The Center Cannot Hold

XVII

"Here, Papa. Let me show you how it's done." Georges Galtier dug his pitchfork into a bale of hay and flung food to the livestock in the barn. When he got to the horse's stall, he said, "I don't know why you don't turn this miserable animal into glue and food for pampered poodles in Montreal."

"Tabernac!" Lucien Galtier said, and shook his head at his younger son. "I could never do that."

"What does he do but eat?" Georges persisted. "He doesn't take you into Riviere-du-Loup any more. He doesn't pull a plow. What good is he?"

"He listened to me. For years, he listened to me," Lucien answered. "Whenever I would hitch up the wagon, I would talk to him. He knows every thought I had."

"All the more reason to get rid of him," Georges said, absurd as usual. "Dead horses tell no tales." But even as he mocked the old beast, he gave it more hay than Lucien was in the habit of doing.

"With help like yours…" Lucien shook his head. "The trouble with you is, you think I can do nothing for myself any more."

"The trouble with you is, you think you can still do everything for yourself," Georges said.

"By the good God, I can!" Lucien said hotly. "I'm not sixty yet, and even sixty doesn't mean one foot in the grave." He grimaced, wishing he hadn't put it like that. Poor Marie had never seen sixty.

His son said, "Papa, you are a formidable man." Georges' praise alarmed him more than anything else he could think of. The younger Galtier continued, "Even so, will you tell me you are as formidable as you were when you were my age? Will you say that?"

"Well… no." Lucien wanted to say yes, but it would have been a lie. He knew it as well as Georges did-better. His joints were stiff, he got tired more easily than he had, his wind wasn't what it had been…

"Even for a young man, farm work isn't easy," Georges said. "I ought to know. There are times when I wish I were still in my twenties."

Twenties! Lucien laughed at that. For him, the twenties seemed as long gone as Caesar's conquest of Gaul. He wished he were in his forties. That would no doubt have horrified Georges, who had yet to see them. Lucien said, "Thanks to you and your brother and my sons-in-law, I do not have to do everything by myself. I am not ready to walk away from the farm. Did you think I would?"

"No, not really," Georges replied. "But one day, you know, it could be that you might need to. If you think about it now, you will be readier when the time comes."

"Mauvais tabernac!" Lucien said, which summed up what he thought about that. " 'Osti!" he added for good measure. "I will worry about such things when the time comes, and not until then. Meanwhile, let's get this work done here-or would you rather stand around and gab? You always were a lazy one."

"Nonsense," Georges said with dignity. "I am merely… efficient."

"You are the most efficient I have ever seen at getting out of work," Lucien said. But, between them, they quickly finished off the rest of what needed doing.

Cold smote when they left the barn. As always, the land around Riviere-du-Loup laughed at the calendar, which insisted spring was only a couple of weeks away. Snow blanketed the ground. More danced in the air. Lucien took it altogether for granted-and then, all at once, he didn't. How would one explain something so curious to someone from, say, the Confederate state of Cuba, or the U.S. state of California, or someplace else where it didn't snow? It wasn't like rain, which simply fell, splat. It fluttered on the breeze, it swirled, it twisted. Would a stranger who didn't know about it take your word when you described it?

"I wouldn't believe it myself," Lucien muttered, stamping up the stairs toward the kitchen door.

Georges, on his heels, asked, "Wouldn't believe what?"

"I wouldn't believe what a nosy son I have." Lucien opened the door. "But come in anyhow, and I'll see what I can find for you to eat. I know you'll waste away if I don't." Charles, his older son, was small and lean like him and Marie. Georges, somehow, had grown up a great strapping man, most of a head taller than Lucien and broad through the shoulders. His appetite-all his appetites-seemed in proportion.

He sighed as he followed Lucien out of the snow. "Every time I come in here, I keep thinking-I keep hoping-I'll see chere Maman at the stove, baking something good."

"I know." Lucien sighed, too. "I feel the same. But it will not happen, not this side of heaven-which means a couple of sinners like us had better mend our ways."

"This is a better reason to be good than most others I can think of," Georges said. "And what do we have?"

"Cold chicken in the icebox," Lucien answered. "Bread on the counter there-all the ladies for miles around give me bread, for they know I am no baker-and a good jug of applejack in the pantry. Even for a walking steam shovel like you, it should be enough, n'est-ce pas? "

"Steam shovel? I believe I've been insulted," Georges said. "Do you know, Papa, I permit only two people in all the world to insult me-you and Sophie."

"You do not need to permit your wife to insult you," Lucien said, pouring two glasses of applejack. "It will happen whether you permit it or not-of this you may be sure." He handed one glass to his younger son, then raised the other. "Your good health."

"And yours." Georges knocked back the drink. "Whew!" He whistled respectfully. "A good thing I didn't have a cigarette in my mouth, or I think my lungs would have caught fire. That's strong stuff."

Lucien sipped. The applejack, like most of what he drank, didn't conform to the Republic of Quebec's tedious rules about licenses and taxes. A nearby farmer cooked it up from the harvest of his orchard. As a result, quality varied widely from one batch to the next. As Georges had said, this jug was on the potent side.

"Here," Lucien said. "Slice the bread and get some butter for it. I'll cut up the chicken. If you want it hot, I can build up the fire in the stove."

"Don't bother," Georges told him. "If the stove were electric like everything else here, so it was easy… But now, cold is fine."

"All right. Cold it will be, then." As Lucien got out the chicken and a knife, he felt Marie's ghost hovering there. He could almost hear her telling him he was making a clumsy botch of things, that he didn't keep the kitchen clean enough to suit her. No matter what he did, he knew he couldn't hope to match her standards. He tried as hard as he could, though. He wanted her to know he was making the effort.

Georges sighed as he dug in. "I ate a lot of suppers in this house," he said. "No matter where I live, this will always be what I think of as home."

"It is your patrimony," Lucien said simply.

"It is where I grew up," Georges said, which wasn't quite the same thing but wasn't far removed from it, either. He sighed again. "It was another time."

"When you were a boy, it was another country," Lucien said.

"I don't think about Canada much any more," Georges said. "Considering what's happened to the rest of it, we're lucky to be where we are."

"Yes. Considering." Lucien Galtier could hardly disagree with that. He poured himself some more apple brandy. "You were young when the change happened-not so hard for you to get used to it. I was a grown man. There were times when I felt torn in two, especially when the Americans treated us so badly in the first part of their occupation. I did all the small things a man can do to resist-all the small things, but none of the large. I had not the courage for that, not with six children, and four of them girls."

"And now you have an American son-in-law, and a half-American grandson," Georges said. "And what do you think of that?"

"Leonard O'Doull is a fine man. Even you will not deny he is a fine man," Lucien said, and Georges didn't. Lucien went on, "And the boy who bears my name… He is as fine a boy as a grandfather could want. I wish he had brothers and sisters, but that is in the hands of le bon Dieu."

He suspected it was in Dr. O'Doull's hands at least as much as in God's. Contraception was of course illegal in staunchly Catholic, staunchly conservative Quebec. If anyone could get around such laws, though, a doctor could. And his son-in-law, while a good Catholic, was also a man who thought his own thoughts. A priest probably would not hear everything he might have to confess.

"Well, Charles has three, Susanne has three, Denise has four, my Sophie's expecting her third, and even Jeanne is going to have her second in a few weeks," Georges said. "Lucien may lack for brothers and sisters, but he doesn't lack for cousins."

"This is good. This is all good," Galtier said. Repeating himself-was the applejack hitting so hard? Was he getting old, so he couldn't hold his liquor? Or was he getting old, so he talked too much whether he was drunk or not? He was getting old. However much he'd been at pains to deny it to Georges, he knew better than to deny it to himself.

Georges said, "Sure enough, we Galtiers will end up taking over Quebec before we're through."

"And why not?" Lucien said. "After all, someone has to. And if we don't, it's liable to be people like Bishop Pascal's-excuse me, Pascal Talon's-twins."

His son laughed. "Not all children can have such a distinguished father."

"He was always out for whatever he could get. Always," Lucien said. "He served God so he could help himself. He served the Americans so he could help himself. And if the Americans had lost, if the English-speaking Canadians and the British had won instead, he would have wormed his way back into their good graces, too."

"He certainly wormed his way into his lady friend's good graces," Georges said. "Twins!"

"That's what I said at the time," Lucien agreed. "A priest-even a bishop-is also a man. This is true, beyond a doubt. But twins are excessive."

"Excessive. There's a good word." Georges nodded. This time, he was the one who filled the glasses with apple brandy. "Tell me, Papa-do you not think it is also excessive to begin sending our young men from Quebec to help the Americans hold down the parts of Canada they occupy?"

"They have asked us to do this for a long time," Galtier said slowly. "Up till now, we have always managed to get around it."

"Now they say that, because they are fighting this war with Japan, they need our help more than ever," Georges said. "I don't see how we can get around it any more. So what do you think?"

"What I always thought. When the Americans recognized the Republic of Quebec, they didn't do it for us Quebecois. They did it for themselves. They are the big brother, the rich brother; we are the little brother, the poor relation, and we have to do what they say. That is how they see it, anyhow."

"How do you see it?"

Before answering, Lucien drained the glass Georges had poured for him. "How do I see? Blurrily… But that is not what you asked. The United States are very large. They are very rich. They are the ones who made us a country they say is free. But if we truly are free, we can tell them no if we like."

"And suppose they don't like it after that?"

"Will they go to war with us because they don't like it? I have my doubts. Whether our politicians in Quebec City have the wit to see this… Malheureusement, that is another question. We will probably end up doing what the Americans want without even thinking about whether we should. What do you think?"

"I think you're right. I think it's too bad. And I think nobody cares what either one of us thinks," Georges answered.

Lucien reached for the jug of applejack. "I think that calls for another drink," he said.

C larence Potter smelled trouble as soon as he walked into Whig headquarters in Charleston. The first thing he did was go over to a neat rank of bottles set against one wall and pour himself a whiskey. Thus armed, he buttonholed Braxton Donovan, who, by his red face, had started drinking quite a while before. Donovan was typical of the men in the hall: more than whiskey, which he held well, made him look as if he'd been hit in the head with a club. A speechless lawyer was a novelty Potter had thought he would relish, but he turned out to be wrong.

"God damn it, snap out of this funk," Potter said crisply.

"Why?" Donovan answered, breathing whiskey fumes into his face. "I don't even know why I'm going through the motions. It's only March, but you can already see how the Freedom Party is going to kick our ass come November. What's the use of pretending anything different?"

"Of course those know-nothing bastards will win-if nobody stands up and tries to stop 'em," Potter said. "That's what we're here for, isn't it?"

"What can we do? What can anybody do?" Donovan said. "Who's going to vote for us, with one white man in four out of work? Christ, if I'd lost my job I wouldn't vote Whig, either."

"Yes, I believe that." Withering scorn filled Potter's voice. "You'd be out there yelling, 'Freedom!' and wondering how to spell it."

The lawyer glared. "Fuck you, Clarence."

Potter beamed. "Now you're talking!" Donovan stared at him. He nodded emphatically and repeated himself: "Now you're talking, I say. If you can get pissed off about me, you can get pissed off about the Freedom Party, too. And you'd better-if you don't, the Confederate States are going right down the drain."

But Braxton Donovan, no matter how angry at Potter he might be, couldn't or wouldn't turn that anger where it might do some good. He said, "I can deal with you. How are we supposed to deal with Featherston? Grady Calkins' way?"

"If you want to know the truth, I've heard ideas I liked less," Potter answered. "The Freedom Party without Jake Featherston is like a locomotive without a boiler. Odds are it wouldn't go anywhere, and it wouldn't take the country with it."

"Fine sort of republic you want," Donovan said. "Anybody disagrees with you, off with his head."

"Oh, rubbish," Potter said. "I've got no quarrel with the Radical Liberals. I think they're wrong, but the world wouldn't end if they got elected. And you know why, too: they play by the same rules we do. But the only thing the Freedom Party cares about when it comes to the republic is using the rules to take it over. If Featherston wins the election, look out."

"What can he do?" Donovan asked. "We've got the Constitution. If he does get in, he has to play by the rules, too."

He had a point-of sorts. It was enough of a point to make Potter draw back from more direct argument. He said, "I hope you're right," and let it go at that.

"Of course I am," Donovan said, which made Potter regret being conciliatory. The lawyer fixed himself another drink, then added, "The regular meeting's going to start in a few minutes. If you intend to fortify yourself before it does, you'd better do it now."

"God forbid I should face it sober." Potter built himself a tall one.

After the minutes and other routine business, the meeting might have been a reaction against the Freedom Party. People talked about more effective campaigning on the wireless. They talked about recruiting tough young men to protect Whig street rallies and even to try to break up the Freedom Party's. They talked about getting the Whig message out to disaffected voters.

That made Potter raise a hand. With the look of a man doing something against his better judgment, Robert E. Washburn recognized him. "Mr. Chairman, what is our message?" Potter asked. " 'Sorry you're out of work, and we'll see if we can do better next time'? That didn't do the Socialists up in the USA much good."

Bang! went the gavel. "Mr. Potter, you are out of order-again," Washburn said.

"Not me-I'm fine," Potter insisted. "The country's out of order. We're supposed to be trying to make it better."

"I was under the impression that was what we were doing," the chairman said. "Forgive me if I'm wrong."

"What's our message?" Potter asked for the second time. "Why should anybody vote for us? If you ask me, the only chance we've got is to make Jake Featherston look like a dangerous lunatic. That shouldn't be too hard, because the son of a bitch really is a dangerous lunatic. But we aren't working hard enough to make him out to be one."

Bang! went the gavel again. "I repeat, you're out of order, Mr. Potter."

"Hang on." That was Braxton Donovan. "Clarence has a point, by God. We can't campaign on what we did this past presidential term, that's for damn sure. And if we can't make ourselves look good, we'd better try to make the Freedom Party look bad. Otherwise, we are stone, cold dead."

"I'll be damned," Clarence Potter muttered. Somebody had listened to him. He wasn't used to that. Even the clients who paid him pretty decent money to find out this, that, or the other thing often ignored what he learned when it didn't gibe with what they thought they already knew.

Donovan went on, "We ought to pass that notion on to the national party in Richmond. They may not have thought of it for themselves." He made a sour face. "Who knows how well they're thinking up there these days?"

Reluctantly, Washburn nodded. "Let it be noted in the minutes," he said. He was a good man. He'd been a good man for a long time-he had to be seventy, near enough. Potter wondered if the Freedom Party had any city chairmen that old. He would have bet money against it.

As far as he was concerned, nothing else of any importance happened during the meeting. Since he hadn't expected anything at all important to happen, he left feeling ahead of the game: not easy, not for anyone who cared about the Whig Party in 1933. Maybe, just maybe, the Whigs could keep Jake Featherston out of power one more time by making him look like a raving maniac. Potter felt like Horatius at the bridge, doing everything he could to keep the enemy from breaking into the city.

He started back toward his neat little flat. Behind him, Donovan called, "Wait a second, Potter. I had an idea."

Clarence stopped. "Congratulations."

"Smarty-britches. Your pa should have walloped you more when you were little." But the lawyer spoke without heat. He went on, "You ever see Anne Colleton these days?"

"No," Potter said shortly. That he didn't still pained him. They'd got on very well; in a lot of ways, they were two of a kind. But they hadn't come close to seeing eye to eye about politics, and they both took politics too seriously to let them stay together. So much for bedfellows, strange or otherwise, he thought.

"Maybe you ought to try again," Donovan said. "If you can convince her that Featherston needs a straitjacket and a rubber room, you'll hurt the Freedom Party."

"I would," Potter said, "but I don't think she's likely to pay any attention to me."

"What have you got to lose?" Donovan asked. "If you haven't got the price of a long-distance telephone call, I can pay for it." He reached for his hip pocket.

"I've got it, I've got it." Potter waved for him to stop, and he did. What have you got to lose? It was a good question. How would he be worse off if Anne hung up on him or told him to go peddle his papers? Oh, his self-respect would take a beating, but that didn't have anything to do with the Whigs and their hopes, such as those were. He nodded to Braxton Donovan. "All right, I'll take a shot at it. Don't say I never did the Party a good turn."

"Heaven forbid such a thought from ever crossing my mind." Donovan sounded pious as a preacher. Such fine phrases meant exactly nothing, as Potter knew perfectly well. Maybe Donovan would remember them, maybe he wouldn't. Potter also knew which way he would guess.

Being in the line of work he was, he had a telephone back at his flat. As he took the mouthpiece off the hook, a black excitement filled him. "Operator, I'd like to make a long-distance call, please," he said, and gave the telephone number he'd never scratched out of his address book.

"One moment, sir, while I place the call," the operator replied. "And whom shall I say is the calling party?" Potter gave her his name. The call took longer than the promised moment to complete. He listened to clicks and pops on the line and a couple of faint, almost unintelligible, conversations between operators.

Then a telephone rang. He heard that quite plainly. "Hello?" There was Anne Colleton's voice, almost as clear as if she were down the block instead of halfway across the state. Telephones had come a long way since the Great War. The operator announced the long-distance call and gave her Potter's name. "Yes, I'll speak to him," Anne said at once, and then, "How are you, Clarence? What's this all about?"

"I'm fine," he answered. "How have you been? Haven't talked to you in a while."

"No-you chose your party, and I chose mine," Anne said. "When November rolls around, we'll see who chose better."

Clarence knew then his call was hopeless. He went ahead anyway: "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. You've met Jake Featherston. You must know as well as I do, he's got a few screws loose up there. Lord knows we're sinners here in the CSA, Anne, but do we really deserve Jake for president? What ever we may have done to make God angry at us, it's not that bad."

Anne laughed. "What does he say that's wrong? That we need to get back on our feet? We do. That the niggers rose up and stabbed us in the back? They did. That the War Department didn't know what was going on till way too late? It didn't. That we ought to stand up to the United States? We should. If any of that's crazy, then I'm crazy, too."

"Wherever you want to go, there are lots of ways to get there," Potter said stubbornly. As long as they were talking, he'd give it his best try even if he was sure it wasn't good enough. "Featherston's going over the rocks and through the swamp. You ask me, he's more likely to put us on our backs than on our feet."

"I didn't ask you, Clarence," Anne said. "You made this call."

"I'm trying to tell you the man's dangerous."

"I know he is-to everybody who wants to keep us down."

"No, to us," Potter insisted. "Is he going to pay the niggers back or scare them into another uprising? Wasn't one bad enough?"

"If they try it twice, they'll never try it three times." Anne sounded almost as if she looked forward to crushing another Negro revolt.

Even so, Potter went on, "If he cleans out the War Department, who goes in instead? His drinking buddies? Will they be any better?"

"How could they be any worse?" Anne returned.

"I don't know. I don't want to find out, either. And do you really want us to fight the United States again and lose?"

"No. I want us to fight those goddamn sons of bitches again and win," Anne said. "And so does Jake Featherston, and I think we will."

"How?" Potter demanded. "Think straight, Anne. I know you can if you want to. They're bigger than we are. They're stronger than we are. They would be even if they hadn't stolen two of our states and pieces of others. Whatever we want to do to them-and I don't love them, either; believe me, I don't-what chance have we got to actually do it?"

"We haven't got any chance if we don't try," Anne said. "Good-bye, Clarence." She hung up. Potter wondered if he ought to call her again and try to make her see reason. Slowly, he shook his head. She wouldn't do it. That seemed only too plain. With a soft curse, he set the mouthpiece back in its cradle.

L ike most Confederate veterans, Jefferson Pinkard belonged to the Tin Hats. They weren't nearly so important in his life as the Freedom Party. He paid his dues every year, and that was about it. Still, when Amos Mizell, the longtime head of the Tin Hats, came to Birmingham to make a speech on a bright spring Sunday, Jeff went over to Avondale Park to hear what he had to say.

Taking the trolley to the east side of town, just past the Sloss Works, made him mutter to himself. He hadn't gone that way very often since losing his job at the steel mill. Even the air here tasted different: full of sulfur and iron. The first good lungful made him cough. The second one made him smile. He'd lived with that taste, that smell, for most of his adult life. He hadn't even known he missed it till he found it again.

He wore a clean white shirt and butternut trousers, the not-quite-uniform of the Freedom Party. Most of the people on the trolley car were men about his age, and many of them had on the same kind of outfit he did. He didn't see anybody with a bludgeon. This wasn't supposed to be that kind of meeting. You could belong to the Tin Hats without being a Freedom Party man, and some people did.

When the trolley stopped at the Sloss Works, half a dozen more men got on. He recognized two or three of them. They nodded to one another. "Good to see you," one of them said. "How are you doing?"

"Not too bad, Tony," Pinkard answered. "No, not too bad. Party found me a job after I got canned, so I'm eating. And things look mighty good when the election rolls around."

"Sure do," Tony said. "About time, too."

The trolley stopped, brakes screeching. The motorman clanged his bell. "Avondale Park!" he said loudly. By the time men finished getting off the car, it was almost empty.

Under that warm, hopeful sun, Jeff walked toward the rostrum from which Amos Mizell would speak. Confederate flags and Tin Hat banners fluttered in the breeze. Here and there in the swelling crowd, men waved Freedom Party flags: the Confederate battle flag with colors reversed, red St. Andrew's cross on blue. Those, though, were unofficial.

Or were they? Up there on the rostrum, chatting with Mizell, stood Caleb Briggs, the head of the Freedom Party in Birmingham. The leader of the Tin Hats leaned closer to hear what Briggs had to say. Even nowadays, Briggs couldn't talk above a rasping whisper; the damnyankees had gassed him during the Great War.

Somebody yelled, "Freedom!" In an instant, the cry was deafening. Jefferson Pinkard shouted it out at the top of his lungs. The Freedom Party was the most important thing in his life these days. If it weren't for the Party, he hardly would have had a life.

Caleb Briggs grinned out at the crowd. His teeth were white and straight. A good thing, too-he was a dentist by trade. If he'd had a couple of missing choppers, he wouldn't have made much of an advertisement for his own work. He waved. The cries of, "Freedom!" redoubled.

Amos Mizell grinned and waved, too. A few people started singing "The Bonnie Blue Flag," the song the Tin Hats had taken for their own. Only a few, though-"The Bonnie Blue Flag" was hard to make out among the shouts of, "Freedom!" Mizell's grin slipped, although he kept waving. As at the rally, so across the CSA: these days, the Freedom Party spoke with a louder voice than the Tin Hats. That hadn't always been so. Had things gone a little differently, Mizell might have been standing in Jake Featherston's shoes. He had to be thinking about what might have been.

Then Caleb Briggs stepped up to the microphone. In his ruined voice, he said, "This is a Tin Hats rally, boys, not one of ours," and he started singing "The Bonnie Blue Flag." That tipped the balance. Following his lead, the Freedom Party men in the crowd sang the Tin Hats' anthem. Amos Mizell tipped his hat to Briggs. He still didn't look perfectly happy, though. The men weren't singing "The Bonnie Blue Flag" because they'd thought of it themselves, but because a Freedom Party big wig had asked them to. That had to sting.

Jeff pushed and elbowed his way toward the front of the crowd, trying to get as close to the platform as he could. A lot of other determined men were doing the same thing. He didn't get quite so close as he would have liked. Still, he was taller than most, and he could see well enough.

When the loud chorus of "The Bonnie Blue Flag" ended, Caleb Briggs walked up to the microphone again. He raised both hands in the air, asking for quiet. Little by little, he got it. "Let's give a big hello to a man who's done a lot for the cause of freedom in the Confederate States," he said, and paused to draw in a wheezing breath. He sounded as if he'd smoked a hundred packs of cigarettes all at once. "Friends, here's Mr. Amos Mizell."

Mizell towered over Briggs. He held up both hands, too. He was missing his left little finger-one more man who'd spilled his blood for the Confederate States. The fat cats had got the CSA into the war, Pinkard thought, and then they'd sat back in Richmond, miles away from the trenches, and let other people do the fighting. Well, their time was coming. His smile had nothing to do with mirth. Yes, their time was coming fast.

"We've been through it," Mizell said. "We've all been through it, and we wonder why the devil we went. By the time we were done, the Confederate States were worse off than when we started, and that's not how things were supposed to work. We were patriots. They told us we were going to teach the damnyankees another lesson. And then what happened?

"I'll tell you what, my friends. They left us in the lurch. We had to stand up to gas before we could give it back. We had to face barrels before we had any barrels of our own. We were fighting the USA, but we had to fight our own civil war, too, on account of they were asleep at the switch and didn't know the niggers were going to rise up and kick us in the… the slats. I see some ladies here."

The veterans who made up most of the audience snickered. They knew what Mizell would have said if he were, say, sitting in a saloon with a whiskey in his hand. The few women surely knew, too, but he hadn't said it, so their honor was satisfied.

He went on, "And then, after we did everything we could do, we lost anyway. I don't reckon we would have if the niggers had stayed and done their work, but we did. And what about the folks who sent us out to die? They kept on getting rich. They let the money go down the drain, but you didn't see them missing any meals."

"That's right," Jeff growled, and his was far from the only angry, baying voice in the crowd. He turned to a man beside him and said, "We should have strung those bastards up a long time ago."

"Oh, hell, yes," the other man said, as if the idea that anyone could disagree was unimaginable. He slammed a hand against the side of his thigh. " Hell, yes."

Mizell was continuing, "-no chance the Whigs will fix their own house. They've been in power too long. All they know about is hanging on to what they've already got. And the Radical Liberals?" He made a scornful gesture. "Losers. They've always been losers. They'll never be anything but losers. No. If we're going to set our own house in order, what we need is…" His voice trailed away. He waited expectantly.

He didn't have to wait long. The cry of, "Freedom!" roared from almost every throat. After that first great yell, it settled down into a steady chant: "Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!" Pinkard shouted it along with all the others, his fist pumping the air.

Amos Mizell raised his hands once more. Slowly, reluctantly, silence came. Mizell said, "That's right, friends. The Tin Hats know what this country needs. We need a new broom, a broom that will sweep all the old fools out of Richmond. We reckon the Freedom Party is the right one for the job. That's why I want all the Tin Hats in the country, regardless of whether they're registered in the Freedom Party or not, to vote for Jake Featherston. I tell you, we need to do everything we can to make that man president of the Confederate States of America. We'll throw everything we've got behind him, on account of he'll make this a country we can be proud to live in again."

He paused. "Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!" The chant rang out again. And then, a little at a time, another chant began to supplant it: "Feather ston! Feather ston! Feather ston!" The heavy, thudding stress on the last syllable was almost hypnotic.

"Feather ston! Feather ston! Feather ston!" Jefferson Pinkard shouted it, too. He'd been a Freedom Party man ever since the first time he heard Jake Featherston speak, not long after the war ended. He'd come this far with Jake; he wanted to go further. And now it looked as if he could, as if the whole CSA could.

As he looked around the crowd, he saw knots of men in white and butternut from whom the chant of, "Feather ston!" came loudest. He smiled to himself. No, Caleb Briggs didn't miss a trick. He must have given some of the boys special instructions. The only thing that surprised Pinkard was that the local Party boss hadn't recruited him to help change the chant. He shrugged. Briggs did as Briggs pleased.

"Feather ston! Feather ston!" Mizell seemed startled to hear the Freedom Party leader's name. The cry of, "Freedom!" he'd undoubtedly expected. This? No.

Well, too bad, Jeff thought. You back the Freedom Party, you've got to back Jake Featherston, too. No way around that, even if you wish there were.

By his manner up there on the rostrum, maybe the head of the Tin Hats wished exactly that. No matter how he wished things had turned out, his outfit was in second place, not first. Hearing Jake's name roared in his face at his own rally had to show him he would never run first.

Caleb Briggs stepped up to the microphone. It helped his harsh near-whisper carry: "We're all in this together, friends: Freedom Party, Tin Hats, the Redemption League out West, all the people who see what's wrong and who've got what it takes to stand up and fix it. When Jake Featherston wins this fall, we all win-every single one of us, and every single group. That's what we've got to take away from this rally today. Just like we were in the trenches, we're all in this together. Only difference is, this time, by God, we're going to win!"

No chant rose this time, just a great roar of agreement. Jeff pumped his fist in the air again, and his was far from the only one raised high. Up on the rostrum, Briggs put a hand on Amos Mizell's shoulder. He was smaller than the man who led the Tin Hats, but still somehow had the air of a father consoling a son.

After a moment, Mizell straightened-almost to attention, as if he were back in the Army again. He went to the microphone and said, "Dr. Briggs is right. When Jake Featherston's president, we all win. And we will win come November!"

He got his own round of applause then. Somebody in the crowd started singing "Dixie." Maybe it was one of the men with instructions from Briggs, maybe someone who'd had a good idea on his own. Either way, in the blink of an eye everyone sang it. Along with the rest of the men and women in Avondale Park, Pinkard bawled out the words. Tears stung his eyes. This was what mattered, this feeling of being part of something bigger, more important, than himself.

When the last raucous chorus ended, Briggs went over to the microphone. "Remember this, folks," he said. "Remember it good. What we've got here today, the whole country gets when we win."

Only a smattering of applause answered him. No more than a handful of people understood what he was talking about. But Jefferson Pinkard was one of those few. He beat his palms together till they were red and sore. That was what he wanted-the whole country like a Freedom Party rally. What could be better? Nothing he could think of.

The way things looked, the whole country wouldn't be able to think of anything better, either. That seemed very fine indeed to Jeff.

Something tickled Anne Colleton's memory when she checked into the Excelsior Hotel in Charleston. It tickled harder when she got into her room. The tickling wasn't of the pleasant sort. After she looked around the room, she realized why. Roger Kimball had tried to rape her here, almost ten years ago now. She'd given him a knee between his legs, aimed a pistol at him, and sent him on his way. In short order, he was dead, shot by that woman from Boston.

Anne sighed. Kimball had been loyal to Jake Featherston come hell or high water. Anne was loyal to nobody but herself, not like that. She'd thought Featherston was a loser, and she'd broken her ties to the Freedom Party. That was the biggest reason she and Roger had broken up, the biggest reason she hadn't given herself to him, the biggest reason he'd tried to take her by force.

And now here she was, back in Charleston, back in the Freedom Party. She tasted the irony there. Had Roger been right all along? Anne shook her head. She didn't care to admit that, even to herself. After she'd walked away from Featherston, the country had changed. That was what had brought her back.

Still, she granted herself the luxury of another sigh. It was too bad. She'd never found anybody who could match Roger Kimball in bed.

A glance in the mirror on the dresser told her she probably never would. A good start on a double chin, lines on her face no powder could hide, the harshness of dye to hold gray at bay… She wasn't a young beauty any more. Now she had to get her way with brains, which wasn't so easy and took longer.

"What can't be cured…" she said, and deliberately turned away from the mirror. The only alternative to getting older was not getting older. The Yankees had gassed her younger brother, Jacob. They'd gassed him, and the Negroes on the Marshlands plantation had murdered him in the uprising of 1915. He'd never had a chance. She'd taken some revenge on them after the war. More still waited. She'd never disagreed with the Freedom Party about that.

She unpacked her own suitcase. Once upon a time, she'd have had a colored maid to do it for her. The last one she'd had came much too close to murdering her in the long aftermath of the uprising. No more.

Once everything was put away, she went downstairs. A man sitting on an overstuffed chair in the lobby, a chair whose upholstery had seen better days, got to his feet and took off his hat. "Evening, Miss Colleton!" he said. "Freedom!"

"Good evening, Mr. Henderson," Anne answered. A beat slower than she should have, she added, "Freedom!" herself. The Party greeting still struck her as foolish. But she'd made the bargain, and she had to go through with it.

"Hope you had a pleasant drive down," James Henderson said. He held out his hand. She briskly shook it. His eyes widened slightly. He hadn't expected so firm a grip. He was a few years younger than Anne- everyone is a few years younger than I am these days, she thought unhappily-lean as a lath, with a face so bony, it might have come off the label of an iodine bottle. He wore the ribbon for the Purple Heart on his lapel.

"It was all right," Anne said. "Some people drive for the sport of it. I drive to get where I'm going."

"Sensible," Henderson said. Men said that to her a lot these days, as they'd once said, Beautiful. She missed the other. This would have to do. Beauty didn't last. Brains did. She'd realized that a long time ago. She'd had brains even then, though men had done their best not to notice. Henderson went on, "Shall we eat some supper? We can talk then, and figure out where to go from there."

"All right," Anne said. Not so many years earlier, he would have wanted to go back to her room and take her to bed. Now he probably didn't. That made doing business simpler. Most of the time, she appreciated it because it did. Every once in a while, she found herself pining for days gone by.

"Hotel restaurant suit you, or would you rather go somewhere else?" Henderson was doing his best to be polite. A fair number of Freedom Party men either didn't bother or didn't know how.

"The hotel restaurant is fine," she answered.

She ordered crab cakes; she took advantage of Charleston seafood whenever she came down to the coast. Henderson chose fried chicken. They both ordered cocktails. The colored waiter who took their orders went back to the kitchen without writing them down; odds were he couldn't write. James Henderson's eyes followed him. "Wonder where he was in 1915, and what he did."

"He looks too young to have done anything much," Anne said. "Of course, you never can tell."

"Sure can't." Henderson scowled. He needed a visible effort to draw himself back to the business at hand. "Let's talk about Congress and the Legislature."

"Right," Anne said briskly. Henderson might be skinny enough to dive through a soda straw without hitting the sides, but he came to the point. She liked that. She went on, "We can figure that Jake Featherston is probably going to win this state."

"Doesn't mean we won't campaign for him here," Henderson said.

"No, of course not," Anne agreed. "We don't want any nasty surprises. But the rest of the ticket has to run well, too. Freedom Party Congressmen will help Jake get his laws through. The state legislators need to back us, too-and they're the ones who choose C.S. Senators. We're still weak in the Senate, because we didn't start getting a lot of people elected to state legislatures till 1929."

James Henderson nodded. He began to say something more, but the waiter came back with drinks, and then with dinner. The fellow started to give Anne the chicken; she pointed to her companion to show where it should go. "Sorry, ma'am," the colored man said. He set things right, then withdrew.

Henderson looked around to make sure he was out of earshot before resuming. "Can't trust 'em," the Freedom Party man said. Anne couldn't quarrel with him there. Henderson continued, "Anything they hear, the Rad Libs know tomorrow and the Whigs the day after."

Anne wasn't so sure about that, but didn't care to argue with it, either. All she said was, "They know they have to try to stop us any way they can. They know, but I don't think they can do it."

"Have to make sure they don't. We have to make sure any way we need to." Henderson let her draw her own pictures.

She had no trouble doing just that. "We don't want to go too far," she said. "If we do, it'll only hurt us, cost us votes. The average law-abiding Confederate has to think we're the right answer, not the wrong one. We've shot ourselves in the foot before when we pushed too hard. We need to pick our spots."

The skeletal man across the table from her nodded. "See who's really dangerous," he said, and bared a lot of teeth in a grin. "Won't be so dangerous once we run over 'em with barrels a few times."

Anne thought that was a figure of speech. She wasn't quite sure, though, and didn't care to ask. Theoretically, the armistice with the USA banned barrels from the CSA. The government had never admitted to having any-nor could it, without risking Yankee wrath. If a couple of them should suddenly clatter down a street with Freedom Party men inside… If that happened, Anne wouldn't have been astonished.

She said, "Looks to me like we're thinking along the same lines, Mr. Henderson… Do you want to get some more chicken?" He'd reduced half a bird to bones in nothing flat.

"Don't mind if I do." Henderson waved for the waiter. As the Negro took the request back to the kitchen, Henderson gave a half apologetic smile. "Always been scrawny, no matter how much I eat."

"I wish I could say that." Corsets had been out of fashion for a good many years now, but Anne was tempted to get back into one to help her remind the world she did still have a waist. She wished she could wear a corset under her jaw, too, to fight the sagging flesh there. In fact, there were such things, intended to be put on at night. Three different doctors, though, had assured her they did no good.

The waiter returned with another whole chicken leg. Henderson devoured it. He patted his pale lips with his napkin. "Hit the spot."

"Good." Even if she envied him at the same time, Anne couldn't help liking a man who put away his food like that. She went on, "We have to hit the spot in November, too. We have to. If we lose this time, I don't think we'll ever get another chance."

After Grady Calkins assassinated President Hampton, after the Confederate currency stabilized when the USA eased back on reparations, the Freedom Party had sunk like a stone, and had stayed down though almost all the 1920s. If it failed again, she was sure it wouldn't revive. She couldn't stand the idea of trying to make peace with the Whigs once more. This run had to reach the top.

"Don't you worry about that, ma'am," James Henderson said. "Jake Featherston, he isn't about to lose." So, four hundred years before, a Spanish soldier seeing the might and wealth of the Inca Empire might have spoken of Pizarro. The Spaniard would have been right. Anne thought the Freedom Party man was, too, even if that ma'am rankled. Henderson wasn't so very much younger than she was.

She said, "It's not just Jake, remember. We want to grab with both hands."

"Think you're right," Henderson said. "Legislators, Congressmen-every place where we can win, we'll fight like the devil."

"That's right. Mayors and county commissioners and sheriffs, too. Some of those people can appoint judges, and the more judges on our side, the better. Same with sheriffs. A lot of them-and city policemen, too-have been on our side for a long time."

"Better be," Henderson said, nodding. The waiter came up with a coffeepot. After he'd filled cups for Anne and Henderson, he retreated once more. Henderson waited, poured in lots of cream and sugar, tasted, added more sugar yet, and then continued, "By the time we're done, we'll have this state sewed up tight, you bet."

"Oh, yes," Anne said softly. "And not just South Carolina, either. By the time we're done, we'll have the whole country sewn up tight."

"That's the idea," Henderson said.

Anne wondered if Jake Featherston had thought he could come within arm's reach of ruling the Confederate States when he first joined the Freedom Party. What would he say if she asked him? And would what he said be true? Would he really recall here in 1933 what he'd thought and hoped and dreamt back in 1917? Even if he did, would he admit it? She had her doubts.

The waiter returned again. "Dessert, folks? Apple pie is mighty fine today, or we've got cherry or lemon meringue or pecan, too."

"Apple," Henderson said at once. "Slap some ice cream on top, too."

"Yes, suh." The waiter looked to Anne. "Anything for you, ma'am?"

She shook her head. "I couldn't possibly."

James Henderson could, and did. He had a second cup of coffee to go with the pie a la mode, too, and doctored it as thoroughly as he had the first. With a sigh of regret, he pushed away the empty plate. "Yeah, that hit the spot."

"If we do as well in November as you did at the supper table here, the Whigs are in even more trouble than I thought," Anne said.

He grinned. "We'll clean 'em up and wash 'em down the drain. Just what they've got coming." Anne nodded. She felt victory in the air, too.

When Scipio walked into Erasmus' fish store and cafe, he knew right away something was wrong. His boss looked like a man whose best friend had just died. Without preamble, Erasmus said, "I gwine shut her down, Xerxes."

"Do Jesus!" Scipio said. He'd spent a lot of time here; he'd thought the place would go on forever-or at least as long as Erasmus did, which had looked as if it might be the same thing. "Why for you do dat?" he demanded.

"You recollect how once upon a time them Freedom Party bastards come by here?" Erasmus said. "They was gonna take money from me so nothin' happen to the store."

"I recollects, uh-huh," Scipio said. "Then the Freedom Party go down de drain, an' dey don't come back no mo'."

"They's back." All of a sudden, Erasmus looked old. He looked beaten. And he looked afraid. "Can't rightly tell if they's the same bastards as all them years ago, but they's the same kind o' bastards, an' that's what counts. They say I don't pay 'em what they want, I git bad luck like you don't believe. I ain't no fool, Xerxes. You don't got to draw me no pictures. I know what that means."

"How much they want?" Scipio asked.

"Too much," his boss answered. "Too damn much. Cut my profit down to nothin'. Down to less'n nothin'. I try an' tell 'em that. Way they look at me, it's That's your worry, nigger. We don't care, long as we gits ours. So I's shuttin' down, like I say. Sell this place, live off what I gits. I'm an old man now. Reckon the money'll last me."

"This here's blackmail," Scipio said. "You ought to go to the po lice."

Erasmus shook his head. "Ain't no use. It's like it was back the las' time. Some o' these fuckers, they is the po lice."

Scipio had never heard the older man use an obscenity like that. "Got to be somebody kin he'p you."

"If I was white…" But Erasmus shook his head. "Mebbe even that don't do no good, not now. These Freedom Party buckra, it's like they got everything goin' their way, and nobody else got the nerve to stand up to 'em. They win the 'lection, they's top dogs for six years, an' everybody reckon they gwine win."

"I knows it. I's scared, and dat de trut'," Scipio said. "What kin a nigger do? Can't do nothin'. Can't even vote. Can't run, neither-ain't nowhere to run to. USA don't want nothin' to do wid we. An' if we fights-"

"We loses," Erasmus finished for him. "Dumb Reds done showed dat durin' the war. Never shoulda riz up then, on account of they shoulda knowed they lose."

I thought the same thing. I told Cassius the same thing. He wouldn't listen to me. He was sure the revolution would carry everything before it. He was sure, and he was wrong, and now he's dead. Scipio couldn't say a word of that. He had a new name here. He had a new life here. Remembering things he'd done long ago, in another state and in another state of mind… What point to it? None he could see, especially since time-yellowed, creased wanted posters still proclaimed his other self fugitive from what South Carolina called justice.

Erasmus went on, "Sorry I got to let you go like this here. I know it ain't right. Times is hard, an' you gots young 'uns. But I can't help it, Xerxes. Can't stay in business no more. You hook on somewheres else, mebbe."

"Mebbe." Scipio didn't really believe it. How many places were hiring waiters? Even asking the question of himself made him want to laugh.

But it wasn't funny. It was anything but funny, as a matter of fact. Bathsheba's housekeeping work brought in some money, but not enough. He would have to find something to do, and find it fast.

I could be the best butler Augusta, Georgia's, ever seen. If he'd passed muster for Anne Colleton, he could pass muster here. True, he had no references, but he was good enough to show what he could do even without them. And rich people always had money. People like that were always looking for good help. When he opened his mouth and showed he could talk like an educated white man…

He shook his head and shivered, as if coming down with the influenza. When I show that, I put a noose around my neck. He knew what a good servant he made. If he started playing the butler again, word would spread among the rich whites of Augusta. Old So-and-So's got himself a crackerjack new nigger, best damn butler you ever saw. Word wouldn't spread only in Augusta, either. St. Matthews, South Carolina, wasn't that far away. Anne Colleton would hear before too long. And when she did, he was dead.

She'd gone back to helping the Freedom Party. He'd seen that in the newspapers. She wouldn't have forgotten him. So far as he knew, she hadn't tried very hard to find him after he'd escaped South Carolina for Georgia. But if he did anything to bring himself to her notice, he deserved to die for stupidity's sake.

Erasmus reached into the cash box and took out two brown twenty-dollar banknotes. He thrust them at Scipio. "Here you is," he said. "Wish it could be more, but I druther give it to you than to them Freedom Party trash."

Pride told Scipio to refuse. He had no room in his life for pride. "Thank you kindly," he said, and took the money. "God bless you."

"He done bless me plenty," Erasmus said. "Hope He watch out for you, too."

Someone else had pressed money on Scipio when he lost a job waiting tables. He snapped his fingers. "Reckon I go see me Mistuh John Oglethorpe. Anybody in this here town got work, reckon he know 'bout it."

"Good idea." Erasmus nodded. "Not all white folks is Freedom Party bastards."

These days, Scipio ventured out of the Terry only with trepidation. He didn't like the way white men looked at him when he walked along the streets outside the colored district. They looked at him the way they had to look at possums and squirrels and raccoons when they hunted for the pot.

Freedom Party posters and banners and emblems were everywhere. He saw several white men with little enamelwork Freedom Party pins-those reversed-color Confederate battle flags-on their lapels. More than anybody else, they glared at him as if he had no right to exist. He kept his eyes down on the sidewalk. Giving back look for look was the worst thing he could do. If one of those pin-wearing fellows decided he was an uppity nigger, he might not get back to the Terry alive.

When he walked into Oglethorpe's restaurant, Aurelius was taking care of the breakfast crowd. Whites sat on one side of the room, Negroes on the other. They'd always done that. It wasn't law, but it was unbreakable custom. Scipio perched at a small table. Aurelius nodded when he recognized him.

"Ain't seen you in a long time," he said. "What kin I git you?"

"Bacon and eggs over easy and grits and a cup o' coffee," Scipio answered. "I see Mistuh Oglethorpe when things slows down?"

"I tell him you's here," Aurelius said. "How come you ain't at Erasmus' place?"

"He shuttin' down," Scipio said, and the other man's eyes widened in astonishment. In a voice not much above a whisper, Scipio explained, "They wants too much money for he to stay open." He didn't explain who they were. Aurelius would know.

"Hey, Aurelius!" a white man called. "I need some more coffee over here."

"Comin', Mr. Benson." Aurelius hurried off to take care of the customer, and then another one, and then another one after that.

He didn't get back to Scipio's table till he set plate and coffee cup in front of him. "Thank you kindly," Scipio said, and dug in. John Oglethorpe was in no way a fancy cook, but few of his kind could match him. The breakfast was easily as good as any Erasmus made: high praise indeed. Scipio hadn't eaten grits in his days as Anne Colleton's privileged servant; he'd thought of them as fieldhands' food. He'd remade their acquaintance since, and found he liked them.

With Aurelius filling his cup every time it got low, he hung around in the restaurant till the rush thinned out. John Oglethorpe emerged from the kitchen then. His hair had gone gray and pulled back at the temples. He wore thick bifocals he hadn't had before, and was thinner and more stooped than Scipio remembered.

"What's this nonsense I hear about Erasmus goin' out of business?" he demanded. "He can't do that. He's been cooking even longer than I have."

"No mo'," Scipio said. "Freedom Party fellas, they wants too much money from he."

"Oh. Those people." The white man's voice went flat and hard. "I've always been a Whig, and so was my pappy, and so was his pappy-well, he was a Democrat before the War of Secession, but that doesn't count. Some people, though-some people think yelling something loud enough makes it so."

"Free dom!" Aurelius didn't yell it, but the scorn in his voice ran deep.

Scipio blinked. The cook and the waiter had worked together for God only knew how many years. Even so… As far as Scipio could remember, this was the first time-outside the brief, chaotic madness of the Congaree Socialist Republic-he'd ever heard a Negro mock a Confederate political party where a white could hear.

"Yellin' ain't all them Freedom Party fellas does," Scipio said. "Erasmus reckon somethin' bad happen to he if he don't pay, so he done quit."

"That's a shame and a disgrace," Oglethorpe said. "That is nothing but a shame and a disgrace. This town needs hardworking folks like Erasmus a hell of a lot more than it needs blowhards like those Freedom Party yahoos."

Did he know Gulliver's Travels? Or was he using the word as a general term of contempt? Scipio didn't see how he could ask. That might involve trying to explain how he knew Gulliver's Travels. He kept trying to bury his past, but it lived on inside him.

All he said was, "Yes, suh." And then he got down to the business that had brought him out of the Terry: "Mistuh Oglethorpe, I gots me a family to feed. I been workin' fo' Erasmus a good long time now. Ain't like you an' Aurelius, but a long time. You know somebody lookin' for a waiter? I does janitor work, too, an' I cooks some. Ain't as good as you an' Erasmus, but I ain't bad, neither."

Oglethorpe frowned. "I was afraid you were gonna ask me that. Why else would you come up here?" Scipio's face heated. The restaurant owner only shrugged. "I don't mind. If you know somebody, you better ask him. Only trouble is, I can't think of anyone who's short of help right now. What about you, Aurelius? You know the Terry a damn sight better than I do."

"I ought to, boss, don't you reckon?" But Aurelius' smile didn't stick on his face. "No, I don't know nobody, neither. Wish to heaven I did."

"Damn." Scipio spoke quietly, but with great feeling.

"May not be so bad," Oglethorpe said. "This isn't like some businesses-slots do open up now and again. You pound the pavement-you'll find something. You can use my name, too. Don't reckon you'll need to, though. You tell people you worked for Erasmus all these years, they'll know you're the straight goods."

"Hope so. Do Jesus, I hope so." Scipio drummed his fingers on the tabletop. "Hope somethin' come up pretty damn quick. Don't wanna end up in no Mitcheltown."

As soon as he said the word, he wished he hadn't. It wasn't that he didn't feel that fear. He did. But the shantytowns named after the Confederate president were a judgment on the Whigs. Calling them by that name-even thinking of them by that name-only helped the Freedom Party. Trouble was, everyone in the Confederate States called them Mitcheltowns, just as they were Blackfordburghs in the United States. Whoever chanced to be in power when the disaster struck got the blame.

"Good luck, Xerxes," John Oglethorpe said. "Wish to God I could do something more for you."

"Thank you kindly, suh," Scipio answered. "I thanks you very kindly. An' I wishes you could, too."

A s Hipolito Rodriguez had seen when he went up north to fight in Texas, spring could be a wonderful time of year, a time when the land renewed itself after the chill and gloom of winter. It wasn't like that in Sonora. Here, it was the time when the rains petered out. The weather got warmer, yes, but it had never really turned cold. He'd seen snow in the trenches of Texas. The memory still appalled him.

He eyed the streams coming down from the mountains. If they dried up, his crops would dry up with them. They seemed all right. He worried anyhow. He'd never known a farmer who didn't worry. Even the white men beside whom he'd fought had worried about what was happening to their farms while they went to war.

He'd plowed. He'd planted his corn and beans and squashes. Now he and the rest of his family watched them grow-and weeded to make sure they would grow. Work on a farm was never done. Even so, he sent his children into Baroyeca for schooling as often as they could go. He wanted them to have a chance at a life that wasn't work, work, work every minute of every day. He didn't know how much of a chance they would have, but any chance was better than none.

Teachers taught in English, of course. Rodriguez worried about that only every now and again-would the children forget their heritage? More often, he thought it good that they learn as much of the dominant language of the CSA as they could.

Magdalena knew very little English. With his wife, Rodriguez stuck to Spanish. Because of that, his sons and daughters-especially his sons-thought he understood less English than he really did. They started using it among themselves to say things they didn't want him to follow.

"Silly old fool," Miguel called him one day, smiling as if it were a compliment.

Rodriguez boxed his son's ears. He smiled, too, though he doubted whether Miguel appreciated it. "Silly young fool," he said, also in English.

After that, his children were a lot more careful when they had something to say either to him or about him. He went on about his business, more amused than otherwise. Life taught all sorts of lessons, and only some of them came from school.

No matter how tired he was at the end of a day, he tried to go into Baroyeca one evening a week for the Freedom Party meeting. Magdalena had given up complaining about that when she saw he came back neither drunk nor smelling of a puta 's cheap perfume.

As far as Rodriguez was concerned, the scent of victory in the air was headier than liquor, sweeter than the dubious charms of Baroyeca's handful of women of easy virtue. (With the closing of the silver mines, a lot of the whores had moved to other towns, towns where they hoped to do better for themselves. The business collapse had had all sorts of unexpected, unfortunate consequences.)

Robert Quinn did his best to fan that scent all over the countryside. Baroyeca still had no electricity. Quinn couldn't call people together to listen to Jake Featherston's weekly speeches on the wireless. He did the next best thing: he got the text of the speeches by telegram and translated them into Spanish himself. Even though it wasn't his native tongue, he spoke well, and plainly believed every word he said.

Those speeches gave Hipolito Rodriguez a window on a wider world, a world beyond Baroyeca. After one of them, he said, " Senor Quinn, you are a traveled man. Is it true what Senor Featherston says, that these politicians in Richmond are nothing but criminals?"

"If Jake Featherston says it, you can take it to the bank," Quinn answered-he would sometimes translate English idioms literally into Spanish. Considering the sad state of banking in the CSA these days, this one lost something in the translation. Even so, Rodriguez understood it. Quinn went on, "How can you trust the Party if you don't trust what Jake Featherston says? You can't. It's as simple as that. You do trust the Party, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Rodriguez answered quickly; he knew a dangerous question when he heard one. That didn't mean he wasn't telling the truth, though. "Without the Party, what would we be?"

"Bad off, that's what," Quinn replied. "But as long as we follow what Jake says, we'll be fine. He's the leader. He knows what's what. All we have to do is back him up. That's our job. Comprende? "

"Si, senor," Rodriguez said as the other men at the meeting nodded.

"Bueno." Quinn grinned. "If Jake was wrong, he couldn't have come as far as he has, now could he? He couldn't see what all was wrong with los Estados Confederados, either, eh? We've got a lot of work to do to win this election, and we'll have even more to do after we win it."

Carlos Ruiz asked a question that had also been in Rodriguez's mind: "After Senor Featherston wins the election, what will the Confederate States be like?"

"That's easy, Carlos," Robert Quinn answered. "That's real easy, to tell you the truth. Once Jake Featherston gets to be president, we will fix everything that's wrong with the Confederate States of America. Everything, by God. And once we fix everything that's wrong inside the country, then we start thinking about getting even with los Estados Unidos, too. How does that sound?"

"I like it," Ruiz said simply. Rodriguez nodded. So did the rest of the local men at the Freedom Party headquarters. How could anyone not like such a program? The United States were a long way off, yes, but they deserved vengeance. The room was full of veterans. They'd all fought the USA during the war.

Someone behind Rodriguez said, "I don't want to go back into the Army, but I will if I have to." That drew more nods. To his own surprise, Rodriguez found himself contributing one. He'd had all the war he wanted, and then some. But if it was a matter of turning the tables on the USA, he knew he would redon the color the Confederates called butternut.

"You are all good, patriotic men. I knew you were," Quinn said in his deliberate Spanish. "But I have a question for you. I know your patron is not such a big man as he was in your grandfather's day. How many of you, though, have a patron who tries to keep you from voting for the Freedom Party?"

Two or three men raised their hands. Carlos Ruiz was one of them. He said, "Don Joaquin says the Freedom Party is nothing but a pack of bandidos, and must be stopped."

"Does he? Well, well, well." Robert Quinn grinned again, a grin that was all sharp teeth. "We have a saying in English: who will bell the cat? Does Don Joaquin think he can put the bell on the Partido de la Libertad?"

"I don't know what you mean, Senor Quinn," Ruiz answered. "He thinks he can tell people how to vote. Of that I am certain."

"And you do not think he ought to?" Quinn asked. Ruiz shook his head. The local Freedom Party leader said, "Perhaps he should change his mind."

"Don Joaquin is a stubborn man," Ruiz warned. Quinn showed his teeth again, but didn't say a word, not then.

As the meeting was breaking up, he asked Ruiz and Rodriguez and three or four other men to stay behind. "It would be a shame if anything happened to Don Joaquin's barn," he remarked. "It would be an even bigger shame if anything happened to his house."

"He has guards," Carlos said. "They carry pistols."

Quinn opened a closet. Inside were neatly stacked Tredegar rifles. "Do you think the guards would listen to reason?" he asked. "If they decide not to listen to reason, do you think you could persuade them?"

The locals looked at one another. No, a patron wasn't what his grandfather had been. Still, the idea of attacking his grounds, of attacking his buildings, hadn't crossed their minds up till now. "If we do this," Hipolito Rodriguez said slowly, "we have to win, and Senor Featherston has to win in November. If either of those things fails, we are dead men. You understand this, I hope."

"Oh, yes." Quinn nodded. "This is not the Army. This is not even the way it is in some of the other Confederate states. I am not going to give you orders. But if you want to teach this fellow a lesson, I can help you." He pointed to the Tredegars. "The question is, how badly do you want to be free?"

A few nights later, Rodriguez slid quietly through the darkness, a military rifle in his hands. He hadn't carried a Tredegar since 1917, but the weight felt familiar. So did the crouch in which he moved.

A dog barked. Somebody called, "Who's there?" Silence, except for the barking. A moment later, a yelp punctuated it, along with the sound of a kick. "Stupid dog," Don Joaquin's sentry muttered. Rodriguez waited. One of his friends was going forward.

The brief sound of a scuffle. No shouts-only bodies thrashing. A fresh voice called, "Come on." The Freedom Party men hurried past a body.

There stood Don Joaquin's house. The grandee had only two sons and a daughter, but his dwelling was four or five times the size of Hipolito Rodriguez's. And the stable and barn not far away were even bigger. How much livestock did he have? How much did any one man need? A guard paced around the barn. He paced, yes, but he wasn't looking for trouble. It found him all the same. Silent as a serpent, a raider sneaked up behind him and clapped a hand over his mouth. He let out only a brief, horrified gurgle as the knife went home.

When the raider let the body sag to the ground, another man ran forward with gasoline. He splashed it on the wooden doors and the wall of the barn, then stepped back, lit a cigarette, and flipped it into the pool of gas that had run down from the doors. Yet another Freedom Party man gave the stables the same treatment.

Flames leaped and roared. Through their growing din, Rodriguez heard horses and mules and cattle and sheep neighing and braying and bellowing in terror. He also heard Don Joaquin's guards shouting in alarm. Their booted feet pounded on gravel and dirt as they ran to see what they could do.

He'd been waiting for that, waiting behind a boulder that gave him splendid cover. Almost of itself, the Tredegar leaped to his shoulder. He hadn't fired one in a long time, but he still knew what to do. The range was ridiculously short, and the flames lit up his targets for him. If only things were so easy during the Great War, he thought, and squeezed the trigger.

One of the targets fell. He tried to think of them like that, as he had during the war. He wasn't the only Freedom Party man shooting. Another guard toppled, and another, and another. The guards had fought against the USA, too. They dove for whatever hiding places they could find, and started shooting back. The cracks of their pistols seemed feeble beside the Tredegars' roars. But, when one of their bullets pinged off the stone behind which Rodriguez crouched, he reminded himself any gun could kill.

"Away!" Carlos Ruiz called. No shouts of Freedom! here. Don Joaquin might suspect who'd done this, but what could he do, what would he dare do, without proof? He had to know the raiders could as easily have burned his house, with him and his family in it.

Rodriguez slipped back to another sheltering boulder, and then to one behind that. Then he was far enough from the blazing buildings to stop worrying about the flames giving him away. Before too long, people would be scouring the countryside, looking for him and his friends. He intended to be back in bed by then. Magdalena and his children would say he'd been there all night. And Don Joaquin would know better than to tell people with guns of their own how to vote.