Erasmus looked at him. "You's a black man in the CSA," he said. "You think you ain't been in trouble since the day you was born?"
"I was borned in slavery days, same as you," Scipio said. "I knows all about dat kind o' trouble. But de Freedom Party, dey worse'n usual."
He waited to see whether Erasmus would try to argue with him. If his boss did, he intended to argue right back. But Erasmus slowly nodded. "Reckon you's right. Didn't used to think so. I reckoned them crazy buckra'd find somethin' new to git all hot an' bothered about. They been around for more'n ten years now, though. Don't reckon they's goin' noplace."
"Wish they would-wish dey go far away an' never come back no more," Scipio said. "They gwine win plenty o' new seats in the 'lection come fall, too."
"God's will," Erasmus said. "We is a sinful lot, and the good Lord, He make us pay."
Before Scipio could think about it, he shook his head. "I don't care none how sinful we is," he said. "De Lord can't hate we enough to give we what de Freedom Party want to give we." Would he have had such thoughts before he got mixed up with the Red Negroes who'd led the uprising in 1915? He didn't know for certain, but had his doubts.
"The Lord do what He want to do, not what we wants Him to do," Erasmus said. "Blessed be the name o' the Lord."
"Lord help he what help hisself," Scipio replied. "De Freedom Party git stronger, I reckon maybe niggers gots to help theyselves." Was he really saying that? After watching from the inside the destruction of the Congaree Socialist Republic, could he really be saying that? He could. He was.
"We rise up against the buckra again, we lose again. You knows it, too." Erasmus sounded very sure.
And Scipio did know it, too. Blacks in the CSA couldn't hope to beat whites. He'd thought as much before the rising of 1915, and he'd proved right. On the other hand… "De Freedom Party git stronger, we lose if we don't rise up, too."
Erasmus didn't answer him. Maybe that meant there was no answer. He hoped it didn't, but feared it did.
Three days later, he got an answer of sorts. After finishing at Erasmus', he went into the white part of Augusta to visit a couple of toy stores that had a better selection-and better prices-than any in the Terry. Coming home with something new and amusing-it didn't have to be very big or very fancy-was a good way to delight his children. Having been childless for so long, Scipio found he took enormous delight in making them happy now that he had them.
He found a doll for Antoinette, one that closed its eyes when it lay down. It was, of course, white, with golden hair and blue eyes. He'd never seen a doll with dark features like his own. He'd scarcely imagined there might be such a thing. Whites dominated the Confederate States in ways neither they nor the Negro minority quite understood.
No matter what this doll looked like, Scipio knew his little girl would enjoy it. He set money on the counter before asking the clerk for it. To that extent, he did understand how things worked in the CSA. But the clerk, once he had the price, was polite enough, saying, "Here you are. Have a good evening."
"Thank you, suh," Scipio answered. He started for the door, and had just set his hand on the knob when he heard a scuffle outside, and then a man's shout of pain.
From behind him, the clerk said, "Maybe you don't want to go out there right now. Freedom Party hasn't always been nice to colored folks they catch out in the evening."
Hasn't always been nice to seemed to translate into is beating the stuffing out of. Scipio's first emotion was raw fear. His next was shame that he couldn't help the luckless Negro the goons had found. He felt gratitude toward the clerk, gratitude mixed with resentment. "Ought to call the cops," he said: as close as he dared come to letting that resentment show.
"I've done it before," the man answered. "They don't usually come for a call like that. I'm sorry, but they don't."
Erasmus had insisted the Augusta police weren't all bad men. Maybe he was right. Scipio found it harder to believe now. He did nod to the clerk. "Thank you fo' tryin', suh," he said. Not all whites were bad. He was reasonably sure of that.
A little while after the sounds of violence ended, Scipio left the toy store and hurried back to the Terry. He got home safe. His daughter did love the doll. Everything should have been fine. And it would have been, if only he could have forgotten what had happened in the white part of town. As things were, he got very little sleep that night.
W hen the train pulled into Abilene, Texas, Jake Featherston knew he was in a different world from the one he'd left. The plains seemed to go on forever. Dust was in the air. This wasn't the narrow, confined landscape of Virginia. No wonder Texans had a reputation for thinking big.
But Texas itself wasn't so big as it had been. Not far west of Abilene, Texas abruptly stopped. What the damnyankees called the state of Houston began. That was why Jake had come all the way out here: to make a speech as close to what he still called occupied territory as he could.
The train stopped. His bodyguards got up, ready to precede him out onto the platform. Looking out there, one of them said, "It's all right. Willy Knight's there waitin' for us."
"Hell it's all right, Pete," another guard said. "What if that Knight bastard's the one who wants to try and get rid o' the boss?"
Pete, an innocent soul, looked shocked. Jake wasn't. Willy Knight's Redemption League might have swallowed up the Freedom Party instead of the other way round. It hadn't, though, and Knight couldn't be happy that he wasn't the biggest fish in the pond, the way he'd dreamt of being. Still… "If he wants to put me six feet under, reckon he can do it," Featherston said. "This is his part of the country; he can hire more guns than I can bring along. But if you stick your head in the lion's mouth and get away with it, after that the lion knows who's number one. That's what we're gonna do here."
When Jake stepped out onto the platform, the band struck up a sprightly version of "Dixie." People cheered. Jake took off his hat and waved it. Willy Knight stepped forward to shake his hand. As the two Freedom Party leaders met, photographers took pictures. The flashes made Featherston's eyes water.
"Welcome to Texas, Jake-what's left of it," Knight said, a broad smile on his handsome face.
"Thank you kindly, my friend." Featherston lied through his teeth. "We'll see what we can do about getting back what the USA stole from us."
"How are you going to do that?" a reporter shouted. "The Yankees won't pay any attention to us."
"They don't have to pay any attention to the CSA, not as long as the Whigs hold on to Richmond," Jake answered. "The Whigs say we lost the war, and so we're stuck-stuck forever. And we are, too, long as we think that way. But even the Yankees knew better. After we whipped 'em, they set up Remembrance Day so they wouldn't forget what happened. The Whigs want to forget-they want to pretend all their mistakes never happened at all. And they want the country to forget. Me, I don't intend to."
"That's right." Willy Knight nodded vigorously. "That's just exactly right. Here in Texas, we live with that every day when we look west and see what the United States did to us."
The reporters scribbled. Jake sent Knight a sour look. The Texan wanted to be part of the story, too. If you wanted to horn in on this, why'd you invite me out here to the middle of nowhere? Featherston thought. But he knew the answer, knew it all too well. Because you still want to be top dog, that's why, you son of a bitch. Most ways, having ambitious men in the Party was wonderful. They worked hard, for their own good as well as its. But having them here meant Jake could never stop watching his back.
"I'm making my main speech at a park west of town, isn't that right?" he asked Knight, though he also knew that answer. "Almost within spitting range of what they call Houston. Spitting's not half what they deserve, either."