"What about that other guy?" Colonel Dixie said unhappily, pointing to the strained white face in the second balloon. "Ain't that that Weisinger scamp who's pushing Beasley U.S.A. down our throats?"
"Sure, but we can hear him out."
"Yeah. Besides, he's with the mouse. Anybody with Mongo is all right with me until I see different."
Colonel Dixie's broad, slab-of-beef shoulders drooped. "What's got into ya'll? That be the high enemy cumin'."
But not a hand was raised as the balloons dropped into the Crater, pink bags collapsing.
The combatants, fingers well away from triggers, crowded close to the long gash that was the infamous Crater.
The roar of trucks came up Crater Road, and the few heads that could tear their gazes away from the angelic pink radiance spilling up from the Crater saw that they were TV satellite trucks.
No one moved to stop them.
Then, as camera crews leaped out and began recording events at a safe distance, a white flag bearing the three welded-together black circles that emblematized the most famous mouse that ever lived came out of the Crater and fluttered in the wind. When it was not shot to rags, the peas shaped figure of Monongahela Mouse himself came out and planted his flag into the good rich soil of Old Dominion, as if daring a thousand muskets to cut him down.
But no one fired a shot. Faces impassive to the point of tranquillity, the soldiers simply leaned on their rifles, awaiting developments.
Then Mickey Weisinger stumbled up from the pit, escorted by polyurethane cartoon animals wearing Confederate gray.
"WHO IS THAT ONE, Remo?" the Master of Sinanju said with quiet interest. "I do not remember him from any cartoon."
"That's Mickey Weisinger."
"Who is Mickey Weisinger?"
"CEO of Sam Beasley Corp.," said Remo without concern.
"No doubt he is the perpetrator of this madness."
"The big cheese, without a doubt."
Chiun looked to his pupil. "Are you not going to seize this big cheese as planned?"
"Not now. I'm on strike again." Remo looked down. "How about you?"
"I feel a strike coming on, as well."
Remo nodded. "That's a nice shade of pink."
"A most excellent shade," Chiun agreed.
"Peaceful," said Remo. "I'm not big on pink, but the guy who came up with that shade knew what he was doing. I haven't felt this relaxed in years."
The Master of Sinanju lifted his bearded chin. "He may be a vassal of wicked overseers, but Mongo Mouse is a great mouse."
"The greatest," said Remo.
As they watched, the cartoon figures upended a wicker basket for Mickey Weisinger to climb atop.
He was greeted with a polite ripple of applause, which he acknowledged with a Richard Nixon-like raising of arms.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," he began, "I have come in peace."
More applause. Smiles.
"On this glorious Memorial Day weekend, I offer a truce to the people of Virginia. I know we've had our past differences, but I think they can be worked out."
The smiles grew broad in faces washed with a warm pink glow.
"I have come not to exploit history, but to enhance it. The Sam Beasley Corporation is willing to work not only with the gentle people of Virginia, but with its noble reenactors. Those who desire them will have jobs."
Sustained applause.
"You hear that? He's offering us jobs!"
"He's been offering you'uns jobs for months," Colonel Dixie barked. "I thought you folks said never."
"He didn't offer it to us face-to-face like that."
"Yeah. He comes across right sincere in person."
"Sincere and in the pink."
"Pink?" said Colonel Dixie.
"Can't you see the honest pinkness of his words?"
"Search me. I got me a spell of color confusion."
"What say?"
"I don't see my colors right. Get my reds and greens kinda mixed up. Pink might as well be purple to me."
"You're missing out on one of the great pleasures of life if you can't see the color pink."
"You don't say?" said Narvel Boggs, wondering what had gotten into folks.
"And because we respect the sentiments of Virginians and other Southerners," Mickey Weisinger went on, "when we build Beasley U.S.A. we will have an If the South Had Triumphed Pavilion."
A rebel cheer went up.
"And virtual-reality games in which the South always wins."
A greater cheer. Even the Union reenactors cheered.