The Rift

by Walter Jon Williams

  Patel gave him a thoughtful look. “Very well,” he said. “Certainly.” The more Omar thought about it, the more he considered that perhaps Dr. Patel shouldn’t be the only person to inspect the A.M.E. camp. Perhaps it was time to reinforce the notion that the camp was full of dangerous people who had to be confined behind barbed wire before they sacked Shelburne City like the Goths sacked Rome.

  “Whatever story gets out,” Knox had said, “it’s got to be your story.” So he invited various members of the local establishment to join Dr. Patel on his inspection tour—a couple members of the parish council, Tree Simpson, one of Miz LaGrande’s harpies who happened to run the local Red Cross, and Sorrel Ellen the reporter. Then he drove out to the corp limit and called Jedthus to a meeting.

  “I want you to get on the bullhorn,” he said, “and tell everyone in the camp that the Imperial Wizard of the K.K.K. is coming to pay them a visit tomorrow morning. Tell them we expect them to provide the Wizard with a real courteous Southern welcome, just like they were white people.” Jedthus looked puzzled. “Is this our Grand Wizard, you mean? Or is this someone from another Klan?” You really are expendable, Omar thought wearily. And he explained, carefully, what he wanted Jedthus to do and why.

  So that when the inspection party turned up next morning they were met by a full-scale riot, swarms of angry niggers howling and stamping and throwing garbage. And no one, not even Dr. Patel, even got near the gate. Miz LaGrande’s bridge partner, the Red Cross lady, looked ready to have a stroke.

  “Hell a mile, Omar!” Tree Simpson said, as he stared wide-eyed from the shoulder of the highway at the rioters howling for his blood. “What’s going on here? What’s wrong with these people?”

  “They’re a bad lot, I guess.” Omar shrugged. “At least they ain’t acting like they’re sick. I figure we can let them look after their own dang bowels.”

  So the inspection party headed back to town and left the A.M.E. camp to Omar. Omar hoped that from this point they’d deal with the diarrhea at Clarendon and leave everything else to him. Frankland had barely swung into his morning announcements when a loud voice called out from the audience.

  “Reverend!” A voice. “Reverend Frankland!”

  A young man in the crowd waved a hand. Studs Morgan, Frankland saw. The day before the quake, he’d bailed out on that assault charge.

  A Catholic. One of Robitaille’s flock, and before he’d got out of jail he had worked for Magnusson, at the video store. The rest of his family had evacuated to Hot Springs, but Studs had remained, looking after the family farm, because he and his family didn’t get along. After the second big quake, the Morgan place had burned down, and Studs had come to the camp.

  Frankland tried not to scowl. “Later, please, Studs,” Frankland said. “It’s not time for questions.”

  “What’s being done about staying in touch with the out-side?” Studs called. “I’m sure it would comfort a lot of people here to know that their families down in Hot Springs were safe.” And dang it, Frankland heard people in the crowd agreeing with him.

  Tension sang along Frankland’s jawline as he deliberately donned his brightest smile.

  “Well,” he said through the smile, “I’m afraid there isn’t much of an outside to talk to, properly speaking. It’s a real mess out there, Studs. You’ve heard the bulletins. We should all be thankful that—”

  “You’ve got a radio station!” Studs shouted. “All you have to do is call for help!”

  “There are other people worse off than we are,” Frankland said. “Much worse off. We have food, we have adequate shelter. Other people should be first in line…”

  “We need a doctor!” Studs said. “What if we get sick? What if someone gets hurt?” Frankland saw Hilkiah out of the corner of his eye. Hilkiah sort of puffed, like a cat confronting a growling dog. All his muscles swollen, his neck taut, the prison tattoos ready to pop off his flesh with the tension that swelled his arms.

  “I’ll take care of this, Reverend,” Hilkiah growled.

  No, Frankland thought. That would be a disaster. He’d have to win them over; he’d have to convince them. Force would make enemies of them all.

  He was right. All he needed was the rush, the feeling of the Spirit flowing into his body. And then he could convince them, convince them as he always did…

  Frankland held the microphone away from his face, turned to Hilkiah. “No,” he said. “Not now. I’ve got to—”

  And then Hilkiah’s head exploded, a huge splash of red and white superimposed for a brilliant second on Frankland’s retinal image of his aide. As the big body fell, as the crowd reacted in shock, Frankland heard the voice calling across the highway, from the deserted catfish farm.

  “Send me my family!” the voice shouted. ” I want my children, Your Holiness, and I want them now!” The concussion slapped Nick’s ears. He watched Hilkiah’s body fall, and he thought rifle. As he turned and lunged to his feet in one strangely seamless motion, he knew in an instant what he had to do.

  “Up!” hauling at Arlette’s arm. “Up! Keep down and run this way!”

  “Send me my family!” a voice called.

  The crowd was reacting, stirring like leaves in a slow wind. There were screams and shocked looks. Nick had hauled Arlette to her feet by one hand under her arm. He reached with the other hand, slid under Manon’s armpit.

  “Up!” he said.

  Oh God, he thought, don’t let the guards start shooting back.

  Those people wouldn’t have any kind of fire discipline at all, he knew, they’d just start blazing away. The more bullets in the air, the more danger for everybody.

  He had Arlette and Manon up and moving through the crowd. His hands were on their backs, pressing them down into a crouch to make a smaller target. Jason was scrambling to his feet, a wild look on his face.

  There was a scramble at the head of the congregation, Frankland falling as if he’d tripped over something, the choir stampeding off their risers. Feedback shrieked over the speakers. And then one of the guards cut loose, a crackle of fire from one of the Armalites. It wasn’t automatic fire, but it might as well have been, the rifle snapping away as fast as the guard could pull the trigger.

  Another shot, a single deep boom sounding over the rattle of the Armalite, and the crowd screamed as Dr. Calhoun fell, clutching at his midsection.

  “Run!” Nick shouted. He hauled at Manon as she tripped over someone’s legs. “This way!” There was more chattering fire from Armalites. “Stop!” Frankland’s voice, an anguished shout over the loudspeakers. “Stop that shooting!”

  “This way!” Nick panted. “Quick!” He tried to put his body between Arlette and the shooter, but he figured it was useless. A single bullet could tear through them both.

  Another boom. There was a raw scream of agony, a sound that sent claws tearing along Nick’s nerves, and one of the Armalites stopped firing.

  A scoped rifle, Nick thought. A sniper just picking his targets with all the deliberation in the world, and he was probably well concealed by the earthen bank surrounding Johnson’s catfish pond across the road. There was no way the guards were going to stop him, not the way they were using their weapons, firing fast and almost at random.

  “Stop the shooting!” shouted Frankland.

  The crowd was screaming, picking itself up, scattering in flight. To Nick they were just obstacles, slow-moving, stupid things blundering between him and his objective. He moved through them like an Olympic skier charging down the slalom slopes. Nick alone, of all these people, knew where he was going.

  “This way! This way!”

  Nick ran for the parking lot. Arlette, Manon, and Jason were with him. Manon’s eyes were big as saucers, and she clutched at Arlette, trying to shield her. They leaped a four-foot crevasse rather than queue up for a plank bridge.

  The firing, a part of his mind observed, had died away. But the noise level had vastly increased as over a hundred people screamed and shouted and ran
like panicked animals for cover. But this was an old field, plowed flat over scores of years and still rutted from the last time it was sowed with cotton, and there was no cover really, nothing but the buildings and a few trees and the dangerous crevasses left by earthquakes. Not enough to shelter everyone.

  There were also the vehicles parked by the road. But you couldn’t run away to the parking lot, you had to angle toward the sniper to get there. Nick hadn’t led his group straight to the parked vehicles, he first took them parallel to the highway until there were plenty of cars between him and the sniper, then led them into the shadow of the Reverend Doctor Calhoun’s old bus, then on to a truck parked just beyond.

  “You wait here,” Nick said. He pressed Manon and Arlette down behind a big tire. The truck body itself would provide little protection against a high-powered rifle, but the engine block would, and the engine block was behind the front tire.

  “Send me my family!” The sniper’s high-pitched voice could barely be heard over the shrieks of the crowd.

  “Just stop the shooting!” Frankland begged over wild feedback shrieks. Nick opened the truck door, checked to see if there were keys in the ignition. There weren’t. He passed a quick hand over the top of the dash, then over the top of the sun shade to see if the driver had stashed his keys there.

  No luck. He needed to find another truck.

  He herded the others to the next truck, checked there, found nothing. Moved everyone to the next. Frankland and the sniper were shouting at each other, trying to negotiate.

  Olson, he remembered. The sniper’s name would be Olson. The loud, red-faced, blustering man. Now his bluster was backed by a large firearm, which elevated the bluster to a new level.

  “We’re going?” Manon gasped, realizing at last what Nick intended. “We’re leaving the camp?”

  “No better time,” Nick said as he groped for keys.

  “That one,” Jason said, pointing to another truck. “I was in it yesterday.” Nick led the others to the truck Jason indicated, opened the door and saw, gleaming in the ignition, the dangling keys. He turned back to Manon and the others.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m going to start the truck and get it moving. I don’t want you in the truck just yet!

  You move alongside the truck, okay? Crouch right down! Keep the engine block between you and the shooter. And when I give the word, you just pile in the cab next to me, and keep your heads down. Understand?”

  Nick saw a series of nods. He looked in the wide eyes for comprehension and saw it. Adrenaline flamed through his veins. Nick crawled into the cab of the truck and slid across the bench seat to the driver’s side. He slammed down the clutch so hard that it hit the floor-boards with a boom. His hands shook so much that it took him two tries to get a proper grip on the ignition key. He pumped the accelerator, twisted the key.

  And the engine started. By God, it started.

  Nick blinked sweat out of his eyes as he jammed the shift lever into first and let out the clutch. The truck shuddered and Nick remembered the parking brake—he slammed at it with his hand and the truck leaped forward. Nick juggled accelerator and clutch as he slowed the truck to match it to his family’s pace on foot. He crouched down over the wheel, trying to make a smaller target, and he tried to keep other vehicles between himself and the catfish pond, keep more metal between himself and any bullets. He ran out of parking lot and cover at the same time. He put in the clutch and let the truck coast to a stop.

  “Everyone in!” he said. “Fast now, fast! Heads down!”

  Manon and Arlette came scrambling in, Manon on top in an attempt to shelter her daughter with her body. Jason came next, jamming himself in with difficulty next to the others, his task made more difficult by the hard red body of the Astroscan telescope he’d slung over his shoulder. He had brought the scope with him that morning, Nick remembered, to have Frankland store it. And he’d kept ahold of it through everything.

  “Maggie!” Olson’s voice, crying over the battlefield. “Maggie you get out here, you bring Liza and Dickie!”

  Nick let out the clutch before his three passengers had quite wedged themselves in, and Jason gave a yell and clutched at the dashboard as the truck leaped forward and threatened to spill him into the bar ditch. The truck swayed as it ran up the shoulder of the road, and Nick flung the wheel over and punched the accelerator to the floor.

  His back tensed. Waiting for the bullet.

  Nick shifted into second, then into third. Tools and planks in the truck bed boomed as the truck thundered over broken asphalt and a filled-in crevasse. The last of the camp, the unmarried men’s compound, fell behind.

  Gears clashed as Nick shifted into fourth. His lips skinned back from his teeth in a demon smile. The sniper wasn’t gunning for them. They were free.

  Frankland tried to take a step and stumbled over Hilkiah’s inert body. Another shot boomed. There was the weird whine of a bullet sheathing itself in flesh, but all he could see was trampling feet. He clutched the microphone in his fist. He knew that if he gave up the microphone, he gave up all hope of saving the situation.

  “Stop the shooting!” Frankland cried. “Stop!” Shots chattered out into the air, people firing wildly. The panicked crowd screamed as it scattered over the fields. Choir members sprawled over the ground as the risers on which they were standing were tipped by panicked singers.

  Frankland scurried on hands and knees after the crowd, trying to get the solid bulk of his steel-framed church between himself and the sniper.

  Some people ran past him, dragging Dr. Calhoun over the bloody grass. Calhoun had been shot, Frankland thought dimly. And a voice in him said, Oh, iniquity!

  Another cry, barely audible over the panic, came from the man lying behind the banks of Brother Johnson’s catfish ponds. ” Send me my family!”

  Olson, Frankland thought. It was Olson out there. Somehow he had not quite realized this till now.

  “You’ll get your family!” Frankland shouted into the mike. “Just stop the shooting!” One of the Armalites ripped off a dozen rounds. “Stop that firing!” Frankland commanded, and the gunshots ceased.

  He scurried around the corner of the church. There were thirty people lying there—Frankland saw Sheryl with a pistol in her hand, and Calhoun lying pale, and old Sheriff Gorton standing there with a mild, puzzled look on his face, as if he were trying to work out the daily crossword in the paper.

  “Maggie!” Olson called. “Maggie, you come out here!” Frankland looked out at the terrified crowd stampeding away from the site of the shooting, and he wondered if there was any way he could find Maggie Olson and her children anywhere in that panicked mass.

  “Maggie!” Olson’s voice again. “Maggie you get out here, you bring Liza and Dickie!” Olson squeezed off two shots that rang on the steel sides of the church. Frankland looked over his head and saw two bullet holes.

  The church wasn’t cover at all. That high-powered rifle of Olson’s could punch right through it.

  “You’ll get your family!” Frankland shouted, “just stop the shooting!” He had been the target, Frankland thought. If he hadn’t turned his head when he did, to whisper into Hilkiah’s ear, it would have been his own head that exploded under the force of the bullet. And if he hadn’t tripped, he would probably have been gutshot instead of Calhoun.

  The Lord had preserved him, he realized. And that meant that the Lord wasn’t done with him yet, that the Lord still featured him in his plans.

  Frankland and Olson shouted back and forth for long moments while the crowd dispersed over the camp and beyond. Eventually Maggie Olson and her two children were located and sent forward to her husband. Maggie wept as she dragged herself with slow steps across the asphalt highway toward her husband, and her youngest was hysterical, screaming against his mother’s shoulder as she carried him toward the catfish pond where her husband had fortified himself.

  “Now you just leave us alone!” Olson shouted after his family joined him. “You l
eave us alone, and we’ll leave you alone! If you send anyone after us, I’ll shoot him dead.”

  Frankland saw no point in replying. He looked at Calhoun lying gasping and pale. Hilkiah’s corpse was barely visible around the corner of the church. The flies were already busy about his brains. They hath taken my right arm, Frankland thought, but I shall smite them sore with my left. He had better things to do than wonder if the phrase that just popped into his head was actually from the Bible or not.

  There was a rushing sound in Frankland’s ears, like a thousand angels in flight. He picked his way through the prone figures toward Dr. Calhoun, who lay surrounded by the crouched forms of Sheryl, the Reverend Garb, and several others. Calhoun was pale, and his skin was moist. Frankland crouched by him, saw Calhoun’s midsection soaked in red. Someone’s shirt was folded and pressed over the wound to stem the bleeding, but Frankland knew that bleeding was not the greatest danger facing a gutshot man. Calhoun would die within a few days, and he would die of peritonitis because there wasn’t a doctor in Rails Bluff capable of saving him. Frankland took Calhoun’s hand. “How you doing, Lucius?” he asked. Calhoun licked his lips. “Praying,” he said. Dust blew from his ginger mustache as he spoke.

  “Well,” Frankland said, and touched his colleague’s shoulder, “we’ll get the man that did this.” Calhoun nodded. “Olson,” he said.

  “Yes. Smite him. We’ll smite him.” The sound in Frankland’s ears resolved itself into a band of angels singing a chorus of vengeance.

  Calhoun nodded again. His bloody fingers tightened on Frankland’s.

  “I’ll talk to you soon,” Frankland said, “and we’ll pray together, if you like. But right now I got a posse to put together.”

  Calhoun nodded. “Heaven-o,” he said.

  Frankland rose to his feet. His skull filled with the sound of angels crying for vengeance. An unprovoked attack, Frankland thought. He just fired from ambush, without warning, and blew Brother Hilkiah’s head right off. Frankland couldn’t let Olson get away with that. Olson and his family had to leave the safety of that catfish pond embankment sooner or later. And when they did, Frankland and his people would follow. Olson would find he wasn’t the only person with a high-powered hunting rifle.