'Well, if you don't do it, if you've never done it, why am I wasting my time talking to you?' Dowling asked. 'Tell me what you've got on your mind, and we'll see if we can do some business.'
Lucullus Wood blinked again. 'You ain't what I reckoned you would be,' he said slowly.
Abner Dowling's shrug made his chins quiver. 'Life is full of surprises. Now come on, Mr. Wood. Piss or get off the pot.'
'Come January, a lot of colored folks is gonna want to git the hell out of Kentucky,' Wood said. 'Reckon you got some notion why.'
'We won't stop them,' Dowling answered. 'They're U.S. citizens. We will respect that. Some whites will want to leave the state, too.'
'Some. A few.' Wood spoke with dismissive scorn. 'Some colored folks, though, some colored folks is gonna stay. Dunno how many, but some will. Some damn fools in every crowd, I suppose.'
'If I were a Negro, I wouldn't stay in Kentucky,' Dowling said.
Wood's eyes went to the shiny silver star on the right shoulderboard of Dowling's green-gray uniform. 'Don't suppose they lets no damn fools turn into generals,' he remarked.
As far as Dowling was concerned, that only proved the colored man didn't know as much about the U.S. Army as he thought he did. Custer, for instance, had worn four stars, not just one. But Custer, while doubtless often a fool, had been a very peculiar kind of fool, and so… With an effort, Dowling tore his thoughts away from the man he'd served for so long. 'Fair enough,' he said to Lucullus Wood. 'I'm sure you're right about what will happen. Some Negroes will stay here. Some people don't know to get out of a burning building till too late, either. But if the U.S. Army has to leave Kentucky after the plebiscite, what concern to us are they?'
'If we was white folks, you wouldn't talk like that about us.' Wood didn't try to hide his scorn. Dowling wondered if a Negro had ever reproached him like that before. He didn't think so. He hadn't dealt with a whole lot of Negroes-not many people in the USA had-and the ones he had dealt with were all in subordinate positions. After a deep, angry exhalation, Wood went on, 'You reckon the niggers in Kentucky gonna like all them damn white bastards runnin' around yellin', 'Freedom!' all the goddamn time?'
'I wouldn't,' Dowling answered. If he'd called Negroes niggers, Lucullus Wood might have tried to murder him. Being one himself, Wood could use the label. But then that thought slipped away and another took its place: 'What do you suppose they'll want to do about it?'
Anger dropped away from Wood like a discarded cloak. 'No, General, you ain't no damn fool. You got to understand, I ain't in love with the USA. Revolution comin' to y'all, too. But we gots to make a popular front with whoever's on our side even a little when it comes to them Freedom Party cocksuckers.'
'How much of a nuisance do you think your people can be, and how much help do you want from the United States?' Dowling asked. 'The more we can set up before the plebiscite, the better off we'll be.'
'More we kin set up before the plebiscite, better off the USA'll be,' Wood said cynically. 'Ain't gonna be no more good times for the niggers here after that. But I figure we kin raise some kind of trouble for the Confederates when they comes marchin' back in here.'
'It would be nice if you could arrange as much for them as the Freedom Party fanatics did for us here and in Houston,' Dowling said.
'Be nice for y'all, yeah, but don't hold your breath, on account of it ain't gonna happen,' Wood said. 'Lots mo' white folks here and down there than there is niggers. Revolutionary, he got to swim like a fish in the school of the people. Us blackfish, we is a smaller school.'
He didn't sound like an educated man. But when it came to the business of revolution, he spoke with an expert's authority. Abner Dowling found himself nodding. 'I suppose you're right,' he said regretfully. 'But if you people just happened to find some wireless sets and rifles and explosives lying around, you might figure out what to do with them, eh?'
'We might.' Lucullus Wood nodded, too. 'Yes, suh, General, we just might cipher out what they's for.'
I ought to get War Department authorization for this, Dowling thought. He rejected the notion the minute it occurred to him. The War Department might not want to get officially involved in resisting Confederate occupation. Then again, some of the people in the War Department might just get cold feet. I'm here. They put me in charge. I'll take care of things, God damn it.
'All right, then,' he said. 'We'll see to that. And I know you're not doing us any special favors. But what works against the CSA works for the USA. That's how things are.'
Wood nodded again. 'That's how things is,' he agreed. 'We is fellow travelers on this here road for a while, even if we's goin' different places.'
'Fellow travelers.' Brigadier General Dowling tasted the phrase. 'Yes, I can live with that.'
'You been fair to me, General, so I be fair to you,' Wood said. 'Come the revolution, we go different ways. Come the revolution, I reckon I try an' kill you. Nothin' personal, you understand, but you is one o' the 'pressors, and you got to go to the wall.'
'Fair is fair,' Dowling said, 'so I'll tell you something, too. You want to be careful about threatening a man with a weapon in his hand. He has a nasty habit of shooting back.' With a sour smile, he too added, 'Nothing personal.'
'Sure enough,' the Negro said imperturbably. 'Them Freedom Party fellas, they done found that out down further south. Reckon mebbe we teach 'em some new lessons here in Kentucky. Is that a bargain?'
'That's a bargain.' Dowling heaved himself to his feet and held out his right hand once more. Lucullus Wood took it. The Negro dipped his head and sauntered out of Dowling's office. Dowling looked down at his own right palm. Had he ever shaken a colored man's hand before today? He didn't think so. Kentucky was proving educational in all sorts of ways.
'Sorry, kid.' The man who shook his head at Armstrong Grimes didn't sound sorry at all. He sounded as if he'd said the same thing a million times before. He doubtless sounded that way because he had. 'I can't use you. I want somebody with experience.'
Armstrong had heard that a million times since finally escaping high school. His temper, which had never been long, snapped. 'How the hell am I supposed to get experience if nobody'll hire me on account of I don't have any?'
'Life's tough,' the man in the hiring office answered, which meant, To hell with you, Jack. I've got mine. He lit a cigarette, but didn't quite blow smoke in Armstrong's face. Maybe his first long drag made him feel a little more like a human being, because he unbent enough to say, 'One way to do it is to odd-job for a while. Sometimes you can get hired by the day even if somebody doesn't want you for keeps.'
'Yeah, I've tried some of that,' Armstrong said. 'But it's a day on and a week off. It'll take me forever to do enough of anything to get the experience to make anybody want to take me on for good, and I'll starve to death in the meantime.'
The man looked him over. 'Other thing you could do is join the Army. You're a big, strong fellow. They'll take you unless you just got out of jail- maybe even if you just got out of jail, the way things are nowadays. You can sure as hell learn a trade in there.'
'Maybe,' Armstrong said. His father had made the same suggestion- made it loudly and pointedly, in fact. That would have prejudiced him against the idea even if he'd liked it to begin with. 'They don't pay you anything much in the Army, and you're stuck there for three years if you volunteer.'
'Have it your way, pal. You think I give a rat's ass about what you do, you've got another think coming.' The clerk behind the desk looked up at the line of poor, hungry men desperate for work. 'Next!'
Seething, Armstrong stormed out of the hiring office. If he hadn't thought the clerk would sic the cops on him, he would have whaled the stuffing out of the bastard. Sitting there like a little tin Jesus, who the hell did he think he was? But the answer to that was mournfully obvious. He thinks he's a man who's got a job, and the son of a bitch is right.
Armstrong inquired at a furniture factory, a trucking company, and a joint that made Polish sausages before heading for home. No luck anywhere. His old man wanted him out there trying-insisted on it, as a matter of fact. If he didn't pound the pavement, he wouldn't get fed. Merle Grimes had been most painfully clear about that. Armstrong wished he thought his father were bluffing. Since he didn't…
When he got home, he found his mother in tears. He hadn't seen that since Granny died. 'What happened?' he exclaimed.
