The Rift

by Walter Jon Williams

  Don’t let them hear you, don’t let them see you, don’t become a target. A child, powerless by nature, knows these rules by instinct.

  Nora had disobeyed the rules and died.

  What did you die for? Jason thought at the corpse. Life was a flash in the darkness, brief enough without throwing it away. Life was the only thing life had.

  A modest aftershock trembled in the earth for a moment, then passed. Jason looked away from the corpse as he caught movement in the tail of his eye, Arlette walking toward him. That’s what you die for, he thought with sudden certainty.

  You die for what you love.

  Jason rose and kissed Arlette hello. He put his arms around her. “How was Nick?” he asked, then winced at the pain in his throat.

  “Asleep. I left his breakfast with him.” She looked at the body beyond the fence, then turned her head abruptly. “Let’s go someplace else,” she said in a small voice.

  There’s no place else we can go, he almost said. But he said “All right” instead, and took Arlette’s hand as they walked away from Nora, toward the front of the camp. There was an undercurrent of excitement, people meeting in small groups. Jason saw some half-concealed weapons, clubs and knives. Nobody had included Jason in any of these schemes as yet. He and Arlette and Manon had a rendezvous, a place under one of the cotton wagons where they were supposed to meet in the event of an emergency. Other than that, Jason was at liberty, he supposed, to make his own plans, if he could work something out.

  He could still try to escape tonight. Cudjo showed it could be done.

  But Nora showed how it couldn’t. He had to think about that.

  He and Arlette paused in the shade of one of the camp’s pecan trees. He kissed her again, looked into her somber brown eyes.

  I would die for you, he wanted to say. Instead he tilted his head a little to the left, to ease the pain in his throat, and said, “How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay.” She shrugged. “Shots, bodies.” Anger hardened her face. “I’m beginning to understand why you’re mad at God.”

  “I’m not anymore,” Jason said.

  She looked at him.

  “The universe is too big to be angry at it,” he said. “It’s like being mad at this tree for being a pecan instead of a magnolia. It’s a waste of our time.”

  She glanced over one shoulder in the direction of the gate. Her eyes hardened. “Is it a waste to hate a murderer for being a murderer?” she said.

  “Murderers are different,” Jason said. “They’re more our size.” Arlette gave a little sniff, tossed her head. “They’re smaller,” she said. “Much smaller.”

  “Yes,” Jason said. He glanced over the camp, the people in their small, hurried groups. “I was surprised that you or your mom didn’t talk to Cudjo in French.”

  A smile touched her lips. “I think his French was probably as funky as his English. I’ve learned French French, not Cajun, and probably Cudjo speaks a pretty strange version of Cajun, at that.”

  “Captain Joe could have talked to him, I guess.”

  “From what I heard of him over the radio, he probably could.”

  He took her hands. “I’m glad we had a chance to be together last night, before Cudjo turned up.”

  “And before my momma came and separated us.” She smiled.

  “I don’t think she’s looking at us now,” Jason said.

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  They kissed. Arlette leaned back against the tree. Jason pressed himself to her. Her presence whirled in his senses.

  “God damn, girl,” said a voice. Jason turned, saw the three boys Arlette had spoken to the day before.

  “What are you doing with this boy?” Sekou said to Arlette. “You think his color’s catching? You think those pecker-woods won’t hurt you, you kiss him hard enough?”

  Fury flashed through Jason. He faced the other boys, fists clenched by his side. Then he saw that Sekou carried a heavy stick, just hanging casually against his leg, and that the boy called Raymond had a hammer stuck through his belt, and he took a step back.

  “Why don’t you mind your own business,” Arlette said.

  “It’s your business to be with black people,” Sekou said. “You’re disrespecting the race.”

  “Sisters gotta support the brothers,” Raymond said.

  Arlette looked at them. “Even when they’re being as charming as you?” she asked.

  “We’re gonna fight for you,” Sekou said, “so why are you hangin’ with the little kid? Jason—” His tone turned mocking. “Jason! What kind of trifling Yuppie-ass name is that?” Jason considered kicking the nearest one in the crotch and then running for it. He thought that probably some adult would call the situation to order before he got his head beaten in. Anger flashed from Arlette’s eyes. “Why don’t you just leave us alone?” she said.

  “Scandalous-ass bitch upset, now,” said Raymond.

  “Jason saved my life,” Arlette said. “He saved my whole family from a boat full of crazy men. You want some respect, you go do something useful instead of fronting on this crap.” Raymond looked at Jason from under half-closed eyelids. “You better watch it with the white boy,” he said. “They set up a nigga every time.”

  His pulse throbbed in Jason’s ears. He felt his toes curl in his Nikes. Getting the range on Raymond’s crotch.

  “Jason’s black enough to be here!” Arlette said. “He’s black enough for them!” She flung a pointing finger toward the deputies. Arlette’s eyes flared. “He’s black enough to die with you!” The others fell silent. Arlette glared at them for a moment, then took Jason’s arm and steered him away.

  “‘Scandalous-ass bitch’!” she fumed. “You heard what they called me?” Jason’s mouth was dry. Adrenaline sang in his veins. He’d been a half-second from violence, and it would probably have been violence inflicted mostly on him.

  “Thanks for sticking up for me,” he croaked through his injured throat.

  “You stuck up for me when it counted,” she said.

  Jason strove for words to express his surging feelings, the thoughts that whirled in his head. Found himself baffled. “This race thing,” he said finally. “It’s really fucked.” The diarrhea at Clarendon was responding to treatment. Dr. Patel went home for his first sleep in days, and Omar returned to his office. Omar had ordered David to stay away from Woodbine Corners—had sent him out patrolling with Merle, in fact, on the other end of the parish, down by the Bayou Bridge. Merle and David were the two key people he absolutely wanted away from the A.M.E. camp. He wasn’t going to go anywhere near the camp himself, especially not today. Deniability was an absolute necessity. Containment. That’s what Omar was after. Build a nice fence around everything. Omar’s head throbbed. A sharp icepick pain flamed beneath his sternum. Sometimes it seemed he could barely breathe.

  It was ten in the morning. Knox and Jedthus and their people should be about their work by now. Work he did not, officially, know about.

  That’s why he was surprised when Jedthus walked into his office. Omar looked up in surprise. “What’s going on?” he said.

  Jedthus carefully closed the door before speaking. “We’ve been ready to go,” he said. “You know, do the necessary at the camp. But Knox didn’t turn up. He was supposed to join us at eight o’clock.”

  “Says which?” Omar was thunderstruck. “He’s gone?”

  “He’s not gone, he’s asleep.”

  “What?”

  “I went to where he’s been staying—Sunny Spence’s old storefront, you know—and there he was. I tried to wake him up, but he just rolled over and went back to sleep.”

  “Is he sick?”

  “He’s—” Jedthus hesitated. “You’d best see for yourself, Omar.” Sunny Spence’s Dress Shoppe and Gifts, on Beauregard Street, had been closed for five years. No other business had wanted to rent the building, so the place had remained boarded up till the parish, under emergency decrees, had opened the place to house re
fugees. It had survived the quakes remarkably well for a building that hadn’t been maintained in ages. Omar had given it to the Crusaders as a crash pad. Knox was asleep, lying atop a down sleeping bag behind the counter. Clothing and sleeping bags belonging to the other Crusaders lay around the store. A pistol, a shotgun, and a deputy’s badge sat atop the counter, within arm’s reach of where Knox lay. Knox wore only his undershorts and was curled up on his side in a fetal position.

  “Hey Micah,” Omar bent down—the movement sent pain ringing through his head—and shook Knox’s shoulder. “Micah, it’s time to get up.” His nose wrinkled at Knox’s acidic body odor. “Man,” he said, “this boy needs a bath.”

  Omar shook Knox again. Knox gave a kind of sigh, and then his eyelids cracked open. “Oh, hi Omar,” he said, then rolled on his back, smiled a little, and went back to sleep.

  “Son of a bitch,” Omar said. He straightened, and looked in stunned amazement at the needle tracks that ran up and down Knox’s arms.

  “God damn,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Jedthus said. “We got us a junkie, Omar. You figure he’s OD’d?” No wonder he always wore long sleeves, Omar thought. And the way he smelled—that was the drugs coming out in his sweat.

  Fury sang through Omar’s nerves. “What’s he using?” he demanded. It had to be an upper, from the way Knox was always jumping around. “Damn it,” Omar said, “I searched this boy!” Omar tore through Knox’s belongings—upended the toiletry bag, flipped through the pages of Hunter, tore the lap-top computer from its foam packing—before he thought to open the big, heavy 500-count bottle of aspirin that had fallen out among the toiletries, and shake out the Crusader’s drugs. There was a set of needles and a syringe—the works were real doctor’s issue, not the sort found on the street and made from an eyedropper—along with a fire-blackened spoon and a baggie of brown substance, presumably heroin. There was another bag of pills: black mollies, methedrine. A third baggie with a minute amount of white powder remaining. Omar opened the baggie, tasted the substance. Crystal meth.

  Speedballs, Omar thought. The classic speedball was a mixture of heroin and cocaine, but working-class stiffs used heroin and methedrine instead. You could go for days on the stuff until you hit the wall and crashed. The meth was acidic and ravaged the veins, and that would have produced Knox’s impressive rows of needle tracks in fairly short order. Though it was possible he shot only the heroin, and snorted or swallowed the speed.

  “Damn it,” Omar said. “Why didn’t I see this?” Knox’s fidgeting, his slapping out rhythms on his knees or his chair, the way he kept talking, the words spilling out, the theories and the diatribes and the history and the fantasy, all run together, all confused…

  Knox was deep in drug psychosis, wandering around the country, jabbering about revolution and race war while he robbed banks and spent the money on scag and crank. Omar wondered if the other Crusaders were junkies as well, if this was some kind of heavily armed, mobile drug posse. Jesus. David had been around these people. David had fallen for their line, had wanted to join them in their underground, follow this drug-addled psychopath as he lurched from one crime to the next.

  “What do we do, Omar?” Jedthus demanded. “We can’t wake him up. We can’t arrest him.” He paced around the little store. “Do I go back to the camp? Do I do the—the operation without him?” Omar stepped away from Knox. He wanted a breath of fresh air, wanted to get Knox’s stink out of his nostrils.

  If Knox wasn’t present to run the operation at the camp, Omar thought, then Jedthus was in charge. Omar, however, wasn’t inclined to trust Jedthus’s judgment. The boy was on the right side, but bone stupid. Yet if Jedthus wasn’t in charge, then Omar was in charge. And if Omar was in charge, then deniability went out the window.

  Besides, he wanted Knox in control of eliminating that camp. Even if Knox was a psycho, he’d get the job done.

  Knox was a weapon, Omar reminded himself. Made just for Spottswood Parish. And when his job was over—when the weapon had been fired—there would no longer be any reason for him to exist. Omar took a breath. “Wait for Knox to wake up. Bring him some coffee and some food.”

  “But Omar,” Jedthus said. “He’s OD’d!”

  “He’s crashed,” Omar said. “Speed freaks do that. They run for days, but they can’t live without sleep forever.” He looked around the Shoppe, at the sleeping bags, blankets, pallets, and belongings of the other Crusaders scattered around the dusty floor.

  “Do you think they’re all users?” Omar asked.

  Jedthus thought about it. “They’re not all as speedy as Micah, but sometimes they’re hyped. Yeah. We’re all on twelve-hour shifts; I wondered how they held up so well.”

  Omar walked to Jedthus, put a hand on his shoulder, and lowered his voice. “These people are not reliable,” he said. “Knox is a psycho. I wouldn’t trust any of them behind a dime.” Jedthus nodded. “Yeah. I understand, Omar.”

  “These kids are going to crack sooner or later,” Omar said. “And that will be bad for us. Real bad. So just be ready—we’ll have to do something about it.”

  There was a moment of silence while Jedthus processed this. Then he licked his lips. “You mean—”

  “I mean that action will be taken. But not now. We’ve got to deal with the camp first. Okay?”

  “Yeah.” Jedthus tipped his hat back, passed a hand over his forehead. “Yeah, I understand.” Omar moved back to the table and began to stuff Knox’s paraphernalia back in the aspirin bottle. “For right now,” he said. “Just get Knox on his feet. Give him enough privacy to pop his pills or whatever. Then get out to the camp and do the job.”

  Jedthus’s eyes turned hard. “I understand,” he said.

  “I’m going back to the courthouse and cover y’all’s asses with the authorities, just like I planned.”

  “I’ll give you a ride.”

  “No. I’ll walk. You stay here with Knox.”

  Omar stepped out of the shop and a lance of sunlight drove straight through his brain. He swayed on his feet.

  This is going to be over soon, he told himself. Over.

  And then he’d feel better.

  “Head for that gate,” Nick said. “Fast as you can. Stop only to pick up guns and ammunition. Once you’re out, get in among the cars. Some of you are going to have to run for those roadblocks.” The young men looked up at him, nodded gravely.

  “Don’t stop,” Nick said again. “We’re counting on you.”

  I am telling them how to commit suicide, Nick thought. He wondered if they knew that. He had a military force of sorts, composed of almost all the able men in the camp, along with some of the women, all recruited overnight by the various camp committees. Nick was a kind of general, at least insofar as they all were supposed to be following his plan. They were divided into three groups. The Warriors—younger men and women, mostly—would hold off the bad guys while the others made their escape. The Home Guard—older but able-bodied—were supposed to look after the women, children, and old people, and escort them to a place of safety while the Warriors held off any pursuit. The third group were the ones Nick had called the Samurai, though he privately thought of them as the Kamikaze. They were the ones who were trusted with the camp’s meager store of firearms, because they professed themselves good with guns.

  Their job was to kill guards. They said they were ready to do this. The odds said they would probably die trying.

  It was small comfort that they had all volunteered.

  “Don’t forget,” Nick said. “Keep moving. Don’t get bogged down. We’re counting on you.” His father would know just how to do this, Nick thought. His father had been trained in how to send people to their deaths. How to act. How to think about it all.

  Just thinking about what was going to happen to his little army made Nick tremble at the knees. He’d talked to all of them, he thought. The afternoon sun was burning down on him and making his head throb. He needed something to drink. The depu
ties still hadn’t come.

  His father would quote Sun Tzu, he thought. Chinese military strategy was one of his passions. Cold analysis, life and death, marches and battles, but written all in poetry.

  To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the zenith of achievement. His father loved that passage. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the zenith of achievement. We’ve already lost the chance not to fight, Nick thought. And one victory in one battle is all I ask. Okay, Sun? he thought. Okay, Dad?

  Nick gave his doomed soldiers the floppy-wristed home-boy handshake—My God, he thought at the touch of palm on palm, we are surely going to die—and then he hobbled to the cookhouse. Pain throbbed through his kidney at every step. Drank his glass of water, then poured another glass over his head in hopes it would cool him off.

  He shook his head, and droplets of water showered the ground around him. The air hung torrid and oppressive, so sultry that Nick felt as if he were moving under water. One of the workers in the cookhouse gave him a cracker and a scoop of rice, leftovers from the noon meal that he’d missed, and he ate them.

  “Excuse me?”

  Nick turned to the speaker, a youngish white man with short-cropped hair bleached white by the sun. Nick blinked at the strange figure. One day in the camp, he thought, and now the very fact of a Caucasian seemed odd. The man held out his hand.

  “Jack Taylor,” he said. Nick shook the hand.

  “Nick Ruford.”

  Taylor’s green eyes looked sidelong at the others in the camp. “Listen,” he said. “I know something’s up. And I want to be a part of it. You know what I’m saying?”

  Nick looked at him warily. “Why ask me?”

  “Because it’s centered around you.” Taylor licked his lips. “Look,” he said. “Nobody will talk to me. And I understand why, okay. Nobody trusts me. But listen—” A dogged look entered his eyes. “My wife is black. My step-kid is black. My children are half-black. They’re all in here with me. And you’d have to be crazy to think I wouldn’t fight for them. I want to fight for them. I want to be a part of what’s happening. Can you fix it?”