"Freedom!"
The shout from the crowd, more than a thousand voices speaking as one, made his ears ring. He threw up his hands. "That's right, folks. Thank you. And remember-no matter what else you do, fight hard! "
More applause shook the hall as he stepped away from the podium. The house lights came up, so he could see the people he'd been haranguing. He waved to them again. "Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!" they chanted, over and over again. The rhythmic cry rolled through him, rolled under him, and swept him along on its crest. He'd read somewhere that in the Sandwich Islands the natives rode waves lying or even standing up on flat boards. He supposed that was true. If it weren't true, who could make it up? He felt something like that now, buoyed up by the crowd's enthusiasm.
As he went offstage, the bodyguards and other men who'd come west from Virginia with him pumped his hand and told him what a great speech he'd given. "Thanks, boys," he said, and then, "For Christ's sake, somebody get me a drink!"
Louisiana had never surrendered to the siren song of prohibition. He could drink his whiskey here without shame or hypocrisy. It seared his throat and sent warmth exploding out from his middle. As soon as he emptied the glass, somebody got him a fresh one.
He sipped the second drink more slowly. Got to keep my wits about me, he thought. Not everybody was going to like the speech as well as his flunkies had.
No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than a tall, blond, handsome man in a suit that must have cost plenty came up and shook hands with him. "You gave 'em hell out there tonight, Jake," he said, a Texas twang in his voice.
"I thank you kindly, Willy," Featherston answered. Willy Knight had headed up the Redemption League, an outfit with goals much like those of the Freedom Party, till the bigger Party enfolded it. He wasn't the best number-two man around, mostly because he still had thoughts of being number one.
"Damn good speech," agreed Amos Mizell. He led the Tin Hats, the biggest Confederate veterans' organization. The Tin Hats weren't formally aligned with the Freedom Party, but they shared many of the same ideas.
"Thank you, too," Jake Featherston said. Mizell wore the ribbon for a Purple Heart on his shirt. "You were out there, same as me. You know how the Whigs sold us down the river. You know how they've been selling us down the river ever since."
"Sure do." Mizell nodded. "What Willy and I aren't so sure of, though, is whether you're the fellow who's going to kick 'em out on the street where they belong."
"No, huh?" Featherston looked from one of them to the other. "You boys felt like that, how come you didn't try and keep me from getting the nomination last month?" He wanted his enemies out there in the open where he could see them and smash them, not lurking in dead leaves like a couple of rattlesnakes.
"Wouldn't've been much point to that, on account of we'd've lost," Willy Knight said. "We'll see how you do come November, and we'll go from there. You really think you're going to win?"
Featherston made an impatient, scornful gesture. "That's to keep the troops happy, and you know it as well as I do. I'm hoping I finish ahead of the damn Rad Libs, and that we hold our ground in Congress. I think we can do that." He hoped the Freedom Party could do that. Before the great flood, he wouldn't even have bet on so much. But the flood had shown that the Whigs weren't so slick as they thought they were, and that they didn't respond well in emergencies. Some voters, at least, would see the light.
Knight and Mizell looked at each other. "All right, Jake," Knight said at last. "That sounds fair. If the Party does that well come fall, we'll keep on backing your play. But if we take another hammering, the way we did in the last couple of Congressional elections, everybody's gonna have to do a lot of thinking."
"I carried the Freedom Party on my back, God damn it," Jake growled.
"Nobody says you didn't, so keep your shirt on." Willy Knight was a bigger man than Featherston, but Jake, in a fury, was a match for anybody. Knight knew it, too. Still speaking placatingly, he went on, "Moses took the Hebrews out of Egypt, but he wasn't the one who got 'em into the Promised Land."
Amos Mizell nodded. "If the Party's vote slips again, the Tin Hats will have to think about getting what we want some other way."
Featherston had thought he wanted enemies openly declared. Now he had them, and wished he didn't. "And I suppose the two of you will try and screw me over so we don't get what I said we would."
They almost fell over themselves denying it. "As long as we do what you said we'd do, we're still in business," Knight said. "If we fall down now, who knows if there'll be any pieces worth picking up later on? We're still with you."
"You'd better be," Jake said. "Let's see what happens in November, then, and afterwards." Knight and Mizell both nodded. Featherston shook hands with each of them in turn. And if you bastards think I'll let go without a fight even if things do go wrong, you're a hell of a lot dumber than I think you are.
In the Terry, the colored district of Augusta, Georgia, Election Day meant next to nothing. Only a handful of Negro veterans of the Great War were registered to vote. To most people, it was just another Tuesday.
As usual, Erasmus was in his fish store and restaurant when Scipio walked in. Scipio got himself a cup of coffee to drink while sweeping up the place. His boss was setting newly bought fish on ice in the counter. Scipio said, "What you think? De Whigs gwine win again?"
"Dunno," Erasmus said with a shrug. "Them or the Rad Libs, don't matter one way or t'other. Long as it ain't that goddamn crazy man." He threw a crappie into place with more force than he usually used while handling fish. That Election Day meant next to nothing didn't mean it meant nothing at all.
"Dat Featherston buckra, he ain't gwine do nothin' much," Scipio said.
"Better not," Erasmus answered, and slammed down a gutted catfish. "That son of a bitch win, everything's even tougher for us niggers. And things is tough enough as they is."
Voice sly, Scipio said. "You ain't got it so bad. You owns your house free an' clear-"
"I ain't stupid," Erasmus said, and Scipio nodded. His boss had been damn smart there. He'd paid off his mortgage just when inflation was starting to ravage the CSA, when he'd had a pretty easy time accumulating the money he needed but before Confederate dollars became nothing but a joke. The bankers had taken the money, even if they'd been unhappy about it. A few weeks later and they would have refused him. "I ain't stupid," he repeated. "I'm smart enough to know I ain't got it easy long as I's a nigger in the CSA."
He was right about that. Scipio didn't need to be a genius to understand as much. He said, "No, you ain't got it easy-I takes it back. But you has it worse-all us niggers has it worse-if dat Featherston, he win." Working for Anne Colleton had given him a feel for the way Confederate politics worked. Again, though, he didn't need to be a genius to find the truth in what he'd just said.
"Not so many parades with them goddamn white men in the white shirts an' the butternut pants yellin', 'Freedom!' this year," Erasmus observed. "They ain't been tryin' to bust up the other parties' meetin's, neither, like they done before. They walkin' sof' again."
"Don' want to remind nobody what that one buckra done," Scipio said. "But too many folks, dey recollects any which way."
"Hell, yes," Erasmus said. "Thing of it is, Freedom Party, they needs the white folks to be stupid, or else to act stupid on account of they scared. Now, Lord knows the white folks is stupid-"