by David Lucin
Once again, her attention drifted toward the mob.
Bryce shifted his body to block her view. “You with me here, Jansen? What would Val do?”
The question shattered her stupor. She hated those signs, but Bryce was right: now was not the time to dwell on them. Hundreds were marching from the west, and all that stood between that mob and the dorms was a thin line of police and Beaumont guards.
“Yeah,” she said and shook her head. “Sure, okay.”
“Atta girl.” With a solid shove, he pushed her back into line at the barricade; she hadn’t noticed that she’d wandered several steps away and toward the protesters.
Once more, she focused on the refugees. Many were shouting. A few were pleading with the guards to be let past. One in front of Jenn was screaming so loudly that spittle flew from his lips. Some landed on her cheek, and she dried it with her sleeve.
The mob had reached the police roadblock but stopped at the barricades. For now. The officers there had backed away a few steps, riot shields up. There weren’t enough of them to form a continuous line across the street; if they wanted to, the protesters could, based on their sheer mass alone, trample them all and break through into McKay Village.
“Please,” Liam roared through the megaphone. From below, Mikey passed him a respirator, which he held in his free hand. Did that mean he was preparing to use tear gas? Did he even have tear gas? She hadn’t seen any in the study room, but why else would the police have respirators? “Until further notice, Mayor Andrews has instituted a temporary ban on all gatherings of more than fifty people with the exception of the lines at the Go Markets and the water treatment plant. All those in violation of this order can and will be arrested.”
Jenn had never heard an emptier threat. There was no feasible way for the police to arrest any more than a handful of these marchers, much less detain them.
“Fascists!” a refugee shouted. He waved a cardboard sign depicting a ponderosa pine struck out with an X. Beside him, a younger man with wavy dark hair, who at first Jenn mistook for Ryan, tried climbing over the barricade, but Yannick straight-armed his chest to keep him in place.
Dylan climbed onto the hood of Liam’s squad car. The two shared a few quick words before Dylan hopped down and returned to the Beaumont line. What were they discussing? Tactics? What would the Beaumonts do if the police used tear gas? None of them had respirators. Liam wouldn’t release any if there was a possibility of exposing the guards, would he?
At the western roadblock, one of the barricades had tipped over. An officer with a riot shield, nightstick raised, rushed toward the gap. A few bold protesters stepped across the boundary but were promptly shoved back. In response, others toppled a second barricade. Two spilled forward like dominoes, landing on their hands and knees, as three more officers moved to engage.
Jenn was tempted to rush over there and help, but what could she do? Wave her rifle and shout threats? If these people weren’t listening to the cops, they wouldn’t listen to her, either.
Something sailed out from the mob and arced over the barricades, then landed on the asphalt a few feet short of the squad cars and shattered. A bottle? Another followed. This one struck the vehicle’s windshield, leaving behind a spiderweb-shaped crack.
The roar of yelling from the refugees and the protesters had reached a crescendo as Liam begged the mob to disperse. Even through the megaphone, his words were hard to make out.
A piece of nearby barricade tipped over. A young woman wearing an old Salt Lake City Jazz T-shirt stumbled through the gap, but Jenn realized she was being shoved by a short, stalky man and . . .
“Ryan?” she cried.
His wavy hair dangled in front of his face as he whipped his head around in search of who’d called his name. When he found Jenn, he tripped over his own feet and fell into Bryce. The big man promptly thrust him backward, then helped Jenn lift the barricade and return it to its proper place. Ryan remained on the other side, holding a folded-up cardboard sign. Tall and dark-haired, he looked nothing like his mother or twin sister; rather, he was the spitting image of his father.
“What are you doing here?” Jenn barked at him. She searched the faces on his left and right for Allison but struggled to focus; they all blended together, and the noise around her made concentrating impossible. “Is Allison with you?”
He shook his head as a woman wiggled her way in front of him to be closer to the barricade. “She’s upstairs.”
That gave her some measure of relief, but Allison, assuming she knew where Ryan was, would be worried sick. “Go home,” Jenn told him. “You’re not helping by being here.”
The number of refugees had doubled, and the weight of a hundred-plus bodies pushed against Ryan from behind. He gripped the barricade to keep from falling over and said, Jenn straining to hear him clearly, “I can’t sit up there while they’re telling us we don’t belong here. They have no idea what we went through out there on the road.”
“I know that, but it’s not safe.”
He began to answer her, but the crack of a shattering bottle cut him off. When Jenn spun around to see where it landed, there was glass only inches away from her boots. The police line, she noticed, was on the brink of collapsing. All but two of the barricades were down. The officers with the riot shields had fallen back, and the second-line cops had their rifles raised. Jenn prayed there were rubber bullets in them, not live ammunition.
“This is your last warning!” Liam boomed over the megaphone. “If you do not disperse, we will be forced to deploy tear gas!”
Hopefully he wasn’t serious, but she saw no alternative to preventing this crowd from breaking through. In mere minutes, the situation had spiraled out of control. If the police didn’t take action now, a riot was inevitable, and if the protesters clashed with the refugees, a riot would turn into a battle. Lives were at stake.
The mention of tear gas alone convinced many on both sides to leave, but not enough. One of the protesters used the wooden handle of his sign to strike a police officer’s shield and was promptly hit in the ribs with a nightstick. He collapsed in a heap, but three men leaped over him and tackled the officer to the ground.
Atop his squad car, Liam licked his index finger and thrust it into the air—to test the direction of the wind?—then gave a thumbs-up to Mikey below him before dawning his respirator.
Two objects the size of soda cans rolled toward the western barricade. Before coming to a stop, they began releasing clouds of white smoke. A light westward breeze blew it at the protesters, who, almost in unison, turned and ran. The high-pitched screeches of women made Jenn want to cover her ears. So did the rumble of harsh, throaty coughing. A thin, older man fell to his hands and knees, then disappeared as he was swallowed whole by the desperate crowd fleeing the gas. A pair of officers in respirators scrambled forward, rescued him from the chaos, and then dragged him to safety. All the while, the canisters continued to spew aerosols.
Jenn’s nose tickled like she’d snorted a spoonful of pepper. Was the gas affecting her, too, even when it was blowing in the opposite direction? Or were these symptoms of her imagination?
The wall of refugees had broken. Many ran toward the dorms and away from the commotion. Others had simply backed up and were watching from a safer distance. Jenn searched for Ryan but didn’t see him. Had he gone home? She’d never forgive herself if he was hurt. Coming here was his choice, and aside from binding his wrists with zip ties and hauling him to his apartment, there was little she could do to stop him, but she felt responsible for his safety nonetheless.
The police, having reformed into a new line, marched forward, past the downed barricade and into the intersection, where protesters scattered and ran. A few civilians were apprehended and forced face-down onto the road, hands behind their backs. Others were being dragged to the squad cars. The canisters had ceased spraying gas, but it hung like a fog in the air and continued drifting westward. Dozens of signs lay on the asphalt. The scene reminded her
too much of the food riots in Phoenix during the worst of the depression and the war. She came to Flagstaff to escape that world, but it had followed her here.
Soon, an eerie silence reigned, broken only by the faint murmurs of chatter and the occasional cough. There were no cheers of victory, not even from the refugees. With the immediate threat running headlong away from the roadblock, the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, and Jenn’s knees were so weak she could hardly stand. She checked her watch. Twenty minutes had passed. Was that all? Her mind was so hazy that she wasn’t completely convinced that any of this was real, that it wasn’t a dream.
Bryce clapping her on the shoulder made her jump.
“Whoa,” he said. “Easy. You good?”
Her mouth was dry, and she struggled to speak. “Yeah. I guess. I’m awake, right? That actually happened?”
Liam put his hand on the head of a handcuffed protester and eased him into the back seat of his squad car.
“Hard to believe, I know,” Bryce said. “But sorry to say, you’re awake, and so am I.”
The scent of pepper remained thick, but Bryce didn’t seem bothered, so she told herself she was imagining it.
“Come on,” he added. “Dylan wants us back on patrol to make sure none of those clowns try hanging around the dorms.”
The gas had mostly diffused into the air, and many of the police had removed their respirators.
“You coming?” Bryce asked.
A sign with Val’s name on it taunted her from afar. She fingered the cross at her collarbone and stormed forward.
“Jansen?”
As she passed the squad cars, she ignored Liam’s raised eyebrow and Mikey’s tilted head. The smell of pepper grew stronger with every step, and her eyes began to burn, but she pressed on. When she reached the sign, she planted a foot on the wooden handle, gripped the poster board, and tore it free, then tried to tear it in half, but the material was too strong.
Flames rose in her chest. The words screamed at her: Remember Valeria Flores, remember Valeria Flores, remember Valeria Flores. If anyone remembered Valeria Flores, it was Jenn, and she remembered her for who she really was—the warrior, the teacher, the friend—not who these monsters wanted her to be. She couldn’t allow CFF and its supporters to use Val like this, to adopt her as one of their own when she wasn’t alive to stand up for herself.
Again, she tried to tear the poster board. When she failed, she was ready to fill it with a magazine worth of .233 rounds, but Bryce stepped in and took it off her hands. Using his pocketknife, he sliced the sign into two, then into two again. Finally, he threw all four pieces in different directions. Strictly speaking, the thing still existed, but this was better than nothing, and she was grateful for Bryce’s help.
“Thank you,” she said to him.
“Believe me, Jansen, it was my pleasure.” He put a hand on her back and led her away from the detritus of the battle.
* * *
Jenn collapsed into a seat in the study room and pulled her hair out of its ponytail, letting it hang free. Technically, her shift ended four hours ago, at 8:00 p.m., but after the chaos at the roadblock, Dylan and the police wanted to maintain a strong presence on campus. There were sporadic sightings of people around the dorms and an alleged theft from a local garden, but overall, the firm response to the mob acted as an effective deterrent, and the evening passed mostly without incident. Jenn volunteered to stay on until morning, but Dylan insisted that she clock out for the night.
Fortunately, Ryan was safe and unhurt. When Jenn checked on the Findlays not long after the protesters dispersed, she found him seated on their couch, Allison lecturing him about not heeding her warnings. Jenn had never been so proud of the girl.
Around ten, Sam came by, worried about why Jenn was working so late. News of the mob and the tear gas sent him into a nail-biting frenzy, but she explained that everything was fine and told him to head home. He refused, of course, and invited himself to wait for her at Allison’s apartment. The Findlays didn’t seem to mind. Teagan probably laid out a place for him to sleep.
By the glow of an electric lantern on the table, Jenn eased off her boot. The heel of her sock was red, betraying the presence of a blister. She was lucky to only have the one; of the past twenty-four hours, she’d been on her feet for fourteen.
Dylan appeared in the doorway. “Oh, you’re still here. Figured you would’ve left already. There’s more to life than work, you know.”
“Yeah? I wouldn’t have thought so after working for you for two months.”
He pulled up a chair next to her, then landed in it with a thump and a loud sigh. The skin on his face was ashen and pale, and the hairs on his beard appeared more wiry and unruly than usual. “I’m not that bad, am I?”
“Could be worse,” she said and gently touched her finger to the red patch on her sock. “You could be Sophie.”
“I appreciate the compliment.” He took off his hat and leaned back in his seat. “Happy Fourth of July, by the way.”
Fourth of July? Jenn pictured a calendar and realized that Dylan was right. Once, this was one of her favorite holidays. When she was young and her brothers were still alive, her father would barbecue real burgers in the back yard. Then everyone would watch the Diamondbacks game together. “You too. You got your fireworks ready?”
“Nope. Used them all on Canada Day.”
“Canada Day? When’s that?”
“It was on Saturday,” he informed her. “The first.”
“Really? Huh, I’m learning more about Canada all the time from you.”
“I’m a fountain of knowledge.” He inspected her bloody sock with an upturned lip. “So how you holding up? Excluding that, which looks nasty.”
“Fine, I guess. As good as I could be.”
He lifted his arms and groaned as he stretched. “That was pretty wild today, I’ve got to admit.”
“I still can’t believe they went nuclear and used tear gas. I get that there was no other way and it had to be done. Maybe I was just hoping it wouldn’t come to that. People are smart. They should’ve known that was gonna happen.”
“A person is smart,” he began. “People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals.”
She let that sink in for a moment. “Wow,” she said, impressed by his insight. “I might have to steal that one.”
“I’d like to take credit for it, but I can’t.”
“Ugh,” she muttered. “Don’t tell me it’s another stupid movie quote.”
“Men in Black. The original. Ever seen it?”
“What do you think?”
He scratched his beard. “Right. I keep forgetting. Your generation. Anyway, someday I’ll make you watch it.”
“Sure, but you can be in charge of convincing Sophie to use her precious solar reserves for watching movies.” Sucking in a breath through clenched teeth, she pulled the sock away from the blister to expose her heel. The cool air stung, but at the same time, it felt good, so she let the wound dry out for a while.
“We rounded up all the signs we could find,” Dylan said. “The ones with Val’s name. Liam promised to burn them.”
“Good,” she growled. “They shouldn’t have used her like that.”
He tapped the table with his thumb. “We all know where she stood when it came to CFF, and that’s what matters.”
She glowered at him. “How do you figure? Now everyone in Flagstaff will assume Valeria Flores was a CFF wing bat who wanted to kick out refugees when she was a refugee.”
“You think Val would’ve cared about that?”
“Well . . .” she stumbled, knowing where Dylan was going with this.
“Absolutely not. She didn’t care what other people thought about her. I bet she grunted at you when you first met, right?”
“In the shop that day? It was pretty much a grunt, yeah.”
“Exactly. You were a stranger, so it made no difference to her if she came off as grumpy or mean. Why should it bother you if a wh
ole bunch of nobodies believe a demonstrably untrue fact about her? Victors write the history, so when we win this and CFF is a bad memory, we’ll fix the narrative. Val won’t go down as some symbol for Vincent Grierson. I can promise you that.”
Her teeth ached at the sound of Grierson’s name. “I still think he killed her. I know we don’t have proof yet, and he might not have shot her himself, but he’s responsible. I just have this feeling.”
“I hear you.”
She waited for him to go on, to echo what Liam and Gary had said and argue that Grierson was simply capitalizing on the situation, not pulling all the strings, but he didn’t. “You believe me?” she asked.
He blew a raspberry. “Honestly? This morning, I agreed with Liam. I couldn’t justify connecting those dots. But after what I saw today? After seeing those signs? Yeah, I’m starting to think you were right all along. He’s managed to whip his supporters into such a frenzy that a few hundred of them were ready to storm a roadblock, and I don’t see it happening if the Go Market’s not attacked and Val isn’t killed. The sequence of events is all a little too perfect.”
“He can’t get away with this,” she said and found a fresh pair of socks in her bag. “We have to do something.”
“Like what? Trust me, I’d love to march onto his ranch and take him out, but he has guards, and I don’t think the police would be very happy with us.”
As much as she wanted to do exactly that, she wasn’t ready to escalate to what amounted to war. If yesterday afternoon proved anything, it was that law and order still existed in Flagstaff. “Talk to Liam. He’s gotta be willing to at least question Grierson now, right? Everything that happened today is his fault. There’s zero debate about that.”
“Next time I see him, I’ll bring it up.”
“Thanks. I can push Gary, too. The cops listen to him, so maybe if Liam’s hearing it from all sides, he’ll give in.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Dylan said, watching with disgust as she eased the new sock over her blister. “Oh, shoot, I almost forgot.” From the pocket of his windbreaker, he produced a silver wrapper.