The Victorious opposition

The rifles they carried… "Fu

"Gas-operated. Don't need to work the bolt to chamber a round after the first one in the clip." Lucullus spoke with authority. "They's new. Not everybody's got 'em. They is very bad news, though."

Not even all the parading soldiers carried the new rifles. Some had submachine guns instead. Cinci

The barrels that grumbled and clanked up the street were different from the ones Cinci

Trucks towed artillery pieces. Fighters and bombers with the C.S. battle flag on wings and tail roared low overhead. More marching soldiers finished the parade.

"Wonder what they think o' this on the other side of the Ohio," Cinci

"If they's happy, they's crazy," Lucullus said after looking around to make sure no white was paying undue attention. "Jake Featherston, he promised there wouldn't be no Confederate soldiers in Kentucky for twenty-five years. He jump the gun just a little bit, I reckon."

Cinci

He was bound to be right. Even Negroes who weren't doing anything to anybody were liable to be fair game in Covington. Moving on his crutches made Cinci

"Best thing you kin do is jus' walk right across the bridge to Cinci

Since neither Cinci

They didn't get across. No one got across. To protest the Confederates' military occupation of Kentucky, the USA had sealed the border between the two countries. Cinci

When U.S. forces pulled out of Kentucky, a consulate had opened in Covington. Hoping the official there might help, Cinci

"Dammit, I'm a citizen of the USA. I live in Iowa," he raged. "How come I can't get home?"

"Be thankful it ain't worse," his father said: the philosophy of a man who'd spent the early years of his life as a piece of property. No matter how bad things were, he could easily imagine them worse.

Not so Cinci

But Seneca was right. A few days later, the Covington Courier ran what it called, A NOTIFICATION TO THE COLORED RESIDENTS OF THE CONFEDERATE state of Kentucky. It told them they had to be photographed for passbooks, "as is the accepted and required practice for Negroes throughout the Confederate States of America."

Seneca took the order in stride. "Had to do this afore the war, I recollects," he said.

That was so. Cinci

"I recollects the trouble you finds if you don't got one," his father answered.

"I ain't no Confederate nigger. I ain't go

"You don't want to get in trouble with them Freedom Party fellas, you better have one," his father answered.

That was all too likely to be true. Cinci

For a long time, Dr. Leonard O'Doull had been satisfied-no, more than satisfied, happy-to live in a place like Riviиre-du-Loup. The world forgetting, by the world forgot. He couldn't remember where he'd seen that line of poetry, but it suited the town very well. And it had suited him, too.

But, however much he sometimes wanted to, he couldn't quite forget that he was an American, that he came from a wider world than the one in which he chose to live. Reading about the gathering storm far to the south-even reading about it in French, which made it seem all the farther away-brought that home to him. In an odd way, so did the passing of his father-in-law.

To Leonard O'Doull, Lucien Galtier had stood for everything he admired about Quebec: a curious mix of adaptability and a deeper stubbor

His wife, of course, had other feelings about the way her father had died: one part shock, O'Doull judged, to about three parts mortification. "Did it have to be there?" she would say, over and over again. "Did he have to be doing that?"

"Coronary thrombosis comes when it comes," O'Doull would reply, as patiently and sympathetically as he could. "The exertion, the excitement- they could, without a doubt, help bring it on."

Patience and sympathy took him only so far. About then, Nicole would usually explode: "But people will never let us live it down!"

Knowing how places like Riviиre-du-Loup and the surrounding farms worked, O'Doull suspected she was right. Even so, he said, "You worry too much. Many of the people I've talked to say they're jealous of such an end."

"Men!" Nicole snarled. "Tabernac! What do you know?" That was unfair to half the human race, not that she cared. Then she went on, "And what of poor Йloise Granche? Is she jealous of such an end?"

That, unfortunately, wasn't unfair, and was very much to the point. Йloise wasn't jealous. She was horror-stricken, and who could blame her? To have to watch someone die at such a moment… How would she ever forget that? How could she ever want to get close to another man as long as she lived?

O'Doull said, "Your father didn't leave us… unappreciated." He needed to pause there to pick the right word. After another moment, he went on, "Would you rather it had happened while he was mucking out the barn?"

"I'd rather it didn't happen at all," Nicole answered. But that wasn't what he'd asked, and she knew it. Now she hesitated. At last, she said, "Maybe I would. It would have been more, more dignified."