howling like a pack of wolves when we sent that damn destroyer to the bottom. But even on a little boat like the Bonefish, there's a couple dozen sailors. I can't tell you nobody would chime in with my exec, because I don't know that for a fact.'
'All right' Jake scratched his head and thought for a while. 'Here's what we're going to do for now: sit tight and see what happens. If Brearley goes to the papers, he damn well does, that's all. I don't reckon it hurts the Party. You weren't in the Party during the war, on account of there wasn't any Party to be in during the war.'
'Fair enough,' Kimball said: yes, he was ready to take orders. 'What do we do if he does go to the papers?'
'You don't do anything,' Featherston said, 'not to him, anyhow. You go back down to South Carolina and stay there. If reporters start asking questions, tell 'em… tell 'em you can't talk about it, that's what you say.' He grinned. 'You got to remember, Roger, our only big worry is getting the USA riled at us when we're not strong enough to hit back. Most of the people in the CSA-hell, in your shoes, they'd've done the same thing.'
'By Jesus, they would've. You're right about that. You're dead right about that, Sarge,' Kimball said. 'HI do just like you say. I'll tell the snoops I can't talk about it. And if they ask why I can't, I'll tell 'em I can't talk about that, either'
'There you go,' Jake said, nodding. 'Make it sound mysterious as all get-out. That'll drive the whole raft of reporters crazy, same as a girl who plays hard to get drives the guys crazy. Reporters are used to people who put out. Most folks love to talk-no thin' they love better. You keep your mouth shut and you're a long ways ahead of the game.' He studied Kimball. 'You reckon you can do that?'
'I can do it,' the ex-Navy man said, and Jake thought he could. Kimball went on, 'Be kind of fun, matter of fact, leading 'em around by the nose.'
As far as Jake was concerned, very little was more fun than leading reporters around by the nose. Much more often than not, reporters wrote the stories he wanted them to write about the Freedom Party. They usually thought they were slamming the Party-but they were slamming it the way he wanted them to, a way that let them feel clever about themselves but at the same time made the Party look appealing to a lot of their readers.
He didn't tell Kimball that. Maybe Kimball was smart enough to figure it out for himself. If he was, he also needed to be smart enough to keep it to himself.
'Anything else on your mind?' Jake asked him.
'I don't reckon there is,' Kimball said after a little thought. 'We've got things squared away here, don't we?'
'Yeah, we do,' Featherston said. 'I'm right glad you came up-glad we had the chance to talk about a few things.' He was even gladder Kimball had proved sensible, but the other man didn't need to know that, either. Having used the stick before, Jake threw him a carrot now: 'Looks to me like you're going places in the Freedom Party. I've said that before, haven't I? Still looks like it's so.'
'I aim to,' Kimball said. 'Yes, sir, I aim to.' Jake studied him again. How high did he aim? The trouble with ambitious men was their nasty habit of aiming straight for the top.
But Jake was aiming for the top, too, for a different top, one high above anything to which he thought Roger Kimball could aspire. If everything went perfectly, he'd get there next year. He hadn't imagined he could win even a couple of months before. Now he thought he just might. And if things went wrong, he'd take longer, that was all. Either way, he aimed to do it. 'I'm glad we've got you settled,' he said, 'on account of I don't want anything getting in the way of that run for president when 1921 rolls around.'
'No, sir!' Kimball said, and his eyes glowed.
Colonel Irving Morrell and Agnes Hill hurried across Wallman Park toward yet another statue of John Brown- they seemed to be everywhere in Leavenworth. Decked with bunting as this one was, it looked far more festive than the dour old warrior for freedom had ever been in truth.
'Everyone in town will be here today.' Agnes Hill pointed to the throngs of people crossing the foot bridges over Threemile Creek.
'Everyone in town should be here today,' Morrell said. 'Upton Sinclair drew a good crowd when he spoke a couple of weeks ago. Only right the president should draw a bigger one.'
Agnes nodded. They shared a common faith in the Democratic Party. They shared a lot of things, including a great deal of pleasure in each other's company. Morrell laughed at himself. He'd gone to that dance not intending to fall in love with the first woman he set eyes on, and here he'd gone and done it. And, by all appearances, she'd fallen in love with him, too.
Not only was President Roosevelt a potent magnet for the crowd, but the day itself seemed to be summoning people outdoors. With September running hard toward October, the summer's muggy heat had broken. The sun still shone brightly, and the oaks and elms and chestnuts in the park still carried their full canopies of leaves to give shade to those who wanted it. The blight spreading among the chestnuts back East hadn't got to Kansas yet; Morrell hoped it never would. The air felt neither warm nor crisp. In fact, he could hardly feel the air at all.
'Perfect,' he said, and Agnes Hill nodded again.
A lot of the men in the crowd wore green-gray like Morrell's, Fort Leavenworth lying just north of the town whose name it shared. That helped Agnes and him advance through the crowd: soldiers who spotted his eagles made way for his companion and him. 'This is swell!' she exclaimed when they ended up only three or four rows from the rostrum at which Roosevelt would speak.
'It is, isn't it?' Morrell said, and squeezed her hand. They grinned at each other, as happy as if alone together rather than in the middle of the biggest crowd Leavenworth had seen for years (Morrell did hope the crowd was bigger than the one Sinclair had drawn, anyhow).
People whooped like red Indians when President Roosevelt ascended to the rostrum. Off to one side, a brass band blared away at 'The Stars and Stripes Forever.' Morrell wished the band had picked a different tune; that one rattled around in his head for days whenever he heard it, and it made noisy company.
Roosevelt said, 'By jingo, it's always a pleasure for me to come to Kansas. This state was founded by men and women who knew a Southern viper when they saw one, even before the War of Secession.' He glanced back at the statue of John Brown. 'There is a man who knew who the enemy was, and a man who hit our country's enemies hard even when they still pretended to be friends. For that, I am proud to salute him.' He doffed his homburg and half bowed toward the statue.
Morrell clapped till his hands ached. Beside him, Agnes Hill blew Roosevelt a kiss. 'Should I be jealous?' Morrell asked her. She stuck out her tongue at him. They both laughed.
'People say-newspapers say-I'm in the fight of my political life,' Roosevelt went on. 'I say, bully!'1 He reveled in the new round of applause washing over him from the friendly crowd. 'Maybe they'll drag this old Democratic donkey down,' he shouted, 'but if they do, I tell you this: they'll know they've been in a fight, too.'
'You won the war, Teddy,' somebody called. 'You can win this fight.'
Roosevelt, Morrell happened to know, did not care to be called Teddy. On the campaign trail, though, he endured it His grin looked friendly, not forced. And then somebody else yelled. 'The country needs you, Teddy!'
'I don't know whether the country needs me personally or not,' Roosevelt said, 'but I do know for a fact that I take enormous pride in having served the country. And I also know for a fact that the country needs a Democrat in Powel House or the White House, and I seem to be the one the Democratic Party is putting forward this year.
'Here is something I want you to think about, ladies and gentlemen: in the years since 1852, the Democratic Party has won every presidential election save two. Every schoolchild knows that, but I am going to take a moment of your time to remind you of it once again. In 1860, the voters sent Abraham Lincoln to Washington, and he saddled us with a war, and a losing war to boot. Twenty years later, having forgotten their lesson, the people elected James G. Blaine, who gave us another war-and another loss.
'When war came around yet again, the United States were ready for it. Democratic presidents had made this country strong. Democratic presidents had found us allies. And, thanks to the people, we had a Democratic president at the helm of the ship of state.' He preened to remind his audience who that Democratic president was.
'We won the Great War, with God's help. We paid back half a century and more of humiliation of the sort no great nation should ever have had to endure. And now, the editorial writers say, now the people are grown tired of the Democratic Party. They say we were good enough to win the war, but aren't good enough to govern in time of peace. They say the Socialists deserve a turn, a chance.'
