The Disunited States of America Read online

  “I don’t see how that could have happened,” he said—a lie he had to tell. In the home timeline, it had happened. The big states and the little ones compromised, and they all agreed to the Constitution, and it worked. But he couldn’t let on that he knew anything about that. He’d already talked too much once.

  Beckie didn’t point her finger at him and go, Oh, yes, you do! She couldn’t know he didn’t belong in this alternate. All she knew was that he made kind of a peculiar Virginian. And even Virginians were entitled to be peculiar. It was a free state—as long as you weren’t an African American, and as long as you didn’t push it too hard.

  Instead of pointing a finger, Beckie said, “Mr. Snodgrass told me the same thing. I suppose he’s right—I suppose you’re right, too. It’s interesting to think about, though, isn’t it? What might have been, I mean.”

  “Sure,” Justin said. “There isn’t any way to tell for sure what would have happened after that, though.” He knew how true that was, where Beckie didn’t. One alternate where the South won the Civil War had racial problems that made the ones here look like a walk in the park. Another alternate U.S.A. was a nasty tyranny that ran most of its world because it could squash anybody else. Yet another, in a world where the Germans won World War I and all the wars afterwards, remained under occupation by the Kaiser’s soldiers even now. Endless possibilities …

  Beckie, who didn’t know about any of those alternates or the home timeline, was thinking along different lines. “Not being able to know makes it more interesting, not less. It isn’t like some math problem in school, where there’s only one right answer. You can just talk about it and see how it might have gone this way, or that one, or even the other one.”

  Or it might have gone all those different ways—only you’d need a transposition chamber to see how they worked out. Justin couldn’t talk about that, either. He was just glad his face didn’t give him away. For all practical purposes, Beckie had figured out the crosstime secret.

  He made his thumb and forefinger into a pretend gun and aimed it at her. “If you come up with the one true answer, I’ll have to kill you,” he said, doing his best to sound like a spy.

  His best must have been good enough, because she giggled. “You really are out of your mind, aren’t you?”

  “I try,” he said modestly.

  “Well, good, because it’s working,” she told him.

  There was a low, deep rumble, like thunder far away. That was a pretty good comparison, because this part of the continent got some ferocious thunderstorms. Only one trouble: the sun blazed down out of a bright blue sky. Not a cloud anywhere to be seen. But there was a cloud on Justin’s hopes as he said, “What’s that?” because he feared he knew the answer. Beckie said the same thing at the same time, and he thought he heard the same fear in her voice.

  Then she said, “That was something blowing up, wasn’t it?” Sometimes naming your fear could drive it away. Other times, naming it made it worse. This felt like one of those.

  Justin breathed in a big lungful of warm, muggy air and then sighed it out. “I don’t know of anything else it’s likely to be.”

  Her hands folded into fists, so tight that her knuckles turned pale under her California tan. “These people are crazy. What is there to fight about?”

  That was a pretty good question in most wars, and a really good question in this one. Justin had to remind himself that he was supposed to come from Virginia, which meant he was supposed to be a Virginia patriot. “Ohio wants to hurt our coal business,” he said, which was true. “Ohio wants to stir up trouble between our whites and Negroes, too, to keep us hopping.” That was also true. “We can’t just let them get away with it.” Was that true? Anybody from Virginia would naturally think so. Someone from Ohio? That was likely to be a different story.

  “It’s all stupid, if you ask me,” Beckie said. “Isn’t there enough coal business for Ohio and Virginia to share it?”

  “There’s Pennsylvania, too, and Boone,” Justin said. “They think Virginia and Ohio both have too big a share already.” If he were a real Virginian, he would know that. Coming from the other side of the continent, Beckie might not.

  She said something rude about Pennsylvania and Boone—and about Ohio and Virginia, too. A Virginia girl wouldn’t have said it the same way, but people from California seemed less restrained. Some things didn’t change much across timelines. Then she added, “Don’t get mad, but it seems to me that your Negroes could use somebody on their side, even if it is somebody foreign.”

  It seemed that way to Justin, too. And people from Ohio really were foreigners in this alternate’s Virginia. People from California were more foreign still—otherwise, she never would have said such a thing. Justin picked his words with care: “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Ohio were on the Negroes’ side because they’re getting a raw deal here. But that’s not how it works. People—white people—in Ohio don’t like blacks any better than Virginians do. You don’t see them letting Negroes immigrate into their state or anything. They just want to use ours to hurt us.”

  He watched her chew on that. Finally, even though he could tell she didn’t like it, she nodded. “Okay. You’re right. I was in Ohio before I came here, and I saw some of what you’re talking about. But it doesn’t make what you’re doing here any better.”

  “I didn’t say it did,” Justin answered.

  A robin hopping on the grass cocked its head to one side and looked at him and Beckie. It was only three meters away—ten feet, people said here. Once it decided they didn’t want robin stew, it plunged its beak into the ground and pulled out a fat worm. The worm wriggled, but not for long.

  If worms could talk, they would make angry speeches about robins. And talking robins would complain that worms didn’t play fair when they hid. But neither side there knew any better. Virginians and Ohioans … were supposed to, anyhow.

  “Your mother’s in Charleston, isn’t she?” Beckie said. “Is everything all right there?”

  “So far.” Instead of knocking on wood, Justin banged his knuckles off the side of his head. Beckie must have understood what he meant, because she smiled. He went on, “I guess we’re lucky we came west, because there sure are cases of this thing back in Fredericksburg.”

  “Some luck,” Beckie said. “When do you suppose Virginia will start a plague in Ohio?”

  If he were a good state patriot, he would have said something like, Well, Ohio has it coming after what she did to us. He knew that, but he couldn’t make himself bring the words out. Instead, he said, “I wish they’d find some way to end the war before it comes to that.”

  Beckie didn’t answer for most of a minute. She was studying him as if he were a rare animal in the zoo, one she might not see again for a long time. At last, she said, “You’re all right, Justin.” He couldn’t have felt prouder if … he didn’t know what. He couldn’t have felt prouder, period. Exclamation point, even.

  Disaster crews fought fires in the center of Parkersburg. Buildings were flattened for blocks around. Ambulance crews raced to get injured people to hospitals. “A fuel-air explosive is the next most powerful weapon after a nuclear bomb,” the announcer said indignantly. “That the barbarians in Ohio would use this device against us shows what vicious, unscrupulous enemies they are. The consul has vowed to take revenge once more.”

  Mr. Snodgrass sighed. “That’s what we heard earlier today, all right. If we lived in the big city, we could’ve wound up in one of those ambulances.”

  Beckie didn’t show what she was thinking. Only somebody who lived in Elizabeth or someplace like it could imagine that Parkersburg was a big city. But he wasn’t altogether wrong, either. Parkersburg was big enough to be worth bombing. She couldn’t see anyone wasting a fuel-air explosive on this tiny place.

  Gran, meanwhile, was mad about something else. “They didn’t want to let us go shopping in Palestine,” she said irately. “They didn’t want to let us, do you hear? They thought we might
have a disease, just on account of we came down from Elizabeth. Can you believe such a thing?”

  Since Beckie could, she didn’t say anything. The no-travel order, along with everything else that was going on, was plenty to make anybody nervous. She might have pointed that out if she thought her grandmother would listen. Fat chance, she thought. Gran wasn’t too hard of hearing, not for somebody her age, but that didn’t mean she’d pay any attention.

  Mrs. Snodgrass had her nose out of joint, too. “The nerve of those Palestine people,” she said. “The nerve! They’re nothing but trash down there, not like the good stock that lives here. Well, they’ll get what’s coming to them—see if they don’t.”

  “I should hope so,” Gran said.

  “I’m going to put a flea in Hank Meadows’ ear, I am,” Mrs. Snodgrass said. “You see if I don’t. When those people come up here looking for lamps, they’ll get what’s coming to them.”

  “I hope we don’t have another feud like the one thirty years ago,” Mr. Snodgrass said. “That was more trouble than it was worth.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” his wife said. “They learned their place, didn’t they?”

  “A couple miles south of here, right?” he said.

  “Now don’t you be difficult, Ted,” Mrs. Snodgrass said. “I hate it when you’re difficult.” By that, she seemed to mean doing or saying anything she didn’t approve of.

  “Well, you’ve put up with me this long,” he replied. “I reckon we’ll last a bit longer.”

  Mrs. Snodgrass gave him a kind of indulgent smile. She might have been saying she put up with him even when he didn’t deserve it. She probably was saying just that. Gran looked from one of them to the other as if they’d stopped speaking English, or even what passed for English in this western corner of Virginia. Her own marriage hadn’t lasted. Her husband, a sailor who drank, lit out for parts unknown not long after her daughter—Beckie’s mother—was born. Having put up with Gran for going on three months herself now, in a certain sense Beckie had no trouble blaming him.

  But when she listened to the Snodgrasses going back and forth, she had all she could do to keep from breaking into a great big grin. They reminded her of her own mom and dad. People who lived together for a long time and made it work found ways to talk about things. They could tease each other without wounding, and they had a pretty good notion of when to let up.

  No wonder Gran doesn’t get it, Beckie thought sadly. Her grandmother wounded people almost every time she opened her mouth. Had she been the same way with her husband the sailor? Beckie wouldn’t have been surprised. No wonder he drank. That hadn’t crossed her mind before. She wished she weren’t thinking it now.

  Five

  “Mornin’, gents,” said the waitress in Elizabeth’s one and only diner, across the street from the one and only motel. “What’ll it be?” By now, she was used to them coming in for breakfast every day.

  “Ham and eggs today, I think, Irma,” Mr. Brooks answered.

  “Sausage and eggs for me,” Justin said.

  “Potatoes or grits?” Irma asked.

  “Potatoes,” they said together. Mr. Brooks added, “See? We sing in hominy.”

  The waitress started to nod, then stopped, did a double take good enough to go on TV, and sent him a dirty look. Justin gave him another one. “Did you have to do that, Uncle Randy?”

  “No,” Mr. Brooks admitted. “But I enjoyed it.”

  “That makes one of us,” Justin said. This time, Irma did nod.

  She set coffee in front of Mr. Brooks and ice water in front of Justin. He still couldn’t get stoked about coffee, and it was too early in the day for a soda. A fizz, he reminded himself. I’ve got to think of them as fizzes, or I’ ll call ’em by the wrong name one of these days. That wouldn’t be so good.

  A local came in and sat down at the counter a few stools away from Justin and Mr. Brooks. He gave them a polite nod and spent a couple of minutes chatting with Irma before he ordered ham and eggs for himself. He chose grits to go with them. Chances were he’d been eating them all his life. If you got used to something when you were little, you’d go on liking it once you grew up.

  Justin hadn’t eaten grits when he was little. He feared he would never get used to them. In states like Georgia and Alabama, potatoes were hard to come by. There, most of the time, it was grits or nothing. That made Justin glad he at least had a choice.

  “Terrible thing about Parkersburg,” the local remarked when Irma gave him his coffee.

  “Good Lord, wasn’t it!” she exclaimed. “The front window rattled when that boom got near. I was afraid it’d break to pieces. Don’t know what we would’ve done if it did. That’s a big old piece of plate glass.”

  “Mighty dear,” the man said, by which he meant expensive.

  “Isn’t it just?” Irma said. “Isn’t everything nowadays? I had to have a tooth filled last week, and it cost me twenty pounds. Twenty pounds, can you believe it?” She paused and looked startled. “I had to go to Parkersburg to do it. I hope my dentist’s office is still there. I hope my dentist is still there.”

  “How did you get them to let you into town with the travel ban on?” Justin asked.

  “Sweetheart, I told the cops at the checkpoint I was from Elizabeth, and they let me by,” Irma answered. “Nothing ever happens here, so they knew I wasn’t carrying any stupid disease.”

  “Have there been any cases in Parkersburg?” Mr. Brooks didn’t say any more than that. He didn’t want to come right out and ask if the waitress had brought the sickness back with her.

  And she didn’t seem to catch the drift of the question. “My dentist didn’t talk about any,” she said. Then she went back to the tall counter between the kitchen and the outer part of the diner. She plucked two plates off it and set one in front of Justin and the other in front of Mr. Brooks. “Here you go. Enjoy your breakfasts, now.”

  Justin dug in. The diner would never win any prizes, but it wasn’t bad, either. Irma went on shooting the breeze with the other customer till his food was ready. After she gave him his plate, she came over and refilled Justin’s water and Mr. Brooks’ coffee. Justin felt her breath on the hairs of his arm. After the question Mr. Brooks asked, he wished he didn’t.

  The older man was thinking along with him. “Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?” Mr. Brooks murmured. “Find out how good our shots really are too.”

  “I’m afraid we will.” As soon as Justin heard what he’d said, he wished he hadn’t put it like that. He didn’t believe in omens and bad luck—not in the top part of his head he didn’t. Believe or not, he knocked wood. He hoped it was wood, anyhow, not some synthetic. He didn’t knock loudly, but Mr. Brooks noticed. “It can’t hurt,” Justin whispered. The older man nodded.

  They both left the little diner as soon as they finished. Would that do any good? Justin had his doubts. By Mr. Brooks’ somber expression, so did he. Again, though, it couldn’t hurt.

  “What now?” Justin asked.

  “Now we hope,” the coin and stamp dealer answered. “Hope we have some immunity. And Irma’s not sick, so chances are we’ll be all right. Of course, who knows how long the virus takes to incubate?”

  “Yeah,” Justin said, and then, “That isn’t really what I meant. What are we going to do today?”

  “Oh. That.” The way Mr. Brooks said it, it didn’t sound very important. He had a point, too. He had to think for a moment before he went on, “Well, laundry would probably be a good idea.”

  “Yeah,” Justin said, more happily. They were washing their clothes at the Snodgrasses’. Elizabeth didn’t boast a washeteria, which was what they called laundromats here. They’d also had to go down to Palestine to buy more for themselves after they got stuck here. Now they had three or four days’ worth of outfits, not just what they’d worn when they got here.

  Mr. Brooks smiled at him. “You won’t be sorry to see Beckie again, will you?”

  “Why should I be?” Justin answered
. “She’s nice. I’m not going to bring her back to the home timeline or anything, but she’s nice.” He suddenly wondered when—and if—he’d be able to get back to the home timeline himself. Crosstime Traffic wouldn’t be eager to let people who might have been exposed to a genetically engineered disease bring it back with them. Diseases from other alternates had ripped through the home timeline more than once. People were a lot more careful now.

  “Okay.” Mr. Brooks set a hand on his shoulder. “Why not? Let’s go deal with the laundry, then.”

  Beckie listened to Justin with rising horror. The more she tried to fight it down, the more it rose. Even the waitress’ name somehow fueled it. Irma? Nobody in California would carry such an old-fashioned handle. “She came back from Parkersburg, and there’s sickness there?” she said.

  “She came back from there, anyhow,” Justin told her. “She said her dentist didn’t talk about any cases. That proves nothing one way or the other. But Parkersburg’s a fair-sized town, and it’s close to the Ohio border, and it’s on a main road, so … .”

  “Yeah. So,” Beckie echoed unhappily. “Well, I don’t think I’ll get a whole lot of sleep tonight. Thanks a lot.”

  “I’m sorry. Would you rather I didn’t tell you?” Justin sounded unhappy, too.

  “I don’t know.” Beckie had to think about that. She finally shook her head. “No, I guess not. I’d rather be up on what’s going on. Then I know what to worry about, anyhow.”

  “Good. I didn’t think you’d want to be a mushroom,” Justin said.

  “A mushroom?” Beckie frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Sure. You know—they keep you in the dark and they feed you, uh, horse manure.”

  “Oh.” The more she thought about it, the wider she grinned. “I like that. I really like it. Did you make it up yourself?”

  He shook his head. For a split second, he looked—worried? The expression disappeared before Beckie was sure she saw it. “Not me,” he said. “I deny everything. They say it in school back home, that’s all.”