Settling Accounts Return Engagement: Book One of the Settling Accounts Trilogy

by Harry Turtledove

  “But, sir, somethin’ else is—” one of the guards began.

  “Shut up,” Jeff told him. “Every time you open your mouth, your brains try and fall out. You may know somethin’. I doubt it, but you may. I may know somethin’. Matter of fact, I damn well do. But do we want the niggers here gettin’ a whiff of it? Do we, you stupid son of a bitch?”

  The guard stood mute, which was the smartest thing he could have done. Pinkard jerked his thumb toward the door. The guards almost tripped over each other in their eagerness to escape. They left the door open. Jeff shouted after them. One came back and closed it. Jeff listened to his footsteps recede.

  That afternoon, Mercer Scott said, “Don’t you reckon you came down on my boys a little hard?”

  “Sorry, Mercer, but I don’t,” Jeff answered. “I want things to go smooth around here. That means I don’t want some damn fools tryin’ to be funny spookin’ the spooks. They get the wrong idea”—by which he meant the right idea—“and we’re right back where we were at before.” He didn’t go into detail. They were out in the open. It wasn’t likely anybody could overhear them if they talked quietly, but it wasn’t impossible, either.

  Scott understood what he was saying—and what he wasn’t. The guard chief didn’t want Camp Dependable simmering at the edge of revolt the way it had been when Negroes were marched off into the swamps any more than Jeff did. “I don’t reckon they’ll make that mistake again,” he said.

  “They’d better not, or they’re gone,” Jeff said. “That’s how come I came down on ’em like I did. They’ve got to know I won’t put up with that shit. And if you want to talk to your friends in Richmond about it, you go right ahead. I don’t aim to back down on this one.”

  He watched Scott weighing his chances. By the downward curve of the guard chief’s mouth, he didn’t think they were good. Jeff didn’t, either. He was sure right lay on his side. And he was in favor in Richmond because of the transport trucks that did more than transport. Put right and favor together and you were pretty hard to beat.

  From the way the papers and the wireless news in Covington, Kentucky, were crowing, Cincinnatus Driver feared that the U.S. offensive in Virginia had come to grief. He didn’t completely trust the papers or the wireless; he’d seen they told more lies than a husband coming home with lipstick on his collar and whiskey on his breath. But Lucullus Wood was gloomy, and he had more ways of knowing than what the papers and the wireless said.

  Cincinnatus made a habit of visiting Lucullus’ barbecue joint every so often. If the police ever asked him what he was doing there, he could truthfully say he was a regular and have witnesses to back him up. How much good that would do him he didn’t know, but it couldn’t hurt.

  Lucullus often came out from the back of the place and sat with him when he did show up. Cincinnatus got the feeling the cook who was more than a cook was looking for somebody to talk to, somebody who he could be sure wouldn’t go to the police with whatever he said.

  “Yeah, the USA screwed up,” Lucullus said mournfully. “Got over the Rappahannock, but they ain’t over the Rapidan yet, an’ I dunno if they ever git that far. All depends on how much bleedin’ they wanna do.”

  “Great War was like that,” Cincinnatus said after swallowing a bite from his barbecued-pork sandwich. “This here one wasn’t supposed to be. Goddamn Confederates done it right.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” Lucullus’ broad shoulders went up and down in a shrug. “Where they went, they caught the Yankees by surprise. Daniel MacArthur sure didn’t surprise them none.” He took a swig of coffee, as if to wipe a bad taste from his mouth.

  “Too bad,” Cincinnatus said: a two-word epitaph for the Lord only knew how many men and how many hopes.

  “Uh-huh. You said it. Too bad is right.” By the way Lucullus agreed, his hopes were among those that lay bleeding between the two Virginia rivers.

  Trying to change the subject, Cincinnatus asked, “You ever run across Luther Bliss?”

  Lucullus had been raising the coffee cup again. It jerked in his hand—only a little, but Cincinnatus saw. “Funny you should ask me that,” the barbecue cook said. “He come in here the other day.”

  “Is that a fact?” Cincinnatus said. Lucullus nodded. Cincinnatus wagged a finger at him. “And you called me a liar when I said he was back in town.”

  Lucullus shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, well, looks like I was wrong.”

  “Looks like,” Cincinnatus agreed. “What did he want?”

  The other man hesitated. Cincinnatus understood that: the less Lucullus said, the less anybody could tear from him. At last, the barbecue cook answered, “He’s interested in makin’ trouble for folks he don’t like an’ we don’t like.”

  For the Confederates, Cincinnatus thought. “Do Jesus!” he said, as if astonished such an idea could have crossed Luther Bliss’ mind.

  Hearing the sarcasm, Lucullus made a sour face. “He want you to know more, I reckon he tell you more his ownself.”

  That put Cincinnatus in his place, all right. The last thing he wanted was Luther Bliss telling him anything at all. He’d hoped he would never see the secret policeman again. Like so many of his hopes, that one had been disappointed. He changed the subject once more: “You ever find out anything more about them trucks?”

  “They usin’ ’em in the camps,” Lucullus replied. “They usin’ ’em to ship niggers between the camps. Now you knows as much as I does.” He didn’t sound happy confessing his ignorance.

  “Well, that explains it, then,” Cincinnatus said. It did for him, anyhow. “They use ’em in the camps, they reckon that’s important—maybe even important enough to take ’em away from the Army.”

  “Maybe.” But Lucullus sounded deeply dubious. “But what they use ’em for?”

  “You done said it yourself: to ship niggers from one place to the next.”

  “Yeah, I done said it. But it don’t add up, or it don’t add up all the way. They already had trucks for that kind o’ work. Ordinary Army trucks with shackles on the floor . . . You put a nigger in one o’ them, he ain’t goin’nowhere till you let him loose. How come they change, then?” Lucullus was as suspicious of change as the most reactionary Freedom Party man.

  Cincinnatus could only shrug. “They don’t always do stuff on account of it makes sense. Sometimes they just do it for the sake of doin’ it, you hear what I’m sayin’?”

  “I hears you. I just don’t think you is right,” the barbecue cook answered. “What the Freedom Party does don’t always make sense to us. But it always make sense to them. They gots reasons fo’ what they does.”

  That made sense to Cincinnatus. He wished it didn’t, but it did. He said, “But you don’t know what those reasons are?”

  “No. I don’t know. I ain’t been able to find out.” By the way Lucullus said it, he took not knowing as a personal affront.

  Cincinnatus said something he didn’t want to say: “You reckon Luther Bliss knows?”

  Lucullus started to answer, then checked himself. He eyed Cincinnatus with pursed lips and a slow nod. “Your mama didn’t raise no fools, did she?”

  “My mama—” Cincinnatus broke off. What his mother had been bore no resemblance to the husk she was these days.

  “I’m sorry ’bout your mama now. That’s a tough row to hoe. I didn’t mean it like that,” Lucullus said. Cincinnatus made himself nod, made himself not show most of what he was thinking. Lucullus went on, “I ain’t talked to Bliss about none o’ this business. Didn’t cross my mind to. Didn’t, but it damn well should have. Reckon I will next time I sees him.”

  “All right. Meanwhile—” Cincinnatus got to his feet. He was smoother at it than he had been even a few weeks earlier, and it didn’t hurt so much. Little by little, he was mending, but he didn’t expect to try out for a football team anytime soon. “Meanwhile, I’ll be on my way.”

  “You take care o’ yourself, you hear?” Lucullus said.

  “Do my best,” Cincinnat
us said, which promised exactly nothing. “You be careful, too, all right?”

  The barbecue cook waved that aside. “Ain’t the time for nobody to be careful. Time to do what a man gotta do. If you ain’t a man at a time like this, I don’t reckon you is a man at all.”

  That gave Cincinnatus something to chew on all the way home. It was tougher and less digestible than the sandwich he’d eaten, but it too stuck to the ribs. Three airplanes buzzed high overhead: C.S. fighters on guard against U.S. bombers sneaking over the border by daylight. Bombers mostly came by night, when the danger facing them was smaller. Back East, where defenses were concentrated, day bombing was suicidal. Here, though, the country was wider and airplanes and antiaircraft guns fewer and farther between. Raiders from both sides could sometimes cross the border, drop their bombs, and scoot before the enemy hunted them down.

  Cincinnatus always looked both ways before crossing the street. The cane in his right hand and the pain that never went away were reminders of what happened when he didn’t. So was the brute fact that he and his father and mother remained stuck in Covington instead of being safe in Des Moines, far away from the war and from the Freedom Party.

  “Hello, son,” Seneca Driver said when Cincinnatus came in. The older man looked as gloomy as Cincinnatus felt.

  “Hello. How’s Ma?” Cincinnatus asked.

  “Well, she sleepin’ right now.” His father sounded relieved. Cincinnatus understood that. When his mother was asleep, she wasn’t getting into mischief or wandering off. She didn’t do anything out of malice, or even realize what she was doing, but that was exactly the problem. Seneca went on, “How is things down to Lucullus’?”

  “They’re all right.” Cincinnatus stopped and did a double take. “How you know I was there?”

  “I ain’t no hoodoo man. I ain’t no Sherlock Holmes, neither,” his father said. “You got barbecue sauce on your chin.”

  “Oh.” Cincinnatus felt foolish. He pulled a rumpled handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at himself. Sure enough, the hankie came away orange.

  His father said, “Lucullus, he’s a pretty smart nigger, same as his old man was. He got one trouble, though—he reckon he so smart, nobody can touch him. Ain’t nobody that smart. He gonna pay the price one day. Anybody too close to him gonna pay the price, too.”

  That sounded much more likely than Cincinnatus wished it did. He said, “I’m bein’ as careful as I can.”

  “Good. That’s good.” To his relief, his father didn’t push it. He just sighed and said, “If Livia hadn’t chose that one day to wander off . . .”

  “Uh-huh.” Cincinnatus nodded. That came close to paralleling the thought he’d had walking home. He managed a shrug. “Ain’t nothin’ nobody can do about it now.”

  “Ain’t it the truth?” Seneca smiled a sweet, sad smile. “I’s sorry you down here. Shouldn’t oughta happen on account of our troubles.”

  “Do Jesus, Pa!” Cincinnatus exclaimed. “If your troubles ain’t my troubles, too, whose is they? Everything shoulda gone fine when I came down. It just . . . didn’t, that’s all.”

  “Leastways you ain’t got that Luther Bliss bastard breathin’ down your neck no more. That’s somethin’, anyhow,” his father said.

  “Yeah, somethin’.” Cincinnatus hoped his voice didn’t sound too hollow. Bliss wasn’t exactly breathing down his neck, true. But the former head of the Kentucky State Police hadn’t been happy to have Cincinnatus recognize him. Bliss might yet decide dead men couldn’t go blabbing to the Confederates. Cincinnatus didn’t know what to do about that. He couldn’t hide and he couldn’t run.

  “Still and all, I reckon you do better goin’to Lucullus’ place’n down to the saloon,” his father said.

  “I’m all grown up, Pa.” Now Cincinnatus knew he sounded patient. “And I never knew you was a temperance man.”

  “Temperance man?” Seneca Driver shook his head. “I ain’t. I never was. Don’t reckon I ever will be. But I tell you, too many people does too much listenin’ at the saloons. Too many people does too much talkin’, too, an’ a lot of ’em ends up sorry afterwards.”

  Cincinnatus had had that thought himself. He said, “I never been one to run my mouth, not even when I get liquored up. I don’t get liquored up all that often, neither, not even after . . . all this happen.” He gestured with his cane to show what he meant.

  “All right, son. All right. I’s glad you don’t.” His father raised a placating hand. “But I ain’t wrong. Lucullus watch what goes on in his place for his sake. Some o’ the niggers in them saloons, they watch what goes on for the gummint’s sake.” Cincinnatus was damned if he could tell him he was wrong.

  No matter how many strings Colonel Irving Morrell pulled, he couldn’t get sent to the Virginia front. From southern Ohio, he listened with growing dismay to the reports of a bogged-down U.S. offensive. He also listened to them with considerable sympathy. Why not, when he presided over a bogged-down offensive himself? If the War Department had given him enough barrels, he might have accomplished something with them. They hadn’t; they’d taken. And he’d accomplished nothing.

  “It’s enough to drive a man to drink, Sergeant,” he told Michael Pound. They hadn’t moved from Caldwell. The front a few miles to the west hadn’t moved, either. The only thing that had moved was the calendar, and it was not in the USA’s favor. The longer the Confederates held their corridor through Ohio, the worse they squeezed the United States.

  “Nobody would blame you if it did, sir,” Pound answered.

  “The War Department would,” Morrell said dryly.

  “Well, if those idiots in Philadelphia aren’t a pack of nobodies, who is?” As usual, Pound sounded reasonable. If you already despised the powers that be, he could give you more reasons for doing so than you’d thought of yourself.

  Morrell laughed. If he didn’t laugh, he’d start swearing. He’d already done that a time or six. He didn’t think doing it again would help. “You’re thoroughly insubordinate, aren’t you, Sergeant?”

  “Who, me?” Pound might have been the picture of innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. Have I ever been insubordinate to you?”

  “Well, no,” Morrell admitted.

  “There you are, sir. As long as somebody shows he knows what he’s doing, I don’t have any trouble with him at all. Some numskull who thinks he’s a little tin Jesus because he’s got oak leaves on his shoulder straps, now . . .”

  “You’ve taken that thought about as far as it ought to go,” Morrell said. Pound had known that for himself, or he wouldn’t have stopped where he did. Sometimes a reminder didn’t hurt, though. Morrell’s principal concern was with numskulls who thought they were big tin Jesuses because they had stars on their shoulder straps. They could do more damage than the ones Pound had named.

  Shrugging, the gunner said, “What are we going to do to get this war rolling the way it should?”

  By the way he asked the question, he thought he and Morrell could take care of it personally. Morrell wished he thought the same thing. He said, “I’m going to do whatever my superiors tell me to. And you, Sergeant, you’re going to do whatever your superiors tell you to. If you’d let me promote you, you wouldn’t have so many superiors. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  “There’d still be too many,” Pound said. The only way he would be happy, Morrell realized, was to have no superiors at all. In the military, that wasn’t practical. Why not? Morrell wondered. Would he do so much worse than the people we have in charge now? The answer was bound to be yes, but the fact that Morrell could frame the question didn’t speak well for what was going on back at the War Department.

  Pound took out a pack of cigarettes, stuck one in his mouth, and offered them to Morrell. “Thanks,” Morrell said. Pound flicked a cigarette lighter. Both men inhaled. Both made sour faces when they did. Morrell took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at it. He neighed, suggesting where what passed for the tobacco had come fr
om. Sergeant Pound got a case of the giggles. “Can you tell me I’m wrong?” Morrell asked him.

  “Not me, sir,” Pound said. “But we keep smoking them just the same.”

  “We do, don’t we? Bad tobacco’s better than no tobacco.” Morrell studied the cigarette before he put it back in his mouth. “I wonder what that says about us. Nothing good, probably.”

  Still puffing on it, he walked towards a barrel whose crew was working on the engine. One of the men in dark coveralls looked up and waved. “I think we’ve finally got the gunk out of the goddamn carburetor,” he called.

  “Good. That’s good.” Morrell kept his distance. The barrel crew had the sense not to smoke while they messed around with the engine. That deserved encouragement. He looked out toward the woods that ringed Caldwell. With the leaves off the trees, they seemed much grimmer than they would have in summertime.

  Because he was looking out toward them, he saw the muzzle flash. The rifle report came a split second later—right on the heels of the bullet that slammed into his shoulder.

  “Oh, shit!” he exclaimed, and clapped his other hand to the wound. Blood dripped out through his fingers. For a couple of seconds, he felt only the impact—as if somebody’d belted him with a crowbar. Then the pain followed. He howled like a wolf. The next thing he knew, he was sitting on the muddy ground, with no memory of how he’d got there.

  “Holy shit! The colonel’s down!” Three people said the same thing at the same time. Another shot rang out. This one cracked past Morrell’s ear.

  Sergeant Pound ran over to him. The gunner grabbed Morrell and heaved him across his broad back. Morrell howled again, louder this time—getting manhandled like that hurt worse than getting shot had. Michael Pound paid no attention to him. He ran for cover, shouting, “Doc! Hey, Doc! Some son of a bitch shot the colonel!”

  One more bullet snarled by, much too close for comfort. That’s not just somebody picking off whoever he can get, Morrell thought dazedly. He wants my ass. Christ, I wish that’s where he’d shot me.