Settling Accounts_ Drive To The East Part 17

"As may be, sir," Scipio answered, and Jerry Dover laughed again. The black man added, "You still have not answered my question." He dared hope Dover would. Skin color was the most important thing in the CSA; no doubt about it. But accent ran color a close second. If he sounded like an educated white man, the presumption that he was what he sounded like ran deep.

But not deep enough, not here. Dover set the live cigarette in the ashtray, steepled his fingertips on the desk, and looked at Scipio over them. "It would be a good idea if you got 'em here," was all he said. His own way of speaking didn't come close to matching Scipio's. By his nervous chuckle, he knew it, too.

Scipio wanted to ask, A good idea how? Why? A good idea how? Why? He wanted to, but he didn't. He'd pushed the white man as far as Dover was willing to go. Returning to the Congaree dialect that was his natural speech, Scipio said, "Reckon I do it, den." He wanted to, but he didn't. He'd pushed the white man as far as Dover was willing to go. Returning to the Congaree dialect that was his natural speech, Scipio said, "Reckon I do it, den."

"Good," Dover said. "I knew you were a smart fellow. If I didn't think so, I wouldn't have wasted my time banging my gums at you in the first place. Now get your a.s.s out there and go to work."

"Yes, suh," Scipio said, relieved to be back on familiar ground.

When his s.h.i.+ft ended, policemen let him through the barbed-wire perimeter surrounding the Terry. They knew him. He had a dispensation to be out after curfew. He made it back to his block of flats without getting knocked over the head.

Then he had his next hurdle: persuading Bathsheba not to do what she usually did. "Why for he want us there?" she demanded.

"Dunno," Scipio answered. "But he want it bad enough to use my fo'-true name."

"Did he?" That made Bathsheba sit up and take notice. Worry in her voice, she asked, "You reckon he do somethin' nasty if we don't come?" he?" That made Bathsheba sit up and take notice. Worry in her voice, she asked, "You reckon he do somethin' nasty if we don't come?"

"Dunno," Scipio said again, more unhappily than ever. "But I reckons y'all better do it."

Bathsheba sighed heavily. "Miz Kent, she ain't gonna be real happy with me. Miz Bagwell neither. But we come."

When his children got up the next morning, they were even more bemused than his wife was. "Somethin' bad liable to happen, Pa," Ca.s.sius said. His hands bunched into fists. "Can we fight back?" He was more like the hunter and guerrilla for whom he'd been named than he had any business being.

"Odds is bad," was all Scipio said. That gave his son very little to react against.

"Don't know that I ever wants to go into the ofay part of Augusta no more," Antoinette said. "They hates us there."

"They hates we here, too," Scipio answered. "You should oughta come, though. I don't reckon Mistuh Dover playin' games." That wasn't quite true. But he didn't know what kind of game the manager was playing, and he couldn't afford not to play along.

His wife and children dressed in their Sunday best for the unusual excursion. Since he was in his own formalwear, the family looked as if they were bound for a fancy wedding or a banquet. When they got to the barbed-wire perimeter, the cops and Freedom Party stalwarts and guards stared at them. There seemed to be more whites manning the perimeter than usual. Or is it just my nerves? Or is it just my nerves? Scipio wondered-nervously. Scipio wondered-nervously.

The policeman who checked pa.s.sbooks had sent Scipio through any number of times. He raised an eyebrow to see the black man's family accompanying him, but didn't say anything about it. He was, within the limits of his job and his race, a decent fellow. A stalwart came up to talk to him. Scipio wondered if they would yell at him to halt and send Bathsheba and the children back. They didn't, though.

When Scipio got to the Huntsman's Lodge, he found that Aurelius also had his wife-a plump, dignified, gray-haired woman named Delilah-with him. Something Something was going on. He still didn't know what, and wished he did. was going on. He still didn't know what, and wished he did.

They all got suppers of the sorts the cooks turned out for the waiters. Two or three other waiters and cooks-all of them men who'd worked at the Lodge for a while, and all of them also men who lived not far from Scipio and his family-also had family members with them.

Jerry Dover hovered over the Huntsman's Lodge's uncommon customers. He was fox-quick, fox-clever, and also, Scipio judged, fox-wary. "Thank y'all for being here today," he said. "I've worked with your husbands and fathers for years, and I've never met y'all before. Hope I do again before too long."

He was saying something between the lines. But not even Scipio, who knew he was doing it, could make out the words behind the words. He wanted to scratch his head. Instead, he had to go out and work his s.h.i.+ft as if everything were normal.

It only seemed to last forever. In fact, it went as smoothly as most of the s.h.i.+fts he put in. He pocketed a few nice tips and got stiffed once, by a lieutenant-colonel with his left arm in a sling. Scipio hoped the next Yankee who shot him took better aim.

When he left the dining room after the Lodge closed, he found his family on the ragged edge of mutiny. "If I was any more bored, I'd be dead," Ca.s.sius snarled.

"Thanks for bringin' 'em by, Xerxes," Jerry Dover said-now he used the alias that seemed to fit Scipio better than his real name these days. "Glad you could do it."

"Uh-huh," Scipio said, still puzzled about what was going on. Something, yes-but what? He nodded to Bathsheba, who was yawning. "Let's go."

The streets of the white part of Augusta were quiet and peaceful. When they got back to the fence around the Terry, another cop who knew Scipio let them through without any trouble about being out after curfew. He laughed as he opened a barbed-wire gate much like the one that would keep livestock in a pen. "You ain't hardly gonna know the place," he said. The rest of the goons at the gate thought that was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.

Only little by little did Scipio and his family discover what they meant. At first, he just thought things seemed too quiet. Curfew or no curfew, there was usually a lot of furtive life on the dark streets of the Terry. A lot of it was dangerous life, but it was life. Tonight, no.

Tonight . . . Ca.s.sius figured it out first, from the number of doors standing open that shouldn't have. "Do Jesus!" he exclaimed, his voice echoing in the empty street. "They done had another cleanout!"

As soon as he pointed it out, it was obvious he was right. The northern part of the Terry had been scooped up and sent off to camps-or somewhere-months before. As far as Scipio knew, n.o.body'd come back, either. Now the heart had been ripped out of the colored part of Augusta. And all in one day, And all in one day, Scipio thought dazedly. Scipio thought dazedly. All in half a day, in fact. All in half a day, in fact. How long had they been planning this, to bring it off with such practiced efficiency? And where had they got the practice? How long had they been planning this, to bring it off with such practiced efficiency? And where had they got the practice?

Bathsheba squeezed his hand, hard. "If it wasn't fo' Jerry Dover, they'd've got us, too," she whispered.

And that was as true as what Ca.s.sius had said. Somehow, Dover had known ahead of time. He'd done what he could-or what he'd wanted to do. Now Scipio owed him not just one life but four. He thanked the G.o.d he mostly didn't believe in for the debt. And he wondered how Jerry Dover would want it repaid.

For there would be a price. There was always a price. Scipio knew that in his bones, in his belly, in his b.a.l.l.s. For a Negro in the CSA, there was always always a price. a price.

After his mother died, Cincinnatus Driver had watched his father like a hawk. He knew the stories about old, long-married couples where, when one spouse died, the other followed soon after, as if finding life alone not worth living.

But Seneca Driver seemed as well as ever. If anything, he seemed better than he had for some time. His shoulders came up; his back straightened. "I is free of a burden," he said once. "That weren't your mama we laid in the ground. Your mama was gone a long time ago. What we buried, that there was just the husk."

Cincinnatus nodded. "I saw that, Pa. I saw that real plain and clear. Wasn't sure you could."

"Oh, I seen it," his father said. "Couldn't do nothin' about it, but I seen it."

If that last sentence wasn't a summary of Negroes' troubles in the Confederate States, Cincinnatus had never heard one. And the government and the Freedom Party had always moved more carefully in Kentucky than rumor said they did farther south. Kentucky had spent a generation in the USA. Negroes here knew what it meant to be citizens, not just downtrodden residents. Even some whites here were . . . less hostile than they might have been.

That meant the barbed-wire perimeter that went up around Covington's colored district came as a special shock. Cincinnatus had heard that such things had happened elsewhere. He didn't think they could here. Finding he was wrong rocked him. Finding he was wrong also trapped him. The perimeter included the bank of the Licking River, and included motorboats with machine guns on the river to make sure n.o.body tried cutting the wire there.

The first place Cincinnatus went when he found out what was going on was, inevitably, Lucullus Wood's barbecue shack. He found the plump proprietor in a worse state of shock than he was. "They told me they wasn't gonna do this," Lucullus said. "They told told me. They f.u.c.kin' lied." He sounded as dazed as a man staggering out of a train wreck. me. They f.u.c.kin' lied." He sounded as dazed as a man staggering out of a train wreck.

Seeing Lucullus struck all in a heap discomfited Cincinnatus worse than the barbed wire itself. "What you gonna do about it?" he demanded. "What can can you do about it?" you do about it?"

"Do Jesus! I dunno," Lucullus answered. "They done ruined me when they done this." Odds were he had that right. Almost as many whites as blacks had come to his place. No more. That perimeter would keep people out as well as keeping them in.

"You can still get word through." That was a statement, not a question. Cincinnatus refused to believe anything different.

"What if I kin?" Lucullus didn't deny it. He just spread his hands, pale palms up. "Ain't gonna do me a h.e.l.l of a lot of good. Who's gonna pay any mind to a n.i.g.g.e.r all shut up like he was in jail? They gonna haul us off to them camps n.o.body never comes out of."

That had a chilling feel of probability to Cincinnatus. Even so, he gave Lucullus the best answer he could: "What about Luther Bliss?" He hated the man, hated and feared him, but Bliss' remained a name to conjure with. He hoped hearing it would at least snap Lucullus out of his funk and make him start thinking straight again.

And it worked. Lucullus very visibly gathered himself. "Mebbe," he said. "But only mebbe, dammit. Freedom Party fellas is hunting Bliss right now like you wouldn't believe."

"h.e.l.l I wouldn't," Cincinnatus said. "If they know he's around, they'll want him dead. He's too dangerous for them to leave him breathin'. Ain't that all the more reason for you to git back in touch with him?"

"Mebbe," Lucullus said again. "What kin he do, though? They gots po police an' them d.a.m.n stalwarts all around. Anytime they wants to come in an' start gettin' rid of us . . ."

"We got guns. You You got guns. You ain't gonna tell me you ain't got guns, 'cause I know you lie if you do," Cincinnatus said. "They come in like that, they be sorry." got guns. You ain't gonna tell me you ain't got guns, 'cause I know you lie if you do," Cincinnatus said. "They come in like that, they be sorry."

"Oh, yeah." Lucullus' jowls wobbled as he nodded. "They be sorry. But we be sorrier. Any kind o' fight like that, we loses. Guns we got is enough to make them f.u.c.kers think twice. Ain't enough to stop 'em. Cain't be, and you got to know that, too. They uses barrels, we ain't got nothin' 'cept Featherston Fizzes against 'em. They sends in a.s.skickers to bomb us flat, we ain't even got that. We kin hurt 'em. They kin f.u.c.kin' kill kill us, an' I reckon they is lookin' fo' the excuse to do it." us, an' I reckon they is lookin' fo' the excuse to do it."

Cincinnatus grunted. Lucullus had to be right. Against the ma.s.sed power of the CSA, the local Negroes would lose. And the Confederate authorities might well be looking for an excuse to move in and wipe them out. Which meant . . . "You got to git hold o' Bliss," Cincinnatus said again.

"What good it do me?" Lucullus asked sourly. "I done told you-"

"Yeah, you told me. But so what?" Cincinnatus said, and Lucullus stared at him. The barbecue cook usually dominated between them. Not now. Cincinnatus went on, "We're all shut up in here. Bad things start happenin' out past the wire, how could we have much to do with 'em? But you kin get hold of Luther Bliss, and that son of a b.i.t.c.h got other ofays who'll do what he tell 'em to."

Lucullus kept right on staring, but now in a new way. "Mebbe," he said once more. This time, he didn't seem to mean, You're crazy. You're crazy. Even so, he warned, "Luther Bliss don't care nothin' about n.i.g.g.e.rs just 'cause they's n.i.g.g.e.rs." Even so, he warned, "Luther Bliss don't care nothin' about n.i.g.g.e.rs just 'cause they's n.i.g.g.e.rs."

"s.h.i.+t, I know that. Luther Bliss hates everybody under the sun," Cincinnatus said, startling a laugh out of Lucullus. "But the people Luther Bliss hates most are Freedom Party men and the Confederates who run things. We hate them people, too, so we's handy for him."

"Well, yeah, but the people he hates next most is Reds," Lucullus said. "You got to remember, that don't help me none."

"You got any better ideas?" Cincinnatus demanded, and then, "You got any ideas at all?"

Lucullus glared at him. If anything, that relieved Cincinnatus, who didn't like seeing the younger man paralyzed. Cincinnatus would have done almost anything to get Lucullus' wits working again; enraging him seemed a small price to pay. Lucullus said, "I kin git hold o' him. He kin do dat s.h.i.+t, no doubt about it. But how much good it gonna do us us?"

"What do you mean?" Cincinnatus asked.

"They got the wire around us. We is in here. Whatever they wants to do with us-whatever they wants to do to to us-they got us where they wants us. How we get out? How we get away?" us-they got us where they wants us. How we get out? How we get away?"

Cincinnatus laughed at him. "They gonna let us out. They gonna let a lot of us out, anyways." Lucullus' jaw dropped. Cincinnatus drove the point home: "Who's gonna do their n.i.g.g.e.r work for 'em if they don't? Long as they need that, we ain't cooped up in here all the time."

"You hope we ain't," Lucullus said, but a little spirit came back into his voice.

"Talk to Luther Bliss," Cincinnatus repeated. "h.e.l.l, they let me out for anything, I'll I'll talk to him." talk to him."

"Like he listen to you," Lucullus said scornfully. "You ain't got no guns. You ain't got no people who kin do stuff. I tells you somethin'-you git outa the barbed wire, you try an' get your black a.s.s back to the USA. Ain't far-jus' over de river."

"Might as well be over the moon right now," Cincinnatus said with a bitter laugh. "Confederate soldiers holdin' that part of Ohio. By what I hear, they're worse on colored folks than the Freedom Party boys are here. They reckon they're United States colored folks, an' so they got to be the enemy." Cincinnatus thought that was a pretty good bet, too. He added, " 'Sides, I ain't leavin' without my pa."

"You is the stubbornest n.i.g.g.e.r ever hatched," Lucullus said. "Onliest thing that hard head good for nowadays is gittin' you killed." He made shooing motions with his hands. "Go on. Git. I don't want you 'round no mo'."

Cincinnatus didn't want to be in the barbecue place anymore. He didn't want to be in Covington anymore. He didn't want to be in Kentucky at all anymore. The trouble was, n.o.body else gave a d.a.m.n what he wanted or didn't want.

Cane tapping the ground ahead of him, he walked out for a better look at what the whites in Covington had done. He'd seen more formidable a.s.semblages of barbed wire when he was driving trucks in the last war, but those had been made to hold out soldiers, not to hold in civilians. For that, what the cops and the stalwarts had run up would do fine.

Normally, making a fence out of barbed wire would have been n.i.g.g.e.r work. Whites had done it here, though. That worried Cincinnatus. If whites decided they could could do n.i.g.g.e.r work, what reason would they have to keep any Negroes around in the CSA? do n.i.g.g.e.r work, what reason would they have to keep any Negroes around in the CSA?

A swagbellied cop with a submachine gun strolled along outside the fence. He spat a brown stream of tobacco juice onto the sidewalk. The sun sparkled from the enameled Freedom Party pin on his lapel. Hadn't Jake Featherston climbed to power by going on and on about how whites were better than blacks? How could they be better than blacks if they got rid of all the blacks? Then they would have to work things out among themselves. Race wouldn't trump cla.s.s anymore, the way it always had in the Confederacy.

That fat policeman spat again. His jaw worked as he s.h.i.+fted the chaw from one cheek to the other. Did he care about such details? Did the countless others like him care? Cincinnatus couldn't make himself believe it. They'd get rid of Negroes first and worry about what happened after that later on.

Cincinnatus suddenly felt as trapped as Lucullus did. Up till now, the rumors about what the Confederates were doing to Negroes farther south in the CSA, things he'd heard at Lucullus's place and the Bra.s.s Monkey and in other saloons, had seemed too strange, too ridiculous, to worry him. Now he looked out at the rest of Covington through barbed wire. It wasn't even rusty yet; suns.h.i.+ne sparkled off the sharp points of the teeth. He couldn't get out past it, not unless that cop and his pals let him. And they could reach into the colored district whenever they pleased.

He didn't like the combination, not even a little bit. Except for trying to escape with his father as soon as he got even a halfway decent chance, though, he didn't know what he could do about it.

I need a rifle, he thought. he thought. Reckon I can get one from Lucullus. They come after me, they gonna pay for everything they get. Reckon I can get one from Lucullus. They come after me, they gonna pay for everything they get.

Dead night again, and the Josephus Daniels Josephus Daniels creeping along through the darkness. Sam Carsten peered out at the black water ahead as if he could see the mines floating in it. He couldn't, and he knew as much. He had to hope the destroyer escort had a good chart of these waters, and that she could dodge the mines. If she couldn't . . . Some of them were packed with enough TNT to blow a s.h.i.+p high enough out of the water to show her keel to anybody who happened to be watching. Out on the open sea, he didn't worry much about mines. Here in the narrow waters of Chesapeake Bay, he couldn't help it. creeping along through the darkness. Sam Carsten peered out at the black water ahead as if he could see the mines floating in it. He couldn't, and he knew as much. He had to hope the destroyer escort had a good chart of these waters, and that she could dodge the mines. If she couldn't . . . Some of them were packed with enough TNT to blow a s.h.i.+p high enough out of the water to show her keel to anybody who happened to be watching. Out on the open sea, he didn't worry much about mines. Here in the narrow waters of Chesapeake Bay, he couldn't help it.

At the wheel, Pat Cooley seemed the picture of calm. "We're just about through the worst of it, sir," he said.

"Glad to hear it," Sam said. "If we go sky-high in the next couple of minutes, I'm going to remind you you said that."

The exec chuckled. "Oh, I expect I'll remember it myself."

Sam set a hand on his shoulder. The kid was all right-not a nerve in his body, or none that showed. And he was a married man, too, which made it harder for him. "Family all right?" Carsten asked.

"Oh, yes, sir," Cooley answered. "Jane's over the chicken pox, and Sally didn't catch 'em." His wife had worried when his daughter came down with the ailment, because she didn't remember having it as a little girl. If she hadn't got chicken pox by now, though, she must have had them then, because anybody who could catch them d.a.m.n well would.

Another twenty minutes crawled by in a day or two. The soft throb of the engines came up through Sam's shoes. The sound, the feel, were as important as his own pulse. If they stopped, the s.h.i.+p was in mortal peril. As things were . . . "I think we're out of it now," Sam said.

Cooley nodded. "I do believe you're right-except for the little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds that came off their chains and started drifting." He paused. "And unless one side or the other laid some mines n.o.body knows about that aren't on our charts."

"You're full of cheerful thoughts today, aren't you?" Sam said. Pat Cooley just grinned. Either or both of those things was perfectly possible, and both men knew it too well. Those weren't the only nasty possibilities, either, and Sam also knew that only too well. He spoke into a voice tube: "You there, Bevacqua?"

"Not me, Skip," came the voice from the other end. "I been asleep the last couple weeks." A snore floated out of the tube.

"Yeah, well, keep your ears open while you're snoozing. This is good submarine country," Sam said.

"Will do, Skip," Vince Bevacqua said. The petty officer was the best hydrophone man the Josephus Daniels Josephus Daniels carried, which was why he was on duty now. Back during the Great War, hydrophones had been as near worthless as made no difference. The state of the art had come a long way since then. Now hydrophones shot out bursts of sound waves and listened for echoes-it was almost like Y-ranging underwater. It gave s.h.i.+ps like this one a real chance when they went after subs. carried, which was why he was on duty now. Back during the Great War, hydrophones had been as near worthless as made no difference. The state of the art had come a long way since then. Now hydrophones shot out bursts of sound waves and listened for echoes-it was almost like Y-ranging underwater. It gave s.h.i.+ps like this one a real chance when they went after subs.

"Not the best submarine country," Cooley observed. "Water's pretty shallow."

"Well, sure, Pat, but that's not quite what I meant," Sam said. "It's good sub country because we've just made it past the minefields. When some people get through something like that, they go, 'Whew!' and forget they're not all the way out of the woods. They get careless, let their guard down. And that's when the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds on the other side drop the hammer on them."

The bridge was dark. Showing a light in crowded, contested waters like these was the fastest way Sam could think of to get the hammer dropped on him. In the gloom, he watched the exec swing toward him, start to say something, and then think twice. After a few seconds, Cooley tried again: "That's . . . pretty sensible, sir."

He sounded amazed, or at least bemused. Carsten chuckled under his breath. "You live and learn," he told the younger man. "You've got an Academy ring. You got your learning all boiled down and served up to you, and that's great. It gives you a h.e.l.l of a head start. By the time you get to my age, you'll be a four-striper, or more likely an admiral. I've had to soak all this stuff up the hard way-but I've had a lot longer to do it than you have."

Again, Pat Cooley started to answer. Again, he checked himself so he could pick his words with care. Slowly, he said, "Sir, I don't think that's the kind of thing they teach you at Annapolis. I think it's the kind of thing you do learn with experience-if you ever learn it at all. You're-not what I expected when they told me I'd serve under a mustang."

"No, eh?" Instead of chuckling, Sam laughed out loud now. "Sorry to disappoint you. My knuckles don't drag on the deck-not most of the time, anyway. I don't dribble tobacco juice down my front, and I don't spend all my time with CPOs." A lot of mustangs did hang around with ratings as much as they could: those were still the men they found most like themselves. Sam had been warned against that when he got promoted. He suspected every mustang did. A lot of them, though, didn't listen to the warning. He had.

"Sir, you're doing your best to embarra.s.s me," Cooley said after one more longish pause. "Your best is pretty good, too." He laughed as Sam had. Unlike Sam, though, he sounded distinctly uneasy when he did it.

A tinny ghost, Vince Bevacqua's voice floated out of the mouth of the tube: "Skipper, I've got a contact. Something's moving down there-depth about seventy, range half a mile, bearing 085."

"Seventy," Sam echoed thoughtfully. That was below periscope depth. If the hydrophone man had spotted a submersible, the boat didn't know the Josephus Daniels Josephus Daniels was in the neighborhood-unless it had spotted the destroyer escort and submerged before Bevacqua realized it was there. Sam found that unlikely. He knew how good the petty officer was . . . even if he didn't hang around with him. "Change course to 085, Mr. Cooley," he said, switching to business. was in the neighborhood-unless it had spotted the destroyer escort and submerged before Bevacqua realized it was there. Sam found that unlikely. He knew how good the petty officer was . . . even if he didn't hang around with him. "Change course to 085, Mr. Cooley," he said, switching to business.

"I am changing course to 085, sir-aye aye," the exec replied.

Sam tapped a waiting sailor on the shoulder. "Tell the depth-charge crews to be ready at my order."

"Aye aye, sir." The sailor dashed away. He didn't care whether Sam was a mustang. To a kid like him, the Old Man was the Old Man, regardless of anything. And if the Old Man happened to be well on the way toward being an old man-that still didn't matter much.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned if he thinks we're anywhere around, sir," Bevacqua said, and then, "Whoops-take it back. He's heard us. He's picking up speed and heading for the surface."