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 

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