Seeing Cassius-and seeing his rifle-they wasted no time raising their hands. "We ain't people bombs or nothin', Rastus," one of them said. "Cross my heart we ain't." He lowered his right hand for a moment to make the gesture.
"My name ain't Rastus," Cassius retorted. But, again, as long as they didn't wear camouflage or call him nigger or boy, he was willing if not precisely eager to let them give up.
The same soldier in green-gray still stood at the entrance to the POW camp when Cassius brought in his next set of captives. "Son of a bitch!" the Yankee said. "You're turning into a one-man gang!"
"They know they's licked," Cassius said. "Don't bother 'em to give up now, like maybe it did befo'."
"That's about the size of it," one of the Confederates agreed. "What's the point to gettin' shot now? Sure ain't gonna change how things turn out."
"You got that right, anyway," the U.S. soldier said. "Well, come on. We'll get you your rooms at our hotel, all right. You can have the caviar or the pheasant under glass. The barmaid'll be along with the champagne in a few minutes, but it costs extra if you want her to blow you."
Both men in butternut stared. So did Cassius; the Yankee's deadpan delivery was mighty convincing. Then the Confederates started to laugh. One of them said, "Long as I don't get blown up, that's all I care about right now."
"Amen!" said the other new POW, as if responding to a preacher in church.
On that kind of simple level, Cassius had no trouble understanding and sympathizing with them. When he tried to fathom their cause, though…If they had their way, I'd be dead, same as the rest of my family. How can they want that so bad? I never done nothin' to them.
They didn't care. They feared Negroes might do something to them, and so they got in the first lick. That was Jake Featherston all the way-hit first, and hit hard. But he hadn't hit the United States quite hard enough. He got in the first lick, but they were getting the last one. And I'm still here, too, Cassius thought. You may not like it, you ofay asshole, but I damn well am.
S itting in the Humble jail was a humbling experience for Jeff Pinkard. Even if the Republic of Texas had seceded from the Confederate States, the guards at the jail were all U.S. military policemen. They wore green-gray uniforms, white gloves, and white helmets with MP on them in big letters. They reminded him of a lot of the men who'd guarded Camp Humble and the other camps he'd run: they were tough and brave and not especially smart.
They wouldn't let his wife or stepsons in to see him. They wouldn't let him see his new baby. All he had for company was Vern Green; the guard chief moped in the cell across the hall.
Three hulking U.S. MPs came for Jeff early in the morning. They all carried big, heavy U.S. submachine guns. "Come on, Pinkard," one of them-a sergeant-said, his voice cold as Russian Alaska.
Jeff thought they were going to take him outside and shoot him. Who was there to stop them? Not a soul. He fought to keep a wobble out of his voice when he said, "I want to talk to a lawyer."
"Yeah? So did all the coons you smoked. Come on, asshole," the MP said. One of his buddies unlocked the cell door. Jeff came. Fear made his legs light. All he could do was try not to show it. If you were going to die anyway, you wanted to die as well as you could.
He squinted against the sun when they led him out of the jail. He hadn't seen so much sunshine since they locked him up. Looking back at the jail building, he saw the U.S. and Texas flags flying side by side above it. His mouth tightened. Both those flags reminded him of the Stars and Bars; both, now, were arrayed against it.
Barbed wire and machine-gun nests and armored cars defended the jail and the buildings close to it. Seeing Jeff glance at the new fortifications, the MP sergeant said, "Nobody's gonna spring you from this place, so don't get your hopes up."
"Way you've got it set up, you must reckon an awful lot of folks want to," Jeff replied. The noncom scowled at him but didn't answer. Jeff smiled to himself-that shot must have got home.
What had been a bail bondsman's office down the street from the jail now had U.S. soldiers standing guard in front of it. The Lone Star flag might fly over the jail, but Pinkard didn't see any Texas Rangers. The damnyankees were running this show. He didn't think that was good news for him.
One of the guards opened the door. "Go on in," the MP sergeant said.
"What happens when I do?" Jeff asked suspiciously.
"The bogeyman gets you," the MP snapped. When Jeff neither panicked nor asked for any more explanation, the Yankee gestured impatiently. "Just go on. You wanted a lawyer. They're gonna give you one. More than you deserve, if anybody wants to know what I think."
Pinkard didn't give a rat's ass for what the MP thought. A lawyer was more than he'd thought he would get from the U.S. authorities. Of course, having one and having one who'd do any good were two different critters. He was playing by Yankee rules now, and he knew damn well they'd be stacked against him.
In he went, before the snooty sergeant could tell him again. Sitting at what had been the bondsman's desk was a skinny fellow with curly red hair, a big nose, and a U.S. major's gold oak leaves. "You're Jefferson Pinkard?" the man asked.
"That's right." Jeff nodded. "Who're you?"
"My name is Isidore Goldstein," the major answered. I figured he was a hebe, Jeff thought. Well, chances are he's smart, anyway. Goldstein went on, "I'm part of the Judge-Advocate's staff. I'm an attorney specializing in military law. I will defend you to the best of my ability."
"And how good are you?" Pinkard asked.
"Damn good, matter of fact," Goldstein said. "Let's get something straight right now: I didn't want this job. They gave it to me. Well, that's how it goes sometimes. I don't like you. No-I despise you. If you've done one percent of what they say you've done, I'd stand in the firing squad and aim at your chest. And we both know you've done a hell of a lot more than that."
"If you're my lawyer, why do they need some other asshole to prosecute me?" Jeff said.
He surprised a laugh out of Goldstein. The Yankee lawyer-the Yankee Jew lawyer, almost a stock figure in Confederate movies about the depravities of life in the USA-said, "But you gotta understand something else, too. My job is defending people. Guilty people need lawyers. Guilty people especially need lawyers. Whatever they let me do, I'll do. If I can get you off the hook, I will. If I can keep 'em from killing you, I will. That's what I'm supposed to do, and I'll damn well do it. And like I say, I know what I'm doing, too."
Pinkard believed him, not least because Goldstein plainly didn't care whether he believed him or not. "So what are my chances, then?"
"Shitty," Goldstein answered matter-of-factly. "They've got the goods on you. They know what you did. They can prove it. You get rid of that many people, it's not like you can keep it a secret."
"Everything I was doing, I was doing 'cause I got orders from Richmond to take care of it," Jeff said. "Far as the laws of my country went, it was all legal as could be. So what business of your country is it what I was doing inside of mine?"
"Well, that's one of the arguments I aim to use," Isidore Goldstein said. "You're not so dumb after all, are you?"
"Hope not," Jeff said. "How come you reckoned I was?"
"One way to do what you did is just do it and never think about it at all," the U.S. attorney said. "I figured you might be like that, where you'd go, 'Yeah, sure,' and take care of things, like. But you've got too many brains for that-I can tell. So why did you do it?"
"'Cause the niggers were screwing my country. Honest to God, they were. First time I went to combat in 1916, it wasn't against you Yankees. Oh, hell, no. I was fightin' the damn coons in Georgia after they rose up and stabbed us in the back."