Breakthroughs

IV

Sam Carsten swabbed the deck of the USS Dakota with a safety line tied round his waist. The battleship pitched like a toy boat in a rambunctious boy’s bathtub, chewing its way over and through waves that put to shame any others he’d ever known.

He shouted to his bunkmate, Vic Crosetti, who plied a mop not far away: “Everything they say about Cape Horn is true!”

“Yeah,” Crosetti shouted back, through the howl of the wind. “Only trouble is, they don’t say near enough, the tight-mouthed sons of bitches.”

There was nothing tight-mouthed about him. He was a voluble Italian, little and swarthy and hairy and ugly as a monkey. Carsten, by contrast, was tall and muscular, with pink skin and hair so blond, it was almost white.

Crosetti leered at him. “You sunburned yet, Sam?”

“Fuck you,” Carsten said amiably. He’d burned in San Francisco. Christ, he’d burned in Seattle. Duty in the Sandwich Islands and the tropical Pacific had been a hell of burning and peeling and zinc oxide and half a dozen other ointments that didn’t do any good, either. “I finally find weather that suits me, and what do I get? A scrawny dago giving me a hard time.”

Had some men called him a scrawny dago, Crosetti would have answered with a kick in the teeth or a knife in the ribs. When Sam did, he grinned. Carsten had a way of being able to talk without ticking people off. He even had trouble starting brawls in waterfront saloons.

Another enormous swell sweeping along from west to east lifted the Dakota to its crest. For a moment, Sam could see a hell of a long way. He spotted another battleship from the U.S. force that had set out from Pearl Harbor for Valparaiso, Chile, the autumn before-except autumn meant nothing in the Sandwich Islands and was spring down in Chile. Farther off, he made out a U.S. armored cruiser and a couple of the destroyers that guarded the big battlewagons from harm.

He also spied a Chilean armored cruiser. But for the different flag and different paint job-the Chileans preferred a sky blue to the U.S. gray-it looked the same as its American counterpart. It should have; it had come out of the Boston Navy Yard.

Pointing to it, Carsten said, “We sold the Chileans their toys, and England sold the Argentines theirs. Now we get to find out who’s a better toymaker.”

“Hell with all of ’em,” Crosetti said. “If Argentina was on our side, Chile’d be in bed with the limeys. But Argentina’s keeping England fed, so Chile ends up playin’ on our team. Big deal, you ask me.”

“Hey, listen, if Argentina was on our side, we’d be sailing east to west, straight into all these damn waves and this stinking wind instead of riding with ’em. How’d you like that?”

“No thanks,” Crosetti said at once.

Carsten got a faraway look in his eyes. “How’d you like to try sailing east to west through here in a ship without an engine-I mean really sailing through here?” he said. Crosetti crossed himself. Sam laughed. “Yeah, that’s how I feel about it, too.”

“They were tough bastards in the old days,” Vic Crosetti said. “Stupid bastards, too, to want to come down to such a god-forsaken corner of the world.”

Before Carsten could answer that, klaxons started hooting, a noise hideous enough to cut through the raging wind. Everyone on deck undid his safety line and ran for his battle station. Sam had no idea whether it was a drill or whether some destroyer up ahead had spotted British or Argentine or maybe even French ships. He knew he had to treat the noise as if shells would start dropping around-or on-the Dakota at any moment.

The battleship sank into the trough between waves, plunging her bow steeply downward. Sam’s foot skidded on seawater. He flailed his arms wildly, and somehow managed to keep from falling on his face. Then his shoes rang on metal rungs as he went below.

His battle station was loader on the forwardmost starboard five-inch gun. He flung himself into the cramped sponson and waited to see what would happen next.

There ahead of him-he would have been astonished were it otherwise-was the commander of that five-inch gun, a chief petty officer and gunner’s mate named Hiram Kidde and more often than not called “Cap’n.” He’d ditched his habitual cigar somewhere on the way to the sponson. He couldn’t have been too far from it; he wasn’t breathing hard, and he was a roly-poly fellow who’d been in the Navy for years before Sam got his first pair of long pants.

“Is this practice, or for real?” Sam asked.

“Damned if I know,” Kidde answered. “Think they tell me anything?”

In scrambled the rest of the crew: gun layers and shell jerkers. They were all at their stations when Commander Grady, who was in charge of the starboard secondary armament, stuck his head into the sponson. Grady nodded approval; he was a pretty decent sort. “Well done, men,” he said.

Hiram Kidde asked the same question Carsten had: “What’s the dope, sir? Is this just another drill, or have we got trouble up ahead?”

“We’ve got trouble up ahead sure as the sun comes up tomorrow,” Grady answered. “Sooner or later, if they don’t stop us, we are going to be in position to disrupt shipments of wheat and beef from Argentina to England. If we can do that, the limeys starve, so they’ll move heaven and earth to keep us away.”

“I understand that, sir,” Kidde answered patiently. “What I meant was, have we got trouble up ahead right now?” Grady would know. Whether he would tell was liable to be a different question.

He started to answer, but then somebody in the corridor spoke to him. “What?” he said, sounding surprised. He hurried off.

“Damn,” said Luke Hoskins, one of the shell haulers. He was the right man for his job, being both taller and thicker through the shoulders than Carsten, who wasn’t small himself. Nobody the size of, say, Vic Crosetti could have handled five-inch, sixty-pound shells as if he were about to load them into his shotgun. Also, shell-jerker wasn’t the sort of job that called for much in the way of brains.

“I think it’s-” Kidde began, just as the klaxons signaled the all-clear.

“You were going to say you thought it was the real thing, weren’t you?” Carsten said as they started filing out of the cramped sponson.

He expected Kidde to deny everything, but the gunner’s mate nodded. “Hell yes, I did. We should have done this months ago, instead of wasting time in Valparaiso and Concepcion like we did. Shit, we were ready, but the Chilean Navy ain’t what you’d call a fireball.”

“How do you say tomorrow in Spanish?” Carsten said. “Manana, that’s it. I wonder how many times we heard manana up there.”

“Too damn many, however many it was,” Kidde said positively. “Wasted time, wasted time.” He shook his head, a slow, mournful gesture. “Seas wouldn’t have been near so heavy if we’d got moving in the middle of summer hereabouts instead of waiting till we were heading down toward fall. I still don’t trust our steering, either. Wish I did, but I don’t.”

Carsten’s laugh was a noise he made to hold fear at bay. “What’s the matter, ‘Cap’n’? You don’t want to do a circle toward the limeys and Argentines, the way we did toward the limeys and Japs in the Battle of the Three Navies?”

Kidde swore loudly and sulfurously for a couple of minutes before calming down enough to say, “We were lucky once, which is how come we ain’t on the bottom of the Pacific. You can’t count on being lucky once. You sure as hell can’t count on being lucky twice.”

“I expect you’re right.” Carsten went up onto the main deck, made his way back to where he’d been working, and reattached his safety line. He might as well have been starting over from scratch; plenty of seawater had splashed up since he’d dashed to his battle station.

Vic Crosetti resumed his place a minute or so later. They were jawing back and forth when a starched young lieutenant, junior grade, came up and said, “Seaman Carsten?” When Sam admitted he was himself, the officer said, “The force commander will see you in his cabin immediately.”

“Sir?” If Sam’s heart didn’t skip a beat, he couldn’t guess why. He hadn’t thought Rear Admiral Bradley Fiske knew he existed. Like any other sensible sailor, he’d hoped that pleasant condition would continue indefinitely. In a choking voice, he asked, “What does he think I’ve done, sir?”

“Come with me, Carsten,” the j.g. answered, and Sam, a lump of ice about the size of the nearby Antarctic continent in his belly, had to obey.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed another officer bringing Vic Crosetti along. God damn that little dago, he thought. What’s he done, and how in hell did I get in hot water for it?

He seldom had occasion to go up into officers’ country. He’d never had occasion to visit the force commander’s quarters, nor imagined that he would. Sure as hell, Vic Crosetti was heading there, too. Carsten cursed under his breath.

The lieutenant, j.g., went in ahead of him, then came back out and said, “The admiral will see you-both of you-now.” As they went in, Crosetti gave Sam a venomous glare. Christ, Sam thought, does he figure he’s in trouble on account of something I did? What kind of foul-up have we got here?

There stood Rear Admiral Fiske, a sturdy man of about sixty, in the middle of a cabin that could have held half a dozen three-level bunks. So much space inside the Dakota was amazing. Even more amazing was the bottle of medicinal brandy Fiske held, and that he poured three glasses from it, handing one to Sam and one to Crosetti and keeping the third for himself. “Congratulations, you men!” he boomed.

Carsten and Crosetti stared at each other, then at Rear Admiral Fiske. Sam felt as if he’d been up and down too fast on the Coney Island roller coaster. He had to say something. He knew he had to say something. “Sir?” His voice was a hoarse croak.

Fiske looked impatient. He knew what was going on, which struck Carsten as an unfair advantage. “Some time ago, you two men reported your suspicions that a certain native of the Sandwich Islands, one John Liholiho, used his position and good nature to spy for England after the USA took the said islands from her at the outbreak of the war. Investigation has confirmed those suspicions, I am informed by wireless telegraph. Liholiho has been arrested and sentenced to death.”

“Sir?” Sam and Crosetti said it together now, in astonishment. Sam had almost forgotten about the affable, surf-riding Sandwich Islander. He’d long since assumed Liholiho wasn’t in fact a spy, because no one had said anything to the contrary.

Fiske was saying that now. He was also saying something else: “You men are both promoted from Seaman First Class to Petty Officer Third Class, effective the date of your report. Back pay in your new rank will also accrue from the said date.” He raised his glass in salute. “Well done, both of you!” He drank.

Numbly, Carsten raised his own glass. Numbly, he drank, and discovered the rear admiral got a much better grade of medicine than did the men he commanded. After the stuff went off like a bomb in his stomach, he wasn’t numb any more. He tried on a smile for size. It fit his face like a glove.

As Scipio walked down the road toward the swamp, he knew he was a dead man. Oh, his lungs still moved air in and out, his heart still beat, his legs still took step after step. He was a dead man even so. The only questions left were who would kill him, how soon, and how long he’d hurt before he finally died.

He looked back over his shoulder. Somewhere back there, Anne Colleton was liable to have a scope-mounted Tredegar aimed at his spine. She’d had one slung on her back when she sent him out on his way to the swamps by the Congaree. By the way she handled it, she knew just what to do with it, too.

She’d started following him. He didn’t know if she still was. He’d caught glimpses of her once or twice, but only once or twice. He got the idea she’d wanted him to get those glimpses, to remind him she was on his trail. When she wanted him not to see her, he didn’t. He’d never dreamt she could stalk like that.

Was she good enough to stalk Cassius? Scipio found that hard to believe. Cassius had been Marshlands’ chief hunter for years. What he didn’t know about the swamps of the Congaree, no one did. He’d been able to keep the raiders who were the hard core of the Congaree Socialist Republic a going concern in the swamp for most of a year after the Socialist Republic was crushed everywhere else.

And Cassius and the rest of the Red holdouts were about as likely to kill him as Anne Colleton was. If they found out he was acting as her bird dog, they would kill him. They might kill him simply for abandoning the cause and trying to live what passed for a normal life in the CSA after the black uprising went down to defeat.

Something rose from the roadside marsh in a thunder of wings. Scipio’s heart rose, too, into his throat. But it was only an egret, flapping away from his unwanted company. When he was a boy, the big white birds had been far more common than they were today. The demand for plumes on ladies’ hats had all but caused their extermination. Only a shift in fashion let any survive.

Here where-he hoped-no one could hear him, he trotted out the educated white man’s voice he’d used while serving as butler at Marshlands: “And what shift in fashion will let me survive?” For the life of him-literally, for the life of him-he could think of none.

He looked around. Water, rushes, trees. The road was turning into a muddy track. Everything seemed prosaic enough. Of course, he was only on the edge of the swamp as yet. The Negro field hands back at Marshlands had peopled the wet country with monsters with sharp teeth and glowing yellow eyes.

Those stories were nothing but superstitious twaddle. So claimed the part of him that had been so carefully educated. The little boy who had listened round-eyed to the stories the grannies told wasn’t so sure. He looked around again, more nervously this time. Nothing. Only swamp. Of course, that meant cougars and gators and cottonmouths and rattlers and-he slapped-mosquitoes and the no-see-’ems that bit and vanished. He slapped again.

The road forked, and then forked again, and then again. It went in among the trees now, and the oaks and willows and pines made the sun play hide-and-seek. The road divided yet again. Every turn Scipio took was one leading deeper into the swamp.

If he didn’t find the men of the Congaree Socialist Republic, he wondered if he’d be able to find his way out. If Cassius didn’t kill him, and if Anne Colleton didn’t kill him, the swamp was liable to do him in.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than three Negroes with Tredegars stepped silently out into the roadway. They wore red bandannas on their left arms. “Nigger, you ain’t got no good reason to be here, you is one dead nigger,” one of them said. Two of their rifles were bayoneted. They wouldn’t even have to risk the noise of a gunshot to dispose of him.

He licked his lips. The bayonets looked very long and sharp. “I wants to see Cassius, or maybe Cherry,” he answered in the broad patois of the Congaree. “I is on de business o’de Socialist Republic.”

None of the three fighting men was from Marshlands or any nearby plantation. They didn’t know him by sight, as many of Cassius’ men would have. “Who you is?” their spokesman asked.

“I’s Scipio,” he said.

Their eyes went wide in their dark faces. They knew the name, if not the man who went with it. “Maybe you is, an’ maybe you ain’t,” said the one who had spoken first.

“Take me to Cassius. Take me to Cherry,” Scipio said. “You ask they who I is an’ who I ain’t.”

The fighters put their heads together. After a minute of low-voice argument, the one who seemed to lead handed his Tredegar to a comrade, took the bandanna off his arm, and walked up to Scipio. “Maybe you is, an’ maybe you ain’t,” he repeated. “An’ maybe you is, an’ you is a spy nowadays. You see Cassius an’ Cherry, but you don’ see how to get to they.” He efficiently blindfolded Scipio with the square of red cloth.

“You insults me,” Scipio said with as much indignation as he could simulate. Had he been rejoining the forces of the Congaree Socialist Republic in truth, he would have protested being blindfolded. Since he was a spy (and since he was Anne Colleton’s spy, which, he suspected, made him more dangerous to Cassius than if he’d merely been a spy for the Confederate government), he had to do his best to seem as if he weren’t.

“Come on.” The man who covered his eyes grabbed him by the arm. “We takes you.”

He had no idea by what route they took him. It might have been the straightest one possible, or they might have spent half their time walking him around in circles. He wondered if Anne Colleton was still following him. He wondered what sort of watchers the survivors of the Congaree Socialist Republic had posted through the swamp. He wondered whether she could get past them if she was still following him. That he did not know the answer to any of those questions did not keep him from wondering about all of them.

After about an hour, his guide said, “Stop.” Scipio obeyed. The man who’d led him for so long took the blindfold off him. Standing side by side in front of him were Cassius and Cherry. She wore a collarless men’s shirt and a torn pair of men’s trousers. Scipio suppressed a shudder. Anne Colleton had worn men’s trousers, too, though hers were elegantly tailored.

Cassius hurried up and clasped Scipio’s hand. “Do Jesus, Kip,” he exclaimed. “Why fo’ you here? Las’ I hear, you is up in Greenville, an’ de buckra, dey forget you was ever borned.”

Scipio was anything but surprised Cassius had kept tabs on where he’d gone. He had dropped out of sight of the Confederate authorities, but the Negro grapevine was a different matter altogether. With a sigh, he answered with most of the truth: “Somebody rec’nize me up dere. Dey ’rested me, take me to St. Matthews.”

“To Miss Anne.” Cherry’s voice was flat and full of hate. Scipio nodded, more than a little apprehensively. She went on, “I reckon we done baked dat white debbil bitch las’ Christmas, but she git away.”

“She good.” Cassius spoke with reluctant respect. “She a damn ’pressor, but she good. We cain’t kill she, no matter how hard we tries.” His rather foxy features grew sharp and intent. “Why fo’ she send you in after we? She ask a truce? I don’ trust no truce wid she. She break it like the overseer break de stick on de back o’de field hand fo’ to get he to pick de cotton.”

“She say, de war ’gainst de United States mo’ ’portant than de war ’gainst de Congaree Socialist Republic,” Scipio replied, nodding. “She say, if de damnyankees licks de CSA, dey comes an’ licks de Congaree Socialist Republic, too. She say, we kin wait till de big war done, and den we fights our own.”

Cassius and Cherry and all three men who’d brought Scipio to this place burst out laughing. “She say dat?” Cherry said. With high cheekbones that told of Indian blood, Cherry’s face was made for showing scorn. She outdid herself now, tossing her head in magnificent contempt. “She say dat? Mighty fine, mighty fine. We let de ’pressors git rid o’de big war, an’ den dey puts all dey gots into de little war ’gainst we.”

“You go back to Miss Anne,” Cassius added, “an’ you tell she dat when she dead, den we can have a truce wid she. Till den, we fights. She ain’t licked we yet, an’ she ain’t gwine lick we, on account of we gots de dialectic wid we. She go on de rubbish heap o’ history, ’long wid de rest o’ de ’pressors.” Hearing Marxist revolutionary jargon in the dialect of the Congaree never failed to strike Scipio as bizarre.

Cherry’s eyes narrowed. “She have somebody follow you?” she demanded. “Dat white debbil, she have bloodhounds wid guns on your trail?”

Scipio spread his hands. “Don’ know,” he answered, though he had a pretty good idea. “I ain’t no huntin’ man. Back at Marshlands, I was de butler, you recollects. I ain’t hardly been in this swamp befo’.”

“Oh, we recollects,” Cassius said, grinning like a catamount. He had a flask on his belt. He freed it, swigged, and passed it to Scipio. “See if you recollects dis here.” Scipio drank. As butler, he’d sampled fine wines and good whiskey. This was raw corn likker, with a kick like a mule.

When he exhaled, he was amazed he didn’t breathe out fire and smoke. He took another pull. There was a roaring in his ears. After a moment, he realized the corn likker hadn’t caused it. It was real. It grew rapidly, and turned to a scream in the air. He’d heard that sound in the uprising the year before.

He threw himself flat. He wasn’t the first one on the ground, either. Artillery shells rained down. Explosions picked him up and flung him about. Shell fragments and shrapnel balls tore up the landscape. Blast from a near miss yanked at his ears and his lungs. Someone was screaming like a damned soul-the man who’d blindfolded him, his belly laid open like a butchered hog’s.

At last, the shelling ended. Scipio thanked the God he still trusted more than Marx that he was still in one piece. Also in one piece, Cassius took the bombardment in stride. “Miss Anne, she do have you followed,” he said, brushing mud from his shirt. “You want to go back to she now?” Numbly, Scipio shook his head. Cassius grinned. “Den we welcomes you to de Congaree Socialist Republic agin.”

Not having wanted to join the uprising in the first place, Scipio wanted even less to join this sad ghost of it. What possible fate could he have but being hunted down and killed? After a moment, he realized Anne Colleton couldn’t have had anything else in mind. You are mine, she’d told him. Now it pleased her to amuse herself with her possession.

As Major Abner Dowling was making his way from his tent to the farmhouse where General Custer and his wife were staying, an enormous Pierce-Arrow limousine came snarling up the road, raising an even more enormous cloud of dust. It pulled to a stop alongside of Major Dowling. “Excuse me, is this First Army headquarters?” the driver asked.

Dowling was about to give him a sarcastic answer-what the devil else would this be? — when he saw who was riding in the back of the limousine. Gold-rimmed spectacles, graying roan mustache, a big grin that showed an alarming number of teeth…He was so busy staring at President Theodore Roosevelt, he almost forgot to answer the driver’s question.

When Custer’s adjutant admitted the fellow had brought Roosevelt to the right place, the president said, “And you’re Dowling, aren’t you?” He got out of the motorcar and pointed at the portly soldier. “You come with me, Major. I’ll want to speak with you also.”

“Yes, Mr. President.” Dowling could scarcely have said anything else when his commander-in-chief gave him a direct order. He did not like the way Roosevelt had shown up unannounced at Custer’s headquarters. The likeliest explanation he could think of for Roosevelt’s unannounced appearance was one that put Custer in hot water-and himself, as well.

He moved his bulky frame as fast as he could, to get into the farmhouse ahead of the president. He hoped that would look as if he was escorting Roosevelt, not warning General Custer of his arrival.

Custer and Libbie were in the parlor. Instead of studying matters military, they were diligently going over newspapers. Intent on that, neither of them had noticed the Pierce-Arrow outside. Dowling said, “General, President Roosevelt is here to consult with you.” That was the best face he could put on the president’s arrival.

“Is he?” Custer said with a distinct sneer in his voice. Sure as hell, he and Roosevelt had loathed each other since the Second Mexican War, each convinced to the bottom of his stubborn soul that the other had nabbed more credit in that mostly sorry fight than he deserved.

“Yes, General, I am here,” Roosevelt said, stepping into the farmhouse on Dowling’s heels. Awkward with age, Custer got to his feet and saluted his commander-in-chief. In Montana, he’d been a Regular Army brevet brigadier general and Teddy Roosevelt a cavalry colonel of Volunteers. Now their relative ranks were reversed. Dowling knew how much Custer detested that.

“How good to see you, sir,” Custer said, looking and sounding like a man with a toothache.

“A pleasure, as always.” Roosevelt was manifestly lying, too. He nodded to Libbie. “And a pleasure to see you, Mrs. Custer. I hope you will excuse me for taking your husband away, but I do have some business to discuss with him and with Major Dowling here.”

“Of course.” Libbie shot him a look full of loathing. Dowling had never seen her so neatly outflanked. Without the tiniest doubt, she wanted to stay, not only to protect General Custer but also because she knew at least as much about what the First Army was doing as he did. But she could not stay, not after Roosevelt’s blithe dismissal. Long black skirt flapping about her ankles, she swept out of the parlor.

“Cornelia!” Custer called. When the pretty Negro housekeeper came out of the kitchen, the general went on, “Coffee for me, coffee for Major Dowling-and coffee for the president of the United States.” He might not care for Roosevelt, but he was not above using his acquaintance with him to impress Cornelia.

And he did impress her. Her eyes widened. She dropped Roosevelt a curtsy before dashing away for the coffee. The president, affable enough, dipped his head in reply. He sat down in the chair across from the sofa where Custer and his wife had been checking the papers, and waved Dowling to Libbie’s place beside the general commanding First Army. Again, Custer’s adjutant could only obey.

Roosevelt did not wait for Cornelia to come with the coffee. “Let’s get right down to brass tacks,” he said-like Custer, he did not have patience as his long suit. “General, the War Department is of the opinion that you have not been entirely candid in the reports you have been submitting in recent weeks. I have asked Major Dowling here to discuss this with us today, as he has prepared many of these reports under your direction.”

Cornelia did come in with the coffee then-Custer’s and Dowling’s as they liked it, Roosevelt’s black with cream and sugar on the side to let him fix it as he would. The brief respite while the president fiddled with the cup did nothing to ease Dowling’s mind. Christ, they’ve got me cold, he thought, and wondered if his Army career was about to end here because he’d been so foolish as to obey his superior. Only discipline learned at the poker table kept him from showing his dread.

If Custer knew dread, he didn’t show it, either. “The War Department has all sorts of opinions,” he said, sneering as he had when Dowling announced that Roosevelt was there. “A few of them bear a discernible relation to the real world-but only a few, mind you.”

“Have you, then, or have you not been less than candid in your description of how you are deploying the barrels under your command?” Roosevelt asked.

There it was, the question without a good answer. Sweat broke out on Dowling’s forehead, though the parlor was cool verging on chilly. Now Custer would lie, and now Roosevelt would crucify him-and, as small change in the transaction, would crucify Dowling, too.

Custer laughed. “Of course I’ve been less than candid, Mr. President,” he answered, his tone inviting Roosevelt to share a secret with him. “So has Major Dowling, at my direct order. The lads with the thick glasses in Philadelphia must have been more alert than usual, to notice.”

“I hope you have some good explanation for your extraordinary statement, General,” Roosevelt said. Dowling devoutly hoped Custer had a good explanation, too. From long acquaintance with the general commanding First Army, though, he knew that hope was liable, even likely, to be disappointed.

Not this time. Laughing again, Custer said, “I have reason to believe the Rebels are somehow getting their hands on the reports I forward to the War Department, and so I have been carefully feeding them false information for the past several weeks. I hope they are less astute than our own people, and fail to notice the deception.”

Roosevelt rounded on Dowling. “Major, is what General Custer says true?”

If he wanted to, Dowling could break Custer here. He could not only break him, he could break him and come out, in the short run, smelling like a rose as he did it. The old fool had served himself up with an apple in his mouth, and all Dowling had to do was carve. He’d dreamt of a chance like this for years-and, now that he had it, he discovered he couldn’t stick the knife in. That was what it would be: a stab in the back. He might escape Custer with it, but, afterwards, who in the Army would trust an officer who laid his superior low?

“Answer me, Major,” Roosevelt said.

“I’m sorry, your Excellency,” Dowling said. “General Custer did not tell me why he wanted the reports to appear as if they were disguising the concentration of barrels.” That was a lie, but no one could ever prove it was a lie. “I presume, though, that it was for reasons of security.”

If Roosevelt felt like seeing for himself how the barrels were deployed, everything could still cave in, like a trench with a mine touched off below it. The president didn’t go charging off to do that, not right away, anyhow. Rubbing his chin, he asked, “Why, General, do you believe the Confederates may have been reading your dispatches to Philadelphia?”

“Just by way of example, sir, how could General MacArthur’s attack over by Cotton Town have failed last fall if the Rebs had no advance warning of it?” Custer asked-reasonably. “Daniel MacArthur is as fine a brigadier general and division commander as the U.S. Army possesses, but he failed. The Rebs must have prepared in advance to withstand him.”

MacArthur’s attack had failed, among other reasons, because Custer didn’t give his fine brigadier general the-admittedly extravagant-artillery support and number of barrels he’d requested. Custer didn’t want MacArthur gaining glory, any more than he’d wanted Roosevelt gaining glory in the Second Mexican War. Dowling had watched Custer outmaneuver MacArthur. Could he outmaneuver Roosevelt, too?

Maybe he could. The president coughed. “Why have you not presented these suspicions to the War Department?” he asked, and Dowling realized he was witnessing something few men had ever seen: Theodore Roosevelt in retreat.

Custer smiled. When he heard that question, he knew he had the game in hand. “Your Excellency, since I have not been able to determine how the Confederates are obtaining their information, I did not wish to run the risk of informing them that I knew they were doing so. Letting them have information that is not true struck me as being more profitable.”

“More profitable, you say?” Roosevelt perked up. He set a finger by the side of his nose. “And you have a plan to make them pay, so you can reap the profit?”

“Mr. President, I do,” Custer answered, telling the truth, as far as Dowling could see, for the first time in the interview.

“Very well, General,” Roosevelt said. “Till the mare drops her foal, no one can tell what the creature will look like. I shall judge your plan-and whether you were wise to conceal it not only from the foe but also from your countrymen-by the result.” He got to his feet. “I thank you for your time, General. Major Dowling, thank you also for your part in explaining what has occurred here. Good morning, gentlemen.” Without waiting for a reply, Roosevelt walked out to the limousine.

Dowling stared out the window, hardly daring to believe the Pierce-Arrow was really rolling away. When it was out of sight, he let out a long, heartfelt sigh of relief. “My God, sir, you got away with it.”

Custer looked disgracefully smug. “Of course I did, Major.”

“That was an inspired explanation you gave him.” Dowling was not used to admiring Custer’s wits. Doing so felt strange and wrong, as if he were dabbling in some unnatural vice.

“So it was, if I do say so myself.” The vain, pompous old fool looked more smug still. Dowling fought down the urge to retch.

Libbie Custer came downstairs in a rustle of skirts. “I saw him leave,” she said. “Did he swallow it, Autie?”

“Every morsel, my dear.” Some of the smugness hissed out of Custer, as if he were an observation balloon with a leak. He turned back to Dowling. “Major, now that the president has gone…” Had it been a complete sentence, he would have finished it with something like, Get the hell out of here yourself.

“Yes, sir.” Dowling left in a hurry. So Libbie was the one who came up with the second line of defense, he thought. Slowly, he nodded. He should have known Custer wouldn’t have the brains to do it on his own. He nodded again, his faith in his own sense of how the world worked in large measure restored.

But Custer, even if he hadn’t planned the deception, had carried it off. If he could deceive the Confederates, too…He hadn’t had much luck doing that in any of the fighting up till now. But then, he hadn’t tried very hard, either. If he did, if he could…

It made a man hope. In this war, too much hope was dangerous. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Abner Dowling said.

Arthur McGregor rode the wagon toward Rosenfeld. Whenever U.S. trucks came up behind him, he delayed a little before moving off to the shoulder to let them roar past. It was a tiny bit of resistance, but all he could muster. He had to clench the reins tightly to keep from shouting abuse at the Americans. When the time came, he would try to take his revenge. Till then, he had to seem as conquered, as beaten down, as the rest of his countrymen.

Outside Rosenfeld, the occupiers had a checkpoint. They were meticulous in searching the wagon, and even more meticulous in searching his person. They found nothing out of the ordinary. There was nothing out of the ordinary to find. “Pass on,” one of them said.

“Thank you, sir,” McGregor answered, abject as a kicked dog. He scrambled back up into the seat, flicked the reins, and rolled on toward the little town where he bought what he couldn’t raise for himself.

Rosenfeld, Manitoba, these days, was more nearly an American town than a Canadian one. Most of the men on the streets wore green-gray. Most of the talk McGregor heard was in sharp American accents, sour to his ears. Most of the money that changed hands was American money: boring green banknotes, coins full of eagles and stars and thunderbolts instead of bearing the images of George and Edward and Victoria. Most of the money in McGregor’s pocket was American money. He hated that, too.

He had to tie up his wagon on a side street. American motorcars and trucks and wagons and even bicycles dominated Main Street. As he came round the corner, a green-gray Ford whizzed past him.

He had to work hard to keep his face straight, to show none of what he was thinking. Major Hannebrink was at the wheel of that Ford. Unusually, he had none of his Springfield-carrying bully boys with him. Probably isn’t out to murder anyone this morning, McGregor thought. Maybe he waits till after lunch to do his murdering.

The post office was only a few doors away. When McGregor went inside, the familiar spicy smell of Wilfred Rokeby’s hair oil greeted his nose. The postmaster used the aromatic stuff to keep his hair pasted down at either side of the precise part that ran back along the middle of his scalp.

“Good day to you, Arthur,” Rokeby said, his voice as prim and precise as that ruler-drawn part. “How are you today?” He asked that question cautiously, as he was in the habit of doing since Alexander’s death.

“I’ve been better, Wilf, and that’s the truth, but I’ve been worse, too,” McGregor answered. He sniffed in an exaggerated fashion. “Haven’t you run out of that damned grease of yours yet? Sure as hell, the plant that made it must be turning out poison gas these days.”

Rokeby glared, then stared, and then chuckled quietly. “First time I’ve heard you make a joke in a while, Arthur, even if it is aimed at me. What can I do for you this morning?”

“Let me have twenty-five of those stamps the Yanks are making us use,” McGregor said.

“Here you are,” Rokeby said. “That’ll be a dollar even.” Letter rate remained two cents, as it had been before the war. But people in occupied Canada also paid a two-cent surcharge for every stamp, the extra money going into a fund for entertainers who amused U.S. soldiers.

McGregor had complained about the surcharge ever since it was initiated. He kept quiet now, save for a low sigh as he set a silver dollar on the table. It was a U.S. coin, and had a bust of Liberty on one side, which struck him as ironic. The other side showed a fierce eagle and the word REMEMBRANCE.

Rokeby quickly scooped the dollar into the cash box, as if afraid leaving it where McGregor could see it might inflame him. But McGregor seemed unable to rise to inflammation today. “Saw Hannebrink driving out of town when I was walking over here,” he remarked.

“Did you?” At the mention of the security officer, Wilfred Rokeby grew wary again. Then his own expression changed-to, of all things, amusement. “Was he heading out by his lonesome, without any wolfhounds along?”

“Matter of fact, he was,” McGregor said. He turned and looked out the window. “You see him as he went by?”

Rokeby shook his head. “I did not,” he said, and his voice compelled belief. “But I have heard-don’t know for certain, mind you, but they do say it-I have heard, like I was tellin’ you, he’s got himself a cutie-pie somewheres outside of town.”

“Hannebrink?” Arthur McGregor stared. Until this moment, the idea that any Canadian woman might be friendly-might be more than friendly-to the Yank who had murdered Alexander had never entered his mind. But for strumpets, for whom such matters were business arrangements, he hadn’t heard of any of his countrywomen showing friendship-or something more than friendship-toward the hated occupiers. That, of course, did not mean such things failed to happen. “You wouldn’t know who she is, would you?”

Rokeby quickly shook his head. Silent curses echoed through McGregor’s mind. Had he been too obvious? Perhaps not, for the postmaster answered, “Not sure anybody here in town does. Whoever the gal is, don’t expect it’s something she’d want to brag on, you know what I mean?”

“That I do, Wilf,” McGregor answered. Pretending he didn’t know what Rokeby was talking about would have been an obvious lie, and so more dangerous than agreeing with him. The farmer picked up the stamps, folded them over themselves, and put them into an overcoat pocket. “Obliged to you. See you again next time I come to town, I expect.”

“Take care of yourself,” Rokeby said. “Take care of your family.” Was that an oblique warning, of the sort Maude made? McGregor didn’t know. He didn’t worry about it, either. With a nod to the postmaster, he left the post office, went back to the wagon for the kerosene tin, and strode down the street to the general store.

Anyone who needed a storekeeper for a vaudeville show could hardly have done better than Henry Gibbon, who looked the part from bald head to leather apron over a belly that remained comfortable despite hard times. Storekeepers shared with farmers the ability to keep themselves fed no matter how hard times got.

“How are you today, Arthur?” Gibbon asked, the same wariness in his voice as had been in Rokeby’s.

“Not too bad, not too good,” McGregor said: a variation on the reply he’d given the postmaster. He set a couple of cents on the counter. “I’m going to raid your pickle barrel.” Gibbon nodded and plucked up the little copper coins. McGregor lifted the lid, picked out a plump pickle, and took a bite. He chewed thoughtfully. “That’s not bad, but it doesn’t taste quite the same as the ones you usually have in there.”

“Can’t get those any more,” Gibbon answered. “These here pickles, they come up out of Michigan. Like you say, they aren’t bad.”

McGregor stared at the pickle in his hand as if it had turned on him. He almost threw it down. But, even if it came from the United States, he’d already bought it, and he was a man who hated waste. He ate it and licked the last of the vinegar off his fingers.

“Didn’t come to town just for pickles,” Gibbon said. “Go on-tell me I’m wrong.”

Before McGregor could tell him anything, a couple of soldiers in green-gray walked into the general store and looked around as if they owned the place. They were occupying this part of the province, so in effect they did. McGregor bought another pickle and diligently ate it, finding that preferable to having to talk to the Yanks. One soldier bought a spool of thread-Gibbon had a good-sized display of stuff that made a fair match for the U.S. uniform. His pal bought a tin-plated potato peeler. Out they went.

“You’ll be rich, Henry,” McGregor remarked.

“Oh, yeah,” the storekeeper said. “I’m going to take this here and retire on it to the south of France-unless the damn Germans get there first. Now what can I do for you today?”

“Need some beans,” McGregor answered, “and my kerosene ration, and white thread for Maude-she ain’t got any uniforms to mend-and five yards of calico for her, too, and a new bobbin for the sewing machine.”

“You’ve got to give me your ration coupon for the kerosene,” Gibbon reminded him. “Never seen people like the Yanks for dotting every i and crossing every t. If you get the kerosene without I get the coupon, roof falls in on me, near as I can tell. Life’s hard enough without that.”

“Life’s hard enough.” McGregor said no more. “Here you are.” He pulled the coupon out of his pocket and handed it to Gibbon. “Yanks sold it to me. They’re willing to let me have lights in my house this month, long as I haven’t got too many.”

Chuckling, Gibbon got a funnel and a bucket and filled the kerosene tin from the barrel he kept not far from the ones that held pickles and crackers. “You sound a mite better these days.”

“Maybe a mite,” the farmer allowed. After a short pause, he went on, “That Hannebrink almost ran me over when I was coming round the corner to the post office. Things must be a mite better for him, too, or more than a mite: Wilf Rokeby said he was in a hurry to get down to Elsie Kravchuk’s place and see how bad her bed linen’s rumpled.” Rokeby hadn’t said any such thing. But if anyone in town knew where Major Hannebrink really was going, Henry Gibbon was the man.

And, sure enough, Gibbon looked disgusted. “That damn Rokeby. All I can say is, it’s a good thing he ain’t got a cold, on account of he’d blow out his brains if he was to bring a hanky up to his nose. It ain’t Elsie that Hannebrink’s laying pipe for, it’s Paulette Tooker, three farms over.”

“He seemed pretty sure,” McGregor said doubtfully.

“Only holes Wilfred Rokeby knows a goddamn thing about are the ones between his stamps,” the storekeeper said. “Christ on His Cross, Arthur, when have you ever known Wilf to have his gossip straight?”

“Well, you’re right about that,” McGregor said. “Damn shame. I don’t know the Tookers what you’d call well, but I never heard anything bad about Paulette till now. I’d still sooner believe it was Elsie. She hasn’t been right since her husband went into the prisoner camp.”

“Believe what you want.” Gibbon’s voice showed his indifference.

“What other gossip have you got?” McGregor asked. “Spin it out and let’s see how much of it I believe.” Gibbon was happy to oblige. He knew something scandalous about almost all the Canadians in town, about half the Canadians on the farms, and about maybe one American in three. Whether what he knew bore any relation to the truth was a different question.

When the storekeeper finally ran down like a phonograph that needed winding, McGregor went out, brought his wagon around to the front of the store, and loaded his purchases onto it. He was very quiet and thoughtful all the way home. When he was almost there, he smiled.

Dirt fountained up as U.S. artillery pounded a Confederate machine-gun position in front of Jonesboro, Arkansas. “That’ll teach the goddamn sons of bitches,” Ben Carlton said gleefully as the barrage went on and on.

“Don’t blaspheme.” Sergeant Gordon McSweeney had lost track of how many times he’d warned the company cook about that. Carlton was as stubborn in sin as he was in reproof.

“Blow ’em to hell and gone,” Carlton said. McSweeney did not reprove that sentiment. He agreed with it. He expected Carlton would go to hell, too, but that had nothing to do with his hatred for the Confederates in their nest of sandbags and concrete. They were a good crew and they were brave and they had cost the U.S. troops across from them too many casualties.

At last, the guns fell silent. They’d been going on so long, McSweeney imagined he still heard them roaring for a few seconds after they’d quit. He didn’t put his head up over the parapet to see what they’d done to that position. If they hadn’t done enough, that was asking for a bullet in the face.

And they hadn’t. Defiantly, cockily, the Confederate machine gunners squeezed off a few quick bursts to let their foes know they were still in business at the same old stand.

“Bastards,” Ben Carlton snarled. “God damn those bastards to the hottest fire in hell for the next million years, and then think up somethin’ really bad to happen to ’em.”

“For the million years after that, they could eat your cooking every day,” McSweeney said, “for you will surely go down to that place of eternal torment yourself unless you leave off taking the name of the Lord in vain every time you open your mouth.”

Carlton glared at him. “Fine. I’m just tickled pink them brave, upstanding Confederate gentlemen lived through everything we flung at ’em. I’m dancin’ in the daisies that they get the chance to blow off the tops of some more of our heads. There. You satisfied, Mr. Holier-than-Thou?”

“No,” McSweeney said in a flat voice. “I am not satisfied. Bombardment by artillery is the wrong way to put a machine-gun nest out of action. You might as well try to kill a mosquito with a shotgun.”

“When the mosquitoes start bitin’ around here, we’ll kill ’em any which way we can,” Carlton said.

“You misunderstand,” McSweeney said. Carlton smirked. McSweeney fixed him with a pale-eyed glare that made the smirk drip off his face. “Not only that, you misunderstand on purpose. If that isn’t sinful, it is insubordinate. Shall we talk this over with Captain Schneider?”

Carlton visibly considered it. Whatever Schneider did to him was liable to be milder than what he’d get from McSweeney. Finally, he shook his head and ate crow. “No, Sarge. I’m sorry, Sarge.”

He didn’t sound sorry. McSweeney reluctantly decided not to press the point. He had other things on his mind anyhow. “Artillery, I tell you, is the wrong tool to use. I know the right tool.”

His eyes blazed. That was metaphorical, not literal, but Ben Carlton followed his thoughts even so. “How in…blazes you going to get close enough to those Confederate…bums to toast ’em before they put about a belt’s worth of bullets through you and your gaslight there?”

“It would have to be at night,” McSweeney thought aloud. “It would have to be at night, and I would need a diversion.”

“You need your head examined, that’s what you need.” Carlton went off down the trench line shaking his head.

McSweeney, on the other hand, went off and found his company commander. “Permission to stage a raid on the enemy’s trenches tonight, sir?” he asked. Captain Schneider nodded. McSweeney saluted. Sometimes things were very easy to arrange.

But, to his annoyance, Schneider came up to the forwardmost trench while the men who would take part in the raid were scrambling over the parapet. The company commander frowned. “It’s usual for raiders to take along an extra sack of grenades or two,” he remarked.

“Yes, sir, so it is,” McSweeney agreed. “We have them. You must have seen.”

“I saw,” Schneider said grimly. He pointed to McSweeney. “It is highly unusual, however, for a man to go on a trench raid festooned with a flamethrower.”

“I suppose it may be, sir.” When McSweeney shrugged, the heavy tank of jellied gasoline on his back dug into his kidneys. His voice sounded more innocent than it had any business being. “Of course, there aren’t that many flamethrowers in action.”

“There aren’t that many people crazy enough to want to use the damned things, either,” Schneider said. “What the hell have you got lurking at the back of your mind this time, Sergeant?”

“Sir, if we always do the same thing when we fight the Rebels, they’ll catch on and lick us. If we do something different every now and again, that will keep them guessing,” McSweeney answered. “If they’re guessing, even the same old thing will work better, because they won’t be looking for it so much.”

Captain Schneider gave him a fishy stare. “If I’d wanted strategy, Sergeant, I’d have talked with the General Staff.” He waited to see if that would squeeze any more details out of McSweeney. When it didn’t, he grimaced. “Sergeant, if you go and get yourself killed, I shall be annoyed with you.”

“I am in God’s hands, sir,” McSweeney said. “So long as He bears me up, I shall not fall. I do not believe He is ready to abandon me yet. May I go now? I don’t want the rest of them to get too far ahead of me.”

“And why is that?” Schneider asked. McSweeney stood mute. The captain raked him with a glance almost as hot as the flame that sprang from the nozzle of his flamethrower. When that failed to have any effect, Schneider said, “Go, then.” He turned his back, as if, like Pilate, washing his hands of the whole affair.

McSweeney climbed the sandbag steps out of the trench, scrambled over the parapet, and crawled toward the Confederate lines. He could hear, or thought he could hear, the rest of the raiders ahead. Their course swung a little to the right of being a straight line. His swung a little to the left.

Getting through his own wire was harder with the flamethrower on his back. Being quiet was harder, too. The tank rattled on his shoulders and banged and clanked whenever it hit a rock. He wished he would have thought to wrap it in a blanket before he set out, but he hadn’t, and it was too late.

He made his slow, cautious way toward that machine-gun position. As he crawled forward, he chuckled silently. He had plenty of new shell holes in which to conceal himself. That was an advantage, if a small one-the bombardment had revised the landscape so that it didn’t look as familiar to the Confederate gunners as it would have before.

Rifle fire erupted, perhaps half a mile to the south: by the sound, the Confederates were raiding U.S. trenches there. Machine guns on both sides opened up. The position toward which McSweeney was advancing fired in the direction of the U.S. line. The muzzle flashes from the machine guns were stuttering bayonets of flame. Tracers scribed brief orange lines of death through the night.

None of those tracers was aimed in McSweeney’s direction. He chuckled again as he scuttled forward. He’d sent out his party to keep the machine gunners from noticing his approach, and now the Rebs’ own raiding party was doing part of the job for him.

Slithering under and through the Confederate wire was a longer and tougher piece of work than getting through the sorry entanglements in front of his lines had been. For one thing, the Confederates had a little more wire than his side did. For another, moving silently was much more important here than it had been when he was several hundred yards farther away.

He inched forward. The concrete blockhouse that held the firing slits for the Confederate machine guns was only a hundred yards off…fifty…thirty…twenty. He stopped. He could incinerate it from here, but this was not the moment. He wanted some chance of getting back to his own lines again. If God chose not to give him one…well, that was God’s affair. Meanwhile, McSweeney would wait and hope and pray.

Off to his right, two grenades banged. Several others followed in short order. Rifles barked, Springfields and, with a slightly different note, Tredegars. Shouts erupted, and a high shrill scream that had to burst from the throat of a desperately wounded man.

Through the din, McSweeney heard the machine guns scrape against the rims of their firing slits as their crews traversed them. He heard the gunners curse his country. He shook his head. The Lord punished those who did such things. “And I am His instrument,” he whispered.

The machine guns opened up. More screams rose. McSweeney hoped Confederates were doing all the screaming, but doubted that was so. He felt sorry that some of the raiders he’d sent out would be hurt or killed, but only so sorry. God had made the world so some things simply could not be done without loss.

He got to his feet, pointed the nozzle of the flamethrower in the direction of the firing slits, and pulled the trigger. The action, after he’d worked on it, was smooth as glass. Flaming gasoline leaped the gap. The machine guns fell silent. The men who had served them, though, screamed like damned souls.

McSweeney shook his head. Torments of this world were brief, not eternal, and Satan surely had fires hotter than any of mortal devising. The Scotsman dropped back into the shell hole. Bullets creased the air. Half a minute later, he rose again and gave the machine-gun nest another taste of the lash of fire.

Cartridges inside the blockhouse began cooking off. No more screams came from it; the men inside were already cooked. McSweeney dropped down once more. He thought about standing again for a third dose of flame, but in the end thought better of it. The Confederates were howling with fury. Bullets buzzed overhead, thick as bees. He wondered if the Rebs would come out of the trenches after him. They didn’t. He smiled his alarming smile. Few men in his section would have been happy about going after a foe with a flamethrower, either.

He made his slow way back across no-man’s-land to his own lines, commending his soul to God all the way. If a bullet chanced to strike the fuel tank on his back-if God willed that a bullet should strike the fuel tank on his back-he would learn what sort of death he dealt out to others.

God did not so will. He scrambled over the parapet and down into his own trenches. Hunting down Captain Schneider, he said, “Sir, I can report that that machine-gun position will not trouble us again for some time to come.”

Schneider said nothing at all. He stood there in the dark, shaking his head. Ben Carlton happened to be standing not far away. “Goddamn but you’re a crazy son of a bitch, Sergeant,” he declared.

“Don’t blaspheme,” McSweeney answered automatically, and then, when he really heard what the company cook had said, “Thank you.”

Till his latest troubles started, Cincinnatus had never set foot in the Covington, Kentucky, city hall. Before the war started, a Negro in the CSA saw the inside of a city hall only if he was in some kind of trouble. Before the war, Cincinnatus had always stayed out of trouble. But he hadn’t stayed out since, and now the Yankees were grilling him.

Actually, Luther Bliss wasn’t quite a Yankee. He was the chief of the Kentucky State Police in the readmitted administration-head of the secret police, in other words. “Now, then, boy,” he said in a mild voice, “tell me again how that Kennedy son of a bitch happened to get himself shot dead on your doorstep.”

The only thing Cincinnatus had going for him was that the authorities didn’t really know how much trouble he was in. “I tol’ you an’ tol’ you, suh,” he answered, sounding as stupid as he could, “I don’t rightly know. I used to work fo’ the man, is all.”

A muscle in Bliss’ right cheek jumped. A scar, as from a knife, cut that cheek, which made the tic more noticeable. “Lots of people used to work for the Rebel son of a bitch,” he said, mildly still. “How come he chose you?” His eyes, a peculiar pale brown, were very intent.

“I ain’t got a clue, suh,” Cincinnatus said. “Could I please go back to workin’ reg’lar again, suh? If I can’t do my job on account o’ you folks askin’ me questions all the time, things git hard back home fo’ my wife an’ my little boy an’ me.”

Bliss steepled his fingers and leaned across the table toward him. “Now let’s just talk about your job, shall we? Lieutenant Kennan gives you a good character from the days when you were working on the docks, and Lieutenant Kennan, I happen to know, doesn’t hardly give niggers good characters a-tall.” His own accent thickened. Was he trying to lull Cincinnatus into thinking him a fool?

If he was, he failed. Cincinnatus could tell how good at his job he was, stubborn as a hound and sneaky as a snake. “I worked hard for the man,” Cincinnatus said. “I work hard every place I work.”

“That’s what Lieutenant Straubing says, too,” Bliss agreed with a nod. “He says you work as hard as any man he ever saw. But he also says there’ve been a hell of a lot of fires and explosions in units his outfit has resupplied. You want to tell me about that?”

“Only thing I know is, a couple times last year the lieutenant said we should all keep an eye on each other on account of trouble like that,” Cincinnatus said. “Don’t know what ever came of it.”

He did know they hadn’t found the ingredients for the cigar-shaped firebombs he’d got from Tom Kennedy. As soon as Straubing made worried noises about such things, he’d made sure not to keep them in or near his house. Had the U.S. authorities discovered them, Luther Bliss wouldn’t be asking him questions now. He’d be taking him apart with a hacksaw and pliers and cutting torch.

Bliss kept tiptoeing around the edges of the truth: “Kennedy had a pal, storekeeper named Conroy. His place burned down last year, too-hell of a fire. Conroy hasn’t been seen much since. Folks saw you goin’ into that store.”

“Yes, suh, I did that, every now and then,” Cincinnatus said-no point denying something where the denial could be proved a lie. “It was on the way home from the riverside. But I didn’t do it a lot-he had high prices, an’ he didn’t fancy black folks much.”

“Black folks,” Bliss said musingly. “It’ll be different for niggers now that Kentucky’s back in the USA. Not so hard like it was before.”

“Hope so, suh,” Cincinnatus said. The law probably would be different. But, from what he’d seen, most whites in the USA had little more use for Negroes than did most whites in the CSA. And he didn’t see white Kentuckians changing their ways because a new flag flew over them.

Bliss clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Won’t be illegal for niggers to be Socialists, even, long as they’re peaceable about it.” He paused. “Of course, niggers likely won’t get to vote right away. It’s not like this was New England or somewhere like that.”

“No, suh,” Cincinnatus said with a sigh. Black Kentuckians wouldn’t get to vote till a majority of white Kentuckians decided they should. Cincinnatus didn’t plan on holding his breath.

He just hoped that oblique reference meant Luther Bliss was still tiptoeing around his connections with the Reds, too, and not seeing it plain. Bliss glared at him with those disconcerting eyes, as a coon dog might look at a raccoon it had treed in a crowded part of the woods, suddenly realizing the quarry might escape from tree to tree. The secret policeman looked intent. Cincinnatus didn’t like his expression. He’d come up with something nasty.

Before he could ask it, the door to the room in which he was questioning Cincinnatus opened. Bliss whirled angrily. “Dammit, I said I wasn’t to be disturbed in here,” he said.

“Sir,” said the man who’d bearded him in his den, “the president is outside, and he wants to talk with you.”

Bliss’ pale brown eyes widened. Before he could say anything, Theodore Roosevelt strode into the interrogation chamber. That made Cincinnatus’ eyes go wide, too. “I don’t have time for shilly-shallying and foolishness, Bliss,” Roosevelt snapped. “We need to purge this state of Rebs.”

“Get the trains, Mr. President,” Bliss answered. “Get the trains and ship about two people out of three somewhere else, because that’s the only way you’re going to purge Kentucky. If we’re lucky, we can keep most of the Rebs from raising too much Cain behind our lines till we’ve won the war. I think I can do that much. The other? Go talk to a preacher, because I’m not in the miracles game.”

Cincinnatus knew a certain reluctant respect for Luther Bliss. Telling Teddy Roosevelt he couldn’t have all he wanted seemed much the same as telling a tornado it couldn’t go where it wanted. The president of the United States glared at Bliss, who looked back imperturbably.

Roosevelt seemed to respect him, too. “It will have to do,” he said, “though I hate half measures.” He paid attention to Cincinnatus for the first time. “What’s this Negro here gone and done?”

Cincinnatus spoke for himself: “I haven’t done anything, sir.” Where he’d wanted to impress Bliss as being ignorant and shiftless, he wanted Roosevelt to see him as a bright, intelligent innocent wronged.

The only trouble with that stratagem was Bliss’ noticing his shifting style. The secret policeman’s hunting-dog eyes widened, just for a moment. To Roosevelt, he said, “Hard to say, your Excellency. Fugitive Confederate underground man named Kennedy got his head blown off on this boy’s front porch. Cincinnatus here drove for Kennedy before the war. Been a fair number of suspicious fires clustered around him, too.”

Thinking fast, Cincinnatus said, “Mr. President, sir, one of these suspicious fires he’s talking about was to Conroy’s general store. Mr. Bliss told me Conroy was one of Mr. Kennedy’s friends. If I was workin’ for Mr. Kennedy, why would I burn out one of his friends?”

“That strikes me as a fair question,” Roosevelt said. “How about it, Bliss?”

Bliss had not an ounce of retreat in him. “Mr. President, we’re also looking at his connections with the Reds.”

“Have you found any?” Roosevelt demanded.

“Not yet,” the secret policeman said stolidly.

“And I’m not a bit surprised, either,” Roosevelt said. “How in the blue blazes do you expect a man to be simultaneously aiding the Confederate resistance and the Marxist resistance, when the Marxists came as close to overthrowing the CSA as we’ve managed ourselves?”

“Sir, this is Kentucky,” Bliss said. “Everything’s topsy-turvy here.”

“Poppycock!” Roosevelt snorted. “Drivel! Things either make logical sense or they don’t, and that’s as true in Kentucky as it is in New Hampshire. If you’re trying to make out that this Negro is a Reb and a Red at the same time, and if you haven’t got any solid evidence he’s either one, I suggest-no, I don’t suggest, I order-that you let him go on about his lawful occasions.”

It wasn’t poppycock. It wasn’t drivel. Cincinnatus knew it wasn’t poppycock or drivel. So did Luther Bliss, who, being a Kentuckian, understood his home state better than Theodore Roosevelt could ever hope to do. But the president of the United States had just given Bliss a direct order. With a sigh, he said, “All right, Cincinnatus, you are free to go. You keep your nose clean and you won’t have any more trouble from me.”

“Thank you kindly, suh.” Cincinnatus didn’t think Bliss meant that, but he had said it and could be reminded of it at need. “Suh, could you give me a letter to Lieutenant Straubing, to let him know I’m in the clear so as I can go back to makin’ an honest livin’?”

Bliss plainly didn’t want to, but had no choice. “I’ll see to it,” he said.

“Back pay!” Roosevelt exploded, so vehemently, Cincinnatus jumped. “Pay for all the days this man has not been able to work. What’s your daily rate, Cincinnatus?”

“Two and a half dollars, sir,” Cincinnatus answered.

“If that’s all you make, and you’ve missed considerable work because of this folderol, you must be feeling the pinch,” Roosevelt said. “Bliss, pay this man one hundred dollars, and pay it out of your own pocket, for harassing someone who’s done nothing wrong.”

Cincinnatus expected the chief of the Kentucky State Police to do some exploding of his own at that, but Bliss, after another moment of surprise, nodded. He said, “I’ll have that and the letter ready for him when he goes. Now if we can send him out so we can talk about a couple of things without him listening-”

To Cincinnatus’ disappointment, Roosevelt didn’t object to that. A couple of hard-faced guards led Cincinnatus away and put him in what had probably been a small meeting room before the war but now served as a holding cell. They didn’t do anything but sit him down. He knew how easily that might have been otherwise.

He waited for what had to be a couple of hours. He wondered what Roosevelt and Luther Bliss were talking about. He wondered if Bliss would wait till Roosevelt was gone and then go back to sweating him. Finally, a guard said, “Come along, you,” and led him out to the city-hall steps.

There stood Luther Bliss. “Here’s your letter,” he said. Cincinnatus checked it. It was what it was supposed to be. “And here’s your money.” Bliss took his wallet from his hip pocket and peeled off five twenty-dollar bills. Only after Cincinnatus had the money in his own pocket did he wonder who was watching and why they thought he was getting it. And only after that did he realize how clever and dangerous Luther Bliss really was.