Because the only thing the goddamn Bedfords of this world understand is the same violence they want to deliver to you!

They're cowards, when you stand up to them, and that's all I was doing!"

Scott, seething himself, stood stock-still in the center of the room.

"Do you understand now?" he asked Tommy.

Tommy stood up, directly in front of the black flier. Their faces were only inches apart.

"You're not free," he said starkly, punctuating each word with a short choppy hand motion.

"Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else here is free!"

Scott shook his head vigorously, side to side.

"You might be a prisoner. Hart. Renaday might. Townsend and

MacNamara and Clark and Murphy and all the others might. But not me!

They may have shot me down and locked me up here and now they may march me in front of a firing squad for something I didn't do, but no sir, I will never see myself as a prisoner! Not for a second, understand! I am a free man, temporarily trapped behind barbed wire."

Tommy started to reply, and then stopped. There was the problem, in the proverbial nutshell. The weight that Scott carried went far deeper than a simple murder accusation.

Tommy stepped back and took a few paces in a circle in the small room, thinking.

"Have you ever, in your entire life, trusted a white man?" he suddenly asked.

Scott took a single step backward, as if the question struck him like a hard jab.

"What?"

"You heard me," Tommy said.

"Answer the question."

"What do you mean, trust?"

"You know exactly what I mean. Answer the question!"

Scott's eyes narrowed, and he hesitated before replying.

"No black man, in today's world, can get ahead without the help of some well-meaning white folks."

"That's not a goddamn answer!"

Scott started, stopped, then smiled. He nodded.

"You're correct." He paused again.

"The answer is no. I have never trusted any white man."

"You were willing to use their help, though."

"Yes. In school, generally. And my father's church sometimes benefited from charities."

"But every smile you made, every time you shook hands with a white man, that was a lie, wasn't it?"

Lincoln Scott sighed slightly, almost as if amused.

"Yes," he said.

"In a way, yes."

"And when we shook hands, that was a lie, too."

"You could see it that way. It is simple. Hart. It's a lesson you learn early on in life. If you're going to rise up and be someone, you can rely only on yourself!"

"Well," Tommy said slowly, "by relying solely on yourself, I would say your future prospects have diminished some in recent days." He made no attempt to hide his sarcasm, and Lincoln Scott seemed to bristle, in return.

"That may be true," Scott answered, "but at least when I hear that firing squad commander give the order, I'll know that no one ever stole from me that which is more important than my life."

"Which would be?"

"Dignity."

"Does a helluva lot of good for you when you're dead."

"That's where you're wrong, Hart. Completely wrong.

Which is the difference between you and me. I want to live just as much as you, or any other man here. But I'm not willing to be someone different in order to survive. Because that would be a far greater lie than those being spoken from this witness stand. Or any other location."

Tommy paused, considering what Scott had said. Finally, he shook his head.

"You are a difficult man to understand, Scott. Very difficult."

Scott smiled enigmatically.

"You presume I want to be understood."

"All right. Point well taken. But, it seems to me that you are only willing to fight these accusations on your own terms."

"That is the way that I know."

"Well, listen to me when I tell you that we're going to have to do something different, because we're not going to win as it stands now."

"I understand that," Lincoln Scott said, sadly.

"But what you fail to understand is that there are different sorts of victories.

Winning in this phony kangaroo court may not be as important as refusing to change who I am!"

Tommy was taken aback by this statement, and not quick to respond. But the sudden silence between the two men was filled by Hugh Renaday. He had been standing, shoulder to the wall, watching and listening throughout all the angry words shared between the two men, remaining silent. But now he finally stepped forward, shaking his head.

"You're a pair of damn fools," he said sharply.

"And both blind as bats."

The two men turned toward the Canadian, who was grinning almost maniacally, as he spoke.

"Neither of the two of you fools can see the big picture, here. Can you now?"

Scott lightened up, just a small amount, in that second.

"But you're going to tell us, right?"

"I am, indeed," Hugh snorted.

"Where's Phillip Pryce when one truly needs him? You know. Tommy, if he is dead and looking down at you from up above somewhere, the old limey bastard is probably choking on your words."

"Maybe so, Hugh. Enlighten me."

Hugh stomped about for a moment, then lit a cigarette.

"You, Lincoln, you want to undo the world! You want change, as long as it isn't you that changes. And you. Tommy, you're so mesmerized by playing by the rules that you can't see how unfair they are! Ah, you're both crazy, and neither of you is acting with any bloody sanity whatsoever."

He pointed at Lincoln Scott.

"You made yourself into a perfect man to accuse, didn't you? I mean, someone in this damn camp wanted to kill Trader Vic, and went out and did it, and then you couldn't have made yourself any damn more convenient for him to shift the blame right onto your bloody ass! True enough?"

Scott nodded.

"That's not the most elegant way of putting things. But true enough.

Seems that way."

"And, I dare say, you couldn't make it any damn easier for Townsend to convict you, either."

Scott nodded.

"But…" he started.

Hugh shook his head.

"Ah, don't speak to me of buts and maybes and hopefullys and all that crap! There is only one solution to this situation, and that is winning, because when all is said and done, that's the only thing that matters! Not how you win, or why you win, or even when you win. But win you must, and the sooner you see that, the better off we shall all be!"

Scott stopped. Then nodded.

"Perhaps," he said.

"Bloody right! You think about that! You've been so damn busy proving that you're better than anyone else here, you've forgotten to see how you're exactly the damn same! And you, Tommy, you haven't done what you said we'd do, which is to fight back! Use their own damnable lies against them!"

Hugh coughed hard.

"Didn't Phillip teach you a bloody thing?" He looked down at the end of his smoke, then pinched off the burning ember, stomping on it as it tumbled to the floor, and then stuffing the half-smoked butt into his blouse breast pocket.

"I'm hungry," he said, "And I think it's damn time we ate, though why I'm sitting about with the two of you posturing fools is beyond me. You both want to win, and you want to win in the goddamn right way, or else it's somehow not right? This is a bloody war! People are dying every second of the day and night! It's not a boxing match with Marquis of Queensberry rules! Go to war, damn it, the two of you! Stop playing fair! And until the two of you put your heads together and agree to do that, well, a pox on both of you."

"A plague," Scott said, smiling.

"All right, then," Hugh snorted.

"A plague, if you prefer."

"That's what Mercutio says, as he dies," Scott continued.

"A plague on both your houses!" Capulets and Montagues."

"Well, bloody Mercutio and bloody Shakespeare got it bloody right!"