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C larence Potter paid two cents for a copy of the Charleston Mercury. "Thanks very much," he told the boy from whom he bought it.
"You're welcome, sir," the boy said, the thick drawl of the old South Carolina coastal city flavoring his speech. He cocked his head to one side. "You a Yankee, sir? You sure don't talk like you're from hereabouts."
"Not me, son." Potter shook his head. The motion threatened to dislodge his steel-framed spectacles. He set them more firmly on the bridge of his long, thin nose. "I came to Charleston after the war, though. I grew up in Virginia."
"Oh." The newsboy relaxed. He probably hadn't gone more than ten miles outside of Charleston in his whole life, and wouldn't have known a Virginia accent from one from Massachusetts or Mi
Holding his newspaper so he could read as he walked, Potter hurried down Queen Street toward the harbor. He moved like an ex-soldier, head up, shoulders back. And he had been a soldier-he'd served as a major in intelligence in the Army of Northern Virginia during the war. His accent had aroused some talk, and some suspicion, there, too. Even men who knew accents thought he sounded too much like a Yankee for comfort. And so he did; not long before the war, he'd gone to Yale, and the way people spoke in New Haven had rubbed off on him.
Below the fold on the front page was an account of a speech by Jake Featherston, raising holy hell because Teddy Roosevelt's bones were resting in the sacred soil of Virginia. Potter clucked and rolled his eyes and made as if to chuck the paper into the first trash can he saw. He would have bet Featherston would make a speech like that. But in the end, he didn't throw away the Mercury. He opened it and read till he'd seen as much of the speech as it reprinted.
He clicked his tongue between his teeth as he refolded the newspaper. Featherston would pick up points for what he'd said. Damn Teddy Roosevelt and his arrogance, Potter thought. As far as he was concerned, anything that helped the Freedom Party was bad for the Confederate States of America.
He'd got to know Jake Featherston pretty well during the war. Featherston had made the fatal mistake of being right when he said Jeb Stuart III's Negro servant, Pompey, was in fact a Red rebel. Young Captain Stuart, not believing it, had got Pompey off the hook, only to have his treason proved when the Negro uprising broke out a little while later. Stuart had gone into action seeking death after that, and, on a Great War battlefield, death was never hard to find.
General Jeb Stuart, Jr., a hero of the Second Mexican War, was a power in the War Department in Richmond. He'd made sure Jake Featherston, who'd been right about his son's error in judgment, never got promoted above the rank of sergeant no matter how well he fought-and Jake fought very well indeed. For that matter, Potter himself had also been involved in uncovering Jeb Stuart III's mistake, and he'd advanced only one grade in three years himself.
But his failure to get promoted affected only him. Had Jeb Stuart, Jr., relented and given Featherston the officer's rank he deserved, the CSA would have been saved endless grief. Clarence Potter was sure of that. Featherston had been taking out his rage and frustration against Confederate authorities ever since.
I knew even then he was monstrous good at hating, Potter thought. Did I ever imagine, while the fighting was going on, that he'd turn out to be as good at it as he has? He shook his head. He was honest enough to admit to himself that he hadn't. He'd thought Jake Featherston would disappear into obscurity once the war ended. Most men-almost all men-would have. The exceptions were the ones who had to be dealt with.
For the time being, it looked as if Featherston had been dealt with. Not so long before, his speech would have stood at the top of the front page, not below the fold. He was a falling star these days. With luck, he wouldn't rise again.
When Potter got to the harbor, he stiffened. A U.S. Navy gunboat was tied up at one of the quays. Seeing the Stars and Stripes here, where the Confederacy was born and the War of Secession began, raised his hackles. The flag stood out; the C.S. Navy used the Confederate battle flag as its ensign, not the Stars and Bars that so closely resembled the U.S. ba
These days, Clarence Potter made his living as an investigator. He'd been looking into smuggling going through the harbor, and had headed there to report his findings to the harbormaster. But that warship flying the hated Northern flag drew him as a magnet drew iron.
He wasn't the only one, either. Men in both C.S. naval uniform and in civilian clothes converged on the U.S. gunboat. "Yankees, go home!" somebody yelled. Scores of throats roared agreement, Potter's among them.
"Avast that shouting!" a U.S. officer on the deck of the gunboat bawled through a megaphone. "We've got every right to be here under the armistice agreement, and you know it damned well. We're inspecting to make sure you Confederates aren't building submersibles in these parts. If you interfere with us while we're doing our duty, you'll be sorry, and so will your whole stinking country."
They love us no better than we love them, Clarence Potter reminded himself. And that lieutenant commander had a point. If he and his men couldn't make their inspection, the CSA would pay, in humiliation and maybe in gold as well. The Yankees had learned their lessons well; as victors, they were even more intolerable than the Confederates had been.
"Yankees, go home!" the crowd on the quay shouted, over and over.
At a barked order, the sailors on the gunboat swung their forward ca
"That's better," the U.S. officer said. "If you think we won't open fire, you'd goddamn well better think again."
"You'll never get out of this harbor if you do," somebody called.
The U.S. lieutenant commander had spunk. He shrugged. "Maybe we will, maybe we won't. But if you want to start a brand new war against the United States of America, go right ahead. If you start it, we'll finish it."
No one from the United States would have talked like that before the Great War. The Confederate States had been on top of the world then. No more. The Yankees had the whip hand nowadays. And people in Charleston knew it. The crowd in front of the U.S. gunboat dispersed sullenly, but it dispersed. Some of the men who walked away knuckled their eyes to hold back tears. The Confederates were a proud folk, and choking on that pride came hard.
Potter made his way to the harbormaster's office. That worthy, a plump man named Ambrose Spawforth, fumed about Yankee arrogance. "Those sons of bitches don't own the world, no matter what they think," he said.
"You know that, and I know that, but do the damnyankees know it?" Potter answered. "I'll tell you something else I know: the way that bastard in a blue jacket acted, he just handed the Freedom Party a raft of new votes."
Spawforth was normally a man with a good deal of common sense. When he said, "Well, good," a chill ran through Clarence Potter. The harbormaster went on, "Isn't it about time we start standing up to the USA again?"
"That depends," Potter said judiciously. "Standing up to them isn't such a good idea if they go and knock us down again. Right now, they can do that, you know."
"Don't I just!" Spawforth said. "We're weaklings now. We need to get strong again. We can do it. We will do it, too."
"Not behind Jake Featherston." Potter spoke with absolute conviction.