Laughing, they helped Sue and Louisa Martin spread out the picnic feast that had come along in a wicker basket. Steel-workers and policemen wandered back and forth, talking about the game and sharing food and beer and other potables. It was as if the two groups had never clashed anywhere save in a friendly game of football.

Chester gnawed a drumstick. When Matt, the fast halfback on the policemen's team, walked by, Martin held up a bottle of beer to get him to stop. The lure worked as well as a worm would have with a trout. "Thanks," Matt said, and sat down beside him. "I'd sure as the devil sooner drink with you than have you jump on my kidneys like you were doing all day long."

"Like heck I was." Martin had finally got used to watching his language again when his mother and sister were around. "Most of the time, I was flat on my fanny watching you run by."

They bantered back and forth, each making the other out to be a better football player than he really was. Then Matt got up and headed off to chin with somebody else, just as if he'd never clubbed a striking steelworker in all his born days. And Martin waved when he went, just as if he'd never kicked a cop. Everything in the park was peaceful and friendly. Chester Martin liked that fine.

It couldn 't be plainer that no Negro ever born has got what it takes to be a true citizen of the Confederate States of America. Jake Featherston's pen raced across the page. One of those days, Over Open Sights would be done, and everyone in the country would realize he'd been telling the truth all along.

Anyone with half an eye to see can understand the reasons for this. They are-Before Jake could set down what they were, his secretary came back into his inner office. "What do you want, Lulu?" he growled; like any writer, he hated interruptions.

"Someone to see you, Mr. Featherston," she said.

"Who is it?" he asked. "I don't want to see any reporters right now." Fewer reporters wanted to see him these days, too. That worried him, but not enough to make him feel friendly right this second.

"It's not a reporter, sir," Lulu answered. "It's General Jeb Stuart, Jr."

"What?" Jake had trouble believing his ears. As far as he was concerned, Jeb Stuart, Jr., was the author of all his troubles. Who else had made sure he would stay a sergeant as long as he stayed in the Army? Jeb Stuart, Jr., blamed him for the death of Jeb Stuart III. Jake blamed Jeb Stuart, Jr., for suppressing an investigation that might have given warning of the great Red uprising. And now the general wanted to see him? Slowly, Jake said, "Well, I reckon you can bring him on in."

Jeb Stuart, Jr., was in his late fifties. He looked very much like an older version of his handsome son, save that he wore a neat gray chin beard rather than the little strip of hair under the lower lip Jeb Stuart III had affected. After cautious greetings, Stuart said, "You're probably wondering why I've called on you now, after pretending for so long that you and the Freedom Party and all the insults you've thrown at me don't exist."

Jake did his best to sound dry: "I'd be a liar if I said it hadn't crossed my mind-and I'm no liar."

"You say that. I wonder if even you believe it." Stuart looked at him. No-Stuart looked through him. He'd had upper-crust Confederate officers give him that look a great many times. It showed without words that they relegated him to the outer darkness: he wasn't quite a nigger in their eyes, but he might as well have been.

It also made Featherston want to punch those upper-crust Confederates right in the face. "You've got anything to say, say it and then get the hell out," he snapped. "Otherwise, just get the hell out."

"I intend to say it. You needn't worry about that," Jeb Stuart, Jr., replied. "I came to say good-bye."

"Good-bye?" Jake echoed. "Why? Are you leaving? If you are, it's about ten years too late, but good riddance anyway. I'm sure as the devil not going anywhere."

To his surprise, Stuart smiled. "I know you're not. You're not going anywhere at all in the Confederate States of America, not in politics, not any more you're not. And so, Sergeant Featherston"-he laced the title with contempt-"good-bye." He waved, a delicate fluttering of the fingers.

Jake laughed in his face. "Go ahead and dream, General." He showed what he thought of Stuart's title, too. "You fancy-pants boys won't be rid of me that easy." He couldn't help a nasty stab of fear, though. Nothing had gone right for him or the Freedom Party since Grady Calkins took a Tredegar out to the Alabama State Fairgrounds and shot down Wade Hampton V

Stuart might have picked his pocket for that very thought. "People know what the Freedom Party is now, Featherston: a pack of murdering ruffians. They'll run your henchmen out of Congress in a few months, and you'll never, ever be president of the Confederate States. And for that, believe me, I get down on my knees and thank God."

"Go ahead and laugh," Featherston said. "The fellow who laughs last laughs best, or that's what they say. I fought the damnyankees till I couldn't fight any more, and I reckon I'll keep on fighting the traitors here the same way." Not for the life of him would he let Jeb Stuart, Jr., see how closely his words reflected Jake's own nightmares.

"There are no traitors, damn you," Stuart said.

"Hell there aren't," Featherston returned. "I'm sitting across the desk from one. God damn you, that nigger Pompey, your son's body servant, was as Red as he was black. They were going to take him away and grill him, but your precious brat didn't want 'em to, and they didn't. Who stopped 'em? You stopped 'em, that's who. If that doesn't make you a traitor, what the hell are you?"

"A man who made a mistake," Stuart answered. "I don't suppose you've ever made a mistake, Featherston?"

"Not one that big, by Jesus," Jake said.

Stuart startled him again, this time by nodding. "It couldn't have been much bigger, could it? It ended up costing me the life of my only son."

"It cost a lot more than that," Featherston said. "It cost thousands dead, by God. If any one thing cost us the war, that was it. And all you do is think about yourself I reckon I ought to be surprised, but I ain't."

"You don't know what I think, so don't put words in my mouth," Jeb Stuart, Jr., said. Slowly, sadly, he shook his head. "I blamed you for my son's death, you know."

"I never would have guessed," Jake said with a fine sardonic sneer. "That's why I spent the next year and however long commanding a battery and staying a sergeant. I could have been in the Army for the next five wars-hell, the next ten wars-and I never would've had more than three stripes. Thank you very kindly, General goddamn Stuart, sir."

He wanted to fight with Stuart. He would have loved to spring out of his chair, smash the general to the floor, and stomp him. Every muscle quivered. Give me an excuse, he said silently. Come on, you son of a bitch. Give me even apiece of an excuse.

But Stuart only looked sad. "And that was the other half of my mistake. Yes, I blocked your promotion. It seemed the right thing to do at the time, but it turned out wrong, so wrong. If you'd ended the war a lieutenant or a captain, would you ever have done what you did with-and to-the Freedom Party?"

Featherston stared at him. That question had never crossed his mind. He tried to imagine himself without the smoldering resentment he'd carried since 1916. For the life of him, he couldn't. That endless burning inside was as much a part of him as his fingers.

He said, "It's a little fucking late to worry about that now, don't you reckon?"

"I do. I certainly do." Stuart got to his feet. "And it's a little fucking late to worry about you, Featherston. You're yesterday's news, and you won't be tomorrow's. You don't need to get up for me." Jake hadn't been about to get up for him, as he must have known. "I can find my own way out."