Please tell me again that we're looking at random accidents produced by a mindless natural catastrophe. If you want my opinion, this looks about as random and accidental as a housewife going through a supermarket putting together the makings for a fancy salad. 'Let's see. I'll take some Cherokees on the Trail of Tears. That'll be nice for pathos. Hernando de Soto, of course, to add some spice. The Mounds builders, for bulk. And… yes, let's grab a bunch of primitive villages while we're at it, for croutons. Now, what for a nice lively salad dressing? Oh, I know. Let's pour a maximum security prison full of criminals over everything.' " "Jesus H. Christ," whispered Leo Dingley. Cohen leaned over, looking at Morgan-Ash. "You're the statistician here, Richard. As I explained, I almost flunked high school math. So maybe I'm crazy. But you tell me, as a statistician, what the likelihood is that something like this would happen by accident." Morgan-Ash's eyes were riveted to the screen. Abruptly, he shook his head. "I'm not an historian. We'd need to bring in an historian-several, probably-" "Yes, I agree," said Cohen. "In fact, that was going to be my next condition. I want historians and anthropologists added to the project. But I think you're quibbling, Richard. You might need the expect advice of historians to fine tune your analysis, but I believe you can give me the gist of it right here and now." "It's impossible," he said. Then, again, shook his head abruptly. "Well, no, not exactly. But the probability that something like this could happen by accident…" His eyes became unfocused, as he did the calculations in his head. Then, almost irritably, he waved his hand and reopened his eyes. "Oh, blast it. I'm just twiddling. For all practical purposes, it's impossible. If I were to calculate the odds against this happening numerically-as you might do by saying, 'a hundred to one,' the number I'd have to substitute for 'a hundred' would be bigger than the estimated number of galaxies in the universe. Possibly even the number of stars in the universe, and conceivably even the number of subatomic particles." He looked around the room. "He's right, people. He's absolutely right." Still leaning over the table, with one hand stretched out a bit, Cohen now looked at Brisebois. "Nick, it is quite true that I detest the current administration. But as stupid as I think they are, I don't think they'rethat stupid. I don't think, as most people here seem to, that the explanation for all of their absurd and grotesque attempts to keep the Grantville and Alexander disasters under wraps are simply due to their usual secretive reflexes. I think theyare genuinely worried.
Scared out of their wits, actually. Because I think they found something in Grantville-and probably, now, at Alexander-that has led them to the conclusions I've come to." He leaned back, grimacing.
"And, of course-here is where the nature of the administration does come into play-naturally it never occurred to them to bring the matter forthrightly before the public and enlist the resources of the nation to ferret out the truth. Instead, as is their habit, they slapped everything under national security and are conducting whatever investigations they're conducting in complete secrecy. And making it as difficult as possible for anyone else to uncover the truth. "So, Nick. To go back to where we started, I think we may very well be at war. With what enemy, I have no idea. What their purpose might be, I have no idea. But it's a big universe out there. Who's to say it doesn't have its equivalent of Al Qaeda? Or, perhaps"-he grinned here-"knowing my tendencies toward paranoia, which are pretty much inevitable when you swim with the Carcharodons in the stock market, we're simply looking at collateral damage, so to speak. Perhaps these bolides or spikes aren't aimed at us at all. They're some sort of bizarre weaponry being used against each other by alien species at war, and we're just unfortunate enough to be getting caught in the crossfire." He shrugged. "And I can think of other possibilities.
There are any number of them. Perhaps an incredibly advanced species has its equivalent of nasty children who like to torment ants. Perhaps we're the subject of some sort of bizarre experiment. Or an even more bizarre religious rite. Who knows? What I do know is that, first, I want to find out. Second, I have absolutely no confidence that the government will be of any help whatsoever. Certainly not under this administration. We'll have to see what the next one is like. Indeed, I expect that if they find out what we'll be doing they will try to impede us. And, third, to go back to where I started, I want this thing run by someone like Leslie Groves. No offense intended to all you splendid scientists, but I want a military man in charge." Karen frowned. "But who? We don't know any military people." She glanced at Morgan-Ash. "Well. I guess Richard…" Richard shook his head. "I was a lieutenant commanding a small unit of paratroopers. What Alex wants is someone with at least field grade experience. Preferably someone who has coordinated major and complex operations."
"Precisely," said Cohen. "And my dear Karen, it's absurd to say you don't know any such person. You have one sitting right here at the table." He pointed a finger at Nick. "Him." Nick stared at him.
Everyone else at the table stared at Nick. Cohen smiled serenely again. "I told you all, I have very good sources. And I have them in many places." "I'm a trash-hauler," Nick said. "Please. You were one of a handful of men in the Pentagon who coordinated the entire logistical effort for the first Gulf war." He cocked an eye at Brisebois. "Yes?" "Well… yeah. But… for Pete's sake. Groves was ageneral. I retired as a major. Didn't even make the cut to lieutenant colonel." "True. Perhaps the fact that you explained, much too bluntly, some logistical realities to a three-star general notorious for his vindictiveness had something to do with it, though."
Nick scowled. "How the hell-" "I told you. I have very good sources.
And a staff that is even better at compiling information for me. But leaving that aside, Nick, I was only using the Manhattan Project as a model. An example, if you will. Even with the influx of money I'll be providing The Project, the scale of its operations won't come even close to the scale of the Manhattan Project." He leaned all the way back in his seat, his hands folded over his stomach. He looked very complacent. "I think a major with extensive managerial experience who was willing to tell off a three-star general-andwho is already familiar with The Project-will do quite nicely." Nick didn't know what to say. Cohen said: "Do this much for the moment, would you? Call your office and tell them you need to take another week of your vacation time. That way-I'm planning to extend my own stay here for at least another week-we'll have time to discuss the matter at length and in detail." "Well…" "Please don't tell me you've used up your vacation time. Or, if you insist, let's make it a bet. I'm willing to bet you're the sort of fellow who has more vacation time piled up than you know what to do with." That wasn't… entirely true. When Laura and he had still been together, and with the kids, Nick had used all of it every year. But since the kids grew up, and the divorce…
"Well, yeah." Margo gave him that gleaming smile. "You can borrow my cell phone, if you need to." The smile did it. "Okay, fine. I'll make the call."
Chapter 35 Andy Blacklock sat next to the Cherokee chief, Geoffrey Watkins, comparing him to the Indians in the western movies he'd seen.
The results were… Disorienting, from head to toe. Literally, from head to toe. Watkins's hair, to start with, wasn't long and black and tied up in braids. It was reddish-brown and cut almost as short as Andy's own. He wore pants, not leggings; boots, not moccasins; and his torso was neither bare nor covered in war paint. He was wearing a shirt and a vest. There wasn't a feather anywhere in sight, much less a feather bonnet-and his English was fluent, colloquial and idiomatic.
That was the first half of the discrepancy between reality and the Hollywood version. The second half was more subtle, but was in some ways even more disorienting. Watkins hair was cut short, but the style was different. Parted at the top instead of the sides, like the hair in some old nineteenth-century sepia photos Andy had seen. The shirt and pants and vest had the same vaguely antique flavor about them, and the boots even more so. It wasn't that they were crudely made. In some ways, they were obviously better-made garments than mass-produced modern ones. Andy was genuinely envious of the boots. But they weren't quite as uniform as modern garments were, in some way Andy couldn't quite discern. Finally, and most of all, there was the English.
Fluent, yes. Andy and Watkins had had no difficulty understanding each other. Colloquial, yes; idiomatic, yes-but the colloquialisms and idiom weren't the same. Except when they were, and that was probably the most disorienting thing of all. Just when Andy thought he had a handle on Watkins' idiom-he'd figured out quickly that "bean't" meant "isn't" or "weren't"-Watkins would toss in a reference to the President of the United States, Martin Van Buren, as a "fucking asshole." It turned out, apparently, that whatever else changed in a language, its fundamental profanity was deeply conservative. Andy was rather amused, thinking of all the little perorations he'd heard in his life bemoaning the growing coarseness of public speech in twenty-first century America, to discover than people from the early-mid nineteenth century swore like troopers. At least, if acculturated Cherokees and mostly-immigrant U.S. soldiers were a valid sampling of the populace. He suspected they probably were. There was one difference, though. The Cherokees and the soldiers would use the notorious four-letter Anglo-Saxon words without hesitation. More so, even, than most modern Americans. But he'd yet to hear any of them use any of the religious varieties of cursing. The distinction between profanity and blasphemy, which had been all but erased in the America he'd come from, was still alive and well in this one. So, while Martin Van Buren was a fucking asshole, he was a "Gol dang" fucking asshole, and was surely condemned to tarnation in the afterlife. Andy had already quietly passed along the word to his people to try to hold down on their own unthinking use of expressions like "goddam" and "Jesus Christ." He'd noticed, on several occasions, a Cherokee or one of the soldiers frowning a little when they heard that. He found their religious attitudes a bit peculiar, overall. That these people, Cherokees and soldiers alike, had a deeply religious attitude on at least some level, was obvious. Even those Cherokees-a large minority, so far as he could tell-who had not adopted Christianity, at least formally, were quite respectful of it. If for no other reason than that, he'd discovered, it had often been white Christian missionaries working among the Cherokee who'd been among the few Americans to raise vehement public protests against the policies of the U.S. government toward the southern tribes. But there was very little formality involved. In the world Andy had come from, anyone who called themselves a Christian almost invariably belonged to a specific denomination-and could not only tell you exactly what it was, but could more often than not explain why their brand of Baptism or Methodism or whatever was distinct in XYZ ways from other denominations. With these people, so far as he could tell, being a Christian and joining a church were almost completely different things. Watkins, for instance, clearly considered himself a Christian.
But he'd mentioned to Andy, on one occasion, that his recently deceased wife had pestered him for years to join the church and he'd steadfastly refused; although, privately, he'd decided he'd do it just before he died, to placate the woman. Of course, he'd expected she'd probably outlive him, which she hadn't. Looking away, he could see Jenny. She was holding one of the Cherokee babies and talking to its mother. Several other women sat nearby, their own children playing in the dirt a few yards away. It all looked very serene, and on one level it was. There'd been no trouble of any kind from the moment Andy's people found the Cherokee town and established contact with them. But he knew the Cherokees-from Watkins down to small children-were watching every move made by every member of his party. So were the small group of soldiers. If anything, even more intently. Andy wasn't sure yet, what their attitude was. At least so far, the leader of the soldiers-that was Sergeant James Kershner-had been taciturn whenever Andy or Rod had tried to engage him in conversation. It didn't help any that with Kershner, they had to plow through a thick German accent along with the different idiom. If it was even a German accent at all, as such. From a remark Kershner had made on one occasion, he apparently considered himself a Swabian, whatever that was, more than a German. The tentative conclusion Andy and Rod had come to, though, was that Kershner and his men had been in the middle of working out their own accommodation with the Cherokees when Blacklock and his people showed up-and were now very uncertain how to handle this new complication. Of course, the same could be said for all three parties involved. Andy himself, as much as anyone. The greatest disorientation was also the biggest. Without really thinking about it, Andy had assumed that he'd be more or less riding to the rescue of a bedraggled group of downtrodden Indians, all but on their last legs due to the double hammer blow of the Trail of Tears and the Quiver. So much for stereotypes. Perhaps even, he'd guiltily wondered, some residual racial prejudices on his part. Well, not "prejudices." That was too strong a term. Andy wasn't a bigot, had never been, and despised bigotry. Still, any society imparts its subtle attitudes to its members, and those are shaped by its history. The Indians of Andy's world had been the product of centuries of victimization, which had been almost as complete as that suffered by any people in history.
These Cherokees, on the other hand, were almost-not quite, but almost-a people still in their prime. They were quite self-confident, certainly. And all Andy had to do was look around the small little town-that was what they called it, anyway, although Andy would have probably used the word "village"-to see that they had plenty of reasons to be. The simple and plain truth-Rod Hulbert had commented to this effect at least a dozen times, and always with envy-was that the Cherokees were far better equipped to deal with the realities of this new world than Blacklock and his people were. In fact, if it hadn't been for the military threat posed by de Soto's conquistadores, it would be the Cherokees who were in position to give aid to the modern Americans, not the other way around. Theyweren't lying awake at night trying to figure out how to feed themselves. Or how they'd clothe themselves when their store-bought garments wore out. Or what to do when and if winter came. It wasn't easy for them, no. Not in the least. One of their men had already been hurt badly in the course of hunting some smaller herbivorous dinosaurs. They'd been deer hunters in their own world, not mammoth hunters, and were having to learn from experience and make adjustments. But they obviously had no doubts that they'd manage. They didn't plan to hunt the really big dinosaurs, of course. And they were clearly worried about how they'd handle an attack by one of the big predators. But that's what the one really huge theropod they'd seen at a distance had been for them-just a very big, very dangerous predator. They certainly weren't jabbering to each other about the Great God Lizard and wondering what sort of offerings or magic rituals or sacrifices might placate the being. Just how to kill it in the event they had to. They were actually more concerned about the agricultural situation than they were about the dinosaurs.
Predators were predators, and meat was meat. Simple enough. But so far as the Cherokees had been able to discover, none of the food plants they were accustomed to growing had come through the Quiver. The one and only exception was a small patch of corn they'd found-which their men were guarding like hawks and upon which their women were lavishing tender loving care. They'd located the town, in fact, right next to the patch, even though the location was far from optimal in many other respects. Nourishing that small patch of corn and turning it into a staple overrode everything else. But there was nothing else they'd always depended on. No squash, no beans. No acorns. Jeff Edelman said that was because almost every edible plant that human beings had domesticated in their history had been what he called angiosperms-and the angiosperms apparently hadn't evolved yet. That enormous group of flowering plants that had come to dominate the Earth by the time humans beings showed up were simply absent here, so far as he could tell, except an occasional little patch like the corn. And that was obviously a transplant produced by the Quiver. There weren't even any grasses yet. Some variety of fern usually provided the ground cover.
Jeff had fretted over the problem. According to him, the angiospermsshould be here. They'd emerged in the late Mesozoic and by the end of the Cretaceous had come to dominate the world's vegetation.
They shouldcertainly exist in a world that had tyrannosaurs in it. The solution Edelman had finally come up with was, from Andy's point of view, simply to change his terminology. It turned out, he explained, that they were actually in an earlier stage of the Cretaceous than he'd thought originally. And what he'd thought were tyrannosaurs were actually allosaurs, their somewhat smaller ancestors. They didn't look much different, after all. "Well…" He'd scratched his chin.
"Probably they're something in between allosaurs and tyrannosaurs.
Allosaurs are a little too ancient, really. Their heyday was the late Jurassic, and I don't think we've gone backthat far." Apologetically, he added: "The fossil record really is pretty spotty. The truth is we have no real idea what creatures might have lived in great big chunks of geologic time." Andy had smiled. "Has it occurred to you, Jeff-I'm not arguing the point, mind you-that your new theory isn't too different from insisting that a personnel department is really a human relations department?" "Smart ass." Jeff's eyes ranged over the landscape of the Really New World around them. "The problem is that there's something fundamentally screwy about this universe. We've got too many things from too many different periods all mixed together.
What I'mhoping is that we'll eventually discover the effect is geographically restricted." "Meaning?" "Meaning that the Quiver scrambled time for a relatively small area of southern Illinois-insofar as you can use the expression 'southern Illinois' to refer to that area of the globe all through geological history." The gaze he now bestowed on the horizon was a longing one. "You know, if I could take a few guys with me and explore maybe fifty or a hundred miles away from here, I'm willing to bet everything would settle down.
I could tell you then, for sure, if we're in the late Cretaceous or the early Cretaceous or some part of the Jurassic or what." "Forget it. Look, Jeff, in the end it's really an academic question. Call them tyrannosaurs or allosaurs, who cares? We've still got to figure out how to deal with them, if they come after us. And we can worry about what to call these plants around us after we figure out which ones we can eat." Jeff scowled. "Yeah, fine. But have you contemplated the alternative, if the effectisn't geographically limited? That would mean that we're in a universe that apparently has no logic at all, at least for a geologist and a biologist. Hell, for all we know, the Aztec winged snake god Quetzalcoatl might come flapping over the horizon tomorrow. Or dragons instead of whatever-you-call-ems." "I'd settle for a field of wheat, whether it's got winged snakes or not.
The Cherokees would be ecstatic if some squash turned up-and they'd take the dragons in stride." They were now in a world of conifers, ferns, horsetails, cycads and gingkos. The Cherokee women were fuming.
Generations of practical learning and lore and skills-gone with the wind. Not really, though. The specific skills might be gone, but the generic skills that underlay them were still there. Yes, the women groused incessantly, and the curses they rained down on the new plants they experimented with would have made sailors blanch. But they'd already figured out how to grind up something that looked like big pine nuts into a sort of gruel that they could use to make a cornmeal substitute or fried flat bread. They called it "nutmeal." The stuff needed to be leeched, since the raw taste was very bitter, and the end result didn't have much taste at all. But it had become their staple food-and, lately, they'd found some herbs that brightened it up a lot.
Andy didn't have much doubt that, given a little time and peace, they'd eventually produce a full diet that, along with the meat and fish the Cherokee hunters brought in, was nutritious and plentiful enough that people could live on it indefinitely. Including Andy's people, whose skills in these critical areas were far more primitive than the Cherokees'. But that still left the problem of "time and peace." Both of which, unfortunately, were in shorter supply than food. He figured it was time. Watkins liked to ponder a problem, and Andy respected that. But he'd pondered it enough. "Have you decided, Chief?" Watkins smiled. "And when did you start being formal, Captain?
If I remember right, it was 'Geoffrey' less than an hour ago." But he knew the reason for the sudden formality perfectly well. He looked away and, after a moment, finally started talking. "The proposal is attractive in many ways, certainly. Each party provides the other with what it lacks most. We provide you with food, eventually clothing, those sorts of things. And you"-he glanced at the pistol holstered to Andy's hip-"provide us with the firepower we will need to deal with monsters. Human and otherwise." He looked away again. "All the more attractive because the disparity is so great on either side. Our muskets and bows and spears are fine for hunting, but if this Spanish man de Soto's army is as large as you say, they bean't enough. The Spanish will have muskets too. Maybe not as good as ours, but good enough. I used a matchlock as a boy. Clumsy fucking thing, but it worked. Their crossbows and swords will easily match our bows and spear and war clubs. Worst of all-" He glanced at the town. "-I don't have that many warriors. Not more than thirty-five, really, and even that is… what's your expression?" "Stretching it. Or pushing it."
"Yes." He smiled again. "On the other side, the disparity is every bit as great. Meaning no disrespect, but except for your Lieutenant Hulbert I don't think any of you out here in the wilds can… what's that really delightful expression? The one Hulbert uses so often?" "Find our ass with both hands." "Yes." His smile widened. "Astonishing, really. What sort of superstitious savage doesn't understand that a big bug is food?" Andy laughed. The reaction of the modern Americans-any creed or color; it didn't matter in the least-when the Cherokees had passed around a big platter of roasted grasshoppers at the first welcoming feast, had been a sight to behold.
His, too. He still thought it was yucky. But he'd eaten the stuff.
That night and ever since. The grasshoppers-that Jeff insisted really weren't grasshoppers but an earlier species of Orthoptera, as if that made it any better-had become a staple of the Cherokee diet only slightly less important than the meat and fish the hunters brought in and the nutmeal. Every Cherokee child had been assigned the task of hunting and catching the big insects. Which they did gleefully. For them, it was a great game. The nineteenth-century U.S. soldiers in Kershner's squad refused to eat the bugs at all. But by anybody's culinary standards, those men were Neanderthals. So far as Andy could tell, they were firmly convinced that the only food fit for human consumption was salt pork and potatoes sauced in hog lard, and were deeply aggrieved that the Really New World didn't seem to have a single pig or potato in it. "So what's bothering you, Geoffrey?" Andy asked quietly. "I understand why you'd have hard feelings toward the United States, believe me. I was born almost a hundred and forty years after the Trail of Tears, but it's something that's still remembered.
And with a great deal of guilt, now. But-at least for us, if not you-that was a long time ago. The attitudes of Americans in my day has changed enormously since then." Watkins made a little motion with his hand, as if waving something down. "That's not really the problem, Andy. Yes, it's very fresh for us still." He took a long, slow, almost shuddering breath. "My wife was killed by that Trail of Tears, and she died not more than a few weeks ago. And she wasn't the only one in my band of people who died on the Trail. Many did." He nodded toward the town. "Walk through there and talk to any Cherokee, and you will find a similar story. And for them, as for me, it happened just a few weeks or months ago. Not a century and half." He made the same little hand motion, but much more peremptorily. "But we're not little children, who can't react to anything except emotionally. Even during the Trail of Tears, we were constantly dickering and bargaining with the Americans over the details-and sometimes we got what we wanted. Even from that fucking asshole Van Buren. Or at least some of it. Many more of us would have died otherwise." He fell silent. Brooding, maybe, it was hard to know. Watkins was certainly not what you'd call "inscrutable," but he did come from a somewhat different culture. Andy had had to remind himself of that more than once. You simply couldn't assume that you were interpreting facial expressions and so-called body language quite the right way. So, he waited again. After about a minute, Watkins stirred. "I'm not worried about the past, Andy. And it bean't necessary for you to keep reassuring me that the America you came from had changed its attitudes. That's obvious to anyone but an idiot. All I have to do is turn my head right now and contemplate the fact that about half of the people you have with you carrying those marvelous guns have black skins. In my day, black people were slaves-for us as well as the whites." He chuckled, rather harshly.
"All things considered, it's probably a good thing that the Cherokees you encountered here were my band. Not that mine was the only one that favored traditionalism, by any means. If you'd run into John Ross or any of the bands of rich Cherokees, I can imagine things would have gotten tense." Andy scratched his chin. "Yeah, they probably would. I can just imagine Brian Carmichael's reaction-worse still, Leroy Ingram's-when they saw a dozen black people being used as slaves."
"Speaking of Carmichael," Watkins said, "will you tell him to please restrain himself a bit? He's starting to annoy the older people. Well, the most traditional ones, anyway." Andy made a face. "Yeah, I'll speak to him again. Won't be easy, though. Brian's a very nice guy, but he's firmly convinced now that the Quiver was God's way of telling him he'd been slacking off." Carmichael really was a nice guy.
Easygoing, friendly, genial, good-humored, everything you could ask for. He'd been popular among the guards since the day he started working at the prison. Even a lot of the cons had liked him, at least the black ones. The problem was that he also belonged to a fundamentalist church that took missionary duties seriously-and he'd had a bad conscience for years that he hadn't really done his fair share of that work. So, now, he was making up for it with a vengeance.
Thankfully, he wasn't patronizing, in his attitudes. It might be that Brian saw himself as bringing the word of God to heathen Cherokees-the fact that most of them were already Christians didn't matter, since they weren't the right kind of Christians-but he wasn't at all snotty about it. In fact, he considered them what you might call a high-class clientele. His church had done most of its missionary work in the slums of East St. Louis. Brian was preachifying to stalwart and upright folk, compared to gangbangers. At the very least, he didn't have to worry about getting mugged. Still, it could get annoying, simply because the man didn't know when to quit. Having even the nicest and friendliest person in the world jabbering at you endlessly about the need to save your soul gets tiresome after a while. If anything, the Cherokees had been more patient with Brian than people from Brian's own time would have been. They were used to missionaries jabbering endlessly. The real problem, Andy suspected, was one aspect of the overall problem-that he was pretty sure Watkins was still circling. Part of the reason the Cherokees were patient with jabbering missionaries was that they'd put them towork. They could jabber all they wanted-as long as they also set up a school and taught the children how to read and write. But how do you make a schoolteacher out of an armed man who belonged to what amounted to a military force, instead of a church? Analien military force, to boot. Maybe not hostile, but still alien. Andy was pretty sure, by now, that that was the core of the issue, for Watkins. Not Brian Carmichael, by himself, but the problem he embodied. He decided to just bring it all out in the open, since Watkins still seemed reticent. They really didn't have much time. He'd been willing to spend days negotiating, but he wasn't willing to spend weeks. More to point, he couldn't, whether he wanted to or not. Leaving aside the threat posed by de Soto, he couldn't leave less than seventy guards back at the prison to watch over thousands of convicts for much longer. "You want me to give you people. Or swap them." Watkins eyed him sideways. "People-and some of your guns." They'd been sitting together on a log. Now, Watkins swiveled to face Andy more squarely. "Yes, that is the problem. Not the past, but the future. It doesn't matter what a people's attitudes are. Well. It matters, but it's not enough. Power also matters. In the end-we chiefs all knew this, had known it for two or three generations-the real problem we had with the Americans of our time wasn't their attitudes toward us." He barked a laugh. "Ha! Trust me. I can name ten Indian tribes whose attitudes toward us were just as bad if not worse. The real problem was that the Americans were powerful enough to simply push us aside. It wasn't even a fight. A squirrel can't fight a buffalo. When the Red Stick Creeks tried to fight, Sharp Knife crushed them." Sharp Knife was their term for Andrew Jackson, Andy had learned. When they weren't referring to him as a fucking asshole. Slowly, Andy drew the pistol out of his holster and looked at it. He had it in the palm of his hand, not held by the grip.
"Geoffrey, our power over you today-if we exercised it, which I have no intention of doing-would come entirely and simply from this. And the rifles, of course. And the fact is, this is a very finite resource. That's a lot of the reason I want to make this alliance and go after de Soto. Now. While we still have enough ammunition. By this time next year…" He shrugged, and slid the pistol back into the holster. "This gun and all the others will just be so much scrap metal. Fancy-looking, but still scrap. We have no way of making new ones. We don't even think we can make new ammunition that they could use. Maybe a little, but certainly not enough to rule anyone unilaterally. That's one of the reasons I lie awake at night worrying about the prisoners. I hate spending any ammunition on de Soto, with two and half thousand convicts to keep under control. But I figure I don't have any choice. De Soto's on the loose, and at least the convicts are locked up behind bars." Watkins shook his head. "You are being too shortsighted, Andy. It may be true-I'm not questioning your statement-that you can't make new guns like that. But your people will still start outpacing my own, when it comes to such things, as time goes by." He waved his hand at the town. In some indefinable manner, the gesture including everything, not just the buildings. The meat being smoked, the nutmeal being made, the little patch of corn, even the children Andy could see in the distance, eagerly picking their way through some short horsetails looking for grasshoppers. "We are very good at this," Watkins said softly. "Much better than you are. But you have things we don't, and they go much farther than guns." Andy made a face. "I suppose. But-" "What is this thing you call a 'machine shop'?" Watkins asked abruptly. Andy began to explain. And, as he did, finally began to understand what the Cherokee chief was getting at.
"You see?" Watkins said when he finished. "Even in one of yourprisons -a place you put the worst people you have-you have the means to work with metal and make complicated machines. And I can tell you more, because I have spoken to many of you and listened very carefully when you told me things that you yourselves did not even think about. For here is what else you have." He started counting off on his fingers.
"Even in one of yourprisons, you have a library. Even in one of yourprisons, you have what Jenny Radford calls an infirmary. Even in one of yourprisons, you have vehicles that make the fanciest carriages in the Washington D.C. of my time look like a child's toy." He grinned, then. "Speaking of which-I know you have at least one, so don't pretend you don't-I will insist as part of any bargain that we get all the ones called a 'Cherokee.' Call it a penalty for being presumptuous." Andy laughed. "Okay, fine. I think we've got three of them, if I remember right. That belong to the prison, anyway. Some of the guards might have one as a personal vehicle out in the lot. You'd have to dicker with them about that. But I'm warning you, Geoffrey.
They won't run for very long. We're very low on gasoline." "Then you will make gasoline." He held up his hand in a peremptory gesture.
"Don't tell me you won't. If not gasoline, something else. Rod Hulbert told me the vehicles can also run-some of them, at least-on what he calls 'biofuel.' As I understand it, that's a sort of whiskey." He lowered the hand. "Now, do you see the problem? What you propose is to provide us with protection, and we will provide you with food. From which you will make-or we will make for you-this whiskey you will use to ride across the land as warrior kings. While we remain working your fields and bringing you meat. That we gather with hoes and bows and arrows. "No, Captain Blacklock. That is not a bargain I can accept. I can accept it this year and next year. I cannot accept it for ten years. A century from now-less, even-we would be walking another Trail of Tears. A people's attitudes are important. But I am not an idiot like those warriors of Tecumseh's, who thought his magic would protect them from bullets. I would much rather have unpleasant attitudes, if need be, and an equality of power, than have splendid attitudes-today-if they come with a complete disparity of power. When a wolf offers to lie down with a sheep, the sheep can only agree if the wolf offers to share his teeth. Or, sooner or later, he's just mutton." He looked away, sighing. "You were not there, Andy. I was. To you, it is ancient history; to me, it happened weeks and months ago. I have listened to you and your people, as you apologize to us for the Trail of Tears. And swear it cannot happen again, because you are not the wicked people your ancestors were. And it is all a lie, not because you lie, but because you do not understand your own ancestors.
You do not understand, not really, that your ancestors were not wicked at all." He shrugged. "Not most of them, anyway. The Georgians were horrible, true, and some others. No different from the worst convicts in your prison or de Soto. But the rest…" He nodded his head toward the town. "No different from James Kershner, whom one of my nieces is already plotting and scheming to get for a husband. No different from his soldier John Pitzel, who is the object of the plots and schemes of Susan Fisher's niece. If Van Buren is a fucking asshole, Winfield Scott is not. The very general the Americans placed in charge of the Trail of Tears tried to stop it. And Winfield Scott is not alone. Others are still better. Attitudes? You could not ask for a better attitude than Sam Houston's. Who has lived among us, was married to one of our women for time, speaks our language fluently, and has always been a friend of our nation. "And what did it matter, in the end? We still walked the Trail of Tears. "Even Andrew Jackson, whom some of you seem to think is the arch-devil in the business, bean't a monster. I know him myself, Andy. I fought with him at the Horseshoe Bend, and I visited him years later-twice-with some other Cherokee chiefs at his home at the Hermitage. Many Indians visited Sharp Knife at his home, over the years. The man's wife was distant and aloof, but he was friendly and cordial. The truth is, I enjoyed the visits. He did not force the southern tribes off their land because he was filled with hatred for Indians. He adopted a Creek orphan for one of his sons-a boy he'd made an orphan himself, in his war against the Red Sticks. He's simply doing what he thinks best for his own people." He lifted his leg and straddled the log, now looking at Andy squarely. Then he grinned. "Jackson's still a fucking asshole, you understand. But that's my point. You can expect people to be fucking assholes, from time to time, if they think their interests are deeply involved in something. So the trick is to make sure that, when they act like assholes, they really can't do very much harm. But that brings us back to the problem of power, which is where I started."
Andy scratched his head. He understood what Watkins was saying, and the simple fact that he kept referring to the history involved in the present tense drove it home more sharply than anything. "I can give you some of our guns right now, easily enough," he said, although he really didn't like the idea. Not because he was worried about what the Cherokees would do with them, but simply because that would mean fewer guns to deal with the convicts in the prison. Watkins shook his head.
"I'd want a few of a rifles, and some ammunition, but that's just to deal with the immediate threat of the big lizards. In the long run, the rifles are almost nothing more than a symbol. It's the rifles and everything else." Andy kept scratching his head. Watkins raised his hand again. "Never mind, Andy. I bean't raising this to get an answer right now. Truth is, I don't think there are any simple answers. I'll agree to the alliance. But I just want to point out that we're going to need to keep dickering. For years." "Oh." Andy finally stopped scratching his head. "That's no problem." Watkins grinned. Belatedly, it occurred to Andy that Cherokees had a reputation for being good at dickering, if he remember his history correctly. And prison guards didn't.
Chapter 36 Lieutenant Rod Hulbert, using a pair of field glasses taken from the storeroom the day of the Quiver, watched the people inside the small circle of huts sitting two dozen yards from the edge of a small creek. He had counted thirty-three adults and twelve children. During his briefing prior to leaving the prison, he had been told there was a possibility of running across any group of people who had ever lived in southern Illinois. The most famous and the most plentiful of these ancient groups were the Mound Builders. But Rod was certain these men, women and children were not members of that ancient tribe. They might be their predecessors, or maybe a nomadic people who happened to be in the wrong place and wrong time when the Quiver hit.
But their technology was wrong for that group, judging from everything the prison guards had been able to put together about the Mounds people. Which was quite a lot, actually. Living in the area, several of the guards had wound up, one way or another, knowing a fair amount about the subject. No, these were definitely a pre-Mounds culture.
Their clothes were made from animal skins. The Mound Builders of southern Illinois had been expert weavers who decorated their brightly dyed clothing with beads made of quills, bones and shells. They were also an artistic people who decorated their pottery and tools. The equipment he was seeing scattered here and there inside the village appeared to be well made, but didn't seem to be anything more than functional. The decorations that did exist on their pottery and baskets-the ones he'd seen, anyway-were simple and rudimentary. Gary Hartshorn, another one of the guards, was next to him. Robert White and Kevin Griffin-the two Cherokees whom Chief Watkins had assigned to come on the expedition-were perhaps ten yards away. All four of the men in the expedition knew the people they had been watching-they were too few to call a "tribe"-were no threat to anyone. Except, perhaps, people on the same cultural level. They were simply too poorly armed.
Spears and knives and bows that looked pretty flimsy. They hadn't been in the area long, either. That was obvious by the look of their camp.
There were no paths leading to and from their huts. No gardens, and no garbage. It looked as though the huts were freshly constructed, too.
And there seemed to be a certain clumsiness about the way they were built. Rod was pretty sure that was because the villagers had been forced to use materials they weren't familiar with. In the world they'd come from, they'd probably built those huts using a lot of grass. No grasses in this world. Hulbert scanned the horizon with his field glasses, and then returned to watching the villagers. He wasn't supposed to make contact. The captain wanted to play things safe. He didn't want Hulbert to risk spooking a bunch of people into a fight.
And with the Quiver just one day short of three weeks behind them, and de Soto's bunch on the prowl, he was afraid the language barrier would tip the scales towards bloodshed. So, they were on a mapping and fact-finding mission only. He put away his glasses and worked his way toward the others. They'd done all they could, within the parameters given for the expedition. If they headed back to camp sometime within the next few hours, they would reach the Cherokee town a few hours ahead of schedule. Andy had given them forty-eight hours to explore the region. It wasn't much, but it was all he felt they could afford.