If even he was thinking about what might have been instead of what would be now—if that was so, the Freedom Party was in deep trouble. A man with a limp—
wounded veteran,
Jake judged—came toward him along Franklin. Jake nodded to him—he still had plenty of backers left, especially among men who’d fought like him.
“Freedom!” the fellow said by way of reply, but he loaded the word with loathing and made an obscene gesture at Jake.
“You go to hell!” Featherston cried.
“If I do, I’ll see you there before me,” the man with the limp answered, and went on his way.
“Bastard,” Jake muttered on his breath. “Fucking bastard. They’re all fucking bastards.” Then he saw a crowd on the sidewalk ahead and forgot about the heckler. “What the hell’s going on here, Ferd?”
“Damned if I know,” Koenig answered. “Shall we find out?”
“Yeah.” Jake elbowed his way to the front of the crowd, ably assisted by his former running mate. He’d expected a saloon giving away free beer or something of that sort. Instead, men and women were trying to shove their way into…a furniture store? He couldn’t believe it till Ferdinand Koenig pointed to the sign taped in the window:
NEWEST MAKES OF WIRELESS RECEIVERS, FROM
$399.
“They’re all the go nowadays,” Koenig said. “Even at those prices, everybody wants one.”
“I’ve heard people talking about them,” Featherston admitted. “Haven’t heard one myself, I don’t think. I’ll be damned if I can see what the fuss is about.”
“I’ve listened to ’em,” Koenig said. “It’s—interesting. Not like anything else you’ll ever run across, I’ll tell you that.”
“Huh.” But, having got so close to the store’s doorway, Featherston decided not to leave without listening to a wireless receiver. More judicious elbowing got him and Koenig inside.
The receivers were all big and boxy. Some cabinets were made of fancier wood than others; that seemed to account for the difference in price. Only one machine was actually operating. From it came tinny noises that, after a bit, Jake recognized as a Negro band playing “In the Good Old Summertime.”
“Huh,” he said again, and turned to the fellow who was touting the receivers. “Why would anybody want to listen to this crap, for God’s sake?”
“Soon, sir, there will be offerings for every taste,” the salesman answered smoothly. “Even now, people all over Richmond are listening to this and other broadcasts. As more people buy receivers, the number of broadcasts and the number of listeners will naturally increase.”
“Not if they keep playing that garbage,” Ferdinand Koenig said. He nodded to Featherston. “You were right—this is lousy.”
“Yeah.” But Jake had listened to the salesman, too. “All over Richmond, you say?”
“Yes, sir.” The rabbity-looking fellow nodded enthusiastically. “And the price of receivers has fallen dramatically in the past few months. It will probably keep right on falling, too, as they become more popular.”
“People all over Richmond,” Jake repeated thoughtfully. “Could you have people all over the CSA listening to the same thing at the same time?”
To his disappointment, the salesman replied, “Not from the same broadcasting facility.” But the fellow went on, “I suppose you could send the same signal from several facilities at once. Why, if I might ask?”
Plainly, he didn’t recognize Featherston. “Just curious,” Jake answered—and, indeed, it was hardly more than that. Behind his hand, he whispered to Koenig: “Might be cheaper to make a speech on the wireless than hold a bunch of rallies in a bunch of different towns. If we could be sure we were reaching enough people that way—”
One of the other customers in the shop was whispering behind
his
hand to the salesman. “Oh?” the salesman said. “He
is
?” By the tone of voice, Jake knew exactly what the customer had whispered. The salesman said, “Sir, I am going to have to ask you to leave. This is a high-class establishment, and I don’t want any trouble here.”
“We weren’t giving you any trouble.” Featherston and Koenig spoke together.
“You’re from the Freedom Party,” said the customer who’d recognized Jake. “You don’t have to give trouble. You
are
trouble.”
Several other men from among those crowding the shop drifted toward the fellow. A couple of others ranged themselves behind Featherston. “Freedom!” one of them said.
“I am going to call for a policeman if you don’t leave,” the salesman told Jake. “I do not want this place broken apart.”
If breaking the place apart would have brought the Party good publicity, Featherston would have started a fight on the spot. But he knew it wouldn’t—just the opposite, in fact. The papers would scream he was only a ruffian leading a pack of ruffians. They hadn’t talked about him and the Party like that when he was a rising power in the land, or not so much, anyhow. Now they thought they scented blood. He wouldn’t give them any blood to sniff.
“Come on, Ferd,” he said. “If anybody starts trouble, it won’t be us.”
“Look at the cowards cut and run,” jeered the man who’d recognized him. “They talk big, but they don’t back it up.”
He never knew how close he came to getting his head broken and his nuts kneed. Jake’s instinct was always to hit back at whoever and whatever struck at him, and to hit harder if he could. Only a harsh understanding that that would bring no advantage held him back.
“One day,” he growled once he and Ferdinand Koenig were out on Franklin again, “one fine day I’m going to pay back every son of a bitch who ever did me wrong, and that loud-mouthed bastard will get his. So help me God, he will.”
“Sure, Sarge,” Koenig said. But he didn’t sound sure. He sounded like a man buttering up his boss after said boss had come out with something really stupid. Featherston knew flattery when he heard it, because he heard it too damn often. He hadn’t heard it much from Koenig, though.
Sourly, he studied the man who’d run for vice president with him. He and Koenig went back to the old days together, to the days when the Freedom Party operated out of a cigar box. If Koenig hadn’t backed him, odds were the Party would still be a cigar-box outfit. Koenig was as close to a friend as he had on the face of the earth. And yet…
“If you don’t fancy the way things are going, Ferd, you can always move on,” Jake said. “Don’t want you to feel like you’re wearing a ball and chain.”
Koenig turned red. “I don’t want to leave, Jake. I’ve come too far to back out now, same as you. Only…”
“Only what?” Featherston snapped.
“Only Moses got to the top of the mountain, but God never let him into the Promised Land,” Koenig said, going redder still. “Way things are these days, I don’t know how we can win an election any time soon.”
“We sure as hell won’t if people lie down and give up,” Jake said. “Long as we don’t quit, long as we keep fighting, things will turn our way, sooner or later. It’ll take longer now than I reckoned it would in 1921; I’d be a liar if I said anything different. But the time is coming. By God, it
is
.”
Koenig grunted. Again, the sound failed to fill Featherston with confidence. If even the man closest to him had doubts, who was he to be sure triumph did lie ahead? He shrugged. He’d kept firing against the damnyankees up to the very last minute. He would struggle against fate the same way.
There ahead lay Capitol Square, with its great statues of George Washington and Albert Sidney Johnston. Pointing, Jake said, “Look at ’em, Ferd. If Washington had given up, we’d still belong to England. And Johnston died so the Confederate States could be free. How can we do anything else and still look at ourselves in the mirror afterwards?”
“I don’t know,” Koenig said. “But you don’t see people building statues to what’s-his-name—Cornwallis—or to General Grant, the Yankee who licked Johnston. Damned if I know what happened to Cornwallis. Grant died a drunk. They were both big wheels in their day, Sarge.”
“And we’ll be big wheels in ours.” Jake understood what Koenig was saying, but wouldn’t admit it even to himself. Admitting it would mean he might also have to admit he wasn’t sure whether he’d end up among the winners or the losers when the history books got written. He couldn’t bear that thought.
“Hope you’re right,” Koenig said.
“Hell, yes, I’m right.” Jake spoke with great assurance, to convince not only his follower but also himself. Ferdinand Koenig nodded. If he wasn’t convinced, Featherston couldn’t prove it, not from a nod.
And what about you?
Jake asked himself. He’d been—the Freedom Party had been—
that
close to seizing power with both hands. Now, with Wade Hampton dead, with the Confederate currency sound again…He kicked at the sidewalk. The Party should have gone forward again in 1923. Instead, he counted himself lucky, damn lucky, it hadn’t gone further back.
Could things turn around? Of course they
could
—that was the wrong question. How likely were they to turn around? Coldly, as if in a poker game, he reckoned up the odds. Had he been in a poker game, he would have thrown in his cards. But the stakes here were too high for him to quit.
“It’ll work out,” he said. “Goddammit, it
will
work out.” He did his best to sound as if he meant it.
Books by Harry Turtledove
THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH
THE WORLDWAR SAGA
WORLDWAR: IN THE BALANCE
WORLDWAR: TILTING THE BALANCE
WORLDWAR: UPSETTING THE BALANCE
WORLDWAR: STRIKING THE BALANCE
COLONIZATION
COLONIZATION: SECOND CONTACT
COLONIZATION: DOWN TO EARTH
COLONIZATION: AFTERSHOCKS
HOMEWARD BOUND
THE VIDESSOS CYCLE
THE MISPLACED LEGION
AN EMPEROR FOR THE LEGION
THE LEGION OF VIDESSOS
SWORDS OF THE LEGION
THE TALE OF KRISPOS
KRISPOS RISING
KRISPOS OF VIDESSOS
KRISPOS THE EMPEROR
NONINTERFERENCE
KALEIDOSCOPE
A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE
EARTHGRIP
DEPARTURES
HOW FEW REMAIN
THE GREAT WAR
THE GREAT WAR: AMERICAN FRONT
THE GREAT WAR: WALK IN HELL
THE GREAT WAR: BREAKTHROUGHS
AMERICAN EMPIRE
AMERICAN EMPIRE: BLOOD AND IRON
AMERICAN EMPIRE: THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD
AMERICAN EMPIRE: THE VICTORIOUS OPPOSITION
SETTLING ACCOUNTS
RETURN ENGAGEMENT
THE BEST MILITARY HISTORY STORIES OF THE 20TH CENTURY (editor)
THE BEST ALTERNATE HISTORY STORIES OF THE 20TH CENTURY (editor)
Read on for an excerpt from
American Empire:
THE CENTER
CANNOT HOLD
by
Harry Turtledove
Lieutenant Colonel Abner Dowling strode into the offices of the U.S. Army General Staff in Philadelphia, escaping the January snow outside. He was a big, beefy man—unkind people, of whom he’d met altogether too many, would have called him fat—and walked with a determination that made other, younger, officers get out of his way, even though his green-gray uniform bore not a trace of the gold-and-black ribbon that marked a General Staff man.
He looked around with more than a little curiosity. He hadn’t been in General Staff headquarters for many years—not since before the Great War, in fact. He’d spent the past ten years as adjutant to General George Armstrong Custer, and Custer’s relationship with the General Staff had always been…
combustible
was the first word that came to mind. The first printable word, anyhow.
But Custer was retired now—retired at last, after more than sixty years of service in the Army—and Dowling needed a new assignment.
I wonder what they’ll give me. What ever it is, it’s bound to be a walk in the park after what I’ve gone through with Custer.
Anything this side of standing sentry on the battlements of hell would have seemed a walk in the park after ten years with Custer. The man was unquestionably a hero. Dowling would have been the first to admit it. Nevertheless…
He tried not to think of Custer, which was like trying not to think of a red fish. Then he got lost—General Staff headquarters had expanded a great deal since his last visit. Having to ask his way did take his mind off his former superior. At last, by turning left down a corridor where he had turned right, he made his way to the office of General Hunter Liggett, chief of the General Staff.
Liggett’s adjutant was a sharp-looking lieutenant colonel named John Abell. When Dowling walked into the office, the fellow was talking on the telephone: “—the best we can, with the budget the Socialists are willing to let us have.” He looked up and put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Yes, Lieutenant Colonel? May I help you?”
“I’m Abner Dowling. I have a ten o’clock appointment with General Liggett.” By the clock on the wall, it was still a couple of minutes before ten. Dowling had built in time for things to go wrong.
Custer never did anything like that. Custer never figured anything would go wrong.
Dowling shook his head.
Don’t think about Custer.
Lieutenant Colonel Abell nodded. “Go right in. He’s expecting you.” He returned to his interrupted telephone conversation: “I know what we should be doing, and I know what we are doing. There will be trouble one day, but they’re too sure of themselves to believe it.”
However much Dowling wanted to linger and eavesdrop, he went on into General Liggett’s inner office and closed the door behind him. Saluting, he said, “Reporting as ordered, sir.”
Hunter Liggett returned the salute. He was a jowly man in his mid-sixties, with a penetrating stare and a white Kaiser Bill mustache waxed to pointed perfection. “At ease, Lieutenant Colonel. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.”
“Thank you, sir.” Dowling eased his bulk down into a chair.
“What are we going to do with you?” Liggett said. It had to be a rhetorical question; the answer surely already lay there on his desk. He went on, “You’ve seen a lot these past few years, haven’t you? By now, I suspect, you could handle just about anything. Couldn’t you, Lieutenant Colonel?”
Dowling didn’t like the sound of that. “I hope so, sir,” he answered cautiously. Maybe he wouldn’t get a walk in the park after all. “Ahh…What have you got in mind?”
“Everyone is very pleased with your performance in Canada,” General Liggett said. “The assistant secretary of war, Mr. Thomas, spoke highly of you in his report to President Sinclair. He wrote that you did your best to make a difficult and unpleasant situation go more smoothly. Any time a soldier wins praise from the present administration, he must have done very well indeed.”
“Thank you, sir.” Dowling remembered that Liggett had become chief of the General Staff during the present Socialist administration, replacing General Leonard Wood. That made him watch his tongue. “I’m glad Mr. Thomas was pleased. I didn’t really do that much. Mostly, I just sat there and kept my mouth shut.” N. Mattoon Thomas had come up to Winnipeg to force General Custer into retirement. Custer hadn’t wanted to go; Custer never wanted to do anything anyone told him to do, and he thoroughly despised the Socialists. But they’d held the high cards, and he hadn’t.
“Well, what ever you did say, Mr. Thomas liked it,” Liggett said. “He wrote of your tact and your discretion and your good sense—said if you were a diplomat instead of a soldier, you’d make a splendid ambassador.” Liggett chuckled. “Damn me to hell if you’re not blushing.”
“I’m flattered, sir.” Dowling was also embarrassed. Like a lot of fat men, he flushed easily, and he knew it.
General Liggett went on, “And it just so happens that we have a post where a man with such talents would be very useful, very useful indeed.”
“Does it? Do you?” Dowling said, and Liggett gave him a genial nod. Dowling had a fair notion of where such a post might be. Hoping he was wrong, he asked, “What have you got in mind, sir?”
Sure enough, Liggett said, “I’ve had to relieve Colonel Sorenson as military governor of Salt Lake City. He’s an able officer, Sorenson is; don’t get me wrong. But he turned out to be a little too…unbending for the position. By President Sinclair’s orders, we are
trying
to bring Utah back towards being a normal state in the Union once more. A tactful, diplomatic officer running things in Salt Lake could do us a lot of good there.”
“I…see,” Dowling said slowly. “The only trouble is, sir, I’m not sure I think Utah
ought
to be a normal state in the Union once more.” The Mormons in Utah had caused trouble during the Second Mexican War, back at the start of the 1880s—as a result of which, the U.S. Army had landed on them with both feet. Then, in 1915, perhaps aided and abetted by the Confederates and the British from Canada, they’d risen in open rebellion. The Army had had to crush them one town at a time, and had made a peace only in the Tacitean sense of the word, leaving desert behind it.
“Between you and me and the four walls of my office, Lieutenant Colonel, I’m not sure I think so, either,” Liggett answered. “But the Army doesn’t make policy. That’s the president’s job. All we do is carry it out. And so…would you like to be the next military governor of Salt Lake City?”
Maybe I should have been a nasty son of a bitch when I was working for Custer,
Dowling thought. But he said what he had to say: “Yes, sir.” After a moment, he added, “If I’m being diplomatic…”
“Yes?” Liggett asked.
“Well, sir, wouldn’t you say the good people of Salt Lake City might see it as an insult to them if a full colonel were replaced by a lieutenant colonel?” Dowling said. “Couldn’t it lead them to believe the United States Army finds them less important than it once did?”
Amusement glinted in Liggett’s eyes. “And how do you propose to make sure the good people of Salt Lake City—if there are any—don’t find themselves insulted?”
“I can think of a couple of ways, sir,” Dowling replied. “One would be to appoint somebody who’s already a bird colonel as military governor there.”
“Yes, that stands to reason,” Liggett agreed. “And the other?” He leaned back in his swivel chair, which squeaked. He seemed to be enjoying himself, waiting to hear what Dowling would say.
Dowling had hoped the chief of the General Staff would come out and say it for him. When Liggett didn’t, he had to speak for himself: “The other way, sir, would be to promote me to the appropriate rank.”
“And you think you deserve such a promotion, eh?” Liggett rumbled.
“Yes, sir,” Dowling said boldly.
After ten years with Custer, I deserve to be a major general, by God.
And if he said no, he knew he’d never be promoted again.
General Liggett shuffled through papers on his desk. Finding the one he wanted, he shoved it, face down, across the polished expanse of mahogany to Dow\p\pling. “This may be of some interest to you, then.”
“Thank you,” Dowling said, wondering if he ought to thank Liggett. He turned the paper over, glanced at it—and stared at his superior. “Thank you very much, sir!” he exclaimed.
“You’re welcome, Colonel Dowling,” Liggett replied. “Congratulations!”
“Thank you very much,” Dowling repeated. “Uh, sir…Would you have given me this if I hadn’t asked for it?”
Liggett’s smile was as mysterious as the Mona Lisa’s, though a good deal less benign. “You’ll never know, will you?” His chuckle was not a pleasant sound. He found another sheet of paper, and passed it to Dowling, too. “Here are your orders, Colonel. Your train goes out of Broad Street Station tomorrow morning. I’m sure you’ll do a fine job, and I know for a fact that General Pershing is looking forward to having you under his command.”
“
Do
you?” All of a sudden, Dowling’s world seemed less rosy. During the war, Pershing’s Second Army had fought side by side with Custer’s First in Kentucky and Tennessee. The two armies had been rivals, as neighbors often are, and their two commanders had been rivals, too. Custer was suspicious of his younger colleague, as he was suspicious of any other officer who might steal his glory. Dowling had forgotten Pershing was military governor of Utah these days.
“I think I know what’s bothering you, Colonel,” Liggett said. If anyone knew about rivalries, the chief of the General Staff would be the man. He went on, “You don’t have to worry, not on that score. I meant what I said: General Pershing is eager to have you.”
But what will he do with me—to me—once he’s got me?
Dowling wondered. He couldn’t say that. All he could say was, “That’s good to hear, sir.”
“Which means you don’t believe me,” Liggett said. “Well, that’s your privilege. You may even be right. I don’t think you are, but you may be.”
Dowling was by nature a pessimist. If he hadn’t been before, ten years under General Custer would have made him one. “I’ll do the best I can, sir, that’s all,” he said.
And what ever Pershing does to me, by God, I’ll have eagles on my shoulder straps. That makes up for a lot.
General Liggett nodded. “As long as you do that, no one can ask any more of you.”
“All right, sir.” Dowling started to rise, then checked himself. “May I ask you one more thing, sir? It’s got nothing to do with Mormons.”
“Go ahead and ask,” Liggett told him. “I don’t promise to answer, not till I’ve heard the question.”
“I understand. What I want to know is, are we really cutting back on building new and better barrels? I’ve heard that, but it strikes me as foolish.” Like most professional soldiers, Dowling had no use for the Socialist Party. There, as in few other places, he agreed with the man under whom he’d served for so long. He would have expressed himself a lot more strongly had he been talking with General Leonard Wood, a lifelong Democrat and a friend of ex–President Theodore Roosevelt.
But Liggett nodded again, and didn’t sound happy as he answered, “We aren’t just cutting back, as a matter of fact. We’re gutting the program. No money in the budget any more. That outfit at Fort Leavenworth called the Barrel Works…” He slashed a thumb across his throat. “As our German friends would say,
kaputt
.”
“That’s—unfortunate, sir.” Dowling used the politest word he could. “Barrels won us the last war. They won’t count less in the next one.”
“Don’t be silly, Colonel. There’ll never, ever be another war. Just ask President Sinclair.”
He’s still a soldier first, then,
Dowling thought.
Good.
Both men laughed. But for the bitter undertone in each one’s voice, the joke might have been funny.
“This is Anne Colleton,” she said crisply. She was in her mid-thirties. With her sleek blond good looks, she could have lied ten years off her age with no one the wiser—till she spoke. Few people younger than she—few her own age, for that matter, but even fewer younger—could have so quickly made plain they put up with no nonsense at all.
“And a good day to you, Miss Colleton,” replied the man on the other end of the line. By the hisses and pops accompanying his voice, he was calling from some distance away. He went on, “My name is Edward C.L. Wiggins, ma’am, and I’m in Richmond.”
Long distance, sure enough,
Anne thought—he sounded as if he were shouting down a rain barrel. “What is it, Mr. Wiggins?” she said. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
“No, ma’am, I haven’t had the pleasure,” he agreed, “but the Colleton name is famous all over the Confederate States.”
He doubtless meant that as pleasant flattery. Anne Colleton had heard enough pleasant flattery to last the rest of her life by the time she was sixteen—one consequence of her looks men seldom thought about. “You can come to the point, Mr. Wiggins,” she said pleasantly, “or I’ll hang up on you no matter where you are.”
“Once upon a time, President Semmes sent me up to Philadelphia to see if I could dicker a peace with the Yankees, but they wouldn’t do it,” Wiggins said.
That wasn’t coming to the point, or Anne didn’t think it was, but it did get her attention. “This would have been fairly early on, before we finally had to quit?” she asked.
“That’s right, ma’am,” he said.
“I heard rumors about that,” she said. “With all the money I gave the Whigs in those days, I would have thought I deserved to hear something more than rumors, but evidently not. So you were representing President Semmes, were you?”
“Yes, ma’am, in an unofficial sort of way.”
“And whose representative are you now, in an unofficial sort of way? I’m sure you’re somebody’s.”
Edward C.L. Wiggins chuckled. “I heard you were one clever lady. I guess I heard right.”
“Who told you so?” Anne asked sharply.
“Well, now, I was just getting to that. I—”
Anne did hang up then. She wasted not a minute getting back to work. With her finances in the state they were, they needed all the time she could give them. They needed more than that, too: they needed something close to a miracle. She wasn’t a pauper, as so many prewar planters were these days. But she wasn’t rich enough not to have to worry, either, and she didn’t know if she ever would be.