Breakthroughs

Confederate artillerymen were made to quit the high ground east of the little Virginia town only with the greatest reluctance. Some of the gun crews stayed till they could fire at the advancing barrels over open sights. They took heavy casualties, though; splinter shields were no match for the firepower bearing down on them.

A Rebel gu

Joe Conroy was about the last man in the world Cinci

“Got nothin’ to gloat about, suh,” Cinci

He might not learn anything anyhow. Conroy sneered at him. “Yeah, a likely story. You go on and tell me you don’t know what the hell happened to my store after me and Tom Ke

“Mr. Conroy, suh, I don’t know what the hell happened to your store,” Cinci

That there was a lie, and his mother would have boxed his ears for telling a lie had she been here to listen to it. But his mother wasn’t anywhere around, and he told the lie with great aplomb. “Huh,” Conroy grunted, as if to say he didn’t believe it for a minute. But then he went on, “If you don’t know about it, who the hell does?”

Cinci

He didn’t think he’d made the question too obvious. Conroy had offered him another question on which to hang it, so he didn’t seem to be pulling it in from out of the blue. The storekeeper looked down at the park bench on which they sat at opposite ends before giving an answer more oblique than useful: “Never could figure out what the hell Tom saw in you.”

“Swear to Jesus, suh, never did figure out what he was doin’ there outside my door,” Cinci

Conroy’s eyes were narrow slits, almost hidden in folds of fat. Cinci

Only a lifetime of disguising his feelings toward whites and the stupid things that came out of their mouths let Cinci

“Well, now,” the storekeeper said slowly, “I don’t rightly know. Could have been a whole bunch of different folks.”

Cinci

Unless I tell them who Tom Ke

Conroy got what he was talking about. The white man’s absurd little rosebud mouth puckered up as if he’d bitten into the world’s sourest pickled tomato. “Who?” he repeated, sounding like an unhappy owl. “Could have been one of those Kentucky State Police bastards. Could have been some of the Red niggers, too. You’d know more about that than I would, I reckon.”

He gave Cinci

“I told him to watch out for ’em just the same,” Conroy said. “Can’t trust a Red. He’ll yell ‘Popular Front!’ today and kick you in the nuts tomorrow. Tom thought he could handle it. He always thought he could handle everything.”

That did sound like the Ke

And Conroy wasn’t through, either. He continued, “Could even have been some of our own boys. I’ve heard this one and that one go on about how Tom was selling us all down the river.”

“That a fact?” Cinci

Conroy looked down at his shoes, which were every bit as scuffed and battered as Cinci

In casual tones, Cinci

“Yeah, and he gave you money out of his own pocket, the cold-blooded son of a bitch,” Conroy snapped.

Cinci

“Maybe he would. And if you was to tell him somethin’, maybe some smart nigger who wasn’t quite as smart as he reckoned he was would get a bullet through the ear one day when he’s drivin’ that big ugly old White truck o’ his that’s plumb full o’ shit the damnyankees’re shootin’ at his countrymen. Or maybe his wife’d have a little accident. Or maybe his kid.”

“I ain’t the only one accidents can happen to, Conroy.” Cinci

Conroy leaned back against the park bench, looking like a fat cat with canary feathers on his whiskers. “Reckon I know a bluff when I hear one.”

“Reckon you don’t,” Cinci

The storekeeper stared at him in undisguised loathing. He was ru

“Maybe so, maybe not,” Cinci

“None o’ your damn business,” Conroy ground out. He glared back at Cinci

Cinci