by Lopez, Rob
“Well, I don’t want to take all the credit, but, you’re right.”
Sally turned to look at Dee. “Thank you both,” she said, tears appearing in her eyes.
Harvey walked around the Road Runner, kicking at the tires. “Damn,” he said. “What did you do to this thing?”
“Only what she could take,” replied Packy proudly.
Rick broke up the happy mood. “How soon before Scott can be moved?” he asked Sally.
“If the medicine takes?” responded Sally. “Maybe a week. Possibly more.”
“I don’t like him being here. He’s too vulnerable.”
“I know, but there isn’t a lot I can do.”
“We need to get him up into the mountains. We can move your clinic there and provide you with everything you need.”
“You won’t be able to provide what we have here. Look, you have to understand, it’s not us they’re after. It’s you.”
Rick looked at Sally for a moment. “There’s no neutral ground here. There’s going to be a war, and you’re going to be caught in the crossfire.”
Sally took a moment to digest this. “What kind of war?”
“My kind,” said Rick stonily.
11
Sheriff Eagleburger never asked for much in life. His wife and his deputies, back when they were still alive, begged to differ, letting him know in various gentle and not-so-gentle ways that he could be pretty demanding. But he didn’t see it that way. Far as he was concerned, he just wanted things done right, and there was nothing wrong with that.
Too many things weren’t being done right at the moment, and for all their complaints, his wife and past deputies had at least supported him. He didn’t get that sense right now from the folks at city hall. He spent an hour arguing with some official that he needed more resources to do his job. Namely, more deputies. He was told that he had to manage with who he had, and it was all moot anyway, because the militia patrolled the city now, and the city couldn’t afford the lavish care he was supposedly asking for.
They had plenty of resources to hire extra staff themselves, however. New faces kept appearing in the corridors, and it was clear they were gearing up to implement the new Gold Reserve Act, which was a damn fool idea, as far as Eagleburger was concerned.
So he was forced to patrol the city alone. Because, militia or not, he was still the sheriff. Unlike the militia, he didn’t have any transport, and he patrolled on foot, choosing that day to cover the area from Five Points and Montford, down to the river. It used to be an upscale district, with a mix of new and historic houses in an area of woodland. The trees had since been thinned out for firewood. Queen Anne and Victorian homes stood naked in the clearings, and the influx of refugees meant there were people living in the garages too. It was impossible to tell who the original residents were, as everybody looked like squatters now, and trash piles were everywhere, usually being picked over by a scavenger, who, while looking like a hobo, would then walk back to his 1887 Shingle style home with chewed-over animal bones that would probably be ground and boiled into a soup. There used to be a lot of rats making hay when the pickings were good, but when the winter got bad, they were as likely to end up in the stew pot themselves, so the survivors stayed away if they knew what was good for them. The area was still served by the reservoir, up near Black Mountain, so water wasn’t a problem, and those living in garages and shacks that didn’t have plumbing helped themselves to the fire hydrants. Wasn’t unusual to see a child walking with a bucket and wrench. Also wasn’t unusual to see a dead body on the sidewalk. Sometimes it would be because the head was caved in as a result of some dispute. Occasionally he would find someone who’d been draining the antifreeze from the cars, and drinking it as an alcohol replacement. Even at a time when food and water was an imperative for survival, there’d still be fools who risked their lives for that little something extra. Or maybe they were just tired of living, and Eagleburger had gotten used to that too. He’d learned to tell from just one look at a face whether that person had lost the will to carry on, and he tried to know all the faces in his districts, so he could predict and maybe prevent something happening. His success rate with that wasn’t so high, as he couldn’t be everywhere at once, but knowing the neighborhoods and the people living in them remained important to him, if only to gauge the mood. If the mood was bad, trouble tended to follow.
In a front yard, a man skinned a deer carcass on a trestle table, a bolt-action rifle propped up close to him. A younger man around the corner kindled a fire in the bottom of a smokehouse.
“Howdy, Rufus,” called Eagleburger, sauntering over to the fence.
The man skinning the deer nodded once. “Howdy, Sheriff,” he said brusquely.
“That’s a good haul,” said Eagleburger, trying to lighten the mood.
“Sure,” said Rufus. “You checking to see which part should be the tax?”
“That ain’t my job, Rufus. You know that. Did you shoot that around here?”
“There’s nothing around here. Got this one up in the mountains.”
“You carried it all the way back? That’s some effort.”
“It’s only a young one, and my boy helped me.”
The young man whom Eagleburger knew as Leo glanced cautiously at the conversation, absently feeding sticks into the fire. Leo was fifteen, but Eagleburger had watched him grow fast into a rail-thin, anxious-faced man. In truth it wasn’t so much growth as being stretched, like he’d been pulled on a medieval rack. Eagleburger had seen the winter take its toll on many people, but by far the biggest effect had been on the teenagers, yanked out of their cosseted life and thrust into a miserable existence with no let up, where all the promises of college, work, material security and personal freedom had evaporated. Most adults knew in their hearts that these things never really existed, and that life was just unending toil in one direction or another, but the young ones didn’t get the chance to be eased gently into that truth, and they took it hard. The next generation of Americans were likely to be tougher, more cynical and ever wary of being cheated. Which was pretty much the attitude Eagleburger had found in the hoodlums he used to arrest, back in the day. He shuddered to think that an entire society could become like that now.
“You did good,” he said, directing his praise toward Leo.
Leo shrugged and gave his attention to the smoky fire.
“Is there anything you wanted?” inquired Rufus suspiciously.
“Nah, just shooting the breeze and checking how things are.”
A pickup loaded with militia drove slowly past. The young riflemen stared at the meat on display, and Rufus stared back. Eagleburger turned around to show his badge, and the truck picked up the pace and drove off.
“Relax,” said Eagleburger, seeing the look on Rufus’s face. “You’re not doing anything wrong.”
“They’re not local boys,” said Rufus, as if it was self-evident that anyone not local was not to be trusted.
“No, they ain’t local,” conceded Eagleburger with much the same sentiment. All the local people who’d been drafted into the militia had been sent to serve outside the city, and without even a functioning mail service, it was like they’d disappeared.
“They’re not drafting my boy,” said Rufus defensively.
“No one’s drafting your boy if you don’t want them to. It’s a volunteer assignment.”
“They told me that if I didn’t give up my Browning Stalker, either my boy or me would have to serve. That’s not volunteering, that’s blackmail. I gave up my semi-automatic rifle to keep my boy with me, but now I’m hearing rumors they’re planning to expand the draft, rifle or no rifle.”
“I haven’t heard that. You don’t want to go believing rumors.”
“I’ll take my boy into the mountains before that happens, I swear. I’ll join the rebels.”
Eagleburger looked at him. “And what rebels would they be?”
“The ones in the mountains.”
“Y
ou seen them?”
“No, I don’t go that far in, and I hear they hide well.”
“What else do you hear?”
“That they’re going to resist. And when they get strong enough, they’re going to come down, and we’ll be free.”
“And where’d you hear that kind of baloney?”
“I’m not saying, but you ought to know, because you’ve got one of them in your jail, so don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Eagleburger sighed. “Ain’t no rebels in the mountains, Rufus. Ain’t no Robin Hood neither. There’s just them that break the law, and them that don’t.”
“The law sucks, Sheriff. It took my second amendment rights, but I’m not going to let it take my son.”
Eagleburger frowned. “Your son’s fine. You need to quit worrying and stop listening to gossip. You know what people are like. They’ll say anything to get attention, but I ain’t seen no evidence that it’s true, so take it easy. Got enough real problems without dreaming up more.”
“You’re just saying that because it’s your job.”
“I ain’t like that. You know me. If there’s anything you need to be worrying about, I’ll let you know.”
Bidding him and his son farewell, Eagleburger continued his solitary patrol. On his way back through Five Points, he was hailed by a woman digging over a vegetable plot by her porch.
“Howdy, there,” said Eagleburger, walking over. “Charlotte, isn’t it?”
“Charlene,” said the woman. “But close enough. How you doing there, Sheriff? Can I offer you a drink? Got Samuel inside grinding up some roasted chicory.”
“No, thank you. Not now. How can I help you?”
“Well, it’s about the woman who lives in that there shack,” she said, pointing to a ramshackle construction on the other side of the street.
“She been giving you trouble?”
“No, nothing like that. But she gone.”
Eagleburger tried to recall who’d lived there, and remembered some young woman. The image only came to him because he remembered her face, and in particular, the look of despair that indicated she wasn’t long for this world. He’d made a point to check in on her some time, but stuff got in the way and he’d simply forgotten. He made a note to pester City Hall again to get some help, because he simply had too much ground to cover by himself.
“Well, sorry to hear that,” he said. “If we find her body, I’ll let you know.”
“No, I don’t mean she gone. I mean, she gone. Up and left.”
“Oh. Maybe she found another place to stay.”
“Uh uh. She weren’t looking for no place, but I saw a fella talking to her yesterday, and now she gone.”
“That don’t mean a lot, Charlene. Maybe she took up with him.”
“He don’t look like the kind of fella anyone would take up with. Not if they was in their right mind.”
Eagleburger wasn’t sure that the aforementioned woman had been in her right mind.
“I’ll ask around to see if she’s moved. Is there anything else that made you suspicious? Noises in the night, or something?”
“Nothing like that, but he had another fella with him who stood some distance away, like he was on watch.”
“And you were here … watching them?”
“Sure, but he never made eye contact. That’s a mark of something, right there. I says to my Samuel, those men there are up to no good. You can see it a mile away.”
“Or a few yards away, even.”
“Don’t you mock me, Sheriff.”
“I ain’t mocking. You got a description of the, uh, two suspects?”
“Sure. The fella talking to Ione — that’s the woman — was kinda hairy. A white boy. The other was normal sized, real dirty. Wore a pimp coat.”
Eagleburger thought that could describe just about anybody around here now. “Any distinguishing features?”
“The hairy guy had a ponytail. A real mess. He shouldn’t have bothered, but I think he was trying to make himself look good.”
“Tattoos?”
“None that I could see, but it was getting dark, and my eyesight ain’t so good at night.”
“No, I guess not.”
“You going to look for her?”
“I’ll look into it,” said Eagleburger, taking out a battered notebook and writing something down with a stubby pencil. He had so many notes that he wasn’t sure how he was ever going to get around to investigating everything. “If she comes back in the meantime, though, you let me know. Saves me chasing around for nothing.”
“You need to get yourself a horse, Sheriff. You won’t chase nothing down if you can’t catch it.”
“I’ll bear that in mind. You take care, ma’am.”
Eagleburger carried on walking. At the end of a long street, there was a collection of vehicles. Curious, he got closer. There seemed to be a lot of people milling about around the vehicles. He quickened his pace.
It was a militia checkpoint, though it hadn’t been there when Eagleburger came through the area a couple of hours ago. People were being directed to form a line, and militia squads were knocking on nearby doors and entering houses.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded of a young militiaman waving people toward the line.
“Gold confiscation,” said the militiaman.
Eagleburger watched as a woman was hustled out of her own home by a militiaman. She was clutching a thin necklace and saying, “It was my daughter’s,” in a distressed voice.
The militiaman gave her a little shove and pointed. “Join the line and collect your money.”
“What the hell’s going on?” muttered Eagleburger, incredulous.
“It’s the new law,” said the young militiaman with him.
“It was meant to be voluntary, wasn’t it?”
“No, sir. It isn’t.”
Eagleburger looked at the young man. “Where are you from, son?”
“Fairview,” murmured the young man.
Eagleburger was about to berate the young man for thinking it was okay to come into this area and just take gold by force, when he realized the man was ashamed and throwing guarded glances at some of his comrades, who looked equally uncomfortable. It struck Eagleburger that not only were they not happy about their actions, but they were also thinking that, back in their hometown, there were others like them, from Black Mountain or Asheville, doing the same thing to their folks.
“This has to stop,” said Eagleburger. “Who’s in charge?”
The young man jerked a thumb to the end of the line, where a guy sat at a camping table, weighing gold on a pair of scales and dispensing cash from a box. Eagleburger strode over.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he said loudly.
The man at the table didn’t even look up. He continued to place or remove weights from the scale until he got the needle to center. Behind him, however, a soldier turned around and fixed a stare at Eagleburger.
It was Fick.
“Is there a problem, Sheriff?” he asked with a trace of menace in his voice.
Eagleburger paused. Fick’s assault rifle was held casually on its sling, barrel down, but Fick’s thumb had released the safety as he’d turned, and the look in his eyes was anything but casual.
The sheriff swallowed. “You can’t go taking people’s possessions by force,” he said.
Fick smirked and flicked his eyes left and right. “I don’t see much force being used.”
A couple of militiamen took his glance to be a signal, and they stepped up, bringing their weapons to bear in the same casual manner, and it was clear that not all of them were shamed by their actions.
“This is coercion,” said Eagleburger.
“This is the law,” said Fick. “As the sheriff, you enforce the law. Is that correct?”
“It is, but …”
“There’s no buts. You enforce the law. If you don’t, you’re a corrupt lawman.” Fick’s smile widened. “
Or just a coward. Which are you?”
Eagleburger’s jaw tightened. “Don’t you give me that crap. I was enforcing the law while you were still in boot camp, and you’re forgetting one other thing. As an officer of the law, my job is to serve and protect the people. These people.”
Fick’s smile vanished. “And what are you suggesting I’m doing?” he said coldly.
The first thought that popped into Eagleburger’s mind was to tell the Special Forces soldier that he was robbing the people, but one look at Fick’s glare indicated this wasn’t a good idea. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who was used to operating within limits.
“I’m suggesting you could go about this in a different way.”
It was a lame answer, and the return of Fick’s smirk indicated he thought so too.
“I’m sure there’s some office in city hall you can send your … suggestions to,” he said.
In the tense atmosphere, and with everyone on the street looking at them, Eagleburger didn’t think there was anything further to gain from this conversation. Hiking up his belt, he tipped his hat and made to move on.
“You’re forgetting something, Sheriff,” said Fick.
Eagleburger turned to him and saw the cold stare again.
“All gold has to be handed in,” continued Fick. “Including yours.”
“I don’t have any,” said Eagleburger.
“You surely do. If my eyes aren’t mistaken, that ring on your finger is now government property.”
Eagleburger glanced down at his wedding ring. He’d gotten so used to it, he wasn’t even aware that he wore it. After his wife had died, it never occurred to him that he shouldn’t.
“This is personal, and it means a lot.”
“It’s just a metal,” said Fick. “Unless, of course, you think you’re above the law.”
“My wife gave this to me.”
“Everyone’s been given something. That don’t mean it’s okay. What if your wife gave you stolen goods? Or a machine gun?”
“That’s a stupid example.”
“You calling me stupid?”
Again, there was that willingness to engage in conflict, and the barrel of the M4 moved slowly to align with Eagleburger.