Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [121]
A courier rode up with his horse in a lather to announce that fresh Federal troops under Sullivan had broken in among Forrest’s horse-holders in the peach orchard on the back side of the Parker house. Dunham must have been stalling for this development; from having his enemy surrounded Forrest was now pinned between two lines of hostile infantry.
“What’ll we do, General?” the messenger panted, and Forrest snapped back at him, “Charge both ways.”
He drew out the double-edged sword he’d taken at Trenton a week or so back, and spurred up his horse to ride to the rear. Henri followed him, with Kelley and Anderson. At their heels ran men who’d dismounted to do battle with Dunham’s infantry, now desperate to recover their horses from the Federal surprise, but this movement looked less like a charge than a panic.
In the peach orchard there was a sudden flurry of skirmishing, but Forrest was directing a retreat rather than a real charge, as some of his men did recover their horses; there was still a path open to safety to the east. Sweeping the sword with his left arm, Forrest pointed them the way. As the troops began filtering out of the trees, he steered his horse nearer to Henri’s.
“Ornery, did I never tell ye?” he began. “Back when I was naught but a shirttail boy, I had me a little spotted pony we called him Whiskey. Smarter’n a whip and mean as a snake. Did I kill me some snakes back in them days? Seem like Bedford County was all over snakes then, specially in the springtime. Copperheads, rattlers, cottonmouth too we used to see … I wouldn’t kill a black snake though, account of a black snake keeps down varmints.”
Raising his sword, he twisted in the saddle to shout a command to Dibrell, who was forming up men for retreat along the road toward Lexington. Then he returned to Henri with his ordinary speaking tone.
“It warnt all work back in them days, when we still had that farm on Caney Spring Creek, back afore my Daddy died. Work aplenty, but we had good play times too. They was other boys had ponies round that way and we used to ride all over the county. Hit wasn’t hardly fenced up then, not like it is now.
“They was one time a pack of dogs took after us. Nigh on a dozen of’m I wouldn’t be surprised, and big, ugly too … the biggest stood might near tall as our ponies. They got to running us and made our ponies run.”
By now almost all their men had cleared the orchard. Forrest drew up his horse before a corpse splayed on its back: the young cavalier who’d objected to his sharpening the back side of the captured blade at Trenton.
There was something unlucky about peach orchards, Henri thought, remembering Joe Johnston’s bloody boot. At this season the branches were wiry and bare; horseshoes had scuffed up a few bony pits. Forrest dismounted and planted his sword in the ground by the dead youth’s head.
“Well now, Orville,” he said. “How’d ye git yoreself kilt back here? I’d sooner thought to find ye forward, up front with the flags.”
Kelley and Anderson exchanged a glance across his empty saddle. Forrest crouched, considered, then turned back the dead man’s lapel. A whiff of lavender came with the handkerchief he drew from the inside pocket, as if it might have been a lady’s favor. Forrest opened the cloth and covered the dead face. He stood up and shook the dirt from his sword.
“I never did take to a good-looken feller,” he said with a frown. “I don’t know why that is.”
Between the orchard and the Parker house was a small cemetery set about with a hedge. Here they halted for a moment, looking down at the weather-worn humps of limestone. Kelley took off his hat and held it to his breast. His pale lips moved in a cold wind from the west. Forrest’s face was still clouded from the meeting with the corpse.
“I tell ye panic oncet gits started good in a pack of what have ye,” he said, “hit moves like fire afore the wind. Well I know you seen that yore own self plenty of times since we started in fighten these damyankees. That was a mean pack of dogs, that day I named. We all of us boys known’m. Half-wild. Hell I think