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By Root 916 0

in the remaining tatters of his blanket, on the same ground their hobbled horses nuzzled for pale shreds of winter grass. Since they crossed into Tennessee they’d had some kind of fight every day, trying to slow the retreat toward Nashville of the Yankee troops under Schofield and scout their movement and intentions for General Hood at the same time. Just as darkness fell that evening they’d laid an ambush that had thrown the Yankees into disarray, and more than likely they’d be moving again before dawn—maybe toward Mount Pleasant where the Yankees were supposed to have a depot, thinly guarded.

So Henri should have been taking these couple of hours to soak up all the sleep he could, yet he lay wakeful, eyes open, expectant of something. Forrest’s tent was nearby, its canvas glowing from the orb of a lantern inside, and Henri could hear muttered voices of a conference between Forrest and Majors Anderson and Strange. The tent went quiet when the two officers came out, but Forrest didn’t snuff his light.

There was something watching from a line of pale and leafless oaks, flanked by dark cedars, and when Forrest’s conference had ended it detached itself and moved softly toward the tent. Man-sized, something familiar in the step. Matthew rolled to a crouch. There’d been rumors for months that Sherman had assassins on Forrest’s trail, though now that Atlanta had fallen to the Yankees, Forrest’s threat to the railroads that ran south from Nashville mattered less than it did before.

As Matthew darted forward, Henri drew a short knife and went after him. Cold ground shocked the arches of his bare feet. The prowler was beside the tent when he turned quickly, showed his empty hands. The lamp glow through the canvas caught the unscarred side of Benjamin’s handsome head.

“You were gone,” Matthew hissed, and Ben motioned furiously for silence.

Henri beckoned them away from the tent. “It’s all right,” he said to Ben. “He’s not going anywhere.”

All three of them returned among the horses. Matthew’s mount raised its head to snuffle and blow hot air into the bib of Benjamin’s overalls.

“You were good gone,” Matthew said.

“Halfway home,” Ben said. “Ain’t it the truth? But I kept feelen that cold down my back. Ain’t right to run off without taken no leave. Ain’t like I was runnen north noway.” He turned sideways, slipping the horse’s muzzle from his chest. “Got no sugar for you today,” he said. “Ain’t got no nothen.”

Henri found a chunk of cold cornbread in his sack and handed it to Ben, who bit into it sharply, nodding his thanks.

“He done give free papers to some,” Ben said thickly, through his food. “I knows it. Some from Coahoma plantation same as me.”

“You came all the way back for a piece of paper?” Henri said. “When you’ve got as good a chance at a hanging noose or a ball between your eyes?”

“I come back for an understanden,” Ben said. “Look the man in the eye one time. Like he do me.”

“He never gave me any free paper,” Matthew said.

“Huh.” Ben looked at him carefully, in the watery light of the winter stars. “You ax for one?”

“Not exactly,” Matthew said.

“Come on with me when I goes in there,” Ben said.

“What makes you think I have any pull with General Nathan Bedford Forrest,” Matthew said. “I’m a thing he owns the same as you.”

“I ain’t but his slave and he got plenty,” Ben said. “You his blood son. You knows it. He knows it. Everbody knows it. They might not say it but they knows it.”

Matthew stared at him.

“You ain’t obliged to say a mumblen word,” Ben told him. “You’ll stand there with me, won’t you?”

Henri followed them to Forrest’s tent. When the other two were admitted he hung back, but he could see plain enough through the open flap. Forrest was studying maps by the light of his lantern; his papers spread on a folding camp table. He looked at Ben.

“Brought ye a whole delegation, I see.”

Ben pulled himself straight and caught his lower lip in his teeth. “Thought you done left me,” Forrest said.

“Reckon I started,” Ben said. “Next I thought I cain’t do that. I needs to ax leave.”

“Aint like ye was a sojer,