"I seen that, too," Scipio said. "My wife, she done los' half she people."
"World's a crazy place nowadays," the woman said. "Lady at the house I was at jus' now, her husband, he been a Whig forever, an' his daddy before him, an' his daddy before him. She say he talkin' 'bout votin' Freedom when the 'lections come round this fall. I didn't say nothin'. You don't like to tell the lady what's payin' you her husband ain't got no brains." She took another bite.
From his station in front of the stove, Erasmus said, "When the white folks see their money goin' away, some of 'em liable to do some crazy things."
"How many of 'em do dem crazy things?" Scipio wondered as he fetched the cleaning lady a cup of coffee. "We gwine have buckra in de streets yellin', 'Freedom!' again? Reckoned we was done wid dat."
"God do what He want to do, not what we wants Him to do," the cleaning woman said. "Thank you kindly, Xerxes," she added when Scipio set the coffee on the table.
"You's welcome," he answered absently.
How many whites were losing their jobs or losing money? He had no way of knowing, not for sure. More than a few, though; the stories in the Constitutionalist made that very clear. So did what was happening to the jobs of Negroes who depended on whites for work. How many of the whites who lost their jobs would start voting for Jake Featherston and his party?
Scipio had no way of knowing that, either, not for sure. But he'd just heard of one, and that was one more than he wanted to know about.
The cleaning lady gulped the coffee and got to her feet. She left money on the tabletop and hurried away. Over her shoulder, she said, "Can't be late gittin' back. Miz Hutton, I reckon she grab the first excuse she find to put me on the street. Don't aim to give her none." Out the door she went, in a hurry because her tip was small.
A man who sold secondhand furniture across the street came in for some fried catfish. As he ate, he remarked, "Had me a couple-three buckra come in the last few days. Ain't seen none in a hell of a long time 'fore that."
"Buy anything?" Scipio asked.
"Sure enough did," the furniture dealer answered. "Sold me a couple beds and a good chest o' drawers."
"Good for you, Athenaeus," Erasmus said. " 'Bout time I hear of somebody doin' good right now."
"Fellas sellin' new furniture, they's the ones wouldn't be happy if they knowed," Athenaeus said. "White folks all say they look at the new stuff first, but they can't afford it, no way, nohow. So they come to me."
"Good to hear it," Scipio echoed; as Erasmus had said, any news of success was welcome. But Athenaeus wasn't wrong. What would the white furniture dealers whose goods hadn't sold think?
And it wasn't just what they would think. What would they do? What could any man do, when he stared at bills and had no money to pay them? Would they put on white shirts and butternut trousers and start shouting, "Freedom!" at the top of their lungs? If they did, could anybody blame them?
Scipio nodded. I can blame them, he thought, hearing inside himself the precise English he no longer dared speak loud. I can blame them, for the Freedom Party will not make their troubles disappear, even if they think it will. And what the Freedom Party will do to me and mine if ever it should come to power…
That fear had spread all through the colored communities of the CSA in the early 1920s, and then receded as the Party's fortunes ebbed. Now white men were seeing the Confederate States could still know hard times. What would that discovery, that rediscovery, mean for Negroes here? Scipio didn't know. He feared finding out. Try as he would, though, he saw no escape.
"What kin we do?" he said aloud, hoping one of the other men in the place would have a better idea than he did. "Can't go nowheres."
"Ain't noplace else wants us," Erasmus said. "Not the USA."
"That's for sure," Athenaeus agreed. "They don't like the niggers they got. Ain't got very many, an' sure don't want no more."
"Stock market in de USA down de sewer, too," Scipio said. "They ain't got no money, no spirit, to help nobody else, not when they got trouble helpin' they ownselves."
"Good things they's down, too, you wants to know what I thinks," Athenaeus said. "If they was up, they be lordin' it over us. They do that, jus' git more buckra listenin' to Jake Featherston on the wireless and gittin' all hot and bothered afterwards."
For a long time before the world finally went mad in 1914, respect for each other's strength had kept the United States and Confederate States from going to war. Scipio had never imagined mutual weakness could do the same, but he couldn't deny Athenaeus had a point. It wasn't one he'd thought of, either.
"Empire of Mexico, mebbe," he said. But neither Erasmus nor Athenaeus paid much attention to that. Scipio couldn't take it seriously himself. To a Negro in eastern Georgia, the Empire of Mexico might as well have been on the dark side of the moon. Besides, what were the odds that Mexicans had any more use for Negroes than white men did?
Erasmus asked a more immediately relevant question: " 'Fore long, some black folks gwine start runnin' out o' money. What happen to 'em?"
"They git hungry," Athenaeus said.
"Church help some," Scipio said.
"Church be swamped," Erasmus said. Scipio nodded. By all the signs, that would come true, and soon. His boss went on, "Ain't no use waitin' fo' the gummint to do somethin'. Wait till Judgment Day, gummint won't do nothin' fo' no niggers."
" 'Fore long, some white folks starts runnin' out o' money and gettin' hungry, too," Athenaeus said. "Plenty po' buckra, they ain't hardly better off'n niggers. Gummint worry 'bout the buckra first, you wait an' see."
"What's a po' nigger gwine do?" Erasmus asked. "Starve?"
The word hung in the air. Scipio had known a lot of hungry people; during the war, he'd been hungry himself after the Confederates destroyed the Congaree Socialist Republic. But there was a difference between being hungry and starving. He tried to imagine thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Negroes (and whites, too) going without because they had no money with which to buy food.
Outside, the sun shone brightly. The day was hot and muggy. It would stay hot and muggy from now all the way till fall. Even so, Scipio felt a chill. This was liable to be a disaster of Biblical proportions.
"What kin we do?" Athenaeus asked mournfully. "What kin anybody do?"
"Pray," Erasmus answered. "God done made this happen. He kin make us come through it, too, so long as He take it in His mind He want to do dat."
"Amen," Athenaeus said. Scipio made himself nod. He didn't want to seem out of place-seeming out of place was one of his greatest fears, because it was deadly dangerous. But if God had really wanted to do something about this disaster, couldn't He have stopped it in the first place?
"More we pray, more He gonna know how much we loves Him," Erasmus said. Along with being a believer, though, he was a relentlessly practical man. He went on, " 'Course, we gots to work hard, too. God ain't never gonna pay no heed to nobody who don't work hard."
Scipio would have bet he'd say that. Erasmus not only believed in the virtues of hard work, he practiced what he preached. Scipio himself was sure it couldn't hurt. What he wasn't sure of was how much it could help.
S omething was wrong in Salt Lake City. Colonel Abner Dowling shook his head. Something was always wrong in Salt Lake City. It wouldn't have been the place, or the sort of place, it was if something hadn't been wrong all the time. But something now was different. Anything different in Salt Lake City automatically roused Dowling's suspicions. As far as he could tell, different and dangerous were two sides of the same coin.