Featherston stood behind the microphone, his hands raised, soaking up the adulation of the crowd. Knowing what she knew, she should have been immune to what stirred the thousands of fools out there. But, to her own amazement and rather to her dismay, she found she wasn't. She wanted to join the chant, to lose herself in it. The excitement that built in her was hot and fierce, almost sexual.
She fought it down. The farmers and factory hands out there didn't try. They didn't even know they might try. They'd come to be stirred, to be roused. The ceremony had started that work. Jake Featherston would finish it.
He dropped his hands. Instantly, the Freedom Party faithful in white and butternut stopped chanting. The cries of 'Freedom!'' went on for another few seconds. Then the people in the ordinary part-much the bigger part-of the crowd got the idea, too. A little raggedly, the chant ended.
Jake leaned forward, toward the microphone. Anne discovered she too was leaning forward, toward him. Angrily, she straightened. 'God damn him,' she muttered under her breath. Tom gave her a curious look. She didn't explain. She didn't want to admit even to herself, let alone to anyone else, that Jake Feather-ston could get her going like that.
'Columbia,' Jake said. 'I want you all to know, I'm glad-I'm proud-to set foot in the capital of the first state of the Confederacy.' He talked in commonplaces. His voice was harsh, his accent none too pleasing. Somehow, none of that mattered. When he spoke, thousands upon thousands of people hung on his every word. Anne was one of them. She knew she was doing it, but couldn't help herself. Featherston was formidable in a small setting. In front of a crowd, he was much more than merely formidable.
Through cheers, he repeated, 'Yes, sir, I'm proud to set foot in the capital of the first state of the Confederacy-because I know South Carolina is going to help me, going to help the Freedom Party, give the Confederate States back to the people who started this country in the first place, the honest, hard-working white men and women who make the CSA go and don't get a dime's worth of credit for it. Y'all remember dimes, right? That'd be a couple million dollars' worth of credit nowadays, I reckon.'
The crowd laughed and cheered. 'He's full of crap,' Tom said. 'The people who started this country were planters and lawyers, just about top to bottom. Everybody knows that.'
'Everybody who's had a good education knows that,' Anne said. 'How many of those folks out there do you figure went to college?' Before Tom could answer, she shook her head. 'Never mind now. I want to hear what he's going to say.'
'Now I know the Whigs are running Wade Hampton Y and I know he's from right here in South Carolina,' Featherston went on. 'I reckon some of you are thinking of voting for him on account of he's from here. You can do that if you want to, no doubt about it. But I'll tell you something else, friends: I thought this here was an election for president, not for king. His Majesty Wade Hampton the Fifth.' He stretched out the name and the number that went with it, then shook his head in well-mimed disbelief. 'Good Lord, folks, if we vote him in, we'll be right up there with the Englishmen and George V'
'He is good,' Tom said grudgingly as the crowd exploded into more laughter. Anne nodded. She was leaning forward again.
'Now, Hampton V means well, I don't doubt it for a minute,' Jake said. 'The Whigs meant well when Woodrow Wilson got us into the war, too, and they meant well when a War Department full of Thirds and Fourths and Fifths fought it for us, too. And you'd best believe they meant well when they stuck their heads in the sand instead of noticing the niggers were going to stab us in the back. If you like the way the war turned out, if you like paying ten million dollars for breakfast-this week; it'll be more next Wednesday-go right ahead and vote for Wade Hampton V You'll get six more years of what we've been having.
'Or if you want a real change, you can vote for Mr. Layne. The Radical Liberals'll give you change, all right. I'll be… switched if they won't. They'll take us back into United States, is what they'll do. Ainsworth Layne went to Harvard, folks-Harvard! Can you believe it? It's true, believe it or not. And the Rad Libs want him to be president of the CSA1 I'm sorry, friends, but I've seen enough damnyankees come down on us already. I don't need any homegrown ones, thank you kindly.'
That drew more laughter and applause than his attack on Wade Hampton had done. The Radical Liberals, though neither very radical nor very liberal, had always been weak in hard-line South Carolina. Were Hampton not a native son, Anne would have thought Jake Featherston the likely winner here. Even with things as they were, she thought he had a decent chance to take the state.
Featherston went on, 'The Whigs and the Rad Libs both say we have to learn from the war, to take what the Yankees dish out on account of we're not strong enough to do anything else. What I say is, we have to learn from the war, all right. We have to learn that when we hit the United States, we have to hit 'em hard and we have to keep on hitting 'em till they fall down! They've stolen big chunks of what's ours. I give you my word, friends-one fine day, it's going to be ours again!'
The crowd exploded. Anne caught herself shouting at the top of her lungs. She thirsted for revenge against the USA. She glanced over toward her brother. Tom was shouting, too, his fist pumping the air. Whatever he thought of Jake Featherston and the Freedom Party, he wanted vengeance on the United States, too. That yen for revenge brought together people in the CSA who had nothing else in common. With luck, it would bring them together under the Freedom Party banner.
'Free-do/w! Free-doml Free-t/om!' The stalwarts began the chant as Jake stepped back from the microphone. It swelled until the whole huge crowd bellowed the word as if it came from a single throat. Anne looked at Tom again. He was shouting it, too. She'd been shouting it till she made a deliberate effort of will and stopped. All of Columbia could hear that furious roar. By the time November came, all of the Confederate States would hear it.
XV
Roger Kimball whistled cheerfully as he tucked his white shirt into a pair of butternut trousers. A lot of Freedom Party leaders didn't care to join in the brawling that had marked the Party's rise. Kimball shrugged. He'd never backed away from a fight, and he'd gone toward a good many. And Ainsworth Layne was speaking in Charleston tonight, or thought he was.
'I need a tin hat,' Kimball said, buttoning his fly. A helmet was useless aboard a submersible. It was a handy thing to have with clubs and rocks flying, though.
He picked up his own club and headed for the door. He was about to open it when somebody knocked. He threw it wide. There stood Clarence Potter. The former intelligence officer eyed him with distaste. 'If you don't agree with what I have to say, you could simply tell me so,' Potter remarked.
'I don't agree with what you have to say,' Kimball snapped. 'I don't have time to argue about it now, though. Can't be late.'
Potter shook his head. 'When we first got to know each other, I thought better of you. You were a man who wanted to build up his country, not a ruffian tearing down the fabric of the republic. We used to talk about riding Jake Featherston. Now he rides you-and you're proud of it.'
'He doesn't ride me,' Roger Kimball said. 'We're both going the same way, that's all.'
'Toward riot and mayhem.' Potter pointed to the stout bludgeon in Kimball's hand. Then he added, 'Toward murder, too, maybe.'
'Clarence, I had nothing to do with Tom Brearley going up in smoke,' Kimball said evenly. 'I don't miss him, but I didn't have anything to do with it. Far as I know'-he carefully hadn't asked Featherston any questions-'the Freedom Party had nothing to do with it, either. The jury found those fellows up in Richmond innocent.'
'No, the jury found them not guilty, which isn't close to the same thing,' Potter answered. 'And if the jury had found anything different, how many out of those twelve do you suppose would be breathing today?'
'I don't know anything about that. What I do know is, maybe you'd better not come around here any more.' Kimball hefted the club.
Potter had very little give in him. Kimball had seen as much when they first met in a saloon. The club didn't frighten him. 'You needn't worry about that,' he said. Slowly and deliberately, he turned his back and walked away.
