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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a91e15d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60020 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60020) diff --git a/old/60020-h.zip b/old/60020-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 12432e2..0000000 --- a/old/60020-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/60020-h/60020-h.htm b/old/60020-h/60020-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index ffdaf8a..0000000 --- a/old/60020-h/60020-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1668 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pretty Quadroon, by Charles Fontenay. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } -.ph1 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } - -.ph2 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -.ph2 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pretty Quadroon, by Charles Fontenay - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Pretty Quadroon - -Author: Charles Fontenay - -Release Date: July 30, 2019 [EBook #60020] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRETTY QUADROON *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="359" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>Pretty Quadroon</h1> - -<h2>BY CHARLES FONTENAY</h2> - -<p class="ph1"><i>Once a man has chosen a path to follow, there's<br /> -no turning back. But what if the die could be<br /> -recast and we could retrace our steps when we<br /> -chose the wrong one ... and choose another?</i></p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Worlds of If Science Fiction, June 1957.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>"You damn black coon," he said without rancor, "you know you're costing -me a night's sleep?"</p> - -<p>The Negro courier stood beside his motorcycle and his teeth flashed -white in his good-natured face. The dust of the road filmed his uniform -of Southern grey.</p> - -<p>"Miss Piquette told me to bring you the message, suh," he answered.</p> - -<p>"A wife couldn't be more demanding," grumbled Beauregard. "Why -couldn't she wait until this push is over?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know, suh," said the courier.</p> - -<p>"Well, get back to headquarters and get some supper," commanded -Beauregard. "You can fly back to Chattanooga with me."</p> - -<p>The man saluted and climbed aboard his motorcycle. It kicked to life -with a sputtering roar, and he turned it southward on what was left of -the highway.</p> - -<p>The sun was low in the west, and its reddening beams glinted from the -weapons and vehicles of the men who moved through the fields below -Beauregard. That would be the 184th, moving into the trenches at the -edge of what had been Camp Forrest during the last war.</p> - -<p>On the morrow this was to be the frontal attack on what was left of the -Northern wind tunnel installations, while the armor moved in like a -powerful pincers from Pelham to the east and Lynchburg to the west. If -the Union strongpoint at Tullahoma could be enveloped, the way lay open -to Shelbyville and the north. No natural barrier lay north of Tullahoma -until the Duck River was reached.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>When the Second War for Southern Independence (the Northerners called -it "The Second Rebellion") had broken out, Beauregard had feared it -would be a swift holocaust of hydrogen bombs, followed by a cruel -scourge of guerilla fighting. But not one nuclear weapon had exploded, -except the atomic artillery of the two opposing forces. A powerful -deterrent spelled caution to both North and South.</p> - -<p>Sitting afar, watching the divided country with glee, was Soviet -Russia. Her armies and navies were mobilized. She waited only for the -two halves of the United States to ruin and weaken each other, before -her troops would crush the flimsy barriers of western Europe and move -into a disorganized America.</p> - -<p>So the Second Rebellion (Beauregard found himself using the term -because it was shorter) remained a classic war of fighting on the -ground and bombing of only industrial and military targets. Both sides, -by tacit agreement, left the great superhighways intact, both held -their H-bombers under leash, ready to reunite if need be against a -greater threat.</p> - -<p>Just now the war was going well for the South. At the start, the new -Confederacy had held nothing of Tennessee except Chattanooga south of -the mountains and the southwestern plains around Memphis. That had been -on Beauregard's advice, for he was high in the councils of the Southern -military. He had felt it too dangerous to try to hold the lines as far -north as Nashville, Knoxville and Paducah until the South mobilized -its strength.</p> - -<p>He had proved right. The Northern bulge down into Tennessee had been -a weak point, and the Southern sympathies of many Tennesseans had -hampered their defense. The Army of West Tennessee had driven up along -the Mississippi River plains to the Kentucky line and the Army of East -Tennessee now stood at the gates of Knoxville. Outflanked by these two -threats, the Union forces were pulling back toward Nashville before -Beauregard Courtney's Army of Middle Tennessee, and he did not intend -to stop his offensive short of the Ohio River.</p> - -<p>"Head back for Winchester, Sergeant," he commanded his driver. The man -started the staff car and swung it around on the highway.</p> - -<p>He should not go to Chattanooga, Beauregard thought as the car bumped -southward over the rutted road. His executive officer was perfectly -capable of taking care of things for the few hours he would be gone, -but it ran against his military training to be away from his command so -soon before an attack.</p> - -<p>Had the summons come from his wife, Beauregard would have sent her a -stern refusal, even had she been in Chattanooga instead of New Orleans. -She had been a soldier's wife long enough to know that duty's demands -took precedence over conjugal matters.</p> - -<p>But there was a weakness in him where Piquette was concerned. Nor was -that all. She knew, as well as Lucy did, the stern requirements of -military existence; and she was even less likely than Lucy to ask him -to come to her unless the matter was of such overwhelming import as to -overshadow what he gained by staying.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>The siren and circled stars on Beauregard's car cleared a path for him -through the sparse downtown traffic. The car roared out Broad Street, -swung under the viaduct and sped up the curving drives of Lookout -Mountain.</p> - -<p>At a darkened house on the brow of the mountain, overlooking Georgia -and Alabama, the car pulled up. Beauregard spoke a word to the driver, -got out and went to the front door. Behind him the car's lights went -out, and it crunched quietly into the shadowed driveway.</p> - -<p>There was light in the house when Piquette opened the door to him. She -held out her hands in welcome, and her smile was as sweet as sunshine -on dew-sparkling fields.</p> - -<p>Piquette's skin was golden, like autumn leaves, with an undertone of -rich bronze. Her dark eyes were liquid and warm, and her hair tumbled -to her shoulders, a jet cascade. She was clad in a simple white dress -that, in the daring new fashion, bared the full, firm swell of her -breasts.</p> - -<p>Beauregard took her in his arms, and as her lips clung to his he felt a -grey old man, as grey as his braid-hung uniform. He held her away from -him. In the mirror behind her he saw his face, stern, weather-beaten, -light-mustached, with startling blue eyes.</p> - -<p>"Piquette, what on earth is this folly?" he demanded, kicking the -door shut behind him. "Don't you know I'm moving on Tullahoma in the -morning?"</p> - -<p>"You know I wouldn't call you unless it was important, Gard, as much -as I long for you." When she talked, her delicately molded face was as -mobile as quicksilver. "I've found something that may end the war and -save my people."</p> - -<p>"Dammit, Quette, how many times have I told you they are not your -people? You're a quadroon. You're three-fourths white, and a lot whiter -in your heart than some white women I've seen."</p> - -<p>"But I'm one-fourth Negro, and you wouldn't have married me, for that, -even if you'd known me before you met your Lucy. Isn't that right, -Gard?"</p> - -<p>"Look, Quette, just because things are the way they are...."</p> - -<p>She hushed him with a finger on his lips.</p> - -<p>"The Negroes are my people, and the white people are my people," she -said. "If the world were right. I'd be a woman instead of a thing in -between, scorned by both. Can't you see that, Gard? You're not like -most Southerners."</p> - -<p>"I am a Southerner," he answered proudly. "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."</p> - -<p>"This is an old argument," she said wearily, "and it isn't why I called -you here. 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."</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>"General Courtney, this is Mr. Adjaha," said Piquette.</p> - -<p>"From where?" demanded Beauregard warily. Surely Piquette would not -have led him into a trap set by Northern spies?</p> - -<p>Adjaha arose and inclined his head gravely. He was a short man, rather -squarely built. Neither he nor Beauregard offered to shake hands.</p> - -<p>"Originally from the Ivory Coast of Africa, sir," said Adjaha in a -low, mellow voice. "I have lived in the United States ... in the -Confederacy ... since several years before the unfortunate outbreak -of war."</p> - -<p>Beauregard turned to Piquette.</p> - -<p>"I don't see the point of this," he said. "Is this man some relative -of yours? What does his being here have to do with this crazy talk of -ending the war?"</p> - -<p>"If you will excuse me, General," said Adjaha, "I overheard your -conversation in the hall and, indeed, Piquette already had informed me -of the dissension in your heart. You would be fair to my race in the -South, yet you fear that if they had equality under the law they would -misuse their superiority in numbers."</p> - -<p>Beauregard laughed scornfully.</p> - -<p>"See here, old man, if you think I'm ripe to lead a peace and surrender -movement in the South, you're wasting your time," he said. "The South -is committed to this war, and so be it."</p> - -<p>"I ask only that you listen for a brief time to words that may be -more fruitful than a few hours in a quadroon's bedroom," said Adjaha -patiently. "As I said, I am from the Ivory Coast. When the white man -set foot in that part of Africa, he found a great but savage kingdom -called Dahomey: the ancestral home of most of the slaves who were -brought to the South.</p> - -<p>"Before Dahomey there was a civilization whose roots struck back -to the age when the Sahara bloomed and was fertile. Before the -great civilizations of Egypt, of Sumer and of Crete was the greater -civilization of the African black man.</p> - -<p>"That civilization had a science that was greater than anything -that has arisen since. It was not a science of steel and steam and -atoms, but a science of men's minds and men's motives. Its decadent -recollections would have been called witchcraft in medieval Europe; -they have been known in the West as voodoo and superstition."</p> - -<p>"I think you're crazy," said Beauregard candidly. "Quette, have you -hired a voodoo man to hex me?"</p> - -<p>"Be tolerant, General," admonished Adjaha in his mellow voice. "Many -of you in the West are not aware of it, but Africa has been struggling -back to civilization in the Twentieth Century. And, while most of its -people have been content to strive toward the young ways of the West, -a few of us have sought in our ancestral traditions a path to the old -knowledge. Not entirely in vain. Look."</p> - -<p>Like a conjuror, he produced from somewhere in his clothing a small -carved figure. About six inches high, it was cut from some gleaming -black stone in the attenuated form so common to African sculpture. It -dangled from Adjaha's fingers on a string and turned slowly, then more -swiftly.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" width="430" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>As it spun, the light from the chandelier flashed from its planes and -curves in a silvery, bewildering pattern. Beauregard felt his eyes -drawn to it, into it, his very brain drawn into it.</p> - -<p>Beauregard stood there, staring at the twirling image. His eyes were -wide open and slightly glazed. Piquette gave a little, frightened cry.</p> - -<p>"It's all right, my dear," said Adjaha. "He's just under hypnosis. Your -General Beauregard is the key that can unlock the past and the future -for us."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was an insistent command beating against Beauregard's brain: "Go -back ... go back ... go back...."</p> - -<p>It was a sunny summer morning in Memphis. Beauregard Courtney, -Nashville attorney and adjutant general of Tennessee, stepped out of -the elevator of the Peabody Hotel and walked across the wide, columned -lobby to the newsstand. He did not go by the desk; Beauregard preferred -to keep his room key in his pocket when he stayed in a hotel.</p> - -<p>He bought a copy of <i>The Commercial Appeal</i> and dropped onto one of the -sofas nearby to read the headlines. As he had suspected, the story in -which he was involved took top play.</p> - -<p class="ph2">SOUTHERN GOVERNORS<br /> -GATHER HERE TODAY TO<br /> -DISCUSS 'REVOLT.'</p> - -<p>It was a three-column head at the right of the page. <i>The Commercial</i> -wasn't as conservative as it had been when he was a boy, but it still -didn't go in for the bold black streamers, he thought approvingly.</p> - -<p>He glanced at the other front page headlines: MERIDIAN QUIET UNDER -FEDERAL REGIME ... NEHRU BLASTS RACE UNREST IN MISSISSIPPI ... -PRESIDENT URGES SOUTH: 'ABIDE BY LAW'....</p> - -<p>Beauregard sighed. He was caught up in the vortex of great events.</p> - -<p>He arose, folding his paper, and walked toward the stairs leading down -to the grill. The governors' meeting was not until eleven o'clock. -After breakfast, he would talk with some of the Memphis political -leaders and telephone Governor Gentry. He was in a delicate position -here, representing a state that did not think exactly as he did.</p> - -<p>As he reached the steps, a dark-haired woman, dressed in misty blue for -the morning, approached from the elevators. He stepped aside to let her -precede him. Then they recognized each other.</p> - -<p>"Piquette!" he exclaimed. "I didn't know you were in Memphis."</p> - -<p>The quadroon flashed a smile and a sparkle of black eyes at him.</p> - -<p>"I knew you were here," she said, gesturing at his newspaper.</p> - -<p>He hesitated, uncertain whether she was just countering his own remark -or telling him that he was her reason for being here.</p> - -<p>"Will you have breakfast with me?" he invited.</p> - -<p>"Yes," she answered, and gave him a sidelong glance, "if it's in my -room."</p> - -<p>He laughed, rich and full-throated. She took his arm and they went back -to the elevators together. His heart was lighter now that Piquette was -in Memphis with him....</p> - -<p>There were eleven Southern governors at the meeting. Governor -LeBlanc of Louisiana, like Governor Gentry of Tennessee, had sent a -representative in his stead. As representative of the host state, -Beauregard opened the meeting, welcomed the visitors and turned over -the chairmanship to Governor Dortch of Georgia.</p> - -<p>"Gentlemen, there is no point in delaying our principal discussion," -said Dortch. "Within the past week, federal troops have moved into a -Mississippi city to enforce the Supreme Court's infamous integration -decree. For the first time since Reconstruction Days, hostile soldiers -are on the soil of a sovereign Southern state. The question before us -is, shall we bow to this invasion of states' rights and continue our -hopeless fight in the courts, or shall we join hands in resisting force -with force?"</p> - -<p>Chubby Governor Marsh of Alabama rose to his feet.</p> - -<p>"There wouldn't have been any federal troops if it hadn't been for -this extremist segregation organization, the Konfederate Klan," he -said heavily. "I belong to a segregationist organization myself: I -suppose most of you do, because you got elected. But lynching and -rioting and burning homes and schools is no way to resist integration. -Mississippi's national guard should have been in Meridian."</p> - -<p>"If I'd mobilized the guard, I'd have had a revolt on my hands," said -Governor Ahlgren of Mississippi mildly. "Two-thirds of the guardsmen -belong to the Klan."</p> - -<p>"I'll go along with the majority, of course," said Marsh, "but I think -this proposed Pact of Resistance can lead only to full-fledged military -occupation of the South."</p> - -<p>Almost without willing it, Beauregard arose. 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...!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>"You remember that you relived your participation in the governors' -conference in Memphis?" asked Adjaha.</p> - -<p>"Yes," said Beauregard, rubbing his forehead. "You black scoundrel! You -hypnotized me with that pagan doll!"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir," admitted Adjaha. "It took me a long time to trace the key -to this war, and when I found you were that key I knew I could reach -you only through Piquette. It was your impassioned speech before the -governors that turned the South to war instead of peace."</p> - -<p>"Nonsense!" said Beauregard, sitting up straighter. "I just expressed -what the majority was thinking. They'd have agreed on the Pact of -Resistance even if I had objected."</p> - -<p>"The man of destiny sometimes doesn't realize his own influence," said -Adjaha drily. "Many factors were concentrated in you that day besides -your own native persuasiveness. No, General, your stand swung the -governors to the Pact of Resistance. 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."</p> - -<p>"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."</p> - -<p>"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. -A better simile: one can move upward as well as downward, but the -presence of gravitation makes special skills necessary."</p> - -<p>Beauregard shook his head.</p> - -<p>"A good theory, but good only as a theory," he said. "If it were more -than that, the law of cause and effect would be abrogated."</p> - -<p>"No, it works both ways. The present can influence the past as much as -it influences the future, or as much as the past influenced it. Thus, -through the past, the present can influence itself.</p> - -<p>"In my native land, the Ivory Coast of Africa, we believe in fan-shaped -destiny, General. At every instant where a choice is made, a man may -take one of many paths. And those who had the old knowledge of my -people could retrace their steps when the wrong path was taken, and -choose another path."</p> - -<p>"But I can't," said Beauregard. "If I could, I don't know anything that -could have changed what I said and did that day in Memphis."</p> - -<p>"Tell me, General, how long had Piquette been your mistress before the -Memphis Conference?" asked Adjaha.</p> - -<p>"About three years," answered Beauregard, too puzzled at this change of -tack to be offended.</p> - -<p>"Even if you were a psychologist instead of a general, it would be -difficult for you to probe the motivation of your own heart," said the -Negro. "Piquette was your reason for voting for war, instead of peace!"</p> - -<p>Beauregard sprang to his feet angrily.</p> - -<p>"Look, damn you, don't feed me your voodoo doubletalk!" he thundered. -"If it were Piquette alone I had to consider, don't you think I'd have -advocated equality for the black race?"</p> - -<p>It was Piquette's voice that sobered him, like a dash of cold water.</p> - -<p>"And yet you try to tell me I'm not a Negro, Gard," she said quietly.</p> - -<p>The anger drained from him. He slumped back to the sofa.</p> - -<p>"Ah, yes, the perversity of a man whose mind and heart are at odds!" -exclaimed Adjaha softly. "You love Piquette, yet your pride tells you -that you should not love a woman with Negro blood in her veins. For -that you must be aggressive, you must prove the moral code taught you -as a child was not wrong.</p> - -<p>"You went to the Memphis Conference with Piquette's kisses still sweet -on your lips, and because of that your conscience demanded that you -stand forth as a champion of the white man's superiority."</p> - -<p>"So be it, then, you black Freudian," retorted Beauregard cynically, an -angry gleam in his blue eyes. "The die was cast two years ago."</p> - -<p>"The die shall be recast," said Adjaha firmly. "Piquette must not have -gone to Memphis. She must not have been your mistress before you went -to Memphis."</p> - -<p>With this, he walked swiftly from the room. Beauregard looked at -Piquette, his eyes half amused, half doubtful. She smiled at him.</p> - -<p>"What he does is out of our hands," she said. "It's still early, Gard."</p> - -<p>He took her in his arms.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>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. His wife, -Lucy, a handsome woman whose dark brown hair was just beginning to -grey, stood by the door with an armload of packages.</p> - -<p>"Beauregard, the people moving into that vacant house down on Franklin -Road are Negroes," she said indignantly. "I want you to do something -about it. The very idea! That close to the mansion!"</p> - -<p>"They aren't Negroes," he said patiently. "They're my secretary and -her mother. My secretary is a quadroon and her mother's a mulatto. -It's convenient to have them live so close, in case I need to do some -weekend work at home."</p> - -<p>"A quadroon!" Lucy's eyes widened. "Which of your secretaries is a -quadroon?"</p> - -<p>"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."</p> - -<p>"Well, I never! You've become more and more of an integrationist ever -since you got into politics, Beauregard."</p> - -<p>"Maybe I've gained some wisdom and understanding," he replied. "That -is not to say I'm an 'integrationist.' I'm still doing my best to get -it done slowly and cautiously. But the only way the South could have -resisted it was by open revolt, which would have been suicide. And I -must say the Southern fears have not been realized, so far."</p> - -<p>Lucy sniffed.</p> - -<p>"I have to speak at a woman's club meeting tonight," she said, opening -the door. "Are you going home now?"</p> - -<p>"No, Sergeant Parker will drive you home and come back for me. I'm -going to eat downtown and clean up some work in the office tonight."</p> - -<p>She left, and Beauregard leaned back in his chair thoughtfully, having -just told his wife a lie.</p> - -<p>They had no children to be affected by it, but Lucy would never become -reconciled to integration. She blamed him for his part in turning the -Memphis Governors Conference away from the proposed Pact of Resistance -five years ago.</p> - -<p>Beauregard had had his doubts about speaking out against resisting the -federal government with the threat of force. Now he thought he had -done right: war would have been terrible, and the South could not have -won such a war. And it was his statesmanship at that conference, and -Governor Gentry's lavish praise of it, that had set him up to succeed -Gentry as governor.</p> - -<p>Beauregard sighed peacefully. He had done right and the world was -better for it.</p> - -<p>The door opened, and Piquette's golden, black-eyed face peeked around -it.</p> - -<p>"It's four-thirty, Governor," she said. "Will you want me for anything -else?"</p> - -<p>"Not just now," he said, smiling.</p> - -<p>She smiled back.</p> - -<p>"Room 832," she said in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper. -Then she was gone.</p> - -<p>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?</p> - -<p>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. He had thought her drawn also to him, -but for some reason their paths parted and he had not seen her again -until after his election to the governorship.</p> - -<p>She had been among a group of applicants for state jobs, and Beauregard -had happened to be visiting the personnel office the day she came -in. He employed her in the governor's office at once. She was a good -secretary.</p> - -<p>Nothing untoward had passed between them in that year she had worked as -his secretary. In nothing either of them said or did could any members -of his staff have detected an incorrect attitude. But there were -invitations of the eyes, caresses of the voice ... and a week ago their -hands had touched, and clung, and he had found she was willing....</p> - -<p>Beauregard heaved himself to his feet with a sigh. Briefly, he felt -sorry for Lucy. He would eat supper downtown tonight, but it would be -in Room 832.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Beauregard awoke slowly, with a hand shaking his shoulder. Reluctantly -he abandoned a dream in which the South had remained at peace and he -was governor of his state.</p> - -<p>Piquette's flower-like face hovered over him in the dimness. She rested -on one elbow in the big bed beside him and shook his shoulder.</p> - -<p>"Gard!" she said urgently. "Wake up! It's after midnight."</p> - -<p>"Oh, damn!" he groaned, rolling out of the warm covers. "And the -Northerners will attack today if my intelligence service hasn't gone -completely haywire."</p> - -<p>"Get dressed," she said, dropping her bare feet to the floor and -smoothing her nightgown over her knees. "I'll fix you some coffee."</p> - -<p>He pulled on his uniform, the Confederate grey with the stars -glittering on the shoulders, while she plugged in the hotplate and -started the coffee. Outside, the eastern sky was streaked with dim -light, against which the sleeping houses of Winchester thrust up stark -silhouettes.</p> - -<p>She sat across the little table from him, a flowered robe drawn around -her, while he sipped his coffee and thrust the last wisps of dreams -from his head.</p> - -<p>"Quette," he said, "I want you to pack and get out of here. Before -daylight, if you can get ready. Head south, for Birmingham. I'll send a -staff car around for you as soon as I get to headquarters."</p> - -<p>"I don't want to leave you, Gard," she objected.</p> - -<p>"You've got to, Quette. We can't hold these Federals. We're in a -bulge here, and the only reason they haven't cracked us out yet is -Chattanooga holding our right flank."</p> - -<p>He kissed her goodbye, a long kiss, and strode down the street to the -Franklin County courthouse, where he had set up headquarters for the -Army of Middle Tennessee when the Union troops had forced them out of -Nashville. The place was a beehive of activity.</p> - -<p>The eastern sky glowed red over the Cumberlands and the artillery was -thundering in the north when General Beauregard Courtney rode out -toward the front. He had his driver park the staff car on a slight rise -overlooking his troop formations.</p> - -<p>The war was going badly for the South, and Beauregard unhappily took -much of the responsibility on himself. Perhaps he had been wrong in -making that impassioned speech at the Governors Conference in Memphis -which, he was sure, had swung the weight of opinion in favor of the -Pact of Resistance. Certainly he had been wrong in recommending a -farflung northern battle line, at the start of the war, which stretched -from Paducah, Kentucky, north of Nashville to Knoxville, with its -eastern anchor on the Cumberlands.</p> - -<p>It had been his idea that a defensive line so far north would give the -South more time to mobilize behind it, would hold the rich industries -of Tennessee for the South, and would give the South a jumping off -place for a strike across the Ohio River. But the North had mobilized -faster, and Northern armies had crunched down through the Southern -defenses like paper.</p> - -<p>Now all West Tennessee and a segment of Mississippi was in Federal -hands. The Southern defense in East Tennessee had been forced back to -the mountains around Chattanooga. And his own troops had fallen back -from stand after stand after the Battle of Nashville. Even now, Federal -armour was reported to have crossed the Tennessee River and be heading -south-eastward toward Columbia and Lewisburg.</p> - -<p>He hoped Piquette had left Winchester by now. Perhaps he should not -have kept his quadroon mistress with him through the constant danger of -defeat, but with Lucy way down in New Orleans....</p> - -<p>As the morning wore on, the guns thundered below him and the tanks -rumbled across the Tullahoma plain, spouting fire. Several times -his sergeant urged him to withdraw, out of danger, and return -to headquarters, but he stayed. He wanted to direct this battle -personally, giving his orders over the car radio.</p> - -<p>A great pall of smoke hung over the battlefield. Then the attack came, -wave after wave of blue-clad infantry, pouring down from the north. -Tanks and planes supported them, and atomic artillery shells burst in -the Southern trenches. The grey lines began to crumble.</p> - -<p>"Colonel, throw in the 112th and the armored reserve, and let's try -to get an orderly withdrawal to the Alabama line," Beauregard ordered -into his microphone. He turned to his driver. "Sergeant, I think you're -right. We'd better get out of here."</p> - -<p>The staff car swung around and headed back toward Winchester over the -bumpy highway. As it left the rise, Beauregard swore fervently and -reached for the microphone. From the west came a great cloud of dust -and a mass of rumbling tanks. The Federals had broken through the left -flank at Lynchburg.</p> - -<p>Jet planes streaked overhead from the north, flying low. The flash of -exploding bombs and rockets was visible in Winchester, ahead of them.</p> - -<p>Speaking swiftly into the microphone, Beauregard glanced out of the -car's back window.</p> - -<p>"Sergeant!" he yelled. "Strafers!"</p> - -<p>The driver twisted the wheel so quickly Beauregard was thrown against -the door. The speeding car leaped a ditch and bounced into the fields.</p> - -<p>Out the window, Beauregard saw the jet swooping down at them like a -hawk. It was a speck in the sky, and almost instantly it was on them in -a terrifying rush.</p> - -<p>He saw the flare of the rockets leaving the plane's wings, he felt the -shock of a thunderous explosion, and the blackness engulfed him.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Beauregard opened his eyes painfully. His head ached, and his left arm -hurt horribly.</p> - -<p>He was lying on a rumpled bed in his torn uniform. Piquette and a -wizened, very black Negro man were standing beside the bed, looking -down at him anxiously. He recognized that he was in the house in -Winchester, in the room where he had spent last night ... or was it -last night?</p> - -<p>"Quette!" he croaked, trying to sit up. He couldn't make it, and -he gasped at the pain in his arm. "I thought I told you to leave -Winchester."</p> - -<p>"I didn't want to leave you, Gard," she answered softly. "And it's -lucky I didn't. Some men on an ammunition truck found your car. Your -driver was killed and your arm blown half off. They brought you here."</p> - -<p>"Dammit," he complained, "why didn't they take me to the base hospital?"</p> - -<p>"Because the base hospital took a direct hit from a bomb."</p> - -<p>That startled Beauregard into the realization that there was no sound -of firing, no crash of bombs, outside. There were men's shouts and the -normal sounds of a town occupied by the military. Had the Union forces -been repulsed by some miracle?</p> - -<p>"Well, for Pete's sake, call the medics and get me to a field -hospital," he ordered. "And you head south for Birmingham, like I told -you to."</p> - -<p>"Gard," she said soberly, "I thought it ought to be your decision, and -not mine. 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."</p> - -<p>Beauregard lay silent, stunned. The strange man beside the bed spoke -for the first time.</p> - -<p>"It is not his decision," he said. "There is work that I must do which -may be delayed forever if he is captured."</p> - -<p>"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."</p> - -<p>"Poppycock!" snorted Beauregard weakly.</p> - -<p>"General Courtney," said Adjaha intensely, "you spent last night with -Piquette. Where did you spend the night? Here or in Chattanooga?"</p> - -<p>Beauregard opened his mouth to say, "Here, of course." Then he stopped. -Suddenly a vision, almost a memory, rose up before him and he could not -be sure. There was a chandelier, and a black voodoo charm....</p> - -<p>"You do remember some of it!" exclaimed Adjaha delightedly.</p> - -<p>"It seems that I dreamed the South was winning, and I was going to -drive on Tullahoma, and I went to Chattanooga to see Piquette," said -Beauregard slowly. "But it's mixed up in my mind with another dream, in -which there was no war at all, and I was elected governor...."</p> - -<p>"Those were not dreams," said Adjaha. "They happened and yet they did -not happen."</p> - -<p>"I remember you in a dream," said Beauregard faintly, "and words about -'fan-shaped destiny'...."</p> - -<p>"You have to understand this or I can do nothing," said Adjaha -hurriedly. "The South was doing well, although it could not have won in -the end. You were preparing to advance on Tullahoma, and you did go to -Chattanooga last night to see Piquette. This happened.</p> - -<p>"But it didn't happen, because I utilized the ancient knowledge of my -people, involving dimensions beyond time, to change the factors that -led to it. Decisions of different people were influenced differently -at a dozen points in the past so that Piquette did not become your -mistress before you went to Memphis, and your own emotional attitude -was changed just enough to steer you on a different course.</p> - -<p>"Then the other things you call a dream happened instead. There was -peace instead of war."</p> - -<p>"Then how is it that we actually have war and defeat?" demanded -Beauregard, his voice a little stronger.</p> - -<p>"Piquette," said Adjaha gravely. "You found her again, and she became -your mistress after you were governor."</p> - -<p>"But I remember that now!" exclaimed Beauregard. "That's three years in -the future ... and there was no war."</p> - -<p>"It is difficult to understand, but the future can change the present," -said Adjaha. "General Courtney, even more than I realized at first you -are the 'man of destiny,' the key to war or peace in the South, and -Piquette is the key to your own emotions.</p> - -<p>"Try to comprehend this: <i>you cannot love Piquette in a South that is -at peace!</i> The whole social fabric in which you were nurtured demands -of you that a woman of Negro blood cannot be your paramour unless she -is socially recognized as an inferior and, in a very real sense, not -your co-equal lover but the servant of your pleasure. When Piquette -became your mistress, even five years after the decisive moment of -the Memphis Conference, the entire framework of time and events was -distorted and thrown back into a sequence in which the South was at -war. This time, unfortunately for you, a slightly different time-path -was taken and the South does not fare so well."</p> - -<p>"Then you've failed, and things are worse than they were if you hadn't -interfered," said Beauregard.</p> - -<p>"No, I must try again," said Adjaha. "Piquette's mother must never have -brought her to Nashville as a child, so there will be no chance of your -ever meeting her at all."</p> - -<p>There was a thunderous knocking at the front door. Federal troops who -were investing the town at last had reached this house. Adjaha gave -Beauregard one sympathetic look from his dark eyes, and slipped quietly -from the room, toward the rear of the house.</p> - -<p>The knocking sounded again. Beauregard lay in a semi-daze, his -blood-encrusted left arm an agony to him. Through the haze over his -mind intruded a premonition that bit more deeply than the physical -pain: Never to know Piquette?</p> - -<p>He clutched her hand to his breast.</p> - -<p>"Quette," he whimpered.</p> - -<p>"Be still, darling. I won't leave you," she soothed him as a mother -soothes her child. Her cool hand caressed his cheek.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>United States Senator Beauregard Courtney of Tennessee crossed Canal -Street cautiously and plunged into the French Quarter of New Orleans -with a swift, military stride.</p> - -<p>He had always urged Lucy that they take a trip to New Orleans, but -she always had demurred; she said the city reminded her of war and -trouble, somehow. Now he had been invited to be the principal speaker -at the annual banquet of the Louisiana Bar Association tonight. He had -welcomed the opportunity to make the trip, without Lucy.</p> - -<p>It had been ten years since his voice at the Memphis conference -had swung the South away from war and onto the path of peace. His -statesmanship on that occasion had brought him great honour. He had -served a four-year term as governor of his state and, on leaving that -office, had been advanced to the U. S. Senate. His light-coloured hair -and mustache were beginning to grey slightly.</p> - -<p>Lucy had been a good wife to him, even though there had been that -near-estrangement when he was so busy as governor. Perhaps she still -did not agree with him entirely on his acceptance of the fact of racial -integration without bitter resistance, but she was more tolerant now of -his sincerity than she had been once. He was sorry she was not here: -she would have enjoyed the Old World atmosphere through which he walked.</p> - -<p>Beauregard moved up fabled Bourbon Street, past Galatoire's and the -Absinthe House. He stared with interest at the intricate ironwork of -the balconies that overhung the narrow sidewalk, at the bright flowers -that peered over the stone walls of gardens, at the blank wooden doors -flush with the sidewalk.</p> - -<p>How far, he wondered, was he from Rampart Street, where the Creoles had -kept their beautiful quadroon mistresses in one-story white houses in -days long gone? He knew nothing of the <i>Vieux Carre</i>, and had no map.</p> - -<p>As he penetrated more deeply into the French Quarter, he began to pass -the barred gates that stopped the dim corridors leading back to ancient -courtyards. These fascinated him, and he tried several of the gates, -only to find them locked.</p> - -<p>He never knew later, studying the map, whether the street he had just -crossed was Toulouse, St. Peter or Orleans, when he came upon one of -those gates that stood ajar.</p> - -<p>Beauregard did not hesitate. He pushed it open and paced eagerly down -the shadowed corridor until he emerged into the sunlit courtyard.</p> - -<p>There was a stone statue, grey and cracked with age, in the midst of -a circular pool in the center of the courtyard. Flower-lined walks -surrounded it. The doors that opened into the courtyard were shadowed -by balconies, on which there were other doors, and to which steep -flights of stairs climbed.</p> - -<p>On a bench beside the pool sat a woman in a simple print dress. Her -skin was tawny gold and her hair was black and tumbled about her -shoulders. Her eyes were black and deep, too, when she raised them in -surprise to the intruder. She was beautiful, with a poignant, wistful -beauty.</p> - -<p>"I'm sorry," said Beauregard. "The gate was open, and I was curious."</p> - -<p>"Mrs. Mills forgot to lock the gate," she said, smiling at him. "All of -us who live here have our keys and are supposed to lock the gate when -we go out. But Mrs. Mills forgets."</p> - -<p>"I'll leave," he said, not moving.</p> - -<p>"No, stay," she said. "You're a visitor to town, aren't you? There's no -reason why you can't see a French Quarter courtyard, if you wish."</p> - -<p>Beauregard moved closer to her.</p> - -<p>"I'm Beauregard Courtney," he said. For some reason, he omitted the -"Senator."</p> - -<p>"Gard," she said in a low voice, her big eyes fixed on his face. "Gard -Courtney."</p> - -<p>Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, faint memory stirred. Was -it the memory of a dream?</p> - -<p>"Have I dreamed that we met before?" he asked slowly. "Piquette?"</p> - -<p>"You know!" she exclaimed, her face lighting gloriously. "I didn't -dream alone!"</p> - -<p>"No," he said. "No. You didn't dream alone. Your name is Piquette, -isn't it? I don't know why I said that. It seemed right."</p> - -<p>"It is right."</p> - -<p>"And you live here?"</p> - -<p>"Up there," she said, and pointed to one of the doors that looked out -on the balcony.</p> - -<p>Beauregard looked up at the balcony and the door, and he knew, as -though he had prevision, that before he left the courtyard he would go -through that door with Piquette.</p> - -<p>He took her hands in his.</p> - -<p>"I'll never let you leave me," he murmured.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>General Beauregard Courtney sat under the open-sided tent that was his -field headquarters and stretched long legs under the flimsy table. He -gazed morosely out toward Tullahoma in the north, where the trenches -stretched endlessly from east to west and only an occasional artillery -shell broke the quiet of the battlefield.</p> - -<p>Stalemate.</p> - -<p>"I thought trench warfare went out with World War I," he growled to his -executive officer.</p> - -<p>"No, sir. Apparently not, sir," replied Colonel Smithson correctly, not -interrupting his preparation of tomorrow's orders.</p> - -<p>Stalemate. The Northern armies and the Southern armies had collided -with great carnage on that battlefield. Fighting had swayed back and -forth for weeks, and at last had settled down to a stubborn holding -action by both sides.</p> - -<p>That had been months ago. 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.</p> - -<p>Beauregard toyed with a pencil and listened idly to the news over the -little radio at his elbow. It was a Nashville station, and Nashville -was held by the North, but he had learned how to discount the news from -the battlefront.</p> - -<p>"... And our planes destroyed thirteen Rebel tanks and an ammunition -depot in a mission near Lexington," the announcer was saying. "A -gunboat duel in the Mississippi River near Dyersburg was broken off -after severe casualties were inflicted on the Rebel crew. Our armored -troops have advanced farther into the Texas Panhandle.</p> - -<p>"Wait. There's a flash coming in...."</p> - -<p>There was a momentary pause. Beauregard bent his ear to the radio. -Colonel Smithson looked up, listening.</p> - -<p>"My God!" cried the announcer in a shaky voice. "This flash ... a -hydrogen bomb has exploded in New York City!"</p> - -<p>Beauregard surged to his feet, upsetting the table. The radio crashed -to the ground. The other men in the tent were standing, aghast.</p> - -<p>"It isn't ours!" cried Beauregard, his face grey. "It's a Russian bomb! -It must be...!"</p> - -<p>The voice on the fallen radio was shouting, excited, almost hysterical.</p> - -<p>"... The heart of the city wiped out.... Number of dead not estimated -yet, but known to be high.... Great fires raging.... Radioactive -fallout spreading over New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania....</p> - -<p>"Here's a bulletin: the President accuses the Rebel government of -violating the pact not to use large nuclear weapons. Retaliatory action -has already been initiated....</p> - -<p>"Here's another flash: 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 <i>north</i>...."</p> - -<p>"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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>Beauregard strode out of the tent. The car radio was on loud, and the -same announcer was babbling over it.</p> - -<p>"Quette, what are you doing out here?" he demanded.</p> - -<p>"Gard, this is Adjaha, a friend of mine," she said hurriedly. "I -couldn't wait for you to come back to town tonight. I had to get him -out to see you before it was too late."</p> - -<p>"Dammit, it is too late," he growled. "It's too late for anything. -Haven't you been listening to that damn radio?"</p> - -<p>"This is extremely important, General," said Adjaha in a mellow voice. -"If I may impose on you, I'd like to talk with you for a short while."</p> - -<p>Beauregard frowned and glanced at Piquette. She nodded slightly, and -her face was anxious.</p> - -<p>"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."</p> - -<p>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. He did -not believe, but he suspended disbelief.</p> - -<p>"So you see, General," concluded Adjaha, "there is some drive within -you and Piquette—call it fate, if you wish—that draws you together. -When it was arranged that she did not become your mistress before the -Memphis Conference, she did after you became governor. When it was -arranged that her parents did not move to Nashville with her, you were -drawn to New Orleans to meet her. Apparently you must meet if there is -any possibility that you meet, and when you meet you love each other.</p> - -<p>"And, though you can't remember it, General—for it didn't happen, even -though it did—I explained to you once, on this very day, that you -cannot love Piquette in an unrebellious and peaceful South."</p> - -<p>"If we were fated to meet, I'm happy," said Beauregard, taking -Piquette's hand. "If these fantastic things you say were true, I still -would never consent to not having met Piquette."</p> - -<p>"But you must see that it's right, Gard!" exclaimed Piquette, -surprisingly.</p> - -<p>"Quette! How can you say that? Would you be happy if we were never to -know each other?"</p> - -<p>She looked at him, and there were tears in her eyes.</p> - -<p>"Yes, Gard," she said in a low voice, "because ... well, Adjaha -can see a little of the future, too. And on every alternate path he -sees.... Gard, if the South is at war, you'll be killed before the war -ends!"</p> - -<p>"We can't take any chances this time, General," said Adjaha. "Should -events be thrown back into a path that leads to war again, this time -you might be killed before I could reach you. Piquette's parents must -never have met. <i>She must never have been born!</i>"</p> - -<p>Suddenly, Beauregard believed. This quiet little black man could do -what he said.</p> - -<p>"I won't permit it!" he roared, starting to his feet. "Damn the South! -Damn the world! Piquette is mine!"</p> - -<p>But Adjaha, moving like lightning, was in the staff car. Its motor -roared, it swung in a cloud of dust and accelerated toward the south.</p> - -<p>"Sergeant! Colonel! Get that stolen staff car!" Beauregard bellowed. -He whipped out his service pistol and fired two futile shots after the -diminishing vehicle.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>Beauregard glowered after them. Then he took Piquette's hand and they -walked together into the empty tent.</p> - -<p>"... 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...."</p> - -<p>Beauregard imagined the ground trembled. Instinctively he looked toward -the south for the radioactive mushroom cloud. Then he swung back to -Piquette.</p> - -<p>"Quette, he can't do it," said Beauregard. "He's a voodoo fraud."</p> - -<p>She looked at him with great, dark eyes. Her lips trembled.</p> - -<p>"Gard," she whispered like a frightened child. "Gard, aren't there -other worlds than this one...?"</p> - -<p>She crept into his arms.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Colonel Beauregard Courtney sat on the terrace of his home in the -suburbs of Nashville and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on his grey -head. The steady hum of automobiles on the superhighway half a mile -away was a droning background to the songs of birds in the trees of his -big back yard.</p> - -<p>The "Colonel" was an honorary title bestowed on him by the governor, -for Beauregard never had worn a uniform. He had been Governor Gentry's -representative at the fateful Memphis Conference forty years ago, he -had been governor of his state, he had been United States senator from -Tennessee, he had been chief justice of the state supreme court. Now he -preferred to think of himself as Beauregard Courtney, attorney, retired.</p> - -<p>Where was Lucy? Probably sitting in front of the television screen, -nodding, not seeing a bit of the program. She should be out here in -this glorious sunshine.</p> - -<p>Beauregard's gardener, a wizened little Negro man, came around the -corner of the house.</p> - -<p>"Adjaha, you black scoundrel, why don't you die?" demanded Beauregard -affectionately. "You must be twenty years older than I am."</p> - -<p>"Fully that, Colonel," agreed Adjaha with a smile that wrinkled his -entire face. "But I'm waiting for you to die first. I'm here to keep -watch over you, you know."</p> - -<p>He picked up the hoe and went around the house.</p> - -<p>Curious thing about Adjaha. Beauregard never had understood why an -able, well-educated man like Adjaha, in a free and successfully -integrated society, would be content to spend his whole life as -gardener for Beauregard Courtney.</p> - -<p>Beauregard leaned back comfortably in his lawn chair and thrummed -his thin fingers on its wooden arm. Absently he whistled a tune, and -presently became aware that he was whistling it.</p> - -<p>It was a haunting little melody, from long ago. He didn't know the -words, only one phrase; and he didn't know whether that was the title -or some words from the song itself, that song of old New Orleans: "... -<i>my pretty quadroon</i>...."</p> - -<p>"Piquette," he thought, and wondered why that name came to mind.</p> - -<p>Piquette. A pretty name. Perhaps a name for a pretty quadroon. But why -had that particular name come to mind?</p> - -<p>He never had known a woman named Piquette.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pretty Quadroon, by Charles Fontenay - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRETTY QUADROON *** - -***** This file should be named 60020-h.htm or 60020-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/0/2/60020/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Pretty Quadroon - -Author: Charles Fontenay - -Release Date: July 30, 2019 [EBook #60020] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRETTY QUADROON *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - Pretty Quadroon - - BY CHARLES FONTENAY - - _Once a man has chosen a path to follow, there's - no turning back. But what if the die could be - recast and we could retrace our steps when we - chose the wrong one ... and choose another?_ - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Worlds of If Science Fiction, June 1957. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -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. - -"You damn black coon," he said without rancor, "you know you're costing -me a night's sleep?" - -The Negro courier stood beside his motorcycle and his teeth flashed -white in his good-natured face. The dust of the road filmed his uniform -of Southern grey. - -"Miss Piquette told me to bring you the message, suh," he answered. - -"A wife couldn't be more demanding," grumbled Beauregard. "Why -couldn't she wait until this push is over?" - -"I don't know, suh," said the courier. - -"Well, get back to headquarters and get some supper," commanded -Beauregard. "You can fly back to Chattanooga with me." - -The man saluted and climbed aboard his motorcycle. It kicked to life -with a sputtering roar, and he turned it southward on what was left of -the highway. - -The sun was low in the west, and its reddening beams glinted from the -weapons and vehicles of the men who moved through the fields below -Beauregard. That would be the 184th, moving into the trenches at the -edge of what had been Camp Forrest during the last war. - -On the morrow this was to be the frontal attack on what was left of the -Northern wind tunnel installations, while the armor moved in like a -powerful pincers from Pelham to the east and Lynchburg to the west. If -the Union strongpoint at Tullahoma could be enveloped, the way lay open -to Shelbyville and 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. - -When the Second War for Southern Independence (the Northerners called -it "The Second Rebellion") had broken out, Beauregard had feared it -would be a swift holocaust of hydrogen bombs, followed by a cruel -scourge of guerilla fighting. But not one nuclear weapon had exploded, -except the atomic artillery of the two opposing forces. A powerful -deterrent spelled caution to both North and South. - -Sitting afar, watching the divided country with glee, was Soviet -Russia. Her armies and navies were mobilized. She waited only for the -two halves of the United States to ruin and weaken each other, before -her troops would crush the flimsy barriers of western Europe and move -into a disorganized America. - -So the Second Rebellion (Beauregard found himself using the term -because it was shorter) remained a classic war of fighting on the -ground and bombing of only industrial and military targets. Both sides, -by tacit agreement, left the great superhighways intact, both held -their H-bombers under leash, ready to reunite if need be against a -greater threat. - -Just now the war was going well for the South. At the start, the new -Confederacy had held nothing of Tennessee except Chattanooga south of -the mountains and the southwestern plains around Memphis. That had been -on Beauregard's advice, for he was high in the councils of the Southern -military. He had felt it too dangerous to try to hold the lines as far -north as Nashville, Knoxville and Paducah until the South mobilized -its strength. - -He had proved right. The Northern bulge down into Tennessee had been -a weak point, and the Southern sympathies of many Tennesseans had -hampered their defense. The Army of West Tennessee had driven up along -the Mississippi River plains to the Kentucky line and the Army of East -Tennessee now stood at the gates of Knoxville. Outflanked by these two -threats, the Union forces were pulling back toward Nashville before -Beauregard Courtney's Army of Middle Tennessee, and he did not intend -to stop his offensive short of the Ohio River. - -"Head back for Winchester, Sergeant," he commanded his driver. The man -started the staff car and swung it around on the highway. - -He should not go to Chattanooga, Beauregard thought as the car bumped -southward over the rutted road. His executive officer was perfectly -capable of taking care of things for the few hours he would be gone, -but it ran against his military training to be away from his command so -soon before an attack. - -Had the summons come from his wife, Beauregard would have sent her a -stern refusal, even had she been in Chattanooga instead of New Orleans. -She had been a soldier's wife long enough to know that duty's demands -took precedence over conjugal matters. - -But there was a weakness in him where Piquette was concerned. Nor was -that all. She knew, as well as Lucy did, the stern requirements of -military existence; and she was even less likely than Lucy to ask him -to come to her unless the matter was of such overwhelming import as to -overshadow what he gained by staying. - -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. - -The siren and circled stars on Beauregard's car cleared a path for him -through the sparse downtown traffic. The car roared out Broad Street, -swung under the viaduct and sped up the curving drives of Lookout -Mountain. - -At a darkened house on the brow of the mountain, overlooking Georgia -and Alabama, the car pulled up. Beauregard spoke a word to the driver, -got out and went to the front door. Behind him the car's lights went -out, and it crunched quietly into the shadowed driveway. - -There was light in the house when Piquette opened the door to him. She -held out her hands in welcome, and her smile was as sweet as sunshine -on dew-sparkling fields. - -Piquette's skin was golden, like autumn leaves, with an undertone of -rich bronze. Her dark eyes were liquid and warm, and her hair tumbled -to her shoulders, a jet cascade. She was clad in a simple white dress -that, in the daring new fashion, bared the full, firm swell of her -breasts. - -Beauregard took her in his arms, and as her lips clung to his he felt a -grey old man, as grey as his braid-hung uniform. He held her away from -him. In the mirror behind her he saw his face, stern, weather-beaten, -light-mustached, with startling blue eyes. - -"Piquette, what on earth is this folly?" he demanded, kicking the -door shut behind him. "Don't you know I'm moving on Tullahoma in the -morning?" - -"You know I wouldn't call you unless it was important, Gard, as much -as I long for you." When she talked, her delicately molded face was as -mobile as quicksilver. "I've found something that may end the war and -save my people." - -"Dammit, Quette, how many times have I told you they are not your -people? You're a quadroon. You're three-fourths white, and a lot whiter -in your heart than some white women I've seen." - -"But I'm one-fourth Negro, and you wouldn't have married me, for that, -even if you'd known me before you met your Lucy. Isn't that right, -Gard?" - -"Look, Quette, just because things are the way they are...." - -She hushed him with a finger on his lips. - -"The Negroes are my people, and the white people are my people," she -said. "If the world were right. I'd be a woman instead of a thing in -between, scorned by both. Can't you see that, Gard? You're not like -most Southerners." - -"I am a Southerner," he answered proudly. "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." - -"This is an old argument," she said wearily, "and it isn't why I called -you here. 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. - -"From where?" demanded Beauregard warily. Surely Piquette would not -have led him into a trap set by Northern spies? - -Adjaha arose and inclined his head gravely. He was a short man, rather -squarely built. Neither he nor Beauregard offered to shake hands. - -"Originally from the Ivory Coast of Africa, sir," said Adjaha in a -low, mellow voice. "I have lived in the United States ... in the -Confederacy ... since several years before the unfortunate outbreak -of war." - -Beauregard turned to Piquette. - -"I don't see the point of this," he said. "Is this man some relative -of yours? What does his being here have to do with this crazy talk of -ending the war?" - -"If you will excuse me, General," said Adjaha, "I overheard your -conversation in the hall and, indeed, Piquette already had informed me -of the dissension in your heart. You would be fair to my race in the -South, yet you fear that if they had equality under the law they would -misuse their superiority in numbers." - -Beauregard laughed scornfully. - -"See here, old man, if you think I'm ripe to lead a peace and surrender -movement in the South, you're wasting your time," he said. "The South -is committed to this war, and so be it." - -"I ask only that you listen for a brief time to words that may be -more fruitful than a few hours in a quadroon's bedroom," said Adjaha -patiently. "As I said, I am from the Ivory Coast. When the white man -set foot in that part of Africa, he found a great but savage kingdom -called Dahomey: the ancestral home of most of the slaves who were -brought to the South. - -"Before Dahomey there was a civilization whose roots struck back -to the age when the Sahara bloomed and was fertile. Before the -great civilizations of Egypt, of Sumer and of Crete was the greater -civilization of the African black man. - -"That civilization had a science that was greater than anything -that has arisen since. It was not a science of steel and steam and -atoms, but a science of men's minds and men's motives. Its decadent -recollections would have been called witchcraft in medieval Europe; -they have been known in the West as voodoo and superstition." - -"I think you're crazy," said Beauregard candidly. "Quette, have you -hired a voodoo man to hex me?" - -"Be tolerant, General," admonished Adjaha in his mellow voice. "Many -of you in the West are not aware of it, but Africa has been struggling -back to civilization in the Twentieth Century. And, while most of its -people have been content to strive toward the young ways of the West, -a few of us have sought in our ancestral traditions a path to the old -knowledge. Not entirely in vain. Look." - -Like a conjuror, he produced from somewhere in his clothing a small -carved figure. About six inches high, it was cut from some gleaming -black stone in the attenuated form so common to African sculpture. It -dangled from Adjaha's fingers on a string and turned slowly, then more -swiftly. - -As it spun, the light from the chandelier flashed from its planes and -curves in a silvery, bewildering pattern. Beauregard felt his eyes -drawn to it, into it, his very brain drawn into it. - -Beauregard stood there, staring at the twirling image. His eyes were -wide open and slightly glazed. Piquette gave a little, frightened cry. - -"It's all right, my dear," said Adjaha. "He's just under hypnosis. Your -General Beauregard is the key that can unlock the past and the future -for us." - - * * * * * - -There was an insistent command beating against Beauregard's brain: "Go -back ... go back ... go back...." - -It was a sunny summer morning in Memphis. Beauregard Courtney, -Nashville attorney and adjutant general of Tennessee, stepped out of -the elevator of the Peabody Hotel and walked across the wide, columned -lobby to the newsstand. He did not go by the desk; Beauregard preferred -to keep his room key in his pocket when he stayed in a hotel. - -He bought a copy of _The Commercial Appeal_ and dropped onto one of the -sofas nearby to read the headlines. As he had suspected, the story in -which he was involved took top play. - - SOUTHERN GOVERNORS - GATHER HERE TODAY TO - DISCUSS 'REVOLT.' - -It was a three-column head at the right of the page. _The Commercial_ -wasn't as conservative as it had been when he was a boy, but it still -didn't go in for the bold black streamers, he thought approvingly. - -He glanced at the other front page headlines: MERIDIAN QUIET UNDER -FEDERAL REGIME ... NEHRU BLASTS RACE UNREST IN MISSISSIPPI ... -PRESIDENT URGES SOUTH: 'ABIDE BY LAW'.... - -Beauregard sighed. He was caught up in the vortex of great events. - -He arose, folding his paper, and walked toward the stairs leading down -to the grill. The governors' meeting was not until eleven o'clock. -After breakfast, he would talk with some of the Memphis political -leaders and telephone Governor Gentry. He was in a delicate position -here, representing a state that did not think exactly as he did. - -As he reached the steps, a dark-haired woman, dressed in misty blue for -the morning, approached from the elevators. He stepped aside to let her -precede him. Then they recognized each other. - -"Piquette!" he exclaimed. "I didn't know you were in Memphis." - -The quadroon flashed a smile and a sparkle of black eyes at him. - -"I knew you were here," she said, gesturing at his newspaper. - -He hesitated, uncertain whether she was just countering his own remark -or telling him that he was her reason for being here. - -"Will you have breakfast with me?" he invited. - -"Yes," she answered, and gave him a sidelong glance, "if it's in my -room." - -He laughed, rich and full-throated. She took his arm and they went back -to the elevators together. His heart was lighter now that Piquette was -in Memphis with him.... - -There were eleven Southern governors at the meeting. Governor -LeBlanc of Louisiana, like Governor Gentry of Tennessee, had sent a -representative in his stead. As representative of the host state, -Beauregard opened the meeting, welcomed the visitors and turned over -the chairmanship to Governor Dortch of Georgia. - -"Gentlemen, there is no point in delaying our principal discussion," -said Dortch. "Within the past week, federal troops have moved into a -Mississippi city to enforce the Supreme Court's infamous integration -decree. For the first time since Reconstruction Days, hostile soldiers -are on the soil of a sovereign Southern state. The question before us -is, shall we bow to this invasion of states' rights and continue our -hopeless fight in the courts, or shall we join hands in resisting force -with force?" - -Chubby Governor Marsh of Alabama rose to his feet. - -"There wouldn't have been any federal troops if it hadn't been for -this extremist segregation organization, the Konfederate Klan," he -said heavily. "I belong to a segregationist organization myself: I -suppose most of you do, because you got elected. But lynching and -rioting and burning homes and schools is no way to resist integration. -Mississippi's national guard should have been in Meridian." - -"If I'd mobilized the guard, I'd have had a revolt on my hands," said -Governor Ahlgren of Mississippi mildly. "Two-thirds of the guardsmen -belong to the Klan." - -"I'll go along with the majority, of course," said Marsh, "but I think -this proposed Pact of Resistance can lead only to full-fledged military -occupation of the South." - -Almost without willing it, Beauregard arose. 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. - -"You remember that you relived your participation in the governors' -conference in Memphis?" asked Adjaha. - -"Yes," said Beauregard, rubbing his forehead. "You black scoundrel! You -hypnotized me with that pagan doll!" - -"Yes, sir," admitted Adjaha. "It took me a long time to trace the key -to this war, and when I found you were that key I knew I could reach -you only through Piquette. It was your impassioned speech before the -governors that turned the South to war instead of peace." - -"Nonsense!" said Beauregard, sitting up straighter. "I just expressed -what the majority was thinking. They'd have agreed on the Pact of -Resistance even if I had objected." - -"The man of destiny sometimes doesn't realize his own influence," said -Adjaha drily. "Many factors were concentrated in you that day besides -your own native persuasiveness. No, General, your stand swung the -governors to the Pact of Resistance. 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. -A better simile: one can move upward as well as downward, but the -presence of gravitation makes special skills necessary." - -Beauregard shook his head. - -"A good theory, but good only as a theory," he said. "If it were more -than that, the law of cause and effect would be abrogated." - -"No, it works both ways. The present can influence the past as much as -it influences the future, or as much as the past influenced it. Thus, -through the past, the present can influence itself. - -"In my native land, the Ivory Coast of Africa, we believe in fan-shaped -destiny, General. At every instant where a choice is made, a man may -take one of many paths. And those who had the old knowledge of my -people could retrace their steps when the wrong path was taken, and -choose another path." - -"But I can't," said Beauregard. "If I could, I don't know anything that -could have changed what I said and did that day in Memphis." - -"Tell me, General, how long had Piquette been your mistress before the -Memphis Conference?" asked Adjaha. - -"About three years," answered Beauregard, too puzzled at this change of -tack to be offended. - -"Even if you were a psychologist instead of a general, it would be -difficult for you to probe the motivation of your own heart," said the -Negro. "Piquette was your reason for voting for war, instead of peace!" - -Beauregard sprang to his feet angrily. - -"Look, damn you, don't feed me your voodoo doubletalk!" he thundered. -"If it were Piquette alone I had to consider, don't you think I'd have -advocated equality for the black race?" - -It was Piquette's voice that sobered him, like a dash of cold water. - -"And yet you try to tell me I'm not a Negro, Gard," she said quietly. - -The anger drained from him. He slumped back to the sofa. - -"Ah, yes, the perversity of a man whose mind and heart are at odds!" -exclaimed Adjaha softly. "You love Piquette, yet your pride tells you -that you should not love a woman with Negro blood in her veins. For -that you must be aggressive, you must prove the moral code taught you -as a child was not wrong. - -"You went to the Memphis Conference with Piquette's kisses still sweet -on your lips, and because of that your conscience demanded that you -stand forth as a champion of the white man's superiority." - -"So be it, then, you black Freudian," retorted Beauregard cynically, an -angry gleam in his blue eyes. "The die was cast two years ago." - -"The die shall be recast," said Adjaha firmly. "Piquette must not have -gone to Memphis. 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. His wife, -Lucy, a handsome woman whose dark brown hair was just beginning to -grey, stood by the door with an armload of packages. - -"Beauregard, the people moving into that vacant house down on Franklin -Road are Negroes," she said indignantly. "I want you to do something -about it. The very idea! That close to the mansion!" - -"They aren't Negroes," he said patiently. "They're my secretary and -her mother. My secretary is a quadroon and her mother's a mulatto. -It's convenient to have them live so close, in case I need to do some -weekend work at home." - -"A quadroon!" 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." - -"Maybe I've gained some wisdom and understanding," he replied. "That -is not to say I'm an 'integrationist.' I'm still doing my best to get -it done slowly and cautiously. But the only way the South could have -resisted it was by open revolt, which would have been suicide. And I -must say the Southern fears have not been realized, so far." - -Lucy sniffed. - -"I have to speak at a woman's club meeting tonight," she said, opening -the door. "Are you going home now?" - -"No, Sergeant Parker will drive you home and come back for me. I'm -going to eat downtown and clean up some work in the office tonight." - -She left, and Beauregard leaned back in his chair thoughtfully, having -just told his wife a lie. - -They had no children to be affected by it, but Lucy would never become -reconciled to integration. She blamed him for his part in turning the -Memphis Governors Conference away from the proposed Pact of Resistance -five years ago. - -Beauregard had had his doubts about speaking out against resisting the -federal government with the threat of force. Now he thought he had -done right: war would have been terrible, and the South could not have -won such a war. And it was his statesmanship at that conference, and -Governor Gentry's lavish praise of it, that had set him up to succeed -Gentry as governor. - -Beauregard sighed peacefully. He had done right and the world was -better for it. - -The door opened, and Piquette's golden, black-eyed face peeked around -it. - -"It's four-thirty, Governor," she said. "Will you want me for anything -else?" - -"Not just now," he said, smiling. - -She smiled back. - -"Room 832," she said in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper. -Then she was gone. - -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. He had thought her drawn also to him, -but for some reason their paths parted and he had not seen her again -until after his election to the governorship. - -She had been among a group of applicants for state jobs, and Beauregard -had happened to be visiting the personnel office the day she came -in. He employed her in the governor's office at once. She was a good -secretary. - -Nothing untoward had passed between them in that year she had worked as -his secretary. In nothing either of them said or did could any members -of his staff have detected an incorrect attitude. But there were -invitations of the eyes, caresses of the voice ... and a week ago their -hands had touched, and clung, and he had found she was willing.... - -Beauregard heaved himself to his feet with a sigh. Briefly, he felt -sorry for Lucy. He would eat supper downtown tonight, but it would be -in Room 832. - - * * * * * - -Beauregard awoke slowly, with a hand shaking his shoulder. Reluctantly -he abandoned a dream in which the South had remained at peace and he -was governor of his state. - -Piquette's flower-like face hovered over him in the dimness. She rested -on one elbow in the big bed beside him and shook his shoulder. - -"Gard!" she said urgently. "Wake up! It's after midnight." - -"Oh, damn!" he groaned, rolling out of the warm covers. "And the -Northerners will attack today if my intelligence service hasn't gone -completely haywire." - -"Get dressed," she said, dropping her bare feet to the floor and -smoothing her nightgown over her knees. "I'll fix you some coffee." - -He pulled on his uniform, the Confederate grey with the stars -glittering on the shoulders, while she plugged in the hotplate and -started the coffee. Outside, the eastern sky was streaked with dim -light, against which the sleeping houses of Winchester thrust up stark -silhouettes. - -She sat across the little table from him, a flowered robe drawn around -her, while he sipped his coffee and thrust the last wisps of dreams -from his head. - -"Quette," he said, "I want you to pack and get out of here. Before -daylight, if you can get ready. Head south, for Birmingham. I'll send a -staff car around for you as soon as I get to headquarters." - -"I don't want to leave you, Gard," she objected. - -"You've got to, Quette. We can't hold these Federals. We're in a -bulge here, and the only reason they haven't cracked us out yet is -Chattanooga holding our right flank." - -He kissed her goodbye, a long kiss, and strode down the street to the -Franklin County courthouse, where he had set up headquarters for the -Army of Middle Tennessee when the Union troops had forced them out of -Nashville. The place was a beehive of activity. - -The eastern sky glowed red over the Cumberlands and the artillery was -thundering in the north when General Beauregard Courtney rode out -toward the front. He had his driver park the staff car on a slight rise -overlooking his troop formations. - -The war was going badly for the South, and Beauregard unhappily took -much of the responsibility on himself. Perhaps he had been wrong in -making that impassioned speech at the Governors Conference in Memphis -which, he was sure, had swung the weight of opinion in favor of the -Pact of Resistance. Certainly he had been wrong in recommending a -farflung northern battle line, at the start of the war, which stretched -from Paducah, Kentucky, north of Nashville to Knoxville, with its -eastern anchor on the Cumberlands. - -It had been his idea that a defensive line so far north would give the -South more time to mobilize behind it, would hold the rich industries -of Tennessee for the South, and would give the South a jumping off -place for a strike across the Ohio River. But the North had mobilized -faster, and Northern armies had crunched down through the Southern -defenses like paper. - -Now all West Tennessee and a segment of Mississippi was in Federal -hands. The Southern defense in East Tennessee had been forced back to -the mountains around Chattanooga. And his own troops had fallen back -from stand after stand after the Battle of Nashville. Even now, Federal -armour was reported to have crossed the Tennessee River and be heading -south-eastward toward Columbia and Lewisburg. - -He hoped Piquette had left Winchester by now. Perhaps he should not -have kept his quadroon mistress with him through the constant danger of -defeat, but with Lucy way down in New Orleans.... - -As the morning wore on, the guns thundered below him and the tanks -rumbled across the Tullahoma plain, spouting fire. Several times -his sergeant urged him to withdraw, out of danger, and return -to headquarters, but he stayed. He wanted to direct this battle -personally, giving his orders over the car radio. - -A great pall of smoke hung over the battlefield. Then the attack came, -wave after wave of blue-clad infantry, pouring down from the north. -Tanks and planes supported them, and atomic artillery shells burst in -the Southern trenches. The grey lines began to crumble. - -"Colonel, throw in the 112th and the armored reserve, and let's try -to get an orderly withdrawal to the Alabama line," Beauregard ordered -into his microphone. He turned to his driver. "Sergeant, I think you're -right. We'd better get out of here." - -The staff car swung around and headed back toward Winchester over the -bumpy highway. As it left the rise, Beauregard swore fervently and -reached for the microphone. From the west came a great cloud of dust -and a mass of rumbling tanks. The Federals had broken through the left -flank at Lynchburg. - -Jet planes streaked overhead from the north, flying low. The flash of -exploding bombs and rockets was visible in Winchester, ahead of them. - -Speaking swiftly into the microphone, Beauregard glanced out of the -car's back window. - -"Sergeant!" he yelled. "Strafers!" - -The driver twisted the wheel so quickly Beauregard was thrown against -the door. The speeding car leaped a ditch and bounced into the fields. - -Out the window, Beauregard saw the jet swooping down at them like a -hawk. It was a speck in the sky, and almost instantly it was on them in -a terrifying rush. - -He saw the flare of the rockets leaving the plane's wings, he felt the -shock of a thunderous explosion, and the blackness engulfed him. - - * * * * * - -Beauregard opened his eyes painfully. His head ached, and his left arm -hurt horribly. - -He was lying on a rumpled bed in his torn uniform. Piquette and a -wizened, very black Negro man were standing beside the bed, looking -down at him anxiously. He recognized that he was in the house in -Winchester, in the room where he had spent last night ... or was it -last night? - -"Quette!" he croaked, trying to sit up. He couldn't make it, and -he gasped at the pain in his arm. "I thought I told you to leave -Winchester." - -"I didn't want to leave you, Gard," she answered softly. "And it's -lucky I didn't. Some men on an ammunition truck found your car. Your -driver was killed and your arm blown half off. They brought you here." - -"Dammit," he complained, "why didn't they take me to the base hospital?" - -"Because the base hospital took a direct hit from a bomb." - -That startled Beauregard into the realization that there was no sound -of firing, no crash of bombs, outside. There were men's shouts and the -normal sounds of a town occupied by the military. Had the Union forces -been repulsed by some miracle? - -"Well, for Pete's sake, call the medics and get me to a field -hospital," he ordered. "And you head south for Birmingham, like I told -you to." - -"Gard," she said soberly, "I thought it ought to be your decision, and -not mine. 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." - -"Poppycock!" snorted Beauregard weakly. - -"General Courtney," said Adjaha intensely, "you spent last night with -Piquette. Where did you spend the night? Here or in Chattanooga?" - -Beauregard opened his mouth to say, "Here, of course." Then he stopped. -Suddenly a vision, almost a memory, rose up before him and he could not -be sure. There was a chandelier, and a black voodoo charm.... - -"You do remember some of it!" exclaimed Adjaha delightedly. - -"It seems that I dreamed the South was winning, and I was going to -drive on Tullahoma, and I went to Chattanooga to see Piquette," said -Beauregard slowly. "But it's mixed up in my mind with another dream, in -which there was no war at all, and I was elected governor...." - -"Those were not dreams," said Adjaha. "They happened and yet they did -not happen." - -"I remember you in a dream," said Beauregard faintly, "and words about -'fan-shaped destiny'...." - -"You have to understand this or I can do nothing," said Adjaha -hurriedly. "The South was doing well, although it could not have won in -the end. You were preparing to advance on Tullahoma, and you did go to -Chattanooga last night to see Piquette. This happened. - -"But it didn't happen, because I utilized the ancient knowledge of my -people, involving dimensions beyond time, to change the factors that -led to it. Decisions of different people were influenced differently -at a dozen points in the past so that Piquette did not become your -mistress before you went to Memphis, and your own emotional attitude -was changed just enough to steer you on a different course. - -"Then the other things you call a dream happened instead. There was -peace instead of war." - -"Then how is it that we actually have war and defeat?" demanded -Beauregard, his voice a little stronger. - -"Piquette," said Adjaha gravely. "You found her again, and she became -your mistress after you were governor." - -"But I remember that now!" exclaimed Beauregard. "That's three years in -the future ... and there was no war." - -"It is difficult to understand, but the future can change the present," -said Adjaha. "General Courtney, even more than I realized at first you -are the 'man of destiny,' the key to war or peace in the South, and -Piquette is the key to your own emotions. - -"Try to comprehend this: _you cannot love Piquette in a South that is -at peace!_ The whole social fabric in which you were nurtured demands -of you that a woman of Negro blood cannot be your paramour unless she -is socially recognized as an inferior and, in a very real sense, not -your co-equal lover but the servant of your pleasure. When Piquette -became your mistress, even five years after the decisive moment of -the Memphis Conference, the entire framework of time and events was -distorted and thrown back into a sequence in which the South was at -war. This time, unfortunately for you, a slightly different time-path -was taken and the South does not fare so well." - -"Then you've failed, and things are worse than they were if you hadn't -interfered," said Beauregard. - -"No, I must try again," said Adjaha. "Piquette's mother must never have -brought her to Nashville as a child, so there will be no chance of your -ever meeting her at all." - -There was a thunderous knocking at the front door. Federal troops who -were investing the town at last had reached this house. Adjaha gave -Beauregard one sympathetic look from his dark eyes, and slipped quietly -from the room, toward the rear of the house. - -The knocking sounded again. Beauregard lay in a semi-daze, his -blood-encrusted left arm an agony to him. Through the haze over his -mind intruded a premonition that bit more deeply than the physical -pain: Never to know Piquette? - -He clutched her hand to his breast. - -"Quette," he whimpered. - -"Be still, darling. I won't leave you," she soothed him as a mother -soothes her child. Her cool hand caressed his cheek. - - * * * * * - -United States Senator Beauregard Courtney of Tennessee crossed Canal -Street cautiously and plunged into the French Quarter of New Orleans -with a swift, military stride. - -He had always urged Lucy that they take a trip to New Orleans, but -she always had demurred; she said the city reminded her of war and -trouble, somehow. Now he had been invited to be the principal speaker -at the annual banquet of the Louisiana Bar Association tonight. He had -welcomed the opportunity to make the trip, without Lucy. - -It had been ten years since his voice at the Memphis conference -had swung the South away from war and onto the path of peace. His -statesmanship on that occasion had brought him great honour. He had -served a four-year term as governor of his state and, on leaving that -office, had been advanced to the U. S. Senate. His light-coloured hair -and mustache were beginning to grey slightly. - -Lucy had been a good wife to him, even though there had been that -near-estrangement when he was so busy as governor. Perhaps she still -did not agree with him entirely on his acceptance of the fact of racial -integration without bitter resistance, but she was more tolerant now of -his sincerity than she had been once. He was sorry she was not here: -she would have enjoyed the Old World atmosphere through which he walked. - -Beauregard moved up fabled Bourbon Street, past Galatoire's and the -Absinthe House. He stared with interest at the intricate ironwork of -the balconies that overhung the narrow sidewalk, at the bright flowers -that peered over the stone walls of gardens, at the blank wooden doors -flush with the sidewalk. - -How far, he wondered, was he from Rampart Street, where the Creoles had -kept their beautiful quadroon mistresses in one-story white houses in -days long gone? He knew nothing of the _Vieux Carre_, and had no map. - -As he penetrated more deeply into the French Quarter, he began to pass -the barred gates that stopped the dim corridors leading back to ancient -courtyards. These fascinated him, and he tried several of the gates, -only to find them locked. - -He never knew later, studying the map, whether the street he had just -crossed was Toulouse, St. Peter or Orleans, when he came upon one of -those gates that stood ajar. - -Beauregard did not hesitate. He pushed it open and paced eagerly down -the shadowed corridor until he emerged into the sunlit courtyard. - -There was a stone statue, grey and cracked with age, in the midst of -a circular pool in the center of the courtyard. Flower-lined walks -surrounded it. The doors that opened into the courtyard were shadowed -by balconies, on which there were other doors, and to which steep -flights of stairs climbed. - -On a bench beside the pool sat a woman in a simple print dress. Her -skin was tawny gold and her hair was black and tumbled about her -shoulders. Her eyes were black and deep, too, when she raised them in -surprise to the intruder. She was beautiful, with a poignant, wistful -beauty. - -"I'm sorry," said Beauregard. "The gate was open, and I was curious." - -"Mrs. Mills forgot to lock the gate," she said, smiling at him. "All of -us who live here have our keys and are supposed to lock the gate when -we go out. But Mrs. Mills forgets." - -"I'll leave," he said, not moving. - -"No, stay," she said. "You're a visitor to town, aren't you? 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? I don't know why I said that. It seemed right." - -"It is right." - -"And you live here?" - -"Up there," she said, and pointed to one of the doors that looked out -on the balcony. - -Beauregard looked up at the balcony and the door, and he knew, as -though he had prevision, that before he left the courtyard he would go -through that door with Piquette. - -He took her hands in his. - -"I'll never let you leave me," he murmured. - - * * * * * - -General Beauregard Courtney sat under the open-sided tent that was his -field headquarters and stretched long legs under the flimsy table. He -gazed morosely out toward Tullahoma in the north, where the trenches -stretched endlessly from east to west and only an occasional artillery -shell broke the quiet of the battlefield. - -Stalemate. - -"I thought trench warfare went out with World War I," he growled to his -executive officer. - -"No, sir. Apparently not, sir," replied Colonel Smithson correctly, not -interrupting his preparation of tomorrow's orders. - -Stalemate. The Northern armies and the Southern armies had collided -with great carnage on that battlefield. Fighting had swayed back and -forth for weeks, and at last had settled down to a stubborn holding -action by both sides. - -That had been months ago. 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. - -Beauregard toyed with a pencil and listened idly to the news over the -little radio at his elbow. It was a Nashville station, and Nashville -was held by the North, but he had learned how to discount the news from -the battlefront. - -"... And our planes destroyed thirteen Rebel tanks and an ammunition -depot in a mission near Lexington," the announcer was saying. "A -gunboat duel in the Mississippi River near Dyersburg was broken off -after severe casualties were inflicted on the Rebel crew. Our armored -troops have advanced farther into the Texas Panhandle. - -"Wait. There's a flash coming in...." - -There was a momentary pause. Beauregard bent his ear to the radio. -Colonel Smithson looked up, listening. - -"My God!" cried the announcer in a shaky voice. "This flash ... a -hydrogen bomb has exploded in New York City!" - -Beauregard surged to his feet, upsetting the table. The radio crashed -to the ground. The other men in the tent were standing, aghast. - -"It isn't ours!" cried Beauregard, his face grey. "It's a Russian bomb! -It must be...!" - -The voice on the fallen radio was shouting, excited, almost hysterical. - -"... The heart of the city wiped out.... Number of dead not estimated -yet, but known to be high.... Great fires raging.... Radioactive -fallout spreading over New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania.... - -"Here's a bulletin: the President accuses the Rebel government of -violating the pact not to use large nuclear weapons. Retaliatory action -has already been initiated.... - -"Here's another flash: 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. - -Beauregard strode out of the tent. The car radio was on loud, and the -same announcer was babbling over it. - -"Quette, what are you doing out here?" he demanded. - -"Gard, this is Adjaha, a friend of mine," she said hurriedly. "I -couldn't wait for you to come back to town tonight. I had to get him -out to see you before it was too late." - -"Dammit, it is too late," he growled. "It's too late for anything. -Haven't you been listening to that damn radio?" - -"This is extremely important, General," said Adjaha in a mellow voice. -"If I may impose on you, I'd like to talk with you for a short while." - -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. He did -not believe, but he suspended disbelief. - -"So you see, General," concluded Adjaha, "there is some drive within -you and Piquette--call it fate, if you wish--that draws you together. -When it was arranged that she did not become your mistress before the -Memphis Conference, she did after you became governor. When it was -arranged that her parents did not move to Nashville with her, you were -drawn to New Orleans to meet her. Apparently you must meet if there is -any possibility that you meet, and when you meet you love each other. - -"And, though you can't remember it, General--for it didn't happen, even -though it did--I explained to you once, on this very day, that you -cannot love Piquette in an unrebellious and peaceful South." - -"If we were fated to meet, I'm happy," said Beauregard, taking -Piquette's hand. "If these fantastic things you say were true, I still -would never consent to not having met Piquette." - -"But you must see that it's right, Gard!" exclaimed Piquette, -surprisingly. - -"Quette! How can you say that? Would you be happy if we were never to -know each other?" - -She looked at him, and there were tears in her eyes. - -"Yes, Gard," she said in a low voice, "because ... well, Adjaha -can see a little of the future, too. And on every alternate path he -sees.... Gard, if the South is at war, you'll be killed before the war -ends!" - -"We can't take any chances this time, General," said Adjaha. "Should -events be thrown back into a path that leads to war again, this time -you might be killed before I could reach you. Piquette's parents must -never have met. _She must never have been born!_" - -Suddenly, Beauregard believed. This quiet little black man could do -what he said. - -"I won't permit it!" he roared, starting to his feet. "Damn the South! -Damn the world! Piquette is mine!" - -But Adjaha, moving like lightning, was in the staff car. Its motor -roared, it swung in a cloud of dust and accelerated toward the south. - -"Sergeant! Colonel! Get that stolen staff car!" Beauregard bellowed. -He whipped out his service pistol and fired two futile shots after the -diminishing vehicle. - -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. - -"Quette, he can't do it," said Beauregard. "He's a voodoo fraud." - -She looked at him with great, dark eyes. Her lips trembled. - -"Gard," she whispered like a frightened child. "Gard, aren't there -other worlds than this one...?" - -She crept into his arms. - - * * * * * - -Colonel Beauregard Courtney sat on the terrace of his home in the -suburbs of Nashville and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on his grey -head. The steady hum of automobiles on the superhighway half a mile -away was a droning background to the songs of birds in the trees of his -big back yard. - -The "Colonel" was an honorary title bestowed on him by the governor, -for Beauregard never had worn a uniform. He had been Governor Gentry's -representative at the fateful Memphis Conference forty years ago, he -had been governor of his state, he had been United States senator from -Tennessee, he had been chief justice of the state supreme court. Now he -preferred to think of himself as Beauregard Courtney, attorney, retired. - -Where was Lucy? Probably sitting in front of the television screen, -nodding, not seeing a bit of the program. She should be out here in -this glorious sunshine. - -Beauregard's gardener, a wizened little Negro man, came around the -corner of the house. - -"Adjaha, you black scoundrel, why don't you die?" demanded Beauregard -affectionately. "You must be twenty years older than I am." - -"Fully that, Colonel," agreed Adjaha with a smile that wrinkled his -entire face. "But I'm waiting for you to die first. I'm here to keep -watch over you, you know." - -He picked up the hoe and went around the house. - -Curious thing about Adjaha. Beauregard never had understood why an -able, well-educated man like Adjaha, in a free and successfully -integrated society, would be content to spend his whole life as -gardener for Beauregard Courtney. - -Beauregard leaned back comfortably in his lawn chair and thrummed -his thin fingers on its wooden arm. Absently he whistled a tune, and -presently became aware that he was whistling it. - -It was a haunting little melody, from long ago. He didn't know the -words, only one phrase; and he didn't know whether that was the title -or some words from the song itself, that song of old New Orleans: "... -_my pretty quadroon_...." - -"Piquette," he thought, and wondered why that name came to mind. - -Piquette. A pretty name. Perhaps a name for a pretty quadroon. But why -had that particular name come to mind? - -He never had known a woman named Piquette. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pretty Quadroon, by Charles Fontenay - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRETTY QUADROON *** - -***** This file should be named 60020.txt or 60020.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/0/2/60020/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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