Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [19]
THEY ROLLED BACK onto Adams Street in the cool of the day. Jerry drew upon both gates of the stockade so the wagon could come in. He looked at the wagon curiously as it went past.
“Mm-hm, that’s right,” Forrest said. “You git to drive this wagon back to Coldwater.”
“Wheh Coldwater at?” Jerry said.
“Down to Desoto County,” Forrest said. “Don’t fool with me. You know where hit’s at.”
Jerry smiled sideways. “Reckon I’ll git theah.”
A good many of the other slaves in the pens were out and about, drawing water to wash themselves down. Some sat in their doorways to eat the evening ration of grits and gravy. Ben’s door was shut.
“He still in that sull?” Forrest said.
Jerry shrugged. “He off his feed.” He was looking up at Nancy, who still sat on the box, not looking at him or anyone else in the yard. Presently he offered a bony hand to help her down.
“Glad to see you back,” Aunt Sarah said. “He won’t eat nuthen since you left.”
“Who’d a’thought he’d miss me that much?”
Aunt Sarah ducked her head to hide a quick grin. Forrest walked up to Benjamin’s door, peered in. The big man sat slumped on his stool in the corner. There were a couple of small whittled objects in the dust by his shoe, but Forrest couldn’t see them plain in the dim light. He wondered what became of the bed knob or whatever it was. If Ben had made something useful maybe somebody was using it now.
Forrest had been gone about thirty-six hours, and if Ben had really taken no nourishment in that time he’d have a right to be feeling low.
“Ben,” he said. “Benjamin.”
The man moved his head but didn’t look up. Forrest turned away from the door, his eye drawn by a movement at the second-story house window, above the posts of the stockade. The wisteria was just barely in leaf, just beginning to put out the tight purple cones that would soon open into blossom, and through the vine he could see Mary Ann, pulling back the white curtain to look down at him with a curious interest. Or maybe she was looking at the back of Nancy’s head. The girl had got down from the wagon and stood like a dark little shrub rooted in the hard dirt of the yard.
Forrest thought he saw Fan pull herself up to peep over the windowsill, but her dark eyes were there for only a second. He turned back to Ben’s stall, unlatched the door and pulled it open a crack. Enough of the fading light spilled in for him to see the little carvings on the ground by the legs of the stool: a stump-tail bobcat and some kind of fice dog. Small as they were they both looked like they’d bite you.
“Ben,” he said. “I got somethen for ye.”
“Don’t want any damn thing you got.”
Forrest sighed. “Well never mind whar hit come from, then. Fer I’m right shore hit’s somethen ye want.”
He pulled the door wide and stepped out from between the man and the woman. Nancy made some kind of low sound, took half a step forward and paused as if leaning over the edge of something. Forrest waited a long moment, watching, till Ben got up shakily from his stool and came toward her, holding out both his hands.
CHAPTER SIX
February 1862
THE WEATHER TURNED BITTER overnight and in the morning the sparse trees around the camp between the Fort Henry road and the river were glazed over with ice that gleamed like crystal. The sun was pale and distant and by midday its light was near blotted out by the rain of iron that the four Federal gunboats were hurling into Fort Donelson from the Cumberland. All who remained in Forrest’s camp had taken such cover as they could find, save Major Kelley, the Methodist preacher, who sat placidly by his open tent flap, reading his Bible with all apparent absorption.
Sergeant Major Strange nudged Henri and pointed; the two of them went crouching toward Kelley’s tent. Once Henri’s feet almost shot out from under him on the sheet of ice that covered the ground. There had been heavy rain before the freeze. Kelley read on, with no sign he was aware of their approach or of anything else in his surroundings.
“I don’t see how you can hold your mind to a book with all this racket