Most places in the USA, Negroes-a relative handful, not close to a third of the population as they were in the CSA-had to take a back seat to whites, as they did in the Confederacy. Bartlett figured the damnyankees were piling one last humiliation on his comrades and him. He also figured he would survive it-and that he would catch hell if he complained about it. That made keeping quiet look like a smart idea.
The Yankees also made no distinction between white and black C.S. prisoners on the train that set out from Missouri toward Richmond. Reggie and Rehoboam ended up sitting side by side in a crowded, beat-up coach. Bartlett resigned himself to that, too, and told himself it wouldn’t be so bad. They knew each other, anyhow; after weeks of lying across the aisle from each other, they couldn’t help it.
Until it crossed into Virginia, the train stayed in territory that had belonged to the USA before the war began. Reggie stared out through the dirty window glass at countryside Confederate soldiers hadn’t been able to reach or damage. Here and there, in Cincinnati and a couple of other towns, he did see craters and wrecked buildings that had taken bomb hits, but not till the train got into central Pennsylvania, more than a day after it set out, did the landscape take on the lunar quality with which he’d grown so unpleasantly familiar.
“We fought like hell here,” he remarked to Rehoboam.
“Reckon we did,” the Negro answered, “or you white folks did, anyways. Yankees licked you just the same.”
Bartlett sighed; he could hardly argue with that. He did say, “We might have done better if you Red niggers hadn’t jumped on our backs while we were fighting the USA.”
“Mebbe,” Rehoboam said. “You might’ve did better if you didn’t go an’ make all the black folks in the country hate you like pizen, too.”
Since that held only too much truth, Reggie forbore from replying. He kept looking out the window. Maryland seemed just like Pennsylvania, a hell of wreckage and shell craters and forests smashed to toothpicks. The smell of death was fresher there, and filled the train. And when he rolled through Washington, D.C., he stared and stared. The whole city was a field of rubble, with most of the buildings knocked flat and then pounded to pieces. The stub of the Washington Monument stuck up from the desolation all around like a broken tooth in a mouth otherwise empty.
Rehoboam gaped at what was left of Washington, too. “Didn’t see nothin’ like this here in Arkansas,” he allowed. “This here, this is a hell of a mess.”
“Didn’t see anything like this in Sequoyah, either,” Bartlett said. “But in the Roanoke valley, especially around Big Lick-we saw plenty of it there. Too many men smashed together into too small a space, with no room for anybody to give way, that’s what does it. Over across the Mississippi, the fighting didn’t get this crowded. The Yankees and us had more room to move.”
“When we was fightin’ to keep ’em away from Memphis, it got plenty bad, but not like this,” Rehoboam said. “No, ain’t never seen nothin’ like this.”
After the train crossed the Potomac on a pontoon bridge and went into Virginia, Reggie expected the devastation to be even worse than it had been in Yankee country. For the most part, it wasn’t. It was fresher, but not worse. After a little while, he thought he understood why: by the time the fighting moved down into Virginia, U.S. forces had gained such a preponderance over those of the CSA that the Army of Northern Virginia had to give ground before it and everything around it were pounded completely flat. A war of movement didn’t tear up the landscape so badly as one of position.
And then, as soon as the train got south of the reach of U.S. guns, the countryside was the one Reggie had always known, with only an occasional bomb crater to remind him of the war. Coming into Richmond, though, brought it home once more. U.S. aeroplanes had done their worst to the capital of the Confederate States. Richmond was in better shape than Washington, but it wouldn’t win prizes any time soon.
“Check the signboards for trains going toward your home towns!” railroad officials-or perhaps they were government functionaries-shouted.
To his own surprise, Reggie reached out to shake Rehoboam’s hand. The Negro took the offered hand, looking a little surprised himself. “Good luck to you,” Reggie said. “I don’t care if you are a Red, or not too much. Good luck.”
“Same to you,” Rehoboam said. “You ain’t the worst white man I ever run acrost.” He made that sound like high praise.
They got off the train together. Rehoboam slowly headed toward a platform from which a train would leave for Mississippi. He didn’t need to hurry; it wasn’t scheduled to head out for another six hours, and might well run late. Bartlett left the station. He would have to stay in his parents’ home till he found work.
A taxi driver hailed him: “Hey, pal, take you anywhere in town for three beans. Won’t find anybody cheaper.”
“Three dollars?” Reggie stared at him as if he’d started talking Hindustani. The paymaster back at the hospital had known what he was talking about. Bartlett’s hand went into his pocket and closed on a coin. “I’ll give you a quarter, U.S.”
“Deal,” the driver said at once.
Reggie wondered if he’d offered too much. By the way the cabbie bounced out of the motorcar-a Birmingham that had seen better days-and held the door open for him, he probably had. He clicked his tongue between his teeth. No help for it now. He gave the driver his parents’ address.
“Hope you didn’t get hurt too bad,” the cab driver said, evidently recognizing the kind of clothes Bartlett had on. Reggie only grunted by way of reply. Not a bit put out, the driver asked, “What’ll you do now that you’re home?”
“Damned if I know,” Reggie said. “Try and find my life again, I reckon.” By the way the cabbie nodded, he’d heard that answer plenty of times already.
Colonel Irving Morrell scrambled down into the Confederate works that would have defended Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Without soldiers in them, the trenches seemed unreal, unnatural. Before the armistice, Morrell would have had to pay in blood, and pay high, for the privilege of examining them. Now he had Colonel Harley Landis, CSA, as his personal guide.
Not that Landis was delighted with the job. “If I had my choice, Colonel,” he said, “the only excavation of ours I’d show you would be six feet by three feet by six feet deep.” He raised an eyebrow. “Nothing personal, of course.”
“Of course,” Morrell agreed with a dry chuckle. “Believe me, if you were going through our trenches outside Chicago, I’d feel the same way.”
“Chicago?” The Confederate officer snorted ruefully. “In my dreams, maybe. You have the stronger power. We aimed at nothing more than defending ourselves.”
Now Morrell was the one to arch his brows. “Aimed at Philadelphia, you mean. Aimed at Kansas, too, for that matter, and Missouri. Talk straight, Colonel, if you don’t mind. This poor-little-us business wears thin after the War of Secession and the Second Mexican War.”
Colonel Landis stared at him. “But surely you can see…” He checked himself, then shook his head. “Maybe not-who knows? But if you can’t, the world must seem a very strange place from the Yankee side of the hill.”
“Looking at the world from the other fellow’s side of the hill is always a useful exercise.” Morrell regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Landis was an enemy-Landis was the enemy. If he hadn’t figured that out for himself, why hand it to him?
Fortunately, his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. “All we’ve tried to do is hold you back a little and keep up with you ourselves. You Yankees have got to be the pushingest people in the whole wide world.”
“Thank you,” Morrell said, which made his Confederate counterpart’s mouth twist: Landis hadn’t meant that as a compliment. Morrell held his smile inside. Too bad.