Harry Turtledove - Blood and iron

"We can come back," Jake insisted. As long as he believed it, he could make other people believe it. If enough other people believed it, it would come true.

He and Koenig turned right from Seventh onto Franklin and walked on toward Capitol Square. Jake's hands folded into fists. After the war was lost-thrown away, he thought-discharged soldiers had almost taken the Capitol; only more soldiers with machine guns had held them at bay. A good bloodbath then would have been just what the CSA needed.

And in 1921 he'd come so close to storming his way into power in spite of everything the Whigs and all their Thirds and Fourths and Fifths could do to stop him. Sure as hell, he would have been elected in 1927. He knew he would have been-if not for Grady Calkins.

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.