American Empire_ Blood And Iron Part 43

"Probably," Tom agreed. "Calkins may have killed the Freedom Party along with a Whig president. Featherston has to know that-he isn't stupid. But he's the one who raised the devil. He's got no business being surprised if it ended up turning on him."

"That isn't fair," Anne said, but even in her own ears her voice lacked conviction. Tom said nothing at all, leaving her with the last word. She'd never been so sorry to have it.

When she walked to the tailor's the next morning, people in the streets of St. Matthews, white and black alike, fell silent and stared at her as she went by. They'd been talking about the a.s.sa.s.sination. They started talking about the a.s.sa.s.sination again as soon as she pa.s.sed. While she was close by, they would not talk. Some of them moved away from her, as if they didn't want her shadow to fall on them. She'd been the dominant force in this part of South Carolina for more than a decade. People had always granted her the deference she'd earned. By the way they acted now, she might have just escaped from a leper colony.

Going into Aaron Rosenblum's shop felt like escaping. Clack, clack, clack Clack, clack, clack went the treadle of his sewing machine. The clacking stopped when the bell above his door rang. He looked up from the piece of worsted he'd been guiding through the machine. "Good morning, Miss Colleton," he said, polite but no more than polite. He got to his feet. "I have ready the skirt you asked me to make for you." went the treadle of his sewing machine. The clacking stopped when the bell above his door rang. He looked up from the piece of worsted he'd been guiding through the machine. "Good morning, Miss Colleton," he said, polite but no more than polite. He got to his feet. "I have ready the skirt you asked me to make for you."

"Good. I hoped you would." As was often her way, Anne chose to take the bull by the horns. "Terrible about President Hampton yesterday."

"Yes." The little old tailor looked at her over the tops of his half-gla.s.ses. "A very terrible thing. But what can you expect from a party that would sooner fight than think?"

Rosenblum had to know she backed the Freedom Party. She'd made no secret of it-on the contrary. If he thought he could rebuke her like this...If that was so, the Party was in as much trouble as she'd feared. In a tight voice, she said, "The Freedom Party is trying to make the Confederate States strong again."

"Oh, yes. Of course." The tailor had a peculiar accent, half lazy South Carolina Low Country, the other half Yiddish. "And I, I am a lucky man to live now in the Confederacy. In Russia, where I am from, parties that try to make the country strong again go after the Jews. Here, you go after black people instead, so I am safe. Yes, I am a lucky man."

Anne stared at him. She knew sarcasm when she heard it. And Rosenblum's words held an uncomfortable amount of truth. "That isn't all the Freedom Party does," Anne said. The tailor did not answer. What hung in the air was, Yes, you also shoot the president. Yes, you also shoot the president. Twice now in two days, she would sooner not have been left with the last word. She attempted briskness: "Let me see the skirt, if you please." Twice now in two days, she would sooner not have been left with the last word. She attempted briskness: "Let me see the skirt, if you please."

"Yes, ma'am." He gave it to her, then waved her to a changing room. "Try it on. I will alter it if it does not suit you."

Try it on she did. The gray wool skirt fit perfectly around the waist; she might be irked at Rosenblum, but he did good work. And the length was in the new mode, as she'd requested: it showed off not only her ankles but also several inches of shapely calf. Tom would pitch a fit. Too bad for Tom. Roger Kimball would approve, though he'd sooner see her naked altogether.

She changed back into the black skirt she'd worn, then paid Rosenblum for the new gray one: a bargain at two billion dollars. "Thank you very much," he said, tucking the banknotes into a drawer.

"You're welcome," she said, and then, "I am am sorry the president is dead. I don't care whether you believe me or not." sorry the president is dead. I don't care whether you believe me or not."

"If you didn't care, you wouldn't say you didn't care," Rosenblum answered. While she was still unraveling that, he went on, "I do believe you, Miss Colleton. But now you believe me, too: a party that shouts and shoots for freedom is not a party that really wants it."

Another paradox. Anne shook her head. "I haven't got time for riddles today. Good morning." The new skirt folded over her arm, she stalked out of the tailor's shop.

Chester Martin sat down in a folding chair at the Socialist Party hall near the Toledo steel mill where he worked. "What did you call the Freedom Party down in the CSA?" he asked Albert Bauer. "Reaction on the march? Was that it? You hit the nail right on the head."

"Yeah, even for a reactionary party, shooting a reactionary president dead because he's not reactionary enough to suit them takes a lot of doing," Bauer allowed. "They'll be sorry, too, you mark my words."

"They're sorry already, I'll bet," Martin said. "It'll be a cold day in h.e.l.l before they come so close to winning an election again."

"They'll be sorrier, too," Bauer predicted. "They've done something I wouldn't have bet they could: they've made people in the United States feel sorry for the Confederate States."

"They've even made me feel that way, and some Rebel b.a.s.t.a.r.d shot me," Martin said. "But shooting a president-" He shook his head. "n.o.body's ever done that before, there or here. What is the world coming to?"

"Revolution," Bauer answered. "And the reactionaries in the CSA just gave the progressive forces here a leg up. Before, President Sinclair couldn't have gotten ending reparations through Congress if his life depended on it. Now, though, I think he may just have the votes to pull it off."

"Do you?" Martin wasn't so sure he liked the idea. "As far as I can see, we'd be better off if the Confederates stayed broke and weak."

"Sure we would, in the short run," Bauer said. "But in the long run, if the Confederate States keep going down the drain, who does that help? That Featherston lunatic almost won the election last year because the Rebs were in such bad shape. What happens if they get worse?"

"Well, they aren't going to have a revolution-not a Red one, anyway," Martin said. He got up, went over to a coffeepot that sat on top of an iron stove, and poured himself a cup. After he set it down on the table, he lit a cigarette.

Bauer waited patiently till he'd puffed a couple of times, then nodded. "No, they won't have a Red revolution, not right away. It's a conservative country, and Marxism is tied to the black man there, which means the white man has, or thinks he has, a strong extra reason to hate it. But the Confederates' time is coming, too. Sooner or later, all the capitalist countries will have their revolutions."

He spoke with the certainty of a devout Catholic talking about the miracle of transubstantiation. Chester Martin's faith in Socialism was newer, more pragmatic, and neither so deep nor so abiding. He said, "Maybe so, Al, but there's liable to be a h.e.l.l of a long time hiding in that sooner or later sooner or later."

"The dialectic doesn't say how fast things will happen," Bauer answered calmly. "It just says they will will happen, and that's enough for me." happen, and that's enough for me."

"Maybe for you," Martin said. "Me, I'd sort of like to know whether a revolution's coming in my time or whether it's something my great-grandchildren will be waiting for-if I ever have any." He wasn't so young as he had been. There were times when he wished he'd found a girl as soon as he came home from the war, or maybe even before then. But work in the foundry and work for the Socialist Party left little time for courting, or even thinking about courting.

Back when he'd been a Democrat, he'd thought Socialist girls were loose, without a moral to their name. People said it so often, he'd been sure it was true. Now, rather to his regret, he knew better. A lot of the women in the Socialist Party were married to Socialist men. A lot of the ones who weren't might as well have been married to the Party. That left...slim pickings.

Albert Bauer said, "Even if we don't get a revolution in the CSA any time soon, we don't want the reactionaries in charge down there. That would turn the cla.s.s struggle on its head. As far as I'm concerned, keeping the Freedom Party down is reason enough to let reparations go."

"Well, maybe," Martin said. He wouldn't say any more than maybe maybe, no matter how his friend tried to argue him around. He was sorry the Confederates had had their president shot. He wouldn't have wished that even on the CSA. But not wis.h.i.+ng anything bad on the Confederate States didn't necessarily mean he wished anything good on them, either.

After he got home that evening, the topic came up again around the supper table. He'd expected it would; the newsboys were hawking papers by shouting about reparations. "What do you think, Chester?" Stephen Douglas Martin asked. "You were the one who was doing the fighting."

"Hard to say, Pa," Martin answered. "I used to think that, if I ever saw a Reb drowning, I'd toss him an anvil. Now-I just don't know."

"Can't we let the war be over at last?" Louisa Martin said. "Haven't both sides been through enough yet? When can we be satisfied?"

"Might as well ask the Mormons out West, Ma," her daughter Sue said. "They just took some shots at a couple of Army trucks-did you see that in the newspaper? They don't forget we beat them. You can bet the Confederates haven't forgotten we beat them. So why should we forget it?"

"It goes both ways, though," Chester said. "It's not an easy question. If we keep holding the Rebs down, they'll hate us on account of that. They did it to us for years and years, after the War of Secession and then after the Second Mexican War. Do we want them thinking about nothing but paying us back, the way we worked so hard to get even with them and with England and France?"

"You sound like a Socialist, all right," his father said, laughing. "Pa.s.s the peas, will you, you lousy Red?"

Chester laughed, too, and pa.s.sed the bowl. "Talking to you and Mother, I sound like a Socialist. When I talk to people down at the Socialist hall, I sound like a Democrat half the time. I've noticed that before. I'm stuck in the middle, you might say."

"People who can see both sides of the question usually are," his mother told him. "It's not the worst place in the world to be."

Sue Martin looked curiously at Chester. "With that Purple Heart in your bedroom, I'd think you'd be the last one to want to let the Confederates up off the floor."

He shrugged. "Like Mother says, maybe it's time for the war to be over and done with. Besides, the one thing I don't want to do is have to fight those...so-and-so's again." Talking about a new war almost made him slip back into the foul language of the trenches. "If they can settle down because they're not paying reparations any more, that might not be too bad."

"You make good sense, son," Stephen Douglas Martin said. His wife nodded. After a moment, so did Sue. Martin's father went on, "Now, what are the odds that anybody in Congress would know common sense if it flew around Philadelphia in an aeroplane?"

"There's a Socialist majority," Martin said. But that didn't prove anything, and he knew it. "We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?"

Out of the blue, Sue asked, "How do you think that Congresswoman you met would vote? You know the one I mean-the one whose brother got wounded while he was in your squad?"

"Flora Hamburger," Martin said. "Yeah, sure, I know who you mean. That's a good question. She usually does what's right. I don't really know. We'll have to keep watching the newspapers, I guess."

"Flora Hamburger." Louisa Martin snapped her fingers. "I know where I saw that name. She's the one who got engaged to the vice president a little while ago." She looked from her son to her daughter and back again, as if to say getting engaged would satisfy her: catching a vice president was unnecessary.

"Mother," Sue said in warning tones.

"She's just giving you a rough time," Martin said. That got his sister and his mother both glaring at him. He forked up some peas, freshly conscious of the dangers peacemakers faced when they stepped between warring factions.

When Chester looked up from the peas, he found his father eyeing him with more than a little amus.e.m.e.nt. Stephen Douglas Martin had the good sense to stay out of a quarrel he couldn't hope to influence.

Over the next few days, the debate about reparations stayed in the newspapers, along with the reprisals the Army was taking against the perennially rebellious Mormons in Utah. The collision of two aeroplanes carrying mail elbowed both those stories out of the headlines for a little while, but the excitement about the crash died quickly-though not so quickly as the two luckless pilots had.

When Flora Hamburger came out in favor of ending reprisals, the papers carried the news on the front page. "Conscience of the Congress says yes!" newsboys shouted. "Reparations repeal seen as likely!"

Martin was less impressed with the announcement than he would have been before Congresswoman Hamburger got engaged to Vice President Blackford. In a way, that made her part of the administration proposing the new policy. But then again, from what he knew of her, she wasn't so easy to influence. Maybe she was speaking her mind after all.

"I think the bill will pa.s.s now. I hope it works out for the best, that's all," Martin said when Sue asked him about it that night over oxtail soup. "Can't know till it happens."

"When you do something, you can't know ahead of time what will come of it," his father said. "Politicians will tell you they do, but they don't. Sometimes, you just go ahead and do things and see where they lead."

"That's how the war happened," Martin said. "n.o.body imagined it would be so bad when it started. When it started, people cheered. But we locked horns with the Rebs and the Canucks, and for the longest time n.o.body could go forward or back. I hope this doesn't go wrong the same way, that's all."

"Sometimes being afraid of what could go wrong is a good reason not to do anything," Stephen Douglas Martin observed.

"You're a Democrat, all right," Chester said.

"Well, so I am," his father agreed. "Upton Sinclair's been in for more than a year now, and I'm switched if I can see how he's set the world on fire."

Louisa Martin said, "We already set the world on fire once, not very long ago. Isn't that enough for you, Stephen?"

"Well, maybe it is, when you put it like that," her husband said. "If letting the Confederates off the hook means we don't have to fight another war, I suppose I'm for it. But if they start spending the money they would have given us on guns and such, that'll cause trouble like you wouldn't believe." He raised his mug of beer. "Here's hoping they've learned their lesson." He sipped the suds.

"Here's hoping," Chester Martin echoed. He drank, too. So did his mother and sister.

Roger Kimball was drunk. He'd been drunk a lot of the time since Grady Calkins shot President Wade Hampton V. Staring down into his gla.s.s of whiskey, he muttered, "Stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Stupid f.u.c.king f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Calkins might as well have taken his Tredegar and shot the Freedom Party right between the eyes. b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Calkins might as well have taken his Tredegar and shot the Freedom Party right between the eyes.

The whiskey, Kimball decided, was staring back at him. He drank it down so it wouldn't do that any more. Any old excuse in a storm, Any old excuse in a storm, he thought. He poured himself a fresh gla.s.s. Maybe this one would be more polite. Whether it was or not, he'd drink it. he thought. He poured himself a fresh gla.s.s. Maybe this one would be more polite. Whether it was or not, he'd drink it.

He did a lot of his own pouring these days. Too many people recognized him on the streets and in the saloons of Charleston. A few weeks before, a lot of those people would have greeted him with a wave and a cheery call of "Freedom!" Now they glared. Sometimes they cursed. One man had threatened to kill him if he saw him again. Kimball wasn't too alarmed-he knew how to take care of himself-but he spent more time in his flat than he had.

That meant his bankroll shrank with every day's inflation. He didn't get into so many card games as he had, which was too d.a.m.n bad, because they'd been what kept him afloat. Without them, the millions that paid the rent one week bought a sandwich the next week, a cigar the week after that, and were good only as pretty paper the week after that.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n d.a.m.n Grady Calkins," he said, and drank some of the polite whiskey. It wasn't fair. The more whiskey he drank, the more obviously it wasn't fair. The Freedom Party still stood for exactly the same things as it had before the madman shot the president. Kimball still thought those things were as important as he had then. A couple of weeks before, people had applauded him and applauded Jake Featherston. Now they wouldn't give the Freedom Party the time of day. Where was the justice in that? Grady Calkins," he said, and drank some of the polite whiskey. It wasn't fair. The more whiskey he drank, the more obviously it wasn't fair. The Freedom Party still stood for exactly the same things as it had before the madman shot the president. Kimball still thought those things were as important as he had then. A couple of weeks before, people had applauded him and applauded Jake Featherston. Now they wouldn't give the Freedom Party the time of day. Where was the justice in that?

Tears came into his eyes, a drunk's easy tears. One rolled down his cheek-or maybe that was just a drop of sweat. Charleston in the summer, even early in the summer, taught a man everything he needed to know about sweating and then some.

Kimball knocked back the rest of his drink. At last, instead of leaving him furious or maudlin, it did what he wanted it to do: it hit him over the head like a rock. He staggered into the bedroom, took off his shoes, lay down diagonally across the bed, and pa.s.sed out before he could undress.

Sunlight streaming in through the bedroom window woke him the next morning. It seemed so hot, so bright, so molten, he thought for a moment he'd died and gone to h.e.l.l. He squinted his eyes down to narrow slits so he could come close to bearing the glare. When he rolled away from it, his head pounded like a submersible's diesel running at full throttle.

His mouth tasted as if too many people had stubbed out too many cigars in there. Greasy sweat bathed his body from aching head to stockinged feet. He thought about getting up and taking a small nip to ease the worst of the pain, but his stomach did a slow, horrified loop at the mere idea.

Eventually, he did get up. "Only proves I'm a hero," he said, and winced at the sound of his own voice even though he hadn't been so rash as to speak loudly. He staggered into the bathroom, splashed his face with cold water, and used more cold water to wash down some aspirins. His stomach let out another loud shout of protest when they landed, as if it were a submarine under heavy attack from depth charges. He wondered if they'd stay down. He gulped a few times, but they did.

He brushed his teeth, which got rid of the worst of the cigar b.u.t.ts. Then he ran a tub full of cold water, stripped off his sweat-soaked clothes, and gingerly stepped in. It felt dreadful and wonderful at the same time. After he'd toweled himself dry and put on a s.h.i.+rt and trousers that didn't smell as if he'd stolen them from a drunk in the gutter, he felt better. Before too long, he might decide he wanted to live after all.

Showing stern military discipline, he walked past the whiskey bottle on the coffee table in the front room and into the kitchen. Black coffee was almost as painful to get down as the aspirins had been, but made him feel better. After some thought, he cut a couple of thick slices of bread and ate them. They sank to his stomach like rocks, but added ballast once there.

He went back into the bathroom and combed his hair in front of the mirror. Only red tracks across the whites of his eyes and a certain general weariness betrayed his hangover to the world. He would do. Donning a straw hat to help s.h.i.+eld his eyes from the slings and arrows of outrageous sunbeams, he left the apartment. However much he might have wanted to, he couldn't stay indoors all the time.

Newsboys selling the Courier Courier and the and the Mercury Mercury both shouted the same headline: "United States end reparations!" The boys with stacks of the both shouted the same headline: "United States end reparations!" The boys with stacks of the Mercury Mercury, the Whig outlet, added, "President Mitchel says Confederate currency will recover!"

"I'll believe that when I see it," Kimball sneered: both newspapers cost a million dollars. But, if enough people believed it, it might happen. The prospect made him less happy than he would have thought possible. The shrinking-h.e.l.l, the disappearing-Confederate dollar had helped fuel the Freedom Party's rise.

A cop strode up the street toward Kimball, twirling his billy club in a figure-eight. He recognized the exNavy man, and aimed the nightstick at him like a Tredegar. "I catch you and your pals going around making trouble like you used to, I'll run y'all in, you hear? Them's the orders I got from city hall."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Bob," Kimball answered wearily, "tell me you didn't vote for Featherston and I'll call you a liar to your face."

"That don't have nothing to do with nothing." The policeman brushed a bit of lint from the sleeve of his gray tunic. "Word is, we got to be tough on keeping public order. We ain't messin' around with you boys no more, you hear?"

"I hear you," Kimball said, and went on his way. He would have made sure the Freedom Party walked small for a while, anyway-only sensible thing to do. But getting orders from a fair-weather friend rankled.

And, when he opened the door to the Freedom Party's Charleston offices, he realized the orders had been unnecessary for a different reason. The way things were right now, he would have had a devil of a time raising trouble even had he wanted to. The headquarters that had bustled all the way through the presidential campaign and afterwards felt more like a tomb now. Only a few people sat at their desks, none of them doing anything much. d.a.m.n that Calkins, d.a.m.n that Calkins, Kimball thought again. Kimball thought again.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it," he said loudly, "it isn't the end of the world."

"Might as well be." Three people, one in the front of the office, one in the middle, and one at the back, said the same thing at the same time.

"No! Jesus Christ, no," Kimball said. "If we were right before that miserable son of a b.i.t.c.h of a Hampton got his head blown off, we're still right now. People will will see it, so help me G.o.d they will." see it, so help me G.o.d they will."

One of the men who'd said Might as well be Might as well be replied, "I had a rock chucked through my front window the other night. Had a note tied round it with a string, just like in the dime novels." replied, "I had a rock chucked through my front window the other night. Had a note tied round it with a string, just like in the dime novels."

"The dime novels that cost millions nowadays," Kimball broke in.

As if he hadn't spoken, the Freedom Party functionary went on, "Said my neighbors would whale the tar out of me if I ever went out wearing white and b.u.t.ternut again, or else burn my house down." He gave Kimball as hard a look as he could with his round, doughy face.

Kimball glared back. The leftover pain of his hangover made his scowl even fiercer than it would have been otherwise. "G.o.d d.a.m.n you to h.e.l.l, Bill Ambrose, I didn't have a thing to do with burning down Tom Brearley's house. I don't do things like that. I might have shot the b.a.s.t.a.r.d-Lord knows I wanted to-or I might have beat him to death with a two-by-four, but I wouldn't have done that. It's a coward's way out, like throwing a rock through a window. I go straight after what I don't like. You understand me?"

Bill Ambrose muttered something. Kimball took two swift strides toward him. Feeling the way he did, he was ready-more than ready-to brawl. Ambrose wasn't, though he'd been bold enough when the stalwarts marched. Hastily, he said, "I understand you, Roger."

"You'd d.a.m.n well better," Kimball growled. "We've got to walk small for a while, that's all. Yeah, some of our summer birds have flown south. Yeah, the cops are going to give us a rough time for a bit. But Jake Featherston's still the only man who can save this country. He's still the only man who has a prayer of licking the United States when we tangle with 'em again. All right, getting to the top won't be as easy as we hoped it would. That doesn't mean we can't do it."

He knew what he sounded like: a fellow at a football game when his team was down by two touchdowns more than halfway through the fourth quarter. If they only tried hard enough, they could still pull it out. If they gave up, they'd get steamrollered.

Looking around the office, he thought a lot of the men still there were on the point of giving up. They'd drift away, go back to being Whigs, and try to pretend their fling with the Freedom Party never happened, as if they'd gone out with a fast woman for a while and then given her up for the homely, familiar girl next door.

"Don't quit," he said earnestly. "That's all I've got to tell you, boys: don't quit. We are are making this country what it ought to be. We never would have seen pa.s.sbook laws with teeth if there hadn't been Freedom Party men in Congress. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d Layne might have won the election if it hadn't been for us." making this country what it ought to be. We never would have seen pa.s.sbook laws with teeth if there hadn't been Freedom Party men in Congress. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d Layne might have won the election if it hadn't been for us."

Some of the men looked happier. Kimball knew he wasn't the only true-blue Party man here. But somebody behind him said, "Maybe things'll get better anyhow, now that we're not stuck with reparations any more."

That was Kimball's greatest fear. To fight it, he loaded his voice with scorn: "Ha! I know about Burton Mitchel, by G.o.d-I'm from Arkansas, too, remember? Only reason he got into the Senate is that his daddy and granddad were there before him-he's another one of those stinking aristocrats. You ask me, if he does anything but sit there like a b.u.mp on a log, it'll be the biggest miracle since Jesus raised Lazarus."

A few people laughed: not enough. Kimball spun on his heel and stalked out of the Freedom Party offices. He'd never been aboard a slowly sinking s.h.i.+p, but now he had a good notion of what it felt like.

And he got no relief out on King Street, either. Up the sidewalk toward him came Clarence Potter and Jack Delamotte. Potter's face twisted into a broad, unpleasant smile. "h.e.l.lo, Roger. Haven't see you for a while," he said, his almost-Yankee accent grating on Kimball's ears. "I expect you're pleased with the pack of ruffians you chose. By all accounts, you fit right in."

Kimball's hands balled into fists. "First time I ever heard your whiny voice, I wanted to lick you. Just so you know, I haven't changed my mind."