Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [122]
A squad of blue cavalry rode out of the orchard, an officer calling for them to surrender. Forrest turned his horse toward them.
“I already have done surrendered,” he said. “I’m jest getten my people collected to come in.”
The Federal officer hesitated. “If you’ve surrendered,” he said, “then why is your sword unsheathed?”
As if in surprise Forrest glanced down at his left fist gripping the sword hilt. “It’s right handy for explainen folks whar to go at.” He grinned. “Don’t fret—I’ll fetch hit to ye fore ye know it.”
With that he trotted his horse away around the Parker house toward the crossroads, the other three riders following him. Henri felt a cold spot between his shoulder blades that grew to the size of Jerry’s black skillet. He forced himself not to look back.
When they’d once faded into the trees south of the roadway, Forrest wriggled his whole spine like a hound stretching. “Boys,” he said, “I thought we was done for, back thar.” But he was addressing Henri alone, for Kelley and Anderson had drifted away. “Goddammit!” Forrest said suddenly. “It’s scarce half an hour they was afixen to surrender to me.”
John Morton swung in beside them then, his biscuit-pale face warm with action. He and Forrest saluted each other. Henri recalled how Forrest had sent him away when he first appeared to join their company, not wanting Freeman to be troubled by this whey-faced upstart. How Forrest would come to depend on Morton absolutely once Freeman had been killed. But Freeman would not die till April—
Forrest’s horse reared at the crack of a shot that sounded like it had gone off between Henri’s ears.
“General,” said Morton. “Are you all right?”
Forrest calmed his mount and took off his hat. A minié ball had notched the brim. “By the hardest,” he said. “That was mighty damn close.”
“Are we not going to charge them both ways, then?” Henri blurted.
“Today?” Forrest laughed shortly. “Today we won’t and say we did.”
TODAY WAS the spring of 1863 and Captain Freeman could not keep up his lumbering run. He sank to one knee, breathless in the trampled pasture short of the bank of the Harpeth River. Doctor Skelton raised his hand to ward off the shot and the bullet passed through the center of his palm before it smashed into Freeman’s face.
When Forrest overtook the scene, Freeman’s body lay bulky as a bear’s. He got down to raise the dead man’s head; the exit wound was so engulfing it bloodied his arm to the elbow. His face twisted.
“That’s dirty work by damn,” he said. Tears ran from his eye sockets down into his beard. He would not see Forrest weep again, Henri realized. Not for Lieutenant Gould. Not for his brother Jeffrey. Whose deaths were still to come.
“By damn I’ll get some for ye,” Forrest said as he withdrew his hand from Freeman’s head. “Goddamme if I don’t.” He wiped his forearm on the flank of his horse, remounted and rode toward the riverbank.
HE COULD HARDLY believe the dogs could keep up with the panicked ponies, frightened beyond a gallop into a dead run. But some of the dogs were long-legged, tall enough to snap at Forrest’s bare heels. He was riding bareback too, and he could feel himself losing his seat as the pony bucked, kicked at the dogs, landed in still a faster run, leaving Forrest in the empty air behind his whipping tail.
He landed on his back with a slam, half his breath knocked out of him, but curling up his head automatically so it wouldn’t strike the ground. The dogs scattered, startled by his landing in their midst like a bombshell. A stone came under one hand and he threw it. A stick under the other; he flailed it, screaming in their jaws. Keep up the skeer. The dog pack broke and ran yipping into cover of the thornbushes all around. “Hell,” Forrest said, with his rasping laugh. “Them dogs was more afeart than me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
November 1864
ACLEAR NIGHT: Orion masterfully striding across the dome of the winter sky. Among the others of Forrest’s escort, Henri and Matthew lay wrapped each