In Lexington, Kentucky, another Negro, Cincinnatus Driver, is adjusting to life in the United States. The adjustments aren't easy; Kentucky was forcibly rejoined to the USA after its conquest in the Great War. Confederate diehards remain active in the state. So do Red factions consisting mostly of Negroes. Cincinnatus has been uncomfortably and unwillingly involved with both groups, and both view him with suspicion-as does Luther Bliss, the head of the Kentucky State (secret) Police. He has been driving a truck for the U.S. Army, but with the end of the war finds himself out of work and looking for a way to support his wife and young son.
On a Canadian farm not far from Rosenfeld, Manitoba, Arthur McGregor has avenged himself on the U.S. occupiers who executed his teenage son, Alexander, for rebellion against their authority. His bomb killed Major Hannebrink, the officer who ordered Alexander up before a firing squad, during a celebration of the end of the war. Arthur McGregor has no intention of confining his vengeance to Major Hannebrink alone. This worries his wife, Maude. His surviving daughters, Julia and Mary-especially Mary, the younger-don't precisely know what he is doing, but hope he will do more of it.
Lucien Galtier is also a farmer working land formerly belonging to the Dominion of Canada. These days, though, his farm near Riviere-du-Loup is part of the Republic of Quebec, a U.S. creation during the Great War. Galtier at first opposed the U.S. occupation of Quebec, especially after U.S. authorities took part of his farm-part of his patrimony-and built a hospital on the land. Lately, though, his reservations about the United States have faded, not least because his daughter, Nicole, who was working at the hospital, married an American doctor, Leonard O'Doull.