Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [37]
Forrest had drawn himself up before his company. “D’ye hear that racket over yon way?” he said, waving a pistol in his left hand toward the north, where artillery grumbled around Shiloh Church.
A few men piped up—Shore we do.
“And do you know the meaning of all the shivaree?” Forrest called.
This time silence returned and the men looked at each other.
“Them’s our boys gitten shot full of holes over yonder right now whilst hyar we set watching over a goddamn crik—and this here regiment wa’nt never called for that—this here regiment ain’t never been known for that—I will be damned I will be goddamned I will be double-dog-damned if I stop and wiggle my toes in the water when they’s a good fight a-waiten on us yonder way and plenty Yankees to be kilt. Now come on boys, what do ye say!”
The yell went up and around them all like wildfire blowing over a grassland. The men got up and bounded for their horses.
“Boots and saddles.” Forrest said. “Let’s get after’m.”
Henri rode in a pocket with Matthew, Kelley, Willie Forrest on his other side. In a few minutes they had come onto a high section of the Corinth road below Shiloh Church, with the Tennessee River just out of sight on their left. It was an inauspicious place to halt, as Federal cannon were dropping shells on the road and all the horses shied. Forrest found Cheatham, who had just been driven back hard from his attempt to charge the Federal artillery posts, one in a blackjack thicket and the other in a peach orchard on the far side of the field west of the road.
“We cain’t stop hyar,” Forrest said. “I cain’t leave my boys under this fire. It’s go back or go on. What say we get up a charge all together?”
Cheatham gripped a sore shoulder and looked around at his wounded men, slumped against wagon wheels or stretched on the torn grass below the east side of the road. “I cannot give you any such order,” he said. “If you charge it will be on your own order.”
Forrest looked at him. In the thicket of his beard one side of his mouth turned up and the other down. “Hit don’t bother me!” he said, with a gesture of the six in his hand toward the thickets.
“Luck to you, then.” Cheatham sighed. “It’s a regular hornet’s nest over there.”
Forrest tightened the reins on his side-stepping horse and swung his arm down. His riders swept down the bowl of the field, horse hooves hacking up divots as they descended. Though the day was bright it had rained for several days before and the bottom of the field was a swamp. The Federals were hauling their guns around quickly to address the new targets and some of Forrest’s horses were going down to their hocks in the slough.
“Goddammit,” said Forrest. “Git out of this!” His own mount uprooted itself from the mud and he cantered straight for the peach orchard, followed by Willie and about half the regiment, at the same time that he signaled the others to go the other way, toward the scrim of hardwoods at the other edge of the field, on the flank of the blackjack thicket where the other battery was. Henri started off that way—this direction put him at longer range from the enemy cannon, at least at first.
Matthew was still with him, and Major Strange now—he didn’t see Kelley anymore. When they slammed through the tree line he felt a sting as if a snake had bitten his thumb but in a moment he had forgotten that. He could hear Forrest howling, half a mile off, as they fell upon the rear of the battery in the blackjack thicket, scattering the gunners and driving off the horses, some still dragging the caissons behind. A handful of Federal cavalry rode back with their sabers flashing above their heads, and Henri gritted his teeth and ducked his head and spurred straight into them, remembering Forrest always said a six-gun was worth a dozen of them overgrown cheese-slicers—jest wait till ye’re not but one short hair from the point a-tetchen ye and—Henri fired and the first man went down—again and another empty saddle went by. The next blade