Return engagement

XVI

Tom Colleton had a rain slicker on over his uniform. The hood was made to cover his head even when he wore a helmet. In spite of slicker and hood, cold water dripped down the back of his neck. And he had it better than the damnyankees looking his way from a small forest between Sandusky and Cleveland: the rain was at his back, while it blew into their faces. He'd never liked rain in the face. Some of the Yankee soldiers, like some of his own, wore glasses. For them, rain in the face wasn't just an annoyance. It could be deadly if it blurred an approaching enemy.

A barrel rumbled up the road toward him. He wouldn't have wanted to try sending barrels anywhere except along roads right now. The rain had turned an awful lot of dirt into mud. He'd seen a couple of bogged-down barrels. They needed specialized recovery vehicles to get them out of their wallows.

The man commanding the barrel rode with his head and shoulders out of the cupola. Tom approved of that, especially in this weather. A lot of people would have stayed buttoned up and dry and comfortable inside the turret-and if they couldn't see quite as much that way, well, so what? If you took care of your job first and yourself second, you were more likely to live to keep on doing your job.

As the barrel drew near, the commander ducked down into the turret. He must have given an order, for the machine stopped, engine still noisy even while idling. The commander popped up out of the cupola again like a jack-in-the-box. He waved to Tom. "What's going on up here?" he called, pitching his voice to carry over the engine and through the rain.

Probably a lieutenant or a sergeant himself, he had no idea he was talking to a lieutenant-colonel. Tom gave the same answer any foot soldier who'd seen some action would have: "Not a hell of a lot, thank God."

"Sounds good to me," the barrel commander said. By his accent, he came from Texas, or possibly Arkansas-somewhere west of the Mississippi, anyhow. He wiped the back of his hand across his face. "I don't mind the rain one goddamn bit, let me tell you."

"Because of the lull, you mean?" Tom asked. As if to belie the word, an automatic rifle not too far away stuttered out a short burst. Several shots from Springfields answered. Tom waited to see if anything big would flare up.

So did the barrel commander. When the firing died away instead, his smile showed nothing but relief. "Partly the lull, yeah," he said. "But there's one thing more: weather like this here, all the poison gas in the world ain't worth shit."

"You've got a point," Tom said. He didn't want to think about wearing a gas mask in a driving rain like this. All his thoughts about eyeglasses came back, doubled and redoubled. With a gas mask's portholes, you couldn't even peer over the tops if the lenses got spattered. You were stuck trying to see through drip-filled glass.

"Damnyankees throw that stuff around like it's going out of style." The barrel commander patted the cast steel of the cupola. "Sometimes inside here, we don't know they've done it till too late."

"Hadn't thought of that," Tom admitted. He imagined rattling along inside the noisy barrel, maybe firing its cannon and machine guns to add to the din. If gas shells started bursting near you, how would you know? Likely by getting a lungful of the stuff, which wasn't the best way. Colleton asked, "Haven't you got any filters to keep it out?"

"Yeah, but we have to seal everything up for 'em to work at all, and you don't want to do that most of the time, on account of you can't see out so good," the man standing in the cupola replied, illustrating his own point. "Besides, it's cooled down now, but in the summertime you purely can't stand getting all cooped up in here. They throw some potatoes in with us, they could serve us up for roast pork."

Tom's stomach did a slow lurch. In the last war and this one, he'd smelled burnt human flesh. It did bear a horrid resemblance to pork left too long on the fire. Would it taste the same way? He didn't want to know.

The barrel commander disappeared down into the turret again. As he emerged, the engine noise picked up. The barrel started forward. "Don't go too far into the woods, or you'll run into the Yankees," Tom shouted. The commander cupped a hand behind his ear. Tom said it again, louder this time. The barrel commander waved. Tom hoped that meant he understood, not that he was just being friendly.

A few minutes later, two more Confederate barrels rattled down the road after the first one. Tom Colleton frowned. Had some kind of push been ordered, one nobody'd bothered to tell him about? He wouldn't have been surprised; that kind of thing happened too often. On the other hand, maybe the barrels' crews thought something was going on when it really wasn't. In that case, they were likely to get a nasty surprise.

Frowning, Tom shouted for a wireless man. The soldier with the heavy pack on his back seemed to materialize out of thin air. One second, he was nowhere around. The next, he stood in front of Colleton, asking, "What do you need, sir?"

"Put me through to division HQ in Sandusky," Tom answered. "I want to find out what the hell's going on up here."

When the wireless man wanted to, he had a wicked laugh. "What makes you think they'll know?"

That held more truth than Tom wished it did. "Somebody has to," he said. "They're as good a bet as any, and better than most. Come on, get on the horn with them."

"Right." The wireless man got busy. Before he could raise Sandusky, though, an antibarrel cannon went off in the direction the Confederate barrels had taken. It fired several rounds. Those weren't big guns; a crew could serve them lickety-split. A machine gun started to answer, undoubtedly trying to shoot down the gunners, but fell silent all at once. A moment later, Tom heard ammunition start to cook off. At least one of those barrels was history.

He muttered a curse and set a hand on the wireless man's shoulder. "Never mind. I just got my answer." Pulling his pistol from its holster, he ran forward to see what he could do for the luckless barrel men.

Some of them came running or staggering back toward him. Most were wounded. A couple of the soldiers in butternut coveralls turned around and went with him. The others kept going. Tom didn't suppose he could blame them, not after what had just happened.

And it turned out not to matter any which way. All three barrels were burning. Tom couldn't get close to any of them. Several men, including the commander of that first barrel, lay dead near the dead machines. Tom swore again. They'd walked into a buzzsaw. He hoped the end had come quickly for them. Sometimes, in war, that was as much as you could hope for.

A burst of machine-gun fire chewed up the fallen leaves not far from his feet. He dove for cover and swore one more time, now at himself. He hadn't come up here to be a target. Of course, the poor bastards in the barrels hadn't, either, and what had happened to them?

The damnyankee behind the machine gun squeezed off another burst. Hunting me, the son of a bitch, Tom thought as he rolled and scrambled toward and then behind the thickest tree he could find. The U.S gunner's fire went a little wide. Tom lay there panting for a couple of minutes. In the last war, he might have laughed at himself for getting into and out of a scrape like that. He didn't feel like laughing any more.

Careful not to draw the machine gunner's notice again, he crawled off to the west, putting as many trees between himself and the enemy as he could. Only when he was sure he could do it without getting shot did he climb to his feet. By then, he was so wet, he might as well not have bothered with the rain slicker. He felt like a cat that had fallen into a pond.

To add insult to injury-or, here, almost to add injury to insult-some Confederate soldiers hurrying into the woods came close to shooting him for a Yankee. No good deed goes unpunished, he thought as he finally made it back out into open country.

His wireless man looked him over. "Sir, you're a mess."

"Thanks. Thanks a hell of a lot, Rick," Tom said. "I never would have figured that out without you."

Rick took his canteen off his belt. "Here you go, sir. Have a knock of this." This turned out to be a good deal more potent than water. Tom swigged gratefully.

"Ahhh," he said when the fire in his gullet had faded a little. "That hit the spot. Now get on the horn to divisional headquarters. They need to know the damnyankees have got antibarrel guns and all sorts of other little delights lurking in those woods."

"I'll do it, sir," the wireless man said, and he did. Tom spoke with heat perhaps partly inspired by the liquid flames he'd just drunk.

"Well, we'll see what we can do about it." The staff officer back in Sandusky didn't sound very worried. Why should he be? He was far enough behind the lines that nobody was shooting at him. He went on, "Can't really send out the Mules in weather like this, you know."

He was bound to be dry and under a roof, too. More cold water trickled down the back of Tom Colleton's neck. He was amazed his anger didn't turn it to steam. "Have you ever heard of artillery?" he growled.

"Oh, yes, sir," the staff officer said brightly. "I told you, sir-we'll see what we can do. Things are spread a little thin right now."

"What's left of three crews' worth of barrels is spread pretty thin right now, too," Tom said. "They didn't know what they were walking into. Now they've found out the hard way. The Yankees need to pay for that."

"Yes, sir," the staff officer said. That wasn't agreement; Tom had listened to too many polite but unyielding staff officers to mistake it for any such thing. The man was just saying that he heard Tom. He went on, "I'm afraid I can't make you any promises, but I'll do what I can."

"Right. Thanks. Out." Tom's thanks wasn't gratitude, either. It was rage. He turned away from the wireless set before he said something worse.

Rick understood that perfectly. "Don't worry, sir," he said. "I broke the link as soon as you said,, 'Out." "

"Thanks." This time, Tom did mean it. "I won't say you saved me a court-martial, but I won't say you didn't, either. Those goddamn behind-the-lines types are all the same. No skin off their nose what happens up here, because it isn't happening to them."

The wireless man looked at him with real surprise. "You sound like a noncom grousing about officers, sir. Uh, no offense."

Tom laughed. "You think we don't know what noncoms say about us? It's the same as privates say about noncoms."

Rick looked surprised again, this time in a different way. "You know what? I reckon you're right. I know what I called sergeants before I got stripes on my sleeve."

Artillery did start falling on the forest. The bombardment wasn't as hard as Tom would have liked to see it, but it was heavy enough to let division HQ think they'd taken care of the problem-and to say so if the people who gave them orders ever asked about it. Tom could have called Sandusky again and complained, but he didn't see the point. He was getting what Division had to give. If the Confederates had planned a big push through those woods, that would have been a different story. He would have squawked then no matter what. Now? No.

Before long, U.S. artillery started shooting back at the C.S. guns. The counterbattery fire also seemed halfhearted. How much had the United States moved from Ohio to Virginia? Would the Confederate defenders there be able to hold on? From where Tom was, he could only hope so.

As he always did when he went to the front, Jake Featherston was having the time of his life. He often wished he could chuck the presidency, put on his old sergeant's uniform, and go back to blowing up the damnyankees. Of course, that would leave Don Partridge in charge of the country, which was a truly scary thought.

But what could be better than yanking the lanyard, hearing the gun roar, and watching another shell fly off to come down on some U.S. soldiers' heads? This was what Jake had been made for. Everything that came after he took off the uniform… There were times when it might have happened to somebody else.

And he loved the automatic rifles Confederate soldiers carried. He had a hell of a time filling the air with lead when Yankee fighters shot up the gun pits. He hadn't hit anything yet, but he kept trying. It drove his bodyguards nuts.

He wished the Confederates had thrown back the U.S. attack without letting it get across the Rappahannock. In a perfect world, things would have worked out like that. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride, Featherston thought. The damnyankees were over the Rappahannock, and driving for the Rapidan. They weren't slicing through the C.S. defenders the way the Confederates had sliced through the Yankees in Ohio, but they were still going forward. And they didn't have to go all that far before they got to Richmond.

"Sir? Mr. President?" somebody shouted right next to Jake.

He jumped. What with the bellowing guns of the battery and his own thoughts, he hadn't even realized this crisp-looking young captain of barrels had come up. "Sorry, sonny," he said. "Afraid I've got a case of artilleryman's ear. What's up?" Too much time by the guns had left him a little hard of hearing, especially in the range of sounds in which people spoke. But he was also selectively deaf. When he didn't feel like listening to somebody, he damn well didn't, regardless of whether he heard him.

"Sir, General Patton's come up to talk with you," the captain answered.

"Has he, by God?" Featherston said. The young officer nodded. Jake slapped him on the back, hard enough to stagger him. "Well, lead the way, then. I'm always interested in what General Patton has to say."

Again, he wasn't lying. He'd picked George Patton as a winner before the barrel commander helped put the Confederates in Sandusky. Patton's driving aggressiveness reminded him of his own. The general always had his eye on the main chance. You wouldn't go anywhere in this world if you didn't.

A butternut Birmingham with Red Crosses prominent on the roof and sides waited for Featherston. He felt not the least bit guilty about the ruse. If anything happened to him, the whole Confederacy would suffer. He knew that. Remembering it while he was blazing away with an automatic rifle was a different story.

Patton's camouflage-netted tent stood with several others in among some trees not far south of Culpeper, Virginia. The deception would have been better in the summertime. With leaves gone from trees, the tents were noticeable in spite of the netting. With luck, though, the Red Crosses on the auto would make Yankee pilots think they made up a field hospital.

"Mr. President!" Patton jumped out of a folding chair, sprang to stiff attention, and saluted. "Freedom!" he added.

"Freedom!" Jake echoed automatically. "At ease, General. Are we ready to twist the damnyankees' tail?"

"Just about, sir," Patton answered. He had some of the palest, coldest eyes Featherston had ever seen. They lit up now with a glow like the northern lights shining on Greenland ice. "Then we don't just twist it. We land on it with both feet."

"And won't they yowl when we do!" Featherston said.

"That's the idea." Patton pointed north toward the din of battle. "These head-on attacks-all they prove is that General MacArthur hasn't figured out what to do with all the tools his War Department gave him."

"Well, General, if you think I mind, you can damn well think again," Jake said. "When you're ready, I want you to do just what you said. We'll bundle these bastards out of your country with their jumped-on tails between their legs."

"We'll do it, Mr. President. We're better men than they are. We always have been," Patton said. "And while wars may be fought with weapons, they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory."

When he spoke of the man who led, he thought of himself. When Jake Featherston heard it, he thought of himself. He nodded. "You've got that right, General. The triumph of the will is going to take us where we want to go, and the United States won't be able to do a thing about it."

"In war nothing is impossible, provided you use audacity," Patton said. "We have it. The Yankees don't. To win battles you do not beat weapons-you beat the soul of man of the enemy first."

"Damn right!" Jake said enthusiastically. "When the Freedom Party was down in the, '20s, we could have folded up our tents and packed it in. But I hung tough, and that made people stick with me. I knew our time would come around."

"That is the way it works, Mr. President," Patton said. "And I hope the way things work in our counterattack will be to your satisfaction. My only concern is that the U.S. forces have General Dowling commanding their right wing."

"Why worry about him?" Featherston said. "You beat him in Ohio. You can do it again."

"Well, sir, I hope so. But he was sensitive to his flanks there," Patton replied. "He didn't fight a bad campaign, given what he had to work with. Of course, Colonel Morrell commanded his armor then, and Morrell is still in the West, for which I am glad."

"You're not the first officer I've heard who talks about Morrell like that," Jake observed. "Maybe something ought to happen to him."

"Maybe something should," Patton agreed. "It's not what you would call sporting, but war is not a sporting business. I don't give a damn about good losers. I want the tough bastards who go out there and win, no matter how."

"That sure as hell sounds right to me. When I get back to Richmond, I'll see what we can do about it." Jake made a sour face. He didn't want to go back to the Confederate capital. In a lot of ways, he really would rather have been an artilleryman than President. But he talked about duty to other people. He couldn't go on pretending it didn't matter for him.

He motored back to Richmond in the Birmingham with the prominent Red Crosses. No Yankee airplanes attacked it, though a couple of flights of fighters roared by at not much above treetop height, looking for things to shoot up. He got out of the auto at the foot of Shockoe Hill, and rode to the Presidential mansion near the top in his armored limousine. He didn't want the auto with the Red Crosses seen near the Gray House. That might give the damnyankees ideas they would be better off not having.

"Good to have you back, Mr. President," Lulu said.

He smiled at his secretary. "Thank you kindly, sweetheart. It's good to be back." He was lying through his teeth, but he didn't want Lulu to know it. He didn't care to hurt her feelings by making her think he would sooner have been away from her.

His desk was piled high with papers. He swore under his breath, even though he'd known it would be. He wished he could aim a 105 at it and blow it to hell and gone. If he'd known how much paperwork being President of the CSA entailed, he wouldn't have wanted the job so much. Despite hating it, he had to keep up with it. If he gave it all to flunkies, he wouldn't be able to watch what went on. Nobody was going to get away with any private empire-building, not if he could help it.

He sifted through things as fast as he could, writing Yes-J.F. on some and No-J.F. on others and setting still others aside for consultation before he decided what to do about them. You had to use experts-you couldn't know everything yourself. But you had to watch them, too; otherwise they'd spend you out of house and home. Jake chuckled wryly, remembering the professor who'd wanted a fortune to play around with uranium. There were plenty more like him, too.

Every once in a while, something interested Featherston enough to make him slow down and read carefully instead of skimming. England was doing something new with airplane engines, something that didn't use a propeller but that promised a better turn of speed than anyone had managed with props. We need to find out everything we can about this, Jake wrote.

That might not be easy. In the last war, both sides had had a rough time crossing the Atlantic. Even submersibles had had trouble. The Yankees had been ready to copy a German fighting scout, but the sub carrying an example of the airplane got sunk. That set the USA back for months. The same thing could happen to any ship leaving the UK for the CSA. It could-but it had better not.

A note from Ferdinand Koenig also drew Jake's full attention. Things at Camp Dependable and some of the others were going the way everybody'd hoped they would. Featherston nodded to himself. That was good news.

Fewer bombers than usual came over Richmond that night; the ones that did seemed to strike mainly at the railroad yards. Most of the U.S. bombers dropped their loads farther north, at the Confederates defending against the Yankee onslaught. Jake hoped antiaircraft guns and night fighters knocked down a lot of them. No matter what he hoped, he knew better than to be too optimistic. U.S. gunfire hadn't badly hurt the Confederate airplanes that struck at Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and other cities north of the border.

At dawn the next morning, the distant crashing of guns announced General Patton's counterattack out of the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Telephones in the Gray House started ringing right away. Aides brought Featherston notes on how things were going. As soon as he finished breakfast, the notes stopped satisfying. He had the calls routed to his own line, and started tracing progress on a map of Virginia that had gone up on his office wall next to the map of Ohio.

Before long, he was muttering to himself. Things weren't going as well as he'd hoped they would. Things never went as well as he hoped they would. In his mind, every campaign was a walkover till it turned out not to be. But reports of heavy enemy resistance all along the U.S. right flank did nothing to improve his temper. He barked at everyone who came in to see him except Lulu, and he never barked at her.

He tried to talk directly to Patton. He found out he couldn't; the general commanding the barrels was in one himself. There was another way in which the two men were very much alike: they both wanted to get out there and fight. Most people didn't have the stomach-or the balls-for it. Even a lot of officers were happier well back of the line. But Jake and Patton both enjoyed mixing it up with the enemy-and if he shot back, well, so what?

As the day wore along, the news gradually got better. The Yankees began falling back from positions they'd tenaciously defended all morning. But Jake's vision of cutting off their salient looked more like a pipe dream with each passing hour.

On the other hand, it didn't look as if U.S. forces were driving so hard for the Rapidan. Some units that had been spearheading the U.S. attack turned back to help deal with Patton's counterblow. Featherston nodded to himself. In war, you rarely got everything you wanted. He hadn't smashed the Yankees, or he didn't think he had, but he'd slowed them down, maybe even stopped them. That would do. It would definitely do.

Jefferson Pinkard felt awkward in a civilian suit. He could hardly remember the last time he'd worn one. Lately, he'd just about lived in his uniform. The gray flannel suit smelled of mothballs. It didn't fit too well, either. His shirt collar was tight around his neck. He'd added a few pounds since the last time he got into ordinary civvies.

But he didn't think he ought to call on Edith Blades in his camp commandant's uniform. It would only remind her that her husband had worn one like it, if less fancy. That didn't seem to be the right thing to do, not after Chick Blades had killed himself.

Before going on to Edith's house, Jeff stopped at a florist's in Alexandria and picked up a bouquet of daisies and chrysanthemums. He felt callow as he carried it up the walk and knocked at her front door. That made him want to laugh. There was a feeling he hadn't had in a hell of a long time-not since before the Great War. He had it again, though.

He knocked on the door. She opened it. She was wearing dark gray, too: not quite widow's weeds, but not far from them. "Hello, Mr. Pinkard, uh, Jeff," she said.

"Hello." Awkwardly, Jeff thrust the flowers at her. "I brought you these."

"Thank you. They're very pretty." She stepped aside. "Why don't you come in for a minute while I put 'em in something?"

"I'll do that." The house was small and cramped. Another woman with Edith's dark blond hair and strong cheekbones sat on the sofa keeping an eye on the two small boys wrestling on the floor not far away. Jeff nodded to her. "Ma'am."

"I'm Judy Smallwood," she said. "I'm Edith's sister"-as if Jeff couldn't figure that out for himself-"and I'll be riding herd on these two terrors tonight." The terrors kept on trying to assassinate each other.

Edith brought the flowers out in a green pressed-glass vase not quite big enough for the job. She started to put the vase on the coffee table in front of the sofa, then thought better of it. The top of the wireless cabinet made a safer choice. Once she'd set the vase there, she nodded to Jeff. "Well, I'm ready," she said, and she might have been challenging the world or herself to tell her she wasn't.

"Let's go, then," he said.

"Have a good time," Edith's sister called after them. Jeff held the door open for Edith and closed it again after she went through. He opened the Birmingham's passenger-side door, too, then went around and got in behind the wheel himself.

As he started the auto, Edith said, "I want to thank you again for everything you did about Chick's pension. That was kinder'n anybody had any need of bein'."

"Least I could do." He put the motorcar in gear and pulled away from the curb. "He gave his life for his country, just like he got shot at the front." That was more true than the prison guard's widow knew.

Edith Blades looked down at her hands. She wasn't wearing a wedding ring any more, but Jeff could still see the mark on her finger. "Thank you," she repeated, not much above a whisper.

He parked right across the street from the Bijou. The theater wasn't going to be crowded tonight. People came up by ones and twos. No line stretched along the sidewalk out from the ticket counter, the way it did when a hit came to town. If a hit had been in town, he would have taken her to it. As things were, he had to make do. He set two quarters on the counter, got two poorly printed tickets, and gave them to the attendant at the door, who tore them in half.

At the refreshment counter, he bought popcorn and candy and waxed cardboard cups of fizzy Dr. Hopper. Edith called up a faint smile. "Been a while since I went to a picture show," she said. "Even before Chick… died… It's been a while."

"Well, we're here," Jeff said. "Let's have the best time we can." She nodded.

The plush seats creaked when they sat down in them. The seats needed reupholstering; too many backs and bottoms had rubbed against them since they were new. Everything about the Bijou was overdue for a fix-up. The carpet had seen better years. The gold paint on the lamps was dusty and peeling. The curtain in front of the screen had frayed, threadbare spots.

And all of that stopped mattering the minute the lights went down and the threadbare curtain pulled back. All that mattered were the pictures on the screen. The newsreel came first, of course. There was President Featherston, firing a cannon at the Yankees. There were General Patton's barrels rumbling forward. There were burnt-out Yankee barrels and throngs of dirty, disheveled U.S. prisoners trudging into captivity with their hands above their heads. There were Confederate bombers blasting U.S. cities. Patriotic music blared. The announcer gabbled. By what he said, the war was as good as won. Jeff hoped he was right.

The serial was installment number nine-or was it number ten?-about a blond heroine kidnapped by Red Negro guerrillas and constantly threatened with a fate worse than death, a fate she somehow kept evading episode after episode. The Negroes mugged and rolled their eyes and showed their teeth. They seemed to know they'd get what was coming to them in the last reel. Jeff knew they'd get worse than that if they didn't shut up and do as they were told. They might end up in Camp Dependable, for instance.

In the feature, a loose-living woman from New York City (was there any other kind?-in the CSA, the place was a synonym for depravity) tried to seduce military secrets from a Confederate aeronautical engineer. His love for the girl he'd left behind him kept him from yielding to temptation, and everything turned out for the best. In films, it always did.

When the lights came up again, Jeff sighed. He didn't want to face the real world. But here it was, whether he wanted it or not. "I'll take you home," he told Edith Blades.

"All right," she answered. "Thank you again for asking me out."

"You're welcome. I'd like to do it again, if you care to," he said. She nodded. He smiled. He felt like a kid having a pretty good time on a first date. If that wasn't silly at his age, he didn't know what would be. Silly or not, it was real.

He walked her up to her front door when they got back to her house. "Good night," she said, and squeezed his hand. He wondered if he ought to try to kiss her. Something told him it wouldn't be a good idea, so he held off. She opened the door, went inside, and softly closed it behind her.

Even without a kiss, a broad grin stretched over Jeff's face as he drove back to Camp Dependable. In the morning, Mercer Scott would grill him about what he'd done. He was as sure of that as he was of the coming sunrise. He didn't know if the guard chief would care for the story he spun. He didn't much care, either. If Mercer Scott wanted to play Peeping Tom, he could watch prisoners, not his boss.

Sure as hell, the first thing Scott said the next morning was, "How'd it go?"

"Fine," Jeff answered. "She's a nice gal." After that, he went back to his ham and eggs and grits and toast and coffee.

"Well?" Scott went on. "Where'd you go? What did you do?"

"Went to the Bijou. Spy picture there's not bad." Jeff pointed. "Pass me that strawberry jam, would you?" Fuming, Scott did. He asked a few more questions. Pinkard sidestepped most of them, which only annoyed the guard chief more. The harder the time Scott had hiding it, the more Jeff wanted to laugh out loud.

Instead of laughing, he prowled through the camp after breakfast, the way he did almost every morning. Things felt quieter than they had when bands of Negroes were led out into the swamps every so often and didn't come back. Some of the desperation, the certainty they had nothing left to lose, was gone from the prisoners. That eased Jeff's mind. A man with nothing left to lose would lash out against the people holding him. Why not? If he figured he'd last a while, though, he'd think twice.

Nobody made a fuss when a fleet of trucks pulled up in front of the camp. "Come on!" the guards shouted. "Get your raggedy asses lined up, niggers. Some of y'all are goin'to Texas! Be good to see the last of you, you miserable bastards. Free up space in the camp, and about time, too."

The black men who boarded the trucks didn't fuss at talk like that. White men had talked to them like that since they were babies. Had the guards spoken softly and politely, it would have made them suspicious. Ordinary, bantering abuse they were used to.

They didn't give anyone any trouble as they filled one truck after another. Why should they? Texas was a big place. Camps there were bound to be big, too, with more room than this one had. Guards slammed the rear doors of the trucks. None of the Negroes flabbled at those metallic clangs, or at the thud of the bar coming down across the doors. Naturally, the white men wouldn't want them getting away. At least they weren't shackled into place in the cargo box. It might get a little crowded in there, but it wouldn't be too bad… would it?

One after another, the loaded trucks rolled away. A couple of the guards waved good-bye. Jefferson Pinkard saw that. As soon as the trucks were gone, he summoned those guards to his office. "You ever do that again, I will fire your sorry asses so fast, it'll make your heads swim," he snarled. "Ever! You don't like those niggers well enough to wave if they're going to Texas. Only thing that'd make you wave is if something else is goin'on."

"But, sir, somethin' else is-" one of the guards began.

"Shut up," Jeff told him. "Every time you open your mouth, your brains try and fall out. You may know somethin'. I doubt it, but you may. I may know somethin'. Matter of fact, I damn well do. But do we want the niggers here gettin' a whiff of it? Do we, you stupid son of a bitch?"

The guard stood mute, which was the smartest thing he could have done. Pinkard jerked his thumb toward the door. The guards almost tripped over each other in their eagerness to escape. They left the door open. Jeff shouted after them. One came back and closed it. Jeff listened to his footsteps recede.

That afternoon, Mercer Scott said, "Don't you reckon you came down on my boys a little hard?"

"Sorry, Mercer, but I don't," Jeff answered. "I want things to go smooth around here. That means I don't want some damn fools tryin' to be funny spookin' the spooks. They get the wrong idea"-by which he meant the right idea-"and we're right back where we were at before." He didn't go into detail. They were out in the open. It wasn't likely anybody could overhear them if they talked quietly, but it wasn't impossible, either.

Scott understood what he was saying-and what he wasn't. The guard chief didn't want Camp Dependable simmering at the edge of revolt the way it had been when Negroes were marched off into the swamps any more than Jeff did. "I don't reckon they'll make that mistake again," he said.

"They'd better not, or they're gone," Jeff said. "That's how come I came down on 'em like I did. They've got to know I won't put up with that shit. And if you want to talk to your friends in Richmond about it, you go right ahead. I don't aim to back down on this one."

He watched Scott weighing his chances. By the downward curve of the guard chief's mouth, he didn't think they were good. Jeff didn't, either. He was sure right lay on his side. And he was in favor in Richmond because of the transport trucks that did more than transport. Put right and favor together and you were pretty hard to beat.

From the way the papers and the wireless news in Covington, Kentucky, were crowing, Cincinnatus Driver feared that the U.S. offensive in Virginia had come to grief. He didn't completely trust the papers or the wireless; he'd seen they told more lies than a husband coming home with lipstick on his collar and whiskey on his breath. But Lucullus Wood was gloomy, and he had more ways of knowing than what the papers and the wireless said.

Cincinnatus made a habit of visiting Lucullus' barbecue joint every so often. If the police ever asked him what he was doing there, he could truthfully say he was a regular and have witnesses to back him up. How much good that would do him he didn't know, but it couldn't hurt.

Lucullus often came out from the back of the place and sat with him when he did show up. Cincinnatus got the feeling the cook who was more than a cook was looking for somebody to talk to, somebody who he could be sure wouldn't go to the police with whatever he said.

"Yeah, the USA screwed up," Lucullus said mournfully. "Got over the Rappahannock, but they ain't over the Rapidan yet, an' I dunno if they ever git that far. All depends on how much bleedin' they wanna do."

"Great War was like that," Cincinnatus said after swallowing a bite from his barbecued-pork sandwich. "This here one wasn't supposed to be. Goddamn Confederates done it right."

"Yeah, well…" Lucullus' broad shoulders went up and down in a shrug. "Where they went, they caught the Yankees by surprise. Daniel MacArthur sure didn't surprise them none." He took a swig of coffee, as if to wipe a bad taste from his mouth.

"Too bad," Cincinnatus said: a two-word epitaph for the Lord only knew how many men and how many hopes.

"Uh-huh. You said it. Too bad is right." By the way Lucullus agreed, his hopes were among those that lay bleeding between the two Virginia rivers.

Trying to change the subject, Cincinnatus asked, "You ever run across Luther Bliss?"

Lucullus had been raising the coffee cup again. It jerked in his hand-only a little, but Cincinnatus saw. "Funny you should ask me that," the barbecue cook said. "He come in here the other day."

"Is that a fact?" Cincinnatus said. Lucullus nodded. Cincinnatus wagged a finger at him. "And you called me a liar when I said he was back in town."

Lucullus shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, looks like I was wrong."

"Looks like," Cincinnatus agreed. "What did he want?"

The other man hesitated. Cincinnatus understood that: the less Lucullus said, the less anybody could tear from him. At last, the barbecue cook answered, "He's interested in makin' trouble for folks he don't like an' we don't like."

For the Confederates, Cincinnatus thought. "Do Jesus!" he said, as if astonished such an idea could have crossed Luther Bliss' mind.

Hearing the sarcasm, Lucullus made a sour face. "He want you to know more, I reckon he tell you more his ownself."

That put Cincinnatus in his place, all right. The last thing he wanted was Luther Bliss telling him anything at all. He'd hoped he would never see the secret policeman again. Like so many of his hopes, that one had been disappointed. He changed the subject once more: "You ever find out anything more about them trucks?"

"They usin' 'em in the camps," Lucullus replied. "They usin' 'em to ship niggers between the camps. Now you knows as much as I does." He didn't sound happy confessing his ignorance.

"Well, that explains it, then," Cincinnatus said. It did for him, anyhow. "They use 'em in the camps, they reckon that's important-maybe even important enough to take 'em away from the Army."

"Maybe." But Lucullus sounded deeply dubious. "But what they use 'em for?"

"You done said it yourself: to ship niggers from one place to the next."

"Yeah, I done said it. But it don't add up, or it don't add up all the way. They already had trucks for that kind o' work. Ordinary Army trucks with shackles on the floor… You put a nigger in one o' them, he ain't goin'nowhere till you let him loose. How come they change, then?" Lucullus was as suspicious of change as the most reactionary Freedom Party man.

Cincinnatus could only shrug. "They don't always do stuff on account of it makes sense. Sometimes they just do it for the sake of doin' it, you hear what I'm sayin'?"

"I hears you. I just don't think you is right," the barbecue cook answered. "What the Freedom Party does don't always make sense to us. But it always make sense to them. They gots reasons fo' what they does."

That made sense to Cincinnatus. He wished it didn't, but it did. He said, "But you don't know what those reasons are?"

"No. I don't know. I ain't been able to find out." By the way Lucullus said it, he took not knowing as a personal affront.

Cincinnatus said something he didn't want to say: "You reckon Luther Bliss knows?"

Lucullus started to answer, then checked himself. He eyed Cincinnatus with pursed lips and a slow nod. "Your mama didn't raise no fools, did she?"

"My mama-" Cincinnatus broke off. What his mother had been bore no resemblance to the husk she was these days.

"I'm sorry 'bout your mama now. That's a tough row to hoe. I didn't mean it like that," Lucullus said. Cincinnatus made himself nod, made himself not show most of what he was thinking. Lucullus went on, "I ain't talked to Bliss about none o' this business. Didn't cross my mind to. Didn't, but it damn well should have. Reckon I will next time I sees him."

"All right. Meanwhile-" Cincinnatus got to his feet. He was smoother at it than he had been even a few weeks earlier, and it didn't hurt so much. Little by little, he was mending, but he didn't expect to try out for a football team anytime soon. "Meanwhile, I'll be on my way."

"You take care o' yourself, you hear?" Lucullus said.

"Do my best," Cincinnatus said, which promised exactly nothing. "You be careful, too, all right?"

The barbecue cook waved that aside. "Ain't the time for nobody to be careful. Time to do what a man gotta do. If you ain't a man at a time like this, I don't reckon you is a man at all."

That gave Cincinnatus something to chew on all the way home. It was tougher and less digestible than the sandwich he'd eaten, but it too stuck to the ribs. Three airplanes buzzed high overhead: C.S. fighters on guard against U.S. bombers sneaking over the border by daylight. Bombers mostly came by night, when the danger facing them was smaller. Back East, where defenses were concentrated, day bombing was suicidal. Here, though, the country was wider and airplanes and antiaircraft guns fewer and farther between. Raiders from both sides could sometimes cross the border, drop their bombs, and scoot before the enemy hunted them down.

Cincinnatus always looked both ways before crossing the street. The cane in his right hand and the pain that never went away were reminders of what happened when he didn't. So was the brute fact that he and his father and mother remained stuck in Covington instead of being safe in Des Moines, far away from the war and from the Freedom Party.

"Hello, son," Seneca Driver said when Cincinnatus came in. The older man looked as gloomy as Cincinnatus felt.

"Hello. How's Ma?" Cincinnatus asked.

"Well, she sleepin' right now." His father sounded relieved. Cincinnatus understood that. When his mother was asleep, she wasn't getting into mischief or wandering off. She didn't do anything out of malice, or even realize what she was doing, but that was exactly the problem. Seneca went on, "How is things down to Lucullus'?"

"They're all right." Cincinnatus stopped and did a double take. "How you know I was there?"

"I ain't no hoodoo man. I ain't no Sherlock Holmes, neither," his father said. "You got barbecue sauce on your chin."

"Oh." Cincinnatus felt foolish. He pulled a rumpled handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at himself. Sure enough, the hankie came away orange.

His father said, "Lucullus, he's a pretty smart nigger, same as his old man was. He got one trouble, though-he reckon he so smart, nobody can touch him. Ain't nobody that smart. He gonna pay the price one day. Anybody too close to him gonna pay the price, too."

That sounded much more likely than Cincinnatus wished it did. He said, "I'm bein' as careful as I can."

"Good. That's good." To his relief, his father didn't push it. He just sighed and said, "If Livia hadn't chose that one day to wander off…"

"Uh-huh." Cincinnatus nodded. That came close to paralleling the thought he'd had walking home. He managed a shrug. "Ain't nothin' nobody can do about it now."

"Ain't it the truth?" Seneca smiled a sweet, sad smile. "I's sorry you down here. Shouldn't oughta happen on account of our troubles."

"Do Jesus, Pa!" Cincinnatus exclaimed. "If your troubles ain't my troubles, too, whose is they? Everything shoulda gone fine when I came down. It just… didn't, that's all."

"Leastways you ain't got that Luther Bliss bastard breathin' down your neck no more. That's somethin', anyhow," his father said.

"Yeah, somethin'." Cincinnatus hoped his voice didn't sound too hollow. Bliss wasn't exactly breathing down his neck, true. But the former head of the Kentucky State Police hadn't been happy to have Cincinnatus recognize him. Bliss might yet decide dead men couldn't go blabbing to the Confederates. Cincinnatus didn't know what to do about that. He couldn't hide and he couldn't run.

"Still and all, I reckon you do better goin'to Lucullus' place'n down to the saloon," his father said.

"I'm all grown up, Pa." Now Cincinnatus knew he sounded patient. "And I never knew you was a temperance man."

"Temperance man?" Seneca Driver shook his head. "I ain't. I never was. Don't reckon I ever will be. But I tell you, too many people does too much listenin' at the saloons. Too many people does too much talkin', too, an' a lot of 'em ends up sorry afterwards."

Cincinnatus had had that thought himself. He said, "I never been one to run my mouth, not even when I get liquored up. I don't get liquored up all that often, neither, not even after… all this happen." He gestured with his cane to show what he meant.

"All right, son. All right. I's glad you don't." His father raised a placating hand. "But I ain't wrong. Lucullus watch what goes on in his place for his sake. Some o' the niggers in them saloons, they watch what goes on for the gummint's sake." Cincinnatus was damned if he could tell him he was wrong.

No matter how many strings Colonel Irving Morrell pulled, he couldn't get sent to the Virginia front. From southern Ohio, he listened with growing dismay to the reports of a bogged-down U.S. offensive. He also listened to them with considerable sympathy. Why not, when he presided over a bogged-down offensive himself? If the War Department had given him enough barrels, he might have accomplished something with them. They hadn't; they'd taken. And he'd accomplished nothing.

"It's enough to drive a man to drink, Sergeant," he told Michael Pound. They hadn't moved from Caldwell. The front a few miles to the west hadn't moved, either. The only thing that had moved was the calendar, and it was not in the USA's favor. The longer the Confederates held their corridor through Ohio, the worse they squeezed the United States.

"Nobody would blame you if it did, sir," Pound answered.

"The War Department would," Morrell said dryly.

"Well, if those idiots in Philadelphia aren't a pack of nobodies, who is?" As usual, Pound sounded reasonable. If you already despised the powers that be, he could give you more reasons for doing so than you'd thought of yourself.

Morrell laughed. If he didn't laugh, he'd start swearing. He'd already done that a time or six. He didn't think doing it again would help. "You're thoroughly insubordinate, aren't you, Sergeant?"

"Who, me?" Pound might have been the picture of innocence. "I don't know what you're talking about, sir. Have I ever been insubordinate to you?"

"Well, no," Morrell admitted.

"There you are, sir. As long as somebody shows he knows what he's doing, I don't have any trouble with him at all. Some numskull who thinks he's a little tin Jesus because he's got oak leaves on his shoulder straps, now…"

"You've taken that thought about as far as it ought to go," Morrell said. Pound had known that for himself, or he wouldn't have stopped where he did. Sometimes a reminder didn't hurt, though. Morrell's principal concern was with numskulls who thought they were big tin Jesuses because they had stars on their shoulder straps. They could do more damage than the ones Pound had named.

Shrugging, the gunner said, "What are we going to do to get this war rolling the way it should?"

By the way he asked the question, he thought he and Morrell could take care of it personally. Morrell wished he thought the same thing. He said, "I'm going to do whatever my superiors tell me to. And you, Sergeant, you're going to do whatever your superiors tell you to. If you'd let me promote you, you wouldn't have so many superiors. Wouldn't you like that?"

"There'd still be too many," Pound said. The only way he would be happy, Morrell realized, was to have no superiors at all. In the military, that wasn't practical. Why not? Morrell wondered. Would he do so much worse than the people we have in charge now? The answer was bound to be yes, but the fact that Morrell could frame the question didn't speak well for what was going on back at the War Department.

Pound took out a pack of cigarettes, stuck one in his mouth, and offered them to Morrell. "Thanks," Morrell said. Pound flicked a cigarette lighter. Both men inhaled. Both made sour faces when they did. Morrell took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at it. He neighed, suggesting where what passed for the tobacco had come from. Sergeant Pound got a case of the giggles. "Can you tell me I'm wrong?" Morrell asked him.

"Not me, sir," Pound said. "But we keep smoking them just the same."

"We do, don't we? Bad tobacco's better than no tobacco." Morrell studied the cigarette before he put it back in his mouth. "I wonder what that says about us. Nothing good, probably."

Still puffing on it, he walked towards a barrel whose crew was working on the engine. One of the men in dark coveralls looked up and waved. "I think we've finally got the gunk out of the goddamn carburetor," he called.

"Good. That's good." Morrell kept his distance. The barrel crew had the sense not to smoke while they messed around with the engine. That deserved encouragement. He looked out toward the woods that ringed Caldwell. With the leaves off the trees, they seemed much grimmer than they would have in summertime.

Because he was looking out toward them, he saw the muzzle flash. The rifle report came a split second later-right on the heels of the bullet that slammed into his shoulder.

"Oh, shit!" he exclaimed, and clapped his other hand to the wound. Blood dripped out through his fingers. For a couple of seconds, he felt only the impact-as if somebody'd belted him with a crowbar. Then the pain followed. He howled like a wolf. The next thing he knew, he was sitting on the muddy ground, with no memory of how he'd got there.

"Holy shit! The colonel's down!" Three people said the same thing at the same time. Another shot rang out. This one cracked past Morrell's ear.

Sergeant Pound ran over to him. The gunner grabbed Morrell and heaved him across his broad back. Morrell howled again, louder this time-getting manhandled like that hurt worse than getting shot had. Michael Pound paid no attention to him. He ran for cover, shouting, "Doc! Hey, Doc! Some son of a bitch shot the colonel!"

One more bullet snarled by, much too close for comfort. That's not just somebody picking off whoever he can get, Morrell thought dazedly. He wants my ass. Christ, I wish that's where he'd shot me.

Morrell hadn't thought about the aid station in a while. The medics and the doctor there hadn't had to worry about anything worse than cuts and burns for a bit, not since the planned U.S. offensive stalled. They'd probably been playing poker in their tent before Pound burst in, still carrying Morrell. "For God's sake, Doc, patch him up," the gunner panted.

The doctor attached to the force was a New Yorker named Sheldon Silverstein. "Get him on the table," he said. The corpsmen obeyed, taking Morrell from Sergeant Pound. Morrell tried to bite down on a shriek as they shoved him around. He succeeded less well than he wished he would have.

Silverstein looked down at him. The doctor settled a gauze mask over his nose and mouth. His eyes were dark and clever. "Morphine," he said, and one of the corpsmen stuck a needle in Morrell. Silverstein went on, "I'm going to have to poke around in there, Colonel. I'm sorry, but I've got to figure out what's going on."

When he did, pieces of broken bone grated. Morrell tried to rise up off the table like Lazarus. The corpsmen and Michael Pound held him down. He called them and Silverstein every name in the book-and a couple he invented specially for the occasion.

"Smashed up your clavicle, sure as hell," Silverstein said, as if he and Morrell were discussing the weather. "Doesn't look too bad after that-bounced off a rib and exited under your arm."

"Hot damn," Morrell said, or perhaps something rather warmer.

Dr. Silverstein smiled a thin smile. "I'll see how we do," he said. An ether cone came down over Morrell's face. He feebly tried to pull it off-it reminded him too much of poison gas. Somebody grabbed his good hand. Then the ether took him away from himself.

When he came back to the real world, things hurt less than they had before he went under. He croaked something even he couldn't understand. A corpsman called, "Hey, Doc! He's awake!" The man gave Morrell a small swig of water.

Silverstein looked down at him from what seemed a great height. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"I was born to hang," Morrell said feebly.

"Wouldn't be a bit surprised." Nothing fazed Silverstein-he worked at it. "Can you move the fingers on your right hand?"

"Don't know." As more cobwebs came off his brain, Morrell realized a good many were still there. He tried to move those fingers. The effort made him grunt. "I-think so." He wasn't sure whether he'd succeeded.

But Dr. Silverstein nodded. "Yeah. That means the bullet didn't tear up the nerve plexus in there. You should do pretty well now, as long as you don't get a wound infection."

Even dopey and doped-up as he was, Morrell winced. "Had one of those in the last war. Damn near lost my leg."

"Well, we can do some things this time around they didn't know about then," the doctor told him. "I think you've got a pretty good chance."

"That's nice." Morrell yawned. Yes, he still felt disconnected from the physical part of himself. Considering what had happened to his physical part, that was just as well. "How long will I be on the shelf?"

"Depends on how you do," Silverstein said, which was no answer at all. He seemed to realize that. "My best guess is a couple of months, maybe a little longer than that. You aren't as young as you used to be."

When Morrell was young, he'd lain in the dust in Sonora wondering if he'd bleed to death. Was this an improvement? "Should be sooner," he said, and yawned again. Whatever Dr. Silverstein told him, he didn't hear it.

He woke later with something closer to his full complement of wits. He also woke in more pain, because the morphine they'd given him was starting to wear off. He was in a different place-a real building with walls and a ceiling, not a tent. A corpsman he'd never seen before asked him, "How do you feel?"

"Hurts," he answered-one word that covered a lot of ground.

"I believe it, buddy. Stopping a bullet's no fun at all." The corpsman gave him a shot. "Here you go. This'll make things better pretty soon."

"Thanks," Morrell said. What was pretty soon to the medic seemed like forever to him. He tried to think, hoping that would distract him from the fire in his shoulder. The fire made thinking hard work, and all he could think about was how he'd got wounded. He was behind the line when he got hit. How had the Confederates sneaked a sniper that far into U.S.-held territory?

After a little while, he realized how might not be the right question. Why had the Confederates sneaked a sniper that deep into U.S.-held territory? The only answer that came to mind was to knock off a certain Irving Morrell. The bastard had been shooting at him-at him and nobody else-even while Sergeant Pound was hauling him to Dr. Silverstein's tent.

It was an honor, of sorts. It was one he would gladly have done without. He tried to move the fingers on his right hand again. When he did, it was as if he'd put a bellows to the fire in his shoulder. The Confederates thought he was dangerous to them, did they? He wondered if the United States were trying to assassinate Confederate officers who'd hurt them. Neither side had fought that way in the Great War. This time, it looked to be no holds barred.

Little by little, the new shot of morphine sneaked up on him. It built a wall between his wound and the part of him that mattered. It also slowed his thinking to a crawl… and that wasn't such a bad thing, either.

Part of Mary Pomeroy was glad to see Alec in kindergarten. It meant she didn't have to keep an eye on him every hour of every day. She'd almost forgotten what having time to herself felt like. Finding some again was even better than she'd thought it would be.

But, however convenient it was for her, it came at a price. What didn't? In kindergarten and all the years of school that followed, Alec's teachers would do their best to turn him into a Yank, or at least into somebody who thought like a Yank. Some of what they taught him would be small and probably harmless. Would it really matter if he spelled in the U.S. style, writing color for colour and check for cheque? Maybe not. As far as Mary was concerned, though, it would matter a lot if he decided the United States had had right on their side in the War of 1812-or, for that matter, in the Great War.

Her own father had pulled her out of school when he saw what the Yanks were up to. She couldn't do that with Alec. The rules were tighter now than they had been a generation before-and she was in town, not on a farm. If she held him out, she'd draw questions. They'd investigate her. They might look harder at what Wilf Rokeby had claimed about her. She couldn't take the chance. And so Alec went off to school every day, and never knew about his mother's misgivings.

He had none of his own. He loved school. He said over and over that he was the biggest boy in his class, and the toughest. He had fights on the schoolyard, and he won them. Every once in a while, his teacher paddled him. He seemed to take that in stride-part of the price of being exuberant. Mary still sometimes had to whack him to get his attention, too.

"He's a little hell-raiser, isn't he?" Mort said, more proudly than not, one day after Alec came home with a torn shirt and a fat lip.

"Does he take after you?" Mary asked.

"Oh, I expect so," Mort answered. "I got into trouble every now and again. Not a whole lot of kids who don't, are there? Boys, anyway, I mean. Girls are mostly pretty good."

"Mostly," Mary said, and Mort laughed. He didn't know about the bomb she'd put in Karamanlides' general store, or about the one she'd sent to Laura Moss. She had no intention that he find out, either.

The laugh drew Alec into the kitchen. "What's so funny?" he asked.

"You are, kiddo," Mort said.

"I'm not funny. I'm tough," Alec said.

"You sure are, kiddo," Mort said. "Here-put up your dukes." He and Alec made as if to turn the kitchen into Madison Square Garden.

"You'd better be careful, champ, or he'll knock you out when you aren't looking," Mary said. Alec threw haymakers with wild enthusiasm. Mort caught them with his hands. He didn't let his chin get in the way of one. When Alec stepped on Mary's toes twice in the space of half a minute, she chased him and her husband out of the kitchen. Had she married a different man, she might have threatened him with having to do his own cooking. That didn't work with Mort, though.

"Good chicken," he said once she finally got it on the table. Threats might not work with him, but his compliments counted for more than they would have from a man who didn't know anything about food.

Alec gnawed all the meat off his drumstick, then thumped it against his plate. That was taking the word too literally for Mary. "Cut it out," she said, and then, louder, "Cut it out!" Next stop was a spanking. Alec knew as much, and did cut it out. His mother sighed. "He is a little… what you said earlier."

"A what?" Alec asked. "What am I? I'm a what?"

"You're a what, all right," Mort Pomeroy said. "Try to be a good what, and do what your mother tells you to."

"I'm a what! I'm a what! What! What!" Alec shouted. He liked that so well, he wasn't about to pay attention to anything else.

When supper was done, Mary got up from the table, saying, "I'm going to wash dishes. How would you like to dry them, what?"

The what didn't like that idea at all. He retreated into the living room, where he loudly told the cat what he was. If Mouser was impressed, he hid it very well. Mort said, "I'll dry. I'm less likely to drop things than Alec is, anyway."

"I'm not Alec! I'm a what!" The what, like a lot of little pitchers, had big ears.

Most husbands who volunteered to dry would have got nothing but gratitude from their wives. Mort made Mary feel guilty. She said, "You mess around with dishes all day long."

"A few more won't hurt me," he said gallantly, and then, lowering his voice, "Besides, maybe we can talk a little without the hell-raiser listening in." Since Alec didn't know he was a hell-raiser, he didn't rise to that.

Mary started running water in the sink. The splashing helped blur their voices. "What's up?" she asked, also quietly.

"They gave Wilf Rokeby ten years," Mort answered as he grabbed a dish towel. "Five for having subversive literature, and five for lying about you and that bomb. He swore up and down that he wasn't lying, but he would, wouldn't he?"

"He knew my father. He remembered what happened to my brother. He thought the Yanks-well, the Frenchies-would believe any old lie about me on account of that." Mary had no trouble sounding bitter. She was bitter about everything the USA had done to her family and made it do to itself. That the postmaster was telling the truth was something only he and she knew-an odd sort of intimacy, but no less real for that. In an abstract way, she pitied him. He had to be out of his mind with rage and frustration because he couldn't make anybody believe him.

"He's got a lot of… darn nerve, trying to get you in trouble on account of what happened a long time ago." Mort slung a couple of forks into the silverware drawer. He was furious, even if he didn't raise his voice.

"Ten years is a long time. He'll be an old man when he gets out, if he doesn't die in there," Mary said.

Mort slipped an arm around her waist and kissed the back of her neck. "You're a peach, you know that? I want to murder Wilf Rokeby, and here you are sticking up for him after he did his best to ruin you."

He had his reasons, too. The only difference is, I managed to ruin him instead. Mary shrugged. "He didn't. He couldn't. Not even the Frenchies would believe him without evidence, and he didn't have any." I made sure of that.

"I should hope not!" Mort let his hand rest on the swell of her hip.

She looked back over her shoulder at him. "Sooner or later, you-know-who's got to go to bed." She didn't name Alec, and so he didn't notice that.

"Well, I guess he does." Mort gave her a quick kiss. "I can hardly wait."

To Mary's surprise, Alec didn't stay up too late, or fuss too much about going to sleep. Maybe he'd worn himself out running around at school, or maybe the chasing game he played with the cat-who was chasing whom wasn't always obvious-did the trick. Mort read him a story from England about a talking teddy bear and his animal friends. Even the Yanks enjoyed Pooh; Alec adored him. As usual, he listened, entranced, till the end of the tale. Then he kissed Mort and Mary and went off to his room. Five minutes later, he was snoring.

Those snores brought a particular kind of smile to Mort's face. "Well, well," he said. "What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, I don't know," Mary answered demurely. "I suppose we could think of something, though."

And they did. Mort locked the bedroom door and left one of the bedside lamps on, which made everything seem much more risque than it did in the usual darkness. Mary wasn't sure whether it would excite her or embarrass her. It ended up doing a little of both. Her nails dug into his back.

Then it was over, and he suddenly seemed very heavy on her. "You're squashing me," she said, sounding… squashed.

"Sorry." He rolled off and reached for a pack of cigarettes on the nightstand. "Want one?"

"No, thanks." Mary had tried to smoke, but didn't care for the burning feeling in her chest. She put on a housecoat, belted it around her, and went into the bathroom to freshen up. When she came back, Mort was blowing smoke rings. She liked that as much as Alec did. It was the one reason she'd ever found that made smoking seem worthwhile.

He went out to the bathroom in a ratty old bathrobe. By the time he got back, Mary had got into a flannel nightgown and bundled under the covers. He put on pajamas and got in beside her. "Time for long johns soon," he said.

Mary sighed and nodded. "I hate them, though," she said. "They itch."

"Wool," Mort said, and Mary nodded again. He went on, "You need 'em, whether you like 'em or not."

"I know." Mary thought about going out without long underwear when it got down to fifteen below. Even the thought was plenty to make her shiver.

Mort leaned over and gave her a kiss. "Good night. I love you."

"I love you, too," she said, and she did. She yawned, rolled over, twisted once or twice like a dog getting the grass just right, and fell asleep. Next thing she knew, the alarm clock started having hysterics. Mort killed it. Yawning, Mary went out to the kitchen to make coffee. She would rather have had tea, but it was impossible to come by with the USA at war with Britain and Japan. Coffee was harsher, but it did help pry her eyes open.

After a hasty morning smooch, Mort hurried across the street to the diner. It was still dark outside; the sun came up later every day. Mary poured herself a second cup of coffee and turned on the wireless. Pretty soon she'd haul Alec out of bed and start getting him ready for school, but not quite yet. She had a few minutes to herself.

"And now the news," the announcer said. "Confederate claims of victory in Virginia continue to be greatly exaggerated. U.S. forces continue to advance, and have nearly reached the Rapidan in several places. Further gains are expected."

Mary had been listening to U.S. broadcasters for as long as she'd had a wireless set. By now, she knew what kinds of lies they told and how they went about it. When they said the other side's claims were exaggerated, that meant those claims were basically true. Mary hoped they were. She had no great love for the Confederate States, but they'd never bothered Canada.

"U.S. bombers punished targets in Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Texas in reprisal for the terrorist outrages the Confederates have inflicted on the United States," the newsman continued. "Damage to the enemy was reported to be heavy, while C.S. antiaircraft fire had little effect."

Again, no details, but it sounded good to anyone who already liked the USA. Since Mary didn't, she hoped the Yanks were lying again. She expected they were. What else did Yanks do but lie? They'd lied about Alexander, lied so they could line him up against a wall and shoot him.

What goes around comes around, Mary thought. And it hasn't finished coming around yet. One of these days, she would get back to the farm where she'd grown up. Not yet-the time wasn't ripe quite yet. But it would be.