He sent the Johnny-come-latelies another sour stare. Would they have stuck with Jake Featherston when the going got rough? Not likely, not most of them. They were here because they wanted to ride a winner's coattails, not because they believed. You could use people like that, but could you ever really trust them? He had his doubts.
Caleb Briggs strode briskly up onto the rostrum. He had a microphone up there these days, to help his gas-ruined voice fill the meeting hall despite the buzz from the big crowd. In the row behind Pinkard, a man who'd been in the party for a while explained to a couple of new fish who Briggs was. Jeff muttered something incredulous under his breath. Didn't they know anything? Evidently not.
Behind the dentist who headed up the Freedom Party in Birmingham stood Confederate and Party flags. He crisply saluted each of them in turn, then stepped up to that microphone and said, "Freedom!"
"Freedom!" The roar from the crowd made Pinkard's head spin. The new Party men were good for something, anyhow-they had big mouths.
Briggs' smile showed white teeth. "Good to see y'all here," he rasped, "old friends and new." A few of the longtime Freedom Party men, Jeff among them, laughed softly. Caleb knew what was what, same as anybody else who'd seen the light a while ago. Smiling still, Briggs went on, "A month to go, boys, and then we get to the Promised Land. We've been in the wilderness a long time now, but we're almost there."
Pinkard whooped. "Freedom!" he shouted, as if he were a Negro responding to a preacher's sermon. He wasn't the only one, either. Far from it.
But when Briggs held up a hand, silence fell, just like that. By God, the Freedom Party had discipline. "The one thing we've got to do now," he said, and paused to draw more air into his ravaged lungs, "is make sure we don't stumble and fall. We've come too far for that. This time, we win."
More shouts of, "Freedom!" rang out. So did a chorus of, "Feather ston!" Pinkard tried to imagine waking up the morning after Election Day and finding out Jake Featherston had lost again. He didn't think the Party could survive it. He wasn't sure he could.
"We've got to make sure we win," Briggs went on. "We've been doing plenty, but we've got to do more. Just for instance, Hugo Black is coming to town Saturday."
A low murmur ran through the crowd. The Whig vice-presidential candidate was good on the stump-not so good as Featherston or Willy Knight, not as far as Pinkard was concerned, but still a formidable speaker.
Caleb Briggs grinned a sly, conspiratorial grin. "I'm sure we'll give him a nice, warm Birmingham welcome when he pays us a call." He waited for the grins and sniggers to stop, then held up a hand. "It may not be so easy. The Whigs aren't ashamed to steal our tricks. They'll have their own tough boys at Black's rally, you can bet on that."
"We'll lick 'em!" Jeff roared, before anybody else could. Somebody behind him clapped him on the back.
"We'd better lick 'em," Briggs said. "We need to make damn sure we do. I want a show of hands for volunteers."
Every man in the place raised his hand. Some men held up both hands at once to look more prominent. Pinkard thought about doing that, but didn't. One hand was plenty. He didn't need to show off.
Up on the platform, Caleb Briggs grinned. "I knew I could count on you. Be here Saturday at half past twelve. Black's speaking at two. He reckons he is, anyways."
Half past twelve was a good time to gather. The men who still worked Saturday mornings would have time to put in their half days. A lot of businesses had cut back to five days a week. Men who worked for them wouldn't have any problems showing up, either. And, of course, the men who were out of work could come whenever the Party needed them, as long as they could scrape up trolley fare.
Jeff was scheduled to work all day that Saturday. He traded shifts with another jailer, a man who despised politics of all sorts almost as much as he despised prisoners of all sorts. He got to Freedom Party headquarters fifteen minutes early. His shirt was so white, it gleamed like polished marble. His pants were the exact color of the uniform he'd worn during the war. He'd put on a pair of steel-toed shoes he hadn't worn since leaving the Sloss Works. They weren't a required part of a stalwart's outfit, but they let him kick like a mule.
Across the street from the headquarters, a couple of Whigs were arguing with a gray-clad policeman. "They're preparing for a riot in there!" one of them said loudly. "You've got to do something to stop them."
The cop shrugged broad shoulders. "I can't arrest anybody till he commits a crime," he said. "It's still a free country, you know." As the Whigs started to expostulate, he smiled and sank his barb: "Freedom!"
They jerked as if stung. The loud one cried, "Why, you miserable, stinking-"
"Shut up, buddy, or I'll run you in." The policeman set a hand on his nightstick.
"I thought you couldn't arrest anyone till he committed a crime."
"Disturbing the peace is a crime."
"What do you think the Freedom Party's going to do?" the Whig demanded.
"That's a political demonstration. That's different."
Into the old livery stable Pinkard went. When he came out again, a stout bludgeon in his hand, the Whigs were still yelling at the cop. They withdrew-hell, they ran for their lives-as soon as the Freedom Party started coming out. Jeers chased them down the street.
The day Grady Calkins killed Wade Hampton V, Tredegar-carrying state militiamen had held the stalwarts away from the president of the CSA. Nobody had called out the militia this time-so Caleb Briggs insisted. Back in the early 1920s, people had thought they could suppress the Freedom Party. The governor of Alabama wouldn't dare try it now. The legislature might not impeach him, convict him, and throw him out on his ear if he did. On the other hand, it might.
Down the street toward the park marched the Freedom Party stalwarts, several hundred strong. People on the sidewalk either cheered or had the sense to keep their mouths shut. People in autos drove away in a hurry. The ones who didn't got their windscreens and windows smashed. Pinkard supposed, if the Whigs had been ruthless enough, they could have sent cars smashing through the ranks of Freedom Party men. Featherston's followers would have done it to the Whigs in a minute if they thought it would help. The Whigs didn't try it.
Jeff was up in the fifth or sixth row of marchers. The leaders let out whoops when they turned the last corner and saw Ingram Park, near city hall, dead ahead. Shouts followed the whoops a heartbeat later, as the Whig stalwarts charged them. The Whigs aimed to fight in the narrow confines of the street and not let the Freedom Party men into the park at all.
That probably means we have got more men than they do, Jeff thought. Then the first Whig swung a club at him, and he stopped thinking. He blocked the blow and aimed one of his own at the Whig's head. They stood there smashing at each other for a few seconds. Then someone tripped the Whig. Jeff hit him in the face with his bludgeon, kicked him in the ribs with those steel-toed shoes, and strode forward, looking for a new foe.
He and another man in white shirt and butternut trousers teamed up on a Whig. They both stomped the fellow once he was down. Shouting "Freedom!" they pressed forward, shoulder to shoulder. "Freedom!" Jeff yelled again. "Featherston and freedom!"
"Longstreet!" the Whigs yelled back. "Longstreet and liberty!" Samuel Longstreet, a grandson of the famous James, was a Senator from Virginia. He wasn't bad on the stump, either. "Longstreet and Black!" a rash Whig shouted.