“Don’t ask me to tell you what people believe. I can’t even say for sure what I believe. How about you? You’ve been having it both ways for some time now.”

“Harry, philosophy doesn’t help. Leave me out of it.”

“I believe a man can convince himself he believes in something—”

“Goddamnit, Harry—make sense.” He shoved Harry’s glass out of reach. “Lay off the sauce.”

“—if what he convinces himself he believes will get him ahead in the world.” Harry stood and stretched to retrieve the glass.

Sam raised his glass of mineral water. “The hell with you.”

“To vectors of ambition.”

Sam drank the rest of his water and still felt parched. “Now what, Harry?”

“You tell me. I wasn’t at the secret meeting.”

“You heard the whole thing at the courthouse. They’ve got till tomorrow morning to give in to the demands. In writing.”

“Yes, we must have it in writing. Make it all neat and legal.”

“That’s the plan, all right.”

“Well, you should be glad. Colonel Waddell apparently likes the cut of your jib. You’ll be sailing right along with the new wind that’s blowing.”

“You don’t think much of me, do you?”

“You don’t care what I think,” Harry said. “You look at me and you pray, ‘Lord, don’t let me end up like that.’ You’re young. You want the good life.”

“I want something to show for it.”

“For what?”

“It. You know. Work, labor, toil, strain, worry. Love.”

“Ah, love. Now we’re down to the nut.”

“Cut it out, Harry. What do you know about it?”

“More than you realize, my boy.”

“Spare me more stories about the old plantation. Some goddamn tale of lost love—jilted under the magnolias by a buxom Southern belle.”

Harry held his glass in both hands and bent over the bar, not drinking, staring into the sparkling crystal. “There’s another kind of love, Sam. Maybe you’ve never run across it.”

“I’ve seen all kinds.”

Harry sighed. “I’m talking about love of a place.”

“Patriotism,” Sam said. “You’re very big on that down here.”

Harry shook his head. “No, not patriotism. You’re not listening. Not love of country. Love of a place.”

“This place.”

Harry rubbed the glass between his palms as though he were trying to ignite it from friction. “Yes, this place. Does that surprise you?”

Sam shrugged. “I’ve moved around quite a lot. One place is pretty much like another.” But the soft ocean breeze had stuck in his nostrils, as the deep green of the pine tops against the opal sky had stuck in his eyes.

The colored bartender freshened Harry’s whiskey without being summoned and stood with his back to them, a few paces away. Sam could feel him listening. The man’s green jacket was flat and smooth as a billiard felt.