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One after another, the loaded trucks rolled away. A couple of the guards waved good-bye. Jefferson Pinkard saw that. As soon as the trucks were gone, he summoned those guards to his office. "You ever do that again, I will fire your sorry asses so fast, it'll make your heads swim," he snarled. "Ever! You don't like those niggers well enough to wave if they're going to Texas. Only thing that'd make you wave is if something else is goin'on."

"But, sir, somethin' else is-" one of the guards began.

"Shut up," Jeff told him. "Every time you open your mouth, your brains try and fall out. You may know somethin'. I doubt it, but you may. I may know somethin'. Matter of fact, I damn well do. But do we want the niggers here gettin' a whiff of it? Do we, you stupid son of a bitch?"

The guard stood mute, which was the smartest thing he could have done. Pinkard jerked his thumb toward the door. The guards almost tripped over each other in their eagerness to escape. They left the door open. Jeff shouted after them. One came back and closed it. Jeff listened to his footsteps recede.

That afternoon, Mercer Scott said, "Don't you reckon you came down on my boys a little hard?"

"Sorry, Mercer, but I don't," Jeff answered. "I want things to go smooth around here. That means I don't want some damn fools tryin' to be fu

Scott understood what he was saying-and what he wasn't. The guard chief didn't want Camp Dependable simmering at the edge of revolt the way it had been when Negroes were marched off into the swamps any more than Jeff did. "I don't reckon they'll make that mistake again," he said.

"They'd better not, or they're gone," Jeff said. "That's how come I came down on 'em like I did. They've got to know I won't put up with that shit. And if you want to talk to your friends in Richmond about it, you go right ahead. I don't aim to back down on this one."

He watched Scott weighing his chances. By the downward curve of the guard chief's mouth, he didn't think they were good. Jeff didn't, either. He was sure right lay on his side. And he was in favor in Richmond because of the transport trucks that did more than transport. Put right and favor together and you were pretty hard to beat.

From the way the papers and the wireless news in Covington, Kentucky, were crowing, Cinci

Cinci

Lucullus often came out from the back of the place and sat with him when he did show up. Cinci

"Yeah, the USA screwed up," Lucullus said mournfully. "Got over the Rappaha

"Great War was like that," Cinci

"Yeah, well…" Lucullus' broad shoulders went up and down in a shrug. "Where they went, they caught the Yankees by surprise. Daniel MacArthur sure didn't surprise them none." He took a swig of coffee, as if to wipe a bad taste from his mouth.

"Too bad," Cinci

"Uh-huh. You said it. Too bad is right." By the way Lucullus agreed, his hopes were among those that lay bleeding between the two Virginia rivers.

Trying to change the subject, Cinci

Lucullus had been raising the coffee cup again. It jerked in his hand-only a little, but Cinci

"Is that a fact?" Cinci

Lucullus shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, looks like I was wrong."

"Looks like," Cinci

The other man hesitated. Cinci

For the Confederates, Cinci

Hearing the sarcasm, Lucullus made a sour face. "He want you to know more, I reckon he tell you more his ownself."

That put Cinci

"They usin' 'em in the camps," Lucullus replied. "They usin' 'em to ship niggers between the camps. Now you knows as much as I does." He didn't sound happy confessing his ignorance.

"Well, that explains it, then," Cinci

"Maybe." But Lucullus sounded deeply dubious. "But what they use 'em for?"

"You done said it yourself: to ship niggers from one place to the next."

"Yeah, I done said it. But it don't add up, or it don't add up all the way. They already had trucks for that kind o' work. Ordinary Army trucks with shackles on the floor… You put a nigger in one o' them, he ain't goin'nowhere till you let him loose. How come they change, then?" Lucullus was as suspicious of change as the most reactionary Freedom Party man.

Cinci

"I hears you. I just don't think you is right," the barbecue cook answered. "What the Freedom Party does don't always make sense to us. But it always make sense to them. They gots reasons fo' what they does."

That made sense to Cinci

"No. I don't know. I ain't been able to find out." By the way Lucullus said it, he took not knowing as a personal affront.

Cinci

Lucullus started to answer, then checked himself. He eyed Cinci

"My mama-" Cinci

"I'm sorry 'bout your mama now. That's a tough row to hoe. I didn't mean it like that," Lucullus said. Cinci