Part 36 (1/2)

After supper, Morrell stayed in the kitchen while his wife washed dishes. He enjoyed her company. They chatted while she worked, and then while she read a novel and he waded through reports. And then they went to bed.

Though he'd hardly been a virgin before saying ”I do,” Morrell's occasional couplings with easy women had not prepared him for the pleasures of the marriage bed. Every time he and his wife made love, it was as if they were getting reacquainted, and at the same time learning things about each other they hadn't known before and might have been a long time finding out any other way. ”I love you,” he said afterwards, taking his weight on elbows and knees while they lay still joined.

”I love you, too,” Agnes answered, raising up a little to kiss him on the cheek. ”And I love-this. And I would love you to get off me so I can get up and go to the bathroom, if that's all right.”

”I think so,” he said. Agnes laughed and poked him in the ribs. When she came back to bed, he was nearly asleep. Agnes laughed again, on a different note. She put on her nightgown and lay down beside him. He heard her breathing slow toward the rhythms of sleep, too. Feeling vaguely triumphant at staying awake long enough to notice that, he drifted off.

Anne Colleton had always fancied that she had a bit of the artist in her. Back before the war, she'd designed and arranged the exhibition of modern art she'd put on at the Marshlands mansion. Everyone had praised the way the exhibit was laid out. Then the world went into the fire, and people stopped caring about modern art.

Now Anne was working with different materials. This Freedom Party rally in Columbia would be one of the biggest in South Carolina. She was bound and determined it would also be the best. She'd done her best to get permission to hold the rally on the grounds of the State House, but her best hadn't been good enough. The governor was a staunch Whig, and not about to yield the seat of government even for a moment to Jake Featherston's upstarts. She'd hoped for better without really expecting it.

Seaboard Park would do well enough. Neither the governor nor the mayor nor the chief of police could ban the rally altogether, though they would have loved to. But the Confederate Const.i.tution guaranteed that citizens might peaceably a.s.semble to pet.i.tion for redress of grievances. The Freedom Party wasn't always perfectly peaceable, but it came close enough to make refusal to issue a permit a political disaster.

Tom Colleton touched Anne's arm. ”Well, Sis, I've got to hand it to you. This is going to be one devil of a bash.”

”Nice of you to decide to come up from St. Matthews and watch it,” Anne replied coolly. ”I didn't expect you to bother.”

”It's my country,” Tom said. ”If you remember, I laid my life on the line for it. I want to see what you and that maniac Featherston have in mind for it.”

”He's not a maniac.” Anne did her best to hold down the anger in her voice. ”I don't deal with maniacs-except the ones I'm related to.”

”Heh,” her brother said. But then he surprised her by nodding. ”I suppose you're right-Featherston's not a maniac. He knows what he wants and he knows how to go after it. You ask me, though, that makes him more dangerous, not less.”

Anne wondered and worried about the same thing herself. Even so, she said, ”When he does win, whether it's this year or not, he'll set the Confederate States to rights. And he'll remember who helped him get to the top.” Tom started to say something. She shook her head. ”Can't talk now. The show's about to start.”

Gasoline-powered generators came to life. Searchlights began to glow all around Seaboard Park. Their beams shot straight up into the air, making the park seem as if it were surrounded by colonnades of bright, pale light. Anne had come up with that effect herself. She was proud of it. Churches wished they made people feel the awe those glowing shafts inspired.

More electric lights came on inside the park. Tom caught his breath. They showed the whole place packed with people. Most of the crowd consisted of the ordinary working people of Columbia in their overalls and dungarees and cloth caps and straw hats, with a sprinkling of men in black jackets and cravats: doctors and lawyers and businessmen, come to hear what the new man in the land had to say.

At the front, though, near the stage a team of carpenters had spent the day running up, stood neat, military-looking ranks of young men in white s.h.i.+rts and b.u.t.ternut trousers. Many of them wore tin hats. If the Whigs and the Radical Liberals tried imitating Freedom Party tactics and a.s.sailing the rally, the protection squads would make them regret it.

The foremost rows of Party stalwarts carried flags-some Confederate banners, some C.S. battle flags with colors reversed, some white banners blazoned with the red word FREEDOM FREEDOM. The tall backdrop for the flag-draped stage was white, too, with FREEDOM FREEDOM spelled out on it in crimson letters twice as tall as a man. spelled out on it in crimson letters twice as tall as a man.

”You don't need to worry about investing money,” Tom said. ”You could make billions designing sets for minstrel shows and vaudeville tours. Christ, you might make millions even if Confederate dollars were really worth anything.”

”Thank you, Tom,” Anne Colleton said. She wasn't altogether sure whether he offered praise or blame, but took it for the former. ”Look-here comes Featherston.” Her own vantage point was off to the right, beyond the edge of the crowd, so she could see farther into the left wing than any of the regular audience. She tensed. ”If those spotlight men have fallen asleep on the job, G.o.d d.a.m.n them, they'll never work in this state again.”

But they hadn't. As soon as Jake advanced far enough to be visible to the crowd, twin spotlight beams speared him. One of the Freedom Party bigwigs from Columbia rushed to the microphone and cried, ”Let's hear it for the next president of the Confederate States, Jaaake Featherston Featherston!”

”Free-dom! Free-dom! Free-dom!” The rhythmic cry started among the stalwarts in white and b.u.t.ternut. At first, it had to compete with the unorganized cheers and clapping and the scattered boos from the larger crowd behind them. But the stalwarts kept right on, as they'd been trained to do. And, little by little, the rest of the crowd took up the chant, till the very earth of Seaboard Park seemed to cry out: ”Free-dom! Free-dom! Free-dom!”

The two-syllable beat thudded through Anne. She'd orchestrated this entire performance. Thanks to her, Jake Featherston stood behind the microphone, his hands raised, soaking up the adulation of the crowd. Knowing what she knew, she should have been immune to what stirred the thousands of fools out there. But, to her own amazement and rather to her dismay, she found she wasn't. She wanted to join the chant, to lose herself in it. The excitement that built in her was hot and fierce, almost s.e.xual.

She fought it down. The farmers and factory hands out there didn't try. They didn't even know they might try. They'd come to be stirred, to be roused. The ceremony had started that work. Jake Featherston would finish it.

He dropped his hands. Instantly, the Freedom Party faithful in white and b.u.t.ternut stopped chanting. The cries of ”Freedom!” went on for another few seconds. Then the people in the ordinary part-much the bigger part-of the crowd got the idea, too. A little raggedly, the chant ended.

Jake leaned forward, toward the microphone. Anne discovered she too was leaning forward, toward him. Angrily, she straightened. ”G.o.d d.a.m.n him,” she muttered under her breath. Tom gave her a curious look. She didn't explain. She didn't want to admit even to herself, let alone to anyone else, that Jake Featherston could get her going like that.

”Columbia,” Jake said. ”I want you all to know, I'm glad-I'm proud-to set foot in the capital of the first state of the Confederacy.” He talked in commonplaces. His voice was harsh, his accent none too pleasing. Somehow, none of that mattered. When he spoke, thousands upon thousands of people hung on his every word. Anne was one of them. She knew she was doing it, but couldn't help herself. Featherston was formidable in a small setting. In front of a crowd, he was much more than merely formidable.

Through cheers, he repeated, ”Yes, sir, I'm proud to set foot in the capital of the first state of the Confederacy-because I know South Carolina is going to help me, going to help the Freedom Party, give the Confederate States back to the people who started this country in the first place, the honest, hard-working white men and women who make the CSA go and don't get a dime's worth of credit for it. Y'all remember dimes, right? That'd be a couple million dollars' worth of credit nowadays, I reckon.”

The crowd laughed and cheered. ”He's full of c.r.a.p,” Tom said. ”The people who started this country were planters and lawyers, just about top to bottom. Everybody knows that.”

”Everybody who's had a good education knows that,” Anne said. ”How many of those folks out there do you figure went to college?” Before Tom could answer, she shook her head. ”Never mind now. I want to hear what he's going to say.”

”Now I know the Whigs are running Wade Hampton V, and I know he's from right here in South Carolina,” Featherston went on. ”I reckon some of you are thinking of voting for him on account of he's from here. You can do that if you want to, no doubt about it. But I'll tell you something else, friends: I thought this here was an election for president, not for king. His Majesty Wade Hampton the Fifth.” He stretched out the name and the number that went with it, then shook his head in well-mimed disbelief. ”Good Lord, folks, if we vote him in, we'll be right up there with the Englishmen and George V.”

”He is is good,” Tom said grudgingly as the crowd exploded into more laughter. Anne nodded. She was leaning forward again. good,” Tom said grudgingly as the crowd exploded into more laughter. Anne nodded. She was leaning forward again.

”Now, Hampton V means well, I don't doubt it for a minute,” Jake said. ”The Whigs meant well when Woodrow Wilson got us into the war, too, and they meant well when a War Department full of Thirds and Fourths and Fifths fought it for us, too. And you'd best believe they meant well when they stuck their heads in the sand instead of noticing the n.i.g.g.e.rs were going to stab us in the back. If you like the way the war turned out, if you like paying ten million dollars for breakfast-this week; it'll be more next Wednesday-go right ahead and vote for Wade Hampton V. You'll get six more years of what we've been having.

”Or if you want a real change, you can vote for Mr. Layne. The Radical Liberals'll give you change, all right. I'll be...switched if they won't. They'll take us back into United States, is what they'll do. Ainsworth Layne went to Harvard, folks-Harvard! Can you believe it? It's true, believe it or not. And the Rad Libs want him to be president of the CSA CSA? I'm sorry, friends, but I've seen enough d.a.m.nyankees come down on us already. I don't need any homegrown ones, thank you kindly.”

That drew more laughter and applause than his attack on Wade Hampton had done. The Radical Liberals, though neither very radical nor very liberal, had always been weak in hard-line South Carolina. Were Hampton not a native son, Anne would have thought Jake Featherston the likely winner here. Even with things as they were, she thought he had a decent chance to take the state.

Featherston went on, ”The Whigs and the Rad Libs both say we have to learn from the war, to take what the Yankees dish out on account of we're not strong enough to do anything else. What I say is, we have to learn from the war, all right. We have to learn that when we hit the United States, we have to hit 'em hard and we have to keep on hitting 'em till they fall down! They've stolen big chunks of what's ours. I give you my word, friends-one fine day, it's going to be ours again!”

The crowd exploded. Anne caught herself shouting at the top of her lungs. She thirsted for revenge against the USA. She glanced over toward her brother. Tom was shouting, too, his fist pumping the air. Whatever he thought of Jake Featherston and the Freedom Party, he wanted vengeance on the United States, too. That yen for revenge brought together people in the CSA who had nothing else in common. With luck, it would bring them together under the Freedom Party banner.

”Free-dom! Free-dom! Free-dom!” The stalwarts began the chant as Jake stepped back from the microphone. It swelled until the whole huge crowd bellowed the word as if it came from a single throat. Anne looked at Tom again. He was shouting it, too. She'd been shouting it till she made a deliberate effort of will and stopped. All of Columbia could hear that furious roar. By the time November came, all of the Confederate States would hear it.

Roger Kimball whistled cheerfully as he tucked his white s.h.i.+rt into a pair of b.u.t.ternut trousers. A lot of Freedom Party leaders didn't care to join in the brawling that had marked the Party's rise. Kimball shrugged. He'd never backed away from a fight, and he'd gone toward a good many. And Ainsworth Layne was speaking in Charleston tonight, or thought he was.

”I need a tin hat,” Kimball said, b.u.t.toning his fly. A helmet was useless aboard a submersible. It was a handy thing to have with clubs and rocks flying, though.

He picked up his own club and headed for the door. He was about to open it when somebody knocked. He threw it wide. There stood Clarence Potter. The former intelligence officer eyed him with distaste. ”If you don't agree with what I have to say, you could simply tell me so,” Potter remarked.

”I don't agree with what you have to say,” Kimball snapped. ”I don't have time to argue about it now, though. Can't be late.”

Potter shook his head. ”When we first got to know each other, I thought better of you. You were a man who wanted to build up his country, not a ruffian tearing down the fabric of the republic. We used to talk about riding Jake Featherston. Now he rides you-and you're proud of it.”

”He doesn't ride me,” Roger Kimball said. ”We're both going the same way, that's all.”

”Toward riot and mayhem.” Potter pointed to the stout bludgeon in Kimball's hand. Then he added, ”Toward murder, too, maybe.”

”Clarence, I had nothing to do with Tom Brearley going up in smoke,” Kimball said evenly. ”I don't miss him, but I didn't have anything to do with it. Far as I know”-he carefully hadn't asked Featherston any questions-”the Freedom Party had nothing to do with it, either. The jury found those fellows up in Richmond innocent.”

”No, the jury found them not guilty, which isn't close to the same thing,” Potter answered. ”And if the jury had found anything different, how many out of those twelve do you suppose would be breathing today?”

”I don't know anything about that. What I do know is, maybe you'd better not come around here any more.” Kimball hefted the club.

Potter had very little give in him. Kimball had seen as much when they first met in a saloon. The club didn't frighten him. ”You needn't worry about that,” he said. Slowly and deliberately, he turned his back and walked away.

Kimball pulled his watch out of his pocket. Good-he wasn't late yet. He frowned, then set the watch on a table by the door. Some of the Radical Liberals were liable to have clubs, too, and that could be hard on a timepiece.