Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [78]
With no bridle, no halter, not so much as a piece of string, there was nothing he could do to stop the horse or even turn him, and squeezing with his knees only made Roderick run faster—he’d gone into the air again, sailing over a second fence, with a hollow pock as the top of his hoof struck a post. They were going back to the fight anyway. In spite of the wind he could feel the hair rising on his forearms and the back of his neck and he knew that Forrest must feel this way when he rode into battle: surrendered to an uncontrollable force that utterly filled him as it flung him forward. He felt that it was Forrest’s blood in him that surged.
As Roderick lofted over the third and last fence that separated them from the fight, Matthew caught sight of Captain Montgomery Little, six-shooter upraised, turning his astonished gaze their way. A fissure of silence opened in the roar of battle and Matthew looked through it at Captain Little again; he had lost his pistol now and both his arms worked frantically like the legs of a beetle turned on its back and though still standing he had been shot dead—it was only that he didn’t know it yet. With his free hand Matthew groped around his waist for a weapon, exchanging a blurry glance with Henri, who seemed to be muscling his own horse around in a vain effort to intercept them. Roderick, his neck stretched long, had caught sight of Forrest and was rushing to join him where he fought two-handed, hammering a Federal trooper down from the saddle with the butt of his empty pistol in his fist. The noise of battle came back with an explosion, which might just have been the shock as Matthew plowed into the ground. He sat up and saw Roderick lying a little in back of him, dead of a fourth bullet, one foreleg spasmodically lifting and loosening.
The fighting seemed to have ended now, with Yankees laying down their arms, signaling surrender with pocket handkerchiefs; somewhere was a larger truce flag on a stick. Forrest dismounted and stooped to reach for the dead horse, but stopped just short of touching him. Willie pounded up, mouth wide open and face chalk-pale.
“Thought I done tolt ye to carry him back.” Forrest sank back on his boot heels, wrapping his arms across his chest. Willie, too winded to make any reply, folded at the waist and braced his hands on his knees.
“It’s a shame. D’ye hear me?”
Matthew, feeling himself to be included now, thumbed a last trickle of blood away from his nose, and got up to one knee.
“A goddamn shame.” Forrest shook his head. “Well. Hit cain’t be mended.” He turned and stalked off toward the area where the prisoners were being gathered up.
Willie coughed and straightened, gasping. “You hurt?” he said.
Shaking his head, Matthew got to his feet. Willie’s chest rose and fell. He tried the black points of his mustache with a fingertip and looked down at Roderick’s still body.
“That horse was a better man than either one of us,” Willie said.
Without thinking Matthew offered his hand across the carcass. It was like he could see Willie’s first thought—you don’t shake hands with a nigger—and by the time Willie decided to reach for the man inside the skin, Matthew had already turned away, stooping to bloody himself from the dead horse’s wounds and make his hand untouchable to anyone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
April 1864
THEY HAD BEEN FIGHTING around Fort Pillow for hours by the time Forrest himself rode in, grim and weary from more than a day and a night in the saddle—he had ridden over seventy miles since the day before. Henri led him out a fresh horse. Chalmers had launched the first attack on the fort near dawn, and as soon as they swept the pickets