'After you go home las' night, these four-five white men come in here,' Erasmus said. 'They tell me they's puttin' a special tax on all the niggers what owns business in the Terry here. Now I know the laws. I got to know the laws, else I find even more trouble'n a nigger's supposed to have. An' I tell these fellers, ain't no such thing as no special tax on nigger businesses '
Scipio had the bad feeling he knew what was coming. He asked, 'These here buckra, they Freedom Party men?'
'I don't know yes and I don't know no, not to swear,' Erasmus answered. 'But I bet they is. One of 'em smile this mean, chilly smile, an' he say, 'There is now.' Any nigger don't pay this tax, bad things gwine happen to where he work. He still don't pay, bad things gwine happen to him. I seen a deal o' men in my day, Xerxes. Don't reckon this here feller was lyin'.'
'What you do?' Scipio said.
Erasmus looked old and beaten. 'Can't hardly go to the police, now can I? Nigger complain about white folks, they lock him in jail an' lose the key. Likely tell they beat him up, too, long as he there. Can't hardly pay this here tax, neither. I ain't gettin' rich here. Bastards want to squeeze a million dollars out of every three million I make. That don't leave no money for me, an' it sure as hell don't leave no money to pay no help. You work good, Lord knows. But I don't reckon I can keep you.'
'Maybe you kin go to the police,' Scipio said slowly. 'Freedom Party done lose the election.'
'Came too close to winning,' Erasmus said, the first time he'd ever said anything like that. 'An' besides, you know same as I do, half the police, maybe better'n half, spend their days off yellin' 'Freedom!' loud as they can.'
It was true. Every word of it was true. Scipio wished he could deny it. He'd been comfortable for a while, comfortable and happy. As long as he had Bathsheba, he figured he could stay happy. If he lost this job, how long would he need to get comfortable again? He hoped he wouldn't have to find out.
XVI
Abner Dowling went into General Custer's office. The commander of U.S. forces in Canada was scribbling changes on a report Dowling had typed. Some of them, Dowling saw, reversed changes he'd made in an earlier report. Usually, that would have infuriated Custer's adjutant-not that Dowling could do anything about it. Today, though, he felt uncommon sympathy for his vain, irascible superior.
'Sir?' he said. Custer didn't look up. Maybe he didn't hear. Maybe he didn't want to hear. Dowling could hardly have blamed him were that so. But he had to make Custer notice him. 'Sir!'
'Eh?' With surprise perhaps genuine, perhaps well feigned, Custer shoved the papers aside. 'What is it, Dowling?'
Either he'd entered his second childhood the night before or he knew perfectly well what it was. Dowling didn't think senility had overcome the old coot as suddenly as that. He said, 'Sir, Mr. Thomas is here to see you. He's from the War Department.' He added that last in case Custer had gone around the bend in the past twenty- four hours.
Custer sighed, his wrinkled features drooping. He knew what that meant, all right. 'No reprieve, eh?' he asked, like a prisoner who would hang in the morning if the governor didn't wire. Dowling shook his head. Custer sighed again. 'Very well, Lieutenant Colonel. Bring him in. If you care to, you may stay and listen. This will affect you, too.'
'Thank you, sir. By your leave, I will do that.' Dowling tried to recall the last time Custer had been so considerate. He couldn't. He went out to the anteroom and said, 'Mr. Thomas, General Custer will see you now.'
'Good.' N. Mattoon Thomas got to his feet. He was a tall, long-faced man in his late thirties, and looked more like a preacher than Upton Sinclair's assistant secretary of war. He walked with a slight limp; Dowling knew he'd taken a machine-gun bullet in the leg during the Great War.
When they'd gone down the short hallway to Custer's sanctum, Dowling said, 'Mr. Thomas, I have the honor to present to you General George Custer. General, the assistant secretary of war.' Being one of the civilians overseeing the Army, Thomas took precedence over Custer in the introductions.
'Pleased to meet you, sir,' Custer said: a palpable lie. He waved to the chair in front of his desk. 'Please-sit down. Make yourself comfortable.' As Thomas did so, Abner Dowling also took a seat. He tried to be unobtrusive, which wasn't easy with his bulk. N. Mattoon Thomas' blue eyes flicked his way, but the assistant secretary of war only nodded, accepting his presence.
Custer would have said something more then, but the words seemed stuck in his throat. He sent Dowling a look of appeal, but it wasn't Dowling's place to speak. He was here only as an overweight fly on the wall.
Before the silence could grow too awkward, Thomas broke it, saying, 'General, I wish to convey to you at the outset President Sinclair's sincere appreciation for the excellent service you have given your country in this difficult and important post.'
'That's kind of him,' Custer said. 'Very kind of him. I'm honored to have him send someone to deliver such a generous message in person. You came a long way to do it, sir, and I'm grateful.'
He was going to be difficult. Dowling would have bet he'd be difficult, but hadn't looked for him to be quite so gracefully difficult. Maybe Libbie had coached him. She was even better at being difficult than her husband.
N. Mattoon Thomas gave him the look of a preacher who'd had the collection plate come back with thirty- seven cents and a subway token on it. 'In view of your long career in the U.S. Army, General, the president feels it is time for you to come home to well-deserved thanks and to rest on your laurels hereafter,' he said.
'Mr. Thomas, I have no desire to rest on my laurels,' Custer replied. 'I am as hale and spry as a man of my years can be, and I do not believe those years have adversely affected my ability to reason clearly and to issue appropriate orders. I have been in the saddle a long time. I should like to continue.'
'I am afraid I must remind you, General, that you serve at the pleasure of the president of the United States.' Thomas was less than half Custer's age. But he had the power in this situation, and also had the ruthlessness that came naturally to many young men given power over their elders.
Dowling saw that, and pitied Custer. Custer saw it, too, and grew angry. He dropped his polite mask as if he'd never donned it. 'Christ, I despise the notion of taking orders from that Socialist pipsqueak,' he growled.
'Which is one reason the president takes a certain pleasure in giving them to you,' Thomas replied easily. 'Would you prefer to retire, General, or to be sacked? Those are your only choices now.'
'Teddy Roosevelt could sack me and not worry about what happened next,' Custer said. 'He was a soldier himself-not so good a soldier as he thought he was, but a soldier nonetheless. President Sinclair will have a harder time of it: the papers will hound him for months if he dismisses me, for he has not the prestige, the authority-call it what you like-to do so without reminding people of his own inexperience in such matters.'
That all made excellent political sense to Abner Dowling. Custer the political animal had always been far more astute than Custer the soldier. Dowling glanced toward Thomas, wondering how Upton Sinclair's assistant secretary of war would take such defiance.
It fazed him not at all. He said, 'General Custer, the president predicted you would say something to that effect. He told me to assure you he was determined to seek your replacement, and that he would dismiss you out of hand if you offered difficulties. Here is his letter to you, which he instructed me to give you if it proved necessary.' Thomas reached into his breast pocket and took out an envelope, which he passed across the desk to Custer. The commandant of U.S. forces in Canada had taken off his reading glasses when Thomas came in. Now he put them back on. He opened the envelope, which was not sealed, and drew forth the letter inside. It must have been what Thomas said it was, for his cheeks flushed with rage as he read.
'Why, the arrogant puppy!' he burst out when he was through. 'I saved the country from the limeys when he was still making messes in his drawers, and he has the impudence to write a letter like this? I ought to let him sack me, by jingo! I can't think of anything else likely to do the Socialists more political harm.'
'General-' Dowling began. Custer had a large-indeed, an enormous-sense of his own importance. Much of that was justified. Not all of it was, a fact to which he sometimes proved blind.
N. Mattoon Thomas held up a large, long-fingered hand. 'Let General Custer decide as he will, Lieutenant
