Walk in Hell

Her face heated. Bill Reach knew what she looked like under that dress, sure enough, or he knew what she had looked like under her clothes, back when she'd been younger than Edna was now. She hadn't seen him since, or wanted to, till he'd shown up at the coffeehouse one day a few months before. Then she'd managed to frighten him off, and hoped he was gone for good. Now-

"If you don't get out of here right now," she said, "I'm going to let these officers here know you're bothering a lady. Confederates are gentlemen. They don't like that." Except when they're trying to get you into bed themselves.

Reach laughed, showing bad teeth. It looked like a good-natured laugh-unless you were on the receiving end of it. "I don't think you'll do that."

"Oh? And why don't you?" She might be betraying Rebel information to Hal Jacobs, but that didn't mean she'd be shy about using Confederate officers to protect herself from Bill Reach and whatever he wanted.

But then he said, "Why? Oh, I don't know. A little bird told me-a little homing pigeon, you might say."

For a couple of seconds, that meant nothing to Nellie. Then it did, and froze her with apprehension. One of Mr. Jacobs' friends was a fancier of homing pigeons. He used them to get information out of Washington and into the hands of U.S. authorities. If Bill Reach knew about that-"What do you want?" Nellie had to force the words out through stiff lips.

Now the smile was more like a leer. "For now, a cup of coffee and a chicken-salad sandwich," he answered. "Anything else I have in mind, you couldn't bring me to the table."

Men, Nellie thought, a one-word condemnation of half the human race. All they want is that. Well, he's not going to get it. "I'll bring you your food and the coffee," she said, and then, to show him-to try to show him-she wasn't intimidated, she added, "That will be a dollar fifteen."

Silver jingled in his pocket. He set a dollar and a quarter on the table-real money, no scrip. He'd looked seedy the last time she'd seen him, too, but he hadn't had any trouble paying her high prices then, either. She scooped up the coins and started back toward the counter.

She almost ran into Edna. "I'm sorry, Ma," her daughter said, continuing in a low voice, "I wondered if you were having trouble with that guy."

"It's all right," Nellie said. It wasn't all right, or even close to all right, but she didn't want Edna getting a look at the skeletons in her closet. Edna was hard enough to manage as things were. One of the things that helped keep her in line was the tone of moral superiority Nellie took. If she couldn't take that tone any more, she didn't know what she'd do.

And then, from behind her, Bill Reach said, "Sure is a pretty daughter you have there, Nell."

"Thank you," Nellie said tonelessly. Edna looked bemused, but Nellie hoped that was because Reach's appearance failed to match the other customers'. At least he hadn't called her Little Nell in front of Edna. The most unwanted pet name brought the days when he'd known her back to all too vivid life.

"I'd be proud if she was my daughter," Reach said.

That was too much to be borne. "Well, she isn't," Nellie answered, almost certain she was right.

The cold north wind whipped down across the Ohio River and through the Covington, Kentucky, wharves. Cinci

Ke

Another laborer, an older Negro named Herodotus, said to Cinci

"You got a long line in front of you," Cinci

"Probably the only way he knows to deal wid us," Herodotus said.

Cinci

Herodotus just shrugged. He did the work Ke

Cinci

Along with Herodotus, he hauled the crate from the barge to a waiting truck. He could have driven that truck, freeing a U.S. soldier to fight; he'd been a driver before the war started. But the Yankees wouldn't let him get behind the wheel of a truck, for no better reason he could see than that he had a black skin. That struck him as stupid and wasteful, but how was he supposed to convince the occupying authorities? The plain answer was, he couldn't.

And so he did what he had to do to get along. He and Elizabeth had a son now. Better yet, Achilles was sleeping through the night most of the time, so Cinci

He and Herodotus finally loaded the day's last crate of ammunition into the last truck and lined up for the paymaster. Along with the usual dollar, they both got the fifty-cent hard-work bonus. The gray-haired sergeant who paid them said, "You boys is taming that Ke

"Maybe," Herodotus said. Cinci

Herodotus spent a nickel of his bonus on trolley fare and headed for home in a hurry. Cinci

Walking through Covington was walking through a minefield of resentments. The Stars and Stripes floated over the city hall and all the police stations. Troops in green-gray uniforms were not just visible; they were conspicuous. The Yankees had the town, and they aimed to keep it.

Some local whites did business with them, too. With Cinci