The Confederates didn't put gas down on top of their own men. They didn't break through east of Chillicothe, either. Morrell's barrels gave them a good mauling there. But they did break the U.S. line west of town. Morrell had to fall back or risk being surrounded. Even pulling back wasn't easy. He fought a brisk skirmish at long range with several C.S. barrels. If the Confederates had moved a little faster, they might have trapped him. He hated retreat. But getting cut off would have been worse. So he told himself, over and over again.
As Mary Pomeroy walked to the post office in Rosenfeld, Manitoba, with her son Alexander in tow, she laughed at herself. She'd always thought she couldn't hate anyone worse than the green-gray-clad U.S. soldiers who'd occupied the town since 1914. Now the Yanks, or most of them, were gone, and she discovered she'd been wrong. The soldiers from the Republic of Quebec, whose uniforms were of a cut identical to their U.S. counterparts but sewn from blue-gray cloth, were even worse.
For one thing, the Yanks, however much Mary despised them, had won the war. They'd driven out and beaten the Canadian and British defenders of what had been the Dominion of Canada. If not for them, there wouldn't have been any such thing as the Republic of Quebec. Quebec had been part of Canada for more than 150 years before the Yanks came along. The USA had no business splitting up the country.
For another, hardly any of the Quebecois soldiers spoke more than little fragments of English. You couldn't even try to reason with them, the way you could with the Yanks. Some Yanks-Mary hated to admit it, but knew it was true-were pretty decent, even if they did come from the United States. Maybe some Quebecois were, too. But if you couldn't talk to them, how were you supposed to find out? They jabbered away in their own language, and it wasn't as if Mary or anybody else in Rosenfeld had ever learned much French.
And not only did the men in blue-gray speak French, they acted French. She'd long since got used to the way American soldiers eyed her. They'd done it in spite of her wedding ring, later in spite of little Alec. She was a tall, slim redhead in her early thirties. Men did notice her. She'd grown used to that, even if she didn't care for it.
But the two Quebecois soldiers who walked by her were much more blatant in the way they admired her than the Yanks had been. It wasn't as if they were undressing her with their eyes-more as if they were groping her with them. And when, laughing, the Frenchies talked about it afterwards, she couldn't understand a word they said. By their tone, though, it was all foul and all about her. She looked straight ahead, as if they didn't exist, and kept on walking. They laughed some more at that.
"Are we almost there yet?" Alec asked. He'd be starting kindergarten before long. Mary didn't want to send him to school. The Yanks would fill him full of their lies about the past. But she didn't see what choice she had. She could teach him what he really needed to know at home.
"You know where the post office is," Mary said. "Are we almost there yet?"
"I suppose so," Alec said in a sulky voice. He didn't take naps any more. Mary missed the time when he had, because that had let her get some rest, too. Now she had to be awake whenever he was. But even if he didn't actually take naps any more, there were still days when he needed them. This felt like one of those days.
Mary did her best to pretend it didn't. "Well, then," she said briskly, "you know we cross the street here-and there it is."
There it was, all right: the yellow-brown brick building that had done the job since before the last war. The postmaster was the same, too, though Wilfred Rokeby's hair was white now and had been black in those distant days. Only the flag out front was different. Mary could barely remember the mostly dark blue banner of the Dominion of Canada. Ever since 1914, the Stars and Stripes had fluttered in front of the post office.
Alec swarmed up the stairs. Mary followed, holding down her pleated wool skirt with one hand against a gust of wind. She was damned if she'd give those Frenchies-or anybody else-a free show. She opened the door, the bronze doorknob polished bright by God only knew how many hands. Her son rushed in ahead of her.
Stepping into the post office was like stepping back in time. It was always too warm in there; Wilf Rokeby kept the potbellied stove in one corner glowing red whether he needed to or not. Along with the heat, the spicy smell of the postmaster's hair oil was a link with Mary's childhood. Rokeby still plastered his hair down with the oil and parted it exactly in the middle. Not a single hair was out of place; none would have dared be disorderly.
Rokeby nodded from behind the counter. "Morning, Mrs. Pomeroy," he said. "New notices on the bulletin board. Directions are I should tell everybody who comes in to have a look at 'em, so I'm doing that."
Mary wanted to tell the occupying authorities where to head in. Getting angry at Wilf Rokeby wouldn't do her any good, though, or the Yanks and Frenchies any harm. "Thank you, Mr. Rokeby," she said, and turned toward the cork-surfaced board with its thumbtack holes uncountable.
The notices had headlines in big red letters. One said, NO HARBORING ENEMY AGENTS! It warned that anyone having anything to do with people representing Great Britain, the Confederate States, Japan, or France would be subject to military justice. Mary scowled. She knew what military justice was. In 1916, the Yanks had taken her brother Alexander, for whom Alec was named, and shot him because they claimed he was plotting against them.
NO INTERFERENCE WITH RAILWAY LINES! the other new flyer warned. It said anyone caught trying to sabotage the railroad would face not just military justice but summary military justice. As far as Mary could tell, that meant the Yanks would shoot right away and not bother with even a farce of a trial. The notice was relevant for Rosenfeld. The town would have been only another patch of Manitoban prairie if two train lines hadn't come together there.
She turned back to Wilf Rokeby. "All right. I've read them. Now you can sell me some stamps without getting in trouble in Philadelphia."
"It wouldn't be quite as bad as that," the postmaster answered with a thin smile. "But I did want you to see them. You have to remember, it's a war again, and those people are jumpier than they used to be. And these here fellows from Quebec… I've got the feeling it's shoot first and ask questions later with them."
"I wouldn't be surprised," Mary said. "They hardly seem like proper human beings at all."
"Well, I don't know there," Rokeby said. "What I do know is, I wouldn't do anything foolish and get myself in trouble with 'em."
"Why do you think I would want to get myself in trouble with them?" Mary asked.
Rokeby shrugged. "I don't suppose you'd want to, exactly, but…"
"But what?" Mary's voice was sharp.
"But I recollect who your brother was, Mrs. Pomeroy, and who your father was, too."
Hardly anyone in Rosenfeld mentioned Arthur McGregor, her father, to her. He'd been blown up by a bomb he meant for General George Custer, who'd passed through the town on his way into retirement. All that was left of Arthur McGregor these days was his Christian name, which was Alec's middle name. And Mary couldn't remember the last time anyone had spoken of Alexander McGregor. A lot of people in town were too young even to remember him. Twenty-five years was a long time.
But she didn't quite like the way the postmaster had spoken of them. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I wouldn't like to see the same sort of thing happen to you as happened to them," Rokeby answered.
She stared at him. Except for Alec, they were the only two people in the post office, and Alec paid next to no attention to what grownups said to each other unless they started shouting or did something else interesting or exciting. "Why on earth would anything like that happen to me?" she asked, deliberately keeping her voice calm and her face straight.