“I am.”
“You damn well better be. You’ve always seemed like a decent man. I don’t know if it was the right thing for you to step down, but whether it was or it wasn’t it’s what we have to deal with now. I’ve lived here for the past few years, built a business that houses and feeds my family, and I’m not willing to turn loose of my home. Not for some damn Nazi pretending to be something else. And we all know that’s exactly what he is. He can pretend he’s part of this new America all he wants to, but he’s determined to poison this place if he can. Maybe he will, but I’ll be goddamned if he’s going to do it without a fight. You tell who you need to that I’m willing, with one provision. You’re my campaign manager.”
Kyle laughed, swung the tailgate shut.
“I was afraid that was the provision,” he said. “I really was.”
25
GAVIN HEARD THEY WERE RUNNING THAT BLACK TREE CUTTER WHO lived in Elizabethton. He was unsure whether to be concerned or amused. What resulted was an uneasy combination of the two. Certainly it would get the attention of the media, which should drive people to the polls. The wheels of democracy on the move. He just had to make sure it was headed in the right direction.
He spent most of the morning going over some addresses he’d canvassed the week before. He still had another three weeks before the special election, which meant he should be able to get around to most everyone in the area he thought likely to turn up and vote. That meant Farmer was working at a pretty steep incline in terms of getting his name out there to the public. Sealy had called the night before to tell him what he already knew. That Pettus was working with him, running the whole monkey show, so to speak. Unable to let things rest and each man rise according to his own talents.
Gavin called Jonathan, told him to get the car ready. They were going to do a little personal campaigning. Reach out and touch someone.
Jonathan was leaning up against the hood of the car, smoking. Gavin handed him an address.
“Put that in your phone. It’ll get us where we’re going.”
Jonathan ground the cigarette underfoot and slumped behind the wheel.
A quarter of an hour later they were sitting in front of Kyle Pettus’s greenhouse. Pettus stood in the doorway of the upper enclosure, wiping his hands on a rag and likely speaking some unheard obscenity.
“You stay in the car, Jonathan,” Gavin told him. “In case the pistol-packing ex-commissioner attempts a repeat performance.”
Jonathan pulled out his phone and started to play with it.
Pettus stayed where he was, didn’t say the first word when Gavin walked up.
“I’ve heard the news,” Gavin began.
“I would have imagined you had, given your friendliness with that newspaper reporter.”
“Well, Mister Sealy is merely excited to have a bit of real news to cover, I imagine. I don’t think he intends anything particularly nefarious, from my point of view, at least.”
“Yeah, you’ve got a hell of a point of view, don’t you?”
“I do have principles, you know. The things I believe aren’t merely a matter of trying to rhetorically convince someone. Don’t you think that merits some degree of respect, even if you don’t hold those same values yourself?”
“I think it merits treating you like something that’s liable to bite.”
“No way to talk to a man trying to unburden himself to you.”
“Is that what this is?”
“I want to ask you something, with deepest sincerity.”
Pettus said nothing, waited.
“I know you don’t care for me or for the people I represent. We have fundamentally different worldviews, as they like to say in the press, but that doesn’t cancel out the fact that we’re both white men.”
“That doesn’t mean a goddamn thing to me.”
Gavin’s laughter came up like a strong cough.
“My Lord, Pettus. Of course it does, regardless of what lie you’ve told yourself. I realize that you think of who you are in a certain way. So many of you people who’ve gone off and spent a few semesters over at the state university like to believe they’ve cleansed themselves of their truer selves. That’s fine. Every tribe needs its outliers. Makes things more interesting, don’t you think?”
“I’m still waiting to hear why the hell you’re on my property.”
“Well, that’s fine. A man with no patience for reason. I can see the virtue in that. Let’s come to the point then. You might think this yard ape you’re running in your stead is your little black savior, but I’m telling you right now that you’re forgetting what this country really is at the end of the day. These people up here in these mountains don’t need to be told by others how to think. They have the wisdom of the common man. They trust in their blood, their belonging to one another. You can pretend you’re not a part of it all you want, but no one makes you live where you do among people like this. One thing I’ve learned in life is that you’re not always born in the place you belong. This place, these mountains, they called to me, attracted me here like something pulling me from deep inside the ground. It would be profane for me to ignore that. If you don’t feel at home here, Pettus, maybe that’s because you’re not. Just because you hold the property deed to this mountain, doesn’t mean it belongs to you.”
“I plan to walk back to my house right now. If you’re still standing here by the time I come back out I’ll be carrying a good deer rifle and I’m pretty dead on with it.”
“I have no doubt. You’ve already proven your marksmanship, haven’t you. Very good. I won’t be in your way then.”
Gavin did not rush back to the car. What was the word? Sauntered. Yes, he sauntered back and slipped into the passenger’s seat, felt a warmth overtake him, a kind of fulfillment that seemed to brim and spill over.
THAT EVENING Gavin sat alone on the porch going over a notebook of talking points. It was a brief sketch he had begun to develop after supper when he received a call from the election commission, an invitation to a formal debate scheduled the week before the election. It would be held at the county courthouse. He had consented with pleasure. There was no doubt in his mind that the fact of his participation would force Farmer’s hand. Couldn’t afford to be seen as the coward, not if he was to be the symbol of all that he was purported to be.
It was pleasant to sit there and address himself to the task of delivering his position. The effort of concentration removed him from the immediacy of his physical environment, freed him in a way thoroughly meditative. Perhaps there was some danger in giving himself over to this, some faint amnesia, because he had become so absorbed by his own thoughts that he didn’t immediately realize that a pair of voices were speaking hoarsely to one another in the deep shadows at the far end of the verandah. It was impossible to know how long they had been there. Only a few minutes, maybe, but enough time for him to tell that they were arguing but trying not to be overheard. His pencil scratched but he had no mind for what he wrote. Instead, he made out fragments of words, sounds reaching toward him but failing to take hold. Then silence fell, the unseen voices aware of their detection. Footsteps—quick, decisive. A few seconds later a form gradually resolved itself in the pitched light above the front door. It was Delilah, alone.
“Out here all by your lonesome, huh?” she asked huskily, trailed her hand along the railing at the edge of the concrete.
“Just thinking,” he said, aware of how she tried to behave as though she wasn’t taking pains to conceal something. So very odd. But so much about her was.
“I heard about you going out there to poke at that man that gave up his place on the commissioners’ board. You sure that’s the best way to go about things?” she asked with the faintest turn of a smile.
It was as though she couldn’t help but insert flirtation into everything she did, even though she clearly loathed him. Gavin was struck by how successfully survivors could adapt themselves to any number of unpleasant circumstances. He wonde
red what things had happened to her, what had shaped her into the chameleon she had become.
“Well,” he said, motioning for her to take the seat beside him, which she did. “Matters of strategy aren’t typically straightforward, are they? There’s some force that must be applied in order to understand what the rules of the game are supposed to be. It’s a kind of physics, really. Perhaps a little less frequently observed but true nonetheless. I feel like you, of all people living here, would understand what I mean.”
Though she wasn’t looking at him, she smiled.
“Yeah, I have a pretty good idea.”
She interested him. In his own way he felt a kind of paternal affection for the young woman. Anyone motivated by hate like hers was worth study and admiration.
“I have noticed something,” he said.
“I bet you have,” she answered, the words coming with such natural quickness that it seemed she couldn’t have had time to mentally form them, the defensive tone as instinctual to her as an animal’s use of its claws. He felt uncomfortably stimulated.
“You’ve noticed Harrison isn’t the only object of my attention, haven’t you? Wondered where it all stands, is that it?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
She laughed from a place inside her that shaped the sound into something desolate.
“Well, Gavin, I’ll have to say, it is still possible to be surprised by people in this world.”
“You misconstrue my interest. I wanted only . . .”
“Bullshit. You think through your dick, just like the rest of them. Hell, I don’t fault you for that. Must be all this politics talk got your balls caught on fire. Found your little freak, huh? To each his own, I guess.”
He didn’t try to contradict what she said. Instead, he wanted to see what she might do when she had the power to act however it suited her. She moved closer, placed each of her hands on the arm of the chair as she stood over him. He could feel the heat of her body like something that might bring calm sleep. But she came no closer, stayed deliberately out of reach.
“Is this what you’re after, Gavin? Is this what this Manson Family horseshit is supposed to get you? Pussy? A bunch of damn fools running around every time you give the word? Hell, you’re smart, Gavin. That’s easy enough to see. But you’re not the only one who is. We’re all just using each other out here, if you haven’t figured that out yet. That’s why this place has a chance to do something. Not because of your ideas. What makes this place something different is that it’s full of people who are hungry, hungry in a way that people who’ve had plenty to eat all their lives can’t ever understand. And it’s them not understanding that makes them act in a way a hungry dog can smell. If you’re really smart you’ll leave all those speeches you’ve got planned in the trash. You’ll smell things out like that hungry dog.”
26
KYLE HAD COME TO SETTLE THINGS WITH ORLYNNE. SHE’D BEEN reluctant to let him past the threshold of the camper when he turned up in the evening asking if he could talk to her and Gerald for no more than a minute despite the fact that it was the dining hour. In truth, it was Gerald who’d got him past her and sitting down at the card table where the old man had already poured out a couple of goblets of homemade sangria. Taco night, he explained with a wink.
Orlynne sliced avocado, pretended Kyle took up no space there while she readied things. She talked through Gerald, asked him if they should invite Kyle to eat with them. Gerald grimaced over his wine.
“Lord God, Orlynne, let’s bury the hatchet with this nonsense.”
She made a sound that seemed significantly short of agreement. Still, she fixed Kyle a plate, slipped in beside Gerald and began to eat.
“You got a reason for coming out here?” she asked him.
Kyle had to finish chewing. Before he could answer, Gerald broke in.
“Honey, just listen to him, will you? I think you might want to hear what he has to say.”
She laughed, bit down in her taco so that the shell popped and split in her mouth.
“So, a conspiracy between you two, huh? You better pour me one of them sangrias, Gerald, before you’re looking for a new place to hang your hat tonight.”
“I talked with Laura about what happened between you and me,” Kyle said.
Orlynne relaxed her crimped mouth just a little.
“She tell you she and I had talked too?”
“She did. Told me a few things that made me understand her position a little bit better. Maybe made me understand your position a little bit better too.”
Orlynne said, “Men do have a problem with what’s right in front of their eyes sometimes. Lord knows a long life has taught me at least that much. So, that it?”
“It’s the start of it, I hope. I came to tell you that I can see how I didn’t realize the kinds of things I was asking people to do for me, what I was expecting them to do, and I’m sorry. I have never wanted to hurt those I love. Not Laura and not you.”
She eyed him a moment, let him wiggle on the pointed tip of her stare.
“You know I don’t hold anything against her personally, don’t you? I even liked talking with her when it was just her and me. It’s the only real way for women to get to know one another, Kyle. If you want it to mean something it has to come down to us apart from you. That’s just how people are.”
“I know.”
“Good. Why is it then that the look on your face says there’s something else that needs settling?”
“I’m not too excited about saying something that’s going to undo the repair we just managed,” he said, but as he did a smile worked its way behind the words.
“Oh Lord. I knew the peace couldn’t last too long. Go ahead and tell it then,” she said.
He explained his arrangement with Frank Farmer and of the strict time line they faced if they were to give his candidacy a chance of success. He needed her help. She knew the county as well as anyone and she would get people to the polls to vote. People who would understand that this was more than any other local election. That there was something real at stake.
“Gerald, honey. Will you clean the table?”
He did.
“You know, Kyle, this is one of the most foolish things I’ve ever heard of. Running the campaign of the man who’s trying to replace you because you went and embarrassed yourself. I can’t figure out which is worse, Farmer asking you to or you agreeing to it. The only grace you have is that this is the moral thing to do, even if it is a dozen kinds of stupid. So, taking all that into consideration, I guess I’ll help you. Lord knows you’ll need it.”
He came around, hugged her. She patted his arm, told him to get off her, she had some phone lines to burn.
THEY HAD to organize as quickly as they could. Frank Farmer’s place ended up becoming the campaign headquarters by default. His wife Gloria wasn’t pleased at having her home upended nor with the prospect of her husband becoming the most controversial man in the county, but she suffered the trespass stoically, if not warmly. At first, his children seemed enthralled by the busyness of everyone’s comings and goings, but they soon grew indifferent and preferred playing in the backyard in their plastic playhouse. Orlynne had a second short-term phone line installed so that she could canvass efficiently. Kyle and Frank went over current regulations and proposals due to be reviewed by the commissioners’ board. Laura had come along to make herself available for running errands. Gerald, mouth at work over a pinch of Kodiak snuff, largely occupied the role of mascot.
They decided they needed a way to formally introduce Frank to the race before the actual debate with Gavin Noon and the Republican who was running. A way to show him as a member of the community who had come forward out of duty to the place where he belonged.
“How about an open meeting? Kind of like a town hall?” Frank said. “Something where I can shake some hands and kiss some babies.”
Gloria peered over her glasses.
“Better than kissing hands and shaking bab
ies, I guess.”
Frank reached across the table, pulled her hand toward him and delivered a loud smack. Though she tried, even she couldn’t resist his charm. Her laughter got everyone else going.
“I agree,” Kyle put in. “This is the Frank Farmer the people need to see. Right here. We need a place where we can set something up on short notice.”
“The library conference room hasn’t been scheduled this week,” Laura offered. “We could do it there. It’s not huge, but it’s something.”
“What do you think, Frank?”
“By all means. If we’re going to get this train going, we need to get out of the station.”
Two nights later Kyle found a discreet place at the back of the meeting room while Frank took the podium at the front and answered questions from about two dozen townspeople who had come to hear him speak. After he’d talked for a while about living and working in Carter County, he opened the floor to questions. It was all pretty friendly. A couple of cracks about how poorly the Vols were doing these days with the pickings for All-American cornerbacks being so slim. Then some talk about zoning and local property and use taxes. He fielded it all with the good humor and approachability that had made him successful as an independent businessman. As Kyle watched, he realized Frank had something that he’d always struggled with himself as a commissioner. People simply liked Frank. He carried himself with an ease and lightness that had never felt true to Kyle. Perhaps it had something to do with Frank’s natural athleticism, his intelligent response to continually changing circumstances. He moved in his mind like he had on the field, and his voice could fill a room.
At the end of the hour Frank thanked everyone for coming and shook the hands of those who wanted to have a final word with him. Kyle moved back toward the stacks to wait for him when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He glanced over to see Turner Whist at his side.
How Fire Runs Page 18