"They won't hear from me," Jorge promised. "My father, he always thought you were a good man."
"Well, I always thought he was a good man, too," Robert Quinn said. "I was sad to hear he'd passed away, and even sadder to hear how. I've wondered about that a lot, and it doesn't make much sense to me."
"It doesn't make much sense to anybody." Jorge didn't mention Camp Determination. The way things were nowadays, you kept your mouth shut about what went on in places like that. What could his father, a good Party man, have seen or felt that made him decide those camps weren't doing the right thing? It had to be something on that order. Jorge was sure no personal problem would have made Hipolito Rodriguez eat his gun.
"Tell you what," Quinn said, still softly. "If nobody down here rats on me, well, we'll see what we can do if the damnyankees step on our toes too hard. We may not be able to hold meetings and stuff, but that doesn't mean the Freedom Party's dead. It's not dead unless we decide it's dead. How's that sound?"
"Good to me." Jorge didn't say Freedom! or ЎLibertad! or give the Party salute. You were asking for trouble if you did things like that. But he knew he wouldn't be the only one watching the United States to see what they did.
And he also knew the United States would be watching Baroyeca, as they would be watching all of the CSA, or as much of the country as they could. If they sensed trouble, they would land on it with both feet. You played the most dangerous game in the world if you even thought about rising up against the damnyankees.
"Can I buy you a glass of beer, Seсor Quinn?" Jorge asked.
"No, but you can let me buy you one, by God," the Party organizer answered. "I've got plenty of money, believe me. Some of the people who think they can play poker haven't got the sense God gave a duck."
Jorge smiled. "All right. Do you remember where La Culebra Verde is?"
"I'd damn well better," Quinn said. "ЎVбmonos, amigo!"
It was dark and cool and quiet inside the cantina. A couple of men looked up from their drinks when Jorge and Robert Quinn walked in. It stayed quiet in there, but now the silence was one of suspense. Slowly and deliberately, the bartender ran a damp rag over the counter in front of them. "What can I get for you, seсores?" he asked.
"Dos cervezas, por favor." Quinn set a U.S. half-dollar on the bar. He sat down on a stool. Jorge perched next to him. The bartender made the silver coin disappear. He drew two beers and set them in front of the new customers.
"Thanks." Jorge put down another quarter. "One for you, too, or whatever you want."
"Gracias." Bartenders didn't always want the drinks customers bought them. This time, though, the man in the boiled shirt did pour himself a beer.
"ЎSalud!" Quinn raised his glass. He and Jorge and the bartender drank. "Madre de Dios, that's good!" Quinn said. Was he even a Catholic? Jorge didn't know. He'd never worried about it till now.
One of the men at a table in the back raised a finger to show he and his friends were ready for a refill. The bartender filled glasses and set them on a tray. A barmaid picked them up and carried them off, her hips swinging. Jorge followed her with his eyes. So did Robert Quinn. They grinned at each other. Once you got out of the Army, you remembered how nice it was that the world had pretty girls in it.
As the beers emptied, the bartender murmured, "Good to have you back, Seсor Quinn. We didn't know if we would see you again."
"Good to be back," Quinn said. "There were some times when I wondered whether anybody would see me again, but war is like that."
"Sн." Jorge remembered too many close calls of his own. The man behind the bar was about his father's age. Had he fought in the Great War? Jorge didn't know; again, he'd never wondered till now.
"What are we going to do here, Jorge?" Robert Quinn asked. "Are you ready to live quietly under the Stars and Stripes? Or do you remember what your country really is?" He hadn't been so bold in the train station. Could one beer have done it to him?
Jorge looked down at his glass. He looked around the cantina. His mind's eye took in the rest of Baroyeca and the family farm outside of town. All that made him feel less determined than he had over at the station. "Seсor Quinn," he said sadly, "I have seen all the fighting I want to see for a long time. I am sorry, but if the damnyankees do not bother me, then I do not care to bother them, either. If they do bother me, the story will be different."
"Well, that's a fair answer," Quinn said after silence stretched for more than half a minute. "You've done your soldiering. If you don't want to do it again, who can blame you? I wish you felt different, but if you don't, you don't." He drained his glass and strode out of La Culebra Verde.
"Did you make him unhappy?" the bartender asked.
"I'm afraid I did. He doesn't want the war to be over, but I've had enough. I've had too much." He wondered how Gabe Medwick was getting along. He hoped the U.S. soldiers had picked up his wounded buddy back in the Virginia woods. Was Gabe back in Alabama by now, or did he still languish in a POW camp like Miguel?
And what about Sergeant Blackledge? Jorge would have bet anything that he was raising trouble for the Yankees wherever he was. That man was born to bedevil anybody he didn't like, and he didn't like many people.
The bartender drew another beer and set it in front of Jorge. "On the house," he said. "I don't want to go to the hills. I don't want the United States shooting hostages here. I don't want to be one of the hostages they shoot. Por Dios, Jorge, enough is enough."
"Some men will eat fire even if they have to start it themselves," Jorge said, looking at the door through which Robert Quinn had gone.
"He will find hotheads. People like that always do. Look at Jake Featherston." The bartender never would have said such a thing while the Freedom Party ruled Baroyeca. It would have been worth his life if he had. He went on, "I don't think anyone will speak to the soldados from los Estados Unidos if Seсor Quinn stays here quietly. But if he goes looking for stalwarts…Then he's dangerous."
Was the bartender saying he would turn in Robert Quinn if Quinn tried to raise a rebellion? If he was, what was Jorge supposed to do about him? Kill him to keep him from blabbing? But that was raising a rebellion, too, and Jorge had just told Quinn he didn't want to do any such thing.
He also didn't want to sit by while something bad happened to his father's old friend. Sometimes nothing you did would help. He had the feeling that that was true for much of the CSA's last war against the USA.
He also had the feeling it would be true if Confederates tried to mix it up with the USA in the war's aftermath. Yes, they could cause trouble. Could they cause enough to make U.S. forces leave? He couldn't make himself believe it.
When he came back to the farm alone late that afternoon, his mother's face fell, the way it always did when he came back alone. "No Miguel?" she asked sadly.
"No Miguel. I'm sorry, mamacita." Then Jorge told of meeting Robert Quinn as the Freedom Party man got off the train.
His mother only sniffed. Next to her missing son, a man who wasn't from the family didn't cut much ice. The news excited Pedro, though. "Does he want to-?" He didn't go on.
"Yes, he does," Jorge answered. "I told him I didn't." He spoke elliptically, as Pedro had, to keep from making their mother flabble.
Pedro looked discontented. But Pedro hadn't done a whole lot of fighting. He'd spent most of the war behind barbed wire. He didn't have such a good idea of what the United States could do if they decided they wanted to. Jorge did. What he'd seen in Virginia as the war wound down would stay with him for the rest of his life. The overwhelming firepower and the will to use it scared him more than he was willing to admit, even to himself.