Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [80]
“General,” Anderson called. “Mister Nolan would like a word.”
The crash of cannon from the fort almost drowned out what they were saying. Henri’s jenny shuddered, revolving her long ears. Nolan clambered up the slope at a crouch, then straightened to cup his mouth to Forrest’s ear. He wore a buckskin jacket with the hair still on the hide, except for patches where the bristles had worn away from the greasy, sour-smelling leather. Of course the rest of Forrest’s men were scarcely in any better trim. Their gray was ragged and many went shoeless now. Their numbers were thin when they started from Georgia and they had been taking up recruits as they could, over three weeks of a crazy looping progress all up and down West Tennessee. They’d swept in Nolan four days before, along with a couple dozen of his riders, raiders, deserters, bushwhackers—nobody knew what they really were and the same went double for Mister Nolan himself. But then it was no time to be choosy, and if Forrest had been as choosy as that he’d have left Henri standing by the Brandenburg road three years before.
They were following Nolan now, continuing the same southeast sweep they’d begun before, on the far side of the zigzag breastworks from the inner fort, across this cheerlessly bare ground, which had all been clear-cut to open fields of fire. Their way was complicated by stumps and logs that still lay where they had been felled. Some undergrowth had begun to return, buck bushes and blackberry bramble, worthless for cover. Anderson’s horse stumbled, jumping one of the many shallow gullies. The volume of the cannonade swelled as the Federal gunboat began to lob up shells from the Mississippi.
Forrest seemed oblivious to it. Now and then he reined up his horse to beckon sharpshooters to nearer positions. The Federal riflemen, meanwhile, had corrected their tendency to overshoot and were beginning to bring their rounds much closer to the scouting party. Anderson was just turning to Forrest to say who knew what when a ball crashed through the forehead of Forrest’s horse. The animal reared, went into convulsions, and fell over backward, rolling over the rider.
Henri jumped down and sheltered himself beside the shoulder of his jenny, holding her close under the jaw and stroking her velvet nostrils in hope of keeping her calm. He watched Forrest’s mount as it kicked itself to death in the ditch where it had fallen, the geyser of blood slowing to a trickle between its eyes. A hullo went up from the Confederate lines to the west and Henri looked over to see Matthew rushing pell-mell toward them astride a fresh horse he was bringing to Forrest. The boy rode well, though he’d not taken time to put his feet in the stirrups. But Forrest had maybe been crushed to death, it appeared. Or no, Anderson was helping him up from the springy clump of buck bushes that had cushioned his fall. Forrest pressed one hand to his side, then straightened.
“For God’s sake, General!” Anderson said. “If you must carry on, let’s do it on foot.”
“I’m as like to get shot afoot as on horseback,” Forrest snarled. “And I can see one hell of a whole lot better from the saddle.”
And he got up as quickly as Matthew hopped down. The boy looked up at him, panting, his eyes wide and a little glassy. His caramel-color face had paled a shade.
“Git outa here!” Forrest told him out of the side of his mouth. “Git back under cover. Henry, carry him back to the line.”
Gladly, Henri thought in a prayerful silence. He sprang onto the jenny and stretched down a hand for Matthew to scramble up behind him. Forrest and Anderson had resumed their course, following Nolan northeast toward Cold Creek. The fire on their party had paused for a moment, thanks to McCulloch’s rush on the cabins in the cove. Henri rode gratefully toward cover.
“He never even looked at me,” Matthew hissed into his ear.
“Calm down,” Henri advised him. “It might just be he doesn’t want to see you killed.”
· · ·
AN HOUR LATER Forrest returned, on foot after all (for his second