“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.