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Nothing wrong with the message. If the CSA and the Freedom Party beat the USA, things would only get worse for blacks here. But calling for sabotage was calling for a worker to take his life in his hands. Those who got caught paid. Oh, how they paid.

He also saw lots of places where a flyer-probably the same one-had been torn down. Not many people would want that message on their wall or fence or tree. It would land them in trouble with the Confederate authorities, and trouble with the Confederate authorities was the last thing any black man in Covington needed.

Not entirely by coincidence, Cinci

"You comin' in, uncle?" the cop said around a mouthful of beef. Grease shone on his lips and chin. He held the door open for Cinci

"Thank you kindly, suh," Cinci

Lucullus' place did a brisk breakfast business, mostly on scraps and shreds of barbecued beef and pork cooked with eggs and with fried potatoes or grits. Cinci

"There's some," she answered. "But we havin' trouble gettin' the real bean. Everybody havin' trouble gettin' the real bean, even white folks. We got to stretch best way we know how."

Cinci

"I do that," she said, and hurried off.

Lucullus didn't come out right away. Cinci

"It's all right. It's tolerable, anyways," Cinci

"There's some. There's always some, you wa

With his barbecue, he would always have customers. Cinci

"Six, with more comin'," Lucullus echoed quietly. Cinci

"You don't work for 'em, somethin' worse happen," Cinci

"Yeah, I seen it," Lucullus answered. His smile was broad and genuinely amused. Cinci

"Lots o' colored folks try that, they end up dead," Cinci

"Colored folks don't try somethin' like that, we all liable to end up dead," Lucullus said. Cinci

"Well, no," Cinci

"You go on thinkin' that way, you go

"I heard it," Cinci

"You suppose the folks who say it, they jokin'?" Lucullus persisted.

"How the hell do I know?" Cinci

That made Lucullus laugh, but not for long. He said, "We talks that way on account o' what goes on at them camps in Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana. You don't believe they reduces their population there? You don't believe they kills people so they don't got to worry 'bout feedin' 'em no more? You don't believe that?"

Cinci

"Hell he ain't." Lucullus had no doubts. "Mebbe they kills us whether we fights back or no. We sits quiet, though, they kills us for sure."

"He's fightin' the damnyankees," Cinci

"You been up in Ioway. You ain't been payin' enough attention to the CSA. Even when Kentucky was in the USA, I had to," Lucullus said. "Why you reckon Confederate factories make about nine million tractors and harvesters and combines a few years back?"

"I seen that when it happened. Don't tell me I don't pay no attention," Cinci

Lucullus looked surprised, and not just at his vehemence. "That's part o' why, I reckon," he admitted. "But they's more to it than that. They put all them machines in the fields. Just one of 'em do the work of a hell of a lot o' nigger farmhands. Niggers want to work, they got to go to town. Mister Jake Featherston got hisself a whole new proletariat to exploit… an' the niggers who fights back, or the niggers who can't find no work no way, nohow, he goes an' he reduces their population."

Cinci

"Over Open Sights," Cinci

"It's all in here," Lucullus said. "Featherston ain't just a bastard, like you say. He's a bastard who knows what he wants to do. An' he wrote some of this shit back during the Great War. He say so, for Chrissake. He's knowed what he wants to do for years."

Scipio watched a plump, prosperous white businessman eat his venison at the Huntsman's Lodge. The man's supper companion was a very pretty blonde half his age-not his wife, as Scipio knew. He was saying, "Have you had a look at Over Open Sights, sweetcakes?"