Fortunately, Cassius hadn't noticed that he hadn't noticed Scipio's mask. The chairman of the Republic had plenty of other things on his mind. He somehow managed to make the undyed, unbleached cotton homespun of Negro field laborers into a good approximation of a uniform, and even to look smart in it, which was far beyond Scipio's ability. What he could not do, though, was lose the worried expression on his face.
"Ain't got enough white folks wid we, Kip," he said now. "De po' buckra, de gov'ment 'press them same as it done to we. Dey gots to see where dey class int'rest is at. Dey gots to see de revolution fo' dey, too, not jus' fo' we." He shook his head. "But dey don'. Dey is still de dogs o' de massers dat 'sploits dey. Cipher dat out fo' me, Kip. Don' make no sense."
Scipio still found revolutionary rhetoric and the Congaree dialect an odd blend. No one cared about his opinion in such matters, though, and he was canny enough to keep it to himself. Cassius had asked his opinion about the other matter, though, and might even have been ready to hear it. Scipio decided to take a chance there.
He pointed to what had been the country courthouse of Kingstree, South Carolina. The two-story, buff-colored building with a fancy, fanlighted pediment, built in the style of the early years of the last century, no longer flew the Stars and Bars. Instead, the red revolutionary banner of the Congaree Socialist Republic fluttered above it. Red paint had been daubed over the name KINGSTREE, which was carved into the frieze above the pediment. In letters equally blood-colored, someone had given the town a substitute name: PEOPLE'S TREE.
"Dat kind o' thing, Cass-an' we done a lot of it-dat kind o' thing, like I say, dat skeers de white folks out o' dey shoes," he said.
Cassius looked back at the courthouse, then swung his gaze toward Scipio once more. As soon as Scipio saw the expression on the chairman's face, he knew he had failed. "Ain't gwine have no backslidin' in this here revolution," Cassius declared. "We is bringin' liberty to de people, an' if dey is too foolish to be grateful, dey pays de price."
He truly did not seem to realize that terrorizing everyone who was not ardently on his side to begin with would ensure that he drew few new supporters who didn't have great grievances against the Confederate States. Hardly any Negroes lacked such grievances. But, exactly because whites had been inflicting grief instead of taking it, the system that had been in place suited them well enough.
And now he went on, "De niggers here in People's Tree, dey live in the sections dey call Buzzard's Roost and Frog Level. You t'ink de white folks, dey want to live in sections wid they names?" He spat on the ground to show how likely he reckoned that was. Scipio didn't think it was very likely, either. But destroying white privilege only boosted white fear. And then Cassius wondered why whites fought against the Red revolution with everything they had.
Once more, Scipio tried to suggest that: "De more we puts they backs up, the harder they tries to put us down."
For a moment, he thought he'd got through to Cassius. The chairman of the Congaree Socialist Republic sighed and shook his head. He said, "We git a messenger under flag o' truce las' night."
"Dat a fact?" Scipio said. If it was a fact, it was news to him. That was worrisome in and of itself. Cassius had been in the habit of letting him know what happened as soon as it happened. A change in the pattern was liable to mean Scipio's status was slipping, which was liable to prove hazardous to his life expectancy. Warily, he asked, "Dis messenger, what he say?"
"He say dat, if we doesn't lay down we arms, de white folks liable to start killin' de niggers in de part o' de country we ain't managed to liberate. What you t'ink o' dat?"
Scipio's first reaction was horror. His second reaction was horror, too. The Confederates could do that, and who would be able to stop them? The answer to that question came all too clear: nobody. "What you say?" he asked Cassius.
"I say two things," the ex-hunter answered. "I say, if dat de game dey gwine play, we got plenty white folks to kill, too. Dey got mo' niggers'n we got white folks, but dey think one white folks worth a whole heap o' blacks. So dat make dis cocky 'ristocrat think some."
Scipio nodded. It was a brutal ploy, but one to match the threat from the CSA. He had no doubt Cassius would carry it out, either, and was sure the chairman had left no doubt in the Confederate envoy's mind. "Dat one," he said, his voice showing his approval. "What de other?"
Cassius startled him by laughing out loud, a deep, rich, nasty laugh, the kind of laugh you let out after you'd heard a really good, really ripe dirty story. A moment later, Scipio understood why, for the chairman said, "I tell he, we don't even got to do no killin' to git our own back, if de 'pressors start de persecution in de unliberated land. I tell he, dere plenty white folks wimmin in the Congaree Socialist Republic. I don' say no more. Ain't got no need to say no more."
"Do Jesus!" Scipio said. Confederate laws against miscegenation were harsh, and vigorously enforced. For some reason, Confederate white men seemed convinced that the first thing blacks would do, given any sort of chance, was make a beeline for white women. Even after the uprisings in the Congaree Socialist Republic, it hadn't happened much. Scipio had heard of a few cases, but the revolutionary government had more urgent things-survival, for instance-with which to concern itself. But now, to use the mere idea as a club with which to beat the Confederates over the head…Scipio stared at Cassius in astonished admiration. "You is a devil, you is."
Cassius took that as the compliment it was intended to be. "Wish you was there. This white folks captain, he got a seegar in he mouth. When I say dat, he like to swallow it." He laughed again.
So did Scipio. The story was worth laughing about-if it turned out to have a happy ending. "Once he cough de seegar up, what he say?"
"He say we never dare do no such thing." Cassius' eyes glittered. "I tell he we is a pack o' desp'rate niggers, an' who know what we do? De white-folks gov'ment been sayin' dat so much an' so loud, dey lackeys all believes it. So he say, de honor o' de white folks wimmin matter to de gov'ment, an' dey don't do nuffin to hurt it. You know what dat mean."
"Mean dey don't want white folks wimmin birthin' a pack o' yaller babies," Scipio said.
Cassius nodded with yet another chuckle. "Marx, he know 'bout dis. If de peasant wench have de lord's baby, dey call dat de droit de seigneur." What he did to the pronunciation of the French words was a caution, but Scipio understood him. He went on, "But de lord's lady, if she have a baby by de peasant, everybody run around like chickens wid a fox in the henhouse. An' if that baby yaller, like you say-"
"You reckon de white folks think twice, then?" Scipio asked.
"Dey think fo'-five times 'fore they want the likes o' me humpin' dis fifteen-year-old buckra gal wid de hair in de yaller braids," Cassius said positively, and Scipio thought he was right. The chairman spat again. "Like I got me trouble findin' wimmin wants to do it."
He wasn't boasting, just stating a fact. He'd boasted plenty, back when he was chief hunter on the Marshlands plantation. As chairman of the Congaree Socialist Republic, he seemed to find it beneath his dignity. Scipio prodded him a little: "Drusilla," he said slyly.
He won a chuckle from Cassius, which relieved him: when Cassius was thinking about Cassius, he wasn't thinking about Scipio. "Ain't looked fo' she since de revolution come," Cassius said. "Maybe I ought to." His hands described an hourglass in the air. He'd used the excuse of fooling around with Drusilla, who'd lived on the late, purged Jubal Marberry's plantation, to travel by routes only he knew and bring back weapons from the USA.