Alternate Generals II

Stevenson flushes. "We can't govern if we don't win; and if you help us win, then we'd owe you. But we can't help unless you break with the League and stop the vengeance strikes."

"Self-defense isn't murder."

"Retribution isn't self-defense."

King shows teeth. "Massacre don't look so good from the other end of the gun barrel, does it?"

"You lose the moral high ground when you stoop to the level of your oppressors."

"The high ground…? The high ground…?" King's laughter is bitter. "Shit, we already got all the 'low' ground: six feet of it, twenty thousand times over. We should stand by all meek and humble and 'yassah, boss' while they shoot us down, rape our women, burn our churches, just so other white folks can admire how Christian we are for 'turnin' the other cheek'? My mama named me for a preacher, but that don't make me one. Can you name one place in the world where 'turn the other cheek' won the day? Russia? India? China? Anywhere? No. The League wants us to trust them to keep order, but someday the League will go home. I'd rather trust my right to bear arms." King flourishes the shotgun he is holding and Stevenson takes an involuntary step backward.

"Sometimes," King says, now more to himself than to Stevenson, "I think I was born for this. That I was destined from all time to be the protector and savior of my people; to lead them into the Promised Land. Even if things had fallen out differently-no Great War, no League, no President Robinson winking while hooded nightriders rode out in the daylight-I would still find myself waging this struggle."

"But maybe with words instead of weapons."

King shrugs. "I just keep on keepin' on. If we don't stand up now, when can we? If we accept mass murder, against what injustice can we later rail? No! Never again! My destiny drives me. Here I stand; I can do nothing else."

"That's Martin Luther."

King gives him a look. "I know that, 'professor. Just like I know you were born to be a trimmer. Always looking for the compromise. Always splitting the difference. Well, Stevenson, how do you split the difference between me and Georgie Wallace?"

"He wants to fight the Germans, not you. He's trying to control the mob."

King grunts. "A man rides a tiger, it's the tiger decides which way to run. So, how 'bout we compromise. They only kills half as many of us next year."

"Is it so terrible to bury the hatchet and search for common ground?"

"Long as the ground ain't quicksand-and the hatchet ain't buried in my head. Long as folks don't have to abandon their principles to come together. But principles don't matter to your sort, do they? Lord Jesus, I think I'd rather deal with ol' Georgie. I might not like where he stands, but at least he stands somewhere."

"That's fu

King saddens Stevenson in an indefinable way. This might have been an educated man, had history treated him more kindly. Stevenson is not well read, himself; he finishes perhaps two books a year, not like Truman who consumes them weekly by the dozen. Yet he knows native intelligence when he sees it. "You'll be killed, eventually. If the nightriders don't get you, the Germans will. They came to restore order, not to help you wreak vengeance."

"They will take my gun," King prophesies, "when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers."

Stevenson shivers from a sudden vision. A shot. A body topples on a distant balcony. Cities burn in retribution. "Is it worth being killed?"

King stares as if from a distant height. "If a man hasn't discovered something he can die for, he isn't fit to live. The measure of a man is not where he stands when things are easy-fine words and sentiments flow smoothly when they cost nothing-but what measures a man is where he stands in tribulation. Has there ever been a Savior that the mob failed to crucify?"

"Predestination," Stevenson answered. "You're taking your namesake too seriously."

King gives him a quizzical look. "It bothers you. Why?"

A shake of the head. "I don't know, but I think, in another milieu, you might have achieved greatness."

"So might we all, Stevenson. You, me, Georgie, Sparkman. Our natures form us, but the world molds us. And so, instead of greatness, I lead a life that is 'nasty, brutish, and short'."

"First Calvin; now Hobbes. You're better read than you let on." Stevenson genuinely likes this man, or at least the man he might have been, but he can see now that he has come on a fool's errand. Jackson must have misread the signals. Now he can only hope that Jackson's guarantee is enough to let him leave this alley. "One word of advice…" He waits until King shows by the tilt of his head that he will listen. "Don't let the Germans know you steal your arms from their checkpoints."

King turns the shotgun over in his hand and runs a hand down its barrel. "Now don't you go carrying tales to the Germans if you can't back them up," he says at last. "Words without facts are just words."

"Did you attack the-"

"And don't ask questions you don't want to hear the answer to." He pauses a moment as he studies Stevenson's face. Then he relents. "But maybe we hear about a raid, you know what I'm saying; and we duck in while others are… occupied… and take what we can. It pleases me to arm myself with weapons the League has taken from our oppressors."

"Who warned you about the raid?" Stevenson is certain the raid was Wallace's work; but he is equally certain Wallace would never have tipped King.

Expecting evasion, he is surprised when King answers. "Tricky Dick."

"You've seen him?"

"Him? No, nobody's ever seen that sly ol' fox. He sent a message, though. Told us you'd ask about him, too; and told us to tell you it was him."

Later, back in his hotel room, a shaken Stevenson seeks liquid relief and finds that King has a mordant sense of humor. Opening the package King's minion had given him, he finds the inevitable bottle of bourbon.

It is Old Crow.

The two storm troopers bang on his door early in the morning, but they allow him to shower and dress before escorting him to the Hauptquartier. The other men hanging about the hotel stare at Stevenson as he is marched past. It is the first clue the locals have that he might be someone important. The bartender is just opening up. When he sees Stevenson, he raises both hands, with two fingers spread in a V to signal encouragement.

A vigorous man in his early sixties, Rommel questions Stevenson about the incident at the checkpoint and how Lt. Goldberg handled the drunken redneck in the pickup truck. The interrogation is persistent, but polite. America is not a conquered province and a federal senator is no small thing to toy with. Rommel represents the League of Nations, not the Kaiser. He wears the green-and-white armband on his sleeve with the crossed olive branches. Officially, there are limits to what he can do to Stevenson.

Unofficially, of course, there are always tragic accidents.

Nervous in front of the iron-gray tactician, Stevenson pulls a pack of Luckies from his coat pocket, but Rommel curtly refuses him permission to light up. Stevenson is so startled that Rommel unbuttons enough to explain.

"I have sworn off the tobacco," he says. "It is-how do you say it? — a 'movement' in Europe. Perhaps you have heard? An Austrian painter-a crusader against vivisection and animal abuse-leads the campaign. I hear him speak once at a rally in Nuremberg, where they lit a bonfire and everyone threw into the flames their cigarettes. As a painter, the man was mediocre; but as a speaker, he is spellbinding. According to him, even the smoke of others is harmful; and so, there is no smoking in my presence."

Stevenson tucks his pack away. He doesn't think an anti-tobacco attitude will serve Rommel well in the South, but the general has not come here to endear himself.