LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Well this here is one of them occasions, and if you’ll stay with me, we might just make a night of it,” Robert said, feeling better.

      Joshua stood quietly for a moment. “Mister Senator, you know what the doctor told you ‘bout that dranking. He said if’n you didn’t quit, it’ll most near kill ya.”

      “Kill me,” Robert exclaimed. “That medicine he prescribed for me is gonna kill me. No sir, tonight we’re going to do some serious drinking and if it kills me, you’re gonna be one rich Richmond Darkie.”

      “What you mean by that, Mister Senator?”

      “Joshua, my kin folks don’t give a tinkers damn about me. They only come to see me when they want something. So Mister Joshua, I’ve left everything I own to you when I die. You’ll have one of finest houses in the city and a little bit of money that’ll last you if you’re careful. The only problem you’re gonna have is all them women that’ll be after you. You know you ain’t as spry as you used to be. They might take advantage of you.”

      Joshua laughed, “Mister Senator, you joshing me, ain’t cha and if’n you ain’t, Ole Josh is more spry than you thinks. Yes Suh, I’ll bring you a bottle. I’ll brang you two of ‘em.”

      The two men laughed, then settled themselves before the fire. Joshua soon returned with the Scotch and two clean glasses, asking to be excused as he quietly closed the door.

      Jack and Robert reminisced over times at the Virginia Military Institute and laughed at the senseless youthful capers that had often sent them to detention hall. They also remembered their last farewell and promises at graduation to spend the next Christmas with each other. Through the years they had exchanged numerous letters, but until this evening they never had seen each other.

      Standing up to stretch, Jack moved over to the window and stared out into the darkness and then as speaking to himself, he whispered, “You know Robert, our lives certainly moved in different directions after the institute. I accepted a commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army and spent twenty years out west chasing Indians and you went into politics and should have become our president.”

      “President, did I hear you say president,” Robert questioned, leaning over to hear him better.

      Jack returned to his chair. “That’s right, I said president. I followed your career up there in Washington and you were outstanding. You were honest, clever, and I must say you helped make some laws that were beneficial to all of us here in the South. If we hadn’t seceded from the Union, I believe you’d be in the White House by now.”

      “White House, I made more enemies up there than you know about, and when the state of Virginia sent me back up there after the war, what happened? They wouldn’t accept me. They sent me and a lot of others like me right back home. They said that since we served in the Confed’rate Congress, we weren’t eligible. Ain’t that a hell of a note.”

      Jack poured another drink and replied, “It weren’t right. You’re suppose to represent the state that elected you. You ought to be up there right now. What are you going to do with yourself now?”

      Robert got up, leaned against the mantle and stared into the low burning fire. “I’ll hang up my shingle and start practicing law again. Folks always gonna be getting into trouble. I’ll do all right. I’m still a cadet at heart. I’ll survive.”

      “Survive,” Jack stammered. “Looking out into that darkness a few minutes ago, I wondered if the South is gonna survive. They drove our armies from the field; the military has control of our government; our economy is in shambles and a lot of us that could add stability to the situation can’t even vote or hold office. It’s just like that wall of darkness outside your window, we can’t see out there. We don’t know what’s in store for us and if we could, we can’t control any of it.”

      “Jack, I think your liquor is talking for you. Unless you’ve changed, it always got you down when you got two sheets in the wind,” Robert said, swirling the scotch around in the bottom of his glass. “First thing, you and I are both alive and you survived more battles than a man could expect. And another thing, they taught us at school, no matter what, there will always be problems and to every problem, there is a solution. There ain’t no denying, we’ve got one heck of a problem, and it’s gonna be left up to someone to solve it. We’re just gonna have to get control of the South again, that’s all.”

      “That’s all,” Jack exclaimed, feeling a little tipsy. “You think we ought to put our men in arms again. You think we could drive them out? That’s ridiculous. Our war is over.”

      “I’m not talking about raising new armies. I’m talking about taking control of our government again,” Robert explained. “The military won’t always be stationed here and when they’re gone, we’ve got to place our men in every elected seat of government in every southern state. Whoever makes the laws, controls the action of its citizens. Our job is to form an organization now that will place our eligible candidates on the ticket come election time and find ways to get the Negroes, sorry Whites, and those Northern scavengers who are now holding office, back to where they belong. That’s what we need to do.”

      Jack laughed. “I think the scotch is getting to your head now. You think all those so called undesirables will graciously give up their seats? We don’t even hold a majority vote. What we gonna do? Run ‘em off with sticks. How ‘bout killing the devils? Is that what you intend?”

      Robert peered over the top of his glasses and nodded “I state once again. We select our candidates and then do whatever is necessary to eliminate the competition. There are ways that this can be done, and yes, if it takes violence, then let it be. You know the old saying, ‘The end justifies the means.”

      “You think someone could do this?”

      “We’ve just got to find someone to lead the movement. Someone the South will follow, someone the soldiers respect. Our troops have put down their rifles, but I promise you, they still have the fight in ‘em. It’ll just be a little different kind of warring. Our Southern soldiers will follow the right man. How about you? I followed your career during the war and you were one of the best division commanders the South had.”

      “Not me old friend, I might have had a good military reputation but I paid the price for it. I got shot eleven times and there are times that even now I have numbness in my left leg and at other times I can hardly catch my breath.”

      Jack thought for a moment. “How about Hood? I’m on the way to New Orleans right now for a job he has lined up for me. He was some kind of Gen’ral.”

      “Don’t think so. He all but destroyed one of our armies up there at Franklin. Lot of the men lost faith in him. We need someone they idolize. We need a real fire-eating fighter. It’s got to be someone special.”

      Jack walked about the room for a few moments, then said, “I know the man that will get the job done.”

      On an August day in 1867, in the Little Rock community located in rural east central Mississippi, slightly past mid-day, a young woman suddenly slammed open her front door, angrily picked up her sagebroom and scurried out on her front porch where two of her husband’s hounds were curled up sleeping. Loose chicken feathers surrounding the dogs revealed the plight of the flock.

      “You sorry devils!” she screamed. “My husband said he thought the foxes or hawks been eating ‘em, but now we know,” she said taking a swing at the nearest dog. “You’re the culprits cleaning out the hen house, and I’ll tell you one thing. I’m fixin’ to beat the living sin out of both of you.” She struck one of the dogs so hard it knocked him off the side of the porch as he tried to run toward the steps.

      “Not only that, the next time my husband is gone for a few days, you two devils gonna come up amiss. I’ll take that shootin’ iron of his and for all he knows, the panthers got you. That’s what I’m

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