Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [111]
While Tecumseh Sherman on the news of Brice’s Crossroads would be writing to the U.S. Secretary of War … Forrest is the Devil, and I think he has got some of our troops under cower. I have two officers at Memphis who will fight all the time, A. J. Smith and Mower. … I will order them to make up a force and go out to follow Forrest to the death, if it costs ten thousand lives and breaks the Treasury. There will never be peace in Tennessee until Forrest is dead. …
By afternoon of the day after the battle they were riding near the town of Salem when some of the men with Forrest remarked their general had gone to sleep in the saddle. His change of state was just barely noticeable; he still held himself straight, but a bit more limber; his eyes had closed; now and then his head rolled to one side or the other with the movement of the dapple gray horse, then righted itself but without the eyes opening.
“But someone must wake him,” Anderson said.
“Go on, then,” Nath Boone replied. “Help yoreself! You know he’s apt to swop your head off afore he knows right well who you are.”
Anderson shook his head and took no further action. They rode on, without saying anything more about Forrest’s situation, until the dapple gray horse, who was also sleepwalking, blundered full-on into a tree. Forrest slipped down as slack as if his clothes were empty, rolled to his back, and continued his slumber uninterrupted. Men gathered quietly under the tree and watched him as he slept.
CHAPTER THIRTY
August 1864
MATTHEW FOUND FORREST at the top of a knoll, beneath an ancient cedar tree. Jerry and Benjamin had stretched a rag of canvas across low branches of the cedar, to block the tepid summer drizzle, and Forrest was there in a reasonably dry spot, sitting on a ladder-back chair with most of the rungs broken out of the back, his wounded foot raised on a powder keg in front of him. He’d been hurt at Harrisburg three weeks before and though he no longer needed to ride in a buggy, he had a bad limp made all the worse by his being too stubborn to carry a cane. When he mounted a horse he could only get one foot in a stirrup, but that didn’t seem to hamper him much.
Anderson and Kelley where just leaving the shelter as Matthew came up, and Forrest seemed to have slipped into a brown study. King Philip, tethered on a long lead to the cedar tree, snorted and pulled at the rope when Matthew approached, then when he recognized him, lowered his head.
Matthew stopped outside the dripping edge of canvas. He took off his hat and let the rain soak into the thick curls of his hair. Forrest, head bowed, fidgeting with something inside his collar, did not seem to be aware of him, but after a moment he spoke without looking up.
“Come on, boy, get out the rain.”
Matthew ducked inside the shelter. Forrest glanced at a stool by his side.
“D’ye care to set?”
Matthew remained on his feet. Forrest had pulled the rawhide lace from his throat and was turning the drilled doubloon between his thumb and forefinger.
“I’m sorry,” Matthew said.
Forrest looked up at him sharply. “What about?”
“You lost your brother,” Matthew said. “Jeffrey.” My Uncle Jeffrey he didn’t say.
“A condoleyance call!” Forrest said. “Ye taken yore time getten round to it, son. Hit’s nigh on six months since Jeff was kilt.”
“I know how you cared for him, the best of all.” Matthew swallowed. “Everybody knows it.”
“Well that don’t mean everbody needs to go chatteren about it,” Forrest said. He clasped the doubloon in his palm for a second, then dropped it back down the front his shirt. “How