Two good knocks of whiskey made Pound a little less graceful on his burned legs than he would have been without them. He walked back to BOQ through deepening twilight. There was a nip in the air. Tallahassee lay in the northern part of Florida; it got cool in the wintertime, unlike places farther south.
But the weather wasn't the biggest thing on his mind. His head kept going back and forth. He wished he had an eye that would let him see to the rear. This was the time of day when U.S. soldiers got knocked over the head. By the time anyone found them, the bushwhackers were long gone. That didn't keep hostages from being taken and shot, but killing innocent people also made the guerrillas have an easier time recruiting.
He got back to BOQ without any trouble. Most people did, most of the time. Anything that could happen, though, could happen to you. Anybody who didn't understand that never went to war. Being careless-being stupid- made living to a ripe old age less likely. Pound aspired to getting shot by an outraged husband at the age of 103.
When he went to breakfast the next morning, he realized something was up. He didn't know what; Colonel Einsiedel wasn't letting on. Something was cooking, though. A few people in the know were all excited about it, whatever it was. Pound and the others who noticed that tried to get it out of them. The rest of the officers shoveled in bacon and eggs, oblivious to the drama around them.
The double-chinned major sitting next to Pound was one of those. 'Dammit, they should have had hash browns,' he complained. 'I don't like grits.' He might not have liked them, but he'd put away a good-sized helping.
Pound didn't like them, either. He also hadn't taken any. He'd doubled up on toast instead. To him, that was simple common sense. It seemed beyond the major.
Dear God! How did we win the war? he thought. That answer seemed only too obvious. There were just as many thumb-fingered, blundering idiots on this side of the former border as on the other one. No matter where you went, you couldn't escape the dullards. Life would have been easier and happier if you could.
That afternoon, the other shoe dropped. Harry Truman was coming to Tallahassee to talk to the troops and to any locals who wanted to listen to him. An officer who was with Pound when the news got out knew exactly what he thought of that: 'They better frisk these bastards before they let 'em within rifle range of the guy.'
'Amen!' Pound said, and then, a beat later, 'Dibs on the girls.' He held out his hands as if he were cupping breasts. The other officer laughed.
Truman arrived by airplane two days later. That was judged safer than traveling by train. Sabotaging railroad tracks was easy, but Confederate diehards didn't have much in the way of antiaircraft guns. Pound's barrel was one of the machines guarding the airport as the Vice President-elect's airliner touched down on the runway.
Pound stood up in the cupola and peered at Truman through binoculars. The Senator from Missouri wasn't young, but he walked with crisp stride and straight back: an almost military bearing. Fair enough-he'd been an artillery officer in the Great War. Not many healthy men in the USA had missed military service in one war or the other. Even fewer in what had been the CSA.
The Vice President-elect spoke in front of the state Capitol. They set up a podium and lectern for him by a palm tree on the lawn in front of the Italian Renaissance building. Sure enough, military policemen and female auxiliaries searched people in civilian clothes before letting them past rope lines half a mile from the podium. They also searched uniformed personnel. The war had shown that people had no trouble getting their hands on uniforms that didn't belong to them and doing unpleasant things in the other side's plumage.
What sort of Floridians would listen to the Vice President-elect of the USA? Michael Pound eyed them curiously. Some he recognized-collaborators. They figured they knew which side their bread was buttered on. There'd been some of that flexible breed north of the Ohio a couple of years earlier. They caught hell when they turned out to have guessed wrong. These plump fellows and their sleek women were less likely to be mistaken.
Others-more ordinary folks-seemed honestly curious. That gave Pound at least a little hope. If they could get used to the idea of being part of the USA…It'd take a miracle, and when was the last one you saw? the cynical part of his mind jeered. The rest of him had no good answer.
Colonel Einsiedel stepped up to the mike mounted on the lectern. 'Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure and my privilege to present the Honorable Harry S Truman of Missouri, Vice President-elect of the United States of America.'
Along with the other soldiers, Pound clapped till his palms stung. Applause from the local civilians seemed much more measured. Well, that was no surprise. Metal-framed eyeglasses gleaming in the sun, Truman looked out over the crowd. 'If anybody would have told me ten years ago that I would come to Florida to speak to my country's soldiers here, I would have said he was crazy.' To Pound's ear, shaped in the northern Midwest, Truman's Missouri twang had more than a little in common with the local drawl.
'Didn't Jake Featherston say, 'Give me five years, and you won't recognize the Confederate States'?' the Vice President-elect went on. His jaunty grin invited soldiers and locals alike to see the bitter joke. 'Well, the man was right, but not quite the way he expected to be.
'And now the United States have to pick up the pieces. The buck stops with us. If we do this wrong, our grandchildren will be down here fighting guerrillas. If we do it right, maybe we can all remember that we started out as one country. We have a lot of things to put behind us before we're one country again, but we can try.'
His voice toughened. 'That doesn't mean the USA will be soft down here. You people who spent your lives as Confederates have no reason to love us, not yet. And we have to be careful about trusting you, too. You stained yourself with the darkest crime a people can commit, and too many of you aren't sorry enough. So things won't happen in a hurry, if they happen at all.
'But, for the past eighty-odd years, people in the USA and people in the CSA have all called themselves Americans. Maybe, if we work together, one day that will mean what it did before the War of Secession. Maybe it will mean we really are all part of the same country once again. I hope so, anyhow. That's what President Dewey and I will work for. We'll be as firm as we need to be. But we won't be any firmer than that. If people down here work with us, maybe we'll get where we ought to go. God grant we do.'
He stepped away from the lectern. This time, the applause from the soldiers was less enthusiastic, that from the civilians more so. Pound didn't think it was a bad speech. Truman was setting out what he hoped would happen, not necessarily what he expected to happen. If the survivors in the CSA got rambunctious, the Army could always smash them.
The Vice President-elect didn't just go away. He plunged into the crowd, shaking hands and talking with soldiers and locals alike. Reading the ribbons on Michael Pound's chest, he said, 'You had yourself a time, Lieutenant.'
'Well, sir, that's one way to put it,' Pound said.
'I just want you to know that what you're doing here is worthwhile,' Truman said. 'We have to hold this country down while we reshape it. It won't be easy. It won't be quick. It won't be cheap. But we've got to do it.'
'What if we can't?' Pound asked.
'If we can't, some time around the turn of the century the new Vice President-elect will come down here to tell your grandson what an important job he's doing. And they'll still search the locals before they let them listen.'
Pound had no children he knew about. The Army had been his life. But he understood what Truman was talking about. 'What do you think of our chances?' he asked.
'I don't know.' Truman didn't seem to have much patience with beating around the bush. 'We've got to try, though. What other choice do we have?'
'Treating these people the way they treated their Negroes.' Michael Pound sounded perfectly serious. He was. He faced the possibility of massacring twenty-odd million people as a problem of ways and means, not an enormity. The Army had been shooting hostages since it entered the CSA. Now the whole Confederacy was a hostage.
But Truman shook his head. 'No. Not even these people will ever turn me into Jake Featherston. I'd sooner blow out my own brains.' He passed on to another officer.
Had Pound worried about his career, he would have wondered if he'd just blighted it. He didn't. He could go on doing his job right where he was. Even if they busted him down to private for opening his big mouth, he could still help the country. And they wouldn't do that. He knew it. He had his niche. He fit it well. He aimed to stay in it
