Free The Very Best of F & SF v1 by Gordon Van Gelder (ed)

your mouth water, but they didn’t feed you.
    The Indians
whose tribal organization had been the first to adjust to the new conditions,
in the all-important present, the Indians had the granaries, the Indians had
the oil lamps. And the Indians...
    There were two
nervous white men serving food to the group squatting on the floor. An old man,
the chief, with a carved, chunky body. Three warriors, one of them surprisingly
young for council. And a middle-aged Negro, wearing the same bound-on rags as
Franklin, except that they looked a little newer, a little cleaner.
    Jerry bowed low
before the chief, spreading his arms apart, palms down.
    “I come from New
York, from our chief,” he mumbled. In spite of himself, he was more than a
little frightened. He wished he knew their names so that he could relate them
to specific events. Although he knew what their names would be
like—approximately. The Sioux, the Seminole, all the Indian tribes renascent in
power and numbers, all bore names garlanded with anachronism. That queer
mixture of several levels of the past, overlaid always with the cocky,
expanding present. Like the rifles and the spears, one for the reality of fighting, the other for the
symbol that was more important than reality. Like the use of wigwams on
campaign, when, according to the rumors that drifted smokily across country,
their slave artisans could now build the meanest Indian noble a damp-free, draft-proof
dwelling such as the President of the United States, lying on his special straw
pallet, did not dream about. Like paint-spattered faces peering through newly
reinvented, crude microscopes. What had microscopes been like? Jerry tried to
remember the Engineering Survey Course he’d taken in his freshman year—and drew
a blank. All the same, the Indians were so queer, and so awesome. Sometimes you
thought that destiny had meant them to be conquerors, with a conqueror’s
careless inconsistency. Sometimes...
    He noticed that
they were waiting for him to continue. “From our chief,” he repeated hurriedly.
“I come with a message of importance and many gifts.”
    “Eat with us,” the
old man said. “Then you will give us your gifts and your message.”
    Gratefully,
Jerry squatted on the ground a short distance from them. He was hungry, and
among the fruit in the bowls he had seen something that must be an orange. He
had heard so many arguments about what oranges tasted like!
    After a while,
the old man said, “I am Chief Three Hydrogen Bombs. This”—pointing to the young
man— “is my son, Makes Much Radiation. And this”—pointing to the middle-aged
Negro— “is a sort of compatriot of yours.”
    At Jerry’s
questioning look, and the chiefs raised finger of permission, the Negro explained.
“Sylvester Thomas. Ambassador to the Sioux from the Confederate States of
America.”
    “The
Confederacy? She’s still alive? We heard ten years ago—”
    “The Confederacy
is very much alive, sir. The Western Confederacy, that is, with its capitol at
Jackson, Mississippi. The Eastern Confederacy, the one centered at Richmond,
Virginia, did go down under the Seminole. We have been more fortunate. The
Arapahoe, the Cheyenne, and”—with a nod to the chief—” especially the Sioux, if
I may say so, sir, have been very kind to us. They allow us to live in peace,
so long as we till the soil quietly and pay our tithes.”
    “Then would you
know, Mr. Thomas—” Jerry began eagerly. “That is... the Lone Star
Republic—Texas—Is it possible that Texas, too... ?”
    Mr. Thomas
looked at the door of the wigwam unhappily. “Alas, my good sir, the Republic of
the Lone Star Flag fell before the Kiowa and the Comanche long years ago when I
was still a small boy. I don’t remember the exact date, but I do know it was
before even the last of California was annexed by the Apache and
the Navajo, and well before the nation of the Mormons under the august
leadership of—”
    Makes Much
Radiation shifted his