FORT PILLOW

“Well, I'll try,” Theo Bradford said dubiously. He held up the pair of large wigwag flags and semaphored with great vigor. Leaming peered down, down, down to the New Era. From this distance, the gunboat seemed hardly bigger than a toy.

An officer-or maybe a sailor-on her deck signaled back.

“What's he say?” Leaming asked.

“Says they'll try-I think.” Captain Bradford sounded harried. “I wish to God I had a spyglass so I could make out his flags better. I can't be sure what he's telling me half the time.”

“Can he read you?” Leaming asked anxiously.

“I sure hope so,” Theodorick Bradford said-not the most encouraging response he could have given.

But the New Era had the request. The gunboat did its best to comply. Its guns swung in the direction of the twin rows of barracks halls. Leaming admired that-the sailors far below couldn't see what they were aiming at. One after another, the cannon went off. Fire and smoke belched from their muzzles. He watched the shells rise into the cloudy air, then descend toward their targets. Booms said they'd hit-somewhere.

“Were those on the mark?” Leaming asked.

Captain Bradford shrugged. “Damned if I know. I can see the gunboat, or else I can see what it's shooting at. I can't do both at once.” He waved the wigwag flags again. “The more shell the boat puts down, the better the chance that some of them will come down where we want them to.”

“I see,” Leaming said. He didn't say what he saw, which was bound to be just as well. Since he couldn't change anything, complaining wouldn't do him any good. But Major William Bradford plainly thought the New Era was a vital part of Fort Pillow's defenses against Forrest's men. And so the gunboat might have been-if only it could hit its targets with something resembling accuracy. As things were… Mack Leaming grimaced. As things were, the New Era was doing the best it could, and he had to hope that would be enough.

Not long after Nathan Bedford Forrest finished his reconnaissance of the ground in front of Fort Pillow, a soldier in a butternut tunic and blue trousers trotted up to him. He'd issued orders that shirts captured from the Yankees had to go into the dye pots right away so his men wouldn't shoot at one another by mistake. Trousers were supposed to be dyed, too, but that was less urgent.

“What's up, Red?” he asked.

About half a dozen men in his command answered to that nickname. This lanky Mississippian had hair the color of a newly minted copper penny and ears that stuck out a good four inches. He said, “Ammunition wagons just came up, General.”

“Did they, by heaven?” Forrest said. “About time!”

“Yes, sir,” Red said. He probably didn't worry about the struggle they'd had moving those wagons along the narrow, rutted, muddy roads that went through the Hatchie bottoms, especially the troubles they'd had moving them along in pitch darkness. He did have sense enough to ask, “Any special orders for 'em?”

“Just make goddamn sure you get those cartridges up to the men who need 'em the most,” Forrest answered.

Red sketched a salute and went back the way he'd come. Bedford Forrest slowly nodded to himself. Up till now, his men had had only the cartridges they carried with them. They were supposed to bring enough to fight with-a rifle musket and cartridges were all a soldier really needed. But some would have more ammunition, some less, and some none at all. Forrest knew only too well that plenty of soldiers were natural-born knuckleheads.

With the wagons here at last, though, he didn't have to worry about that any more. He wished he would have been able to bring field guns forward, too, but that just wasn't in the cards. One of the Federals' cannon roared. The guns in the fort and the ones on the boat in the river were nuisances, but they weren't anything worse than nuisances. If he could have dropped shells into that cramped space inside the U.S. earthwork, though…

He shrugged. Worrying about might-have-beens wasn't his style. Another cannon inside Fort Pillow fired at his men. Those really were niggers manning the guns in there. Easy enough to seem brave when they were shooting from inside an earthwork. They wouldn't act like such big men when they met his troopers face-to-face. His hands folded into fists. He was sure of that. Oh, yes.

For now, though, the coons were having a high old time, skylarking and fooling around and mocking Forrest's men as if the Confederate soldiers would never have the chance to pay them back. They gave the troopers obscene gestures. One Negro even turned around and dropped his pants to show them his bare brown backside.

Forrest hoped that Negro would take a bullet where it did him the most good. No doubt all the Confederates who saw him did their best to give him what he deserved. But he pulled his trousers up again, waggled his bottom at the attackers one last time, and jumped down behind the rampart again.