Walk in Hell

pointed north, toward the swamps of the Congaree. “Gwine make de stand up there. De niggers in de ’pressed zones, dey always gwine know de struggle go on. De white folks, dey never takes we fo’ granted again.”

That, no doubt, was true. Scipio wished he thought it likelier to help than to hurt. It was liable to be another fifty years before the Negro cause revived in the CSA. He didn’t say that. What point, now? What he did say was, “I cain’t go to de swamp with you, Cass.”

To his surprise, the ex-hunter burst out laughing. “I knows that-you was just a house nigger, and you don’t know nothin’ ’bout that kin’ o’ life. What you gots to do is, you gots to blend in. Don’ let nobody know you got dat white folks’ talk hidin’ in your mouth. Git work in de field, in de factory, be a good nigger till de heat die down, then hurt they white folks however you kin.” He slapped Scipio on the back. Then he and Cherry, hand in hand, headed north along with some of the other Negroes who still had fight in them.

Scipio stood in the St. Matthews square till shells started landing a good deal closer than a couple of hundred yards away. Then he turned on his heel and ran, along with so many other blacks, men and women both. From behind came shouts of, “De buckra! De buckra comin’!” He ran harder. The leaders of the Congaree Socialist Republic, unlike their Confederate counterparts, hadn’t gone in for fancy uniforms. In his undyed cotton homespun, he could have been anybody at all.

And anybody at all was just who he aimed to pretend to be. Once white control washed over this part of what was again South Carolina, he’d lie low, find work, eventually find better work, and spend the rest of his life trying to pretend this whole unfortunate business had never happened.

He stopped running about half a mile outside St. Matthews. That was partly because his wind wasn’t all it should have been; before the uprising, he had lived soft. It was also partly because he calculated that a Negro overrun while fleeing was more likely to be killed on sight than one who looked to have some business where he was. If he seemed a field hand or a farmer, maybe the white soldiers wouldn’t figure he’d been in arms against them. And, as a matter of fact, he hadn’t. He’d never once fired a weapon at the duly constituted forces of the Confederated States of America.

Not that that mattered. His laugh came bitter as Cassius’. If the white folks ever figured out who he was, he’d hang. He wouldn’t simply hang, either. What they’d do to him first…

He moaned a little, down deep in his throat. He’d never been a physically brave man. The idea of being tortured made him want to piss himself with fright. He forced himself to something dimly resembling calm. Your wits are all you’ve got now, he thought. If you don’t use them, that will kill you.

Gunfire and faint shouts rose behind him. That would be the white folks, entering St. Matthews. He nodded to himself. The Congaree Socialist Republic was dead, all right, even if Cassius could keep a nasty ghost of it going in the swamps.

When Scipio came to a patch of woods, he chose a winding path through them over going around. In the woods, he thought, he would be perceived as doing something in particular rather than simply trying to escape from the victorious whites. That again might help keep them from shooting him for the fun of it.

Maybe there was a farm on the far side of the woods. Maybe the world had just gone topsy-turvy. Whatever the reason, a fat hen walked out from among the pine trees and stood in the path, staring at him from beady black eyes. For a moment, that didn’t mean much to him. Then it did. Food, he thought. No more communal kitchens, no more suppers arguing the workings of the dialectic. If he was going to eat, he’d have to feed himself.

Slowly, he bent and picked up a fist-sized stone. The chicken kept watching him from about ten feet away. He drew back his arm-and let fly, hard as he could. The bird had time for one startled squawk before the stone hit. Feathers exploded out from it. It tried to run away, but had trouble making its legs work. He sprang on it, snatched up the stone, and smashed in its little stupid head.

He wore a knife on his belt. He cut off the broken head and held the chicken by the feet, letting it bleed out. Then he gutted it. He worked slowly and carefully there; he’d seen the job done in the kitchens at Marshlands more times than he could count, but couldn’t remember the last time he’d done it himself. He saved the liver and gizzard and heart, putting them back inside the body cavity.

He’d just tossed the rest of the offal into the bushes by the side of the path-a fox or a coon or a possum would find a treat-when a white man called, “You there, nigger! What are you doin’?”

“Got me a chicken, suh,” Scipio said. He turned toward the white man-a Confederate major-and put on a wide, servile smile. “Be right glad to share, you leave me jus’ a little bit.” That was how sharing between blacks and whites worked (when it worked at all) in the CSA.

“Give it here,” the major said: a lot of the time, sharing didn’t work at all in the CSA. Scipio handed the bird over without a word. The officer took its feet in his right hand. His left hand wasn’t a hand, but a hook.

Scipio stiffened in dismay. He’d dealt with this white man, arranging to exchange wounded prisoners. Maybe, though, the fellow wouldn’t recognize him. One raggedy Negro looked a lot like another, especially when you hardly saw them as human beings at all.

But Major Hotchkiss, even if he was mutilated, wasn’t stupid. His eyes narrowed. “I know your voice,” he said, half to himself. “You’re the nigger who-” From narrow, his eyes went wide. He didn’t bother saying, talks like a white man, but dropped the chicken and grabbed for his pistol.

He was a split second too slow. Scipio hit him in the face with the rock he’d used to kill the hen. The Negro leaped on him as he had on the bird, pounding and pounding with the stone till Hotchkiss was as dead as a man ever would be.

Scipio reached for the major’s pistol, then jerked his hand away. He didn’t want to be caught with a firearm, not in these times. He didn’t want to be caught with a blood-spattered shirt, either. He stripped it off and hid it in a hole in the ground. A shirtless Negro would draw no comment.

The chicken was another matter. It was his. “You damn thief,” he muttered to the late Major Hotchkiss. He picked up the bird and got out of there as fast as he could, before any more white soldiers came along to connect him to the major’s untimely demise.

Paul Mantarakis strode warily through the ruins of Ogden, Utah. “Boy, this place looks like hell,” he said. “I can’t tell whether what I’m walking on used to be houses or street.”

“Hell was let loose on earth here,” said Gordon McSweeney, who still wore on his back the flamethrower which had loosed a lot of that hell. But then he went on, “Hell let loose on earth, giving the misbelievers a foretaste of eternity.”

Beside them, Ben Carlton said, “Feels damn strange, walking along where there’s Mormons around and not diving for cover.”

“They surrendered,” Mantarakis said. But he was warily looking around, too. He carried his Springfield at the ready, and had a round in the chamber.

“For all we know, they ain’t gonna go through with it,” Carlton said. “Maybe they got more TNT under this here Tabernacle Park, and they’ll blow us and them to kingdom come instead of giving up.”

“Samson in the temple,” McSweeney murmured. But the big Scotsman shook his head. “No, I cannot believe it. Samson worked with the Lord, not against Him. I do not think Satan could steel their souls to such vain sacrifice.”

“The whole damn state of Utah is a sacrifice,” Paul said. “I don’t know what the hell made the Mormons fight like that, but they did more with less than the damn Rebs ever dreamt of doing. Only way we licked ’em is, we had more men and more guns.”

Here and there, people who were not U.S. soldiers picked through the remains of Ogden. Women in bonnets and long skirts shoved aside wreckage, looking for precious possessions or food or perhaps the remains of loved ones. Children and a few old men helped them. The spoiled-meat smell of death hung everywhere.

A few men not old also went through the ruins. Most of them wore overalls, with poplin or flannel shirts underneath. Their clothes were as filthy and tattered as the soldiers’ uniforms, and for the same reason: they’d spent too long in trenches.

“If looks could kill…” Paul said quietly. His companions nodded. The Mormon fighting men no longer carried weapons; that was one of the terms of the cease-fire to which their leaders had agreed. They stared at the American soldiers, and stared, and kept on staring. Their eyes were hot and empty at the same time. They’d fought, and they’d lost, and it was eating them inside.

“My granddads fought in the War of Secession,” Carlton said. “I seen a photograph of one of ’em after we