Breakthroughs (14 page)

He looked around. Water, rushes, trees. The road was turning into a muddy track. Everything seemed prosaic enough. Of course, he was only on the edge of the swamp as yet. The Negro field hands back at Marshlands had peopled the wet country with monsters with sharp teeth and glowing yellow eyes.

Those stories were nothing but superstitious twaddle. So claimed the part of him that had been so carefully educated. The little boy who had listened round-eyed to the stories the grannies told wasn’t so sure. He looked around again, more nervously this time. Nothing. Only swamp. Of course, that meant cougars and gators and cottonmouths and rattlers and—he slapped—mosquitoes and the no-see-’ems that bit and vanished. He slapped again.

The road forked, and then forked again, and then again. It went in among the trees now, and the oaks and willows and pines made the sun play hide-and-seek. The road divided yet again. Every turn Scipio took was one leading deeper into the swamp.

If he didn’t find the men of the Congaree Socialist Republic, he wondered if he’d be able to find his way out. If Cassius didn’t kill him, and if Anne Colleton didn’t kill him, the swamp was liable to do him in.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than three Negroes with Tredegars stepped silently out into the roadway. They wore red bandannas on their left arms. “Nigger, you ain’t got no good reason to be here, you is one dead nigger,” one of them said. Two of their rifles were bayoneted. They wouldn’t even have to risk the noise of a gunshot to dispose of him.

He licked his lips. The bayonets looked very long and sharp. “I wants to see Cassius, or maybe Cherry,” he answered in the broad patois of the Congaree. “I is on de business o’de Socialist Republic.”

None of the three fighting men was from Marshlands or any nearby plantation. They didn’t know him by sight, as many of Cassius’ men would have. “Who you is?” their spokesman asked.

“I’s Scipio,” he said.

Their eyes went wide in their dark faces. They knew the name, if not the man who went with it. “Maybe you is, an’ maybe you ain’t,” said the one who had spoken first.

“Take me to Cassius. Take me to Cherry,” Scipio said. “You ask they who I is an’ who I ain’t.”

The fighters put their heads together. After a minute of low-voice argument, the one who seemed to lead handed his Tredegar to a comrade, took the bandanna off his arm, and walked up to Scipio. “Maybe you is, an’ maybe you ain’t,” he repeated. “An’ maybe you is, an’ you is a spy nowadays. You see Cassius an’ Cherry, but you don’ see how to get to they.” He efficiently blindfolded Scipio with the square of red cloth.

“You insults me,” Scipio said with as much indignation as he could simulate. Had he been rejoining the forces of the Congaree Socialist Republic in truth, he would have protested being blindfolded. Since he was a spy (and since he was Anne Colleton’s spy, which, he suspected, made him more dangerous to Cassius than if he’d merely been a spy for the Confederate government), he had to do his best to seem as if he weren’t.

“Come on.” The man who covered his eyes grabbed him by the arm. “We takes you.”

He had no idea by what route they took him. It might have been the straightest one possible, or they might have spent half their time walking him around in circles. He wondered if Anne Colleton was still following him. He wondered what sort of watchers the survivors of the Congaree Socialist Republic had posted through the swamp. He wondered whether she could get past them if she was still following him. That he did not know the answer to any of those questions did not keep him from wondering about all of them.

After about an hour, his guide said, “Stop.” Scipio obeyed. The man who’d led him for so long took the blindfold off him. Standing side by side in front of him were Cassius and Cherry. She wore a collarless men’s shirt and a torn pair of men’s trousers. Scipio suppressed a shudder. Anne Colleton had worn men’s trousers, too, though hers were elegantly tailored.

Cassius hurried up and clasped Scipio’s hand. “Do Jesus, Kip,” he exclaimed. “Why fo’ you here? Las’ I hear, you is up in Greenville, an’ de buckra, dey forget you was ever borned.”

Scipio was anything but surprised Cassius had kept tabs on where he’d gone. He
had
dropped out of sight of the Confederate authorities, but the Negro grapevine was a different matter altogether. With a sigh, he answered with most of the truth: “Somebody rec’nize me up dere. Dey ’rested me, take me to St. Matthews.”

“To Miss Anne.” Cherry’s voice was flat and full of hate. Scipio nodded, more than a little apprehensively. She went on, “I reckon we done baked dat white debbil bitch las’ Christmas, but she git away.”

“She good.” Cassius spoke with reluctant respect. “She a damn ’pressor, but she good. We cain’t kill she, no matter how hard we tries.” His rather foxy features grew sharp and intent. “Why fo’ she send you in after we? She ask a truce? I don’ trust no truce wid she. She break it like the overseer break de stick on de back o’de field hand fo’ to get he to pick de cotton.”

“She say, de war ’gainst de United States mo’ ’portant than de war ’gainst de Congaree Socialist Republic,” Scipio replied, nodding. “She say, if de damnyankees licks de CSA, dey comes an’ licks de Congaree Socialist Republic, too. She say, we kin wait till de big war done, and den we fights our own.”

Cassius and Cherry and all three men who’d brought Scipio to this place burst out laughing. “She say dat?” Cherry said. With high cheekbones that told of Indian blood, Cherry’s face was made for showing scorn. She outdid herself now, tossing her head in magnificent contempt. “She say dat? Mighty fine, mighty fine. We let de ’pressors git rid o’de big war, an’ den dey puts all dey gots into de little war ’gainst we.”

“You go back to Miss Anne,” Cassius added, “an’ you tell she dat when she dead, den we can have a truce wid she. Till den, we fights. She ain’t licked we yet, an’ she ain’t gwine lick we, on account of we gots de dialectic wid we. She go on de rubbish heap o’ history, ’long wid de rest o’ de ’pressors.” Hearing Marxist revolutionary jargon in the dialect of the Congaree never failed to strike Scipio as bizarre.

Cherry’s eyes narrowed. “She have somebody follow you?” she demanded. “Dat white debbil, she have bloodhounds wid guns on your trail?”

Scipio spread his hands. “Don’ know,” he answered, though he had a pretty good idea. “I ain’t no huntin’ man. Back at Marshlands, I was de butler, you recollects. I ain’t hardly been in this swamp befo’.”

“Oh, we recollects,” Cassius said, grinning like a catamount. He had a flask on his belt. He freed it, swigged, and passed it to Scipio. “See if you recollects dis here.” Scipio drank. As butler, he’d sampled fine wines and good whiskey. This was raw corn likker, with a kick like a mule.

When he exhaled, he was amazed he didn’t breathe out fire and smoke. He took another pull. There was a roaring in his ears. After a moment, he realized the corn likker hadn’t caused it. It was real. It grew rapidly, and turned to a scream in the air. He’d heard that sound in the uprising the year before.

He threw himself flat. He wasn’t the first one on the ground, either. Artillery shells rained down. Explosions picked him up and flung him about. Shell fragments and shrapnel balls tore up the landscape. Blast from a near miss yanked at his ears and his lungs. Someone was screaming like a damned soul—the man who’d blindfolded him, his belly laid open like a butchered hog’s.

At last, the shelling ended. Scipio thanked the God he still trusted more than Marx that he was still in one piece. Also in one piece, Cassius took the bombardment in stride. “Miss Anne, she do have you followed,” he said, brushing mud from his shirt. “You want to go back to she now?” Numbly, Scipio shook his head. Cassius grinned. “Den we welcomes you to de Congaree Socialist Republic agin.”

Not having wanted to join the uprising in the first place, Scipio wanted even less to join this sad ghost of it. What possible fate could he have but being hunted down and killed? After a moment, he realized Anne Colleton couldn’t have had anything else in mind.
You are mine,
she’d told him. Now it pleased her to amuse herself with her possession.

As Major Abner Dowling was making his way from his tent to the farmhouse where General Custer and his wife were staying, an enormous Pierce-Arrow limousine came snarling up the road, raising an even more enormous cloud of dust. It pulled to a stop alongside of Major Dowling. “Excuse me, is this First Army headquarters?” the driver asked.

Dowling was about to give him a sarcastic answer—what the devil else would this be?—when he saw who was riding in the back of the limousine. Gold-rimmed spectacles, graying roan mustache, a big grin that showed an alarming number of teeth…He was so busy staring at President Theodore Roosevelt, he almost forgot to answer the driver’s question.

When Custer’s adjutant admitted the fellow had brought Roosevelt to the right place, the president said, “And you’re Dowling, aren’t you?” He got out of the motorcar and pointed at the portly soldier. “You come with me, Major. I’ll want to speak with you also.”

“Yes, Mr. President.” Dowling could scarcely have said anything else when his commander-in-chief gave him a direct order. He did not like the way Roosevelt had shown up unannounced at Custer’s headquarters. The likeliest explanation he could think of for Roosevelt’s unannounced appearance was one that put Custer in hot water—and himself, as well.

He moved his bulky frame as fast as he could, to get into the farmhouse ahead of the president. He hoped that would look as if he was escorting Roosevelt, not warning General Custer of his arrival.

Custer and Libbie were in the parlor. Instead of studying matters military, they were diligently going over newspapers. Intent on that, neither of them had noticed the Pierce-Arrow outside. Dowling said, “General, President Roosevelt is here to consult with you.” That was the best face he could put on the president’s arrival.

“Is he?” Custer said with a distinct sneer in his voice. Sure as hell, he and Roosevelt had loathed each other since the Second Mexican War, each convinced to the bottom of his stubborn soul that the other had nabbed more credit in that mostly sorry fight than he deserved.

“Yes, General, I am here,” Roosevelt said, stepping into the farmhouse on Dowling’s heels. Awkward with age, Custer got to his feet and saluted his commander-in-chief. In Montana, he’d been a Regular Army brevet brigadier general and Teddy Roosevelt a cavalry colonel of Volunteers. Now their relative ranks were reversed. Dowling knew how much Custer detested that.

“How good to see you, sir,” Custer said, looking and sounding like a man with a toothache.

“A pleasure, as always.” Roosevelt was manifestly lying, too. He nodded to Libbie. “And a pleasure to see you, Mrs. Custer. I hope you will excuse me for taking your husband away, but I do have some business to discuss with him and with Major Dowling here.”

“Of course.” Libbie shot him a look full of loathing. Dowling had never seen her so neatly outflanked. Without the tiniest doubt, she wanted to stay, not only to protect General Custer but also because she knew at least as much about what the First Army was doing as he did. But she could not stay, not after Roosevelt’s blithe dismissal. Long black skirt flapping about her ankles, she swept out of the parlor.

“Cornelia!” Custer called. When the pretty Negro housekeeper came out of the kitchen, the general went on, “Coffee for me, coffee for Major Dowling—and coffee for the president of the United States.” He might not care for Roosevelt, but he was not above using his acquaintance with him to impress Cornelia.

And he did impress her. Her eyes widened. She dropped Roosevelt a curtsy before dashing away for the coffee. The president, affable enough, dipped his head in reply. He sat down in the chair across from the sofa where Custer and his wife had been checking the papers, and waved Dowling to Libbie’s place beside the general commanding First Army. Again, Custer’s adjutant could only obey.

Roosevelt did not wait for Cornelia to come with the coffee. “Let’s get right down to brass tacks,” he said—like Custer, he did not have patience as his long suit. “General, the War Department is of the opinion that you have not been entirely candid in the reports you have been submitting in recent weeks. I have asked Major Dowling here to discuss this with us today, as he has prepared many of these reports under your direction.”

Cornelia did come in with the coffee then—Custer’s and Dowling’s as they liked it, Roosevelt’s black with cream and sugar on the side to let him fix it as he would. The brief respite while the president fiddled with the cup did nothing to ease Dowling’s mind.
Christ, they’ve got me cold,
he thought, and wondered if his Army career was about to end here because he’d been so foolish as to obey his superior. Only discipline learned at the poker table kept him from showing his dread.

If Custer knew dread, he didn’t show it, either. “The War Department has all sorts of opinions,” he said, sneering as he had when Dowling announced that Roosevelt was there. “A few of them bear a discernible relation to the real world—but only a few, mind you.”

“Have you, then, or have you not been less than candid in your description of how you are deploying the barrels under your command?” Roosevelt asked.

There it was, the question without a good answer. Sweat broke out on Dowling’s forehead, though the parlor was cool verging on chilly. Now Custer would lie, and now Roosevelt would crucify him—and, as small change in the transaction, would crucify Dowling, too.

Custer laughed. “Of course I’ve been less than candid, Mr. President,” he answered, his tone inviting Roosevelt to share a secret with him. “So has Major Dowling, at my direct order. The lads with the thick glasses in Philadelphia must have been more alert than usual, to notice.”

“I hope you have some good explanation for your extraordinary statement, General,” Roosevelt said. Dowling devoutly hoped Custer had a good explanation, too. From long acquaintance with the general commanding First Army, though, he knew that hope was liable, even likely, to be disappointed.