Scipio wouldn't have doubted that. She was a fine-looking woman, with high cheekbones that said she had some Indian in her. You'd have never a dull moment between the sheets with her; of that much Scipio was sure. All the same, knowing what he knew, he would sooner have taken a cougar to bed.
Cherry walked on toward Marshlands. Scipio followed her with his eyes. Any man would have, the roll she put to her hips. She opened the door, closing it after her as she went inside. Something else occurred to Scipio, something he hadn't thought through before. Cherry was going up to that bedroom to do what Jacob Colleton wanted. Colleton probably didn't care much about whether it was what she wanted. If the uprising of which she dreamt ever came off, Scipio wouldn't have cared to be in the shoes Miss Anne's brother was — or, at the moment, most likely wasn't-wearing.
Well, that was Jacob Colleton's lookout, not Scipio's. The butler had enough to worry about, keeping Marshlands going with servants constantly leaving for better-paying jobs, and with the threat of revolt from the field hands growing worse every day.
And, he remembered, with insolence from the servants he did have. Deal ing with Griselda came within the normal purview of his duties. That it was normal made it all the more attractive to him now. Straightening up until he looked as stiff and stern as the Confederate sergeant on the recruiting poster pasted to every other telegraph pole, he marched back to the mansion.
Griselda, predictably, screamed abuse at him when he told her she had to go. "That will be enough of that," he said, using his educated voice: he was speaking as Anne Colleton's agent now, not as himself. "If you comport yourself with dignity, I will prevail upon the mistress to write you a letter that will enable you to find a good situation elsewhere. Otherwise-"
But that was not so effective as it would have been a year earlier. "Fuck yo' letter, an' fuck you, too," Griselda shouted. "Don' need no letter, not these days I don't. Take myself to Columbia, git me work at one o' the factories they got there. Don' have to lissen to no nigger talkin' like white folks what needs to go take a shit, neither." She stormed out of Marshlands, slamming the door behind her.
Scipio stared out the window as she flounced down the path that led to the road. She hadn't even bothered going to her room and getting her belong ings. Maybe she'd be back for them later, or maybe she'd have somebody send them on to her when she found a place in town. Wherever the truth lay there, she never would have behaved that way before the war made it possible for her to find a job without worrying about her passbook or a letter of recommendation or anything past a strong back and a pair of hands.
"The war," he muttered. It had dislocated everything, including, God only knew, his own life.
Anne Colleton came out of her office and looked down at him from the second floor. "What was that all about?" she asked. "Or don't I want to know?"
"One of the house staff has seen fit to resign her position, ma'am," Scipio answered tonelessly.
Miss Anne raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know an artillery accompaniment was required with resignations these days," she remarked, but didn't seem inclined to take it any further, for which Scipio was duly grateful.
The mistress of Marshlands was turning away from the railing when an other door opened upstairs. Cherry walked by Anne Colleton, nodding to her almost, although not quite, as an equal. Miss Anne looked at her, looked back to the door from which she had emerged, and went back into her office, shak ing her head as she went.
Cherry paused by Scipio. "I hear one of the house niggers up an' leave?" she asked. When the butler nodded, she said, "How about you give de job she was doin' to me? I kin do it better dan she could, I bet you."
Scipio licked his lips. She might well have been right, but — "I gwine ask Cassius, see what he say." Using that dialect inside the mansion, even speaking quietly as he was now, made him nervous. Cassius would probably be glad to have an extra set of eyes and ears inside Marshlands, but if for some reason he wanted his followers to stay as inconspicuous as possible, Scipio didn't want to cross him. Scipio didn't want to cross Cassius for any reason. The hunter was altogether too good with a gun or a knife or any other piece of lethality that came into his hands.
Cherry tossed her head. "Cain't ask Cassius. He ain't here."
"What do you mean, he isn't here?" Scipio asked, returning to the form of English that seemed more natural-or at least safer-to him inside Marshlands. "Has he gone hunting in the swamps for a few days?"
"He gone, but not in de swamp," Cherry agreed. She too dropped her voice, to a throaty whisper. "Who know what kind o' good things he bring back wid he when he come home?"
What the devil was that supposed to mean? Scipio couldn't come right out and ask: too many ears around in a place like Marshlands, and not all of them — none of the white and too few of the black-to be trusted. He focused on what lay right before him. "Very well, Cherry," he said starchily. "We shall try you indoors for a time, and see how you shape in your new position. Have you anything more suitable for wear inside Marshlands?"
"Sho' do." Her eyes flashed deviltry. "Jus' axe Marse Jacob." She slipped outside, laughing, while Scipio was still in the middle of a coughing fit.
Chester Martin scratched his head. The gesture, for once, had nothing to do with the lice that were endemic in the front lines near the Roanoke — and everywhere else. "Sir, these are the craziest orders I ever heard," he said.
Captain Orville Wyatt said, "They're the craziest orders I ever heard, too, Sergeant. That hasn't got anything to do with the price of beer, though. We got 'em, so we're gonna obey 'em." But behind the wire-rimmed spectacles, his eyes were as puzzled as Martin's.
"Oh, yes, sir," Martin said. "But how are we supposed to pick out this one particular nigger? Those bastards do a lot of deserting." He scratched his head again. You had to want in the worst way to get out of your country if you were willing to crawl through barbed wire, willing to risk getting shot, to escape. And it wasn't as if the USA were any paradise for colored people, not even close. What did that say about the CSA? Nothing good, Martin figured.
Captain Wyatt said, "He'll let us know who he is. And when he does, we're supposed to treat him like he's whiter than the president." He spat down into the mud of the trench. That stuck in his craw, the same as it did for Martin.
The sergeant sighed. "Son of a bitch would have to pick our sector for whatever he's up to. I'll pass the word on to the men."
Specs Peterson, who was cleaning his eyeglasses on a rag that looked likelier to get them dirty, looked up, his gray eyes watery and unfocused. His voice was very clear, though: "What a lot of fuss over one damn nigger." The rest of the soldiers in the squad nodded.
So did Chester Martin, for that matter. But he answered, "When the order comes down from Philadelphia, you don't argue with it, not if you know what's good for you. Anybody who shoots that fellow when he's coming through the wire is gonna wish he'd shot himself instead."
"But, Sarge, what if this is all some kind of scheme the Rebs cooked up and they sneak a raiding party through? We won't shoot at them, neither, not till too late," Joe Hammerschmitt protested.
"You ought to be writing for Scribner's instead of what's-his-name, that Davis," Martin said. "Maybe you can make a gas attack sound exciting instead of nasty, too. But if the Rebels are that smart, they're probably going to overrun us. You ask me, though, they ain't that smart, or if they are, they sure haven't shown it."
With that the men-and Martin himself-had to be content. It turned out to be enough, too, for two nights later Hammerschmitt shook Martin awake. As he always did when he woke up, he grabbed for his Springfield, which lay beside him. "Don't need to do that, Sarge," the private said. "I think I got that nigger with me you were talking about the other day."