Part 7 (2/2)

Several whites were already waiting on the platform. A couple of them sent Scipio suspicious glances. Do you have a bomb? Did you sneak it past the inspectors? Will you blow us up? Do you have a bomb? Did you sneak it past the inspectors? Will you blow us up? For his part, he might have asked them, For his part, he might have asked them, If you send colored folks into camps, why don't they come out again? If you send colored folks into camps, why don't they come out again?

He didn't say anything, any more than they did. The questions hung in the air just the same. Despair pressed down heavily on Scipio. How were you supposed to make a country out of a place where two groups hated and feared each other, and where anybody could tell to which group anyone else belonged just by looking? The Confederate States of America had been working on that question for eighty years now, and hadn't found an answer yet.

The Freedom Party thought it had. It said, If only one group is left, the problem goes away. If only one group is left, the problem goes away. The trouble was, the problem went away for only one group if you tried that solution. For the other, it got worse. No one in the Party seemed to lose any sleep over that. The trouble was, the problem went away for only one group if you tried that solution. For the other, it got worse. No one in the Party seemed to lose any sleep over that.

More whites came onto the platform. So did a few more Negroes. The blacks all grouped themselves with Scipio, well away from the whites. Had they done anything else, they would have fallen into a category: uppity n.i.g.g.e.rs. n.o.body in his right mind wanted to fall into that category these days.

A little blond boy pointed up the tracks. ”Here comes the train!” He squeaked with excitement.

It rumbled into the station. Departing pa.s.sengers got off, got their luggage, and left the platform by a route different from the one Scipio had used to get there. He and the other Negroes automatically headed for the last two cars in the train. They wouldn't sit with whites, either: they knew better. And if the cars in which they sat were shabbier than the ones whites got to use, that was unlikely to be a surprise.

Rattles and jolts announced the train's departure. It rolled south and east, the tracks paralleling the Savannah River. When Scipio looked across the river, he saw South Carolina. He shook his head. Even after all these years, he wasn't safe in the state where he'd been born. Then he shook his head again. He wasn't safe in Georgia, either.

Cotton country and pine woods filled the landscape between Augusta and Savannah. Scipio saw several plantation houses falling into ruin. Marshlands had done the same thing. Raising cotton on plantations wasn't nearly so practical when the colored workforce was liable to rise up against you.

People got on and off at the stops between the two cities. Scipio wouldn't have bet that G.o.d Himself knew the names of hamlets like McBean Depot, Sardis, and Hershman.

And, when the train was coming out of the pine woods surrounding Savannah, it rolled through a suburb called Yamacraw that seemed to be the more southerly town's Terry. Negroes did what they could to get by in a country that wanted their labor but otherwise wished they didn't exist. Drugstores in white neighborhoods sold aspirins and merthiolate and calamine lotion-respectable products that actually worked. Scipio saw a sign in Yamacraw advertising Vang-Vang Oil, Lucky Mojoe Drops of Love, and Mojoe Incense. He grimaced, ashamed of his own folk. Here were the ignorant preying on the even more ignorant.

As soon as he got on the east side of Broad Street, things changed. The houses, most of them of brick, looked as if they sprang from the eighteenth century. Live oaks with beards of moss hanging from their branches grew on expansive lawns. That moss declared that Savannah, its climate moderated by the Atlantic only fifteen miles away, was a land that hardly knew what winter was.

”Savannah!” the conductor barked, hurrying through the colored cars as the train pulled into the station. ”This here's Savannah!” He didn't quite come out and snap, Now get the h.e.l.l off my train, you lousy c.o.o.ns! Now get the h.e.l.l off my train, you lousy c.o.o.ns! He didn't, no, but he might as well have. He didn't, no, but he might as well have.

Scipio grabbed his carpetbag and descended. As at Augusta, the exit to the station kept him from having anything to do with boarding pa.s.sengers. He gave the system grudging respect. That it should be necessary was a judgment on the Confederate States, but it did what it was designed to do.

Once he got out of the station, he stopped and looked at the sun, orienting himself. Forsyth Park was east and south of him. He walked towards it, wondering if a policeman would demand to see his papers. Sure enough, he hadn't gone more than a block before it happened. He displayed his pa.s.sbook, his train ticket, and the letter from Jerry Dover authorizing him to be away from the Huntsman's Lodge. The cop looked them over, frowned, and then grudgingly nodded and gave them back. ”You keep your nose clean, you hear?” he said.

”Yes, suh. I do dat, suh,” Scipio said. His Congaree River accent had marked him as a stranger in Augusta. It did so doubly here; from what little he'd heard of it, Savannah Negroes used a dialect almost incomprehensible to anyone who hadn't grown up speaking it.

Forsyth Park was laid out like a formal French garden, with a rosette of paths going through it. With spring in the air, squirrels frisked through the trees. Pigeons plodded the paths, hoping for handouts. Flowering dogwood, wisteria, and azaleas brightened the greenery.

Scipio had to find the Albert Sidney Johnston monument. The Confederate general, killed at Pittsburg Landing, was something of a martyr, with statues and plaques commemorating him all over the CSA. In this one, he looked distinctly Christlike. Scipio fought the urge to retch.

He sat down on a wrought-iron bench not far from the statue. One of those importunate pigeons came up and eyed him expectantly. When he ignored it, he half expected it to c.r.a.p on his shoes in revenge, but it didn't. It just strutted away, head bobbing. You'll get yours, You'll get yours, it might have said, and it might have been right. it might have said, and it might have been right.

A squirrel overhead chittered at him. He ignored it, too. He had no certain notion how long he'd have to wait here, so he tried to look as if he were comfortable, as if he belonged. Several white women and a few old men pa.s.sed with no more than casual glances, so he must have succeeded. Very few white men between the ages of twenty and fifty were on the streets. If they weren't at the front, they were in the factories or on the farms.

”How do I get to Broad Street from here?” asked a woman with brown hair going gray.

”Ma'am, you goes west a few blocks, an' there you is,” Scipio answered.

”Oh, dear. I was all turned around,” the woman said. ”I'm afraid I have no sense of direction, no sense of direction at all.”

The code phrases were the ones Scipio had been waiting for. He hadn't expected a woman to say them. He wondered why not. Jerry Dover hadn't said anything about that one way or the other. A woman could do this as well as a man-maybe better, if she was less conspicuous. Scipio took a small envelope out of the hip pocket of his trousers. As casually as he could, he set it on the bench and looked in the other direction.

When he turned his head again, the envelope was gone. The woman was on her way toward Broad Street. No one else could have paid any attention to, or even seen, the brief encounter in the park. Scipio wasn't sure what he'd just done. Had he given the Confederate States a boost or a knee in the groin? He had no way of knowing, but he had his hopes.

IV.

Jefferson Pinkard was a happy man, happier than he had been since moving out to Texas to start putting up Camp Determination. For one thing, Edith Blades was coming out to Snyder with her boys before too long. That would be nice. She didn't want to marry Jeff till her husband was in the ground for a year, but he'd still be glad to have her close by instead of back in Louisiana.

And, for another, now he had a man he could trust absolutely among the guards. ”Hip Rodriguez!” he murmured to himself in glad surprise. He hadn't seen the little greaser for twenty-five years, but that had nothing to do with anything. After what they'd been through together in Georgia and west Texas, he knew he could count on Rodriguez. He didn't know how many times they'd saved each other's bacon, but he knew d.a.m.n well it was more than a few.

And he knew how important having somebody absolutely trustworthy was. Running prison camps was a political job, though he wouldn't have thought so when he started it. And the higher he rose, the more political it got. When the only man over you was the Attorney General, you found yourself in politics and maneuvering up to your eyebrows, because Ferdinand Koenig was Jake Featherston's right-hand man-and about two fingers' worth of the left as well.

Back by Alexandria, Mercer Scott was heading up Camp Dependable these days. Scott had led the guard force when Jeff commanded the camp. He'd had his own ways to get hold of Richmond. No doubt the guard chief here did, too. The Freedom Party people at the top wanted to make sure they knew what was going on, so they had independent channels to help them keep up with things.

And if the guard chief started telling lies, or if he started scheming, having someone on your side in the guard force was like an insurance policy. Hip Rodriguez couldn't have fit the bill better.

With a grunt, Pinkard got up from his desk and stretched. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the top drawer, lit one, started to put the pack back, and then stuck it in his pocket instead. He was about to start his morning prowl through the camp when the telephone rang.

”Who's bothering me now?” he muttered as he picked it up. His voice got louder: ”This here's Pinkard.”

”h.e.l.lo, Pinkard. This is Ferd Koenig in Richmond.”

”Yes, sir. What can I do for you, sir?” Speak of the devil and he shows up on your front porch, Speak of the devil and he shows up on your front porch, Jeff thought. Jeff thought.

”I want to know how things are coming,” Koenig said, ”and whether you can make a few changes in the way the camp's laid out.”

”Things were were coming fine, sir. There's been no problem on s.h.i.+pments out of here,” Pinkard answered. coming fine, sir. There's been no problem on s.h.i.+pments out of here,” Pinkard answered. s.h.i.+pments s.h.i.+pments was a nice, bloodless way to talk about Negroes sent off to be asphyxiated by the truckload. It kept him from thinking about what went on inside those trucks. He didn't feel bloodless toward Ferd Koenig. If the son of a b.i.t.c.h thought he could run a Texas camp from Richmond . . . he might be right, because he had the authority to do it. Grinding his teeth, Pinkard asked, ”What do you need changed?” was a nice, bloodless way to talk about Negroes sent off to be asphyxiated by the truckload. It kept him from thinking about what went on inside those trucks. He didn't feel bloodless toward Ferd Koenig. If the son of a b.i.t.c.h thought he could run a Texas camp from Richmond . . . he might be right, because he had the authority to do it. Grinding his teeth, Pinkard asked, ”What do you need changed?”

”Way you've got the place set up now, it's just for men-isn't that right?” the Attorney General said.

”Yes, sir. That's how all the camps have been, pretty much,” Jeff replied. ”Not a h.e.l.l of a lot of women and pickaninnies packing iron against the government.” There were some, but not many. He didn't know if there were separate camps for black women, or what. He guessed there were, but asking questions about things that were none of your business was discouraged-strongly discouraged.

”That's going to change.” Koenig's voice was hard, flat, and determined. ”You can bet your bottom dollar that's going to change, in fact. What's wrong with the CSA is that we've got too many n.i.g.g.e.rs, period. Not troublemaking n.i.g.g.e.rs, but n.i.g.g.e.rs, period-'cause any n.i.g.g.e.r's liable to be a troublemaker. Am I right or am I wrong?”

”Oh, you're right, sir, no doubt about it,” Jeff said. Koenig was just quoting Freedom Party chapter and verse. Jake Featherston had been going on about n.i.g.g.e.rs and what they deserved ever since he got up on the stump for the Party. Now he was keeping his campaign promises.

”All right,” Koenig said. ”If we're gonna get rid of 'em, we've got to have places to concentrate 'em till we can do the job. That means everybody we clean out of the countryside and the cities. Everybody. So can you separate off a section for the women?”

”I can if I have to,” Pinkard replied; you didn't come right out and tell the big boss no, not if you wanted to hold on to your job you didn't. Thinking fast on his feet, he went on, ”It'd mess things up here pretty bad, though, the way Determination is laid out now.” Ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth? he thought. ”What'd be better, I reckon, is building a camp for women right he thought. ”What'd be better, I reckon, is building a camp for women right alongside alongside the one we've got now. That way, we could start from scratch and do it right the first time. Lord knows we've got the land we need to do it.” the one we've got now. That way, we could start from scratch and do it right the first time. Lord knows we've got the land we need to do it.”

He waited for Koenig to tell him all the reasons that wouldn't work. Not enough time was always a good one, and often even true. After perhaps half a minute's silence, the Attorney General said, ”Can you have a perimeter up and a place for s.h.i.+pments to go out of ready in ten days' time? They can sleep in tents or on the ground till you get the barracks built.”

”Ten days? Oh, h.e.l.l, yes, sir,” Jeff said, trying not to show how pleased he was. He would have agreed to five if he had to. He hadn't expected Koenig to say yes at all.

But Koenig went on, ”That's what I like to see-a man who'll show initiative. I told you one thing, but you had a different idea, and it looks to me like a better idea. Make sure you fix up this new camp so it's the same size as the one you've got now. It'll need to be.”

”I'll take care of it,” Pinkard promised, slightly dazed. ”Uh-if you aim to do s.h.i.+pments out of two big camps like that, I'm gonna need more trucks. The ones I've got now won't begin to do the job.”

”More trucks,” Koenig echoed. Across all those miles, Jeff heard his pen scratching across paper. ”You'll have 'em.” Another pause. ”Instead of building the new camp right right alongside, why not put it across the railroad spur from the old one? That way, you can separate the n.i.g.g.e.rs out soon as they get off the trains.” alongside, why not put it across the railroad spur from the old one? That way, you can separate the n.i.g.g.e.rs out soon as they get off the trains.”

”I'd have to run another side of barbed wire that way, 'stead of using what we've got.” Pinkard thought for a moment. ”I'd need to get some dozers back again, too, to level out the ground over there.”

<script>