Blood and Iron (18 page)

With a bitter laugh, Cincinnatus answered, “That’d be funny, except it ain’t. I get into trouble around here, it’s trouble your pa put me in. Now”—he let his voice roughen—“can I see him, or not?”

Lucullus Wood was harder to lean on than he had been. He was twenty now, or maybe a year past, and had confidence in himself as a man. Even so, a show of determination could still make him back down. He bit his lip, then said, “That room in back I reckon you know about.”

“Yeah, I know about that room.” Cincinnatus nodded. “He in there with anybody, or is he by his lonesome?”

“By his lonesome, far as I know,” Lucullus said. “Go on, go on. You barged in before. Barge on in again.” Had his hands been free, he probably would have made washing motions with them to show that whatever happened next was not his fault. As things were, his expression got the message across.

Ignoring that expression, Cincinnatus went down the hall at the back of the Kentucky Smoke House till he got to the door he knew. He didn’t barge in; he knocked instead. “Come in,” a voice from within said. Cincinnatus worked the latch. Apicius Wood looked at him with something less than pleasure. “Oh. It’s you. Reckoned it might be somebody I was glad to see.”

“It’s me.” Cincinnatus shut the door behind him.

With a grunt, Apicius pointed to a battered chair. The proprietor of the Kentucky Smoke House looked as if he’d eaten a great deal of his own barbecue. If that was how he’d got so fat, Cincinnatus didn’t think he could have picked a better way. “Well,” Apicius rumbled, “what we gonna fight about today?”

“Don’t want no fight,” Cincinnatus said.

Apicius Wood laughed in his face. “Ain’t many niggers in this town as stubborn as I am, but you’re sure as hell one of ’em. We don’t see eye to eye. You know it, an’ I know it, too. When we get together, we fight.”

Cincinnatus let out a long sigh. “I ain’t enough of a Red to suit you, I ain’t enough of a diehard to suit Joe Conroy, and I’m too goddamn black to suit Luther Bliss. Where does that leave me?”

“Out on a limb,” Apicius answered accurately. “Well, say your say, so I know what we gonna fight about this time.”

“What you think of the elections?” Cincinnatus asked.

“What the hell difference it make what I think or even if I think?” Apicius returned. “Ain’t like I got to vote. Ain’t like you got to vote, neither. Have to wait till after the revolution for that to happen, I reckon.”

“Maybe not,” Cincinnatus said. “Put ’em together, the Socialists and the Republicans got more seats in the House than the Democrats do. First time the Democrats lose the House in more’n thirty years. They lost seats in the Senate, too.”

“Didn’t lose a one here in Kentucky,” Apicius said. “’Fore they let somebody here vote, they make damn sure they know who he vote for.”

Cincinnatus refused to let the fat cook sidetrack him. “How much you work with the white Socialists before the elections?” he asked.

“Not much,” Apicius said. “Ain’t much to work with. Don’t hardly have no homegrown white Socialists, and every one that come over the Ohio, Bliss and the Kentucky State Police got their eye on him. Don’t want them bastards puttin’ their eye on me any worse than they done already.”

“How hard did you try?” Cincinnatus persisted. “Did you—?”

But Apicius wasn’t easy to override, either. Raising a pale-palmed hand, he went on, “’Sides, them white Socialists ain’t hardly Reds. They’re nothin’ but Pinks, you know what I mean? They jaw about the class struggle, but they ain’t pickin’ up guns and doin’ anything much.”

“What you talkin’ about?” Cincinnatus said. “All these strikes—”

Apicius broke in again: “So what? Ain’t much shootin’ goin’ on, not to speak of. When the niggers in the Confederate States rose up, that was a fight worth talkin’ about. We’d have done the same thing here, certain sure, if the Yankees hadn’t taken us out of the CSA by then. Did do some of it anyways.”

That was true, and Cincinnatus knew it. He also knew something else: “Yeah, they rose up, sure enough, but they got whipped. Reds rise up in the USA, they get whipped, too. Got to be more to the class struggle than shootin’ guns all the blame time, or the folks with most guns always gonna win.”

“Not if their soldiers and their police work out whose side they really ought to be on,” Apicius said. This time, he spoke quickly, to make sure Cincinnatus couldn’t interrupt him: “Yeah, I know, I know, it ain’t likely, not the way things is now. I ain’t sayin’ no different.”

“All right, then,” Cincinnatus said. “If it ain’t all struggle with guns, we—you—ought to be workin’ with the white folks, ain’t that right?”

“You ain’t been enough of a Red your ownself to tell me what I ought to be doin’, Cincinnatus,” Apicius said heavily.

“You don’t fancy it, you don’t got to listen,” Cincinnatus returned. “Other thing you ought to be doin’ is, you ought to start workin’ to get black folks the vote. Ain’t impossible, not in the USA.”

“Ain’t possible, not in Kentucky,” Apicius said. “Some of the sons of bitches in the Legislature remember when they used to own us. You was born after manumission. You don’t know how things was. When I was a boy, I was a slave. I don’t know how to tell you how bad bein’ a slave is.”

“My pa was a slave,” Cincinnatus said. “My ma, too. There’s some states in the USA that let niggers vote. If we can’t vote, we might as well still be slaves, on account of we ain’t got no say in what happens to us.”

“Yeah, and you know what states they are,” Apicius said with a toss of the head. “They’re states that ain’t got more than about a dozen niggers, maybe two dozen tops, so havin’’ em vote don’t matter one way or the other. Kentucky ain’t like that. We got to vote here, we’d have us some say. What that means is, we ain’t never gettin’ the vote here. White folks won’t let it happen.”

That held an unpleasant ring of truth. Cincinnatus said, “If we can’t win a fight and we can’t win the vote, what good are we?”

“Damned if I know what good you are, ’cept to drive me crazy,” Apicius said. “What I’m good for is, I make some pretty good barbecue.”

Cincinnatus exhaled in exasperation. “If you don’t try, how the devil you find out what you can do?”

“I go up on the roof at city hall, I don’t need to jump off to know I land in the street,” Apicius said. “What you want I should do, hand Luther Bliss a petition to ask him to tell the gov’nor to give us the vote? Not likely!” That
not likely
didn’t refer to the orders the chief of the Kentucky secret police might give the governor. But Apicius could never sign such a petition, being unable to read or write.

“This here is one of the United States now,” Cincinnatus said stubbornly. “You and me, we’re citizens of the United States. We weren’t never citizens of the Confederate States. We can try now. Maybe we don’t win, but maybe by the time my Achilles grows up, he be able to vote.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Apicius advised, “or you end up the bluest damn nigger anybody ever seen.”

That also sounded altogether too likely to suit Cincinnatus. But he was not a man to give in to trouble if he could get around it. And, as a U.S. citizen, he had more ways to try to get around it than he’d had as a Confederate resident. “I end up bangin’ my head against a stone wall here, I can move to one of them states where they do let black folks vote.” He didn’t know exactly which states allowed Negro suffrage, but a trip to the library would tell him.

He’d succeeded in startling Apicius. “You’d move up to one of them Yankee states?” The barbecue cook seemed to listen to himself, for he laughed. “Hellfire, this here’s a Yankee state these days, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, except most of the white folks here ain’t figured that out,” Cincinnatus answered. “So why the hell shouldn’t I move? Couldn’t be worse’n what I’ve got now, not in the USA it couldn’t”—the Confederate States were a different story altogether, and both men knew it—“so what’s keepin’ me here? Ought to throw my family in the truck and get on the road.”

“I seen that truck,” Apicius said. “If it ain’t one thing keepin’ you here, damned if I know what is. You be lucky to get over the river into Ohio, let alone anywheres else.”

“Maybe,” Cincinnatus said. “It is a shame and a disgrace, ain’t it?” But, even though he chuckled at the barb, the idea of packing up and leaving stayed in his mind. The more he thought about it, the better it seemed. He wouldn’t have to worry about Luther Bliss, or Apicius and the Reds, or the diehards. He’d seen that white people from the rest of the USA didn’t love Negroes—far from it—but white people in Kentucky didn’t love Negroes, either.

He wondered what Elizabeth would say if he proposed pulling up stakes. He wondered what his mother and father would say, too. All of a sudden, finding out didn’t seem like the worst idea in the world. He’d never cast a vote in his life. Being able to do that would be worth a lot.

“You got that look in your eye,” Apicius said.

“Maybe I do,” Cincinnatus answered. “God damn, maybe I do.”

“There are times when I’m stupid,” Jonathan Moss said, “and then there are times when I’m really an idiot.”

He looked around. The more he looked, the more this seemed like one of the times when he was really an idiot. Chicago winters were bad. He’d known about them. Winters up in Ontario were worse. He’d known about them, too. He’d shivered his way through three of them during the Great War. Hardly anything was more useless than the pilot of a flying scout in the middle of an Ontario winter.

“I can think of one thing, though,” he said, and his breath blew out in a great icy cloud, “and that’s a man who comes up here in December after a woman who can’t stand him—a married woman who can’t stand him, mind you.”

If he hadn’t done it, though, he would have wondered for the rest of his life. Now, one way or the other, he would know. He had his doubts about whether knowing would make him happy. It would make him sure, though, and that counted, too. So he’d told himself, at any rate, when he left law school.

Coming into the battered little town of Arthur now, he wondered. No town in Ontario through which the front had passed was anything but battered. The Canucks and the British had fought with dreadful intensity for every square foot of ground they’d held. In the end, that had done them no good at all. But the end came much slower and much, much harder than any American had dreamt it would before the war began.

People in heavy coats and fur hats stared at Moss’ sturdy Bucephalus as he halted the motorcar in front of the general store. If he’d been driving a lightweight Ford, say, he didn’t think he’d have been able to make his way north from Guelph; the road, such as it was, would have defeated him. Here he was, though, and Arthur, Ontario, and Laura Secord would have to make the best of it.

As he got out of the automobile, he wished for the furs and leathers in which he’d flown. He’d lived in them in wintertime. Under canvas, without even a proper roof over his head, they were the only things that had kept him from freezing to death. A cloth coat, even a cloth coat with a fur collar, wasn’t the same.

Inside the general store, a potbellied stove glowed a cheery red. The storekeeper was shoveling more coal into it as Moss came inside. He went from being too cold to too warm in the twinkling of an eye.

Setting down the coal shovel, the storekeeper said the same thing any small-town storekeeper in the USA might have said: “Help you, stranger?” Then his eyes narrowed. “No. Wait. You ain’t a stranger, or not quite. You were one o’ them Yank fliers at the aerodrome outside of town, weren’t you?”

“Yes.” Moss hadn’t expected to be recognized. He didn’t know whether that would make things easier or harder. The storekeeper would have been able to tell he was an American before long anyhow. Now the fellow knew which American, or which kind of American, he was. “How are you today, Mr. Peterson?”

“I’ve been better, but I’ve been worse, too,” the Canuck allowed. He fixed Moss with a flinty stare. “Other thing is, I’m mindin’ my business in the town where I’ve lived all my days. You can boil me for tripe before I figure out why the hell a Yank’d want to come back here. You all of a sudden recollect you left a collar stud over at the aerodrome, or what?”

All at once, Jonathan Moss felt very much alone. No American occupation forces were within miles. The troops had more important places to occupy than a little town in the middle of nowhere like Arthur. If he had an unfortunate accident here, nobody would ever find out anything about it except what the locals revealed. And if it turned out not to be quite so accidental as it looked…he would be in no position to explain.

Even so, he decided to grasp the nettle. He’d come here to ask this question. He’d planned on doing it a little later, but he’d seen no plan survived contact with the enemy. Straight ahead, then: “Did Laura Secord’s husband come home safe from the war?”

Peterson the storekeeper gave him another long look. “You’re
that
crazy Yank,” he said at last. “She told me there was one who’d come sniffing around her that was peskier than all the rest. Don’t reckon she ever thought you’d be pesky enough to come back here, though.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Mr. Peterson,” Moss said. Peterson went right on not answering it, too. With a sigh, Moss dug in his pocket. He pulled out a twenty-dollar goldpiece. After examining the double eagle for a moment, he let it fall on the counter. It rang sweetly. “You didn’t answer my question, Mr. Peterson,” he repeated.

The storekeeper studied the coin as if he’d never seen any like it before. Likely he hadn’t; not much U.S. gold would have got up here. The eagle in front of crossed swords on the reverse was close to the emblem with which U.S. aeroplanes flew. The legend below held one word:
REMEMBRANCE
. Peterson scooped up the double eagle and stuck it in his pocket. “She never said you were a
rich
fool of a Yank.”

“Thanks so much,” Moss replied. “Now will you please answer what I asked you?”

“Nope,” Peterson said. For a moment, Moss thought that meant he wouldn’t answer. The American wondered if he could get back his goldpiece without killing the storekeeper. As he was making up his mind to try, Peterson slowly went on, “No, Isaac ain’t come back. That should make her fall right straight into your arms, don’t you reckon?”

“Nope,” Moss said, imitating him. What Laura Secord had said the last time he’d seen her still scorched his memory. What
was
he doing here, anyway? Without another word, he spun on his heel and went back out to his automobile.

Winter slapped him in the face as soon as he opened the door to the general store. The sweat the red-hot stove had brought out on his forehead promptly started to freeze. He got into the Bucephalus and stabbed the starter button, silently thanking God he didn’t have to stand in the snowy street cranking the engine to life.

He drove out to the aerodrome; it was from there that he knew how to get to the farm Laura Secord had been running. He had some trouble finding the base from which he and his comrades had flown against the Canadians and British. They’d lived under canvas, and the canvas had moved along with the front. But he’d served in these parts through a winter, and so the ground began to look familiar after a while. One field, plainly rutted despite the snow on it, sent chills through him that had nothing to do with the weather. He’d jounced along there any number of times, taking off on missions and coming back afterwards. Now—how strange!—it was only a field again.

It was the field he needed, though. Instead of casting about, he drove confidently once he’d found it. Five minutes later, he pulled off a road even more rutted than the field and up a narrow lane that led to a farmhouse and barn and a couple of smaller outbuildings. The Bucephalus’ brakes reluctantly brought him to a halt not far from a stump with a hatchet driven into it. By that, and by the stains on the wood, he guessed it did duty for a chopping block.

He got out of the motorcar. Before he could head for the farmhouse door as he intended, a figure muffled to the eyes walked out of the barn. “Who’s coming to see me in a fancy automobile?” The demand was sharp and curious at the same time.

Hearing Laura Secord’s voice for the first time in a year and a half sent a shiver through him, as if he’d taken hold of a live electrical wire. The first time he tried to answer, all that came out was a hoarse cough. He felt sixteen years old again, calling on a girl for the first time. His hands and feet couldn’t suddenly have grown large and clumsy, but they felt as if they had. He took a deep breath and spoke again: “It’s Jonathan Moss, Miss Secord.”

He’d forgotten her married name—done his best to blot it from his mind. He wondered if she’d forgotten him altogether. He hadn’t seen her that many times, and he’d been far from the only American flier who’d seen her. But her sharp gasp said she remembered. “The mad Yank!” she exclaimed.

“I don’t think so,” he said, his breath steaming with every word.

“Well, you most certainly are,” she said. “Not mad for being a Yank—I don’t suppose you can help that—but mad for coming up here again. Why on earth did you? No matter how daft you are, you can’t have wanted to see this part of the world again—or can you?”

“No, I didn’t come here for that.” Moss took another deep breath. He wished he could take a drink, too. “I came up here to see you.”

“Oh, dear God,” Laura Secord said quietly. She gathered herself. “Didn’t you listen to a word I told you the last time you came here? If that’s not madness, I don’t know what is. You should have stayed wherever you were and gone on doing whatever you were doing.”

“I did that,” Jonathan Moss said. “For more than a year, I did that. When I couldn’t do it any more, I came.” He hesitated, then went on, “I heard in Arthur that your husband didn’t come home. I’m very sorry, for whatever that may be worth to you.”

“You decided to come up here without even knowing that?” she said in open astonishment, and he nodded. Maybe he was mad after all. She remarked, “He would have shot you, you know. He was very good with a rifle even before he went into the Army.” Moss didn’t say anything. He could think of nothing to say. Had she told him to go then, he would have got back into his motorcar and driven away without another word. Instead, she continued, “Come inside and have a cup of tea. I wouldn’t turn out a mongrel dog in this weather before he had a cup of tea.”

That did not strike him as the warmest commendation of his personal charms, if any, but it was kinder than anything she’d said to him the last time he was here. He followed her up the stairs and into the farmhouse. The stove was going in the kitchen, but not like the one in Peterson’s general store. Laura Secord shoveled in more coal, filled the teapot from a bucket, and set it on the stove. As she busied herself in readying cups and tea, she kept shaking her head. Doing his best to make light of things, Moss said, “I really am a harmless fellow.”

“If you really were a harmless fellow, you would have been shot down,” she retorted. Then she pointed to a chair by the table. “Sit, if you care to. I can get you bread and butter.” He sat and nodded. She served him, then tended to the tea when the pot started whistling.

No matter what he might have expected, the tea wasn’t particularly good. It
was
hot. He gulped it, savoring the warmth it brought. It helped unfreeze his tongue, too: he said, “I came to tell you that, if there’s ever anything you need—anything at all—let me know, and I’ll take care of it.”

“A knight in shining armor?” Her eyebrows rose.

Moss shook his head. “I thought of myself like that at the start of the war: a knight of the air, I mean. It didn’t last, of course. War’s a filthy business no matter how you fight it. But I’ll do that for you. So help me God, I will. You’re—special to me. I don’t know how else to put it.” He was more afraid of saying
love
than he had been of facing machine-gun bullets from a Sopwith Pup.

“You’d better go now,” Laura Secord said. She wasn’t reviling him, as she had the last time he’d come to her, but there was no give in her voice, either. “You mean to be kind; I’m sure you mean to be kind. But I don’t see how I can take you up on…any part of that generous offer. When I see you, I see your country, too, and your country has destroyed mine. Find yourself an American girl, one who can forgive you for that.” She laughed. “Melodramatic, isn’t it? But life is sometimes.”

He got to his feet. He’d known from the beginning the odds were against him—to put it mildly. “Here.” He pulled a scrap of paper and pencil from his pocket and scrawled down three lines. “This is my address. What I said still goes. If you ever need me, let me know.” He turned and left as fast as he could, so he wouldn’t have to watch her crumple up the paper and throw it away. Soon he was driving back toward Arthur, and then back past Arthur, toward the life he’d done his best to toss out the window. He kept telling himself he was lucky. He had a devil of a time making himself believe it.

“This feels good,” Reggie Bartlett said to Bill Foster as the two of them strolled through Richmond. “We haven’t done it as much lately as we used to.”

“Time has a way of getting on,” Foster said, and Reggie nodded. His friend went on, “And we’d stop in a saloon for a beer afterwards, too. When a beer costs twenty-five dollars instead of five cents, stopping in a saloon doesn’t seem like such a bully idea any more. My pay’s gone up, sure, but it hasn’t gone up as fast as prices have.”

“It never does,” Bartlett said with mournful certainty. This time, Bill Foster nodded. Reggie added, “And you’ve got to watch your money nowadays. After all, you’re going to be a married man this time next month, and Sally’s the sort of girl who deserves the best.”

“I only hope I’ll be able to give it to her.” Foster’s voice held worry. “How am I supposed to watch my money? All I can do is watch it go away. A dollar I put in the bank at the start of the year isn’t worth a quarter now, even with interest.”

“Watching money these days means spending it as soon as you get it,” Reggie replied. “If you do anything else, you watch it shrink, like you said.”