Harry Turtledove - Drive to the East

He was avenged. After a couple of years without any movement, he’d doubted he ever would be. And so? he wondered. Was he any happier because this woman was dead? He would gladly have killed her, yes, but was he happier? Slowly, he shook his head. That wasn’t the right word. He’d never be happy, not thinking of Laura and Dorothy dead. But he had a sense of satisfaction he hadn’t known before. It would have to do.

Of course it will, you fool. It’s all you’ll ever get. His wife and his daughter wouldn’t come back. And neither would the woman who’d sent them the bomb. From what the Confederate newspaper said, she had a husband and a little boy. They’d miss her the way he missed his wife and daughter. There was no end to this. Try as you would to find one, there wasn’t any.

He read the story over and over. Rosenfeld, Manitoba… That rang a bell. He nodded to himself. Wasn’t that where that fellow tried to blow up General Custer and ended up blowing himself up instead? Moss was pretty sure it was, though it had happened almost twenty years earlier. Was this gal any relation to that bomber? He didn’t remember the fellow’s name, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t Pomeroy. But then, the woman was married, and the paper didn’t say anything about her maiden name.

It wouldn’t. If she was related to the other Rosenfeld bomber, that would make her a murderer from a family of murderers. Somebody like that wouldn’t draw sympathy even from the Confederates. And so, if it was true, the C.S. propaganda machine just ignored it.

Here came that guard again. He had another one in tow. The second man, as Jonathan saw when he got closer, was an officer. He strode up to Moss. “What’s this I hear?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” Moss answered. “What do you hear?”

“Conley here tells me you’re related to the people this woman the Yankees shot is alleged to have blown up.”

“Alleged?” The word made Moss furious. “I heard the explosion. I saw the building-and some of the other people she hurt while they were getting out. I buried what was left of my wife and little girl. Don’t you talk to me about alleged, goddammit.”

The guard officer gave back a pace. He hadn’t expected such vehemence. Well, too bad for him, Moss thought. Weakly, he said, “How do you know she really did it?”

“I don’t know for sure.” Now Moss did some paper-waving of his own. “But I’m a lawyer. It sure looks beyond a reasonable doubt to me.”

“A lawyer? How’d you get captured? Couldn’t run away fast enough?” The officer laughed at his own wit.

“I’m a fighter pilot. I fought at the front line or on your side of it,” Moss answered coldly. “I wasn’t making like a hero in a prison camp hundreds of miles away.” The guard officer retreated in disorder.

Moss started to throw the Atlanta paper to the ground, then checked himself. It might not be anything he’d wanted to keep-he had his vengeance, and now he knew it, but the price he’d paid! — but that didn’t mean the paper was useless. Torn into strips, it would come in handy at the latrine trenches.

He didn’t intend to say anything about the story to his fellow POWs. It was none of their business. But either the guard who’d given him the paper or the officer he’d routed must have blabbed, for the other prisoners found out about it even though he kept his mouth shut.

Every so often, one of them would come up to him, clap him on the back, and say something like, “You got your own back. That’s good.”

They meant well. He knew as much. That didn’t keep him from losing patience. Finally, after about the fourth time it happened, he snapped. “What do you mean, got my own back?” he growled at a luckless first lieutenant. “If I had my own back, I’d still be married. I’d still have my little girl. And I’d probably still be up in Canada.”

“Sorry, sir,” the lieutenant said stiffly, and he retreated as fast as the Confederate guard officer had. After that, fewer prisoners sounded sympathetic, which suited Moss fine.

In fact, fewer prisoners wanted anything to do with him. That also suited him fine-till he got a summons from the senior U.S. officer, a colonel named Monty Summers. “See here, Moss,” he said, “no man is an island.”

“Sir, isn’t it a little early in the morning for John Donne?” Moss asked.

“It’s never too early for the truth,” Summers said, which proved he’d never been a lawyer. “We don’t want you solitary. It’s not good for you, and it’s not good for the camp, either.”

“I’ll worry about me, sir,” Moss said, “and the camp can take care of itself, as far as I’m concerned.”

Summers snorted in exasperation. He was a corn-fed Midwesterner who’d been captured in Ohio when the war was new. He had sandy hair going gray, ruddy cheeks, blue eyes, and a rock of a chin that he stuck out whenever he wanted to make a point. He stuck it out now. “You haven’t got the right attitude,” he said.

“Sorry, sir,” said Moss, who wasn’t. “It’s the only one I’ve got.”

“Well, you’d damn well better change it.” Summers sounded as if that were as easy as changing a flat tire. He aimed his chin at Moss again. “We’re still in the war. We’re still fighting the Confederates. We’re all in this together. We’re a team, dammit. And you let the team down if you don’t play along. Don’t you want to help drive these fucking goons nuts?”

“Well…” Moss nodded. “All right, Colonel. Maybe you’ve got a point.”

“You’d better believe I have,” Summer said. “If we weren’t all on the ball, for instance, we’d have Confederate spies raising all kinds of trouble.”

“How do you know we don’t?” Moss asked.

“There are ways.” The senior U.S. officer spoke with assurance. “There are ways, but they don’t work unless everybody’s on the ball. Have you got that?”

“Yes, sir,” Moss said.

“All right, then.” Monty Summers’ nod seemed amiable enough. “I won’t say anything more about it, then. A word to the wise, you know.” He seemed to like other people’s distilled wisdom.

Moss went on much as he had before-but not quite. He’d never been a back-slapping gladhander. He never would be, either. But he did try to stop making his fellow captives actively dislike him. They seemed willing enough to meet him halfway. He started hearing more camp gossip, which gave him something to chew on, if nothing else.

Nick Cantarella sidled up to him one warm spring morning. “How you doing, Major?” he asked.

“Not too bad,” Moss answered. “How’s yourself?”

“I’ve been worse. Of course, I’ve been better, too. This isn’t exactly my favorite place,” Cantarella said.

“I wouldn’t come here on vacation, either,” Moss said, and Cantarella laughed. Moss added, “The only people who like it here are the guards. They’re too dumb not to-and they get to carry guns, but nobody’s going to shoot back at them.” He was thinking of the officer he’d routed. Cantarella laughed again, even more appreciatively this time. Moss started to laugh, too, but swallowed the noise in a hurry. Captain Cantarella was somehow involved in escape plans-if there were any escape plans to be involved in. As casually as Moss could, he asked, “What is your favorite place?”

“New York City,” Cantarella replied at once.

With his accent, that didn’t surprise Moss at all. Still casually, the fighter pilot asked, “How soon do you expect to see it again?”

Cantarella didn’t answer right away. He scratched his cheek. Whiskers rasped against his fingernails; he was a man who got five o’clock shadow at half past one. Then he said, “Well, sir, I hope I don’t have to sit out the whole goddamn war here.”