American Front by Harry Turtledove Page B

directly concerned with the mission, and pursued everything that was with a driving energy that brought his men along, too.
    “Come on!” he called again, stepping up the pace. “We’ve cracked the shell. Now we get to suck the meat out.”
    One of his first lieutenants, a big, gangly fellow named Jake Hoyland, moved up alongside him, map in hand. “Next town ahead is Imuris,” he said, pointing. “There’s some mines around there, too: copper mines. Cocospera.” He read the name off the map with the sublime disregard for Spanish pronunciation growing up in Michigan gave him.
    “The division will secure those, and the United States will exploit them,” Morrell said. “We have an advantage over our German allies here, Jake.”
    “Sir?” Hoyland wasn’t much given to strategic thought. He’d make captain one day, but he probably wouldn’t rise much further than that.
    Patiently, Morrell explained: “Germany is attacking France on a narrow front, and the French and the damned English can be strong against them all along it. We have about the population of Germany, and the Confederacy and Canada together close to the population of France, but we have thousands and thousands of miles of frontier with our enemies, not a few hundred. Except in a few places, defense in depth becomes impossible.”
    “Oh. I see what you mean.” Maybe Hoyland even did. He pointed to the map again. “How will we exploit these Cocospera mines?”
    “Probably with the niggers the Rebels brought in to work them,” Morrell answered, shrugging. “That’s not our worry. Our worry is to take them.”
    “Yes, sir.” Now Hoyland wiped his face with his sleeve, leaving a smear of dust on his cheek. “Even hotter here than it was up in the USA, you ask me.”
    “We’ve only come twenty miles, for God’s sake,” Morrell said in some exasperation. “We’ve got a long haul before we get to Guaymas.”
    He looked back over his shoulder. Dust clogged the horizon to the north, hiding the men and horses and cannon and horse-drawn wagons and motor trucks that had stirred it up. He knew they were there, though, intent on sealing the western part of the Confederacy from the rest of the country: not only was Guaymas a railhead, it was the only real Pacific port the Rebels had. Shut it down and this part of the South withered on the vine.
    The Rebels knew as much, too. Their frontier force had been smashed in the opening U.S. attack, but they were still doing what they could to resist. Off to the northeast of Imuris, the desert rose up into low, rolling hills. They’d mounted some three-inch field guns up on the high ground, and were banging away at the advancing U.S. column.
    More dust rising from the U.S. left showed cavalry—or, more likely, mounted infantry—peeling off to deal with the Confederates. Those nuisance field guns had accomplished their objective: to distract some of the American force from its primary mission.
    Morrell refused to be distracted. He scrambled between strands of barbed wire that marked the outer bounds of some ranch’s property. He could see the ranch house and its outbuildings a couple of miles ahead, shimmering in the heat haze. As on the U.S. side of the border, ranches were big here; because water was scarce and precious and the ground scrubby as a result, you needed a lot of acreage for your stock.
    He didn’t see any of that stock. The owner, whoever he was (
an old-time Mexican or a Southern Johnny-come-lately?
Morrell wondered), had run it off to keep the U.S. forces from getting their hands on it. They’d probably run off themselves, too—with luck, so fast they hadn’t had a chance to take everything out of the ranch house. Whatever they hadn’t taken, the U.S. Army would.
    A rifle barked, up ahead. A bullet kicked up dirt, maybe fifty yards from Morrell’s feet. As if that first one had been a test, a fusillade of rifle shots rang out. Morrell threw himself flat on his belly. Somewhere behind