Annoyingly, Hendrickson answered a question with another question: "Do you remember his son's name?"
"Have to think about that-I only met him a couple of times. He was…Cassius. How come?" Before the Yankee major answered, Dover's jaw dropped. "Sweet suffering Jesus! Not that Cassius?" The U.S. wireless wouldn't shut up about the Negro who'd shot Jake Featherston.
Major Hendrickson nodded. "The very same. And it just so happened your name came up a couple-three times when we questioned him."
"Oh, yeah?" Dover had never imagined his fate could rest on a black man's-hell, on a black kid's-word. "What'd he have to say?"
Before answering, Hendrickson shuffled papers, even though he had to know already. Dover wanted to clout him, but made himself sit tight. "He said you treated his old man pretty decent. Said you saved his whole family from a cleanout once. Is that a fact?"
"Yeah." Dover didn't want to make a big deal out of it now. He'd saved Scipio and his family-and several other colored workers and theirs-as much to keep the Huntsman's Lodge going as for any other reason. But this U.S. soldier didn't need to know that. "What about it?"
"Well, it means you aren't real likely to be a hardcore Freedom Party man," Hendrickson said. "Will you swear an oath to live peacefully in Georgia and not to cause trouble for the United States if we let you go?"
"Major, I have lived through two wars now. I have had enough trouble to last me the rest of my days," Dover said. "Read me out your oath. I will swear to it, and I will live up to it."
"Raise your right hand," Hendrickson said. Dover did. The oath was what the U.S. soldier said it was. Dover repeated it, swore to it, and then signed a printed copy in triplicate. "Show one copy to U.S. military authorities on request," Hendrickson told him. "We will give you the balance of your back pay and a train ticket to Augusta. You can wear your uniform, but take off your rank badges before you leave the camp. The C.S. Army is out of business."
Kirby Smith Telford scowled at Dover as he packed a meager duffel and took the stars off his collar. Other POWs eyed him with varying mixtures of envy and hatred. He didn't care. He was going home.
A young captain looked at Cincinnatus from across a no-doubt-liberated card table that did duty for a desk. "You are Cincinnatus Driver," he said.
"Yes, sir. I sure am," Cincinnatus agreed.
"You have been serving as a civilian truck driver attached to the U.S. Army since the end of 1942," the captain said.
"That's right, too. Did the same thing in the las' war," Cincinnatus said.
"Yes-so your records indicate. According to your superiors, you always performed your duties well, in spite of your physical limitations."
"Always done the best I could," Cincinnatus answered. "I had to stick around when it got tight-couldn't hardly run."
"You're probably eager to return to your family in, uh, Des Moines"-the captain had to check Cincinnatus' papers before naming his home town-"now that we have achieved victory."
Cincinnatus nodded. "Sure am. You know anybody who ain't?"
To his surprise, the officer took the question seriously. "There are always some who are more comfortable in the Army. They don't have to think for themselves here-they just have to do as they're told. And they never have any doubts about who's on their side and who isn't."
The young officer was probably right. No, he was bound to be right. "Hadn't thought of it that way, sir," Cincinnatus said. "But me, I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself, and I can make up my own mind. And if the government's ready to muster me out, I'm real ready to go home."
"That's what you're here to arrange," the captain said. "I have your final pay warrant here, and I have a train ticket to get you home."
"Ask you a favor, sir?"
"I don't know. What is it?"
"Can you arrange my train route to take me through Covington, Kentucky? I was born and raised there, and I want to see if any of my people in the colored quarter came through in one piece."
"It's irregular. It's an extra expense…" The officer in green-gray frowned, considering. "Let me talk to my superiors. You may have to stay in Alabama an extra day or two while we set things up-if they approve, that is."
"I don't mind," Cincinnatus said. "Not even a little bit."
He stayed an extra three days, in fact. The rest of the drivers in his unit headed for home long before he did. Hal Williamson shook his hand and said, "Good luck to you, buddy. Goddamn if I didn't learn something from you."
"What's that?" Cincinnatus asked.
"Colored guys-you're just like anybody else, only darker," Hal answered.
Cincinnatus laughed. "Shit, I'll take that. Good luck to you, too, man."
He got the travel orders he wanted. Back in Confederate days, he would have had to ride in a separate car. No more. Some white passengers looked unhappy at sharing a row with him, but nobody said anything. That suited him well enough. He didn't ask to be loved: only tolerated.
The Stars and Stripes flew over Covington. A blue X that stood for the C.S. battle flag showed up on walls all over town. So did the word FREEDOM! The CSA had lost the war, but not everybody had given up.
Buses were running. He took one east from the train station to the colored quarter by the Licking River, or what was left of it. He sat up near the front of the bus, the first time he'd been able to do that here regardless of whether Covington flew the Stars and Stripes or Stars and Bars.
Not all the fences and barbed wire that sealed off the colored quarter had come down yet. But ways through the stuff were open now. Cincinnatus got off the bus a couple of blocks from Lucullus Wood's barbecue place. If anyone had come through what the Confederates did to their Negroes, he would have bet on the Red barbecue cook.
Houses and shops stood empty. Windows had broken panes; doors sagged open. Leaves drifted on lawns. Ice shivered up Cincinnatus' spine. What was that fancy word people used when they talked about dinosaurs? This place was extinct.
A stray cat darted across the street and behind some untrimmed bushes. Cats could take care of themselves without people. Cincinnatus didn't hear any barking dogs. He should have, if the colored quarter had any life left to it.
When he saw somebody else on the street, he jumped in surprise and alarm. It was an old white man in a cool linen suit, his white hair shining under his Panama hat. The white man seemed as startled to spot a Negro as Cincinnatus was to see him. Then, all of a sudden, he wasn't. "I might have known it would be you," he said. "You're tougher to kill than a cockroach, aren't you?"
"Go to hell, Bliss," Cincinnatus said wearily. "Lucullus still alive?"
"His place looks as dead as the rest of this part of town," Luther Bliss answered. The longtime head of the Kentucky State Police sighed. "I tried to get him out once they closed off the colored quarter, but I couldn't do it. Don't know what happened to him, but I'm afraid it's nothing good. Damn shame."
"They go and kill everybody?" Cincinnatus asked. "They really go an' do that?"
"Just about," Bliss said. "And you were in bed with 'em for a while. Doesn't that make you proud?"
"Fuck off and die," Cincinnatus said coldly. "I was never in bed with the goddamn Freedom Party, and you know it."
Luther Bliss spat. "Maybe. I never knew anything about you for sure, though. That's how come I never trusted you."
Cincinnatus laughed in his face. "Don't give me that shit. You never trusted your own grandma."
"If you'd known the old bat, you wouldn't've trusted her, either. She was an evil woman." Nothing fazed Bliss. His mournful hound-dog eyes pierced Cincinnatus. "So you drove a truck, did you?"