herself. "Did he say it as pretty as that?" she said. "Is that just how he put it?"

"No," Cowan said, and nuzzled his drink. "He didn't put it exactly that way."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

December 1862 THAT'S D DAMASCUS STEEL," John Morton said helpfully, as Forrest flexed the blade of the sword he'd just picked up from the Federal stores at Trenton. "It's imported, General."

"Is that a fact?" Forrest stroked his calloused palm beneath the blade, studying the intricate whorls of the many-times-folded metal.

Morton beamed back at him, his face as round and friendly as a biscuit. He'd been gamboling around Forrest, glad as a puppy, since Forrest had changed his mind and accepted him, theoretically, as a gunner, which hadn't gone so smoothly at first. Forrest already had a perfectly good captain of artillery in S. L. Freeman, and he didn't care to have that arrangement interfered with. I'd like to know why in h.e.l.l Bragg sent that tallow-faced boy to take charge I'd like to know why in h.e.l.l Bragg sent that tallow-faced boy to take charge, Henri had heard Forrest snarl when Morton first reported. Whereupon Morton rode a hundred-mile round-trip to get his orders confirmed by General Wheeler, and did it in just under twenty-four hours. Forrest stopped backbiting after that, for it was the kind of thing he might have done himself. Just nineteen years old, Morton was tougher than he looked, resilient, jovial, hard to dislike.

Forrest raised his head and glanced around the depot. "Hit's a shame," he remarked. "We'll have to burn up half this stuff."

"What for?" Morton asked him, suddenly crestfallen.

"Don't have men enough to haul it out of here," Forrest said shortly. "If hit ain't one thang hit's another."

"Ain't it the truth," Nath Boone said, exchanging a look with John Freeman, the artillery captain whose barrage had helped induce the Federal surrender earlier that same day. Forrest's men had been going h.e.l.l for leather all over West Tennessee, since they'd crossed the Tennessee River at Clifton a week or so before, with two thousand men but a terrible shortage of caps for their firearms. Since then Forrest had been scavenging one day at a time, finding caps enough to fight a handful of small fierce engagements, dividing his forces again and again to make them seem to be everywhere in the region at once, ripping up railroad and bridges wherever they went. At night they burned five times as many fires as they needed and Forrest had the wagoneers beat kettledrums deep into the night, to make them seem more numerous than they were. Now here they were embarra.s.sed by these riches.

"I mean to have this sword, anyway," Forrest said. "Christmas is a-comen." His teeth flashed in his beard as he turned toward Morton. "What air ye gapen at thar, son? Ye already done had yore Santy-Claus."

Morton smiled broadly at that thought. A couple of days back, they'd captured a Federal artillery unit at Lexington, made a hundred and fifty prisoners, and claimed a pair of cannon for Morton's use (for Forrest would a.s.sign none of Freeman's guns to him).

"Colonel Fry offered you a fine old sword," Morton said. Jacob Fry, a man well up in years, had practically had tears in his eyes when he unbuckled his sword belt to surrender Trenton and its garrison to Forrest. The weapon had been in his family for forty years, he said-he'd carried it in the Black Hawk War on the Illinois frontier in 1832. Then Forrest handed the sword back to him, with the hope he'd not use it on his own people in the future, and what was he thinking, Henri wondered now-did he suppose that Yankees and Rebels were still the same people?

"He won't be cutten n.o.body with that fer a spell," Forrest remarked. "And I do believe I like this'n better." He settled his grip on the hilt and swung the blade up. "It's light." Damascus steel sang in the close, powder-smelling air of the depot. "And it's limber."

He ran his thumb along the edge and pressed his lips together, thin and tight. The blade had been edged on one side only, as usual for a cavalry sword, and sharpened for no more than six inches back from the point. "We'll see to that shortly," Forrest said, though mostly under his breath.

He walked out holding the blade upright, the scabbard thrust through his wide leather belt, stepping high on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet like a big cat. The men followed him out of the depot, into the frosty air of that December evening.

Forrest's camp spread out across the pastures from the edge of the village of Trenton. Campfires burned to the lip of the horizon, as if some enormous host had broken a march there. A dull roll of kettledrumming filled the air. Here Forrest had mustered most of the prisoners he'd taken since crossing into West Tennessee-at Trenton and a few other places.

Benjamin stood up in the back of his wagon, pounding out a dogged beat on a kettledrum as if he were driving railroad spikes. Despite the cold, he had sweated through the yoke of his osnaburg shirt. When Henri climbed into the wagon, Ben stopped thumping, almost gratefully it seemed, and stepped back. Elsewhere the deep rolling beat continued, all across Forrest's thinly spread camps.

Ben offered the sticks with their big round cottony tips to Henri, who shook his head, laying his bare hands on the drum skin, feeling for breath and a spirit inside. Presently he began a petro rhythm, quick, sharp and dry, using palm and fingertips together, cupping the downbeat, catching the deep center note with a roll of his wrist that used the thumb as a striker-Benjamin had drawn the thorn from that thumb, at Shiloh in the spring. He leaned on the rail of the wagon now, watching Henri, beginning to shift his hips a little to the more complicated rhythm, and the white boys pa.s.sing were hearing it too, looking up curiously into the wagon, some of them maybe a little uneasy. Henri stopped. With a quick smile at Ben he jumped down from the wagon.

A sort of military exercise was under way-the only semiformal drill in which Forrest had ever taken an interest. Leaving their horses hobbled out of sight, about a thousand dismounted men marched by the prisoners in as close an order as they could manage, one detachment after another: left right left, forward march. They pa.s.sed through the town, out of view of the prisoners, found their horses and left them to graze in some other field, returning to the drill again from this new angle, so it seemed to the prisoners, who would all be paroled the next day (as Forrest had not men enough to hold them), would return to Federal lines in Kentucky to report the Confederates had been reinforced from all directions, all through the night-there was an army at full strength. Already, thanks to such stratagems, rumor had inflated Forrest's numbers from two thousand to five-by tomorrow the guesswork would balloon to twenty thousand. As he pa.s.sed his circling soldiers now, Forrest stopped to exchange salutes with the officers as smartly as he knew how, then lowered his gloved right hand and pa.s.sed on, the Damascus sword still riding upright in his left. Most of their wagons were cl.u.s.tered around a livery stable here, and there was a little forge attached to it, idle now, its fire gone cold. Earlier that afternoon Forrest had impressed the blacksmith to trim hooves and shoe the horses that needed it, but the man had gone home to his supper, long since. Ginral Jerry was lingering there; he'd spent the afternoon holding horses for the smith, and soon Ben came to join him.

Forrest pa.s.sed the forge, the anvil and the bellows, bending his eye on a grindstone, big as a wagon wheel and a hundred times as heavy, riding in a stout wooden carriage under the stable eaves. The pale stone seemed to glow a little in the dusk.

Jerry moved toward the crank handle, automatically, and the great stone round broke its inertia and began to revolve. Its surface was wide as both of Forrest's palms together, and Forrest didn't have small hands.

"I thought you told us a cavalryman was better off with a six-gun," Henri said.

"What if I did?" Forrest set the blade against the spinning stone; a thread of grating sound rose from the contact. "A man's better off with all he kin get."

Morton moved up for a closer look. Whatever Forrest turned a hand to fascinated him. Matthew came up too, rustling at Henri's elbow in the dim. Willie must have gone off somewhere to race the new-shod horses, with other young sports excited by the little victories of the day.

Forrest carried the blade with a slicing motion at a close angle against the turning stone, his grip so firm the metal never bounced or clattered, and the drone of the grinding was steady and smooth. Orville, the young Virginian who'd joined them several months before, kept clearing his throat for some reason. "Hold up," Forrest said to Jerry, who released the crank and let the stone drift to a halt. Forrest pushed back his sleeve and ran the top of his forearm across the freshened edge. A couple of wiry black hairs came away and floated off into the gloaming. "Another thang," Forrest grinned as he raised the blade. "This here don't never run out of ammunition." He turned to Jerry. "Let Ben step up. This part is goen to take a mite longer." A shower of sparks flew up this time when Forrest brought the steel to the turning stone, for he was grinding the blunt top of the blade. Henri exchanged a silent, white-eyed glance with Matthew.

Nath Boone raised a hand to his chin. "He's laid himself out a job of work."

Henri nodded and smiled faintly. He could see now that Forrest meant to file down an eighth-inch of metal on the top side of the blade, to make a second edge where none had been intended by the smith who forged it. He'd end up with a double-edged, razor-sharp sword, and likely it would not be used for shaving.

"General Forrest," Orville piped up.

Rapt in his task, Forrest didn't seem to hear him at first. He seldom paid much attention to Orville, who had been in his first year at West Point when the war began. Young and impetuous as John Morton, he was not half so likable. But he was strong in the saddle, and when he joined their company after Shiloh he'd been riding one racehorse and leading another.

"General?" Orville insisted now. "You're not supposed to sharpen a sword that way." He cleared his throat for the thirtieth time. "It's contrary to the rules of war."

Forrest heard him now, and turned so briskly that every man took one step back, including Ben. The crank kept on revolving with the momentum of the stone.

"The rules of war?" Forrest said.

Henri braced himself for a torrent of cursing.

"War ain't got no G.o.dd.a.m.n rules." But Forrest's voice hadn't climbed. He said it quietly. Sadly, almost. He let the Damascus blade spin down through his thumb and forefinger till the pommel rested on the ground. He p.r.i.c.ked the ball of his finger on the point and showed the fine bead of blood to the men surrounding him. Then he licked it away with the tip of his tongue.

"War means fighting. And fighting means killing." Forrest turned to Ben. "Step up, son, and turn the grindstone."

And the stone's movement drew the other men to it, like a magnet would. Henri expected Orville to slink away, but he remained with the rest of them. The rolling of the kettledrums continued. They seemed to have gathered a shared overtone, a note held deep in a common throat. Henri felt the petro rhythm pulsing in his palms.

"War to the knife," Forrest said, in the same chanting pattern, his hands wreathed in sparks where he held blade to stone. "Knife to the hilt. They say the world itself turns like a grindstone. Over and over. Don't never stop." He looked up, while the metal still sang against the stone, including Morton, Orville, Matthew in his gaze. "Ye may whet yoreself agin it. Or let it grind ye down."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

October 1864 HENRI AND M MATTHEW RODE abreast through woods a few miles west of Paris Landing, on a trail of a drove of half-wild hogs. A hundred yards back, Ben's wagon lumbered along after them, making a more difficult way through the trees. Forrest had sent them all out requisitioning but it was harder than it used to be around here. Farmers were hiding all they had, from hams and dry corn to their half-grown children, and letting their livestock ramble the woods. abreast through woods a few miles west of Paris Landing, on a trail of a drove of half-wild hogs. A hundred yards back, Ben's wagon lumbered along after them, making a more difficult way through the trees. Forrest had sent them all out requisitioning but it was harder than it used to be around here. Farmers were hiding all they had, from hams and dry corn to their half-grown children, and letting their livestock ramble the woods.

Hogs were crafty, mo' smarter than man, Jerry would say. Did say. Besides which it was hard to draw a bead on a hog with a pistol from the back of a horse cantering over rough ground. But Matthew had wounded a big spotted sow in the hindquarters, and her back leg was dragging a blood spoor over the carpet of oak leaves and acorns on which the hogs fed. At last Henri circled his horse ahead of her, hopped down and planted a bullet between her eyes.

"Bleed her, boy-don't just stand there!" Jerry shouted from the slow-moving wagon. Matthew stood, sword drawn, unsure of what do with it. Jerry skipped down from the wagon and ran toward them, unfolding a clasp knife from his bib pocket. He dropped to his knees beside the sow and in the same motion had slit her throat.

"Now he'p me hang her," he said, producing a length of cord from another pocket. In a moment the sow swung head down from a branch of a white oak. Matthew and Henri both skipped back as Jerry opened the sow's belly with a quick downward pull of the knife blade, and the sharp-smelling huddle of guts spilled out on the blood-soaked leaves. Jerry wiped the knife and looked at Matthew.