Settling Accounts_ Drive To The East Part 13

The kid from the State Department disappeared. Jake stared after him. Either they really were making them younger than they had once upon a time or he himself was starting to get some serious mileage on him. He suspected the problem did not lie with the State Department.

Whether he was getting old or not, he still had a war to run. He could do that better than anybody else in the CSA. Better than anybody else in the USA, too, by G.o.d, Better than anybody else in the USA, too, by G.o.d, he thought. And those three Mexican divisions would help, especially since, now that Maximilian had agreed once, he'd have a harder time saying no if Jake asked again. And Jake intended to do just that. he thought. And those three Mexican divisions would help, especially since, now that Maximilian had agreed once, he'd have a harder time saying no if Jake asked again. And Jake intended to do just that.

Dr. Leonard O'Doull wondered what was going on when he and his aid station got pulled out of their position across the Rapidan from the Wilderness and shifted east. Now he knew: they'd left the frying pan and gone straight into the fire.

Most of the frying was getting done on the other side of the Rappahannock, in and just beyond Fredericksburg. The U.S. Army had battered out a foothold there, as it had in the Wilderness. It was trying to feed in enough men and machines to make the foothold mean something. Whether it could was very much up in the air.

Whether the kid on the table in front of O'Doull would make it was also up in the air. A piece of shrapnel had torn the h.e.l.l out of his chest. He was bleeding faster than O'Doull could patch him. "Keep pouring in the plasma!" O'Doull barked to Granville McDougald. "Gotta keep his blood pressure up."

"Pretty soon there won't be any blood in the pressure," McDougald said. That exaggerated, but not by much. An awful lot of blood had come out, and an awful lot of plasma had gone in. "s.h.i.t!" McDougald exclaimed. "We haven't got any pressure now!"

"Yeah." O'Doull had no trouble figuring out why, either-the kid's heart had stopped. He grabbed it and started cardiac ma.s.sage. Once in a blue moon, that worked. Most of the time, a heart that stopped would never start again. This was one of those times. After a few minutes, he let it go and shook his head. "We've lost him."

McDougald nodded. "Afraid you're right. That was a nasty wound. We did everything we could." He beckoned to a corpsman. "Get him off the table, Eddie. He's Graves Registrations' business now."

"Right, Granny," Eddie said. "One more Deeply Regrets telegram. One more time when everybody hopes the Western Union delivery boy stops next door."

The corpse was hardly out of the tent before a groaning sergeant with a shattered knee came in on a stretcher. "Granny, you do this one and I'll pa.s.s gas," O'Doull said. "You're neater at orthopedic stuff than I am."

"I've had more practice, Doc, that's all." But McDougald sounded pleased. He wasn't an M.D. despite his vast experience; to have a real doctor defer to him had to make him feel good.

"Gas!" the sergeant said when O'Doull pressed the ether cone down over his nose and mouth. O'Doull had seen that before. He and Eddie kept the wounded man from yanking off the cone till the anesthetic took hold.

Eddie shook his head as the sergeant's hands finally went limp. "That's always so much fun," he said.

"Yeah," O'Doull agreed. "How's he look, Granny?"

"It's a mess in there. Kneecap's smashed, medial collateral's cut," McDougald answered. "Can you get him down a little deeper? I want those leg muscles as relaxed as I can get 'em."

"Will do." O'Doull opened the valve on the ether cylinder a little more.

After a minute or so, McDougald gave him a thumbs-up. The medic worked quickly and skillfully, repairing what he could and removing what he couldn't repair. When he was through, he said, "He'll never run the mile, but I think he'll walk . . . pretty well."

"Looked that way to me, too," O'Doull said. "That medial collateral was nicely done. I don't think I could have got it together anywhere near as neat as you did."

"Thanks, Doc." McDougald's gauze mask hid most of his smile, but his eyes glowed. "Had to try it. A knee's not a knee without a working medial collateral. It's not a repair that would do for a halfback, but for just getting around it ought to be strong enough."

"They play football in Quebec, too. Well, sort of football: they've got twelve men on a side, and the end zones are big as all outdoors. But it's pretty much the same game. Guys get hurt the same way, that's for sure," O'Doull said. "I've had to patch up a couple of wrecked knees. I told the men I'd come after 'em with a sledgehammer if I ever caught 'em playing again."

"Did they listen to you?" McDougald asked, amused interest in his voice.

"Are you serious? Quebecois are the stubbornest people on the face of the earth." Leonard O'Doull knew he he sounded disgusted. "Repairing a knee once isn't easy. Repairing it twice is d.a.m.n near impossible." He flexed his none too impressive biceps. "I'm getting pretty good with a sledgehammer, though." sounded disgusted. "Repairing a knee once isn't easy. Repairing it twice is d.a.m.n near impossible." He flexed his none too impressive biceps. "I'm getting pretty good with a sledgehammer, though."

"I believe that." McDougald and Eddie eased the wounded sergeant off the table. He would finish recovering farther back of the line. McDougald caught O'Doull's eye. "Want to duck out for a b.u.t.t before the next poor sorry b.a.s.t.a.r.d comes in, Doc?"

"I'd love to. Let's-" But O'Doull stopped in midsentence, because the next poor sorry b.a.s.t.a.r.d came in right then.

One look made O'Doull wonder why the h.e.l.l the corpsmen had bothered hauling him all the way back here. He had a bullet wound-pretty plainly an entry wound-in his forehead, just below the hairline, and what was as obviously an exit wound, horrible with scalp and blood, in back.

Seeing O'Doull's expression, one of the stretcher-bearers said, "His pulse and breathing are still strong, Doc. Maybe you can do something something for him, anyways." for him, anyways."

"Fat chance," O'Doull muttered. Military hospitals still held men who'd got turned into vegetables by head wounds in the Great War. Some of them had a strong pulse and breathed on their own, too. Some of them would die of old age, but none would ever be a functioning human being again.

Then the wounded man sat up on the stretcher and said, "Have any aspirins, buddy? I've got a h.e.l.l of a headache."

"Jesus Christ!" Everybody in the aid tent except the fellow with the head wound said the same thing at the same time. One of the bearers and Eddie and O'Doull crossed themselves. O'Doull had seen a lot of things in his time, but never a man with a through-and-through head wound who sat up and made conversation.

Granville McDougald strode forward. He bent low and looked not at the soldier's injuries but at the scalp between them. Then he shook his head in slow wonder. "I will be d.a.m.ned," he said. "I've heard of wounds like this, but I didn't think I'd ever run into one myself."

"What is it, Granny?" O'Doull asked. He wanted to latch on to something, anything, but the idea of a dead man talking.

"Look, Doc. You can see for yourself." McDougald's finger traced the injury. "The slug must have gone in, then slid around the top of this guy's skull under the scalp till it exited back here. It didn't do a d.a.m.n thing more. It couldn't have, or he'd be dead as shoe leather."

"I'm fine," the soldier said. "Except for that headache, anyhow. I asked you guys for aspirins once already."

"Well, I'll be a son of a b.i.t.c.h," O'Doull said, ignoring him. "You're right. You've got to be right. That is the luckiest thing I have ever seen in my life. I thought he was a ghost for a second, I swear to G.o.d I did." The rational part of his brain started working again. "We'd better send him back for X-rays once we clean him up. He could have a fracture in there-though his head's so hard, he might not."

"What the h.e.l.l's that supposed to mean?" the wounded man demanded.

"If you didn't have a thick skull, pal, that bullet might've gone through instead of around," O'Doull told him. "Can you get up on the table by yourself? We're going to want to get some disinfectant on that and st.i.tch you up and bandage you. You've got a story you can tell your grandchildren, that's for sure."

The soldier walked to the table and sat down. "You ain't doin' nothin' to me till I get my aspirins, you hear?"

"Give him a couple, Eddie," O'Doull said wearily. "h.e.l.l, give him a slug of the medicinal brandy, too. If anybody ever earned it, he did."

That produced the first thing besides loud indignation he'd got from the wounded man, who exclaimed, "Now you're talkin', Doc! Want a smoke? I got these off a dead Confederate-f.u.c.k of a lot better'n what we make."

O'Doull grabbed his hand before he could light a match. "You don't want to do that in here," the doctor said in gentle tones that camouflaged the panic inside. "You're liable to blow us sky high if you do."

After the little white pills and the knock of honey-colored hooch, the wounded man was willing to sit still while O'Doull patched him up. He grumbled about the way the doctor's novocaine burned before it numbed. He grumbled that he could feel the needle even after the novocaine started working. Except for complaining about his headache, he didn't grumble at all about getting shot in the head.

"Don't get the bandages over my eyes, dammit," he said. O'Doull had to coax him back into the stretcher so the corpsmen could take him away-he wanted to walk.

Once he was gone, O'Doull let out a long sigh and said, "Now I am am going to have that smoke, by G.o.d!" going to have that smoke, by G.o.d!"

"Me, too," Granville McDougald said. They both left the tent to light up-and they both smoked Confederate tobacco, too.

O'Doull blew out a long plume of smoke. "Great G.o.d in the foothills," he said. "Now I really have seen everything."

"Yeah, well, you know what's gonna happen as well as I do, Doc," McDougald said. "They'll patch him up and they'll send him home till he finishes healing, and he'll be a nine days' wonder while he's there. And then he'll come back to the front, and he'll stop a sh.e.l.l burst with his nuts, and he won't have to worry about telling his grandchildren stories anymore."

"Christ!" Whatever O'Doull had expected him to say, that wasn't it. "And I thought this war was making me me cynical." cynical."

McDougald shrugged. "You got out after 1917. You found yourself a nice little French gal and you settled down. I've worn the uniform all that time. I've got a long head start on you. The s.h.i.t I've seen . . ." He shook his head. But then he shook it again in a different way. "I'd never seen anything like that before, though. Talk about beating the odds! I'd heard of it. I knew it was possible. But I'd never seen it, and I never thought I would."

"You sure were one up on me," O'Doull said. "When he rose up on the stretcher there, I figured he was Lazarus."

"Gave me a turn, too, and I won't try to tell you any different." McDougald took a last drag on his cigarette and crushed it out under his boot. "Well, at least we can feel good about things for a while. Lazarus is going to get better. Some of the ones like that help make up for the sorry b.a.s.t.a.r.ds we lose."

On the other side of the Rappahannock, Confederate guns started pounding. a.s.skickers screamed down out of the sky. Bombs burst. O'Doull stamped out his cigarette, too. "They'll be bringing more back to us before very long," he predicted. "Either that or they'll move us forward up into Fredericksburg."

"Gotta keep us close to the source of supply," McDougald said.

"The source of supply," O'Doull echoed. "Right." That was cynical, too, which didn't mean it was wrong.

VI.

Snyder, Texas, was a long way north of Baroyeca, Sonora. It could get just as hot, though. Hipolito Rodriguez didn't know how or why that was so, but he knew it was. He'd seen as much in the summertime in Texas during the Great War.

It wasn't summer yet, but the hot weather had arrived ahead of the season. Down in Baroyeca, he'd have worn a broad-brimmed straw sombrero, a loose-fitting cotton shirt, baggy trousers, and sandals. He would have been a lot more comfortable than he was in his gray guard uniform, too. The cap he had on didn't keep the sun off him nearly well enough. And he especially hated his shiny black boots. He didn't think he would ever get used to them. They pinched his feet at every step he took.

Nothing he could do about it, though. Guards had to stay in uniform. That was one of the rules, and n.o.body who didn't stick to the rules had any business being a guard. Along with the rest of his squad, he stood by the train tracks that ran between Camp Determination and the new women's camp alongside it.

Officially, the women's camp was part of Camp Determination. Brigade Leader Pinkard-Rodriguez's old war buddy-was in charge of it, too. Unofficially, the guards called the women's half Camp Undecided. Despite being married to a thoroughly decisive woman, Rodriguez thought that was pretty funny.

All the guards carried submachine guns. Tower-mounted machine guns also bore on the disembarking point. Prisoners who tried anything cute ended up dead in a hurry. The overwhelming firepower on display helped persuade incoming Negroes that acting up wasn't smart.

A big, swag-bellied Alabaman named Jerry pointed east down the track. "Look at the smoke," he said. "Another load of n.i.g.g.e.rs coming in."

The sergeant in charge of the squad said, "Well, what the h.e.l.l would we be cookin' our brains for out here if there wasn't another G.o.dd.a.m.n train comin' in?" Tom Porter, like the men he led, was a Freedom Party guard, so his formal rank was troop leader, not sergeant, but he wore three stripes on the sleeve of his gray tunic, and he acted like every senior noncom Rodriguez had ever known.

Up in the towers, the machine guns swung toward the train when it was still a good half a mile off. A couple of the men in Rodriguez's squad hefted their weapons. Other guards along the track also grew alert. Dog handlers patted their c.o.o.n hounds. The dogs were called that because they were most often used to hunt racc.o.o.ns. The men who used them here had a different sort of fun with the name.

Wheezing and groaning, the train slowed and then stopped. The locomotive had to date back to the turn of the century, if not further. Even in sleepy Sonora, it would have been an antique. More modern machines served closer to the front. This one would do for hauling mallates. mallates.

The pa.s.senger cars and freight cars it pulled had also seen better decades. Again, they were good enough for this. The pa.s.sengers cars had shutters hastily nailed up outside their windows. That kept the blacks inside from looking out and people outside from looking in.

All the cars were locked from the outside. Tom Porter pointed to the two closest to his squad. "We'll take 'em one at a time," he said, "the front one first." As he set his beefy hands on the latch, he added, "Be ready for anything. n.i.g.g.e.rs comin' out, they're liable to be a little crazy, or more than a little."

When he opened the door, the first thing that rolled out was a ripe, rich stench: s.h.i.t and p.i.s.s and puke and stale, sour sweat. Rodriguez wrinkled his nose. Far too many people had been packed inside that pa.s.senger car for much too long. They came spilling out now, a jumble of misery, blinking and shading their eyes against the sudden harsh sunlight.

If you got the jump on them early, they usually didn't get it back. "Move!" Porter screamed, and the other guards echoed him. "Men to the left! Women and pickaninnies to the right! Move, G.o.d d.a.m.n you!"

They moved-the ones who could. Some just collapsed by the railroad car. Kicks and punches drove most of those to their feet. The rest were too far gone for even brutality to rouse. "Water!" one of them croaked in a dust-choked voice. "I gots to have water. Ain't had no water since I dunno when."

Rodriguez kicked him-not hard enough to cripple, just hard enough to make sure the mallate mallate knew who was boss. "Get up!" he yelled. "No water here. Water inside the camp." Slowly, the Negro struggled upright and stood swaying. knew who was boss. "Get up!" he yelled. "No water here. Water inside the camp." Slowly, the Negro struggled upright and stood swaying.

A plump black woman said, "Dey's dead folks inside de car dere, poor souls."

There usually were casualties on a journey like this. The cars carried six or seven times as many people as they were designed to hold. Food was whatever the Negroes managed to smuggle aboard the train. The windows wouldn't open, and the shutters would have kept out most of the air if they had.

And, all things considered, this carload of blacks had it easy. They could have come to Camp Determination in a cattle car, the way a lot of Negroes in this train had. n.o.body bothered cleaning cattle cars very well before loading people into them. They had no windows, shuttered or otherwise. They had no toilets, either, only a honey bucket or two. And they were so jammed with men, women, and children that getting to a honey bucket would have taken a small miracle.

A striking young woman with a dancer's walk and high cheekbones that argued for an Indian grandparent sidled up to Rodriguez. "You keep me safe in here, I do anything you want," she purred in a bedroom voice. "Anything at all. My name's Thais. You look for me. I'm real real friendly." friendly."

"Go on. Get moving," he said stonily, and her face fell. Like most of the guards, he heard something like what she'd said at least once whenever a train came in. Women thought it would help. Sometimes they were even right. Not here. Not now.

"Form lines! Bring your luggage! Form lines! Bring your luggage!" Like every squad leader, Tom Porter yelled the same thing over and over. "You gotta be searched! You gotta be deloused! You gotta be searched! You gotta be deloused!"

The searchers would take away all the weapons and all the valuables they found. That stuff was supposed to go back into the war effort. Some of it, maybe even most of it, did. The rest stuck to the searchers' fingers. Searchers were senior men. They'd paid their dues, and now they were getting their reward. Some of them were getting to be wealthy men.

Slowly the lines formed. Even more slowly, they moved forward. Men and women too weak to rise in spite of calculated brutality lay by the railroad cars. "Get the stretcher parties out!" an officer shouted. "We'll move them to the transfer facility!"

None of the guards laughed or winked or nudged one another. They'd got lessons about that. Never do anything to spook the spooks, Never do anything to spook the spooks, one trainer had put it. one trainer had put it. The transfer facility The transfer facility was a killing truck. The only place they'd be transferred was the ma.s.s grave not far away. All the prisoners in Camp Determination were heading that way. The ones too weak to rise got an express ticket-that was the only difference. was a killing truck. The only place they'd be transferred was the ma.s.s grave not far away. All the prisoners in Camp Determination were heading that way. The ones too weak to rise got an express ticket-that was the only difference.

Black men carried away the weaklings. The story the bearers got was that the trucks would take them to an infirmary a couple of miles away. The infirmary existed. Every once in a while, a Negro came back from it. That kept the inmates from flabbling about what happened to the ones who didn't. More guards with submachine guns kept an eye on the stretcher bearers. But guards kept an eye on everybody all the time, so that didn't seem out of the ordinary.

Guards went through the cars to bring out the dead, the dying, and anybody who thought he'd get sneaky and try to hide. It was nasty work, but they couldn't trust it to the stretcher bearers, who were too soft on their own kind. Some of the dead ones had money or jewelry worth lifting. You never could tell.

Shouts farther down the train said another squad had caught a lurker. More shouts-these of pain-said he was getting what was coming to him. The guards would beat him to within an inch of his life. Then he'd get thrown on the first available truck "to the transfer facility"-and that would take care of the last inch.

"They're such d.a.m.n fools," said a guard heaving bodies out of the car with Rodriguez. "They think we're not gonna check the f.u.c.kin' cars. Gotta be dumb as rocks if they do."

"That's right," Rodriguez said.

"d.a.m.n straight it is," the other guard said. Buchanan Thornton was his name-he told people to call him Buck. He had no doubts about anything, not as far as Rodriguez could see. Few whites in the CSA did, and Buck Thornton was as white as they came: sandy hair with a lot of gray in it, blue eyes, pointy nose, freckles.

If there weren't blacks around to revile, he probably whiled away the time cussing at greasers. Where he was, though, he didn't have the time or energy to worry about anything but Negroes. As a Sonoran, Rodriguez knew he was on the bottom rung of the social ladder. But he was on the ladder; down below lay the ooze and the muck-the blacks on whose back the ladder stood.

He looked down on them all the more because he was closer to them than people higher up the ladder. In an odd way, though, Negroes were an insurance policy for people of Mexican blood. As long as they were there, n.o.body except a few Texans got excited about his kind.

The first trucks rolled out of Camp Determination. When they came back, the mallates mallates aboard them wouldn't be there anymore. Rodriguez wouldn't miss them a bit, either. The first Negroes he'd ever met had had guns in their hands. They'd done their level best to kill him. He'd hated and feared them ever since. If Jake Featherston wanted to get rid of them, more power to him and to the Freedom Party. aboard them wouldn't be there anymore. Rodriguez wouldn't miss them a bit, either. The first Negroes he'd ever met had had guns in their hands. They'd done their level best to kill him. He'd hated and feared them ever since. If Jake Featherston wanted to get rid of them, more power to him and to the Freedom Party.

As more stretcher bearers hauled away dead and dying blacks, Rodriguez had an odd thought. Suppose Camp Determination and others like it-for there were bound to be others like it-succeeded. Suppose they made the Confederate States Negro-free. What would the country be like then?

It would be a lot safer, was the first answer that sprang into his mind. was the first answer that sprang into his mind. Mallates Mallates were nothing but trouble. Even now, they left car bombs in cities and bushwhacked whites in the countryside. Good riddance to them. were nothing but trouble. Even now, they left car bombs in cities and bushwhacked whites in the countryside. Good riddance to them.

But if they were gone-if they were all all gone-what would that social ladder be like? People always needed someone at whom they could look down their noses. Who would fall into that unenviable role? gone-what would that social ladder be like? People always needed someone at whom they could look down their noses. Who would fall into that unenviable role?

People like me, Rodriguez thought-people with brown skin and black hair, people who spoke English with an accent. That might not be so good. He wondered why the question hadn't occurred to him sooner. Rodriguez thought-people with brown skin and black hair, people who spoke English with an accent. That might not be so good. He wondered why the question hadn't occurred to him sooner.

He shrugged. That would come later, much later, if it ever happened at all. It wasn't anything he had to lose sleep over, and he didn't intend to. He had a job to do, and he was going to do it the best way he knew how.

And maybe he shouldn't have looked down his nose at that Thais. She wasn't bad, and he hadn't seen Magdalena for a long time now. He shrugged again. It wasn't as if there weren't plenty of fish in that particular sea.

Air-raid sirens howled, tumbling George Enos, Jr., out of bed much too early on a Sunday morning. Either somebody with a s.a.d.i.s.tic sense of humor had picked the time for a drill-always a possibility in the Navy-or the j.a.ps were feeling friskier than usual.

When antiaircraft guns not far from the barracks started banging away, George got his answer. He also heard several anguished groans-gunfire and hangovers mixed poorly.

He took the time to throw on tunic and trousers and shoes before running for the closest slit trench. Not everybody bothered. Some people dashed out in nothing but skivvies. n.o.body ragged them for it, either. In combat, what you had to do came first, with everything else a long way behind.

A fighter swooped low. Machine-gun bullets chewed up the gra.s.s and sent dirt jumping. Some of them kicked into the trench, too. Somebody howled like a coyote when a bullet found him. George scrunched himself up as small and as low as he could. His whites got filthy, but that was the least of his worries.