Devil's Dream Part 23

"He claimed you once," he said. "I heard him do it."

Matthew looked at him.

"The day Sam Green got killed."

"Oh, that," Matthew said. "Well, he'll call anybody Son Son. He's probably called you you that before." that before."

Henri reached around in his memory. It might be true; he wasn't sure.

"You ever hear him say a thing he didn't mean?"

Matthew stared at the dirt between his feet. His right hand clenched the handle of his empty weapon. "But he never thinks," thinks," Matthew said. "He never thinks about how it might be like for me." Matthew said. "He never thinks about how it might be like for me."

"You might be right as far as that goes," Henri admitted. "If he got all tied up thinking thoughts like that he wouldn't be able to do like he does."

"Oh yes," Matthew said. "Do and ride on and never look back."

"Listen," Henri said. "He won't claim you like he does Willie. You're not headed for a bunk in the big house when all this is done. I know that as well as you. That won't happen in your time, not anywhere in this country. But you're not headed back to slavery time either."

Matthew looked up at him sharply. "How do you you know what's going to happen." know what's going to happen."

Everything has already happened, Henri thought, but he knew it wouldn't help to say that.

"If we're not headed back to slavery," Matthew said, "then what are we fighting for?"

"Oh," Henri said. "You think I don't ask myself that every day?" He had begun to laugh and couldn't stem the tide of it any more than if he had been vomiting. Ben stirred on the sacks but did not quite wake. Matthew did not join in.

"If we're fighting for slavery," Henri said, once he had a partial grip on himself, "we're not going to win."

Matthew clamped one hand on the grip of his pistol and one on the barrel, squeezed as if he meant to bend it. Then his hands loosened and he laid the pistol on the worn boards of the wagon bed beside his thigh.

"I'll never be more than a n.i.g.g.e.r to him," he said.

"Listen to you," Henri said. "All twisted up about a word. You think he never was called a bad name in his life? A word never meant that much to Bedford Forrest. It's what's inside your skin that counts. Bone and gristle. Blood and heart."

The yellow light of anger faded from Matthew's eyes, replaced by a weariness that was also familiar. Henri felt a little sad that he couldn't stay with him all the way. But Matthew would survive the war.

"Mathieu," he said. "Listen to me. You're trying to pry something out of him that you've already got. You got as strong a dose of him as Willie does. And he said. "Listen to me. You're trying to pry something out of him that you've already got. You got as strong a dose of him as Willie does. And he he knows it just as well as you do. Take that. Live your life with that." knows it just as well as you do. Take that. Live your life with that."

"But am I his son or am his slave? And I can't figure out if I love him or hate him."

"That's right," Henri said. "You're right about that. Suppose maybe you're allowed to do both."

Matthew's gaze narrowed. "You talk like a hoodoo man, sometimes," he said. "What are are you, anyway?" you, anyway?"

Zanj, Henri thought, the spirit that walks with you the spirit that walks with you. "Just an idea," he said instead, "of what you might become."

HE WAS ALREADY GONE when Benjamin sat up, blinking slowly, his eyes coming clear. He dropped off the back of the wagon, took a few steps below the roadway, and p.i.s.sed on the fading autumn gra.s.s. b.u.t.toning his trousers again, he walked back toward Matthew and the wagon. when Benjamin sat up, blinking slowly, his eyes coming clear. He dropped off the back of the wagon, took a few steps below the roadway, and p.i.s.sed on the fading autumn gra.s.s. b.u.t.toning his trousers again, he walked back toward Matthew and the wagon.

"We best get on," he said, as he climbed aboard.

Matthew nodded and joined him on the decorated box. Ben clucked to the drowsing mule and the wheels began to turn.

"You oughtent to spend so much time talken to dead folks," Benjamin told him. "They's a whole lot of life ahead of you yet."

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.

November 1864 FORREST, with his escort about him, sat his horse to the east of the Lewisburg Pike, from a point where he could see Federal sharpshooters on a knoll just across the Harpeth River, picking off men from the van of the Confederate column marching doggedly, upon Hood's order, head on toward Schofield's entrenched works in Franklin.

"Jackson," Forrest hollered, twisting his hat in his hands, "take yore boys across that stream and run them Yankees off that hill." He continued abusing his hat as Jackson and his men obeyed the order. Henri, followed by Major Strange, rode their horses close into Forrest's left side. "That's how it ought to gone all over," Forrest was muttering. "Hood had the sense to listen to me, I'd flushed Schofield out of all his works the same way and we might of whupped'm solid here ... instead-" Forrest jammed his hat on his head, pulled the brim down to shade his eyes. His fingers had turned blue with the sharp winter cold. "He's set on killen ever last man he's got, chargen'm head-on into them trenches."

The bloodbath was already coming, Henri thought, most certainly it had already begun, away to the left of their position, with heavy constant firing along the Columbia Pike, where Hood had insisted his infantry charge the Federal trenches and abatis across a couple of hundred yards of open, frozen field. Forrest took off his hat again, rolled it tight, then idly reshaped it on the pommel of his saddle. "We had'm in the bag at Spring Hill," he said. "Sent for him once, sent for him twicet. No sir, General is not to be DISTURBED G.o.dd.a.m.n his eyes G.o.dd.a.m.n his eyes. Too full of whiskey and opium to raise up his sorry a.s.s outen the bed."

"Sent for you yesterday," Henri said. An expression he'd learned among slaves of the South. "Now here you come today." Such a heart sadness in this handful of words. Forrest did not appear to hear the sound of them, much less capture their sense.

"And today he d.a.m.n well d.a.m.n well won't hear what'd fix it." won't hear what'd fix it."

"Well, now," Major Strange said as he stroked his long beard. "He might have been better disposed to you if you hadn't offered to tie his quartermaster's legs around his neck."

"Might have been don't make no matter." Forrest was talking to Major Strange, though Henri had his horse and himself positioned right between them. "We'll need ever last mule we got fore this is over and done with and Hood will too, to get his wreckage hauled away. Hit's his whole d.a.m.n army getten itself blown to smithereens down there."

"Ain't it the truth," Major Strange said sorrowfully. "Just as well we're not down there with them."

"Ye think so?" Forrest looked sharply at Major Strange, looking right through Henri. "Well ... ye might say that. h.e.l.l ye might say Hood has saved my life by sending me way around to h.e.l.l and gone and this far out of the action. Only single question I got-Why he'd have wanted to?"

The winter wind blew in their faces.

To the west, the grumble of gunfire rose and fell. The shallow trench so hurriedly dug by Schofield's men before the Carter house was now beginning to fill with blood. Henri knew this though he couldn't see it from where he sat.

"He might have known he'd need you more another day," he said. But they were running out of days.

Forrest shot an irritable look straight through Henri to Major Strange. "What's that ye say?"

"I didn't say anything," Major Strange replied.

He can't see me, Henri thought. A bolt of cold shot down his spine. And he always sees everybody, for better or worse; he sees every man and knows him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN.

HIS HEAD ROCKED sharply back, painlessly but very hard. He lifted his hands to both sides of his head, but was afraid to touch it. He merely framed it airily with his fingertips. A hollow ran through his head from front to back with a brown wren flying backward through it, a discreet and modest little bird. sharply back, painlessly but very hard. He lifted his hands to both sides of his head, but was afraid to touch it. He merely framed it airily with his fingertips. A hollow ran through his head from front to back with a brown wren flying backward through it, a discreet and modest little bird.

Forrest was riding out ahead of him still, ahead of them all, standing up straight in the saddle, slashing and screaming defiance and rage. It appeared to Henri now that the slit in the world's fabric which Forrest galloped effortlessly through was now this very same echoing hollow pa.s.sage through his own head.

His limbs were weakening, the grip of his knees on the plunging horse began to loosen, to give way. He s.n.a.t.c.hed at the wild-flying reins and missed, then clutched at the saddlebow. Beginning to fall, he kicked free of one stirrup, but the other was caught. In terror, he knew he was sure to be dragged. Then something else surrendered, a stirrup leather broke; in one flighty instant Henri was airborne.

Then darkness, or rather a pearly mist, and still no pain.

As he came to, he smelled cooking first. Fatback sweating grease on hot iron. His eyes didn't seem to work right yet, or else he just somehow couldn't open them. He felt about with the flats of his hands and seemed to be lying on one of those limestone shelves he favored whenever he could find them. All over the hills of Tennessee they were usually easy enough to discover.

Apart from a distant high-pitched ringing, both his ears seemed to work all right. He could hear the first hectic notes of "Devil's Dream" on a fiddle nearby. Who was it used to fiddle that tune so?

Henri sat up, tucking his legs up under him, and looked about the edges of his pallet of stone, for scorpions or centipedes or stinging woolly worms or snakes. He could see now, well enough. Satisfied there were no venomous creepy-crawlies in his range, he stretched his legs and lowered his bare feet into the dirt beyond the stone. The dust between his toes was cool, but not unpleasantly so. If he had not lost his boots in the fall then someone must have removed them while he was laid out here.

Ginral Jerry tended a small hot, almost smokeless fire, over which he was cooking coldwater cornbread, a single hoecake that occupied the whole circ.u.mference of the pan. He hunkered, tail-bone hanging over his heels, flicking the hoecake now and then with a clean chip so that it would not stick.

The cornbread had a nubby surface and a faint bluish cast, like the limestone shelf where Henri had reposed. He knew it would be not quite as hard as limestone when at last he bit into his piece, and it would be just fleetingly sweet from the white corn it was made of-Jerry had not got his hands on sugar, honey, or mola.s.ses for weeks. Henri's mouth began to water, and he swallowed a time or two.

The boy was still fiddling. Faster than before. This was a tune meant to pick up speed as it advanced. A challenge to see how fast you could work the bow without dropping a note. Young William Lips...o...b..had the fiddle now. Had it always been he who played "Devil's Dream"? Lips...o...b..was killed or was to be killed at the age of eighteen, in the course of a skirmish on a rainy night when Forrest, profiting from the dark and the wet, sprang a surprise attack with a few of his escort on a much larger Federal cavalry unit under Cabron. November 1864: Forrest had been on his way to join John Bell Hood as he marched the Army of Tennessee from Atlanta toward Nashville, leaving Sherman unhampered to lay waste to Georgia. Lately Forrest had equipped his escort with the new Spencer repeating rifles and that and the fact that his men were well camouflaged in their wet rubber slickers made up for the disadvantage in numbers. The escort routed Cabron's men as they struggled to raise their tents in the rain, took fifty-odd prisoners and still more small arms. Riding away with a smaller group yet, Forrest was accosted by a company of Federals who tried to take him prisoner-one had touched a gun barrel to Forrest's breastbone, but Major Strange clipped his arm so the shot went wild. In that whirl of confusion in the rain and dark, young Lips...o...b..caught the bullet that killed him a day or so later. William Wood was also killed in that brief engagement at Fouche Springs. He sat now on a stump looking up at young Lips...o...b.. tapping a toe and rattling pebbles in the cup of his hand to mark time.

In the hollow of the dead tree the usual candle burned. But there were far more candles than usual, waxed down all amongst the roots of the tree. Some special service must be owed to the Old Ones today. From the branches dangled small cloth packets, bound up with s.n.a.t.c.hes of red and black string. On the trunk of the tree people had pinned up keys and small rusty padlocks, bills of the worthless Confederate money, burnt cartridge paper, locks of hair, ribbons and love letters from home.

Henri stood up. He was terribly hungry. He felt a hole through his midsection like the hole through his head, but so much bigger that a buzzard could have flown through without grazing a wing tip.

Mist roiled around the bald crown of the hill. The bone flutes and gourd rattles of the Old Ones had joined in the fiddle tune. They had handfuls of teeth in their shakers today. Through a gap in the mist strode R. H. Auman and Jacob Cruse, both killed at Chickamauga on the same day as Henri. They tipped their hats to him as they walked by. Jeffrey Forrest beckoned them to join the dance.

Henri himself did not feel like dancing, though the music tickled and jumped in his head. He looked down at himself, at his bare sunken ribs. He was still poorer than the day Forrest first found him by the roadside in Kentucky. No shoes and no shirt, just a red w.a.n.ga bundle round his neck on a string. His b.u.t.ternut trousers were rags to the knee. His weapons were nowhere. He was done with the war.

Out of the mist climbed Felix Hicks, a quartermaster slain not long after Brice's Crossroads-he'd asked to ride with Forrest's escort to attack A. J. Smith, just for the adventure of it. Auman handed Hicks a gourd. He drank, and pa.s.sed it on to Henri. The gourd held cool water with a faint taste of field mint. Where was there mint now, in all this country? The horses had eaten or trampled it all.

He handed the gourd to Tommy Brown, just coming up the hill with Bill Green, both of them killed near Lynchburg in 1864. They'd surrendered already, but when a Union officer ordered them shot on the spot, Green s.n.a.t.c.hed his pistol and killed him with it. In the next few seconds they were both gunned down. Henri walked around the crown of the hill, not quite dancing, though his step grew buoyantly light and his hips just barely began to flow with the music. The Old Ones had tipped up hollow logs and were drumming. Henri raised another gourd of water that had come into his hands, saluting the four directions with a splash. From the east, more of the dead kept arriving: Jim Shoffner, Bobby Reeves, Bill Robinson, Jacob Holt, Alf Boone, Pone Green, who was killed at Tuscaloosa. C. C. McLemore. Sammy Scales and P. S. Dean.

Here came John J. Neal, shot down as he rode with a dispatch from Forrest to Hood. The message said what?-Don't come. Death is waiting. More than six thousand men to be felled in one day.

Now, from this now, Henri peered into the mist, knowing that beyond it he might see the Army of Tennessee hurling itself to total destruction against Schofield's fortified line south of Franklin. Blood running in the trenches ten inches deep. Forrest almost biting his own lips off in his frustration that Hood would not order him to flank Schofield out of his hastily dug works, preferring to charge, head-on, to his ruin.

Here came Will Strickland, killed near Pulaski on Christmas Day, 1864, while he helped Forrest cover Hood's wretched retreat from the carnage of Franklin and Nashville-the last shredded remnants of that army slipping across the rivers to the west. Forrest had been fond of Strickland, who'd come without leave from an infantry regiment to join the escort-liked him so well that he sent seven men back to the Twenty-seventh Tennessee to replace him. Green recruits they might have been but still there were seven of them.

There were Union boys coming in now too. Henri did not know their names, though he recognized many of their faces. They had not only met at sword's point. Sometimes they'd find each other in some smokehouse or cornfield, hollow and famished, together in that as they scavenged for food. By the war's end, one in every ten able-bodied men in the Union states would have been, had already been killed in some battle. In the Confederacy, it would be one in four.

Jerry could not possibly feed so many! But Henri had a chunk of warm pone in his fist, and when he looked at the skillet there was some left there. Not a lot, but there was some.

What a faithful service Jerry had made. No matter what had already happened he always managed to feed them something. And the dead were always, endlessly hungry. Henri was grateful. He wanted to weep, but the dead have no tears.

Some of the new arrivals seemed to look at him strangely. Henri scratched his head. There were burrs in his hair. With his bare chest, bare feet, tattered trousers held up with frayed rope, he must look like a contraband, a runaway slave.

His cornbread was finished. Last gravelly crumbs in the back of his craw. He would always be hungry but he wanted to rest. He went back to the limestone shelf and stretched out. Around him the fiddling and drumbeat grew distant.

He covered his face with his forearm to block out the pale light of the sky. But his arm was transparent; he could see right through it. He could see straight through his own eyelids too. The hilltop was empty. n.o.body was there. He himself was not there. There was no one but Jerry, serving the dead.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT.

May 1865 JERRY LOOPED a piece of soft old rope around King Philip's big head for a hackamore. After the war there were not enough ready-made halters to go around. He stroked the velvet of King Philip's nostrils and clucked to him as he tied him to an iron ring in the hall of the barn, then went to clean his stall. a piece of soft old rope around King Philip's big head for a hackamore. After the war there were not enough ready-made halters to go around. He stroked the velvet of King Philip's nostrils and clucked to him as he tied him to an iron ring in the hall of the barn, then went to clean his stall.

There wasn't such of a whole lot to do because this task was done every day; still Jerry grunted every time he bent to fork up a clump of wet straw and manure. During the war he had often got wet and slept cold and now he had a touch of that arthuritis in both his knees and his right hip. The place on his hip worked around to the back sometimes.

He racked the pitchfork in the barrow and shook out a little lime powder on the damp spots in the stall. Once they had dried, he would scatter fresh straw. But now he got a stiff brush and a metal comb and went to work on King Philip's mane and tail and coat. Being so near the big hot-blooded horse would warm and ease the arthuritis pains that came and went with the morning dew, and it also seemed to soothe and loosen his mind. He had give up his commission same as General Forrest had, so people didn't call him Ginral Jerry no more, but mostly just plain Jerry, though some did call him Mister Forrest, since he didn't have any other last name but Forrest and that was a name that carried respect. He was free too, now that the war was over, and although the state of freedom had not much changed the way he lived, he liked to think about it and did so several times a day.

"Whoa, you," he said, when King Philip shifted a leg or shivered, his low voice scrambled in his mouth. In the course of the war most of his natural teeth had fell out and General Forrest had got him a fresh set of wooden ones, like what George Washington used to have. The wooden teeth were not very comfortable, but Jerry liked to wear them anyway, except when he needed to eat or talk.

When King Philip stirred, Jerry slipped a hand out of the brush's strap to stroke the horse with his bare palm. Nestling against the warm hide of the horse, he muttered at the level of his breath I'se free now I'se free now, and let that whisper shimmer, and then thought My chirren free. My grandchirren be free My chirren free. My grandchirren be free. He combed some burrs and loose hair out of King Philip's mane and thought My greatgrandchirren gone be free My greatgrandchirren gone be free, and stopped with that. There was something about the freedom of his great-grandchildren that always seemed to trouble him a little; he didn't know why. Maybe it was because he didn't have any great-grandchildren yet, that he knew of. He didn't know what this trouble could be, though it was true that now some people appeared to be worse off free than they had been slave ... but Forrest's people did all right, except they were poor, but then everybody down South was poor, white or black, since the war. Only Jerry thought Forrest would be rich again soon. He seemed to already be working on that.

In the other stalls horses had begun to nicker and stamp. "Hesh, y'all," Jerry said, slipping his hand back into the strap of the brush. "Be still." He looked about-the boy who should have been dropping a handful of grain in their feed boxes had wandered off somewhere. That was one of his grandsons, Sophus. Through the open barn doors, Jerry caught sight of him up near the fence, shading his eyes from the rising sun to look at something that must be coming down the road.

He made to call Sophus back to the barn, but he couldn't get his voice to carry very far past the wooden teeth, and it was awkward to take them out because he had the brush and comb strapped to his hands. As he considered this problem, he felt King Philip bunch up against him. There was a flash of blue on the road.

King Philip backed up, surged forward, made to rear. With a ripple of his long muscular neck he broke free of the hackamore.

"Whoa, you hoss," Jerry said, shaking off the brush to reach for a hold of forelock or mane. King Philip shook free and charged for daylight.

"s.h.i.t far," Jerry said. He had learned this expression from his master.

The barn doorway was secured with a two-by-six plank slid between the doorposts at waist height, but Sophus, going out, had left it barely caught on one side. The plank bent away like a twig as King Philip went through it, then sprang back to catch Jerry in the midsection, knocking him flat and knocking the wind clean out of him. In the split second he lay on the dusty clay floor, he caught sight of an old ax handle waiting there to be set with a new head, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed it as he got up and ran. Scattering fence rails like splinters, King Philip had burst onto the road to attack the little party of Federal curiosity-seekers who'd come out in hope of a glimpse of that devil, Forrest.

They were getting more devilment than they'd counted on now. Like a certain number of other old soldiers, King Philip had not really accepted the notion that the war was now over. Blue cloth and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons sent him clean out of his mind. Forrest didn't ride him off the place anymore, since all North Mississippi was crawling with uniformed Yankees, and Forrest even did business with some of them. This bunch, though, was nothing but a bunch of featherheadedlollygaggingG.o.dd.a.m.ngolliwoggawkers featherheadedlollygaggingG.o.dd.a.m.ngolliwoggawkers as Forrest would certainly have let them know, if he had been near. as Forrest would certainly have let them know, if he had been near.

King Philip had laid his ears back and bared his teeth and had his neck stretched so long and straight he looked more like a hydra than a horse. Sophus was yelling for Jerry from the raw bottom of his throat, and Jerry wanted to call back stay way from dat hoss stay way from dat hoss but he couldn't have got so much past his mouthful of wood if he'd had breath to holler, and he had none to spare. King Philip had knocked down one of the strange horses already and as the rider rolled clear he reared to attack another one with his front hooves. A third Yankee horse wheeled to kick, nearly throwing his rider in the process. A fourth horseman swung his mount away to make room to draw a pistol. but he couldn't have got so much past his mouthful of wood if he'd had breath to holler, and he had none to spare. King Philip had knocked down one of the strange horses already and as the rider rolled clear he reared to attack another one with his front hooves. A third Yankee horse wheeled to kick, nearly throwing his rider in the process. A fourth horseman swung his mount away to make room to draw a pistol.

Jerry jumped over a couple of fence rails and knocked down the gun arm with the ax handle. The pistol fired wild when it struck in the ditch; the report drove King Philip still crazier. Jerry smacked a couple of the Federal horses with the ax handle to drive them back, then turned to put his body between King Philip and the enemy.

The big horse hesitated. The fallen Federal ran up and caught Jerry by the shoulder from behind. Reflexively Jerry batted him away with the iron comb he didn't realize was still attached to his left hand. King Philip charged and the Yankee rolled under the belly of another horse to get away. Jerry dropped the ax handle to s.n.a.t.c.h at King Philip's mane and came away with a handful of coa.r.s.e hair.

Forrest, who'd been a.s.sisting a blacksmith at the forge, came burning up all soot-streaked, black beard jutting and eyes shooting sparks. As he pa.s.sed Sophus he grabbed a rope the boy must have had the good sense to fetch from the barn. In a moment he had caught King Philip and brought the horse under some kind of control.

Jerry put his teeth in his bib pocket and took the rope's end. He ran the curry comb lightly over King Philip's spine. The big horse shuddered and subsided.

"Whoa, you," Jerry set. "You jess settle down. War done over. You let these Yankee gemmun alone."

For a moment they all watched each other, breathing. One blue-coat fondled his forearm where the ax handle had bruised it. Another nursed a red row of scratches from the iron teeth of the comb.