Armstrong trotted out what he thought was the clincher: "'Sides, we kill all the whites down here, nobody'll be left to go bushwhacking, right?"
"Shit, now you're talkin' like a Confederate nigger," Squidface said. "We do that, won't be anybody left alive down here."
"Wouldn't break my heart." Armstrong wiped his face with his sleeve. The sleeve came away wet-big surprise. "Best thing they could do with this country is give it back to the possums and the gators."
Squidface laughed, but he wouldn't give up on the argument-what better way to kill time? He suggested a reason to leave some Confederates alive: "Nobody gets laid any more if we kill all the women. Some of the ones we grease are cute. That's a waste of good pussy."
"How come you haven't come down venereal yet?" Armstrong asked.
"Same reason you haven't, I bet," Squidface answered. "I'm lucky. And when I figure maybe I won't be lucky, I'm careful. The broads down here, they're nothin' but a bunch of whores."
"They lost," Armstrong said, which went a long way towards explaining things. He added, "A lot of 'em, their husbands or boyfriends aren't coming back, either."
He supposed he had been lucky. He'd got an education down here that was a hell of a lot more enjoyable than anything they'd tried to cram down his throat in high school. He hadn't cared about English lit or medieval history or practical math. This-this was stuff he wanted to learn.
The one thing he was glad about was that none of the women who'd enlightened him had come before his firing squad. That would have been worse than embarrassing, and it might have landed him in trouble. Orders against what the brass called fraternization had gone out. Getting anyone to listen to them was another story.
"Far as I'm concerned, it's the same now as it was when we were shooting at each other," he said. "I just want to serve out my hitch, take off the goddamn uniform, go back home, and figure out what the hell to do with the rest of my life."
"Want to hear somethin' funny?" Squidface said.
"I'm all ears," Armstrong answered.
"Me, I'm thinkin' about turning into a lifer."
"Jesus Christ! C'mon with me, buddy. I'm taking you to the aid station. You're down with something worse than the clap. You've got softening of the brain, damned if you don't."
"Nah. I been thinkin' about it," Squidface said. "Thinkin' hard, too. Say I go back to Civvy Street. What's the best thing that can happen to me?"
"You get out of the Army," Armstrong answered at once.
"Yeah, and then what? Best thing I can see is, I spend the next forty years working in a factory, I find some broad, we have some kids and get old and fat together. Big fucking deal, pardon my French."
That was, in broad outline, the future Armstrong saw for himself, too. It didn't seem so bad-but, when Squidface laid it out, it didn't seem so good, either. But when the other choice was staying in…"Would you rather get your balls shot off instead? I already got one Purple Heart. That's about five too many."
"It won't be as bad now as it was," Squidface said. "What I figure is, if I stay in, I can end up a top kick pretty goddamn fast. They're gonna lose all kinds of senior noncoms-some of those sorry assholes are Great War retreads, and they ain't gonna stick around. People'll call me First Sergeant Giacopelli, not Squidface. I'll get to tell lieutenants where to head in. Even captains won't look at me like I'm dogshit on the bottom of their shoe. I'll have more fruit salad on my chest than the mess hall has in cans."
"You're gonna do what you're gonna do," Armstrong said. "Don't figure I can talk you out of it. Hell, I wish you luck, if it's what you really want. But I'm not gonna go that route."
"You'll end up in an office somewhere, with a secretary to blow you if your wife won't. You're a smart guy," Squidface said. "I'm just a sap from the wrong side of the tracks. Army's the first place I ever got anything like a square deal."
"If I'm so smart, what am I doing here?" Armstrong asked. Squidface laughed. Armstrong wished he hadn't made the crack about secretaries. His own father had worked in a Washington office since time out of mind. Armstrong didn't have any reason to think his old man was unfaithful, but now he'd wonder. That wasn't so good.
Then somebody let out a yell, and Armstrong and Squidface both jumped up to see what was going on. The guy who yelled was a captain. Seeing Armstrong, he said, "Gather up your platoon, Grimes, and take 'em into Hugo. We've got trouble there."
"Yes, sir," Armstrong said, and then, "Can you tell me what kind of trouble, so they know what to look out for?"
"There's a gal says a nigger raped her. He says she gave it up, and she only started yelling when somebody saw him leaving her house. All the white folks in town want to hang him up by the nuts. Before we got down here, they'd hang a coon for whistling at a white woman, let alone fucking her."
"What are we supposed to do, exactly?" Armstrong asked.
"He's in the town jail. Don't let 'em haul him out and lynch him. We're still figuring out what really happened-trying to, anyway. So that's what's going on. Go deal with it. Do whatever you have to do to hold the jail. White folks here have to know we're the law in these parts nowadays. They aren't. Got it?"
"Yes, sir," Armstrong replied-the only possible answer. Go deal with it, he thought. Right. Turning to Squidface, he said, "Let's round 'em up."
"Sure, Sarge." Squidface said the only thing he could.
They tramped into Hugo in full combat gear, weapons loaded and ready. Finding the jail was the easiest thing in the world-it was the building with the mob in front of it. A squad of scared-looking U.S. soldiers in the jail looked as if they didn't think they could hold the mob out if it attacked. They might well have been right, too.
"Break it up there!" Armstrong yelled from behind the crowd of irate Alabamans. "Go home!"
They whirled, almost as one. For a second, he wondered if they would charge his men. The sight of so many more soldiers in green-gray-and so many automatic weapons-seemed to give the locals pause. "We want the nigger!" one of them yelled. Then they all took up the cry: "We want the nigger!"
"Well, you aren't gonna get him," Armstrong said. "He's ours to deal with, once we work out what really went on. You people go on home. First, last, and only warning: we start shooting, we don't quit."
"What he done to that white gal, just killin's too good for him!" shouted a man with a gray mustache stained by tobacco juice. "We're gonna-"
"You're gonna shut the fuck up and go home right now, or you're gonna end up dead," Armstrong broke in. "Those are the only choices you got. We'll deal with the colored guy, or maybe with the whore he was trickin' with." That caused fresh tumult. He silenced it by chambering a round. The harsh snick! cut through the crowd noise like a sharp knife through soft sausage. "Enough of this shit," Armstrong said. "Beat it!"
He wondered if they would rush him in spite of everything. He also wondered if he and his buddies could shoot enough of them to break the rush before they got mobbed. Then, sullenly, the crowd dispersed. They were willing to kill to defend Confederate womanhood, but less enthusiastic about dying for it.
"Whew!" Armstrong said.
"Yeah." Squidface nodded. "Ain't you glad the war's over?"
"Christ, we almost started it up again," Armstrong said. "And you want to keep on doing crap like this? You gotta be out of your tree."
"Hey, I won't be bored, anyway," Squidface made light of it, but he wasn't about to change his mind. "Got a butt on you?"
"Sure." Armstrong handed him a pack. "Wonder if that coon really did give her the old what-for?"
"Who cares?" Squidface paused to flick his Zippo, sucked in smoke, and went on, "Way I look at it is, all the shit these white Freedom Party assholes gave the spades, who gives a shit if they get some of their own back eight inches at a time?"