Dead Sand

by Brendan DuBois

  There was a crackle to the air, a nervous energy of forces in motion that were about to collide, and the sensible part of me warned me to walk away.

  Instead, I got closer.

  * * *

  Up near the fence line I went, along with a few other members of the news media, as the lines of protesters dressed themselves, going down the marshland in front of the fence line for a few hundred yards. I scribbled some more notes, shifted the small knapsack on my back, and looked around.

  More chanting, more shouting, more fist waving, signs moving up and down.

  I waited some more.

  The morning dragged by.

  I shifted my feet in the salt marsh, yawned, and walked around some.

  A couple of reporters were huddled together, talking to their news desks on their cell phones.

  The chanting, the shouting, and the fist waving had died away. Some of the protesters were actually sitting on the mud and grass.

  What the hell was happening?

  A couple of demonstrators went by me, arguing between themselves, and I got in their way and held up my press pass and said, “Guys, what’s going on?”

  The one on the right, wearing one of those colorful wool hats from the Andes with droopy sides, looked at me with flashing eyes and said, “None of your fucking business, you corporate shill.”

  His companion was more cooperative. He had on a long denim jacket covered with buttons, including a black-and-white one stating: ANARCHY RULES! He coughed and said, “Going on? I’ll tell you what’s going on. A goat fuck, that’s what’s going on. All these people out there … and no one knows what to do next. Hell, we know what to do next—get a move on and go over the fence! But they’d rather sit and talk and reach a consensus, debate how many representatives should get together to reach a decision, how many of those reps should be men, women, gay, transgender, handicapped, Native American … fuck that shit, man.”

  I scribbled as fast as I could, and then the first one said, “Yeah, look over there. Those asshats know what to do.”

  I looked up to the fence line, where a gate had opened up, and the black-clad cops were marching out to face their opponents.

  When I looked back, the two dissidents had moved away, heading to the nearest tree line.

  * * *

  The shouts and the chanting dribbled away as the cops came out, and behind them, beyond the fence line, the National Guard troops moved down the hill to take their place. They marched out in fairly good order, across the grass and uneven ground, stretching out in a line. The hundreds of protesters moved away a bit, and then they stopped.

  There was about fifty yards separating the two groups, and the sudden appearance of the police seemed to surprise the antinuclear forces. I went over to the mass of protesters with a few other reporters—including the tall AP photographer—and I gave up taking notes before long. It was just too confusing, with lots of rumors, loud voices, and plaintive talk along the lines of “What are we going to do now?”

  The Associated Press photographer caught my eye and said, “What do you think?”

  “Tactics,” I said. “For an unorganized mob like these folks”—and I could hear some murmurs behind me from those who disagreed with my observation—“it’s one thing to go up and attack an object, like a fence, but now you’re facing cops. It’s more serious. You have to be face-to-face, person against person. Whatever existing plans there were have just been tossed into the trash bin, and it’ll probably take them a while to figure out what to do next.”

  The photographer brought a camera up to his face. “Tactics. Yeah, I can see that.”

  Then somebody punched me hard in the side.

  * * *

  I turned. A slight woman with short dark hair stood there, fist balled, and she laughed. “I should have known it was you, Lewis. Speaking about tactics and disorganization. How do you like being out here with the unwashed masses?”

  Kara Miles, Diane Woods’s significant other, stood next to me, bringing a smile to my face. She had on jeans, Timberland boots, and layers of clothing up top, and her ears were festooned with the usual studs and earrings.

  “How goes it, Kara?”

  She paused, as if she didn’t like the question, and I noticed she was wearing a blue scarf, and so were a number of other protesters behind her. Two of them—young women with long blond hair in braids—held up a hand-painted banner that read: TRUE BLUE!

  “We’re doing all right,” she said. “Trying to figure out what’s going to happen next. Some of the affinity groups want to engage the police, appeal to their better nature. Others want to sit down and just squat for a while. Some just want to go charging over. I mean, there’s not even a hundred cops and National Guardsmen over there, and we’ve got thousands.”

  Some of her friends nodded in agreement with what she was saying, and I said, “Hate to be a history geek again, but remember what Napoleon said.”

  “An army marches on its stomach?” she asked coyly.

  “Nicely done,” I said. “I was thinking of something else he said. That God’s on the side of the heaviest artillery.”

  One of the women holding the banner called out, “But we have truth on our side! We’ll win! Just you wait and see!”

  Kara rolled her eyes and said, “Do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  She gestured to the line of police officers. “Diane’s over there. If you get a chance, could you get a message to her?”

  “Of course. What’s the message?”

  Kara stepped closer to me. “Tell her I’m going to be a good girl today. I won’t get arrested. Got it?”

  “Gotten—but I’m not sure I understand it.”

  She stared out at the line of black-clad and helmeted police officials, one of who was her lover and companion. “It’s a kind of peace offering. Not much, but … I want to tune down some of the static. We’ve been having … challenges lately.”

  I thought about Annie, about our day together, about what a postelection life might mean to both of us.

  “Aren’t we all,” I said.

  * * *

  A burst of cheers erupted when a small group of people came out from the tree line, and like puppies running to a bowl of kibble, most of the reporters went over to this group, which consisted of Laura Glynn Toles and her son, Vic, and a couple of other demonstrators. Laura and Vic were walking arm in arm, and they had black armbands on their right arms, and they did their best to ignore the reporters coming at them, thrusting microphones and cameras in their faces. Laura had on a long jean skirt, thick boots, and a heavy yellow barn jacket, and her face had the screwed-up intensity of someone desperately trying not to cry. Vic, wearing green cargo pants and a thick red down coat, looked grim as well.

  They stopped at a slight rise of land that was the highest point for yards all around, and I decided to acknowledge whatever journalistic duty I had and moved in as well, pushing some against the huddle of journalists. I caught bits and pieces of what Laura was saying.

  “… we’re here to show our commitment to the cause, even in the face of grave danger…”

  “… no matter what happens today, our fight will continue…”

  “… yes, my decision is final. The Stone Chapel will be sold. I just hope some progressive gathering will step forward to purchase it…”

  Then one of the male activists who had accompanied the Toleses stepped out in front of Laura and held up both hands. “Folks, please, that’s enough, please. Give them some privacy now, all right? Please?”

  Some of my fellow reporters called out a few more questions, but Laura and her son turned away and walked a few steps, and kept their backs turned. I turned as well and walked away, and shortly thereafter, so did the other reporters.

  * * *

  For nearly a half hour not much was going on, so I decided to cross the open field and talk to the cops—well, one cop in particular. I walked away from the milling group of demonstrators and news reporter
s and started across the marshland to the line of cops. A couple of other people had gone ahead of me, and as I got closer, I had the oddest feeling I had done this before. I’m not much for believing in hunches or past lives, but there was something very familiar about the scene, about two camps of people with an open strip of land between them …

  I stopped and looked back at the protesters, the flags, the banners, the balloons rising up above them, the papier-mâché heads, and then I got it. A documentary I had seen on the History Channel a few months ago about the war in the Western European trenches in 1914 and the unofficial Christmas truce, when German and British soldiers emerged from their trenches to meet in no-man’s-land, to exchange tobacco, candy, and even uniform badges.

  A brief glimpse of humanity during a four-year slaughter.

  I kept on walking to the police officers, conscious of the weight of the pistol under my jacket, hoping none of the law enforcement folks would notice.

  * * *

  Those that had gone ahead of me included a couple of reporters doing their best to interview the stolid and unresponsive cops, and a couple of protesters, trying to get … well, I’m not sure what they were trying to do. They were an older man and woman, both with white hair, both wearing sweatshirts covered with buttons embracing a number of political positions, and they were speaking earnestly to the line of police officers.

  The man said in a loud voice, “In your heart of hearts, you know what you’re doing here is wrong. Please. Come join us. Come over to our side. Refuse to fight for the corporations, the polluters, the ones who spoil our environment. Make this a special moment, a moment of history, showing people power at its best. Like the fight against the Berlin Wall, the fight against Marcos, the fight against nuclear war. Join us—surprise the corporations. Drop your weapons and walk this way.”

  His female companion said, whenever he paused, “He speaks the truth … he speaks the truth…”

  I got closer to the cops and started looking at the stern faces, and at one particular stern face I stepped over and said, “Detective Sergeant Woods. You’re looking fetching today.”

  That earned me a quick smile, and she said, “Lewis … don’t have much time to talk.”

  “How about a little time?”

  “I don’t see why not. Come this way.”

  She stepped back out of the line, and her fellow officers shuffled a bit to let me go through, and I felt that odd sensation of being in a foreign territory, under some marque or protection offered by my friend Diane. There was something else as well; the cops looked strong and menacing in their riot gear, helmets and gas masks strapped to their legs, batons in their hands, but from where I was standing, they looked woefully outnumbered.

  I’m sure they would deny it to a man—or a woman—but I think they were terrified by the numbers opposing them.

  * * *

  Diane stopped after a few paces and took off her riot helmet. Her hair was matted down from wearing the gear, and she wiped a hand across her forehead.

  “Well?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Got a message for you.”

  “Really? Who? The secret master of the antinukers?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Kara.”

  That stopped her. She eyed me. “You kidding?”

  “Not for a second.”

  “How did this happen?”

  I said, “I met her a few minutes ago, with the rest of her affinity group.”

  “Yeah,” she said with a tinge of tiredness in her voice. “The True Blues. So what’s the message?”

  The talking from the older man grew louder, more insistent. His face was now scarlet. I said to Diane, “The message is that she plans to be a good girl today. She won’t be arrested.”

  Diane’s face brightened up, a good thing to see. “Really? She said that?”

  “Yes. What does it mean?”

  She was smiling. “Means … means a lot. She’s going to do what she feels is right, without the possibility of embarrassing me. Look … if she was going to be arrested … it could get sticky if some reporters with too much time on their hands decided to poke around about my relationship with her.”

  Sure, I thought, knowing why I hadn’t gone to the cops over the previous day’s attack. I didn’t want to drag Annie and her job into whatever nonsense was going on with me. So, something Kara and I had in common, besides our obvious good taste in women.

  “That sounds like good news,” I said.

  “It is,” she said. “Best news I’ve had in ages. Hey, look up there, beyond the fence line. See anybody you know?”

  Even at this distance, I recognized the slim figure of the assistant editor and reporter for the Tyler Chronicle. “Paula,” I said.

  “Yep. She’s up there … and why in hell are you down here?”

  Listening still to the harangues of the older man and his friend, I said, “The evil corporate masters that run the show around here officially disinvited me.”

  She laughed. “Sorry about that, pal.”

  I kept looking up at the figure of Paula, and just for the hell of it, I waved at her. I was pleasantly surprised when she waved back. Diane said, “She’s looking better. At least from my vantage point.”

  “Really?”

  “True,” she said. “Before we marched out here, I saw her chatting with some of her fellow news types. She was laughing and joking with them—not much, I know, but it is better, considering what she’s been through. Right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  She looked at me, her face still alight, and she said, “I owe you.”

  “For what?”

  “For bringing me news that made my day.”

  “Diane—”

  “No,” she said, putting her helmet back on, reaching to grab the chin strap. “Two bits of news for you, my friend. The first is that that the shooting of Bronson Toles—it’s a dead end, from what I hear. No real forensics evidence. The slug that nailed him wasn’t found, even after hours out there with metal detectors. So the thought is, as crazy as it sounds, that it was a professional hit. A sniper in the woods waiting for his moment, then taking it and slipping out.”

  “A pro? Are you sure?”

  She tightened the strap. “Sure as I’m going to be. Though that’s not for public consumption, Lewis. So in your travels, you might think of who would benefit from Bronson Toles getting whacked, and who would have the sources and means to do so in a professional manner.”

  She didn’t have to say any more. I recalled a visit the other day to a crowded union hall, where I’d been escorted in by a man with lots of sources and means.

  “Thanks for the update. What else do you have?”

  Diane started going back to her fellow cops. “In a while, I think things are going to go to shit, and rather quickly. Lot of angry and upset people who’ve rallied and marched—they’re not going to turn around and go home after spending all this time and energy. They’re going to try to occupy the plant site, and to do that, they’re going to have to go through us.”

  “Can they do it?” I asked.

  Her voice was bleak. “We have our orders, Lewis. Nobody’s getting near the fence line. Nobody’s getting near, over, or through.”

  “Those are some heavy orders.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said, her eyes looking pale. “A few decades ago, back when this place was being constructed, there was another big-time demonstration. The governor was a real law-and-order type, wanted to send a message, so all the protesters were arrested. Nearly fifteen hundred. They were put up in National Guard armories, cost the state a bundle of money, and made lots of headlines for the antinukers’ cause for weeks. Current governor ain’t that dense. No arrests unless absolutely necessary. Just keep them away from the plant site, make sure there are no arrested martyrs, and that’s what we’re going to do. So watch yourself. Be careful. All right?”

  “I will,” I said.

  Then I walked back across no-man’s-la
nd.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It happened a couple of hours later. Some cheers rose up from the mass of protesters, and a couple of hundred of them started marching across the open salt marsh, heading to the row of cops. They went in staggered lines, arm in arm, and about a dozen reporters and I trotted alongside, trying to keep up. It was worse for the television crews, who tried to maneuver across the slippery mud and grass and gullies while carrying their gear. As the line of protesters got closer and closer to the cops, in one seemingly practiced move, the cops removed their helmets, tugged on their gas masks, and put the helmets back on.

  One of the reporters called out, “Oh, Christ, watch out!” and from the line of cops, two metal canisters flew out beyond them, landing on the grass, where they blew open in white clouds.

  Tear gas.

  Like an immediate flashback, my Department of Defense training from years ago sprang up from long-dormant memory cells. Tear gas. Also known as CS gas. The prevailing wind blew it right at the center mass of the protesters. There were screams, shouts, and I moved off to the left, getting away from the wind-driven clouds that drifted over the lines of demonstrators.

  The clouds rolled over, they blew away, and the lines of demonstrators had collapsed. Some had run away, a few were still standing, but most were on their hands and knees, or collapsed on their sides. Then the police started to move, holding their batons lengthwise in both hands. They marched in formation, in tempo, and in a matter of seconds they were upon the protesters.

  It was short, it was brutal, and it was hard to look at, especially since I knew my friend Diane Woods was there, in the middle of it. Some of the protesters tried to stand up, and the black-clad cops pushed them back. More shouts. More pushing. The people broke and staggered back to their original line as the cops moved as one, pushing, poking, and prodding. Even those who couldn’t get up, who were disabled by the tear gas, were grabbed by their wrists and arms by the cops and dragged until they started moving, crawling.… The press people near me were taking photos, taking notes, and broadcasting what was going on. I caught the sharp tang of the tear gas, the smell of fear, and the stench of the salt marsh and mud and grass.