by Chris Offutt
“Proved what?”
“It proved that the government had turned on American citizens.”
“You don’t sound like you believe all that.”
“I’m not a fanatic.”
“Then why are you in it?”
“The first thing any fascist government does is disarm the people, then take away civil rights. If the Jews had guns, maybe the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened. If black South Africans had been armed, there’d be no apartheid.”
“You think guns keep peace?”
“Of course. That’s why our country doesn’t want anyone else to have nukes. Then the U.S. gets to tell the little countries how to act.”
Joe was wearied by Ty’s words, half of which he didn’t fully understand. The rest made sense to him. The hard part was trying to separate one from the other, and he wondered if Ty himself knew the difference.
“What I miss about Alaska,” Ty said, “nobody had time to worry about this kind of thing.”
“Why’d you go up there anyhow?”
“Same reason you came here.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” Ty said. “You’re on the run from something.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Show up in the fall with a bundle of cash. No friends or family around. Stay in your cabin all winter. It’s the same way I hit Alaska.”
“On the run?”
“Yeah. Ever hear of the Weathermen?”
“No,” Joe said.
“I didn’t think, so. It was a political group in the sixties. I had to leave the country in a big hurry and I went to Canada and just kept on going. Alaska gets so cold that car tires turn square, but it’s the most beautiful country I ever saw.”
“Then why stay in Montana?”
“It’s like Chicago all over again, brother. These people are as radical as the Black Panthers were. You know, a lot of people wrote them off for being racist, but they were feeding hungry children in the ghetto. Things aren’t as cut and dried as everybody would like.”
“What do you mean?”
“Radicals start change going. It was radicals who dressed up like Indians and threw tea in Boston Harbor. These people out here believe in a cause and I respect that.”
“I can’t figure what it is.”
“Freedom, brother. The only cause worth fighting for.”
“Freedom for what?”
“To live, man. To think. Thirty years ago, it was the Left calling for revolution. Now the hippies are the status quo, and the Right wants revolution,”
“What do you want, Ty?”
“I want the same thing I wanted thirty years ago,” he said. “The question is, what do you want?”
“I want a gun.”
“You’re in luck. Today, I got a real deal on a Chinese SKS. It’s the coming weapon, my friend. So cheap it’s practically disposable.”
“Something I can carry, Ty.”
“Big? Concealed? What?”
“I want one to keep hid, and it needs to put a man down to stay.”
“Snub-nose .38. An automatic is smaller and weighs less.”
“You got one?”
“Me, I take the Walther PPK, but this bunch of patriots out here will only shoot American-made, so that’s all I stock. The AK-47 is the finest weapon ever made. The revolutionary’s choice. That dog will hunt,”
“Pistol,” Joe said. “A simple goddam pistol.”
Joe followed Ty to his pickup. He dropped the gate and reached inside the topper, where several dozen automatic rifles lay beneath blankets. A two-tiered row of metal boxes held ammunition. He opened a case and passed Joe a shiny pistol. Joe released the clip. It was empty.
“That do for you?” Ty said.
“Figured it would be loaded.”
“What, you think I’m some kind of nut?”
Ty went inside his cabin and Joe felt as if he were watching the passage of wild weather. Ty returned with a duffel bag. Inside were four boxes of ammunition and two spare clips. Ty flicked the safety on and off, dislodged the clip, rammed it back, and showed Joe how to chamber a cartridge. He casually fired at a milk jug spindled on a sapling.
“Best target is a water balloon,” he said. “Fill them until they’re a little smaller than the human head. I know people in Texas who use a corpse. You get used to firing at a human, but there’s two problems.”
“What’s that?”
“Getting hold of a corpse, and getting rid of it later.”
He gave the pistol to Joe, who shot and missed the jug.
“Think of pointing your finger,” Ty said. “It’s pretty tricky with this short a barrel, though.”
“You hit it.”
“I’ve run thousands of rounds through every weapon you can name. Let me show you something.”
He reached in his back pocket for a bandanna and wrapped one corner around the grip of the pistol. He held it tightly with his right hand, lifted the opposite corner to his mouth, and clenched it between his teeth. He used his outstretched arm to aim the pistol, pushing it from his body while holding the cloth in his mouth. He squeezed the trigger. The stick holding the milk jug toppled.
Ty spat the bandanna from his mouth.
“Get it?” he said. “You’re giving yourself two points of support without a rest. Takes getting used to, but it’s good for a long shot. What you want to avoid is being stuck with a long shot. This baby’ll knock down anybody close. The ammo is expanding hollow point. Goes in like a marble, comes out like a softball.”
He clasped the duffel bag full of shells to his chest and looked at Joe for a long time before he spoke.
“Just remember what Lincoln said. ‘If you’re not for us, you’re against us.’ One day they’ll ask you that.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t live with them.”
Joe looked into the woods. He knew a deer trail that led to water. Last year he’d watched an eagle nest in the rock bluffs that rose like a wall beyond the creek. If he’d gone to Alaska, he’d have six months of darkness to conceal him. His leg would work right, and he wouldn’t need a gun.
Ty pushed the duffel bag into Joe’s hands.
“Here,” he said. “Get out of here.”
“What do I owe you?”
“Take it, take it. It’s a fire sale. You need a holster? Let me get you a holster.”
Ty reached inside his truck for a small nylon holster designed to fit against your lower back. He stuffed it in the duffel bag.
“Thanks,” Joe said.
“Forget it. I’m done here. It’s getting too hot.”
“The fires are pretty bad.”
“I mean law hot.”
Joe shrugged.
“Do me a favor,” Ty said, “and give Owen a message. Something I don’t want on the airwaves.”
“All right.”
“There’s a lot of traffic on Skalkaho Pass.”
“Probably fire crews.”
“There’s no fires around here, and I’m not going up there to find out who it is. My guess is the Feds. That’s the back way into the Bitterroot, Joe. This whole thing is about to blow up and I’m getting out. You should, too.”
“I don’t know where to go.”
“You could come with me.”
Joe looked at Ty for a long time, flattered that someone wanted his company, Boyd would have gone, but Joe decided to stay. He’d already left a place once. Now he had people to stay for.
“Thanks, Ty,” he said.
He walked swiftly to his Jeep, wanting to get away before he changed his mind. He backed out of the driveway and honked from the road. Ty lifted a clenched fist. Behind him the sun was fading in the west, striping the horizon with bands of scarlet ash.
24
* * *
Joe returned to the ranch by midafternoon. He left the pistol in his Jeep and joined Botree in the kitchen for coffee. The kids we
re making a map of the United States as a geography lesson.
“Get off early today?” Botree said.
“Not really. I sort of quit,”
“Sort of, huh?”
“Had a problem with some guys on the crew.”
She frowned out the window. Fire smoke dulled the sky to a sheen of gray.
“A job’s a job,” she said. “There’ll be more if you want.”
“It don’t bother you?”
“Long as you don’t hurt my kids,” she said, “what you do is your business.”
Botree’s shirt had horses embroidered above the snap pockets. Joe felt bad for concealing the truth, from her.
“I went to see Ty,” he said.
“After you quit?”
“Yeah, he’s leaving. He wanted me to tell Owen there’s a bunch of people on Skalkaho Pass. He thinks it’s trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He says the Feds. I guess they’re coming after Frank.”
“Ty Skinner talks more than anybody I ever met.”
“Maybe, but it scared him enough to where he’s leaving. He said I should go, too.”
“Are you?”
“Not without you.”
Joe took the Jeep to the bunkhouse and Owen met him at the door, wearing camouflage pants, a sidearm, and a walkie-talkie. Behind him stood the man with half an ear, holding an automatic rifle. The central room contained a long table on which lay several topographical maps, a stack of military field manuals, and a base unit for a CB radio. Bare bulbs lit the room, leaving shadows along its edges. Beside each window was a canteen, an automatic rifle, and stacks of ammunition. Joe smelled coffee and dirty clothes.
Coop sat at the table, his skin like paper that had lain in the rain. Across from him Frank worked at a laptop computer that was connected to a telephone jack. The only sound was his rapid fingers on the keyboard, like mice running through the ductwork of a furnace.
“You look better,” Owen said. “How’s the leg?”
“Only hurts when I laugh.”
“You’re in luck, then. We’re all serious here.”
Frank lifted his head from the computer and blinked several times. He stared at the far wall. The skin below his eyes was dark as if he hadn’t slept in days.
“Did you get fired?” he said.
“No, I quit. How’d you know?”
“It was radioed in that you left. We had three men get fired this week, including Johnny. I think they’re doing it on purpose, getting rid of the Bills. I got to find out who it is.”
He returned his attention to the tiny screen. The house was still cold from the night, and Joe wondered if it ever became warm.
“Why’d you quit?” Owen said.
“Had me a little run-in.”
“Who with?”
“I never knew his name.” Joe hoped his voice sounded casual. “Just some buckethead on a crew. Where’s Johnny at?”
“In town somewhere,” Owen said. “He dropped out of contact.”
“What made him do that?”
“Who knows?” Owen shrugged, “He got bent out of shape one day and left.”
“Who do you think fired those guys?”
“We don’t know exactly. We have their names, but they might be undercover ATE That’s what Frank’s working on.”
“Botree wants to know if you all need anything down here.”
“What I need,” Owen said, “is a three-day drunk in another town.”
Frank pounded the table with both hands. Rising dust shimmered in the glare of light coming through a window.
“Nothing,” Frank said. “Not a damn thing. The men who fired them are both clean. Either it’s coincidence or someone dropped a new set of numbers into every data bank available,”
“You checked them all?” Owen said.
“The three biggest credit bureaus—Equifax, TRW, and Trans Union. That’s over five hundred million files.”
“They could be using a cutout,” Owen said.
“They have the manpower,” Frank said. “Or it could be deep cover.”
“What’s a cutout?” Joe said.
“A middleman,” Owen said. “Somebody who doesn’t know anything except his Job. He takes an order from a stranger and reports to another stranger.”
“That way he can’t give anyone up,” Frank said.
He looked hard at Joe, who felt a quick tension swell within the dim room. He remembered Ty’s warning that the Bills would one day ask whose side he was on.
“Ty gave me a message for you. He’s leaving. Said the traffic was bad on Skalkaho Pass.”
“You sure about that?” Frank said.
“Said he thought it was the Feds.”
The men glanced at one another. Frank cleared his throat and spat on the floor.
“I was right,” he said. “There was a fire near my camp this week. It was in the crown and running, but it didn’t look right. Too small. The wind turned and it burnt itself out. I thought it was set but I couldn’t tell for sure.”
“Fucking ATF,” Owen said. “They infiltrated the fire crews. Easiest damn thing in the world to do. They probably set all the fires just to get at us.”
“It’s the government style,” Frank said, his voice calm. “But more CIA than domestic. The ATF traditionally goes straight at its objective, like the FBI or the army.”
He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head, aiming his face at the ceiling. He could have been a banker explaining interest dividends.
“Maybe they got smart,” he said. “Maybe they shifted tactics after Waco blew up in their face.”
“Shifted how?” Owen said.
“They’re treating us like a third-world country. Infiltrate and destabilize. Setting a forest fire is right up their alley.”
“What’s their next step?” Owen said.
“Neutralize support systems.”
“Like firing those men?”
“Exactly. And anyone else who’s visible—Rodney, Johnny. Next they’ll disrupt communication and shut down supply routes.”
“And then?”
“Attack.”
“By air?” Owen said.
“No way,” Frank said. “Vertical envelopment doesn’t work. Six thousand choppers shot down is the lesson of Vietnam. They’ll come on the ground. They’ll come hard. And they’ll come soon.”
He turned off his laptop and began dismantling the equipment. The men were quiet. Joe watched, surprised by the effect of Ty’s news. Frank stowed the computer in a small case and walked to the window. The sunlight framed his silhouette.
“Our time has come,” he said. “The forces of evil are upon us. Owen, mobilize the men. Use the CB and the codes. Move all caches to Camp Megiddo—commo, weapons, food, water. We need to be done by dawn.”
He bent to Coop and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Coop, you can serve us best at the ranch house. You’ll be radio liaison between Megiddo and the world. Monitor emergency channels, police band, and the Feds. Owen, you help him set it up.”
Frank gazed at Joe.
“I need to talk with you.”
Joe followed him into a small room containing two narrow cots. The walls were coarse, having been painted with undercoating years ago and never completed. There was no window. A layer of grime covered every surface.
“I know none of this is your lookout,” Frank said. “You can leave if you want.”
“I have a reason to stay.”
“You’re wanted by the law somewhere.”
“Not exactly.”
“We’ve been here a long time, fighting for this land. Now that we got it tamed down, the government’s bringing back the wolf and the bear. My great-grandfather was killed by a grizzly and now I’m supposed to let them wander around my land.”
“I can see how that would be hard.”
“If a wolf takes a calf, it goes free. If a rancher shoots the wolf, he goes to jail.”
“Is that what you’re fighting for?”
“We’re not fighting anyone, Joe. The truth is, we’re waiting for someone to come fight us.”
Frank stood close enough for Joe to smell him. Dandruff lay like frost along his shoulders.
“I hate to ask you for help,” Frank said. “But there’s two things you could do.”
“No promises.”
“We got to bring Johnny in. He’s a loose cannon, and nobody knows it more than you. Eight now, we can’t afford to have him running around on his own.”
“What’s the other thing?”
“Coop’s not doing good. He’s losing weight and he’s not always there, if you know what I mean.”
“You want me to babysit.”
“It’s a noncombatant role, Joe.”
“Are Botree’s kids safe?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“None of this is a hundred percent. For all I know, Ty’s an informer planting disinformation. Maybe the Feds are running the same truck back and forth over Skalkaho Pass as a decoy. Maybe you’re a spy. Maybe somebody got to Johnny, and that’s why he left and hasn’t come home. But none of that matters now.”
“I’ll watch out for Coop,” Joe said. “But I don’t have control over Johnny.”
“Good man,” Frank said. “Any questions?”
Joe shook his head and turned to leave. In the corner beside the door were stacks of paper bound by haystring. He slipped the top one free of its bundle. On the cover was a drawing of Montana’s state borders filled with tombstones. At the bottom, flanked by swords and rifles, was a quote from Deuteronomy. “I kill and I make alive; I five forever when I whet my flashing sword.” He opened it to a bull’s-eye target. In the center was a picture of Uncle Sam with a Star of David on his hat. One arm was around the shoulders of an Indian and the other around a dark-skinned man.
Joe held the pamphlet away from his body like a dead snake that still scared him with its fangs.
“Where did these come from?”
“I thought you knew,” Frank said. “I thought somebody told you by now.”
“Told me what.”
“Those are what sent me to the mountain.”
“I thought you sold a rifle with a bayonet mount to an undercover guy.”