Harry Turtledove - Drive to the East

The white men fanned out. They weren’t quite soldiers, but they knew how to take charge of a situation. The three-striper (he wasn’t officially a sergeant; the Freedom Party guards had their own silly-sounding names for ranks) barked, “Let’s see your passbooks, niggers!”

No black in the CSA could go anywhere or do anything without showing the book first. It proved he was who he was and that he had the government’s permission to be where he was and do what he was doing. Cincinnatus dug his out of the back pocket of his dungarees. He handed it to the gray-uniformed white man who held out his hand. The guard checked to make sure his photo matched his face, then checked his name against a list.

“Hey, Clint!” he exclaimed. “Here’s one we’re looking for!”

Clint was the noncom in charge of the squad. He pointed his submachine gun at Cincinnatus, then gestured with the weapon. “Over here, nigger! Move nice and slow and easy, or that spook back of the bar’s gonna have to clean you off the floor.”

Cincinnatus couldn’t move any way but slowly. The noncom was careful not to let him get close enough to lash out with his cane. He hadn’t planned to anyhow. He might knock the gun out of the man’s hand, but then what? He wasn’t likely to shoot all the Freedom Party guards before one of them filled him full of holes. He couldn’t run, either, not with his ruined leg. He was stuck.

They hauled him away in a paddy wagon. He felt some small relief when they took him to a police station, not a Freedom Party meeting hall. The police still stood for law, no matter how twisted. The Party was a law unto itself, and beyond anyone else’s reach.

And a police captain rather than a Freedom Party guard questioned him. “You know a man named Luther Bliss?” the cop demanded.

That told Cincinnatus which way the wind was blowing. “I sure do, an’ I wish to Jesus I didn’t,” he answered.

“Oh, yeah? How come?” The policeman exuded skepticism.

“On account of he lured me down here and threw me in jail back in the Twenties,” Cincinnatus said, which was nothing but the truth. He didn’t like and didn’t trust Luther Bliss. He never had and never would. The U.S. secret policeman and secret agent with the hunting-hound eyes was too singlemindedly devoted to what he did.

His reply seemed to take the policeman by surprise. “How come?” the cop repeated. “He reckon you was a Red nigger?”

“Hell, no.” Cincinnatus sounded as scornful as a black man in a Confederate police station dared. Before his interrogator could get angry, he explained why: “Reds didn’t bother Luther Bliss none back then. They weren’t out to overthrow the USA. Bliss was afraid I was too cozy with Confederate diehards.”

“Nigger, we can look all this shit up. If you’re lyin’, you’re dyin’,” the cop growled.

“Why you reckon I’m telling you this stuff? I want you to look it up,” Cincinnatus said. “Then you see I ain’t done nothin’ to hurt the CSA.” The one didn’t follow from the other, but he hoped with all his heart that the policeman wouldn’t see that.

His attitude did confuse the white man, anyhow. He sounded a little less hostile when he asked, “You seen Bliss since?”

That was a dangerous question, because the answer was yes. Since Luther Bliss was one of the worst enemies the Confederates had in Kentucky, Cincinnatus would be suspected for not reporting that he’d spotted him. Cautiously, he said, “I done heard tell he was in town, but I ain’t set eyes on him. Don’t want to set eyes on him, neither.” The last sentence, at least, was true.

If the Confederates asked the right questions of the right people, they could show the rest was a lie. The cop pointed a warning finger at Cincinnatus. “Don’t you go nowhere. I’m gonna check up on what you just told me. What happens next depends on whether you were tryin’ to blow smoke up my ass. You got me?”

“Oh, yes, suh. I surely do,” Cincinnatus said. “An’ I ain’t goin’ nowhere.” He almost laughed at the policeman. If the fellow thought he could just waltz out of the station, that didn’t say much for how alert the Covington police usually were.

He sat there in the little interrogation room and worried. After a while, he needed to use the toilet-the Jax he’d drunk was taking his revenge. He stuck his head out the door and asked another cop if he could. He was afraid the white man would say no, if only to pile more discomfort and indignity on him. But the cop took him down the hall, let him do his business, and then led him back.

Cincinnatus had almost started to doze when his interrogator came back. “Well, looks like you weren’t lying about your run-in with Bliss,” he said grudgingly. He pointed an accusing finger at Cincinnatus. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been living in Iowa? Why the hell didn’t you get your black ass back there when you had the chance? What have you been doin’ here since you came back?” He seemed sure Cincinnatus’ answer would have to be something incriminating.

“Suh, I been takin’ care o’ my mama, an’ my pa’s been taking care o’ me.” Cincinnatus explained how he’d returned to Kentucky to get his parents out, and what had gone wrong. He finished, “You don’t believe that, go check the hospital.”

“I seen you walk. I know you’re screwed up some kind of way,” the cop said.

“Do Jesus! That is the truth!” Cincinnatus said.

“I know what we ought to do with you,” the policeman told him. “We ought to send you over the damn border. If the Yankees want you, they’re welcome to you. Sounds like all you want to do is get the hell out, and take your ma and pa with you. The longer you stay here, the more likely you are to get in trouble.”

Hope flowered in Cincinnatus. He needed a moment to recognize it; he hadn’t felt it for a long time. He said, “Suh, you do that for me, I get down on my knees to thank you. You want me to kiss your foot to thank you, I do that. I was laid up when I could have taken my folks out of here. By the time I could get around even a little bit, the border with the USA was closed.”

“I’ll see what we can cook up,” the policeman said. “We deal with the damnyankees every now and then under flag of truce. If they want to let you cross the border, we’ll let you go.”

“Suh, when them guards grabbed me, I reckoned I was a dead man,” Cincinnatus said, which was also nothing but the truth. “But you are a Christian gentleman, an’ I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

“Don’t get yourself all hot and bothered yet,” the police captain said. “These things don’t move fast. When we’ve got to talk to the Yankees or they’ve got to talk to us, though, you’re on the list. For now, go on home and stay out of trouble.”

“Yes, suh. God bless you, suh!” Cincinnatus had dished out a lot of insincere flattery to white men in his time. He didn’t know any Negroes in the CSA-or, for that matter, in the USA-who hadn’t. It was part of life for blacks in both countries. Here, though, he meant every word of what he said. This Confederate cop hadn’t had to do anything for him. Cincinnatus had expected the man to do things to him. Maybe the policeman thought he would turn subversive if he stayed in the CSA. (Fortunately, the man didn’t know he’d already turned subversive.) Whatever his reasons, he wanted Cincinnatus out of the CSA and back in the USA. Since Cincinnatus wanted the same thing…

Since he wanted the same thing, he didn’t even complain about the long walk home. It didn’t hurt as much as it might have, either. When he got there, he found his father almost frantic. “What you doin’ here?” Seneca Driver exclaimed, eyes almost bugging out of his head in disbelief. “Some damnfool nigger done tol’ me them Freedom Party goons grab you.”