"Okay. That's fair enough. Just don't do anything dumb, that's all," Mr. Brooks said.
Big, growling trucks carried more soldiers west. Maybe the Negro revolt wasn't going as well as the white Virginians feared it would at first. Or maybe the powers that be in Richmond remembered they had a war on their hands, too. Justin thought leaving the first garrison west of Elizabeth would have been smarter, but he wasn't running things, which was bound to be just as well.
When he grumbled about how dumb the Virginian generals were—he was grumbling about everything these days—Mr. Brooks said, "You know what an oxymoron is, right?"
"Sure—two words you use together, but they don't really go together. Like 'jumbo shrimp' or 'recorded live.'"
"There you go." The coin and stamp dealer nodded. "Those are both good. Well, I've got another one for you— military intelligence.'"
"Uh-huh." Justin nodded. "That would be funnier if it didn't make me feel like crying at the same time."
"I'm sorry. Sometimes you're just stuck, and it looks like we are now," Mr. Brooks said.
Justin wished for some other word. "Stuck, as in permanently?" he asked.
"No, of course not," Mr. Brooks said. "Stuck, as in we can't do anything about it right this minute. Sooner or later, we'll be able to go back down to Charleston again. These crummy little wars between states don't usually last long—both sides get sick of them. And, sooner or later, we'll get back to the home timeline, too. Somebody here or somebody back there will work out an antidote for this virus, and they'll lift the quarantine." He made a sour face. "My guess is, somebody in Ohio already has the vaccine or antiviral or whatever it is. You don't put out what you can't control, not if you've got any brains you don't. Otherwise, you turn it loose on your own people, too. You lose friends doing that."
"I guess!" Justin said. "So how long do you figure we'll be cooped up in Elizabeth?"
"I don't know. Weeks? Months, tops." Mr. Brooks gave Justin a sidelong glance. "With all the soldiers in town, maybe you've got more competition for your girlfriend."
"I don't think so," Justin said. "Beckie doesn't like soldiers. Near as I can tell, she really doesn't like Virginia soldiers. She thinks they're a bunch of racist. . . well, you know. It's not like she's wrong, either."
"No, it's not," Mr. Brooks agreed. "But when the other guy has an assault rifle and you don't, telling him what you think of him isn't the smartest thing you can do. Which is why you were smart to keep your voice down here. The walls in this place are as thin as they can get away with, or five centimeters thinner."
"Yeah, I've noticed." Justin paused. "Do you really think we'll be stuck here for months?" If Mr. Brooks had said they'd have to stay in Elizabeth for the next twenty years, it could hardly have seemed worse. Justin's sense of what a long time was and the older man's were two very different things.
"I don't know for sure," Mr. Brooks answered. "I don't see how I can know for sure, or how anybody else can. I'm only guessing. But that's the best guess I've got. When we do get back to the home timeline, we ought to pick up a hazardous-duty bonus. Your mom, too."
"Oh, boy," Justin said in hollow tones.
"Don't knock it," Mr. Brooks told him. "Hazardous-duty pay . . . Well, when you think about how long we may be here, that could add up to a pile of benjamins. Maybe not as good as a college scholarship for you, but it'll sure pay a lot of bills once you're enrolled and everything."
"Oh, boy," Justin said again. What with this mess, it looked as if he'd have to start college a year later than he'd thought he would. If he had to go through applying again . . . If I have to do that, I'll scream, he thought. Going through it once was like going to the dentist for something nasty. Going through it twice would be like the dentist forgetting something and making you come back. Justin didn't even want to imagine that.
And what kind of hazards was his mother going through down in Charleston? The TV hadn't talked much lately about the fighting there. Was it petering out? Or was it so bad, the authorities didn't dare admit anything about it? He had no way to know. More than anything else, he wanted—he needed—to find out.
Beckie quickly decided that showing herself in Elizabeth wasn't a good idea. None of the soldiers in town gave her a hard time, exactly, but she didn't like the way the uniformed men followed her with their eyes. In California, men whistled at girls they thought were cute. They didn't do that here. Beckie didn't need long to figure out that a sharp, short cough meant the same thing. Those coughs were compliments she could have done without.
She was glad when Justin came over to visit. Gran and Mr. Snodgrass made dismal company. And she felt safer when Justin was around. She knew that made no sense. What could he do against somebody with a gun? What could he do against a bunch of somebodies with guns? Nothing, obviously, except maybe get shot. She was glad when he came anyway.
Even the back yard was ruined. The trench, and the sheet metal heaved over it, were a stark reminder of what could happen. She and Justin went out there with fizzes anyhow. It let her escape from Gran, and that felt more precious than rubies right now.
Something flashed on top of Jephany Knob. "What do you think that is?" Beckie asked. "Looked like . . . sun off glasses?"
"Where?" Justin hadn't seen it. Beckie pointed. With my luck, she thought, it won't happen again, and he'll think I've gone nuts. But it did.
"I bet the Virginians have observers up there," he said. "I bet they're watching whatever's going on farther west."
"I bet you're right," she said. "That sure makes more sense than anything I thought of. What are we going to do, anyway?" The question didn't exactly follow on what came before, but it didn't exactly not follow, either.
"Try to stay alive till this mess blows over. What else can we do?" Justin answered. "I only wish I were back in Charleston, or in Fredericksburg."
"I'm sorry," Beckie said. "I wish I were back in L.A., too, believe you me I do. But I'm here, in Elizabeth, with my grandmother. Happy day."
"And I'm here with my uncle. Happy day back atcha," Justin said. "And we kind of hang on to each other so we don't go quite as crazy together as we would by ourselves."
"That's about the size of it," Beckie said. "But I think I would have liked you even if we'd met without all this . . . stuff going on."
"Do you?" He smiled. "That's good."
"It really is," Beckie said seriously as she nodded. "You'll laugh or you'll get mad—or maybe you'll laugh and you'll get mad, I don't know—but I wasn't sure I coidd like anybody from Virginia. You people do things a lot different from the way we do in California. We wouldn't have some of our own people rising up against us because we don't treat them as well as the rest.... Are you blushing?"
"I don't know." Justin got redder still. "Am I?"
"You bet you are." Beckie thought about laughing, but she didn't think coming out and doing it would be a good idea. "Why are you blushing? Because of the way your state treats Negroes?" Justin had said he didn't like that, but she still wasn't sure she believed him.
"Well. . . partly," Justin said. "That's not all of it, though."
"Yeah?" Now Beckie was intrigued. "What's the rest of it?"
He really blushed then—red as a sunset. "I can't tell you," he muttered.
She poked him in the ribs. He jumped. "You can't say stuff like that," she told him. "What is it? Why can't you tell me? What are you, a spy from Ohio or something?"
That got rid of the blush. Justin turned pale instead. "No!" he said. "Good Lord, no!" He sounded furious. And he was, because he went on, "And don't say anything like that out loud, for heaven's sake! It's not true, but it can get me shot anyway. There's a war on, in case you didn't notice."