Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [39]
“Bleu diable,” Henri hissed, just managing not to snatch his arm away. How ashamed he felt to be whimpering over a splinter while other men were getting their limbs blown off by grapeshot, just over the next ridge. Through a rip that opened in his mind he saw General Joe Johnston climbing through the mist toward the dead tree on the crown of the bare hill, still holding in his right hand the tin cup he’d used to direct the latest Confederate attack.
A long shiver ran from Henri’s heels to his head.
“Huh,” said Ben, displaying the bloody splinter he had drawn. “You got the sight.”
Henri looked at the bubble of blood rising where Ben had cleaved his thumbnail. The new pain was fresher, brighter, somehow less troubling. It occurred to him that if Willie were dead he probably would have seen that too.
“Thank you,” he said to Ben. As he spoke he saw Willie coming toward him among a couple of other young Confederate blades, herding a coffle of Federal prisoners, calling orders to them and smiling in the pride of his authority. Henri was too far off to hear what Willie said, but he realized he didn’t really need to go closer.
Henri rode north over from one glade, thicket or pasture to the next, toward the hills above the Tennessee River, scanning the shifting horizons for Matthew. No battle lines had been clearly drawn anywhere but there appeared to have been hot fighting everywhere. It was late afternoon, the light beginning to turn amber, when he rode into the remnants of the peach orchard. Half the little trees were shredded by shrapnel and the ground was carpeted with pink blossoms that shifted, rustling, as Henri rode through. A little further on he passed a solitary riding boot standing by itself in a shallow ravine where Isham Harris had poured it empty of Joe Johnston’s blood.
Henri set his teeth and rode toward the rumble of cannon on the ridge. Soon he could make out the gray horse’s speckled and bluish hide moving along the slope below the Federal battery. A little nearer to him he saw Matthew sitting his horse and shading his eyes with one hand against the setting sun. When Henri rode up, Matthew lowered his hand and blinked at him.
“Go tell him Willie’s all right, if you want,” Henri said.
Matthew’s face rippled as he thought it over. Then he steered his horse up the hill. Henri watched him claim Forrest’s attention, saw Forrest briefly lay his hand on Matthew’s shoulder. When the contact had broken, he rode up to join them.
“Did ye happen to see General Johnston back thar?” Forrest inquired.
Not exactly, Henri thought.
“Polk? Beauregard? Anything at all as looks like a commander?” Forest squinted toward where some fifty Federal cannon were fisted tight together on the ridge. “Goddammit! I can smell the river. If somebody would just send me a few more men we could tumble all them bastards over the banks afore dark.”
But instead the order came for them to fall back, and Forrest, grumbling bitterly, obeyed it. They camped a short way south near the banks of the river, just out of range of the gunboats that had shelled their retreat from the ridge of Pittsburgh Landing, where Grant’s army was making what looked like a last stand. As dusk thickened, those closest to Forrest’s bedroll ate crawdads hot and pink from Jerry’s skillet, too ravenous to bother picking meat from crunchy shell.
Jerry dressed Henri’s hurt thumb with spiderweb. At moonrise, Forrest clothed him and Matthew and Major Strange in blue coats salvaged from the dead during the day, and sent them to reconnoiter up the river. They met one post of Federal pickets who let them pass with scant examination. In the vague moonlight shining on the slow flat surface of the river they could see the brushy southern tip of the oval island opposite Pittsburgh Landing. Henri covered a bullet hole in the captured coat with the ball of his hurt thumb. It felt like all the crawdads he had swallowed