Walk in Hell

"I'll do my best, sir," the young captain said.

"You'll do it, Captain, or this time next week you'll be chasing redskins and bandits through the parts of the Sonoran desert we were supposed to have pacified a year and a half ago," Custer said. He meant it, too, as the luckless Captain Heissig had to know; his staff had the highest turnover of any commander of an army's.

There were times-a lot of times-when commanding a battalion in the Sonoran desert would have looked very good to Dowling. But Custer, worse luck, didn't threaten to ship him out. He just used him as a whipping boy. Dowling sent poor Captain Heissig a sympathetic glance. Misery loved company.

Cinci

And when you walked into Apicius' barbecue place, you felt certain you were going to starve to death before you got your pork or your beef, smothered in the hot, spicy sauce that made the Smoke House famous and spun on a spit over a hickory fire. Even if you weren't coming in for the food, as Cinci

Blacks ate at the Kentucky Smoke House. So did Covington's whites, unwilling to let their colored brethren have such a good thing to themselves. And so did Yankee soldiers and administrators. A man who kept his ears open there would surely learn a lot.

Lucullus, Apicius' son, was turning the spit in the main room. The carcass of a pig went round and round above the firepit. However much his mouth watered, Cinci

But when he headed for the back rooms, Felix, Apicius' other son, stood in front of him to bar the way. "Pa's already in there talkin' with somebody," he said. "Be a good idea if you see him later."

"Who's he talkin' to that I ain't supposed to know nothin' about?" Cinci

Felix was a couple of years younger than Lucullus. He hadn't quite got his full growth, and he hadn't quite acquired the arrogance that would have let him tell a grown man no and get away with it. He looked toward Lucullus for support, but Lucullus kept basting that pig with a long-handled brush. When Cinci

The fat Negro barbecue cook looked up in startlement when the door opened. So did the man with whom he'd been bent in intent conversation. All at once, Cinci

"I'm go

"Could be worse," Ke

His tone was-cautious was the word on which Cinci

"Well, all right, you're here," Apicius said roughly. He slid down on the bench he was occupying to give Cinci

But Cinci

Ke

"You did tell me about that, Mr. Ke

"Got to get through the Congress before it's real, and the Congress don't move what anybody'd call real quick," Apicius observed.

"I think Congress will move quicker here than you figure," Ke

Apicius shook his head. "Felix does, and Lucullus. Not me. All I knows is how to cook meat till it fall off the bone into yo' mouth."

And how to sandbag, Cinci

The display of ignorance didn't impress Ke

"Reckon I do know that," the cook said. "Question is, do I care? The CSA is a pack o' capitalists and oppressors, an' de USA is a pack o' capitalists and oppressors, too. Why the devil does we care what the devil happens to one pack o' capitalists and imperialists or the other?"

Cinci

Was that a warning about Conroy's store? What else could it be? But if Ke

Apicius said, "That don't mean what I said beforehand don't hold. You got to remember that, Mister Tom. Most of the black folks who think about politics at all, we is Marxists. We is oppressed so bad, what else can we be? The war you got, it's an imperialist war. Why shouldn't we sit by and let the capitalists shoot each other full of holes?" Cinci

Ke