different once the CSA finally threw in the sponge? Fat chance, he thought.
'Be a few gals don't care what color man they got, long as they got one,' Gracchus predicted. 'A few-the ones who git horny the same way a guy does. But even supposin' you find one, where you gonna set up housekeepin' wid her? Any place you try, how long 'fore the neighbors burn your house down, likely with the both of you in it?'
'The Yankees-' Cassius began.
Gracchus shook his head. 'Yankees can't be everywhere. 'Sides, most of 'em don't want us messin' wid no white women, neither. They kin use us, yeah. But they ain't gonna stick their necks out fo' us when they don't got to, and you kin bet your ass on dat. Hell, you mess wid a white woman, you is bettin' your sorry ass on dat.'
'Shit,' Cassius said, again not because he thought Gracchus was wrong but because he didn't. 'Maybe we go up to the USA, then. Got to be some colored gals there who'd give us the time o' day.'
'Might not be too bad, if the Yankees let us,' Gracchus allowed. 'But we ain't U.S. citizens any more'n we's Confederate citizens. We don't belong nowhere. You don't believe me, go ask a white man.'
Once more, he made more sense than Cassius wished he did. Every time you tried to get around what Jake Featherston and the Freedom Party had done to Negroes in the Confederate States, you banged your head into a stone wall instead.
The next morning, a couple of Confederate privates and a corporal came up to Cassius as he was on patrol. None of them was carrying a weapon. When they saw him, they all raised their hands and stood very still. 'Don't shoot, pal,' the corporal said. 'We're just lookin' for somebody to surrender to, that's all. Reckon you're it.'
Had they worn the camouflage of the Freedom Party Guards, Cassius would have been tempted to plug them no matter how they tried to sweet-talk him. Who could guess what guards were doing when they weren't fighting the Yankees? Cassius could, for one. Maybe they were closing Negroes up behind barbed wire. Or maybe they were shoving them into the hell-bound trains from which nobody came back. It wasn't by accident that Freedom Party Guards had a tough time giving themselves up to the U.S. Army's new black auxiliaries.
But these three were just in ordinary butternut. If they'd gone out of the way to give Negroes a hard time, it didn't show. And the noncom hadn't been dumb enough to call Cassius boy. He gestured with his rifle. 'Y'all come with me. POW camp's right outside of town. You don't give nobody trouble, you'll be all right.'
'Had enough trouble,' the corporal said, and both privates nodded. The two-striper went on, 'Me, I got a Purple Heart and two oak-leaf clusters. One more wound and I'm a goddamn colander. Enough is enough. Damnyankees wouldn't be here in the middle of Georgia if we weren't licked.'
'Damn right.' If the Yankees weren't here, Cassius probably wouldn't have been, either. Sooner or later, the militias and the Mexicans would have squashed Gracchus' band. 'Get movin'. Keep your hands high, and don't git close enough to make me jumpy, or you be mighty sorry.'
'You got the piece,' the corporal said. 'You call the shots.'
As they tramped through Madison, the other two soldiers opened up a little. One was from Mississippi, the other from Arkansas. They'd had enough of the war; they were heading home. Cassius thought they were nuts to try to get through two states full of U.S. soldiers, but they weren't the first men to tell him a story like that. As Confederate armies came apart at the seams, as men thought of themselves ahead of their country once more, the whole thrashing corpse of the CSA seemed full of people in uniform on the move. Some were trying to get somewhere, like these. Others were trying to get away either from Confederates who didn't want them deserting or from U.S. soldiers who had reason to want to catch them.
'Never reckoned we'd get whupped,' the corporal said mournfully. 'First time I got shot was in Ohio. Second time was in Pennsylvania. Third time was in Tennessee, just outside of Chattanooga. Things weren't going so good by then.'
'I suppose I can see how you'd say that,' Cassius allowed. 'But if you was a colored fella here in Georgia, things never went good. Ain't many of us left alive.'
'We were up at the front, fighting the damnyankees. We didn't know nothin' about none o' that,' the private from Arkansas said quickly. Too quickly? Cassius wasn't sure. He did know the U.S. guards at the POW camp questioned new prisoners about what they'd done before they got caught. Every so often, they arrested somebody and took him away for more grilling.
'Nabbed yourself some more of these sorry sacks of shit, did you?' a U.S. sergeant in Madison called to Cassius, and gave him a thumbs-up. Cassius waved back.
'He's got no cause to call us that,' the C.S. corporal said. 'I wouldn't call him that if I went and captured him-and I got me a few damnyankees during the war.'
The private from Mississippi nodded. 'You didn't cuss us when you caught us,' he said to Cassius. 'Your mama must've learned you manners.'
'She did.' Cassius' eyes suddenly stung. 'And then you goddamn ofays went an' shipped her to a camp, an' my pa, an' my sis, too, an' I reckon they's all dead now.'
None of the Confederate soldiers said much after that, which was smart of them. And yet the Mississippian had a point of sorts. Cassius hadn't cursed the Confederates when they gave themselves up to them. Some of that was because swear words weren't enough to let him tell them what he thought of them. But some of it was because Confederate whites and Confederate blacks understood one another in ways U.S. whites never would. They might not like one another-hell, they might and often did hate one another. But they and their ancestors had mostly lived side by side for hundreds of years. Each knew how the other ticked.
'Score three for the good guys!' a guard outside the POW compound called as Cassius brought the captives up to the entrance.
'I leave these fellas with you?' Cassius asked.
'Yeah, I'll take care of 'em from here on out,' the guard replied. He carried a submachine gun, a heavy U.S. Thompson. It would do the job if it had to. 'C'mon, you lugs,' he told the Confederates. 'This is the end of the line for you.'
'I don't mind,' the corporal said. 'Like I told this fella here'-he nodded toward Cassius-'I already been shot three different times. I'm still here. I'm still walkin'. One more, maybe my luck woulda run out.'
'Damn war's over with,' one of the privates added. 'We lost. Ain't much point to fighting any more.'
'You guys aren't so dumb,' the U.S. soldier said. 'Kick you in the teeth often enough and you get the idea.' He led them off into captivity. They didn't seem the least bit sorry to go. They'd managed to give up without getting killed. And the chow inside the barbed wire was bound to be better than what they'd scrounged on their own. How much food the Yankees took for granted had already astonished Cassius. The men in butternut were scrawny enough to make him sure it would amaze them, too.
Cassius went back on patrol. Unlike the POWs, he had to earn his victuals. And damned if another pair of Confederate soldiers didn't come into Madison an hour and a half later. They'd also made sure they weren't carrying weapons before they showed themselves.
Seeing Cassius-and seeing his rifle-they wasted no time raising their hands. 'We ain't people bombs or nothin', Rastus,' one of them said. 'Cross my heart we ain't.' He lowered his right hand for a moment to make the gesture.
'My name ain't Rastus,' Cassius retorted. But, again, as long as they didn't wear camouflage or call him nigger or boy, he was willing if not precisely eager to let them give up.
The same soldier in green-gray still stood at the entrance to the POW camp when Cassius brought in his next set of captives. 'Son of a bitch!' the Yankee said. 'You're turning into a one-man gang!'
'They know they's licked,' Cassius said. 'Don't bother 'em to give up now, like maybe it did befo'.'
'That's about the size of it,' one of the Confederates agreed. 'What's the point to gettin' shot now? Sure ain't gonna change how things turn out.'
'You got that right, anyway,' the U.S. soldier said. 'Well, come on. We'll get you your rooms at our hotel, all right. You can have the caviar or the pheasant under glass. The barmaid'll be along with the champagne in a few minutes, but it costs extra if you want her to blow you.'
Both men in butternut stared. So did Cassius; the Yankee's deadpan delivery was mighty convincing. Then the Confederates started to laugh. One of them said, 'Long as I don't get blown up, that's all I care about right now.'
'Amen!' said the other new POW, as if responding to a preacher in church.
On that kind of simple level, Cassius had no trouble understanding and sympathizing with them. When he tried to fathom their cause, though…If they had their way, I'd be dead, same as the rest of my family. How can they
