Harry Turtledove - Liberating Atlantis

He couldn't remember when he'd seen anyone of any color worse for wear than Lorenzo was now. The copperskin's hands trembled. The whites of his eyes were almost as yellow as egg yolks. Like fertile egg yolks, they were tracked with red. Even inside Frederick's tent, Lorenzo squinted as if the dim light were much too bright. He spoke in something close to a whisper-the sound of his own voice seemed enough to hurt his ears. He moved very carefully, as though pieces might break off if he bumped into anything.

"Hell of a spree," Frederick remarked, his tone as neutral as he could make it.

"And so?" Lorenzo replied. Frederick had never heard a whispered snarl before.

"You be able to talk to the white folks when we start dickering again?" Frederick asked. That was the only question that counted.

Lorenzo gave back the ghost of a grin. "Yes, Mother."

"Ahhh…" Frederick made a disgusted noise, down deep in his throat. No matter what Lorenzo thought, he did need to know such things.

But the copperskin went on, "Matter of fact, I've been talkin' with 'em while I was drunk."

"What? With one of their soldiers in Slug Hollow?" Frederick was glad his marshal felt like talking with a white man instead of trying to murder him. Even drunk, Lorenzo was much too likely to succeed. And if he did, that was much too likely to touch the fighting off again.

Lorenzo shook his head, then winced: sure as the devil, moving anything must have hurt. "Nah," he said. "With one of the big fellas-that Stafford asswipe."

"You… talked with… Jeremiah Stafford?" Disbelief clogged the way Frederick's words came out. The Negro couldn't imagine why the war leader hadn't hurled himself at the southern Consul's throat.

No matter what Frederick couldn't imagine, Lorenzo nodded… gingerly. "Sure did," he said. "He was as toasted as I was, pretty near. Had some rum that'd strip the paint off a wall in nothin' flat." He smacked his lips, remembering.

"How about that?" Frederick said. Along with Isn't that interesting?, it was one of the handful of phrases that wouldn't land anybody in trouble. A plantation owner's black butler often found a use for phrases like that.

"Yeah. How about that?" In Lorenzo's mouth, by contrast, the phrase became one of wonder. "You know something else? He ain't such a bad fellow."

"How about that?" Frederick repeated. Now wonder filled his voice, too. Lorenzo couldn't have surprised him more if he'd said that Jeremiah Stafford was really a woman under his clothes.

"It's a fact. Damned if it ain't," the copperskin declared.

It was no such thing. It was what Lorenzo thought right this minute. Frederick understood the difference, whether Lorenzo did or not. What Frederick didn't come within miles of understanding was why Lorenzo thought so right this minute. Since he didn't, he asked him.

"Why? I'll tell you why-on account of him and me, we think the same way," Lorenzo answered.

If that wasn't a judgment on the copperskin, what would be? Frederick had no idea. "How do you mean?" he inquired.

"Well, I'll tell you-it was like this," Lorenzo said. "When I seen him, first thing I thought was I ought to murder this stinking shithead."

"I believe that," Frederick said. It was almost the first thing Lorenzo'd said that he did believe.

"And you know what?" the war leader continued. "First thing he thought was I should murder this God-damned copperskin."

"I believe that, too," Frederick said. As far as he could see, the only reason Consul Stafford didn't want to murder every Negro and copperskin in the USA was that, if he did, nobody would be left to do the hard, sweaty work white folks didn't care to do for themselves. Stafford scared him more than any of his other opponents. He asked, "Why didn't you try? Why didn't he try?" If they were both falling-down drunk, what could possibly have held them back?

Lorenzo proceeded to tell him: "I didn't, on account of I was worried that, if I just left him there dead, the white bastards were liable to come up with somebody who's smarter and meaner."

"Mm," Frederick said-even How about that? wouldn't do. Stretching his mind, he could imagine the whites coming up with somebody smarter than Stafford, though the Consul from Cosquer was nobody's fool. But meaner? Frederick didn't think such a thing was possible. He hoped it wasn't.

"And do you know what?" Lorenzo said. "Do you know?"

"No. What?" Frederick said.

"He told me the only reason he didn't go for me was because he was afraid we'd find somebody better. Is that funny, or is that funny?"

"That's funny, all right," Frederick agreed, though he didn't feel like laughing. Could he replace Lorenzo at need? If something happened to the copperskin, he'd have to try. Would any other insurrectionist make as good a general? Frederick Radcliff feared the answer was no.

"He gave me some of his rum to drink, and I gave him some of the tanglefoot I had." Lorenzo shook his head again: small motions this time, ones that might not hurt so much. "I was a fool to mix 'em. My damned head wouldn't want to fall off so bad if I stuck to whiskey."

"You drink enough of it, and it'll get to you any which way," Frederick said.

"Well, yeah, but…" Lorenzo sighed. "You know what I want now? I want the scale of the snake that bit me, that's what. Got any?"

"Not in here," Frederick said.

"I'm gonna go get me some, then." Lorenzo turned back toward the tent flap.

"Take it easy this time," Frederick warned.

"Yes, Mother," the copperskin said once more. He added, "I pour down that much shit two days in a row, I'm liable to wake up dead tomorrow morning."

"Doesn't stop some people," Frederick said. More than a few of the people it didn't stop were copperskins.

But Lorenzo said, "I bet Stafford's lookin' for the scale of the snake right now, too. Like I say, he's quite a fella." Away he went, muttering a low-voiced curse at the bright sunshine outside.

"Quite a fella," Frederick echoed. He wished he did have something strong inside the tent now. He didn't feel like getting drunk, but he sure could have used a knock.

Things were going better than Leland Newton had dreamt they could. His colleague from Cosquer had stuck to his agreement that the slaves in the USA would have to be freed. Newton hadn't really expected that. He knew Stafford had got head-over-heels drunk after agreeing, but he hadn't thought even getting drunk would make him go on.

Go on Stafford did, though. Something might have happened while he was drunk. If it had, the Consul from Cosquer didn't want to talk about it. Newton had probed a couple of times, as discreetly as he knew how. He wasn't discreet enough. Stafford rebuffed every query.

Newton did notice Stafford and Lorenzo the copperskin eyeing each other whenever the two sides met in the tumbledown tavern. They still differed, often loudly, but they didn't seem ready-no, eager-to go at each other with knives any more. Newton asked Stafford about that, too.

"Oh, he's a rotten copperskin, but he's not such a bad fellow," the other Consul answered.

"You never said anything like that before," Newton observed.

Stafford only shrugged. "If we're going to make this work, we need to make it work," he replied, and Newton couldn't very well quarrel with that.

Agreeing that Negroes and copperskins needed to be free turned out to be the easy part of the bargain. Agreeing on what that freedom meant and how far it should stretch proved much harder.

Frederick Radcliff knew what he wanted. "If we're gonna be equal, we gotta be equal," he said, over and over again. "Anything a white man can do, a black man or a copperskin has to be able to do. If you can vote, we can vote. If you can make contracts, we can make contracts. If you go to school, we go to school with you. We especially need to go to school, on account of you people wouldn't let us do that for so long."