Sam Carsten was using his off-duty time the way he usually did now: he sprawled in his bunk aboard the Remembrance, studying hard. His head felt filled to the bursting point. He had the notion that he could have built and outfitted any ship in the Navy and ordered its crew about. He didn't think the secretary of the navy knew as much as he did. God might have; he supposed he was willing to give God the benefit of the doubt.
George Moerlein, his bunkmate, came by to pull something out of his duffel bag. "Christ, Sam, don't you ever take a break?" he said. He had to repeat himself before Carsten knew he was there.
At last reminded of Moerlein's existence, Sam sheepishly shook his head. "Can't afford to take a break," he said. "Examinations are only a week away. They don't make things easy on petty officers who want to kick their way up into real officer country."
Moerlein had been a petty officer a long time, a lot longer than Carsten. He had no desire to become anything else, and saw no reason anyone else should have such a desire, either. "I've known a few mustangs, or more than a few, but I'll be damned if I ever knew a happy one. Real officers treat 'em like you'd treat a nigger in a fancy suit: the clothes may be right, but the guy inside 'em ain't."
"If I don't pass this examination, it won't matter one way or the other," Sam said pointedly. "And besides, officers can't be any rougher on mustangs than they are on ordinary sailors."
"Only shows how much you know," Moerlein answered. "Well, don't mind me, not that you was." He went on about his business. Sam returned to his book. He came across a section on engine maintenance he didn't remember quite so well as he should have. From feeling he knew about as much as God, he fearfully sank to thinking he knew less than a retarded ordinary seaman on his first day at sea.
Mess call was something of a relief. Sam stopped worrying about keeping a warship fueled and running and started thinking about stoking his own boiler. With the Remembrance still tied up in the Boston Navy Yard, meals remained tasty and varied— none of the beans and sausage and sauerkraut that would have marked a long cruise at sea.
Somebody sitting not far from Sam said, "I'd sooner spend my days belching and my nights farting, long as that meant I was doing something worthwhile."
Heads bobbed up and down in agreement, all along the mess table. "We ought to be thankful they ain't breaking us up for scrap," another optimist said.
Somebody else added, "God damn Upton Sinclair to hell and gone."
That brought more nods, Carsten among them, but a sailor snapped, "God damn you to hell and gone, Tad, you big dumb Polack."
Socialists everywhere, Carsten thought as Tad surged to his feet. A couple of people caught him and slammed him back down. Sam nodded again, this time in approval. "Knock it off," he said. "We don't want any brawls here, not now we don't. Anything that makes the Remembrance look bad is liable to get her taken out of commission and land the lot of us on the beach. Congress isn't throwing money around like they did during the war."
"Hell, Congress isn't throwing money around like they did before the war, neither," Tad said. "We busted a gut building a Navy that could go out and win, and now we're flushing it right down the head."
"Rebs ain't got a Navy worth anything any more," said the Socialist sailor who'd called him a Polack. "Limeys ain't, either. No such thing as the Canadian Navy these days. So who the hell we got to worry about?"
"Goddamn Japs, for one." Three men said the same thing at the same time, differing only in the adjective with which they modified Japs.
"Kaiser Bill's High Seas Fleet, for two," Sam added. "Yeah, us and the Germans are pals for now, but how long is that going to last? Best way I can think of to keep the Kaiser friendly is to stay too tough to jump on."
That produced a thoughtful silence. At last, somebody down at the far end of the mess table said, "You know, Carsten, when I heard you was studying for officer, I figured you was crazy. Maybe you knew what you was doing after all."
Sam looked around to see who was in earshot. Deciding the coast was clear, he answered, "Maybe you don't have to be crazy to be an officer, but I never heard tell that it hurts."
Amidst laughter, people started telling stories about officers they'd known. Sam pitched in with some of his own. Inside, he was smiling. A book about leadership he'd read had suggested that changing the subject was often the best way to defuse a nasty situation. Unlike some of the things he'd read, that really worked.
After supper, he went back to studying, and kept at it till lights-out. George Moerlein shook his head. "Never reckoned you was one of those fellows with spectacles and a high forehead," he said.
"You want to get anywhere, you got to work for it," Sam answered, more than a little nettled. "Anybody wants to stay in a rut, that's his business. But anybody who doesn't, that's his business, too, or it damn well ought to be."
"All right. All right. I'll shut up," Moerlein said. "Swear to Jesus, though, I think you're doing this whole thing 'cause you want I should have to salute you."
"Oh, no," Carsten said in a hoarse whisper. "My secret's out." For a moment, his bunkmate believed him. Then Moerlein snorted and cursed and rolled over in his bunk and, a couple of minutes later, started to snore.
Sam ran on coffee and cigarettes and very little sleep till the day of the examinations, which were held in a hall not far from the Rope Walk, the long stone building in which the Navy's great hemp cables were made. Commander Grady slapped Sam on the back as he left the Remembrance, "Just remember, you can do it," the gunnery officer said.
"Thank you, sir," Sam said, "and, if you please, sir, just remember, this was your idea in the first place." Grady laughed. Sam hurried past him and down the gangplank.
Sitting at a table in the examination hall waiting for the lieutenant commander at the front of the room to pass out the pile of test booklets on his desk, Sam looked around, studying the competition. He saw a roomful of petty officers not a whole lot different from himself. Only a few were younger than he; several grizzled veterans had to be well past fifty. He admired their persistence and hoped he would outscore them in spite of it.
Then he stopped worrying about anything inessential, for the officer started giving out the booklets. "Men, you will have four hours," he said. "I wish you all the best of luck, and I remind you that, should you not pass, the examination will be offered again in a year's time. Ready? .. . Begin."
How many times had some of those grizzled veterans walked into this hall or others like it? That thought gave Sam a different perspective on persistence. He wondered if he'd keep coming back after failing the examination half a dozen or a dozen times. Hoping he wouldn't have to find out, he opened the booklet and plunged in.
The examination was as bad as he'd feared it would be, as bad as he'd heard it would be. As he worked, he felt as if his brain were being sucked out of his head and down onto the paper by way of his pencil. He couldn't imagine a human mind containing all the knowledge the Navy Department evidently expected its officers to have at their fingertips. Panic threatened to overwhelm him when he came upon the first question he couldn't even begin to answer.
Well, maybe these other bastards can't answer it, either, he thought. That steadied him. He couldn't do anything more than his best.
Sweat soaked his dark uniform long before the examination ended. It had nothing to do with the hall, which was very little warmer than the Boston December outside. But he noticed he was far from the only man wiping his brow.
After what seemed like forever—and, at the same time, like only a few minutes—the lieutenant commander rapped out, "Pencils down! Pass booklets to the left." Sam had been in the middle of a word. That didn't matter. Nothing mattered any more. He joined the weary, shambling throng of sailors filing out of the hall.
"There's always next year," someone said in doleful tones. Carsten didn't argue with him. Nobody argued with him. Sam couldn't imagine anyone being confident he'd passed that brutal examination. He also couldn't imagine anyone showing confidence without getting lynched.
He didn't have any leave coming, so he couldn't even get drunk after the miserable thing was over. He had to return to the Remembrance and return to duty. When Commander Grady asked him how he'd done, he rolled his eyes. Grady laughed. Sam didn't see one thing funny about it.
Day followed day; 1923 gave way to 1924. Coming up on ten years since the war started, Sam thought. That seemed unbelievable, but he knew it was true. He wished ten years had gone by since the examination. When results were slow in coming, he did his best to forget he'd ever taken the miserable thing. There's always next year, he thought—except, by now, this was next year.
Then, one day, the yeoman in charge of mail called out "Carsten!" and thrust an envelope at him. He took it with some surprise; he seldom got mail. But, sure enough, the envelope had his name typed on it, and department of the navy in the upper left-hand corner. He stuck his thumb over that return address, not wanting his buddies to know he'd got news he expected to be bad.
He marched off down a corridor and opened the envelope where no one could watch him do it. The letter inside bore his name and pay number on Navy Department stationery. It read, You are ordered to report to Commissioning Board 17 at 0800 hours on Wednesday, 6 February 1924, for the purpose of determining your fitness to hold a commission in the United States Navy and.. .
Sam had to read it twice before he realized what it meant. "Jesus!" he whispered. "Sweet suffering Jesus! I passed!"
He had to remind himself that he wasn't home free yet. Everybody said commissioning boards did strange things. In this particular case, what everybody said was likely to be true. Standing there in the cramped corridor, he refused to let what everybody said worry him in the least. The worst had to be over, for the simple reason that nothing could have been worse than that examination. The worst was over, and he'd come through it. He was on his way.
These days, Lucien Galtier thought of himself as an accomplished driver. He didn't say he was an accomplished driver, though. The one time he'd done that, Georges had responded, "And what have you accomplished? Not killing anyone? Bravo, monperer
No matter how accomplished he reckoned himself (Georges to the contrary notwithstanding), he wasn't planning on going anywhere today. That he had a fine Chevrolet mattered not at all. He wouldn't have gone out on the fine paved road up to Riviere-du-Loup even in one of the U.S. Army's traveling forts—why the Americans called the infernal machines barrels he'd never figured out. The snowstorm howling down from the northwest made the trip from the farmhouse to the barn cold and hard, let alone any longer journey.
When he got inside, the livestock set up the usual infernal racket that meant, Where have you been? We're starving to death. He ignored all the animals but the horse. To it, he said, "This is ingratitude. Would you sooner be out on the highway in such weather?"
Only another indignant snort answered him as he gave the beast oats for the day. When it came to food, the horse could be—was—eloquent. On any other subject, Galtier might as well have been talking to himself whenever he went traveling in the wagon. He knew that. He'd known it all along. It hadn't stopped him from having innumerable conversations with the horse over the years.
"I cannot talk with the automobile," he said. "Truly, I saw this from the moment I began to drive it. It is only a machine— although this, I have seen, does not keep Marie from talking with her sewing machine from time to time."
The horse let drop a pile of green-brown dung. It was warmer in the barn than outside, but the dung still steamed. Lucien wondered whether the horse was offering its opinion of driving a motorcar or of conversing with a sewing machine.
"Do you want to work, old fool?" he asked the horse. The only reply it gave was to gobble the oats. He laughed. "No, all you want to do is eat. I cannot even get you a mare for your amusement. Oh, I could, but you would not be amused. A gelding is not to be amused in that way, n 'est-cepas?"
He'd had the vet geld the horse when it was a yearling. It had never known the joys not being gelded could bring. It never would. Still, he fancied it flicked its ear at him in a resentful way. He nodded to himself. Had anyone done such a thing to him, he would have been more than merely resentful.
"Life is hard," he said. "Even for an animal like yourself, one that does little work these days, life is hard. Believe me, it is no easier for men and women. Most of them, most of the time, have very little, and no hope for more than very little. I get down on my knees and thank the Lord for the bounty He has given me"
Another ear flick might have said, Careful how you speak, there—lam apart of your bounty, after all Maybe the horse was exceptionally expressive today. Maybe Galtier's imagination was working harder than usual.
"Truly, I could have been unfortunate as easily as I have been fortunate," Galtier said. The horse did not deny it. Galtier went on, "Had I been unfortunate, you would not be eating so well as you are now. Believe me, you would not."
Maybe the horse believed him. Maybe it didn't. Whether it did or not, it knew it was eating well now. That was what mattered. How could a man reasonably expect a horse to care about might-have-beens?
But Lucien Galtier cared. "Consider," he said. "I might have been driven to try to blow up an American general, as was that anglophone farmer who blew himself up instead, poor fool. For I will not lie: I had no love for the Americans. Yes, that could have been me, had chance driven me in the other direction. But I am here, and I am as I am, and so you have the chance to stand in your stall and get fat and lazy. I wonder if that other farmer had a horse, and how the unlucky animal is doing."
His own horse ate all he had given it and looked around for more, which was not forthcoming. It sent him a hopeful look, rather like that of a beggar who sat in the street with a tin cup beside him. Galtier rarely gave beggars money; as far as he was concerned, men who could work should. He did not insist that the horse work, not any more, but he knew better than to overfeed it.
After finishing in the barn, he walked through the snow to the farmhouse. The heat of the stove in the kitchen seemed a greater blessing than any Bishop Pascal could give. As Galtier stood close by it, Marie poured him a cup of steaming hot coffee. She added a hefty dollop of cream and, for good measure, a slug of applejack, too.
"Drink it before it gets cold," she said in a tone that brooked no argument. "You should be warmed inside and out." And, before he could answer, almost—but not quite—before he could even think, she added, "And do not say what is in your mind, you dreadful brute of a man."
"I?" After sipping the coffee, which was delicious, Galtier said, "I declare to the world that you have wronged me."
"So you do," his wife replied. "You should remember, though, that declaring a thing does not make it true."
She was laughing at him. He could hear it in her voice. She was also laughing because of him, a very different business. He waggled a forefinger at her. "You are a very troublesome woman." he said severely.
"No doubt you have reason," Marie said. "And no doubt I have my reasons for being troublesome. One of those reasons that comes straight to my mind is that I have a very troublesome husband."
"Me?" Lucien shook his head. "By no means. Not at all." He took another sip of fortified coffee. "How could I possibly be troublesome when I am holding here a cup of the elixir of life?" He put down the elixir of life so he could shrug out of his wool plaid coat. It was not quite warm enough in the bitter cold outside, but much too warm for standing by the stove for very long. As Lucien picked up the coffee cup again, Georges came into the kitchen. Lucien nodded to himself. "If I am troublesome, it could be that I understand why."
"How strange," Marie said. "I just now had this same thought at the same time. Men and women who have been married a long while do this, they say."
"How strange," Georges said, "I just now had the thought that I have been insulted, and for once I do not even know why."
"Never fear, son," Galtier said. "There are always reasons, and they are usually good ones."
"Here, then—I will give you a reason," Georges said. He left the kitchen, and flicked the light switch on the way out. The electric bulb in the lamp hanging from the ceiling went dark, plunging the room into gloom.
"Scamp!" Galtier called after him. Georges laughed—he was being troublesome, all right. Muttering, Galtier went over and turned on the lamp again. The kitchen shone as if he'd brought the sun indoors. "Truly electricity is a great marvel," he said. "I wonder how we ever got along without it."
"I cannot imagine," Marie said. "It makes everything so much easier—and you were clever enough to squeeze it out of the government."
"And the Americans," Galtier said. "You must not forget the Americans"
"I am not likely to forget the Americans." His wife's voice was tart. "Without the Americans, we would not have the son-in-law we now have, nor the grandson, either. Believe me, I remember all this very well."
"Without the Americans, we would not be living in the Republic of Quebec," Galtier said, looking at the large picture as well as the small one. "We would still be paying our taxes to Ottawa and getting nothing for them, instead of paying them to the city of Quebec .. . and getting nothing for them." Neither independence nor wealth reconciled him to paying taxes. Wealth, indeed, left him even less enthusiastic than he had been before, for it meant he had to pay more than he had when he was not doing so well.
"When the Americans came, we thought it was the end of the world," Marie said.
"And we were right," Lucien answered. "It was the end of the world we had always known. We have changed." From a Quebe-cois farmer, that was blasphemy to rank alongside tabernac and calisse. "We have changed, and we are better for it." From a Que-becois farmer, that was blasphemy viler than any for which the local French dialect had words.
His wife started to contradict him. He could tell by the way she opened her mouth, by the angle at which her head turned, by any number of other small things he could not have named but did see. Before she could speak, he wagged a finger at her—only that and nothing more. She hesitated. At last, she said "Peut-etre—it could be."
That was a greater concession than he'd thought he could get from her. He'd been ready to argue. Instead, all he had to say was, "We are lucky. The whole family is lucky. Things could so easily be worse." He thought again of the farmer out in Manitoba who'd tried to kill General Custer.
"God has been kind to us," Marie said.
"Yes, God has been kind to us," Galtier agreed. "And we have been lucky. And"—he knew just how to forestall an argument, almost as if he'd read a book on the subject—"this is excellent, truly excellent, coffee. Could you fix me another cup, exactly like this one?" His wife turned to take care of it. Galtier smiled behind her back. He'd had good luck and, wherever he could, he'd made good luck. And here he was, in his middle years and happy. He wondered how many of his neighbors could say that. Not many, unless he missed his guess. With an open smile and a word of thanks, he took the cup from Marie.
Jake Featherston tore open the fat package from the William Byrd Press. Dear Mr. Featherston, the letter inside read, Thank you for showing us the manuscript enclosed herewith. We regret that we must doubt its commercial possibilities at the present time, and must therefore regretfully decline to undertake its publication. We hope you will have success in placing it elsewhere.
He cursed. He couldn't place Over Open Sights anywhere, and a lot of the letters he got back from Richmond publishers— and even from one down in Mobile—were a lot less polite than this one. "Nobody wants to hear the truth," he growled.
"Nothing you can do about it now, Jake," Ferdinand Koenig said, slapping him on the back in consolation. "Come on. Let's get out of here "
''Stupid bastards," Featherston snarled. "And they're proud of it, damn them. They want to stay stupid." But he was glad to escape the Freedom Party offices. Even to him, they stank of defeat.
When he went out onto the streets of Richmond, he could have pulled the brim of his hat down low on his forehead or tugged up his collar so it hid part of his face. He could have grown a chin beard or bushy side whiskers to change his looks. He didn't. He hadn't. He wouldn't. As always, he met the world head-on.
The world was less fond of him than it had been before Grady Calkins murdered Wade Hampton V About every other person on the street recognized him, and about every third person who did recognize him showered him with abuse. He gave as good as he got, very often better.
Koenig shook his head while Jake and a passerby exchanged unpleasantries. After the man finally went on his way, Koenig said, "Christ, sometimes I think you look for trouble."
"No such thing." Featherston shook his head. "But I'll be goddamned if I'll run from it, either. After the damnyankee artillery, fools with big mouths aren't enough to put me off my feed."
"I still think you ought to lay low till it gets closer to the next election, let people forget about things," Koenig said.
He was one of the very few people these days who spoke frankly to Jake instead of telling him what they thought he wanted to hear. That made him a valuable man. All the same, Jake shook his head again. "No, dammit. I didn't do anything I'm ashamed of. The Party didn't do anything I'm ashamed of. One crazy man went and fouled things up for us, that's all. People need to forget about Calkins, not about me."
"They didn't forget last November," Koenig pointed out.
"We knew that was going to happen," Featherston said. "All right, it happened. It could have been a lot worse. A lot of people reckoned it would be a lot worse."
"You know what you sound like?" Koenig said. "You sound like the War Department in the last part of 1916, the first part of 1917, when the damnyankees had started hammering us hard. 'We hurt the enemy very badly and contained him more quickly than expected,' they'd say, and all that meant was, we'd lost some more ground."
Featherston grunted. Comparing him to the department he hated hit home. Stubbornly, he said, "The Freedom Party's going to get the ground back, though. The War Department never did figure out how to manage that one."
"If you say so, Sarge," Ferdinand Koenig replied. He didn't sound like a man who believed it. He sounded like a man humoring a rich lunatic—and he made sure Featherston knew he sounded that way.
"We can come back," Jake insisted. As long as he believed it, he could make other people believe it. If enough other people believed it, it would come true.
He and Koenig turned right from Seventh onto Franklin and walked on toward Capitol Square. Jake's hands folded into fists. After the war was lost—thrown away, he thought—discharged soldiers had almost taken the Capitol; only more soldiers with machine guns had held them at bay. A good bloodbath then would have been just what the CSA needed.
And in 1921 he'd come so close to storming his way into power in spite of everything the Whigs and all their Thirds and Fourths and Fifths could do to stop him. Sure as hell, he would have been elected in 1927. He knew he would have been—if not for Grady Calkins.
If even he was thinking about what might have been instead of what would be now—if that was so, the Freedom Party was in deep trouble. A man with a limp—wounded veteran, Jake judged—came toward him along Franklin. Jake nodded to him—he still had plenty of backers left, especially among men who'd fought like him.
"Freedom!" the fellow said by way of reply, but he loaded the word with loathing and made an obscene gesture at Jake.
"You go to hell!" Featherston cried.
"If I do, I'll see you there before me," the man with the limp answered, and went on his way.
"Bastard," Jake muttered on his breath. "Fucking bastard. They're all fucking bastards." Then he saw a crowd on the sidewalk ahead and forgot about the heckler. "What the hell's going on here, Ferd?"
"Damned if I know," Koenig answered. "Shall we find out?"
"Yeah." Jake elbowed his way to the front of the crowd, ably assisted by his former running mate. He'd expected a saloon giving away free beer or something of that sort. Instead, men and women were trying to shove their way into ... a furniture store? He couldn't believe it till Ferdinand Koenig pointed to the sign taped in the window: newest makes of wireless receivers, from $399.
"They're all the go nowadays," Koenig said. "Even at those prices, everybody wants one."
"I've heard people talking about them," Featherston admitted. "Haven't heard one myself, I don't think. I'll be damned if I can see what the fuss is about."
"I've listened to 'em," Koenig said. "It's—interesting. Not like anything else you'll ever run across, I'll tell you that."
"Huh." But, having got so close to the store's doorway, Featherston decided not to leave without listening to a wireless receiver. More judicious elbowing got him and Koenig inside.
The receivers were all big and boxy. Some cabinets were made of fancier wood than others; that seemed to account for the difference in price. Only one machine was actually operating. From it came tinny noises that, after a bit, Jake recognized as a Negro band playing "In the Good Old Summertime."
"Huh," he said again, and turned to the fellow who was touting the receivers. "Why would anybody want to listen to this crap, for God's sake?"
"Soon, sir, there will be offerings for every taste," the salesman answered smoothly. "Even now, people all over Richmond are listening to this and other broadcasts. As more people buy receivers, the number of broadcasts and the number of listeners will naturally increase."
"Not if they keep playing that garbage," Ferdinand Koenig said. He nodded to Featherston. "You were right—this is lousy."
"Yeah." But Jake had listened to the salesman, too. "All over Richmond, you say?"
"Yes, sir." The rabbity-looking fellow nodded enthusiastically. "And the price of receivers has fallen dramatically in the past few months. It will probably keep right on falling, too, as they become more popular."
"People all over Richmond," Jake repeated thoughtfully. "Could you have people all over the CSA listening to the same thing at the same time?"
To his disappointment, the salesman replied, "Not from the same broadcasting facility." But the fellow went on, "I suppose you could send the same signal from several facilities at once. Why, if I might ask?"
Plainly, he didn't recognize Featherston. "Just curious," Jake answered—and, indeed, it was hardly more than that. Behind his hand, he whispered to Koenig: "Might be cheaper to make a speech on the wireless than hold a bunch of rallies in a bunch of different towns. If we could be sure we were reaching enough people that way—"
One of the other customers in the shop was whispering behind his hand to the salesman. "Oh?" the salesman said. "He is?" By the tone of voice, Jake knew exactly what the customer had whispered. The salesman said, "Sir, I am going to have to ask you to leave. This is a high-class establishment, and I don't want any trouble here."
"We weren't giving you any trouble." Featherston and Koenig spoke together.
"You're from the Freedom Party," said the customer who'd recognized Jake. "You don't have to give trouble. You are trouble."
Several other men from among those crowding the shop drifted toward the fellow. A couple of others ranged themselves behind Featherston. "Freedom!" one of them said.
"I am going to call for a policeman if you don't leave," the salesman told Jake. "I do not want this place broken apart."
If breaking the place apart would have brought the Party good publicity, Featherston would have started a fight on the spot. But he knew it wouldn't—just the opposite, in fact. The papers would scream he was only a ruffian leading a pack of ruffians. They hadn't talked about him and the Party like that when he was a rising power in the land, or not so much, anyhow. Now they thought they scented blood. He wouldn't give them any blood to sniff.
"Come on, Ferd," he said. "If anybody starts trouble, it won't be us."
"Look at the cowards cut and run," jeered the man who'd recognized him. "They talk big, but they don't back it up."
He never knew how close he came to getting his head broken and his nuts kneed. Jake's instinct was always to hit back at whoever and whatever struck at him, and to hit harder if he could. Only a harsh understanding that that would bring no advantage held him back.
"One day," he growled once he and Ferdinand Koenig were out on Franklin again, "one fine day I'm going to pay back every son of a bitch who ever did me wrong, and that loud-mouthed bastard will get his. So help me God, he will."
"Sure, Sarge," Koenig said. But he didn't sound sure. He sounded like a man buttering up his boss after said boss had come out with something really stupid. Featherston knew flattery when he heard it, because he heard it too damn often. He hadn't heard it much from Koenig, though.
Sourly, he studied the man who'd run for vice president with him. He and Koenig went back to the old days together, to the days when the Freedom Party operated out of a cigar box. If Koenig hadn't backed him, odds were the Party would still be a cigar-box outfit. Koenig was as close to a friend as he had on the face of the earth. And yet.. .
"If you don't fancy the way things are going, Ferd, you can always move on," Jake said. "Don't want you to feel like you're wearing a ball and chain."
Koenig turned red. "I don't want to leave, Jake. I've come too far to back out now, same as you. Only. .."
"Only what?" Featherston snapped.
"Only Moses got to the top of the mountain, but God never let him into the Promised Land," Koenig said, going redder still. "Way things are these days, I don't know how we can win an election any time soon."
"We sure as hell won't if people lie down and give up," Jake said. "Long as we don't quit, long as we keep fighting, things will turn our way, sooner or later. It'll take longer now than I reckoned it would in 1921; I'd be a liar if I said anything different. But the time is coming. By God, it is."
Koenig grunted. Again, the sound failed to fill Featherston with confidence. If even the man closest to him had doubts, who was he to be sure triumph did lie ahead? He shrugged. He'd kept firing against the damnyankees up to the very last minute. He would struggle against fate the same way.
There ahead lay Capitol Square, with its great statues of George Washington and Albert Sidney Johnston. Pointing, Jake said, "Look at 'em, Ferd. If Washington had given up, we'd still belong to England. And Johnston died so the Confederate States could be free. How can we do anything else and still look at ourselves in the mirror afterwards?"
"I don't know," Koenig said. "But you don't see people building statues to what's-his-name—Cornwallis—or to General Grant, the Yankee who licked Johnston. Damned if I know what happened to Cornwallis. Grant died a drunk. They were both big wheels in their day, Sarge."
"And we'll be big wheels in ours." Jake understood what Koenig was saying, but wouldn't admit it even to himself. Admitting it would mean he might also have to admit he wasn't sure whether he'd end up among the winners or the losers when the history books got written. He couldn't bear that thought.
"Hope you're right," Koenig said.
"Hell, yes, I'm right." Jake spoke with great assurance, to convince not only his follower but also himself. Ferdinand Koenig nodded. If he wasn't convinced, Featherston couldn't prove it, not from a nod.
And what about you? Jake asked himself. He'd been—the Freedom Party had been—that close to seizing power with both hands. Now, with Wade Hampton dead, with the Confederate currency sound again ... He kicked at the sidewalk. The Party should have gone forward again in 1923. Instead, he counted himself lucky, damn lucky, it hadn't gone further back.
Could things turn around? Of course they could—that was the wrong question. How likely were they to turn around? Coldly, as if in a poker game, he reckoned up the odds. Had he been in a poker game, he would have thrown in his cards. But the stakes here were too high for him to quit.
"It'll work out," he said. "Goddammit, it will work out." He did his best to sound as if he meant it.