You are a hero. You have your whole life to live. We need you as a witness. You need to speak of what you saw down there. You need to be the centerpiece in our campaign, not merely to make those responsible pay, but to change the thinking of the South. Other Southerners must know what some Southerners are capable of and what is being done in their name." Earl said nothing, as Sam lectured him. Sam, as usual, had all the answers. But possibly to the wrong questions.
"Earl, listen to me," Sam continued. "And you, too, Mr. Trugood. I have thought this all out, and it is the only way. Earl, we depose you. With your medal and your reputation, your account has instant validity and importance. We can get people to listen to your story. I have the whole campaign mapped out. I know that we can get the support of progressive people in Mississippi and throughout the South, but I also know it must be blue ribbon. We must not mess about with radicals, socialists or communists, and we should have white and Negro clergy united on our side, but no Negroes of frightful disposition or unruly countenence.
That is what is best. You are our secret weapon.
Your vengeance will be your survival and testimony, if need be in a court of law, if need be in the court of public opinion." Earl listened politely. Then he said, "First off, I do not want to be no singing clown in some kind of circus who is cry babying about all them awful things done to him. I don't like lights shining on me. But second off, and more important, here's what would happen after that.
Nothing. Not a thing."
"See, that's my point too," said Mr. Trugood. "He sees it to the nub, Mr. Vincent."
"I cannot give up on the rule of law and the majesty of the courts," said Sam. "Even in a benighted zone like Mississippi." Earl said, "You seem to think we have a choice. Your way isn't a choice at all. It's an impossibility."
Sam made a face of disapproval.
"Now, Earl―" he began.
Earl kept going.
"You know, I don't have a education like you two. I don't know enough words. But I am looking for a word now, and it means something like 'logical." But logical in the way of institutions. The way institutions act with each other. They progress along certain lines that everybody knows, that makes a sense everybody agrees upon. What is that word, Mr.
Sam? You would know it."
Sam narrowed his eyes, then spoke. "Earl, I believe the word you mean is "Yes, sir, that is it. That is the very one, right there."
"But where is this going?" asked Davis Trugood.
"I'm trying to be clear about what they've done down there, and why the ordinary remedies are doomed. You see what they've engineered? They've engineered a system that is unbreachable by what you would call a rational action, the action of men or systems who themselves are rational. They've thought about their enemies and how they'll come at them. Their whole campaign on me wasn't at all about me, but about who I represented. They thought I represented someone, and they had to work out a way to deal with that body. When they concluded I did not, it became clear they were going to kill me. But not until."
"Earl, possibly you are thinking too hard about this."
"No, Earl knows a thing or two," said Mr. Trugood.
"They are set up along one line and one line only: to survive any 'rational' attack on them. If any institution attempts to change them, they can defeat it. They will know in advance it is coming. The newspapers, the police investigators, the federal investigators, all that: it can't work because that is what they are the best at. That is what they expect. You yourself asked some questions in Washington, and for your troubles nearly had your career destroyed, Mr. Sam, by federal investigators."
"I may yet have it destroyed," said Sam. "And if we go where you're going, I may end up in prison."
"You can't do nothing rational and get them. They will always have the answer. They will go on and on and on. They'll always know in advance, they have connections, they are doing what everybody wants them to do, and clearly at some level there's some federal protection.
So if you think newspaper campaigns and Negro ministers and blue ribbon fellows are going to do a thing agin them, you are wrong, dead wrong.
They're smarter than that, and they will win every goddamned time. You cannot do it on a rational basis."
Now it was Sam's turn to say nothing.
Earl turned to Mr. Trugood.
"Sir, I don't know why you're in this, but I'm going to tell you what must be done and we will see if you have the grit to see this one through."
"Go ahead, Mr. Swagger."
"They are invulnerable to rational assault. They are vulnerable to un rational assault." "Irrational," said Sam.
"Irrational, then."
"And what does that mean?" said Mr. Trugood.
"It means something that can't happen. Something that isn't supposed to happen, not in this day and age, something that isn't in the cards."
"And that would be?"
"Men with guns in the night. Boys who know the place and can shoot a bit. It means fast, hard, complete, total surprise. Seven is the right number, I think. And I can get those men. I can. I know who they are and where they can be found, and I have the means to convince them to sign aboard. I can get ' in, and lead ' in a good night's work, and get ' out. You know why this'll work, and nothing else?
Because everything they done to fight the rational opens them up to the irrational. The isolation. The guns pointed in, not out. An installation that's out of communication and that has no reinforcements at hand and thinks its location far up a river in a jungle and a forest is all the protection it needs. Seven men, Mr. Trugood, with guns and some light equipment. I can get ' in, lead ' to do a night of man's work, and get ' out. And the State of Mississippi won't cotton to it till three or four days later."
"Earl, are you going to break some men out of prison? Is that it?" said Sam.
"You don't quite get it, Mr. Sam. I am not meaning to break some men out. I am meaning to break them all out. I am meaning to break the prison. When the morning sun rises on Thebes, there ain't going to be no Thebes. None at all. None. I'm going in and shoot to kill those who stand against me, free the convicts, burn the buildings, and blow the levee and drown the place under twenty feet of black river. Nothing is left. It is gone, razed, destroyed, like Sodom and Gomorrah in the Good Book. It is finished. I can't say what happens next, other than that it will be different. I take on trust it will be better."
"Earl, that's insurrection you're talking. You could start a race war in the South."
"No, sir. Because it'll happen so fast and so totally that there won't be nothing left. The evidence is under water and mud. The few witnesses don't make no " sense. And the state don't want to shine no spotlights on Thebes. None at all. It don't want people peeking at what went on in Thebes. It will see the wisest reaction is to let Thebes stay dead in its tomb of river, and move on." "Jesus, Earl," said Sam.
"I told you I didn't want you involved."
"We have now committed the felony of conspiracy to assault," said Sam.
"So be it," said Earl.
Sam shook his head.
Earl said, "Mr. Sam, when them German tanks were coming on, did you call the newspapers? Did you convene a panel? Did you file a suit?
What did you do?"
"I calculated range and wind. As I recall, it was 2950 meters off by range finder, with a wind of more than 10 miles an hour to the west, a full-value wind we called it. We were already zeroed at 2000 meters, so I had to come up 73 clicks, and then come over 15 clicks to the right for wind deflection. I fired a salvo for double-checking my calculations, then I fired high explosive for effect. We blew them off the face of the earth," said Sam. "There was no other thing possible.
But the state had decreed a general condition of war."
"Well, that is where we are," said Earl. "We are in a general condition of war. Or, we turn tail and forget about it and go back to our lives and live happy ever after. And Thebes goes on and on, maybe for years.
; You can't fix it. You can't modify it. You can't reform it. You can't make it better or gentler. You can only do two things.
You can wait for it to change, meaning you wait until the world changes, which it might do tomorrow or next year or next century or never. And all that time, that city of dead under the water gets more and more crowded, the Whipping House gets bloodier, the Screaming House gets louder. And we're the worst, because we knew about it and we didn't do a goddamn thing. Or we can blow it off the face of the earth. Those are the only two possibilities, realistically."
"You would take a force up that river?" said Mr. Trugood. "Or through that forest? It seems to me you'd be easily spotted and you'd have no surprise at all. Yet with only seven, you'd need surprise. I don't see―"
"I can do it. I know the way. It's a thing nobody ever thought of before." He told them.
"When?" Trugood asked.
"It's now the dark of the moon almost. I want to go in the dark of the moon next month. I want it done fast, with good men. If I hustle and travel and palaver good, it can be set up and brought off that fast."
Sam listened and saw the possibility of it.
"Earl, you are bent on this thing."
"I am, Mr. Sam."
"And if I say " and that I have to turn you in?"
"You will do what you have to do, and I will do what I have to."
"Can he do these things?" Mr. Trugood asked.
"Mr. Trugood, if Earl says he can, then he can," Sam said.
"Mr. Sam, are you with us?" Sam said nothing for a bit. Finally, he realized what he had to say, and declared himself to be a man of the law. "I cannot go against the law," he said. "But you say to do nothing would be to go against a bigger law."
"That is the gist of it, sir."
"All right. Then I can then only say this: Earl, I cannot make up my mind in a single evening. I know you must begin to make your preparations. You will do that no matter what I say. So I will ruminate, examine, penetrate the mystery, lock up with the epistemology of it.
Excuse the big word, but that is how I must proceed. If I find I cannot support you, Earl, you have to trust me to come to you and tell you. If it comes to it, I will have to go to the authorities. I may consider myself as having no choice, but I will face you square and tell you so eye to-eye."
"Fair enough, I suppose," said Earl.
"In the meantime, you'll forgive me if I don't practice my small arms marksmanship. I have said I will find something out about that place.
I have begun that effort, and in good faith and in obeyance of my decision, I will proceed. Again, fair enough?"
"Fair enough," said Earl.
"I wish you could join us enthusiastically," said Davis Trugood. "But I respect your honesty. As for me, I know my part. It is financial. You cannot fight a war without money."
It was cool and still in the minutes before dawn, and in that gray flush, only beginning to light some in the east, Earl sat on a shooting bench, enjoying a Lucky Strike. He was early, but he meant to be early.
Around him towered some magnificent Idaho mountains, but he could not see them yet. It was quiet, until at last he heard the sound of an automobile approaching, grinding its way uphill over the cinders of a road to this shooting range.
He watched as a humpbacked Chrysler from some year before the war pulled up next to his own rented Chevy, and a man got out. He was what some might call all hat and no cattle. He was a small man in a large hat. The glowing ember of a lit pipe illuminated his tough little face if you looked carefully, but as he made his preparations, he was all business.
He opened the trunk of his car and took out a leather shooting box, which contained at least five pistols or revolvers, as well as a large amount of ammunition and various cleaning tools and chemicals and rags; it had a door flap that could be unlocked and locked in the upward position, and a spotting scope then attached, neatly moored to check targets. You saw them at bull's-eye matches.
He lugged this thing up just a bit to another bench, and there set it down. He noticed Earl.
"Howdy," he said.
"Howdy, sir."
"Looks to be a right fine day, don't it?"
"It does," said Earl.
The old man got himself set up. He opened the flap and connected the telescope. He pulled out the case's drawer to reveal the five guns which turned out, as Earl saw, to be all heavy revolvers manufactured either by Colt on the.41 frame or by Smith & Wesson on the N-frame.
Then he removed several plastic boxes, removed the tops, and Earl saw neat rows of cartridges.
Next, out came a roll of paper targets and a staple gun.
"Cease-fire?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," said Earl.
The old man walked out on the range to a frame fifty yards gone, and quickly stapled the bull's-eyes to it. He returned to the bench and sat down behind it.
"Range hot?"
"Range hot it would be," Earl said.
The next thing out was a notebook where, with a scholar's intensity, he turned to a page where a good deal of data was already recorded, and reviewed it, almost as if he were checking over this morning's lecture before the students arrived.
So compelling was this immersion into the physics of it that he didn't look up for quite some time, now and again writing himself a note or underlining something that was already written, occasionally dealing with his briarwood pipe, which, like Sam's pipe, went out almost as often as it went on.
Finally, the sun came up enough for him to see the target and he removed a revolver―Earl saw it to be a Smith N-frame, with a four-inch barrel well engraved by an artist, and a highly carved, palm-filling ivory stock―opened the cylinder, and slid in six fat cartridges.
Setting the gun down on the bench, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cotton.
"Say, friend, don't know if you mean to shoot yourself or just watch, but I'm going to protect what little hearing I've got left with this here cotton. Would you care to help yourself?"
"Sir, my ears already ring like hell and I hear about ten percent of what is said."
"That's the damage the guns will do. You should have protected your ears when you were young."
"Yes, sir," said Earl.
"Still, I'd use some if I were you."
Earl agreed, and went over to take a wad from the little man who, approached, was more eyebrow than hat as it turned out. That is, he was about fifty-five years old, with a face that looked like a walnut's meat if it has dried in the sun over a long period, but what was remarkable were the feathers or whatever the hell they were over his eyes. They were like caterpillars possibly, extravagant things on a face so dour and grim.
Earl stuffed in the cotton as he returned, and then watched.
The old man shot. Six times. Each time the revolver jumped off the bench rest he'd set it on, and the report was loud enough that its pain penetrated unpleasantly through Earl's cotton earplugs. The old man took no notice. He simply recorded remarks in his notebook with a great deal of patience and detail. He opened the cylinder and used the hand ejector to pump out the six spent shells, which he examined with a great deal of care, again taking notes.
It went on for two hours, with time off for the old man to remove one set of targets, measure them carefully and note them duly in his notebook and hang another.
Finally, at around 9:00, he was done, and it seemed that he had returned to planet earth. He took his hat off and rubbed his hand through his hair, revealing also that the upper third of his forehead was stark white, as if it had been hidden behind the giant Stetson for years and years, his whole life perhaps. He then cleaned his guns methodically.
Then, at last, he turned.
"You are a patient fellow," he said to Earl.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Kaye, I am."
"So I see you know my name."
"I do, sir. I have heard great things about you. Not merely have I been reading your articles over the years, but a friend of mine, now passed, knew
you well in the old days. Is that your.44 Special load you are running?"
"Yes, it is. I've got one of my own design Kaye 200 grain semi wad cutters atop varying amounts of Unique. She steps out."
"I could see the recoil." "Oh, that," said Mr. Kaye. "I don't pay much attention to that.
Recoil's for sissies to worry about. Are you a sissy, son?"
"Don't really know, sir."
"Well, I am seeing how much she'll take before the pressure signs start showing: you know, bulged primers, tight casing, that sort of thing.
I'll probably blow up three or four guns before I get this one finished and get where I want to be. Now, you mentioned a friend, son. A friend of mine?" "Yes," said Earl. "His name was D. A. Parker."
"D. A.! He is a good man! He is the best! He faced many an armed man in his time, and put most of them facedown in the dust. Say, how'd you know D. A.?"
"It was my privilege to serve with him in some dirty work in Hot Springs. It was a messy fracas. Cost that fine man his life."
Elmer Kaye's face knit up in some concern as he factored in this information.
Finally he said, "So you are a lawman? So you saw some of the kind of action D. A. saw. You have faced shots fired in anger."
"There, sir, and in the war before. And before that, in the Marine Corps. A bit in Nicaragua and some in China, against the Japs even before Pearl Harbor."
"Hmmm," grumped the old man. "You are a formidable fellow, then."
"I am one lucky fellow, truth is."
"But I'm betting your arrival here was no accident, not if you knew my name and heard D. A. Parker chat about me."
"That is true, Mr. Kaye."
"Well, what would it be, son? Daylight's wasting, and I've got work to do. Have three pieces due at American Rifleman by the end of the month."
"Well, sir, it's about a little trip. A hunting trip."
"I don't guide no more."
"I'd be the guide." "Hmmm," said Elmer Kaye. "I have Africa penciled in for the fall, and Alaska in December. I'm in South America for a bit, but I don't think that's until February of fifty-two. I might have some time in January, if it tempts me."
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