“I would never do such a thing!” With a mischievous twinkle in her eye, Flora added, “Not right out loud, I wouldn’t.”
And, indeed, she sat beaming with pride as speaker after speaker stood up to praise Hosea Blackford the next day. A couple of other names were also placed in nomination, but Blackford won on the first ballot. Flora clapped till her hands were red and sore, and she was far from the only one who did.
But, even in the nominating convention, the would-be vice president yielded pride of place to the man heading the ticket. A runner went to summon Hosea Blackford (custom had forbidden him from being in the hall while the nomination proceedings went on). The chairman of the convention said, “And now, my friends”—no ladies and gentlemen, not in the Socialist camp—“I have the privilege of presenting to you the next president of the United States, Mr. Upton Sinclair of New Jersey!”
More applause followed, louder and more prolonged than that which had announced Hosea Blackford’s nomination. Sinclair bounded up to the platform. Both his stride and the white summer-weight suit he wore proclaimed his youthful energy: Flora couldn’t remember whether he was forty-one or forty-two. Set against the sixtyish Roosevelt, he seemed boyish, bouncy, full of spit and vinegar.
He knew it, too. “My friends, it’s time for a change!” he shouted in a great voice, and cheers went up like thunder. Sinclair held up his hands, asking for quiet. Eventually, he got it. “It’s time for a change,” he repeated. “It’s time for a change in ideas, and it’s time for a change in the people who give us our ideas, too.” Flora, to whom even Sinclair was not all that young, clapped hard again.
“What this convention has done here in Toledo marks the first step in that great and necessary change,” Sinclair said. “This convention has passed the torch to a new generation, a generation born since the War of Secession, tempered by our troubles, disciplined by the harsh peace our neighbors forced upon us, and eager for the freedom and justice and equality of which we have heard so much and seen so little. Tell me, my friends: are you willing to witness or permit the slowing of those freedoms to which this nation has always been committed?”
“No!” Flora shouted, along with everyone else in the hall.
“Neither am I! Neither is the Socialist Party!” Upton Sinclair cried. “And I also tell you this, my friends: if our free country cannot help the men who are poor, it surely cannot—and should not—save the few who are rich!” Every time Flora thought the next round of applause could be no louder than the last, she found herself mistaken. When silence returned, Sinclair went on, “Now that we have suffered so much in the struggle against our nation’s foes, let us struggle instead against the common enemies of mankind: against oppression, against poverty, and against bloody-handed war itself!”
He went on in that vein for some time. It seemed more an inaugural address than an acceptance speech. No Socialist presidential candidate had ever spoken not only to the Party but also to the country with such easy confidence before. Upton Sinclair sounded as if he took it for granted that he might win. Because he took it for granted (or sounded as if he did), would not the rest of the country do the same?
And then, at last, he said, “And now, my friends, I have the pleasure and the honor of introducing to you the next vice president of the United States, Congressman Hosea Blackford of the great state of Dakota.”
Blackford got more than polite applause. Flora’s contribution was as raucous as she could make it. As the tumult died away, Blackford said, “I too am of the generation born after the War of Secession, if only just. And I am of the generation that learned of Socialism from its founders: in my case literally, for Abraham Lincoln pointed out to me the need for class justice and economic justice on a train trip through Montana—the Montana Territory, it was then—and Dakota.”
Lincoln’s name drew a nervous round of applause, as it always did: half pride in the role he’d played in making the Socialist Party strong, half fear of the contempt that still clung to him because he’d fought—and lost—the War of Secession. Flora hoped that, with victory in the Great War, the country would not dwell on the War of Secession so much as it had in earlier days.
“I stand foursquare behind Mr. Sinclair in his call for freedom and in his call for justice,” Blackford said. “The Socialist Party, unlike every other party in the USA, is committed to economic freedom and economic justice for every citizen of the United States. Others may speak of a square deal, but how, my friends, how can there be a square deal for the millions of workers who cannot earn enough to buy a square meal?”
That won him solid cheers, in which Flora joined. Possessive pride filled her: that was her man up there, perhaps—no, probably, she thought, defying a generation and a half of Democratic tenure in the White House—the next vice president, as Upton Sinclair had said. Hard on the heels of pride came loneliness. If Blackford was to become the next vice president, he’d be crisscrossing the country between now and November 2. They wouldn’t have many chances to see each other till the election.
More solid applause followed Blackford’s speech: the sort, Flora thought, a vice-presidential candidate should get. Blackford had spoken ably, but hadn’t upstaged Sinclair. “On to victory!” the chairman shouted, dismissing the delegates and formally bringing the convention to a close.
On the street outside the hall, a sandy-haired fellow in the overalls and cloth cap of a steelworker called Flora’s name. “Yes? What is it?” she asked.
“I wanted to ask how your brother’s getting along, ma’am,” the man said. “I was his sergeant, the day he got hurt. Name’s Chester Martin.” He took off the cap and dipped his head.
“Oh!” Flora exclaimed. “He spoke well of you in his letters, always. You know he lost the leg?”
“I thought he would—I saw the wound,” Martin answered. “Please say hello for me, next time you see him.”
“I will,” Flora answered. “He’s doing as well as he could hope on the artificial leg. With it and a cane, he gets around fairly well. He’s working, back in New York City.”
“That’s all good news, or as good as it can be,” Martin said.
“He’s a Democrat,” Flora added, as if to say all the news wasn’t good.
“I used to be, but I’m a Socialist now,” Martin said. “It evens out. And I think, with Sinclair running, we may win the election this time, ma’am. I really do.”
“So do I,” Flora whispered—she didn’t want to say it too loudly, for fear Something might hear and put a jinx on it. “So do I.”
Anne Colleton gave her brother an annoyed look. “I still don’t see exactly why you think I ought to meet this person.”
“Because I remember very well the soldier who wrote to me about him,” Tom Colleton replied. “If Bartlett says something is important, you can take it to the bank.” He looked sheepish. “These days, as a matter of fact, Bartlett’s word is a damn sight better than taking something to the bank.”
“I think you want me to meet this Brearley because you’re still trying to get me out of the Freedom Party,” Anne said.
“If the big wheels in the Party aren’t just the way you think they are, isn’t that something you ought to know?” her brother returned.
If Roger Kimball isn’t just the way you think he is, isn’t that a reason to stop your affair with him? That was what Tom meant. Kimball could have been a Baptist preacher, and Tom would have disapproved of the affair. That Kimball was anything but a Baptist preacher made the disapproval stick out all over, like the quills on a porcupine.
Her brother did have a point, though. Anne was not so blindly devoted to either the Freedom Party or to Roger Kimball as to be blind to that. “He’s coming. I can’t stop him from coming. I’ll hear him out,” she said.
“So glad you’re pleased.” Tom grinned impudently. “Seeing as his train gets into St. Matthews in twenty minutes, I’m going to head over toward the station. Want to come along?”
“No, thank you,” A
nne answered. “This is your soldier and your soldier’s pal. If you want to deal with him, go right ahead. You invited him down without bothering to ask me about it, so you can bring him here on your own, too.”
“All right, Sis, I will,” Tom said. “See you soon—or maybe not quite so soon, depending on how late the train is today.” He grabbed a hat off the rack and went out the door whistling. Anne glared at his back. If he knew she was doing it, he didn’t let on.
Anne resolved to be as poor a hostess as rigid notions of Confederate hospitality allowed. But, when her brother returned with the stranger, her resolution faltered. She hadn’t expected the fellow to look like such a puppy. Out came a peach pie whose existence she hadn’t intended to admit. She put on a fresh pot of coffee. “Your name is Brearley, isn’t that right?” she said, knowing perfectly well it was.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered. “Tom Brearley, ex–C.S. Navy. Through most of the war, I was Roger Kimball’s executive officer aboard the Bonefish.”
“Of course,” Anne said. “I knew the name sounded familiar.” It hadn’t, not really; Kimball had mentioned his exec only a couple of times, and in less than flattering terms. Anne had an excellent memory for names, but Brearley’s had slid clean out of her head. He hadn’t wanted to give it before coming down, either; only her and Tom’s flat refusal to meet with a mystery man had pried it out of him.
Brearley said, “Up in Richmond, I saw in the papers that you were working for the Freedom Party, and that he is, too.”
Tom Colleton raised an eyebrow. Anne ignored it, saying, “Yes, that’s right. The war’s been over for three years now. That’s far past time for us to get back on our feet again, but the only people who want this country to do things and not just sit there with its head in the sand are in the Party, seems to me.”
“I don’t think that’s so, but never mind,” Brearley said. “I didn’t come down here to argue politics with you. Getting somebody to change politics may be easier than getting him to change his church, but it isn’t a whole lot easier.”
“Why did you come down here, then?” Anne asked. “In your last letter, you said you knew something important about Roger Kimball, but you didn’t say what. I’m not sure why you thought it would matter to me at all, except that both our names happened to end up in the same newspaper story.”
Kimball hadn’t talked much about Brearley to her. How much had Kimball talked about her to Brearley? Men bragged. That was one of their more odious characteristics, as far as she was concerned. She’d thought Kimball relatively immune to the disease. Maybe she’d been wrong.
She couldn’t tell, not from reading Brearley’s face. He still looked like a puppy. But he didn’t sound like a puppy as he answered, “Because if what he did ever came out, it would embarrass the Freedom Party. For that matter, if what he did ever came out, it would embarrass the Confederate States.”
“You don’t talk small, do you?” Tom Colleton remarked.
“My granddad would have called it a sockdologer, sure enough,” Brearley said, “and he’d have been right, too. Let me tell you what happened aboard the Bonefish right at the end of the war.” He detailed how Kimball, fully aware the war was over and lost, had nonetheless stalked and sunk the USS Ericsson, sending her to the bottom without, so far as Brearley knew, a single survivor.
“That’s it?” Anne said when her visitor fell silent. Tom Brearley nodded. “What do you expect me to do about it?” she asked him.
She was asking herself the same question. Kimball had certainly kept this secret from her. She wasn’t surprised. The more people who knew about the Ericsson, the more dangerous the knowledge got. She made a point of not looking over at her brother. She knew how he was likely to use it: not in any way that would make her comfortable.
Tom Brearley said, “What I do with it doesn’t matter. I’m nobody in particular. But you’re involved in the Freedom Party, same as Roger Kimball is. How do you feel about working side by side with a cold-blooded murderer?”
Anne gnawed the inside of her lower lip. No, Brearley didn’t talk like a puppy. He minced no words at all, as a matter of fact. She decided to match his bluntness: “If you really want to know, Mr. Brearley, it doesn’t bother me one bit. If I’d been in position to hit the Yankees one last lick, I’d have done it, and I’d have done it regardless of whether the war was supposed to be over or not. What do you think of that, sir?”
Now Brearley looked like a horrified puppy. He coughed a couple of times before blurting, “No wonder you back the Freedom Party!”
“The United States worked for fifty years to get their revenge on us,” Anne said. “I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait for my turn. I hope it isn’t that long. However long it takes, I think it’ll come sooner from the Freedom Party than from anybody else out there right now.”
Tom Colleton said, “Mr. Brearley’s right about one thing, though: if the United States ever get word of what the Bonefish did, they can put us in hot water on account of it. If Roosevelt wins a third term, he’ll do it, too.”
“Then we have to see that the United States don’t find out about it,” Anne said, doing her best to put Brearley in fear with her expression.
It didn’t work. She should have realized it wouldn’t work, not if he’d gone through the war in a submersible. He said, “If you want to make sure the story gets to the United States, arranging an accident for me is the best way to go about it. I didn’t come here without taking the precautions a sensible man would take before he stuck his head in the lion’s mouth.”
“I didn’t threaten you, Mr. Brearley,” Anne said: a technical truth that was in fact a great, thumping lie.
“Of course not,” Brearley said—another lie.
Anne wondered if she ought to offer to pay him to keep the secret of the Bonefish from reaching the United States. After some thought, she decided not to. If he wanted money in exchange for silence, let him bring it up. If he wanted Confederate paper money in exchange for silence, he was a bigger fool than he’d shown himself to be.
Her brother said, “Mr. Brearley, you do understand that, whatever score you may want to settle with Mr. Kimball, you’re liable to hurt the whole country if this story gets told too widely.” Anne looked at him now, in nothing but admiration. She hadn’t been able to come up with anything nearly so smooth.
Brearley nodded. “Of course I do. That’s why I’ve kept quiet for so long. You may call me a great many things, but I love my country. If you’ll forgive me, I love my country too well to want to see it fall into the hands of the Freedom Party.”
“I’ll forgive you for that,” Tom Colleton said. “Whether my sister will is liable to be a different question.”
Brearley glanced at Anne. She looked back, bland as new-churned butter. “I don’t agree, but Mr. Brearley didn’t come down here for me to change his politics, either,” she said.
Brearley looked relieved. Anne almost laughed in his face. One thing he plainly didn’t understand about the Freedom Party was that so many people joined it because they wanted revenge: revenge against the United States, revenge against the Negroes in the Confederate States, and revenge against the government and Army that had failed to live up to the CSA’s long tradition of victory. Hunger for revenge had led Anne into the Party. Now she had one more piece of revenge to attend to, as opportunity arose: revenge against Tom Brearley.
He said, “I’ll leave it at that, then. I do thank you kindly for hearing me out. Next train north doesn’t come in till tomorrow, does it?”
“No,” Tom Colleton said. “St. Matthews isn’t the big city. You’ll have seen that for yourself, I reckon. If you want to come along with me, we’ll see whether the hotel has an empty room.” He snorted. “Let’s see if the hotel has any rooms that aren’t empty besides the one you’ll be in. Come on.”
As soon as her brother took Tom Brearley out of the flat, Anne tried to get a telephone connection through to Richmond. She didn’t want to put anythi
ng down in writing, which eliminated both the telegraph and a letter. Telegraphers weren’t supposed to pay any attention to what they sent, but they did, or they could. Letters could go astray, too.
And so could telephone connections. “Sorry, ma’am,” the operator reported. “Don’t look like you can get there from here today.” She laughed at her own wit.
Anne didn’t. Anne was not—was emphatically not—amused. She snarled something wordless but potent and hung up the telephone with a crash. She hoped it rattled the operator’s teeth. Who could guess where the trouble lay? Storms knocking down wires? Squirrels gnawing through insulation and shorting out the line? Anything was possible—anything except getting through to Richmond.
Her brother came in a couple of minutes later. “Well, what do you think of Kimball now?” he asked.
“The same as before,” Anne answered, to Tom’s evident disappointment. “Like I told that fellow, if I’d been in the Bonefish, I’d have torpedoed that destroyer, too.”
“My fire-eating sister,” Tom said, more admiringly than not.
“That’s right,” Anne said. “That’s exactly right. And anybody who forgets it for even a minute will be sorry the rest of his livelong days.”
Cincinnatus Driver looked back at the house in which he’d lived his whole married life. He looked around at the Covington, Kentucky, neighborhood in which he’d lived his whole life. There was a last time for everything, and this was it.
He cranked the engine. The shabby old Duryea truck thundered into life. It didn’t give half the trouble it usually did, as if it too were glad to shake the dust of Kentucky from its tires. Cincinnatus hurried back to the cab.
There sat Elizabeth, Achilles on her lap. “We ready?” Cincinnatus asked as he slid in behind the wheel. In one way, it was a foolish question: everything they owned and aimed to take along was behind them in the bed of the truck. In another way, though, it was the question, and Cincinnatus knew it. He still didn’t know whether he and his family were ready to abandon everything they’d ever known in the hope for a better life.
Blood and Iron Page 38
