American Empire_ Blood And Iron Part 41

FRANCE IN CHAOS! shouted the headline. He read the accompanying story as he walked back to the automobile. Police and soldiers had turned machine guns on rioters in Paris furious about the worthless currency and about the country's forced subservience to the German Empire.

The reporter didn't seem to know what tone to take. Germany was the USA's ally, and so was also the ally of the Republic of Quebec. But the Quebecois sprang from French stock, and nothing would ever change that. The ambiguity made the writer take almost no tone at all, but set forth what he'd learned from the cable as baldly as if it were going down in a police blotter.

Galtier sighed. He didn't know how to feel about France's troubles, either. He wished she were not having such troubles. But if the only way for her not to have troubles was for her to have won the war...Galtier shook his head. "Too high a price to pay," he murmured.

He would not have said that during the war. He shrugged. He'd had the same thought many times before, in many different contexts. The world had changed, too. Taken all together, the changes pleased him. He would not have said that during the war, either.

When he knocked on the door to the house where Nicole and Leonard O'Doull lived, his daughter answered almost at once. Tagging along behind her was little Lucien. Staring gravely up at Galtier, he asked, "Candy?"

"No, no candy today, I regret," Galtier answered.

His grandson clouded up and got ready to cry. "You know you aren't supposed to do that," Nicole said, and, for a wonder, little Lucien didn't. Nicole smiled at Galtier. "And what brings you here today, Papa?"

"Nothing much," he said grandly. "I was just out for a drive in my Chevrolet, and I thought I would stop in." Was that how a gentleman of leisure should sound? He didn't know. He'd never met a gentleman of leisure.

"Ah," Nicole said. "You have the motorcar here, then?"

"Here in Riviere-du-Loup, yes. Here in my pocket"-Galtier peered into it, as if to make sure-"here in my pocket, no."

Nicole wrinkled her nose. "It certainly isn't hard to see sometimes where Georges comes by it," she remarked.

"Comes by what?" Galtier demanded. He was perhaps a sixteenth part as annoyed as he pretended to be.

His daughter knew as much. "Will you let me drive your new motorcar, Papa?" she asked.

"What's this?" Now Galtier's surprise was genuine. "How is it that you, a girl, a woman"-he added that last with the air of a man granting a great concession-"can drive a motorcar?"

"Leonard showed me, Papa," Nicole answered, very much a woman and very much a woman of the new century. "It isn't very hard. I've driven our Ford any number of times. It's a handy thing to know, don't you think?"

"What if you have a puncture, and your husband is not there?" Lucien asked.

"I fix it," she answered calmly. "I've done it once. It's a dirty job, and not an easy job, but I know I can do it again."

"Do you?" Galtier muttered. Nicole hadn't yet mentioned her driving to Marie or to Denise. He knew that for a fact. If she had, his wife and his next eldest daughter would have been nagging him to learn to drive, too. With Charles and Georges always wanting to go courting or just gallivanting around in the machine, where would he ever find time to use it himself if his womenfolk were taking it, too?

"Yes, I do." Nicole answered the question he hadn't quite aimed at her, and answered it with arrogant confidence a man might have envied. "And so, may I drive your automobile?"

Thus directly confronted, Lucien found no choice but to yield. "Very well," he said, "but I will thank you to be careful of the delicate machine-and of your delicate father as well."

Nicole laughed, for all the world as if he'd been joking. She reached down and took little Lucien's hand; evidently, she was not afraid to trust his life to what she knew behind the steering wheel. Galtier's heart had not pounded so since the war crossed the St. Lawrence. Nonetheless, he led her to his mechanical pride and joy.

She slid into the driver's seat, but then stopped in consternation. "Everything is different, Papa!" she exclaimed. "On the Ford, the spark k.n.o.b is on the left side of the steering column, the throttle on the right. I have a lever on the floor to my left for the emergency brake and clutch release and the pedals on the floor seem different from these, too. On the Ford, they are the high- and low-speed clutch, the reverse pedal, and the foot brake."

"Here, they are the clutch, the brake, and the gas pedal," Galtier said gravely. "And this lever here s.h.i.+fts the gears. I did not know motorcars were so different, one from another. I do not think you had better drive the Chevrolet after all."

"I don't, either." Nicole looked so unhappy, he reached out and touched her hand. She went on, "Leonard told me Fords were-eccentric was the word he used. I did not know how eccentric they were." She brightened. "You must teach me to drive this motorcar, too, so I will be able to use whatever sort there is. I already know how to steer; everything else should be easy enough." was the word he used. I did not know how eccentric they were." She brightened. "You must teach me to drive this motorcar, too, so I will be able to use whatever sort there is. I already know how to steer; everything else should be easy enough."

"Should it?" Galtier said. He still found it hard himself; he hadn't got used to it, as he had to managing a horse. But Nicole seemed to have been driving longer than he had. He wondered why she hadn't told him. She probably hadn't wanted him to feel bad when he had no automobile of his own. Maybe she also hadn't wanted him to know she could do anything so unladylike.

They traded places in the Chevrolet; Nicole took charge of little Lucien. Galtier started the motorcar and bounced it down off the curb and onto the street. "Tell me what you are doing while you do it," Nicole said. She was trying to watch his hand on the gears.h.i.+ft and his feet on the pedals at the same time.

Galtier did explain as he drove. He thought he might have trouble doing that, but he didn't. He'd learned so recently, everything was still fresh in his mind, and came bubbling forth like a spring from out of the ground. After a while, he said, "You will want to try for yourself, eh?"

"Of course," Nicole replied.

And it was indeed of course of course; Galtier would have been astonished to hear any other answer. He said, "In that case, I will drive out of town before I let you back behind the wheel. Better you should learn where there are fewer targets."

"The idea, Papa, is to miss miss the other automobiles and the wagons," Nicole said. the other automobiles and the wagons," Nicole said.

"Oh, yes. I understand. And the people and the walls, also," Lucien said. "But if you are learning, you do not yet hold the idea firmly in your mind." He almost ran down a pedestrian, proving he did not yet hold the idea firmly in his mind, either. The man jumped back and to one side, then shouted angrily at him.

Nicole said nothing at all. She would have been bound to when she was living back at the farm. Has marriage taught her restraint? Has marriage taught her restraint? Galtier wondered. It hadn't done any such thing for Marie...or had it? Better not to think about that, perhaps. Galtier wondered. It hadn't done any such thing for Marie...or had it? Better not to think about that, perhaps.

Once he got out into the countryside again-not a long drive, Riviere-du-Loup being anything but a metropolis-he stopped the Chevrolet, shut off the engine, and got out. Nicole slid slowly and carefully across the front seat to take her place behind the wheel, then, when he got in on the pa.s.senger side, handed him little Lucien, who had fallen asleep in her lap. The boy stirred and muttered, but did not wake.

"Now-to start I have only to press this b.u.t.ton?" Nicole said, and hit the starter. Sure enough, the engine awoke. "This is easier than with the Ford. Next, I let out the clutch and put the motorcar in gear." Nicole stalled a couple of times before she managed to get the automobile moving, and her s.h.i.+ft from low to second was abrupt enough to wake up Galtier's grandson, but Galtier praised her anyhow. Why not? He too had stalled, not long before. And she did know how to steer; once she got going, she piloted the Chevrolet with confidence.

"Very good," Galtier said after she'd churned up dust along several miles of country road. "You were not fooling me after all. You really can drive."

"Of course I can," Nicole said. She was s.h.i.+fting gears a bit more smoothly now, learning to ease off the gas pedal as she came down on the clutch. "And this car is easier in nearly every way than Leonard's Ford. I see no reason at all why Mama and Denise should not also learn."

"Oh, you don't?" Galtier said, and Nicole shook her head, defying him to make something of it. She wouldn't have done that when she was living at home, either. Leonard O'Doull, Lucien thought, kept too loose a rein on her now. But she had had shown she could drive. If she could, were Marie and Denise too ignorant? They would never let him forget it if he thought so. With a shrug that made little Lucien giggle, Galtier added, "It could be that you have reason," and then, "It could even be that I will tell them you have reason." shown she could drive. If she could, were Marie and Denise too ignorant? They would never let him forget it if he thought so. With a shrug that made little Lucien giggle, Galtier added, "It could be that you have reason," and then, "It could even be that I will tell them you have reason."

"Oh, Papa," Nicole said fondly, and Galtier was reduced to mumbling. Tabernac! Tabernac! he thought. he thought. She is a wife now, and so she sees right through me. She is a wife now, and so she sees right through me.

Sylvia Enos didn't go down to T Wharf nearly so often these days as she had in the past. For one thing, her connections with the fishermen and the folk who worked in the fish markets had slipped with the pa.s.sage of time. For another, going down to the wharf where George had worked tore open old wounds.

But all her old wounds had been torn open when she found out that that Confederate submersible skipper had fired the torpedo that sank the USS Ericsson Ericsson. She knew her husband's killer's name: Roger Kimball. Even though he'd attacked the U.S. destroyer after the war was over, he still walked free down in the CSA.

President Sinclair had done no more than issue a tepid protest. That ate at Sylvia, too. Lots of people still sang the Socialists' praises. Sylvia supposed they had done good things for the workers of the USA. But they hadn't done what she most wanted. Had she had a vote, Upton Sinclair would have lost it.

With the old wounds already bleeding again, going to T Wharf couldn't make them hurt any worse. After Sylvia got off work from her Sat.u.r.day half day, she gathered up George, Jr., and Mary Jane and took them down by the sea. They enjoyed it; they kept exclaiming over the raucous gulls and over all the fis.h.i.+ng boats tied up to the wharf.

"Sure does stink, Ma," Mary Jane said, more admiringly than not.

"It's supposed to smell this way," Sylvia answered. Tar and salt air, horse manure and old fish-without them, T Wharf would have been a different, a lesser, place.

Seeing the boats made Sylvia want to exclaim, too, but for a different reason from that of her children. The fis.h.i.+ng fleet had changed while she wasn't looking, so to speak. Before the war, most of the boats had been steamers, with some still relying on sail. Now diesel- and gasoline-powered boats were driving steam from the scene. They changed one element of the wharf's familiar smell, and not to the better in her mind. She far preferred coal smoke to the stink of diesel exhaust.

She walked along the wharf, looking into the boats for men she knew, men from whom she might buy some choice fish before they ever got to market. That sort of business was highly unofficial, but went on all the time. Fishermen needed extra cash in their pockets enough to make them anything but shy about taking it from the pockets of the boat owners.

Sylvia was discovering to her dismay that the fishermen were almost as unfamiliar as the boats they took to sea when, from behind her, someone called, "Mrs. Enos!"

She turned. So did her children. George, Jr., asked, "Who's the spook, Ma?"

Fortunately, he kept his voice down. "You hush your mouth," she told him. "Charlie White isn't a spook; he's a very nice man. He used to be the cook on the Ripple Ripple when your father sailed in her." She waved to White, who was coming up the wharf toward her. "h.e.l.lo, Charlie. It's been a long time. You stayed in the Navy, I see." when your father sailed in her." She waved to White, who was coming up the wharf toward her. "h.e.l.lo, Charlie. It's been a long time. You stayed in the Navy, I see."

He brushed a hand across the front of his dark blue uniform tunic. "I surely did, Mrs. Enos. Work's not near as hard, and that's a fact. In the Navy, all I've got to do is cook." His accent was two parts Boston, one part something that put Sylvia in mind of the CSA. He looked at George, Jr., and Mary Jane. "Good G.o.d, but they've grown! Fine-looking children, Mrs. Enos."

"Thank you," Sylvia said, her voice shaky. Seeing an old friend of her husband's-and Charlie had been a friend, even if he was colored-here at this place where George had worked left her close to tears.

White solemnly nodded, perhaps understanding some of what was going through her mind. He said, "I was right sorry when I found out George didn't come home from the war, ma'am."

"Thank you," Sylvia said again, even more softly than before. But then fury filled her, and she asked, "Did you find out George was aboard the Ericsson Ericsson?"

She didn't have to explain that to the Negro cook. No doubt she wouldn't have had to explain it to any Navy man. "No, ma'am," he said. "I didn't know that. I think it's a crying shame we ain't going after the dirty rotten coward who sank that s.h.i.+p a...lot harder than we are."

"So do I," Sylvia said grimly.

"The president is lily-livered," Mary Jane declared. She was just echoing her mother, but Sylvia didn't want her views aired in public. No, on second thought, maybe she did.

"Weren't a lot of people in the Navy who voted for Sinclair," Charlie White said. "Must have been an awful lot of people on dry land who did, though."

"Yes," Sylvia said. Then she remembered her manners. "How's your family, Charlie? Everyone well?"

"Sure are, and praise the Lord for that," the colored man answered. "Got me a new little boy since I saw you last, I think. Eddie's going to turn two in a couple weeks."

"Good for you," Sylvia said. She and George might have had more children by now, if only...She pulled back from that. "What are you doing on T Wharf now?"

"Same thing you are, I bet," White said: "buying fish. I'm chief cook on the Fort Benton Fort Benton-big armored cruiser. Sailors eat like pigs, you know that?"

"They're men," Sylvia said, and Charlie White laughed. Sylvia wasn't sure she'd said anything funny. Men had appet.i.tes; women satisfied them. That was the way the world had always worked. n.o.body'd ever bothered asking women what they thought of it. Men had power, too.

"Well, well, what have we got here?" someone said. "Looks like old home week, or I'm a Chinaman."

Sylvia knew that voice. "h.e.l.lo, Fred," she said, turning. "It's been a while." Fred Butcher had been first mate aboard the Ripple Ripple. When Sylvia got a good look at him, she had to fight to keep her face straight. He was up in his fifties now, and his hair and Kaiser Bill mustache had gone snowy white. He'd put on weight, too, which shocked her even more: he'd always been skinny and quick-moving, like a lizard. Only his eyes, clever and knowing, were as she remembered. Fixing on them let her say, "Good to see you," and sound as if she meant it.

"Anything I can do for you folks?" Butcher asked, shaking hands with Charlie White. He'd always known the angles; a first mate who didn't know them couldn't do his job. "You need fish, talk to me. I'm not going to sea any more; I'm a factor with L.B. G.o.dspeed and Company. If I can't get it for you better and cheaper than anybody else on T Wharf, I'll eat my straw boater."

"That would be funny," Mary Jane said, and Butcher took off the hat and made as if to do it. She laughed. So did George, Jr.

"G.o.dspeed's a good outfit," Charlie White said seriously. "They've been in business since not long after the War of Secession, haven't they?"

"That's right-used to be called Marston and Company," Butcher said. "So what can I do for you, Charlie? Cod? Halibut?"

"Five hundred pounds of each, for delivery to the Fort Benton Fort Benton at the Navy Yard," White said. They haggled hard over the price. White gave Butcher no special deference either because of his race or from old a.s.sociation; business was business. at the Navy Yard," White said. They haggled hard over the price. White gave Butcher no special deference either because of his race or from old a.s.sociation; business was business.

Sylvia's children were fidgeting by the time Fred Butcher said, "All right, Charlie; that's a deal. Jesus, the way you jewed me down, anybody'd reckon you were spending your own money, not Uncle Sam's."

"Things are tight these days," White answered. "My own boss'll be all over me if I don't watch every dime."

"Well, you've done that, by G.o.d," Butcher said. "I'm liable to catch the d.i.c.kens for giving you such a good deal." Charlie White grinned proudly. Sylvia didn't believe Butcher for a minute; he'd never hurt himself or his firm. Nodding to her, Butcher asked, "How about you, Mrs. E? You want a thousand pounds of fish, too? I'll give you the same deal I gave Charlie." He winked at her.

"Give me the same price per pound for five pounds of good cod as you gave Charlie for five hundred, then," Sylvia said at once.

Instead of winking, Fred Butcher looked pained. "Come on, Mrs. E, have a heart. He gets a discount for quant.i.ty." Then he seemed to listen to what he'd said a moment before. "All right, already. We won't go broke over five pounds of cod. Come on down to Number Sixteen and I'll take care of you. You want to come, too, Charlie, see what you're getting?"

"You bet I do," the Negro said. "And if what you deliver ain't what I see now, G.o.dspeed'll have some talking to do with the U.S. Navy. Like I say, it's a good company, but things like that can happen. I want to make sure ahead of time they don't."

"I'll make sure of it," Butcher promised. Charlie nodded, as if to say he'd check anyway. His ex-s.h.i.+pmate, unfazed, led him and Sylvia and her children along the wharf to Number 16. Sylvia got first choice, and picked a couple of fine young cod. When she started to open her handbag, Butcher waved for her not to bother. "Now that I think about it, these are on the house."

Sylvia couldn't have been more astonished if he'd burst into song. "You don't have to do that, Fred," she said. "You were doing me a favor when you gave me a good deal. This is too much."

"No, no, no." The quick, decisive way Butcher shook his head reminded Sylvia of the dapper man he'd been only a few years before. "I just recalled-George was on the Ericsson Ericsson, wasn't he?" He waited for Sylvia to nod, then went on, "Take 'em, then, and don't say another word about it. Times can't be easy for you."

"They aren't," Sylvia admitted. "G.o.d bless you, Fred." She dipped her head to Charlie White. "Remember me to your wife, please." As he promised to do that, she steered her children out of the G.o.dspeed & Co. shop.

"That was nice of that man, Ma," George, Jr., said.

"He used to sail with your father," Sylvia answered. "Now we'll have some good suppers with this fish." And her budget, which was always tight, would have a little more stretch to it during the coming week. That was as well, because..."There's one more thing I want to get while we're out. Come on, you two. We're going to Abie's."

"Hurray!" Sylvia couldn't tell whether George, Jr., or Mary Jane cheered louder. They both loved going to the p.a.w.nshop. Anything in the world-anything from anywhere in the world-was liable to be there. Sylvia remembered seeing a set of false teeth smiling at her from the front window one day. Next to that, who could get excited about something as mundane as a stuffed owl?

Abie Finkelstein, the proprietor of the p.a.w.nshop, looked rather like a frog. "h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Enos," he said in a thick, not quite German accent. "Vot can I do for you today? If your little children a piece candy from the bowl there on the counter take, I do not think I even notice." At Sylvia's nod, George, Jr., and Mary Jane helped themselves. Finkelstein looked a question at Sylvia.

"I don't want any candy, thanks." But that wasn't all of what he'd asked, not even close. She pointed to the items hanging on brackets on the wall behind him. "Let me have that one, please."

"All right." He got it down. "Everybody needs these days to be safe."

"Yes," Sylvia said. "Everybody does."

Cincinnatus Driver pulled into the Des Moines railroad yard well before six in the morning, well before sunup. Most of the year, he'd found, business there was better and steadier than along the riverfront. He missed going over by the river; he'd been doing it for a long time, both down in Covington and since moving to his new home here. But he didn't miss an empty wallet, not even a little he didn't.

Early as he was, several other trucks were already waiting for the Chicago and North Western Railroad Line train to pull into the yard. Three or four others came in while he drank lukewarm coffee from a flask Elizabeth had given him. He sat in the cab of the Duryea and yawned. It wasn't so much that he hadn't got enough sleep the night before: more that he was always busy and always tired.

The train pulled into the yard at 6:35, right on time. Then the drivers scrambled to make deals with the conductor, who did the same job as a steamboat clerk and had the same cold blood in his veins.

For a while, Cincinnatus had had trouble getting any work at all from these hard-eyed gentlemen. That was partly because he'd been new to Des Moines and even more because he had a dark skin. He knew as much. He'd expected nothing more.

But he was still here. He'd got his foot in the door, he'd proved he was reliable...and now he was d.i.c.kering with a conductor over a load of rolled oats for one of the last few livery stables in town. "Have a heart, Jerry," he said, putting a hand over his own heart. "You wouldn't pay that low if I was white."

Jerry rolled his eyes. "You're a Hebe in blackface, Cincinnatus, that's what you are. You want me to see if I can get somebody else to haul the stuff for that price?"

"Go ahead," Cincinnatus said. "Somebody else wants to lose money on gasoline and wear and tear on his truck, that's his affair. You don't pay me another dollar, it ain't worth my time and trouble."

"You are are a Hebe," the conductor said. "All right, dammit, another four bits." a Hebe," the conductor said. "All right, dammit, another four bits."

"Six bits," Cincinnatus said. "Six bits and I break even, anyways."

"What a d.a.m.n liar you are. Tell me you don't sandbag when you play poker." Jerry puffed out his cheeks, then exhaled. "Awright, six bits. The h.e.l.l with it. Deal?"

"Deal," Cincinnatus said at once, and went to get his hand truck to move the barrels of oats.