Alternate Generals II

"… done arrested the mayor and the chief…"

"… hope they got that damn county assessor, too…"

"… bunch'a i

"… just a bluff…"

"… half a mind to get out my varmint rifle and…"

"… barbaric, that's what it is…"

The bartender, a swarthy, heavy-jowled man of Stevenson's age, listens and shakes his head. He and Stevenson lock gazes for a moment and trade rueful grins. Thus do rabbits discuss the wolf. "Martyrs stiffen a cause," the barman tells him. "If the Germans execute the hostages, they'll be sowing dragon's teeth."

Stevenson grants that German antiterrorism doctrine is every bit as barbaric as the terrorism itself. Yet, it is no more than poetic justice on the people who invented "racial clearing." Just what were those "i

Just before nightfall, the German commander arrives. Provost-general Erwin Rommel is a veteran of both the Bolshevik War and the Pacific War and has a reputation as a just man. This is bad news for Selma, since justice of any sort would wipe it off the face of the Earth. Stevenson catches a glimpse of the general as he rides down the street behind the bullet-proofed windows of his staff car. Peaked cap, Eisenkreuz dangling from a blue ribbon around his neck, a look on his face of infinite distance and pain. A father about to spank an errant child.

Stevenson remembers the cultured, intelligent lieutenant Goldberg and wishes Rommel silent success. If the random hostages do not include last night's terrorists, they surely include those of other nights. An eye for an eye.

But the food lies heavy and undigested in Stevenson's belly. He can hear Wallace in his mind. Is it not important to lynch the «right» rednecks?

Stevenson is preparing for bed when a gentle tapping at his door freezes him. He scowls, begs a moment's grace, and puts his shirt back on, pulling his suspenders up as he reaches for the knob.

A bellboy stands without-rumpled gray uniform with a button missing, pillbox cap set slightly askew. "What is it?" he asks the young man.

"The package you ordered."

Stevenson has ordered no package, but sees the note affixed to the plain brown wrapper. Follow me. Make no sign. He looks again at the boy, wondering who has sent him. Too light-complexioned for the SCLC, but he might work for Tricky Dick. Unless there are other factions… Stevenson places the package (sans note) on the dresser and follows the bellhop.

Dusk has slid quietly into night, but has brought with it no relief from the heat as bricks and asphalt slowly release the energy they have absorbed during the day. The bellhop leads him to a darkened alley cluttered with debris and trash cans, damp with fetid pools, rank with the stench of garbage and honeysuckle. A shape steps forward from the darkness and Stevenson recoils when he sees a well-muscled Negro man, broad in the shoulders, two hundred pounds and none of it fat. His head is shaved. A scar puckers one cheek and an implacable steel gleams in his eyes. Stevenson recognizes John Calvin King, «generalissimo» of the Southern Colored Liberation Corps.

"I saw by the newspaper," King says sardonically, "that you wanted to see me." His hands wave not a newspaper but an over-and-under shotgun. Stevenson notices a twist of wire on the trigger guard.

The bellboy slouches in the mouth of the alley smoking a cigarette, but he turns long enough to send a smirk in Stevenson's direction. "Ever hear of a white boy," King's voice says, "passin' fo' black?" When Stevenson turns a puzzled look on the guerilla leader, he explains. "Linc, there, he has seven white great-grandparents. Now, what do you call a boy like that?" He does not wait for Stevenson to answer. "A 'nigger, is what. Same as if seven was black and only one was white. Shows the power of black blood."

Stevenson studies the bellhop and, now that King has pointed it out, he can see the slightly thicker lips, the slightly broader nose, the slightly duskier complexion. King, watching, lets him make up his mind before adding slyly, " 'Less I'm lyin'. There are some white folks who fight for justice."

King is playing with him, but Stevenson uses the opening. "Maybe more of us than you know."

"Doubt that, Stevenson. I sure didn't see many of you down here during the clearings."

Stevenson wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "People up north," he says, "are predisposed to look favorably on your cause-"

"He talks purty," says the bellhop, but King waves him silent. "Go on."

"They don't like what's been done to your people. The burnings, the beatings and lynchings-they elicited a great deal of sympathy up north. They would like to help…"

"But…" suggests King. "There's a 'but' in there somewhere."

"But they won't help you break up the United States-and that's what will happen if you keep up these vengeance strikes of yours. You have a grievance-God knows, you have a grievance-but they don't like the way the League butted in when you asked them for help."

"Who should I have asked?" King says bitterly. "Governor Sparkman? President Black? The good folks up north, who 'sympathized' with our 'plight' but never lifted one damn finger to help? If good does nothing, evil triumphs. And what was done to us was not a 'grievance'; it was not a 'plight. It was evil! Not even some likkered-up mob losing its head because some pasty-fleshed white woman kicked up her heels for some po'-ass black boy and changed her mind next mornin'. This was deliberate, pla

"Not for you," Stevenson tells him. "They're jealous of our prosperity-because we never got sucked into their wars-so they wanted to take the USA down a peg or two."

He is rewarded by a huge, black shrug. "I know that. But if a man helps get the boot off my neck, who am I to question his motives?"

"I never walked in your shoes," Stevenson admits, "but we've got to think toward the future. The longer the Situation goes on, the harder it will be to bring us back together as one nation."

"Never was one nation," King says. "Not for us."

"But it can be. Don't you see? It's what we work toward. If we lose the faith that it can be, we lose hope. And if we lose hope, we lose everything-all the good works that might yet come-and the future will be nothing but ambush and bushwhack and hate and separation, world without end."

For a moment, King seems captured by the image, as if he has had a dream of all God's children, black and white, lying dead side by side, equal at last. "If not the League," he asks suspiciously, "then who?"

"Us."

King's eyes widen. "The Democrats?"

"Why stick with the Republicans? What have they ever done for the Negro?"

The guerilla leader affects i

"That was nearly a hundred years ago. Today, they're lapdogs for Big Business and don't care about Negroes one way or the other."

"Maybe so," King allows, "but that puts 'em up a notch, don't it. 'Cause in case you haven't noticed, the Democrats down here do care about us. One way. Or is it the other?" He smiles at Stevenson's discomfiture. "What you up to, Stevenson? You got a strategy?"

"A deal," he says. "If northern Democrats take your side against the rednecks, our Southern wing could bolt…"

A cynical smile splits a black face. "So you need our votes because you'd lose theirs? Good Lord above, Stevenson! Can't you take a stand just because it's right? That's the acid test. Isn't governing a nation more important than wi