Devil's Dream
A Novel About Nathan Bedford Forrest
Chapter One
July 1861
He passed the night in a canebrake a little way south of the Ohio River, still
in earshot of the river's sluggish flow. Amid the cane he found a raised flat
shelf of limestone, harder than sleeping on the ground would have been, but apt
to give him some relief from ticks and chiggers or so he hoped. Before he lay
down he splashed a little water on the four directions at the edges of the
oblong stone-not too much water, for there was a moon, and he didn't want to
leave the cover of the cane to fill his canteen from the water's edge.
When he stretched out, the walls of his empty stomach shrunk together,
contracting like wet leather as it dried and cracked. Shadows of the slender
cane leaves danced over the moonscape of the stone, and the pocks in the surface
griped his back and shoulders, or his hip and elbow if he tried to settle on his
side, so that he thought he would not sleep, most likely. He heard the crying of
a screech owl and watched a bat wing flick across the curved edge of the
moon-his eyes as hard and parch ... read full excerpt from: Devil's Dream ebook
