“What would I do in Mississippi?” I asked.

“What you want to and can.” He sat down again and turned toward me. “It’s all open. There’s a state to be made, and there’s a free hand for the fashioner. Half the available land hasn’t been claimed now, and there’s a new treaty afoot that’ll send the Chocktaws west of the river to give the state a vast new territory.” He clenched a hand. “That country must and will be settled, and it’s better that it be done by Southerners.”