In the USA, they called shantytowns like this one Blackfordburghs. Featherston wondered if they would change the names of such places to Hoovervilles now that they had a new president. He doubted it. They'd been saying Blackfordburgh for almost four years. That was plenty of time for the word to grow roots. Here in the CSA, Burton Mitchel got the blame.

Well, by God, when I take over, nobody's going to call a shantytown Fort Featherston or any damn stupid thing like that, Jake thought. Anybody tries it, he'll be sorry as long as he lives-and the son of a bitch won't live long.

Joyner put the motorcar in gear. The guards piled into two more autos and followed. They didn't take any chances with Featherston's health. He wondered if the Party could win without him. Maybe-with times as hard as they were now, people were panting to throw the Whigs out on their ear. But he didn't want anybody to have to find out. He'd waited too long. Now his hour was come round at last. He intended to stay right here and enjoy it.

Huts and tents huddled in the shadows of the statues of George Washington and Albert Sidney Johnston. They would have lapped up against the Confederate Capitol, too, had a barbed-wire perimeter patrolled by soldiers not held them at bay. Men in wrinkled, colorless clothes smoked pipes and cigarettes. Women gossiped or hung up washing on lines that stretched from one makeshift dwelling place to another. Children scampered here and there. In a football game, a boy threw a forward pass. That was a Yankee innovation, but it had conquered the Confederate States.

Joyner ignored the football. "Shame and a disgrace when you've got to use wire to keep the people away from the politicians," he said. "I saw thinner belts than that when I was in the trenches."

"I know. I was thinking the same thing," Featherston said. "Well, we'll set that to rights, too. A little more than a year before the next Inauguration Day." The United States had moved up the date from March 4; the Confederate States, always more conservative, hadn't. Jake didn't care one way or the other. He had good guards. He figured he would last.

"Where now, Sarge?" the chauffeur asked him when they'd gone around the square.

"Now back to headquarters," Jake answered. "I hope Ferd's still there. I've got something I need to talk to him about." One of the reasons he hadn't wanted to go straight back was that he didn't want to talk with Ferdinand Koenig. He had to. He knew it. But he didn't want to. He'd known Koenig since 1917. The other man had backed every play he made, backed it to the hilt. Without Ferdinand Koenig, the Freedom Party probably would have been stillborn. This wasn't going to be easy.

Koenig was not only there, he was waiting in the entranceway when Featherston came in. "Good speech, Jake," he said. "It's getting ripe, isn't it? You can feel it there, ready for you to reach out and pick it."

"Yeah," Jake said. "Come on up to my office, will you? We need to chin for a few minutes."

"What's up?" Koenig sounded surprised and curious. Jake only went upstairs. He didn't want to do this in public. He didn't want to do it at all, but he saw the need, and need came first. Lulu still clattered away at a typewriter in the outer office. She looked surprised-and miffed-when Jake didn't explain anything to her. He knew he'd have to make it up to her later. That would be later. Now… Now he poured a shot for Koenig and another for himself. Ferd sipped the whiskey, lit a cigar, and asked his question again: "What's up?"

Give it to him straight, Jake thought. Give it to him straight, then pick up the pieces. "Made up my mind about something," he said. "When I run this summer, I'm going to put Willy Knight in the number-two slot to make sure we take Texas and some of the other states west of the Mississippi."

Ferdinand Koenig slowly turned red. "You goddamn son of a bitch," he said in a low, deadly voice. "So I'm not good enough for you all of a sudden? Is that it? I'll kick your stinking ass around the block. You don't think I can, let's go outside and find out."

"Easy, easy, easy." Featherston had known it would be bad. He hadn't known it would be this bad. He hurried on: "Vice president isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit anyhow. Let Willy-boy have it. He'll think it's great-till he figures out he hasn't really got anything. Give him the slot, if he wants it so bad. But I'll give you something that's really worth having."

"What is it?" Koenig's voice remained hard with suspicion.

"Well, now, I'll tell you." Featherston proceeded to do just that. He hadn't had such a tough audience since the early meeting that had left him master of the Party. And Ferd had been on his side then. Now he had to talk an old friend, an old comrade, around. At last, he asked, "Is it all right?"

Koenig stuck out his hand. "Yeah, Jake. It is all right. Don't worry about it." Featherston's clasp was full of relief.

AmericanEmpire: TheCenterCannotHold

"H ere, Papa. Let me show you how it's done." Georges Galtier dug his pitchfork into a bale of hay and flung food to the livestock in the barn. When he got to the horse's stall, he said, "I don't know why you don't turn this miserable animal into glue and food for pampered poodles in Montreal."

"Tabernac!" Lucien Galtier said, and shook his head at his younger son. "I could never do that."

"What does he do but eat?" Georges persisted. "He doesn't take you into Riviere-du-Loup any more. He doesn't pull a plow. What good is he?"

"He listened to me. For years, he listened to me," Lucien answered. "Whenever I would hitch up the wagon, I would talk to him. He knows every thought I had."

"All the more reason to get rid of him," Georges said, absurd as usual. "Dead horses tell no tales." But even as he mocked the old beast, he gave it more hay than Lucien was in the habit of doing.

"With help like yours…" Lucien shook his head. "The trouble with you is, you think I can do nothing for myself any more."

"The trouble with you is, you think you can still do everything for yourself," Georges said.

"By the good God, I can!" Lucien said hotly. "I'm not sixty yet, and even sixty doesn't mean one foot in the grave." He grimaced, wishing he hadn't put it like that. Poor Marie had never seen sixty.

His son said, "Papa, you are a formidable man." Georges' praise alarmed him more than anything else he could think of. The younger Galtier continued, "Even so, will you tell me you are as formidable as you were when you were my age? Will you say that?"

"Well… no." Lucien wanted to say yes, but it would have been a lie. He knew it as well as Georges did-better. His joints were stiff, he got tired more easily than he had, his wind wasn't what it had been…

"Even for a young man, farm work isn't easy," Georges said. "I ought to know. There are times when I wish I were still in my twenties."

Twenties! Lucien laughed at that. For him, the twenties seemed as long gone as Caesar's conquest of Gaul. He wished he were in his forties. That would no doubt have horrified Georges, who had yet to see them. Lucien said, "Thanks to you and your brother and my sons-in-law, I do not have to do everything by myself. I am not ready to walk away from the farm. Did you think I would?"

"No, not really," Georges replied. "But one day, you know, it could be that you might need to. If you think about it now, you will be readier when the time comes."

"Mauvais tabernac!" Lucien said, which summed up what he thought about that. " 'Osti!" he added for good measure. "I will worry about such things when the time comes, and not until then. Meanwhile, let's get this work done here-or would you rather stand around and gab? You always were a lazy one."

"Nonsense," Georges said with dignity. "I am merely… efficient."