how I can find out more about this Freedom Party?' he asked.
'They've started up an office here in town, I think,' Potter answered, distaste on his face. 'Jake Featherston calls Richmond home, though, and I think the Party does, too '
'Thanks,' Kimball said. 'Do me a little poking around, I think.' He signaled to the bartender. 'Set 'em up again, pal.'
Cincinnatus Driver-the Negro was getting more and more used to the surname he'd taken the year before- had hoped the war's end would bring peace to Kentucky, and especially to Covington, where he lived. Now here it was the middle of spring, and Covington still knew no peace.
Every day when he left his house to start up the ramshackle truck he'd bought, his wife would say, 'Be careful. Watch yourself.'
'I will, Elizabeth,' he would promise, not in any perfunctory way but with a deep and abiding sense that he was saying something important. He would crank the truck to noisy, shuddering life, climb into the cabin, put the machine in gear, and drive off to hustle as much in the way of hauling business as he could.
He wished he were inside one of the big, snarling White trucks the Army used to carry its supplies. He'd driven a White during the war, hauling goods that got shipped across the Ohio from Cincinnati through Covington and down to the fighting front. The Whites were powerful, they were sturdy, they were, in fact, everything his antiquated Duryea was not. That included expensive, which was why he drove the Duryea and wished for a White.
As he turned right onto Scott from out of the Negro district and drove up toward the wharves this morning, he kept a wary eye open. A good many U.S. soldiers in green-gray uniforms were on the streets. They also looked wary, and carried bayoneted Springfields, as if ready to start shooting or stabbing at any moment.
They needed to be wary, too. After more than fifty years in the Confederacy, Kentucky was one of the United States again. It was, however, like none of the other United States, in that a large part of the population remained unreconciled to the switch from Stars and Bars to Stars and Stripes.
The city hall had U.S. machine-gun nests around it. Somebody- odds were, a Confederate diehard-had taken a shot at the mayor a couple of weeks before. Cincinnatus wouldn't have been brokenhearted had the malcontent hit him. The mayor cooperated with U.S. authorities, and tried to placate the locals with rabblerousing speeches against blacks.
Blue St. Andrew's crosses, some of them new, marked buildings and suggested the Confederate battle flag. Two horizontal red stripes with a white one between similarly suggested the Confederate national flag. Some of those were new, too. The diehards hadn't given up, not by a long chalk, i AIN'T NO YANKEE, someone had written beside one of those not-quite-flags.
New posters marred walls, too, some of them slapped over the pro-Confederate graffiti. The posters were solid red, with broken chains in black stretched across them. The Red uprising had not got so far among the Negroes of Kentucky as among their brethren still in Confederate-owned territory at its outbreak. But it had not been brutally suppressed here, either. Being a Red wasn't illegal in the USA, even if it was hazardous to a black man's health.
Red posters and blue crosses were both thick around the waterfront. Cincinnatus wondered if the diehards and the Reds had bumped into each other on their clandestine rounds of pasting and painting. Down in the CSA, they would have been deadly foes. Here in Kentucky, they sometimes reckoned the U.S. government a common enemy. Cincinnatus whistled softly. They sometimes didn't, too.
Both soldiers and police patrolled the wharves. Confederate policemen had commonly worn gray, like soldiers from the War of Secession. Now that Kentucky belonged to the USA, policemen-sometimes the same policemen- wore dark blue, as their grandfathers might have done had they fought for the Stars and Stripes.
And some policemen wore no uniforms at all. Some of the idlers, some of the roustabouts who strode up and down the piers and along the waterfront, were sure to belong to Luther Bliss' Kentucky State Police, an outfit that made Kentucky the only U.S. state with its own secret police force. Cincinnatus knew Luther Bliss better than he wanted to. Knowing Bliss at all was knowing him better than Cincinnatus wanted to; the chief of the State Police made a formidable foe.
Roustabouts were hauling crates and barrels off a barge. Cincinnatus braked to a halt: cautiously, as the Duryea didn't like to stop any more than it liked to start. He hopped out of the cab and hurried over to a discontented-looking fellow holding a clipboard. 'Mornin', Mr. Simmons,' he said. 'What you got, where's it got to get to, and how fast does it got to be there?'
'Hello, Cincinnatus,' the steamboat clerk answered, pointing to some of the barrels. 'Got oatmeal here: five for TwitchelPs general store, and another five for Dalyrimple's, and three for Conroy's. You fit all of them in there?' He pointed to Cincinnatus' truck. 'Damn tight squeeze, if you do.'
'Mr. Simmons, they'll go in there if I got to make one of 'em drive,' Cincinnatus said, at which the white man laughed. Cincinnatus went on, 'Haifa dollar a barrel for haulage, like usual?'
Simmons looked more discontented than ever. At last, he said, 'Wouldn't pay it to any other nigger driving a raggedy old truck, that's for damn sure. But yeah, fifty cents a barrel. Bring me your receipts and I'll pay you off.'
'Got yourself a deal, suh.' Cincinnatus beamed. That was good money, and he might have the chance to pick up another load, or maybe even two, before the day ended. Then he hesitated, really hearing the third name Simmons had given him. 'That Joe
Conroy?' he asked. 'Fat man, used to have hisself a store before it burned down?'
'Let me check.' Simmons flipped papers. 'Joseph Conroy, that's what it says. I don't know about the other part. How come?'
'Didn't know he was back in business, is all,' Cincinnatus replied. It wasn't all, not even close, but he kept that to himself. 'Where's his new store at?'
Simmons checked his papers again. 'Corner of Emma and Bakewell, it says here. You know where that is? This ain't my town, you know.'
'I know where it's at, yeah,' Cincinnatus said. 'Over on the west side, gettin' out towards the park. Twitchell's over here on Third, and Dalyrimple's on Washington, so I reckon I'll deliver theirs first and then head over to Conroy's.' He held out his hand. 'Give me the papers I got to get signed.'
'Here you go.' The steamboat clerk handed them to him. 'That's the other reason I pay you like I would a white man, or almost: you read and write good, so things get done proper.'
'Thank you,' Cincinnatus said, pretending not to hear that or almost. He couldn't do anything about it. Stowing the papers in his shirt pocket, he started crowding barrels of oatmeal into the back of the truck. He did end up with one of them on the seat beside him; Simmons was a keen judge of how much space merchandise took up.
The truck rode heavy, the weight in back smoothing out its motion and making it laugh at bumps that would have jolted Cincinnatus had it been empty. He appreciated that. The ponderous cornering and the greater likelihood of a blowout were something else again. He drove carefully, avoiding the potholes that pocked the street. A puncture would cost him precious time.
His first two stops went smoothly, as he'd thought they would. He'd delivered to both Hank Twitchell and Calvin Dalyrimple before. Twitchell, a big, brawny fellow, even helped him lug barrels of oatmeal into his general store. Calvin Dalyrimple didn't; a strong breeze would have blown him away. They both signed their receipts and sent Cincinnatus on his way in jig time.
He drove out to the west side of town with much more trepidation. That didn't shrink when he discovered Conroy's new general store sat between a saloon and a pawnshop. None of the looks he got from passersby as he stopped the truck in front of the store was friendly, or anything close. Most of them translated to, What the hell you doing here, nigger? He hoped the truck would still be there when he got done with his business with Conroy.
He also hoped the storekeeper wouldn't recognize him. When he brought the first barrel into the store, all he said was, 'Here's your oatmeal, suh, straight off the docks. Got two more barrels in the truck; fetch 'em right in for you. All you got to do is sign the receipt shows you got 'em, and I be on my way.'
Joe Conroy grunted. He was a round, middle-aged white man with narrow, suspicious eyes. He was also a Confederate diehard, and a friend of Cincinnatus' former boss, Tom Kennedy. Kennedy had involved Cincinnatus with the diehards, too, having him plant firebombs on cargoes heading down to U.S. forces. Eventually, Cincinnatus had planted one in Conroy's old store, but the white man had never figured that out.
