been listening to the wrong end of a gassy hog then.”
Kyle sighed, eased his weight onto the porch rail, tried to get within reach of the deer rifle as casually as he could.
“You can’t shoot at people, Gerald.”
“People he calls them. This is what he comes up here to tell me.”
“It’s not civil.”
“Wolf is at the very door and he tells me to kowtow.”
“The wolf, huh?”
“You step in there to the front door and get that pair of birdwatchers on top of the mantel. You look over yonder and tell me what you’d call it then.”
“If I do will you put that damn gun up?”
He mulled this over.
“I’m open to the possibility,” he said.
Kyle went in and got the Otasco binoculars from above the fireplace, came back and glassed the neighboring front.
“All I see is three boys who are likely wearing loaded britches.”
“Look on further back. Up there in front of the old asylum.”
Kyle searched through the shaded distance and was about to set the field glasses aside when a slim languid movement of red slipped across a bright hole of sunlight. The breeze played at the edges of the flag before it fluttered and flung out to its complete length. He saw the swastika.
“Do you see it?”
“Yeah, I see it.”
He placed the binoculars on the porch rail.
“Will you hand me that rifle now, Gerald?”
“That’s all you’ve got to say?”
“What the hell else do you want me to say? You’ve got some rednecks taking up residence across the road from you? That’s hardly breaking news. You know how many Confederate battle flags I passed coming out to market this morning?”
“But these are Nazis! This isn’t some broke-down sonofabitch who likes to play dress up and yell ‘Shiloh, bloody Shiloh.’ Can’t you see the difference?”
“Only thing I see right now is an old man about to spend the rest of his commissioner term in the county courthouse jail unless he hands over his hardware. Now unload that goddamn thing and give it to me so I can do my best to keep you out of more trouble than you’re already in.”
Gerald sat there glaring for the better part of a minute, plumes of pipe smoke floating up around his head like vapor cusses. Reluctantly he worked the bolt, kicked out three fully jacketed brass rounds that thunked and rolled across the porch floorboards. Molly came over, sniffed at each one before she popped her heels in the air and danced briskly away, disappeared somewhere inside the cabin.
“Go get whatever you need to get done before we leave. I don’t think you’ll be back here today.”
The old man stood, removed his pipe, spat.
“Let’s get on. These animals can see to themselves.”
Kyle folded the rifle under his arm with the muzzle pointed at the ground and walked down with Gerald at his right shoulder. When they got to the edge of the road he called out that he had the gun and the old man was coming of his own volition. The deputies appeared from behind their positions of cover and concealment behind oak trees and cruiser doors. Sheriff Holston came forward and idly unholstered his service revolver. Finding it an odd and awkward piece in his hand, he just as idly returned it and waved them on with his empty hand, told them to hurry up and get the old sonofabitch into the back of his patrol car before somebody ended up properly shot and killed.
2
FROM HIS BEDROOM WINDOW GAVIN NOON HAD SEEN THE MAN when he had come off the mountain carrying the rifle, had watched when the three men he’d sent out had come to shake his hand and how he had spoken a few words to them but had not taken their offered hands. This would be something to deal with then. He turned at the sound of footsteps at his door. It was Harrison’s woman, Delilah.
“What the fuck we going to do about this, Gavin?”
He smiled, went to his dresser to look in the mirror and comb his hair. He watched her in the slight distortion of the glass. Despite the tattoos, the dark cropped hair and the stray leavings of brightwork pieced into her face, she remained attractive, if primitively so. She reminded him of a mean animal or a sharp knife. He knew that she enjoyed this fact about herself. Mistook it for an advantage.
“There will be ample time to make things right, Delilah. No one can say how time finds its channel. No one can steer it on their own.”
“Your men out there getting shot and you stand here at the bedroom window and talk high. That’s about what I’d expect out of you, you blind bastard. I think it’s time you got those glasses of yours checked. My man nearly died and all you have to say is something that sounds like it comes out of one of these goddamn books,” she said, waved her hand at the shelves jammed with volumes of Spinoza, Rockwell, Rosenberg, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Moore, Hitler. “You need to realize there’s more to this than a bunch of vocabulary. There’s people out here ready to die for something that matters. There’s people out here that . . .”
“Delilah, enough!”
She stilled as Harrison came in behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. Gavin could see where Harrison’s bandaged forearm seeped with the darkening of blood. He went to his desk and poured out a tumbler of Jack Daniels, handed it to him.
“Does it sting?” he asked.
Harrison shrugged, said, “Only glass.”
Gavin nodded, poured himself a tumbler for no other reason than to buy himself a moment to think.
“Delilah, I need to speak with Mr. Harrison alone for a few minutes if you think you might spare us the privacy.”
Harrison squeezed her shoulders and she left without a word.
“Is everyone alright?”
“Nothing they won’t get over. Nothing but a crazy old man anyway.”
Harrison strolled past Gavin, canted his shaven head to study the close rows of book titles pressed together. He was an impressively built man with developed muscles that belied a graceful carriage. The six years spent in the penitentiary had been time put to good use if it resulted in a body assembled into this kind of weaponry. He was exactly the kind of man Gavin needed. Exactly the kind this new nation deserved.
“Do you see anything that interests you?”
“I read this one when I was inside,” he said, pointed out the Nietzsche. “I liked it. I liked how it sounded like he wasn’t going to take shit from anybody for believing what he did.”
“You’re welcome to borrow any you like. I would enjoy hearing what you think of them.”
Harrison
