Walk in Hell Read Online Free PDF Page A

hoped he could keep right on surviving.
    Agamemnon and Cherry turned back toward Cassius. They both nodded. So did Scipio, a moment later. Cassius said, “Jubal Marberry, you is guilty of the crime of ’pression ’gainst the proletariat of the Congaree Socialist Republic. De punishment is death.”
    Marberry cursed at him and tried to kick one of the men who held him. They dragged the planter off behind some trees. A pistol shout sounded, and then a moment later another one. The two Negroes came out. Jubal Marberry didn’t.
    With considerable satisfaction, Cassius nodded to the impromptu court. “You done fine,” he told them. Agamemnon and Cherry headed off, both of them obviously well-pleased with themselves. Scipio started to leave, too. One of these days, he was going to let his feelings show on his face despite the butler’s mask of imperturbability he cultivated. That would be the end of him. Even as he turned, though, Cassius said, “You wait, Kip.”
    “What you want?” Scipio did his best to sound easy and relaxed. The Congaree Socialist Republic went after enemies of the revolution within its own ranks as aggressively as it pursued them among the whites who had for so long oppressed and battened on the Negro laborers of the area.
    But Cassius said, “Gwine have we a parley wid de white folks officer. We trade de wounded white folks sojers we catches fo’de niggers dey gives we. You gwine talk wid de officer.” His long, weathered face stretched into lines of anticipatory glee.
    Scipio didn’t need long to figure out why. With a deliberate effort of will, he abandoned the Congaree dialect: “I suppose you will expect me to speak in this fashion, thereby disconcerting them.”
    Cassius laughed and slapped his knee. “Do Jesus, yes!” he exclaimed. “You set your mind to it, you talk fancier’n any o’ they white folks. An’ you don’ git angried up in a hurry, neither. We wants a cool head, an’ you got dat.”
    “When we do dis parley?” Scipio asked.
    “Right now. I take you up to de front.” Cassius reached into his pocket, pulled out a red bandanna, and tied it around Scipio’s left upper arm. “Dere. Now you
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fficial.” No doubt because the Confederacy, if you looked at it from the right angle, was nothing but an elaborate hierarchy of ranks and privileges, the Congaree Socialist Republic acted as if such matters did not exist. The revolution was about equality.
    The front was just that, a series of trenches and firing pits. Both the black soldiers of the Socialist Republic and their Confederate foes were in large measure amateurs, but both sides were doing their best to imitate what the professionals from the CSA and USA had been doing.
    Cassius took Scipio to a tent where the white officer waited. “Ain’t gwine let you cross out of de country we holds,” he said. “Cain’t trust white folks not to keep you an’ give you a rope necktie.”
    Considering what had just happened to Jubal Marberry and to many others, Scipio reckoned the barbarism equally distributed. Saying so, however, struck him as inexpedient. And he knew he should have been grateful that Cassius worried about his safety rather than planning to liquidate him.
    The tent was butternut canvas, captured Confederate Army issue. Scipio pulled the flap open, ducked his head, and went inside. A man in Confederate uniform sat behind a folding table. He did not stand up for Scipio, as he would have on meeting a U.S. officer during a parley.
    “Good day,” Scipio said, as if greeting a guest at Marshlands. “Shall we discuss this matter in a civilized fashion, as it involves the well-being of brave men from both sides?”
    Sure enough, the Confederate major’s eyebrows rose. He wasn’t a gray-bearded relic like a lot of the men the CSA was using to try to suppress the revolution; Scipio judged he would have been fighting the Yankees if he hadn’t lost a hand. “Don’t you talk pretty?” he said, and then, as if