want that so bad? I never done nothin' to them.
They didn't care. They feared Negroes might do something to them, and so they got in the first lick. That was Jake Featherston all the way-hit first, and hit hard. But he hadn't hit the United States quite hard enough. He got in the first lick, but they were getting the last one. And I'm still here, too, Cassius thought. You may not like it, you ofay asshole, but I damn well am.
S itting in the Humble jail was a humbling experience for Jeff Pinkard. Even if the Republic of Texas had seceded from the Confederate States, the guards at the jail were all U.S. military policemen. They wore green-gray uniforms, white gloves, and white helmets with MP on them in big letters. They reminded him of a lot of the men who'd guarded Camp Humble and the other camps he'd run: they were tough and brave and not especially smart.
They wouldn't let his wife or stepsons in to see him. They wouldn't let him see his new baby. All he had for company was Vern Green; the guard chief moped in the cell across the hall.
Three hulking U.S. MPs came for Jeff early in the morning. They all carried big, heavy U.S. submachine guns. 'Come on, Pinkard,' one of them-a sergeant-said, his voice cold as Russian Alaska.
Jeff thought they were going to take him outside and shoot him. Who was there to stop them? Not a soul. He fought to keep a wobble out of his voice when he said, 'I want to talk to a lawyer.'
'Yeah? So did all the coons you smoked. Come on, asshole,' the MP said. One of his buddies unlocked the cell door. Jeff came. Fear made his legs light. All he could do was try not to show it. If you were going to die anyway, you wanted to die as well as you could.
He squinted against the sun when they led him out of the jail. He hadn't seen so much sunshine since they locked him up. Looking back at the jail building, he saw the U.S. and Texas flags flying side by side above it. His mouth tightened. Both those flags reminded him of the Stars and Bars; both, now, were arrayed against it.
Barbed wire and machine-gun nests and armored cars defended the jail and the buildings close to it. Seeing Jeff glance at the new fortifications, the MP sergeant said, 'Nobody's gonna spring you from this place, so don't get your hopes up.'
'Way you've got it set up, you must reckon an awful lot of folks want to,' Jeff replied. The noncom scowled at him but didn't answer. Jeff smiled to himself-that shot must have got home.
What had been a bail bondsman's office down the street from the jail now had U.S. soldiers standing guard in front of it. The Lone Star flag might fly over the jail, but Pinkard didn't see any Texas Rangers. The damnyankees were running this show. He didn't think that was good news for him.
One of the guards opened the door. 'Go on in,' the MP sergeant said.
'What happens when I do?' Jeff asked suspiciously.
'The bogeyman gets you,' the MP snapped. When Jeff neither panicked nor asked for any more explanation, the Yankee gestured impatiently. 'Just go on. You wanted a lawyer. They're gonna give you one. More than you deserve, if anybody wants to know what I think.'
Pinkard didn't give a rat's ass for what the MP thought. A lawyer was more than he'd thought he would get from the U.S. authorities. Of course, having one and having one who'd do any good were two different critters. He was playing by Yankee rules now, and he knew damn well they'd be stacked against him.
In he went, before the snooty sergeant could tell him again. Sitting at what had been the bondsman's desk was a skinny fellow with curly red hair, a big nose, and a U.S. major's gold oak leaves. 'You're Jefferson Pinkard?' the man asked.
'That's right.' Jeff nodded. 'Who're you?'
'My name is Isidore Goldstein,' the major answered. I figured he was a hebe, Jeff thought. Well, chances are he's smart, anyway. Goldstein went on, 'I'm part of the Judge-Advocate's staff. I'm an attorney specializing in military law. I will defend you to the best of my ability.'
'And how good are you?' Pinkard asked.
'Damn good, matter of fact,' Goldstein said. 'Let's get something straight right now: I didn't want this job. They gave it to me. Well, that's how it goes sometimes. I don't like you. No-I despise you. If you've done one percent of what they say you've done, I'd stand in the firing squad and aim at your chest. And we both know you've done a hell of a lot more than that.'
'If you're my lawyer, why do they need some other asshole to prosecute me?' Jeff said.
He surprised a laugh out of Goldstein. The Yankee lawyer-the Yankee Jew lawyer, almost a stock figure in Confederate movies about the depravities of life in the USA-said, 'But you gotta understand something else, too. My job is defending people. Guilty people need lawyers. Guilty people especially need lawyers. Whatever they let me do, I'll do. If I can get you off the hook, I will. If I can keep 'em from killing you, I will. That's what I'm supposed to do, and I'll damn well do it. And like I say, I know what I'm doing, too.'
Pinkard believed him, not least because Goldstein plainly didn't care whether he believed him or not. 'So what are my chances, then?'
'Shitty,' Goldstein answered matter-of-factly. 'They've got the goods on you. They know what you did. They can prove it. You get rid of that many people, it's not like you can keep it a secret.'
'Everything I was doing, I was doing 'cause I got orders from Richmond to take care of it,' Jeff said. 'Far as the laws of my country went, it was all legal as could be. So what business of your country is it what I was doing inside of mine?'
'Well, that's one of the arguments I aim to use,' Isidore Goldstein said. 'You're not so dumb after all, are you?'
'Hope not,' Jeff said. 'How come you reckoned I was?'
'One way to do what you did is just do it and never think about it at all,' the U.S. attorney said. 'I figured you might be like that, where you'd go, 'Yeah, sure,' and take care of things, like. But you've got too many brains for that-I can tell. So why did you do it?'
''Cause the niggers were screwing my country. Honest to God, they were. First time I went to combat in 1916, it wasn't against you Yankees. Oh, hell, no. I was fightin' the damn coons in Georgia after they rose up and stabbed us in the back.'
Goldstein pulled a notebook out of his left breast pocket and wrote something in it. 'Maybe that will help some. I don't know, but maybe,' he said. 'The charge, though, is crimes against humanity, and that can mean whatever the people who make it want it to mean.'
'Sounds chickenshit to me,' Jeff said. 'They gonna make believe the niggers weren't up in arms against our government long before we went to war with the USA? They can do that-I sure can't stop 'em-but they're a pack of goddamn liars if they do.'
The military attorney did some more scrawling. 'Maybe you want to forget the word nigger.'
'How come?' Pinkard asked, genuinely confused.
'Because you hammer another nail into your coffin every time you say it,' Goldstein answered. 'In the United States, it's an insult, a fighting word.' The idea that Negroes could fight whites without having the whole country land on them with both feet deeply offended Jeff. He was shrewd enough to see saying so wouldn't do him any good. He just nodded instead. So did Isidore Goldstein, who went on, 'And they'll say things were so bad for the colored population in the Confederate States under Freedom Party rule that it had no choice but to rebel.'
'Well, they can can say any damn thing they want,' Jeff replied. 'Saying something doesn't make it so, though.'
''I'm Jake Featherston, and I'm here to tell you the truth,'' Goldstein quoted with savage relish. 'Yes, we've noticed that.'
'Oh, yeah. You damnyankees never once told a lie. And every one of you just loves coons, too. And I bet your shit don't stink, either.'
'All of which would be good points except for two minor details.' The lawyer ticked them off on his fingers: 'First one is, the United States are going to win and the Confederate States are going to lose. Second one is, you really are responsible for upwards of a million deaths.'
'So what?' Jeff said. That made even Goldstein blink. Angrily, Pinkard said it again: 'So what, goddammit? Who gave the orders to drop those fucking superbombs on our cities? You think that asshole ain't a bigger criminal than me? You gonna hang him by the balls? Like hell you will! Chances are you'll pin a medal on the motherfucker instead.'
'Again, two minor details,' Goldstein said. 'First, you used the superbomb before we did-'
