Harry Turtledove - Return engagement

From the way the papers and the wireless news in Covington, Kentucky, were crowing, Cincinnatus Driver feared that the U.S. offensive in Virginia had come to grief. He didn't completely trust the papers or the wireless; he'd seen they told more lies than a husband coming home with lipstick on his collar and whiskey on his breath. But Lucullus Wood was gloomy, and he had more ways of knowing than what the papers and the wireless said.

Cincinnatus made a habit of visiting Lucullus' barbecue joint every so often. If the police ever asked him what he was doing there, he could truthfully say he was a regular and have witnesses to back him up. How much good that would do him he didn't know, but it couldn't hurt.

Lucullus often came out from the back of the place and sat with him when he did show up. Cincinnatus got the feeling the cook who was more than a cook was looking for somebody to talk to, somebody who he could be sure wouldn't go to the police with whatever he said.

"Yeah, the USA screwed up," Lucullus said mournfully. "Got over the Rappahannock, but they ain't over the Rapidan yet, an' I dunno if they ever git that far. All depends on how much bleedin' they wanna do."

"Great War was like that," Cincinnatus said after swallowing a bite from his barbecued-pork sandwich. "This here one wasn't supposed to be. Goddamn Confederates done it right."

"Yeah, well…" Lucullus' broad shoulders went up and down in a shrug. "Where they went, they caught the Yankees by surprise. Daniel MacArthur sure didn't surprise them none." He took a swig of coffee, as if to wipe a bad taste from his mouth.

"Too bad," Cincinnatus said: a two-word epitaph for the Lord only knew how many men and how many hopes.

"Uh-huh. You said it. Too bad is right." By the way Lucullus agreed, his hopes were among those that lay bleeding between the two Virginia rivers.

Trying to change the subject, Cincinnatus asked, "You ever run across Luther Bliss?"

Lucullus had been raising the coffee cup again. It jerked in his hand-only a little, but Cincinnatus saw. "Funny you should ask me that," the barbecue cook said. "He come in here the other day."

"Is that a fact?" Cincinnatus said. Lucullus nodded. Cincinnatus wagged a finger at him. "And you called me a liar when I said he was back in town."

Lucullus shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, looks like I was wrong."

"Looks like," Cincinnatus agreed. "What did he want?"

The other man hesitated. Cincinnatus understood that: the less Lucullus said, the less anybody could tear from him. At last, the barbecue cook answered, "He's interested in makin' trouble for folks he don't like an' we don't like."

For the Confederates, Cincinnatus thought. "Do Jesus!" he said, as if astonished such an idea could have crossed Luther Bliss' mind.

Hearing the sarcasm, Lucullus made a sour face. "He want you to know more, I reckon he tell you more his ownself."

That put Cincinnatus in his place, all right. The last thing he wanted was Luther Bliss telling him anything at all. He'd hoped he would never see the secret policeman again. Like so many of his hopes, that one had been disappointed. He changed the subject once more: "You ever find out anything more about them trucks?"

"They usin' 'em in the camps," Lucullus replied. "They usin' 'em to ship niggers between the camps. Now you knows as much as I does." He didn't sound happy confessing his ignorance.

"Well, that explains it, then," Cincinnatus said. It did for him, anyhow. "They use 'em in the camps, they reckon that's important-maybe even important enough to take 'em away from the Army."

"Maybe." But Lucullus sounded deeply dubious. "But what they use 'em for?"

"You done said it yourself: to ship niggers from one place to the next."

"Yeah, I done said it. But it don't add up, or it don't add up all the way. They already had trucks for that kind o' work. Ordinary Army trucks with shackles on the floor… You put a nigger in one o' them, he ain't goin'nowhere till you let him loose. How come they change, then?" Lucullus was as suspicious of change as the most reactionary Freedom Party man.

Cincinnatus could only shrug. "They don't always do stuff on account of it makes sense. Sometimes they just do it for the sake of doin' it, you hear what I'm sayin'?"

"I hears you. I just don't think you is right," the barbecue cook answered. "What the Freedom Party does don't always make sense to us. But it always make sense to them. They gots reasons fo' what they does."

That made sense to Cincinnatus. He wished it didn't, but it did. He said, "But you don't know what those reasons are?"

"No. I don't know. I ain't been able to find out." By the way Lucullus said it, he took not knowing as a personal affront.

Cincinnatus said something he didn't want to say: "You reckon Luther Bliss knows?"

Lucullus started to answer, then checked himself. He eyed Cincinnatus with pursed lips and a slow nod. "Your mama didn't raise no fools, did she?"

"My mama-" Cincinnatus broke off. What his mother had been bore no resemblance to the husk she was these days.

"I'm sorry 'bout your mama now. That's a tough row to hoe. I didn't mean it like that," Lucullus said. Cincinnatus made himself nod, made himself not show most of what he was thinking. Lucullus went on, "I ain't talked to Bliss about none o' this business. Didn't cross my mind to. Didn't, but it damn well should have. Reckon I will next time I sees him."

"All right. Meanwhile-" Cincinnatus got to his feet. He was smoother at it than he had been even a few weeks earlier, and it didn't hurt so much. Little by little, he was mending, but he didn't expect to try out for a football team anytime soon. "Meanwhile, I'll be on my way."

"You take care o' yourself, you hear?" Lucullus said.

"Do my best," Cincinnatus said, which promised exactly nothing. "You be careful, too, all right?"

The barbecue cook waved that aside. "Ain't the time for nobody to be careful. Time to do what a man gotta do. If you ain't a man at a time like this, I don't reckon you is a man at all."

That gave Cincinnatus something to chew on all the way home. It was tougher and less digestible than the sandwich he'd eaten, but it too stuck to the ribs. Three airplanes buzzed high overhead: C.S. fighters on guard against U.S. bombers sneaking over the border by daylight. Bombers mostly came by night, when the danger facing them was smaller. Back East, where defenses were concentrated, day bombing was suicidal. Here, though, the country was wider and airplanes and antiaircraft guns fewer and farther between. Raiders from both sides could sometimes cross the border, drop their bombs, and scoot before the enemy hunted them down.

Cincinnatus always looked both ways before crossing the street. The cane in his right hand and the pain that never went away were reminders of what happened when he didn't. So was the brute fact that he and his father and mother remained stuck in Covington instead of being safe in Des Moines, far away from the war and from the Freedom Party.

"Hello, son," Seneca Driver said when Cincinnatus came in. The older man looked as gloomy as Cincinnatus felt.

"Hello. How's Ma?" Cincinnatus asked.

"Well, she sleepin' right now." His father sounded relieved. Cincinnatus understood that. When his mother was asleep, she wasn't getting into mischief or wandering off. She didn't do anything out of malice, or even realize what she was doing, but that was exactly the problem. Seneca went on, "How is things down to Lucullus'?"

"They're all right." Cincinnatus stopped and did a double take. "How you know I was there?"

"I ain't no hoodoo man. I ain't no Sherlock Holmes, neither," his father said. "You got barbecue sauce on your chin."

"Oh." Cincinnatus felt foolish. He pulled a rumpled handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at himself. Sure enough, the hankie came away orange.