'I don't think that's it,' Martin said. 'Where'd you fight in the war?'
Another play intervened. This time, Martin spun past the blocker in dark blue and flattened the fullback behind the line of scrimmage. The fullback accused him of unsavory practices. He laughed.
'I was in Kentucky with the First Army-Custer's men,' the cop answered with no small pride as they took their places once more. 'Then I got sent to Utah, to put down the Mormon uprising. After that, I fought in Arkansas. How about you, bud?'
Before Martin could answer, the ball was snapped again. The quarterback booted it away in a quick kick. It rolled dead deep in the steelworkers' territory. Now it would be Martin's turn to try to hold the cop away from the ball carrier.
'Me?' he said as he took his stance. 'I was in Virginia the whole time-on the Roanoke front till I got wounded, then up in the north.'
The cop charged at him. Martin managed to hold his own. Even while he held the policeman at bay, he was puzzled. He was almost sure he'd seen the broken-nosed face in front of him twisted with fury while the policeman aimed a gun at… at…
He laughed. 'What's funny?' the cop asked.
'I'll tell you what's funny,' Martin answered. 'You tried to shoot me a couple-three years ago, I think.'
'Oh.' The policeman frowned. Then he also started to laugh. 'You should have been wearing a goddamn red shirt then, too. I would have hit what I was aiming at.'
The ball flew back to the steelworkers' quarterback. He retreated till he stood more than five yards behind the line, then let fly with a forward pass. An end caught it and ran another ten yards before being dragged down from behind.
One more pass a couple of plays later moved the ball deep into the cops' territory. From there, the steelworkers pounded it into the end zone, running straight at their opponents and defying them to bring down the ball carrier. They were, Martin realized as he took the measure of the opposition, a little heavier and bigger and a little younger than their opponents. He smiled, thinking they would have an easy game and punish the policemen who had given them so much trouble on the picket line.
On the try for the point after the touchdown, he knocked the cop across from him over on his back. The steelworkers' kicker drop-kicked the ball through the uprights for the extra point.
'Smash 'em!' Sue yelled as the steelworkers trudged back to their side of the field for the kickoff.
'Of course we'll smash 'em!' Chester Martin yelled back. One of the referees tossed him the ball. He knelt down and held it for the kicker to send it down the field to the policemen. He didn't think he was bragging or doing anything but telling the truth. How could the cops compete against bigger, younger men?
Before long, he found out. One of the halfbacks on the policemen's team was nothing special to look out: a skinny little fellow with a blond Kaiser Bill mustache. But when he got the ball, that scrawny halfback was quick as a lizard and twisty as a snake. He did most of the work on the cops' drive, and capped it by sprinting into the end zone on a pretty fifteen-yard run.
Martin's tongue was hanging out from chasing him. 'Jesus,' he panted as both sides lined up for the cops' try for the point after touchdown. 'If I had a gun right now, I wouldn't shoot you.' He nodded to the policeman who'd fired during the labor unrest. 'I'd shoot that miserable son of a bitch instead. He's trying to give me a heart attack.'
'Yeah, Matt's dangerous,' the cop agreed. 'You try taking a shot at him, I figure it's about even money he dodges the bullet.'
'Maybe,' Martin said. 'Have to bring along a machine gun, then, and see if he can dodge that.' The cop chuckled and nodded. They both understood the weapons of war, even if they'd stood on opposite sides of the barricade. The policemen's drop-kick was also good, and knotted the game.
It swayed back and forth all afternoon. The steelworkers had size and youth and a quarterback who threw enough to keep the policemen from doing nothing but storming forward to stop the run. The cops had nothing but Matt. All by himself, he kept them in the game, tackling pass receivers on defense and running like the wind whenever the policemen had the ball. He never wore down. Martin started to wonder whether he was human or mechanical. However many times he got smashed to the dirt, he rose again as if nothing had happened. Even his mustache stayed unruffled, which made Chester all the more suspicious.
In the end, the steelworkers won, 27–23. Martin made himself a minor hero, falling on a fumble in the closing moments to ensure that the cops couldn't come back. After shaking hands with the policemen, he limped off the field, covered in glory and sweat and mud and bruises. He still had all his front teeth, which made him unusual on the team.
He took off his helmet and ran a hand through his damp, matted hair. 'Whew!' he said. 'This is supposed to be fun, they tell me. I feel like I've been slammed by a triphammer a couple dozen times.'
His sister gave him a hug. 'You were wonderful, Chester.' She wrinkled her nose. 'You don't smell so wonderful, though.'
'If you were out there, you wouldn't smell so wonderful, either,' Martin retorted. He stretched. It hurt.
His father said, 'It's a different game nowadays, with all this throwing. Might as well be baseball, if you ask me. When I was playing, back around the time you were born, we just ran. That was a real man's game, if you ask me.'
'Sure it was, Pa,' Chester said. 'Nobody had helmets then, and-'
'Nobody did,' Stephen Douglas Martin broke in.
'Nobody had helmets,' Martin repeated, 'and the ball was solid steel, and the field was a mile and a half long and half a mile wide and uphill both ways, too, and everybody on the other side was always ten feet tall and weighed seven hundred pounds, and even dead men had to stay in the game-and run the ball, too. That's how they played it in the old days.'
'And you are a heartless whippersnapper, and I ought to turn you over my knee and whip you black and blue,' his father said, rolling his eyes. 'But you're already black and blue, I expect. And you're wrong-dead men didn't have to stay in. They changed that rule in my father's day.'
Laughing, they helped Sue and Louisa Martin spread out the picnic feast that had come along in a wicker basket. Steel-workers and policemen wandered back and forth, talking about the game and sharing food and beer and other potables. It was as if the two groups had never clashed anywhere save in a friendly game of football.
Chester gnawed a drumstick. When Matt, the fast halfback on the policemen's team, walked by, Martin held up a bottle of beer to get him to stop. The lure worked as well as a worm would have with a trout. 'Thanks,' Matt said, and sat down beside him. 'I'd sure as the devil sooner drink with you than have you jump on my kidneys like you were doing all day long.'
'Like heck I was.' Martin had finally got used to watching his language again when his mother and sister were around. 'Most of the time, I was flat on my fanny watching you run by.'
They bantered back and forth, each making the other out to be a better football player than he really was. Then Matt got up and headed off to chin with somebody else, just as if he'd never clubbed a striking steelworker in all his born days. And Martin waved when he went, just as if he'd never kicked a cop. Everything in the park was peaceful and friendly. Chester Martin liked that fine.
It couldn 't be plainer that no Negro ever born has got what it takes to be a true citizen of the Confederate States of America. Jake Featherston's pen raced across the page. One of those days, Over Open Sights would be done, and everyone in the country would realize he'd been telling the truth all along.
Anyone with half an eye to see can understand the reasons for this. They are-Before Jake could set down what they were, his secretary came back into his inner office. 'What do you want, Lulu?' he growled; like any writer, he hated interruptions.
'Someone to see you, Mr. Featherston,' she said.
'Who is it?' he asked. 'I don't want to see any reporters right now.' Fewer reporters wanted to see him these days, too. That worried him, but not enough to make him feel friendly right this second.
'It's not a reporter, sir,' Lulu answered. 'It's General Jeb Stuart, Jr.'
'What?' Jake had trouble believing his ears. As far as he was concerned, Jeb Stuart, Jr., was the author of all his troubles. Who else had made sure he would stay a sergeant as long as he stayed in the Army? Jeb Stuart, Jr., blamed him for the death of Jeb Stuart III. Jake blamed Jeb Stuart, Jr., for suppressing an investigation that might
