American Front (65 page)

Cherry paused by Scipio. “I hear one of the house niggers up an’ leave?” she asked. When the butler nodded, she said, “How about you give de job she was doin’ to me? I kin do it better dan she could, I bet you.”

Scipio licked his lips. She might well have been right, but—“I gwine ask Cassius, see what he say.” Using that dialect inside the mansion, even speaking quietly as he was now, made him nervous. Cassius would probably be glad to have an extra set of eyes and ears inside Marshlands, but if for some reason he wanted his followers to stay as inconspicuous as possible, Scipio didn’t want to cross him. Scipio didn’t want to cross Cassius for any reason. The hunter was altogether too good with a gun or a knife or any other piece of lethality that came into his hands.

Cherry tossed her head. “Cain’t ask Cassius. He ain’t here.”

“What do you mean, he isn’t here?” Scipio asked, returning to the form of English that seemed more natural—or at least safer—to him inside Marshlands. “Has he gone hunting in the swamps for a few days?”

“He gone, but not in de swamp,” Cherry agreed. She too dropped her voice, to a throaty whisper. “Who know what kind o’ good things he bring back wid he when he come home?”

What the devil was that supposed to mean? Scipio couldn’t come right out and ask: too many ears around in a place like Marshlands, and not all of them—none of the white and too few of the black—to be trusted. He focused on what lay right before him. “Very well, Cherry,” he said starchily. “We shall try you indoors for a time, and see how you shape in your new position. Have you anything more suitable for wear inside Marshlands?”

“Sho’ do.” Her eyes flashed deviltry. “Jus’ axe Marse Jacob.” She slipped outside, laughing, while Scipio was still in the middle of a coughing fit.

Chester Martin scratched his head. The gesture, for once, had nothing to do with the lice that were endemic in the front lines near the Roanoke—and everywhere else. “Sir, these are the craziest orders I ever heard,” he said.

Captain Orville Wyatt said, “They’re the craziest orders I ever heard, too, Sergeant. That hasn’t got anything to do with the price of beer, though. We got ’em, so we’re gonna obey ’em.” But behind the wire-rimmed spectacles, his eyes were as puzzled as Martin’s.

“Oh, yes, sir,” Martin said. “But how are we supposed to pick out this one particular nigger? Those bastards do a lot of deserting.” He scratched his head again. You had to want in the worst way to get out of your country if you were willing to crawl through barbed wire, willing to risk getting shot, to escape. And it wasn’t as if the USA were any paradise for colored people, not even close. What did that say about the CSA? Nothing good, Martin figured.

Captain Wyatt said, “He’ll let us know who he is. And when he does, we’re supposed to treat him like he’s whiter than the president.” He spat down into the mud of the trench. That stuck in his craw, the same as it did for Martin.

The sergeant sighed. “Son of a bitch would have to pick our sector for whatever he’s up to. I’ll pass the word on to the men.”

Specs Peterson, who was cleaning his eyeglasses on a rag that looked likelier to get them dirty, looked up, his gray eyes watery and unfocused. His voice was very clear, though: “What a lot of fuss over one damn nigger.” The rest of the soldiers in the squad nodded.

So did Chester Martin, for that matter. But he answered, “When the order comes down from Philadelphia, you don’t argue with it, not if you know what’s good for you. Anybody who shoots that fellow when he’s coming through the wire is gonna wish he’d shot himself instead.”

“But, Sarge, what if this is all some kind of scheme the Rebs cooked up and they sneak a raiding party through? We won’t shoot at them, neither, not till too late,” Joe Hammerschmitt protested.

“You ought to be writing for
Scribner’s
instead of what’s-his-name, that Davis,” Martin said. “Maybe you can make a gas attack sound exciting instead of nasty, too. But if the Rebels are that smart, they’re probably going to overrun us. You ask me, though, they ain’t that smart, or if they are, they sure haven’t shown it.”

With that the men—and Martin himself—had to be content. It turned out to be enough, too, for two nights later Hammerschmitt shook Martin awake. As he always did when he woke up, he grabbed for his Springfield, which lay beside him. “Don’t need to do that, Sarge,” the private said. “I think I got that nigger with me you were talking about the other day.”

“Yeah?” Martin sat up, rubbing his eyes. It was dark in the trench; the Confederates had snipers watching for any light and anything it showed, same as the USA did. The man beside Hammerschmitt wasn’t much more than a shadow. Martin peered toward him. “How you going to prove you’re the one we’ve been waiting for?”

“’Cause I de one gwine bring de uprisin’ o’ de proletariat to de white folks o’ de CSA,” the Negro answered. “Gwine end de feudal ’pression, gwine end de capitalis’ ’pression, gwine end
all
’pression. De dictatorship o’ de proletariat gwine come, down in de CSA.” His eyes glittered as he peered toward Martin. “An’ de revolution gwine come in de USA, too, you wait an’ see.” His accent was thick as molasses, but if anything it added to the grim intensity of what he was saying.

“Jesus Christ, Sarge,” Hammerschmitt burst out, “he’s a fuckin’ Red.”

“He sure is,” Martin answered. Plainly, the Negro wasn’t just a Socialist. Martin voted Socialist as often as not, though he’d favored TR in the last election. The Negro was an out-and-out bomb-throwing Red, Red as a Russian Bolshevik, probably Redder than an IWW lead miner or fruit picker out West. Martin scrambled to his feet. “I’ll take you to the captain, uh—What’s your name? They didn’t tell us about that.”

“I is Cassius,” the Negro answered. “You sho’ you got to waste time wid de captain? I got ’
por
tant things to do up here in Yankeeland.”

“Think a good bit of yourself, don’t you, Cassius?” Martin said dryly. “Yes, you have to go see Captain Wyatt. You satisfy him, he’ll pass you on up the line. And if you don’t—” He didn’t go on. Cassius sounded like a man with a head on his shoulders. He could work that out for himself.

Cassius picked his way over and around sleeping men and avoided holes in the bottom of the trench with an ease a cat would have had trouble matching and Martin couldn’t approach. The Negro couldn’t have acquired that sense of grace and balance chopping cotton all day. Martin wondered what he had done.

Captain Wyatt, as it happened, was awake, studying a map under the tiny light from a candle shielded by a tin can. He looked up when Martin and Cassius drew near. “This the man we’re looking for, Sergeant?” he asked.

“I think so, sir,” Martin answered. “His name’s Cassius, and he’s a Red.” He wondered how the Negro would react to that. He just nodded, matter-of-factly, as if he’d been called tall or skinny. He
was
a Red.

Wyatt frowned. Martin knew he was a Democrat, and a conservative Democrat at that. But after a moment his face cleared. “If the Rebs have themselves a nice Red revolt in their own backyards, that won’t make it any easier for them to fight us at the same time.” He swung his eyes toward the black man. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Cassius?” Martin had never heard anybody call a Negro
Mister
before.

Cassius nodded. “It’s right, but we make dis revolution fo’ our ownselves, not fo’ you Yankees. Like I tol’ you’ sergeant here, one fine day you gits yo’ own revolution.”

“Yes, when pigs have wings,” Wyatt said crisply. The two men glared at each other in the gloom, neither yielding in the least. Then the captain said, “But it’s the CSA we’re both worried about now, eh?” and Cassius nodded. Wyatt went on, “I still don’t know if it was them or the Canucks who set Utah on its ear, but your people will do worse to them than Utah ever did to us.” He pointed to Martin. “Take him back to the support trenches and tell them to pass him on to divisional headquarters. They’ll see he gets what he needs.”

“Yes, sir,” Martin said. He headed for the closest communications trench, Cassius following. As they made their way back through the zigzag trench connecting the first line to the second, Martin remarked, “I sure as hell hope you give those Rebs a hard time.”

“Oh, we do dat,” Cassius said. With a dark skin, wearing a muddy Confederate laborer’s uniform, he might almost have been an invisible voice in the night. “We do dat. We been waitin’ fo’ dis day a long time, pay they back fo’ what dey do to we all dese years.”

Chester Martin tried to think of it as an officer would, weighing everything he knew about the situation. “Even with the Rebs’ having to fight us, too, you, uh, Negroes are going to have the devil’s own time making the revolution stick. A lot more whites with a lot more guns than you’ve got.”

“You Yankees gwine help wid de guns—I here fo’ dat,” Cassius said. “An’ dis ain’t no uprisin’ o’ jus de niggers o’ de CSA, Dis an uprisin’ o’ de proletariat, like I done say befo’. De po’ buckra—”

“The what?” Martin asked.

“White folks,” Cassius said impatiently. “Like I say, de po’ buckra, he ’pressed, too, workin’ in de factory an’ de mill fo’ de boss wid de motorcar an’ de diamond on he pinky an’ de fancy
see
gar in he mouf. Come de revolution,
all
de proletariat rise up togedder.” He walked on a couple of steps. “What you do ’fo’ you go in de Army?”

“Worked in a steel mill back in Toledo,” Martin answered. “That’s where I’m from.”

“You in de proletariat, too, den,” Cassius said. “The boss you got, he throw you out in de street whenever he take a mind to do it. An’ what kin you do about it? Cain’t do nothin’, on account of he kin hire ten men what kin do jus’ de same job you was doin’. You call dat fair? You call dat right? Ought to point you’ gun at dey fat-bellied parasites suckin’ de blood from yo’ labor.”

“Telling a soldier to rise up against his own country is treason,” Martin said. “Don’t do that again.”

Cassius laughed softly. “Tellin’ de proletariat to rise up fo’ dey class ain’t no treason, Sergeant. De day come soon, you see dat fo’ your own self.”

A sergeant in the secondary trenches called a challenge that was more than half a yawn. Had Martin and Cassius been Confederate raiders, the fellow probably would have died before he finished. As things were, he woke up in a hurry when Martin identified his companion. “Oh, yes, Sergeant,” he said. “We’ve been told to expect him.”

Martin surrendered the Negro with more than a little relief and hurried back up toward the front line. Some of the things Cassius had said worried him more than a little, too. So did the Red’s calm assumption that revolution
would
break out, come what may, not only in the Confederate States but in the United States as well.

Could it? Would it? Maybe it had tried to start in New York City on Remembrance Day, but it had been beaten down then. Would it stay beaten down? Capital and labor hadn’t gotten on well in the years before the war. Plenty of strikes had turned bloody. If a wave of them came, all across the country…

After the war, something new would go into the mix, too. A lot of men who’d seen fighting far worse than strikers against goons would be coming back to the factories. If the bosses tried to ignore their demands—what then? The night was fine and mild, but Martin shivered.

Captain Stephen Ramsay remained convinced that his Creek Army rank badges were stupid and, with their gaudiness, were more likely to make him a sniper’s target. He also remained convinced that entrenching in—or, more accurately, in front of—a town was a hell of a thing for a cavalryman to be doing.

Not that Nuyaka, Sequoyah, was much of a town—a sleepy hamlet a few miles west of Okmulgee. But, with the damnyankees shifting forces in this direction, it had to be defended to keep them from getting around behind Okmulgee and forcing the Confederates out of the Creek capital.

Where the blacks had run off, everybody had to do nigger work. Ramsay used an entrenching tool just as if he still was the sergeant he’d been not so long before. Alongside him, Moty Tiger also made the dirt fly. Pausing for a moment, the Creek noncom grinned at Ramsay and said, “Welcome to New York.”

“Huh?” Ramsay answered. He paused, too; he was glad for a blow. The heat and humidity made it feel like Mobile. “What are you talking about?”

“New York,” Moty Tiger repeated, pronouncing the name with exaggerated care, almost as if he came from the USA. Then he said it again, pronouncing it as a Creek normally would have. Sure as hell, it sounded a lot like
Nuyaka
.

“This…little town”—Ramsay picked his words with care, not wanting to offend the Creek sergeant—“is named after New York City?” Moty Tiger nodded. Ramsay asked, “How come?”

“Back in Washington’s time, when the Creeks still lived in Alabama and Georgia, he invited our chiefs to New York to make a treaty with him,” the sergeant told him. “They were impressed at how big and fine it was, and took the name home with them. We took it here, too, when the government of the USA made us leave our rightful homes and travel the Trail of Tears.” His face clouded. “Richmond has been honest with us. The USA never was. Being at war with the USA feels right.”

“Sure does,” Ramsay said. But the Creeks had been fighting the USA back when his ancestors were U.S. citizens. That made him feel strange whenever he thought about it. The Confederate States had been part of the United States longer than they’d been free. If they’d lost the War of Secession the damnyankees had forced on them, they’d still be part of the USA. He scowled, thinking,
Christ, what an awful idea
.

Perhaps luckily, he didn’t have time to do much in the way of pondering. When you were digging like a gopher trying to get underground before a hawk swooped down and carried you away, worries about what might have been didn’t clog your mind.

Colonel Lincoln, whose two-jewel insigne was twice as absurd as Ramsay’s, came up to look over the progress the Creek regiment had made. He nodded his approval. “Good job,” he told Ramsay. “You’ve got foxholes back toward town dug, so you can fall back if you need to, you’ve got the machine guns well sited, you’ve done everything I can think of that you should have.”