The Victorious Opposition (58 page)

“Thank you,” Morrell said, in lieu of something more pungent. Sergeant Pound went on his way, a free man. Morrell sighed. The guards outside MacArthur’s office glowered at him despite his uniform as he approached, but relaxed and passed him through when they recognized him and decided he wasn’t an assassin in disguise. He saluted Daniel MacArthur. “Reporting as ordered, sir.”

The lantern-jawed U.S. commander in Houston returned the salute, then waved Morrell to a chair. “Easier to fiddle sitting down while Rome burns, eh, Colonel?”

“Sir, I just had the pleasure of coldcocking one of those goddamn Houstonian bastards.” Morrell explained exactly what he’d done on the streets of Lubbock, and why. The only thing he didn’t do was name Michael Pound. The responsibility was his, not the sergeant’s.

MacArthur heard him out. “I have two things to say about that,” the general said when he was done. “The first is, by this time tomorrow Jake Featherston’s pet wireless stations will be baying about another damnyankee atrocity in the occupied lands.”

Morrell’s opinion about where the president of the CSA could stick his wireless stations was anatomically improbable, but no less heartfelt on account of that. “Sideways,” he added.

“Indeed.” Daniel MacArthur stuck a cigarette into the long, long holder he affected. He lit it and blew out a cloud of smoke. “The second thing I have to say, Colonel, is that I’m jealous. You have no idea how jealous I am. You keep managing to hit back, while I’ve had to turn the other cheek again and again and again. It’s enough to make me wonder about Christianity; it truly is.”

“Er, yes, sir,” Morrell said, not knowing how else to respond to that. “On the whole, though, things have been a lot quieter since President Smith agreed to the plebiscite.”

“Of
course
they have!” Brigadier General MacArthur exploded. “The miserable fool has given the Confederate States exactly what they’ve always wanted. Is it any wonder that they’re willing to take it?”

“No wonder at all,” Morrell agreed. “Sir, if Smith had told Featherston to go jump in a lake, do you think the Confederates would have gone to war with us over Houston and Kentucky and Sequoyah?”

“I would have liked to see them try,” MacArthur answered with a contemptuous snort. “I don’t care how fast they’re rearming. There is such a thing as fighting out of your weight. That’s what infuriates me so: they’ll likely win with the ballot box what they couldn’t on the battlefield.”

Morrell wondered about that. Hadn’t Houston and Kentucky and Sequoyah
been
battlefields for the past several years? That was the way it seemed to him. The Confederates’ sympathizers had taken a lot more casualties than they’d inflicted on the U.S. Army and U.S. sympathizers in the disputed states, but they hadn’t cared. They’d thought it was all worthwhile. The United States hadn’t held the same opinion about the losses they’d suffered. In the end, that made all the difference.

Daniel MacArthur saw things the same way. “We have sustained a total, unmitigated defeat,” he said. Michael Pound had said the same thing, without the fancy adjectives. Being a general entitled MacArthur to use them. In fine rhetorical fettle, he went on, “Do not let us blind ourselves. The road to the Ohio, the road that points to Pittsburgh and the Great Lakes, has been broken. Throughout these days, the president has believed in addressing Mr. Featherston with the language of sweet reasonableness. I have always believed he was more open to the language of the mailed fist.”

“Yes, sir,” Morrell said. “I wish I could have punched him instead of that fanatic a little while ago.”

“Punched whom?” MacArthur asked. “Smith or Featherston?”

That was an interesting question—to say nothing of inflammatory. It was so interesting, Morrell pretended he hadn’t heard it. He asked a question of his own: “If things really have quieted down around here, sir, what do we do till they finally hold the plebiscite?”

“We get ready to leave,” MacArthur said bluntly. “Or do you think the USA will win the vote?”

“If we were going to win this vote, sir, they wouldn’t need the Army to hold the lid on here,” Morrell said.

MacArthur nodded. “That’s how I see it, too. The other thing we’ll do is make sure all the eligible niggers in Houston come out and vote in the plebiscite.”

“It won’t help,” Morrell said. “We’ll still lose.”

“I am aware of that, thank you.” Daniel MacArthur might have been talking to the village idiot. Colonel Morrell’s ears heated. His superior went on, “Nevertheless, the more independence those people show, the more trouble they’ll cause the Confederate State after we lose the election.”

“Well, yes, sir,” Morrell allowed. “But they won’t cause all
that
much trouble, on account of there aren’t enough of them in Houston. And the Confederates have never been shy about shooting Negroes whenever they thought they needed to. With Featherston in the saddle, they don’t even think twice.”

“Have you any other observations to make?” MacArthur asked icily.

“No, sir.” Morrell knew he couldn’t very well observe that Brigadier General MacArthur had a thin skin and couldn’t stand having anybody disagree with him. It was true enough—MacArthur’s chagrin just now showed how true it was—but the other officer would only get angrier if he said so.

Sure enough, MacArthur imperiously—and imperially—pointed toward the door with the cigarette holder. “In that case, Colonel, you are dismissed.”

Morrell gave him a salute extravagant in its adoration. His about-face would have won praise from a drill sergeant on a West Point parade ground. As he marched out of the brigadier general’s office, though, he reflected that he was probably wasting irony. MacArthur would accept the gestures as no less than his due. Back during the war, General Custer had shown the same sort of blindness.

Come to think of it, MacArthur had served under Custer during the war. Had he learned that sort of arrogance from the past master? Possible, Morrell decided, but not likely. Odds were MacArthur would have been a cocksure son of a bitch even if he’d never met George Armstrong Custer.

The guards outside the office saluted Morrell. He returned their salutes in proper casual style. They hadn’t done anything to raise his blood pressure. No, that distinction belonged to the U.S. commandant in Houston—and to all the Houstonians who didn’t want to belong to the United States. He blamed them less than he blamed Daniel MacArthur. He and MacArthur were supposed to be on the same side.

Instead of going back to BOQ and getting drunk at the bar or brooding in his hot, airless little cubicle, Morrell headed over to the barrel park. The big, lumbering machines were always breaking down. Even when they weren’t broken down, they needed constant maintenance to keep running the way they were supposed to. Getting his hands and his uniform dirty was at least as good a way of blowing off steam as getting a snootful of whiskey—and he wouldn’t have a thick head in the morning, either.

He wasn’t surprised to find Michael Pound in the barrel park fiddling with a carburetor. “Hello, sir,” the sergeant said. “And how is the Grand High Panjandrum today?”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Morrell said, sternly suppressing the urge to snicker. “And you’re goddamn lucky I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear it, too.”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Pound said innocently. “Well, in that case, how is Brigadier General MacArthur?” He sounded no more respectful than he had a moment earlier.

Since Irving Morrell wasn’t feeling particularly respectful toward the commandant, he overlooked the sergeant’s tone this time. “Brigadier General MacArthur doubts that the USA can win the upcoming plebiscite,” Morrell said. “He is unhappy about returning Houston to the CSA.” That was like canned rations—it kept the substance and lost the flavor. And was there any U.S. soldier in Houston happy about returning Houston to the Confederacy? If there was, Morrell hadn’t met him.

Sergeant Pound asked, “Does he suggest anything we can actually do about it?”

“Such as?” Morrell said. “President Smith has the right to do what he wants here. If he thinks a plebiscite is a good idea, he can order one.”

“If he thinks a plebiscite is a good idea, he’s an idiot,” Pound said. “We’ll pay for it down the road. Probably not very far down the road, either.”

Once more, Morrell wished he thought the sergeant was wrong.

C
olonel Clarence Potter was about as happy as a naturally dour man could be. Part of his somber joy came from the upcoming plebiscite. For more than twenty years, he’d wanted to see the stolen states brought back into the Confederacy, and now it seemed they would be. He gave Jake Featherston all the credit in the world for that. He gave it reluctantly, but not insincerely. He’d thought Jake was out of his mind. Maybe Jake was, but he’d read Al Smith like a book.

And part of Potter’s present happiness had very little to do with Jake Featherston—at least directly. He’d never been a man who had extraordinary luck with women. He’d never married, and he’d never come particularly close to marrying. Like a fisherman, he had sometimes talked about the one that got away. For him, that had been Anne Colleton.

They’d always got on well down in South Carolina. But he hadn’t been able to stand the Freedom Party, and she’d ended up backing it. That had been plenty to keep the two of them from staying together. Potter had thought he would never see her again, except possibly over gunsights—and he hadn’t been sure which of them would be aiming the gun.

Now . . . Now, lazy in the afterglow, he sprawled on the bed in Ford’s Hotel. “You see?” he said. “You just wanted me to tell you I was wrong.”

“Well, of course,” Anne answered, and poked him in the ribs. “What else does a woman want to hear from a man?”

“How about, ‘I love you’? How about, ‘You’re beautiful’?” Potter suggested.

“Those are nice, too,” she agreed with a smile. “As far as I’m concerned, though, nothing’s better than, ‘You were right.’ ”

He believed her. He didn’t tell her so. She was too likely to take it the wrong way, to think he meant she was tough and bossy. And, as a matter of fact, he
did
think she was tough and bossy. To his way of thinking, though, that was a compliment. He had as little use for a woman who couldn’t take care of herself as for a man who couldn’t take care of himself.

“You
are
beautiful, you know,” he said.

The smile didn’t just fade. It blew out like a candle flame. “I used to be,” she said bleakly. “You don’t need to butter me up, Clarence. I know what’s there when I look in the mirror.”

“You’re not young any more. So what?” Potter shrugged. The motion made the mattress shake beneath him. “I’m no spring chicken these days, either. And have you looked at
all
of you in a mirror lately?” He ran a hand along the length of her. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Like hell I don’t,” Anne said. “My tits sag, I’m thick in the middle, and I’m spread in the butt.”

“You’re not young any more. So what?” he said again. “You still look damn good. I might lie, but do you think
he
would? He’s either sincere or he doesn’t work at all, especially at my age.”

Anne laughed. A moment later, though, she rolled over onto her stomach and started sobbing into her pillow. Startled, Potter put a hand on her shoulder. She shook it off.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, honestly bewildered.

“You son of a bitch,” she said, her voice muffled. “I don’t remember the last time a man made me cry. I didn’t think anybody could any more. And then you went and did it.”

“I didn’t mean to,” he said.

“I know.” She sat up, a wry smile on her tear-streaked face. “If you’d been trying, you couldn’t have done it in a million years. You caught me off-guard—and look what happened.”

“No, no, no.” Potter shook his head. “That’s what the United States are supposed to say to us one of these days.”

Anne laughed, but she nodded, too. “Oh, yes.” She leaned forward. He’d caught her interest in a different way—which was probably just as well, since he wasn’t good for more than one round a day himself any more. She asked, “How likely is it? How soon?”

He shrugged again. “All I know is what I read in the newspapers, like that comic from Sequoyah says.”

Anne Colleton laughed again, this time at him. “Tell me another one,
Colonel
Potter. If you can’t tell me, who can?”

“The president, most likely,” Potter answered. “But believe me, he doesn’t confide in colonels.” That wasn’t altogether true. From things Potter had heard, and from others that had crossed his desk, he could make what he thought were some pretty good guesses about how things might go. He didn’t tell her what they were. With another woman, he would have been joking about the president. But Anne knew Jake Featherston. Could Jake put her up to finding out whether one Clarence Potter, colonel in Intelligence, ran off at the mouth? Potter didn’t think so, but he wasn’t a hundred percent sure.

She pointed an accusing, red-tipped fingernail at him. “So you won’t talk, eh?”

“Not me. Not a word. Nothing but name, rank, and pay number.” He rattled them off. “Wild horses couldn’t pull more out of me.”

“Who said anything about wild horses?” Anne’s voice went soft and breathy. A mischievous glint sparked in her eyes. “Wild horses went out with the covered wagons. What we do these days is . . .” She started doing it.

After a while, Potter discovered there were still days when he was good for more than one round—with sufficient encouragement, that is. Panting, his heart pounding, he said, “My goodness. Torture’s certainly come up in the world since the last time I ran into it.”

“I should hope so. This is a high-class outfit here.” As if to prove as much, Anne pulled up the sheet and daintily dabbed at her chin. Then she assumed what she fondly imagined to be a U.S. accent and said, “So tell me the score, Colonel.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’d rather hold out for more torture,” he said.

She poked him in the ribs again, hard enough to come closer to torture than he’d looked for. “Monster!” she said. He made as if to salute. She made as if to poke him one more time. Instead, she aimed that forefinger at him once more, this time as if it were the barrel of a Tredegar. “All right, you . . . you impossible person. Be that way. Don’t tell me what you know. Tell me what you think. You can’t get in trouble for thinking.”