Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [132]
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 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 snatch at King Philip’s mane and came away with a handful of coarse hair.
Forrest, who’d been assisting a blacksmith at the forge, came burning up all soot-streaked, black beard jutting and eyes shooting sparks. As he passed 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.
Lieutenant Hosea took off his hat.
“General Forrest?” he said.
Forrest folded his arms across his chest.
“Dear Lord,” Hosea said. “Your niggers fight for you. Your horses fight for you. No wonder you were so hard to whip.”
Forrest looked back at him, yellow gleam in his eye, and said, “I ain’t been whupped till yet.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
December 1853
A SUNNY MORNING, following a night of rain not quite cold enough to freeze. It was warmer now, though a chill breeze came off and on from the river. Forrest was walking back from the docks on the Memphis riverfront when something thumped into his leg. A little black boy, no more than two years old if that, rebounded from the collision and was gathering himself to run again when Forrest caught him up.
“Well, hello.”
The boy was dressed in just a rag of osnaburg, with holes cut in it to make a smock. The cloth was grimy but the child was clean. His hair was cut close against his scalp and his arms and legs were glossy, well fleshed.
“Now who do you belong to?” Forrest said. He ran his thumb over a ringworm circle on the boy’s shoulder where it emerged from the smock. The worm was dead and the mark of it looked to be half-healed; there was a faint odor of a coal oil poultice when he lifted his thumb away.
“Somebody been taken care of you, anyhow,” Forrest said. He’d noticed too that the neck