ReUNION: What if the Civil War had never happened? (12 page)

Hurbuckle sighed. "Well, Junior, it's confidential, you see. He was just
asking for a little favor."

"A favor? Why would the President of the Confederate States of America
need a favor from you? He should be doing favors
for
you."

"He's an old friend, Junior. And he's the South's greatest living hero. I
think he deserves your respect."

Junior scowled. "What did he ask you to do, Daddy?"

Hurbuckle hesitated. “It’s just political business, Junior. Nothing for you to
worry yourself about.”

Junior held his father's gaze for several seconds, then offered the slightest
possible nod of agreement.

"He's working for us, son. He's working to protect our way of life."
Hurbuckle opened a file folder and started paging through it, trying to find
something. “We have to help him any way we can.” He failed to notice his
son’s sudden, sharp hostile stare.

Junior composed himself. “Yes, Daddy,” he said obediently.

Hurbuckle finally found what he was looking for and caught Junior's eye again.
"Do you want to help me update the 'love thy neighbor' sermon and listen
to me rehearse it?"

"Update it? How?"

"Well, I want to put in a paragraph about Bourque's upcoming meeting with
Callaway. I'll be breaking the news, you know. And that's quite a
privilege."

Junior understood. He knew the size of his father's ego. "I don't have
time to help, Daddy. I'm interviewing replacement window washers in a few
minutes. But I know you'll be wonderful. You always are."

"Ah, window washers. That was a tragedy, what happened to that young
man."

"The building presents special problems."

"Indeed. Well, I'm sure you'll choose a fine replacement. You're always in
my prayers, you know."

"And you are in mine," Junior said reflexively. He left the room,
keeping his anger to himself. Outside of his father’s office, he paused to mull
over what his father had told him. He didn’t like it, not one bit. He didn’t
like the idea of Bourque imposing on his father. He didn’t like anything the
man did.

Delphine came to the airport to pick him up—well, not exactly to pick him up,
but to bring the car, one of Arcadia's famous black Packards. She parked in the
arrival lane climbed into the back seat and kept an eye on the revolving
doors.

Pickett emerged a few minutes later, carrying an overnight bag. He spotted the
car almost immediately and hopped into the front seat, driver's side. A
compartment on the door held a driver's cap, which he put on.

Then he looked into the rearview mirror, saw her face, her shining green eyes
and her loving smile and grinned. "Where to, m'am?" Pickett said, and
she laughed. He slipped a hand between the seats and she grabbed it and held
it.

"Missed you," she said. "I hate it when I can't see you."

"Same here," he told her, and squeezed her hand.

"So how did it go?"

"Better than I could have dreamed," Pickett said. He started the
engine and drove toward the airport exit. “It took some convincing, but
Callaway has agreed to meet with your father.”

Just past the main terminal, a pudgy uniformed cop took one look at the vehicle
and raised a hand in warning. "Hey, hey, hey," he said, and Pickett
pulled up and stopped. The cop walked over to the driver's side window, arranging
his face so as to appear annoyed and impatient. He signaled for Pickett to roll
down the window. "Well, well, what do we have here?" he asked with
undisguised malice. "Mighty fine car for a boy like you."

"Ah'm jes th' driver, suh," Pickett said. "It's mah job."

"Mmm hmm," muttered the cop, still suspicious. He stuck his head into
the car, looking toward the back seat and flinched in surprise. "Ms.
Bourque—I didn't know. I'm
so
sorry. I didn't mean to delay you. I just
saw the driver and…"

"Don't worry about it," Delphine purred. "It's completely
understandable. Can we go on now?"

"Of course," the cop said, grinning ferociously, halting another car
so they could go first and waving them on like royalty.

"I'd almost forgotten about that sort of thing," Pickett joked.

"I guess two days up North can change a man," Delphine said.

Pickett laughed. "It's different all right. I could get used to it."

"You'd leave me here?" She teased.

Pickett looked back over his shoulder with a mischievous grin. "I don't
know," he said. "There's plenty of redheads up there." Delphine
slapped him sharply on the back of the head.

They drove out of the airport and into the country, through thick stands of
magnolias, beeches and blue ashes, toward Bayou Bartholomew. Pickett told
Delphine what had happened in Washington and what was going to happen next.

"I hope he can pull it off," she said.

"How's he been feeling?"

"Seems all right, but I keep finding Tums wrappers wherever he goes."

"Yeah," Pickett said. "I'll bet the arm rest ashtrays are full
of them."

She looked. "Yep. Stuffed."

"Delphine, you're going on the road again tomorrow, right?"

"Yes, but we still have the rest of the day and tonight, Roy."

"I'm glad, but that's not why I asked."

"Oh?"

By now, they were deep in rural territory, with few signs of civilization
except for the occasional farmhouse and even more occasional one-pump gas
station.

"Where are you going to be for the next week or ten days?"
"Too
far away for us to…"

"Yes, I know that, but where exactly?"

She thought about it. "Just making a couple of stops—Westover, then the
Dixie Club in Savannah.”

"Westover? Can't stay away from the plantations, can you?" Pickett
teased.

Delphine defended herself. "You know I have friends at the
plantations."

"I know, I know," Pickett said, retreating. "But it's a good
variety—a plantation, then a big club. Puts you in contact with a broad
cross-section."

"Oh? Why does that matter?"

"Delphine, I need your help."

"My help? How can I help? You want me to sing some northern country
music?"

They laughed, hers being much more musical than his.

"We need feedback. We’ll be announcing the meeting tomorrow and we need to
get a handle on what our people think about it."

Pickett turned off the two-lane street and onto a narrow, tarred fire road.
Loose pebbles clattered against the vehicle's undercarriage.

"So you want me to do some spying," Delphine said.

They came to an unmarked intersection with another fire road and Pickett turned
left. "Don't go all cloak-and-dagger on me, Delphine. And for
God's sake, don't do anything that would make people suspect you're on some kind
of secret mission. Just ask a few innocent questions, listen to the answers and
tell me what you heard.”

Pickett glanced into the rear view mirror just in time to see Delphine salute.
"Yes sir, Mr. Pickett, sir. Should I use invisible ink?"

"You should call me every night before you go to sleep," Pickett
said.

"Wait a minute," said Delphine. "Don't I already do that?"

"Not always," Pickett said. "Sometimes I call you."

He took another turn, onto an unmarked dirt road deep in the bayou. It had been
fifteen minutes since they'd seen any sign of human habitation, but there, a
few hundred yards in, and almost invisible, was a small cabin near the water.
Pickett parked the car on the far side of the structure.

Although the sermon was set for 9 a.m.—and Hurbuckle always started a few
minutes late, to make sure the stragglers had found seats—it was just past 7
a.m. that the vast parking lot began to fill up with its characteristic
collection of old pick-up trucks, beat-up sedans and rusting station wagons,
each of them disgorging its share of hopeful housewives, good ol' boy husbands
and butter-faced children in hand-me-down clothing. Everyone wanted a
front seat. Everyone wanted to be as near as possible to Rev. Hurbuckle.

The good reverend glanced at the video monitor on his desk, checking out the
accumulating crowd in the sanctuary. Junior was at the main door,
greeting the parishioners. All was well down there. But up here, he was
pondering a literary problem and the time to solve it was growing short.

He had written, he was sure, a perfectly splendid paragraph to tell his
parishioners about Bourque's upcoming journey into the jaws of the beast.
It would make his friend sound like a combination of Gandhi and Mother Theresa.
But the question was, should the paragraph come at the beginning of the sermon
or at the end?

Hurbuckle weighed the pros and cons. 'Love thy Neighbor' was one of his milder
sermons—light on fire and brimstone and practically timeless, yet very
persuasive. If he knew his congregation, and he certainly did, it would leave
them feeling so guilty they could hardly wait to start baking cakes and pies
for their neighbors, or inviting them to parties.

Hurbuckle knew that the phrase
love thy neighbor as thyself
was
frequently, if not usually, misunderstood. It wasn't intended just to describe
the people next door, but strangers near and far and even more importantly,
enemies. That's why Hurbuckle thought this particular sermon was a perfect fit
with Bourque's trip.

He'd make it a remarkable, even noble example, Bourque demonstrating to them
what it really meant to love thy neighbor. There would be gasps of appreciation
and, no doubt, applause. And Buddy would love it.

First to arrive in Bourque's office that morning was Kooter Barnes, the
President's genial poker-playing companion and drinking buddy from South
Carolina, and the Vice President of the Confederate States of America. Even
though he could no longer button it, Kooter was wearing the rust-colored plaid
jacket he favored for official Presidential meetings.

"So what's up, Buddy?" Kooter asked, his walrus mustache wiggling as
he talked.

"All in good time, Kooter," Bourque said.

"I knew it was something like that," Barnes said. He planted
his considerable rear end on its customary resting place, the big red leather
couch on the wall opposite the TV set.

Bourque had forgotten how deaf Kooter had become. He repeated himself, louder.

"Oh that's fine," Barnes said, trying to give the impression he'd
understood the first time.

There was a knock on the door. "Come on in," Bourque said, startling
Barnes.

It was Delphine, dressed in something light green, rather short and
fine-spun. "I hope I'm not late, Daddy," she said, giving him a
hug.

"Right on time, Darlin’," Bourque said. "Wish I could say the
same about our friend Mr. Pickett."

"Mornin' Ms. Bourque. You sure do light up a room," Kooter oozed.
"It's always a delight to see you."

Bourque turned on the big screen TV and an image of the Glass Church sanctuary
came up, bright and colorful. The enormous room was nearly full, the last
members of Hurbuckle's congregation still maneuvering for good seats.
Junior could be seen on the hexagonal, red-carpeted speaker's platform,
adjusting the glass teleprompter screens. His father, the reverend, was nowhere
in sight.

At that moment, Roy Pickett came into the room. "Really sorry," he
said to President Bourque. "Stayed at Mama's last night and she decided to
let me sleep. You know how she is."

"I do indeed," Bourque said.

"Good morning, Mr. Vice President," Pickett said, "hello, Ms.
Bourque." Their eyes met for the barest fraction of a second, then Pickett
took a seat as far from Delphine as he could get.

"So we're going to watch a Hurbuckle sermon?" Kooter asked, puzzled.

"Ah, yes," Bourque said, speaking loudly for Kooter's benefit,
"but it's not just
any
Hurbuckle sermon. He's going to say
something I think you'll all find interesting."

"Interesting?" said Kooter, "interesting how?"

"I'll let him say it," Bourque said.

Kooter shrugged and smiled uncertainly, his mustache wiggling as though he was
fighting back a sneeze. "Well, I always enjoy a Hurbuckle sermon. Keeps me
on the straight and narrow."

Pickett stole a glance at Delphine, who was making a point of looking
elsewhere.

"Really?" Bourque teased. "Since when do you keep to the
straight and narrow?"

"Whenever I hear a Hurbuckle sermon. Briefly," said Kooter,
bantering.

"When's the last time you actually went to one?" Bourque asked
loudly.

"Lemme see now," said Kooter. "Aught-six, I think it was, or
maybe aught-seven. A'course, since color TV, I've been watching mostly
at home."

They all turned toward the television screen. Sunlight was pouring through the
Glass Church's vaulting glass canopy, illuminating the crowd in the sanctuary
below. Every one of its 5,000 cerulean theater-style seats was occupied
now. The room's shimmering glass walls amplified the attendees' quiet
chatting into a low hum.

Then the chimes sounded—three notes, low, melodious, strangely compelling. An
expectant hush fell over the congregants. A moment later, the Rev. Harlan
Hurbuckle bounded onto the stage, smiling, self-confident and full of energy.
"Goood morning, everyone!" he called out, cheerfully, his amplified
voice easily reaching the sanctuary’s topmost row.

"Good morning, Reverend Hurbuckle," roared back the combined voices
of every man, woman and child in the audience.

"I wasn't sure we'd have a full house this morning," Hurbuckle said.
"I didn't expect to see so many of you.."

A murmur of surprise wafted through the audience.

"After all, the subject of my sermon isn't exactly new. But then, nothing
in the Bible is new. It is timeless. It is eternal." Hurbuckle stopped
dramatically, allowing the audience time to murmur "amen" and
"that's the truth."

Kooter and President Bourque both raised their eyebrows and exchanged amused
glances, as if to say
Haven't we heard this before?