"Ma'am, on that you may rest assured." Scipio wondered if he was talking like an educated white man for the last time in his life. In a way, he would miss it if that proved so. In another way, giving up what had been imposed on him was a sort of freedom in itself.
He rose, half bowed to Anne, and left the cottage. Field hands and children stared after him. He didn't look back. As he got to the forest where he'd killed Major Hotchkiss, he decided he needed a new apartment, a new job, a new name. The widow had wanted to go to bed with him. He sighed. It wouldn't happen now. "Odder chances," he said aloud. "Dey is odder chances." He kept walking toward the train station.
Brakes squealing, the train pulled into the station. "Cincinnati!" the conductor shouted. "All out for Cincinnati!"
Men, most of them in uniform, and a scattering of women rose from their seats so they could depart. Irving Morrell stayed where he was. So did Heinz Guderian beside him. "How far now from Cincinnati to Philadelphia?" Guderian asked in German.
Morrell visualized a map. "Six hundred miles, maybe a little less," he answered in the same language. Seeing Guderian look puzzled, he amplified that: "About 950 kilometers." He moved back and forth between one system of measurement and the other readily enough, but had learned the German found it harder.
Sure enough, Guderian twitted him about it: "How many feet in a mile? It is 5,280, nicht wahr? What a foolish number to have to keep straight every time you need to make a calculation."
Before Morrell could defend the American system, the conductor leaned over and said with a smile, "Wir willen winnen der Krieg."
Guderian stared at him, not because he spoke German so badly (he'd said "We want to win the war," not "We will win the war," which was what he'd probably meant, and he'd botched his article and his word order, too), but because he spoke it at alclass="underline" he was a black man with a mouth full of gold-crowned teeth. "Ja!" Guderian managed at last, and the conductor, smiling still, headed down the central aisle. To Morrell, the German General Staff officer said, "I had not realized just how popular my country was in the United States."
"Oh, yes," Morrell said with a nod. "Good thing we weren't speaking French, or he'd have probably thought we were spies. A classmate of mine at the Academy, Jack Lefebvre, changed his name to Schmidt after the war started. It was either that, he told me, or kiss promotion good-bye. And I happen to know his people have been in the USA since before the War of Secession."
"This business of everyone coming from elsewhere or having parents or grandparents who came from elsewhere is very strange to me," Guderian said. "In Europe, we have been where we are since the Volkerwanderungen of a thousand years ago and more."
Passengers were boarding the train as well as leaving it. Some of them came from elsewhere, too, speaking with accents plainly sprung from the CSA. A couple of those fellows, looking prosperous with big bellies, expensive black suits, and homburgs, sat down across from Morrell and Guderian. "It'll be right strange," one of them said to the other with a ripe drawl, "but I reckon we can do it."
Shifting to English, Morrell leaned over and asked, "Who are you people, anyway?" Talk about spies-!
The man sitting closer to him stuck out a plump hand. "Major, I'm Davis Lee Vidals, lieutenant governor of Kentucky-of the United State of Kentucky, I make haste to assure you."
Morrell reached out and shook the proffered hand, being careful not to squash it. He gave his own name. "That's wonderful news!" he said. "Welcome back to the country where you belong."
"Thank you very kindly, Major Morrell," Vidals said. "That fellow sitting beside you-is he a German?" His voice was half dread, half awe: he might have been one of the people helping to bring Kentucky back into the USA, but he didn't seem to know how to feel about U.S. allies who had been enemies of the Confederate States.
"Ja, I am a German." Guderian spoke English with a heavy accent, but was fluent enough. He grinned at the Kentucky politician. "You would not expect to find an American officer traveling with a Frenchman, would you?" He'd paid attention to the story of Jack Lefebvre, now Schmidt, all right.
"Good God almighty, I hope not!" Vidals exclaimed. "Gentlemen, let me introduce to you my friend and colleague here: this is Luther Bliss, chief of the Kentucky State Police. We're both on our way to Philadelphia to settle arrangements for electing congressmen and senators next month."
Bliss leaned across his traveling companion to shake hands with Morrell and Guderian. He was hard-faced and sallow, with a scar seaming one cheek. His eyes were a light, light brown, about the color of a hunting dog's. Morrell wouldn't have cared to let the Kentuckian stand behind him; he was the sort of man who looked to have a stiletto stashed up his sleeve. Kentucky State Police, Morrell suspected, was a euphemism for Kentucky Secret Police.
"How did Kentucky go about applying for readmission to the United States?" he asked. The curiosity was more professional than personal. Administering conquered territory and bringing it under the control of the USA was something that might be part of his responsibilities one day.
The train started rolling as Davis Lee Vidals started talking. Morrell quickly discovered the train was more likely than the lieutenant governor to slow down. "We convened a gathering of distinguished Kentuckians eager to renew their historic ties to the United States of America," Vidals began, "and discussed ways and means by which this might be accomplished. We-"
"How many Kentuckians?" Morrell asked.
Vidals began another speech. It went on for some time, and told Morrell nothing. When the politician paused to inhale-which took a while-Luther Bliss interjected, "Couple hundred." His superior-his nominal superior, at any rate-gave him a dirty look and started talking again.
Several well-modulated paragraphs of rhetoric later, Morrell asked, "Did you need any soldiers to make sure things went the way you had in mind?"
Davis Lee Vidals waxed indignant, eloquently indignant, at the very idea. He didn't, however, say no. He also didn't say yes. He did say, and say, and say. Presently, he paused again, this time to light a cigar. In that brief interval of silence, Bliss got another chance to open his mouth. "Couple regiments," he said, and fell silent again.
Morrell nodded. That told him everything he thought he needed to know about the new state government of Kentucky: without massive help from the U.S. Army, it wouldn't exist. But Heinz Guderian spoke up, in German: "This is not so bad as it may sound, Major. When, forty-five years ago, we annexed Alsace and Lorraine from France, many of the people there resented and resisted us. There remain some who do, but those provinces also remain a part of the German Reich, and grow more accustomed to our rule with each passing day."
Vidals' eyes got wider with every guttural he heard, and wider still when Morrell answered in German. He might have been bringing Kentucky back into the USA, but he was also bringing a lot of ideas from the Quadruple Entente with him. Luther Bliss, by contrast, listened quietly. Morrell wouldn't have bet against his understanding every word that was said.
The only thing that finally slowed Vidals down was sleep. No matter that he was sitting in a seat that didn't recline. He set his homburg in his lap, put his head back, and snored like a thunderstorm in training. That he was so aggressively asleep meant everyone else in the crowded car had trouble joining him.
Outside, the countryside was dark as the tomb. That hadn't been so farther west, but here in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Confederate bombing aeroplanes remained a nuisance. The enforced darkness after sunset made it harder for them to find worthwhile targets.