Charles L. Fontenay

“ There's no reason why you can't see a French Quarter courtyard, if you wish."
Beauregard moved closer to her.
"I'm Beauregard Courtney," he said. For some reason, he omitted the "Senator."
"Gard," she said in a low voice, her big eyes fixed on his face. "Gard Courtney."
Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, faint memory stirred. Was it the memory of a dream?
"Have I dreamed that we met before?" he asked slowly. "Piquette?"
"You know!" she exclaimed, her face lighting gloriously. "I didn't dream alone!"
"No," he said. "No. You didn't dream alone. Your name is Piquette, isn't it? ”

“ General Beauregard Courtney sat in his staff car atop a slight rise and watched the slow, meshing movement of his troops on the plains south of Tullahoma, Tennessee. Clouds of dust drifted westward in the lazy summer air, and the dull boom of enemy artillery sounded from the north. ”

“ No natural barrier lay north of Tullahoma until the Duck River was reached.
This was the kind of warfare Beauregard Courtney relished, this wheeling and maneuvering of tanks across country, this artillery barrage followed by infantry assault, the planes used in tactical support. It was more a soldier's warfare than the cold, calculated, long-range bombardment by guided missiles, the lofty, aloof flight of strategic bombers. He would have been happy to live in the days when wars were fought with sword and spear. ”

“ Governor Gentry had counselled caution, listening instead of talking, but a fire burned deep in Beauregard. Somehow the laughing face of Piquette as he had last seen her misted his eyes. A powerful urging was on him to beat his breast and cry: "The white man must rule...!"
Beauregard opened his eyes and looked around him dazedly. He was sitting in the parlor of Piquette's house on Lookout Mountain. Piquette leaned against his shoulder, patting his hand, and Adjaha stood before him with hands clasped behind his back. Adjaha looked like a worried dwarf. ”

“ Beauregard frowned and glanced at Piquette. She nodded slightly, and her face was anxious.
"I suppose I have plenty of time to talk," he said heavily. "We can do nothing but sit here with useless armies while the country tears itself apart. Sergeant, turn that damn car radio off and go bring some chairs out here. You can listen to the radio in the tent."
They sat, the three of them, and Adjaha talked. Beauregard listened skeptically, almost incredulously, but something within him—not quite a memory, but an insistent familiarity—caused him to listen. ”

“ I've found a man—or, rather, a man has found me—who can end this war and give my people the place in the world they deserve."
Beauregard raised his bushy eyebrows, but he said nothing. Piquette took him by the hand and led him from the hall into the spacious living room.
A Negro man sat there on the sofa, behind the antique coffee table. He was well-dressed in a civilian suit. His woolly hair was grey and his eyes shone like black diamonds in his wizened face.
"General Courtney, this is Mr. Adjaha," said Piquette. ”

“ Beauregard's blood quickened, but he was disturbed. This that he was going to do was not right. But what other course would a normal man take, when his wife was so estranged that she had become nothing more than a front for the married happiness the people demanded of their governor, a figure-head who lived in another wing of the mansion?
He had met Piquette eight years before, briefly, when he was a staid, climbing Nashville lawyer. Not knowing she was of mixed blood then, he had been drawn to her strongly. ”

“ Lucy's eyes widened. "Which of your secretaries is a quadroon?"
"Piquette. And don't tell me I shouldn't have employed her. The Negro vote is important in this state, and if I'd hired a full-blooded Negro a lot of the white vote would turn against me."
"Well, I never! You've become more and more of an integrationist ever since you got into politics, Beauregard." ”

“ If we call the medics, they'll be Federal troops. Winchester was captured hours ago, and it's just chance that they haven't entered this house and found you before now."
Beauregard lay silent, stunned. The strange man beside the bed spoke for the first time.
"It is not his decision," he said. "There is work that I must do which may be delayed forever if he is captured."
"This is Adjaha, a friend of mine," said Piquette. "He came to Winchester to see you. He thinks he knows a way to end the war." ”

“ That I love you above my own blood makes no difference. No, I don't hate the black man, as so many Southerners do—and Northerners too, if the truth were known. But, by God, he's not my equal, and I won't have him ruling over whites. ”

“ Detroit and Chicago have been H-bombed! My God, has the world gone mad? There's a report, unconfirmed, that the Detroit bombers came from the north...."
"They can't believe we did it!" muttered Beauregard. All the men in the tent, irrespective of rank, were clustered around the radio. No one thought to pick it up from the ground.
A staff car drove in from the south and rocked to a stop in front of the headquarters tent. Beauregard hardly noticed it until Piquette got out, followed by a slight, grey-haired Negro man in civilian clothes. ”

“ The general's staff boiled out of the tent. They milled around a minute, shouting questions, before piling into two command cars and giving chase to the disappearing staff car.
Beauregard glowered after them. Then he took Piquette's hand and they walked together into the empty tent.
"... Here's a late flash," said the radio on the ground. "Birmingham has been H-bombed. Our planes are in the air against the Rebels...."
Beauregard imagined the ground trembled. Instinctively he looked toward the south for the radioactive mushroom cloud. Then he swung back to Piquette. ”

“ Announcement of that pact spurred the Konfederate Klansmen to massacre the federal troops at Meridian. That brought the federal proclamation placing Mississippi under martial law and the subsequent mobilization and revolt of the South."
"Perhaps so," conceded Beauregard wearily. "Perhaps I did wrong in not following Governor Gentry's instructions and keeping my mouth shut. But I spoke my convictions, and it's too late now."
"That is not necessarily true, General," said Adjaha. "Time is a dimension, and it is as easy to move east as it is to move west. ”

“ She must not have been your mistress before you went to Memphis."
With this, he walked swiftly from the room. Beauregard looked at Piquette, his eyes half amused, half doubtful. She smiled at him.
"What he does is out of our hands," she said. "It's still early, Gard."
He took her in his arms.
Governor Beauregard Courtney of Tennessee sat in the tall chair behind the governor's desk and twiddled a paperweight given him, if his recollection was accurate, by the Nashville Rotary Club. ”

“ Beauregard sighed. He would eat a light supper on the plane and be back in Winchester by midnight. The pre-attack artillery barrage was not scheduled to open before four o'clock in the morning.
The plane put down at the Chattanooga airport at dusk, and a swift military car took him down Riverside Drive, past the old Confederate cemetery, and downtown.
Chattanooga was a military city. Grey-uniformed military police stood at the intersections, and soldiers on rest leave from both East and Middle armies trooped in laughing gangs along darkened Market Street. Few civilians were abroad. ”

“ Now trenches and fortifications and tank traps extended across southern Tennessee from the Cumberlands to the Mississippi. Occasional offensives came to naught. Only the planes of both sides swept daily over the lines, bombarding the rear areas, reducing the cities of Tennessee to rubble. ”