"Maybe, Miss Anne, but I doubts it." Cassius' grin was jaunty and very, very male. Anne wanted to throw something at him. Instead, she made a sharp gesture of dismissal. Grinning still, Cassius took his leave. Just like a nigger, she thought. Too happy-go-lucky to care he's thrown away two months' pay, plus whatever he wasted on that Drusilla tart. Anne hoped the Negro wench had soaked Cassius good.
She went back to her bill-paying. A few minutes later, the telephone rang. She was alert as she picked it up — maybe Jubal Marberry had done some more checking and found out that the Negro who'd been keeping Drusilla company wasn't Cassius after all. But the voice on the other end of the line wasn't old and rheumy, but young and vigorous: "Miss Anne? This here's Roger Kimball. I was just callin' to ask how your brother was doin'."
I was just calling to find out whether the coast is clear for me to go up there and sleep with you. Anne Colleton almost laughed in the submariner's face. She could have mortally offended him if she'd told him how much he reminded her of her black hunter. But, instead, she answered the question he'd asked: "I'm sorry, Roger; I'm afraid I have to tell you he's not much improved."
"Oh. I'm right sorry to hear that." Sorry both ways, probably, she thought; the wounded tone in his voice certainly suggested he was sorry she wasn't inviting him up despite poor Jacob's condition. And then he said, "Maybe you could come down to Charleston one day and pay me a visit, then."
Anne almost slammed down the earpiece of the telephone. The arrogance Kimball displayed infuriated her — but, as it had on the train to New Orleans, also attracted her. What with Jacob, what with the never-ending bills, what with escapades like Cassius', didn't she deserve a little amusement, a little escape, a little plain, old-fashioned physical relief? Life was about more things than simply running Marshlands. And so, instead of hanging up, she said, "Maybe I will, Roger. Maybe I will."
XVIII
Jefferson Pinkard shoveled a last forkful of ham and eggs into his mouth, then sprang to his feet. Emily, who'd already finished breakfast, was about to head out the door, and he didn't want to let her go without getting a kiss. Every time he took her in his arms, he felt like a brand new bridegroom. He knew how lucky he was, to have that feeling still after years of marriage.
All things considered, though, he'd had better kisses than the one he got this morning. "You all right, darlin'?" he asked his wife.
"I think so," she said. "Lately I'm just tired all the time. That's what it is, I reckon. They're workin' us hard. We got our quota kicked up again the other day — got to turn out more shells, make up for the ones the soldiers're shootin' at the damnyankees."
"Damnyankees," Pinkard muttered. The war had passed a year old now, no end in sight. "Who woulda thought they could fight like this here?" They stood in western Virginia, in Kentucky, in Sequoyah, in Texas, in Sonora. They were pushing Confederate forces out of Pennsylvania and Maryland, and giving the Canadians and British a hard time, too. "Ain't like it was in the last two wars."
Emily nodded, pecked him on the cheek, and hurried off to catch the trol ley. Her step didn't have the bounce to it he'd once taken for granted. She wasn't pink and perky, either, the way she had been; maybe working to fill the increased quota was what made her seem so wrung out, so sallow.
"God damn the war," Jeff said sincerely. He grabbed his dinner pail and headed for the Sloss works.
As they did every morning, Agrippa and Vespasian greeted him with polite respect. He accepted that as nothing less than his due. "Leonidas ain't got here yet," Vespasian told him.
"Why ain't I surprised?" Pinkard said scornfully. "You ever hear anything about Pericles?"
"No, suh," Vespasian said. "He still in the jailhouse. I dunno if they ever gonna let him out."
"Hope to Jesus they do," Jeff said. "That Leonidas, he don't have the brains God gave a possum. Hell, the two of you do better'n I do with him, on account of I got to carry all my own weight and about three quarters of his. I been yellin' for a replacement — an' I don't care if he's black or white, long as he ain't stupid-but no luck so far."
Vespasian and Agrippa looked at each other. Pinkard wondered if he'd offended them, calling Leonidas stupid. So much landed on Negroes in the Con federacy, they stuck together and defended their own whether their own deserved it or not. But, God damn it to hell, Leonidas was stupid. He would have been stupid if he were white. Hell, he would have been stupid if he were green.
Slowly, cautiously, Vespasian said, "Mistuh Pinkard, suh, this here would be a different place if mo' people cared about gettin' the job done an' less of 'em cared about who was doin' it." When Jeff didn't blow up at that remark, the black steelworker made another, even more wary, comment: "Not jus' a different place. A better place."
"Get your ass out of here. Go on, go home," Pinkard said. "You don't want those policemen throwin' you in the jug for sedition."
Vespasian took off, Agrippa right behind him. Pinkard looked after them with something as close to approval as he was likely to give two Negroes. They did their job, they didn't complain — much, they didn't try to rock the boat. What more could you want from people?
He looked around. Still no sign of Leonidas. He didn't miss him. A lot of ways, he was better off without him. Handling his shift by himself would leave him dog-tired when the closing whistle blew, but the world wouldn't end on account of that. Jeff knew what he was doing.
Leonidas came in about half an hour late. The floor foreman reamed him out about it as he started to work. When the fellow finally let him be, he shook his head and said, "Lord, I wish that man would shut hisself up. Got me a hangover, make my po' head ring like a bell."
Pinkard grunted. He'd done that — once in a great while. When your head already felt as if somebody were forging steel in there, going to a place where they really were forging steel wasn't high on the list of enjoyable things. Leonidas had been working here for only a couple of months, and this was a long way from the first time he'd strolled in a good deal the worse for wear. Stupid, Jeff thought again. Some people belonged in the cotton fields.
Leonidas got through the day without maiming either himself or Pinkard.
He managed partly by not doing much, but that didn't matter, since he never seemed to do much. Pinkard minded less than he would have with a more capable partner. The more Leonidas did, the more he was liable to foul up.
The quitting whistle made the young Negro jerk as if he'd sat on a nail. "Thank God, I can get out of here," he said, and proceeded to do just that, moving faster than he had out on the floor.
Pinkard followed more slowly. He was just as tired as he would have been had Leonidas stayed home with an ice bag or whatever his preferred hangover cure was. He hadn't had to do quite so much as he would have had Leonidas stayed home, but being careful for two was hard work.
When he got back to his house, he built up the fire in the stove, sliced a few potatoes, and set them to frying in lard in a black iron skillet likely made from metal worked at the Sloss foundry. They'd go nicely with the pork roast Emily had put in the oven over a low fire before she went off to work. It wasn't really cooking, he told himself, only a way to save time and have supper ready sooner.