When the Jihadists invaded North Carolina: February 2011

January 2007

It really wasn't a bank robbery, more like a public service, but after everything was over and done, that was what I got arrested for. Not

the kidnapping or the shooting or the breaking and entering nor any of the assault and batteries. Some concerned busybody citizen had

to remember what kind of truck we were driving and the store clerk had to remember that we there in the dollar tree just before the

robbery that wasn't a real robbery.

Still, here we were on a cold January Tuesday afternoon to go through the motions.

The judge must have eaten from Subway in his office, judging by the stray onions stuck to the front of his black robe. He waddled in

and glanced at me whilst his bailiff told us to all rise the honorable judge so-and-so was presiding. Then the judge found his seat, settled

in to his liking and we all got to sit down too. Hard wooden chairs that had most of the varnish worn off by years of sitting.

The courtroom itself looked just as worn, the banister separating us from the three or four spectators barely capable of holding itself near

vertical. The desk I was resting my arms upon rocked on it's worn legs and through the walls flecked and curling paint shown the yellow

plaster underneath. The air smelled musty and cold. A fat winter fly buzzed and bumped the glass of the nearest window, made almost

opaque with the grime from the street below.

“Mr. Walston,” the judge bellowed out, “I have read and understand your statement, and I have read and understand the charges you are

brought here to face. How do you plead?” I stood up to speak, since having Nancy tell me judges get real annoyed at people that don't

show the proper manners.

“Not guilty, your honor.” I said. “But I would like to give up my right to a jury trial.” The judge favored me with a long and ponderous

stare. Then he cleared his throat with a rumble and said,

“Mr. Walston. It is with extreme reluctance I let you proceed without benefit of counsel. To allow you to surrender your right to a jury

trial gives me even more reluctance, Armed robbery is a very serious crime. I must again highly recommend you to seek professional

legal advice. Do you understand?”

“I understand fine, your honor. I also understand that breaking the law is allowed if another crime may be prevented in the process.” I

paused to let that sink in, then continued, “Besides, it was only a water pistol and we, I mean I, threw the money out the window. I reckon

you need to want to keep the money if you're robbing a bank.” The judge closed one eye and rubbed his forehead with his left hand.

One of the spectators behind me cleared his throat as another stood up and raised his hand.

“Sir, are you asking permission to use the restroom or something?” the judge inquired.

The man, skinny and dark skinned, gave a twist of his lips to acknowledge the judges joke.

“No your honor, I would like to approach.”

“And why would that be? Who are you and how are you involved in this case?”

“My name is Smith,” which was a lie, I knew what his real name was, but I suppose it would have been the wrong time to bring it up,

“and I have information that the court needs to consider before hearing anything more from this defendant.”

I just bet you do, is what I was thinking. Mustn't let anybody hear how the great FBI almost let the bad guys get away. That wouldn't get

you any Christmas bonus this year.

I was thinking this as “Mr. Smith” was whispering in the judges incredulous ear, his eyes getting both open and wider as the whispering

went on longer and longer. Smith had some papers he was showing the judge and made sure to point out the parts he wanted to be noticed.

I was starting to yawn and doing my best to hide it. To tell the truth, I was a little disappointed, I had been looking forward to telling the

whole thing to somebody.

When agent 'Smith' got finished wearing out the judges ear, his honor motioned Smith back and announced that court would be

continued later and that he wanted to see me in his chambers. We all stood up as he flowed out through the same door he came in, and the

bailiff motioned for me to come on, but when Smith made to follow, the bailiff held up his hand and said the judge only wanted to see me,

which Smith didn't like at all. You could hear him fussing all down the hall.

I knocked on a door that had seen better days about a hundred years or so ago, then turned the knob and walked in. The judge was

pouring himself a cup of coffee and pointed at a musty old leather chair in front of his desk. I settled in and looked around. Books and

folders were stacked on shelves from the floor to the ceiling on three walls, more books and folders were piled on his desk and still more

overflowed down on the floor beside it. The wall behind the desk was pretty much filled up with window, but since the glass hadn't been

cleaned since before Noah started boat building, all you could see through it was that it was daytime outside. The judge got his coffee

sweetened to his satisfaction and squeezed down between the arms of his chair. He took a sip and rubbed a cheek with a finger, and then

took another sip. I waited.

“Mr. Walston” he said, “ I would really like for you to start at the beginning and tell me everything that has happened that brought you

to my courtroom today.” He took another sip and looked at me over the top of his glasses and went on. “I would especially like to know

why the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the United States Government is so desperate for me to ignore a small town bank robbery.

Isn't like them at all. It has always been my experience that they prefer to put people that do that sort of thing in jail. Something is fishy

hear, and before I go and make a fool of myself, I want the facts.' he pointed a chubby finger straight at my chest. “Now tell me, just how

did you get to this point in time?”

“Your honor” I warned him, “We might be here an awful long time.” He leaned back as his chair squalled in protest.

“I've got all the time we need Mr. Walston.” He answered, “All the time we need. Just don't leave anything out.”

Well, OK then.

Getting Along

The Terrorists Guide to Southern Appalachia

Chapter one

The Bank Robbing

“This is silly” Sam said. Looking at him, a rail thin bug eyed carpenter with a pair of dollar tree panty hose squashed down over his eyes and nose, I had to agree. “ I wouldn't be able to tell if the teller put the money or her shopping list in the bag wearing this thing.” I agreed that he had a point, though to tell the truth I was more worried about one of those dye bombs I'd seen on TV. The bank robbers run out the door and BANG, they're tasered, cuffed and covered in green goo, the K-9 dog gnawing off a kneecap. Not good. Not the way I wanted my first bank job to end.

Problem is, the halloween masks were all kid sized and chafed something terrible on the nose. Time was getting short and if we wanted to keep on living, which I will tell you more about later, the panty

hose was going to have to do.

“Poke some holes in it at your eyes.” I hissed, “ The doors close in 10 minutes.”

“Easy for you”he grumbled, “you got your camo mask.” Of course he had one too, but since his house was crawling with FBI agents it hadn't seemed too smart to stop and pick it up. I'd of gone to Wal-mart if it was on the same side of town as the bank, but working under such short notice I decided Dollar tree would have to do. We had to steal the hose and pay for some plaster Santa, made in India, to cover up our initiation into a life of crime. Sam had been about to walk up and pay honest when a vision of our county sheriff, on TV, asking if any store had sold such an item in the minutes leading up to the 1^st Premium Mortgage company being robbed in broad daylite on the afternoon when mid month payments were due, flashed past my minds' eye. I'd had no idea robbery was such a complicated thing,

Sam pulled out his knife and with one hand pinching the nylon sawed two ragged holes, as I pulled

my '79 ford into the parking lot. “Behind the dumpster” I thought. “Circle to the front, go out the same way, into the truck and out through the back drive.” Easy....

Looking back on it, things could have gone better. We got out of the truck without being noticed. The walk around the side of the building past the junipers to the front was a lot longer than I remembered it being. I felt that coldness in my belly that I hadn't felt in a while. The feeling that accompanies the little voice in my head telling me that I really don't have to do this, there is another way, put it off until tomorrow. I made sure the earpiece was planted firmly in my ear and the detector switch was on. Swallowing hard, I winked at Sam and and swung open the glass door.

Two tellers were working the counter. One bee-hived matron with pearls and horn rim glasses, the

other a skinny, tall blonde girl with startling white teeth. Both were busy with last minute customers. The manager wasn't around, probably in the back room listening to the sob stories from the late

payers. We dawdled over the coffee (cold) and doughnuts (stale and flyspecked) until the beehive teller had an empty stall. The earpiece was wanting to fall out, so I screwed it in tighter and got the mask on and my hand in my jacket pocket where Ories' water pistol nestled as Sam whipped his underwear/mask on. Backwards. The teller looked up and the pasted on smile froze on her powdered face. “ Is this a robbery?”, she whispered. Good, I thought, the quicker the better. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Sam crashing into the potted fern.

“Yeah, put it in here.” I said, digging from my pocket the only bag we could come up with at the last moment. I've often notice d how little things like that become big problems when you're planning something new. I heard Sam tripping over the overstuffed chair and snatching at the bank presidents portrait in a vain attempt to keep his feet..

“ Is he going to be, calm?” she asked nervously while stuffing bills into the plastic Dollar tree bag. Clearly being robbed of someone else's money wasn't near as upsetting to her as a crazy man spinning into the lobby furniture was. Sam, groping for the counter where the skinny teller was, had grabbed old Mr. Simmons by the seat of the pants instead. Mr. Simmons being slow by nature and a bird dog man, wasn't as disturbed by a squeeze on his hiney like most people would be

Taking the bag, full to the busting point with what I hoped was money instead of a bomb, a dye bomb I mean, I whispered to her, “He's not right in the head, ma'am. Best not ring any alarms until we're gone.”

Mr' Simmons was just realizing it wasn't an affectionate nip from one of his short hair pointers when I grabbed Sam's' arm and steered him to the door. We jumped the boxwoods and rounded the corner

with Mr. Simmons foghorn voice demanding to know what in creation was that moron with womens drawers on his head think he was doing?

By the time he found out, we had already done it. Our first, and I fervently hope our last, bank robbery.

I was sweating so much it was dripping off my nose. Felt like I'd been dipped in Crisco. We were driving down a gravel road through the seamier side of East Flat Rock, Sam clawing off his mask and asking “How'd we do?” I felt the need to pop him in the eye rising up, but I didn't.

“Here,” I said instead, “But don't start throwing it out the window 'til we hit Little River.” I pushed the bag into his lap. “I'm trying to make a getaway here.”

Chapter two

I meet Juney

The way we went from upstanding citizens to hunted fugitives is kind of confusing, and I know starting in the middle isn't the best way to tell the story, but hang with me here. I told the judge that he needed to know some stuff about things and people that might not seem to matter right now, but later on make the difference between him setting in a chair in his cozy home watching TV, or being a part of a humongous smoky hole in the ground. He raised an eyebrow, but I couldn't tell if he was paying any better attention.

As I was telling the Judge, the whole thing started on a Tuesday, in April. I remember it well because that was the day I had spent all morning up in Oak Knolls, one of our local golfing communities. 4000 square feet houses filled with antique pine and diffused lighting and Persian rugs so two people and a

dog have a place to sleep during the three months of the year they want to play golf in the mountains.

I had been running cornice around the Belder's new Clampett mansion. 43 corners that house had, and since the molding had a dentil on it the architect insisted I put it on myself. Sam gets dizzy if he goes past six feet up, so it was me that had to do the climbing and swearing while he sat on the ground drinking coffee. After the 15^th corner It got tedious and after the 25^th corner it got aggravating and after the 30^th I was hoping the pencil necked geek architect would wander under my ladder so I could drop a claw hammer on his little pointy artistic head.

I got home in a fine fume and slammed the tools in a corner. Elias, the boy, was at the bench dry fitting a walnut door frame together. That was the same day Juney showed up at the shop door and Nancie's oldest fell in love.

The boy is named for Nancie's Granddaddy, and he is 15 years old, six feet tall and 200 pounds of solid meat. He has a John Deere cap adhered to the back of his red haired head, a permanently wrinkled dickies work shirt over those brown Carhart pants he never seems to change. He has a good nature and though he tends to stubbornness from his Mama's side, the Carters' being known for muleheadedness, he is a hard enough worker, long as you poke him with a sharp stick every once in a while, and I depend on him to help me after he's done with school each day. He's worth as much as any grown man I've had working for me, and that's the truth.

She was maybe 5 feet standing on her tiptoes and not 90 pounds with rocks in her pockets. She had a little oval face framed by straight chestnut hair, brown eyes and freckles dusted her nose. She had on

blue K-mart sneakers, jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. She was cute as a button, if you glued wings to her back she could be a fairy, her skin was so fair. She was standing in the door to my shop, and I had never seen her before in my life.

“What can I do you for?” I grumbled at her.

“ I came to see Eli.” she whispered, glancing over his way. I looked over that way myself. I suppose I let the surprise show on my face. As far as I was aware,Eli's' history thus far with girls consisted solely of him tormenting his little sister until she swatted him and his mother or me makes him stop. The idea of him courting was so unthought of, it took my breath away for a second there. I know little boys have to turn into men some day, but I really didn't expect it to happen this particular afternoon.

Eli was standing by the bench, chisel in one hand and a mallet in the other, slackjawed with bewilderment, Oh no, I remember thinking, this boy is in for trouble.

“ Hey Juney” he said.

I waited for something more, but Eli isn't good with small talk and clearly the cat had gotten his tongue.

“This a friend of yours?” I asked him. Still he just stood there, plainly at a loss by her unexpected appearance.

“ Me and Eli took drivers ed at East,” she turned to me and explained, “He said he worked in a cabinet shop and if I wanted to see how it was done I could come by sometime.” Then she stood there,

hands in her pockets, studying the floor.

Reading the tactical situation, I looked over at Eli and made a decision. He was my nephew, and goodness knows he appeared to need some help.

“ Anybody who wants to help out in this shop is welcome anytime.” I said. Looking back at her I said “Reckon Eli could use someone to hold for him. Come on in and mind the floor. Power cords are like a

booby trap if you step wrong.”

A smile broke out across her face as she walked over to where Eli stood at the bench.

“Hey,” she said softly “Sure it's OK?”

Finally finding his voice, he smiled crookedly and said ”Sure, hold the board tight to the bench while I pare this tenon.” Smitten, I thought. Definitely trouble.

I had no idea.

Juney turned out to be a fine wood holder, tool fetcher, assistant lifter and floor sweeper. She also turned out to be a talker. Once she got over her original shyness the girl just couldn't be quite. She had to know why we did this and what was that called and how come we used that instead of the other thing and when she wasn't inquiring she was commenting on school and teachers and movies and music and whatever else popped into her head.

Eli took it all in, nodding sometimes and chuckling sometimes and saying “Yeah” the rest of the time when he could get in a word edgewise. All the time with that lopsided grin on his face.

I kept to my side of the shop and only walked over when he needed me to, but it didn't seem to phase her in the slightest to have me in the room. She talked about everything but herself, I noticed, and not once did she mention any of her friends. For a teenage girl not to talk about other girls, friend or not, struck me as being odd.

Once I asked her about her parents, she got pretty quite pretty fast then. Didn't have much to say, beyond her daddy drove a truck and was gone a lot. Her Mama stayed home. That was all. I thought.

that was strange also.

About 6:30 I had had enough of working. Nancy would be getting supper on the table.

“Eli, I guess we better be getting up to the house.” I hinted. I was not about to show up at the supper table with some strange teenage girl in tow. Nancy don't like surprises except at birthdays and Christmas, but of course that was too subtle for Eli. He'd of stayed there listening to Juney prattle on till judgment day. Fortunately she was quicker witted, and with a nod to me said her goodbyes and was out the door heading down the path to the road.

We started washing up at the sink in back. Time for a little Uncle/son discussion, I figured.

“So Eli, tell me, you met her at Drivers Ed?”

“Yup.” single syllable responses was his way of putting off uncomfortable discussions.

“How'd you get to invite her up to the shop?” I persisted, drying off my hands.

He reached up and tugged one ear, adjusted his cap on the back of his head. I finished drying my hands and tossed the towel in the trash. He wrinkled his nose and dug a finger in his ear. I folded my arms and cocked an eye. He checked to see what was on his finger, and even though it was cleaned, wiped it on his pants. We go through this routine pretty often around .

Seeing I wasn't going to let it drop, he opened up.

“She was getting picked on by a couple of guys out in the hall before class, and they wouldn't let her pass, and I didn't think that was right, so I asked them to leave her alone.” He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out his pocketknife.

“Well,” I said, getting interested real fast. “Did they?”

He flipped open the short blade and began trimming a thumbnail “Did what?” he asked. Getting information out of this boy can be done, but he can't be hurried.

“Did they leave her alone?” I patiently asked. He made a show of getting the thumbnail to just the perfect shape, squeezed one eye shut and held his thumb up for closer inspection.

“No”

I hopped up on the counter to sit, my sign to him that he wasn't getting away that easy.

“What happened next?” I asked. He closed the short blade and opened the long one, slid it down his arm, then inspected it for any shaven hair, of which there was none, on account of he hadn't sharpened that knife in a week. I thought about giving him the “sharp tools are safe tools” speech, but the moment was wrong. Better to wait him out. He stood and pondered for a full minute, then shrugged.

“One of them yanked on her hair, and the other one called her a freak. Then they looked at me to see what I would do,” closing up his knife, he slid it back into his pocket. Then he rubbed his eyes and said

“ So I picked the first one up and threw him on top of the other one. Then I jumped on them.”

I suppose I should have done the “You shouldn't get into fights” thing, but before I could get all official I wanted to be clear.

“You hit them?” I asked. He quit rubbing his eyes and looked full at me, exasperated.

“No Uncle Jack, I just jumped on them. Both feet. Then I went into class. Juney came in and sat behind me.” I could tell this was more than just uncomfortable for him, fifteen is a hard age to be. He shrugged his shoulders and kicked the floor.

“ I don't think anybody likes her much. When we left class, she's always alone. So I started saying hello everyday, and the third day she started talking and I told her where we live and what we do and

she said she lives down the road and would it be OK if she came and saw what we did. That's it. Can we go eat now? I'm hungry.”

Smitten, I thought. Like I said,I had no idea how much trouble this was going to cause.

Patting him on the back, I followed him out the door and we went to supper.

Chapter three

About Nancy

Nancy was standing at the stove spooning potatoes out of a pan when we walked in the Kitchen door.

Dark black hair pulled back in a ponytail, strong jawline, dark eyelashes, wearing a long tailed tee shirt and jeans. She has green eyes. I don't know why that's important, but I always see her eyes when she's in my mind.

When we were kids, my brother Dan talked me into putting a frog down the back of her shirt. We were out with the church on a Sunday picnic down to Pearsons falls. The old folks were setting up the card tables and fried chicken whilst the younger ones ran up and down the path through the woods and jumping in and out of the water. I caught a green frog about the size of a dime and showed it to Dan and Sam. Nancy was standing a few steps ahead of us, posing prettily in her white dress and staring at the tons of water rolling over the lip of the rocks fifty feet above our heads. She was the only girl nearby, the other girls were all huddled around each other back near the grownups, giggling and gossiping.

“Hey,” Dan whispered, looking at Nancys' back “be a shame to waste an opportunity here.”

“No way.” I whispered back “ She'd tell and Pop will beat the tar out of us.”

“ You're just scared.” Dan sneered. “ Big 'fraidy cat! Scared of a little old girl!” Sam stooped beside him, that fool grin plastered on his bony face.

“If you want to see a frog drop down her back, whyn't you do it yourself?” I countered.

“ “Cause it's your frog! Come on, you a man or a midget.” This was a major insult back there in our youth. I looked at Nancy, I looked at Dan and Sam's' faces, so grinningly sure of my cowardice. I looked back at Nancy, with her white dress and white socks and Sunday shoes, her black hair held back in a rubber band. Last year she had punched Sam, her own brother, in the nose, because when he forgot

and left the gate open and let 75 white leghorns make their bid for freedom, he'd managed to convince their Daddy he'd been playing at our house all afternoon and it had been Nancys' turn to feed.

It had indeed been Nancys' turn, but she had paid him fifty cents to take her turn while she went to her cousins house, where they could watch Miami Vice on TV without worrying about witnesses, since her Uncle worked nights and her Aunt had gone to stay with a sick sister. Sam told me he felt the bone snap, and he had to shove half a roll of toilet paper up his nostrils before the blood would stop pouring out.

Still, I wasn't about to let them think I was scared of a girl.

Later, I told Mama I went swimming and when I took off my shirt, Dan accidentally kicked it into the water and we couldn't find it. It was easier than explaining the blood. She didn't buy the story, but figured the black eye was enough punishment for whatever devilment I'd been into, so she let it drop.

Nancy threw rocks at me everytime she saw me for a month after, her green eyes flashing whenever she got a solid hit. For a girl, she had pretty good aim.

It's best not to get on her bad side.

She irritably looked over her shoulder when she heard the hinge creak as we entered.. “Wash up and get ready to eat. Eli, you still owe me a page of Math, no videos until that's done. Hear me?” looking back to the stove, she swore and stuck a finger in her mouth. “ These potatoes are so wet they're popping grease all over me. Jack, go hunt up Orie and get her washed too. Don't let her bring those headphones to the table, and make her change her shirt. She's had the same rag on for three days now, I need to wash it.”

“You got it” I said, squeezing behind her and heading down the hall. Eli, who claimed to never have

dirt on his hands, was already sitting at the table with a fork in his hand. “You heard you're mother boy” I told him over my shoulder “Get washed up. And get that hat off your head at the supper table.”

Walking into Ories room is never easy. A sailor would have to take soundings to find the floor in there. The child can swing from tree limb to tree limb for hours but the effort to open a drawer or closet puts a heavy a strain on her, so she chooses the most expeditious solution and throws everything on the floor.

“Orie!” I hollered as I toed aside clothes, toys, books, stuffed bears and other pre-adolescent girl paraphernalia. “Your Mama says it's time for supper!” My foot hit something giggly under what looked like my old pea coat. I reached down and pulled it off with one hand while my other poked underneath.

“Come on, I know you're in there. Get going.”

My niece, red hair tied up in braids, band aid on her knee, came rolling out with a pout on her face, shaking her head.

A pair of monstrous headphones were clamped to her ears. I pulled one off and leaned down closer. “Leave the player here. Change clothes and put these in the wash, NOT under the bed. I'm wise to that trick. Now get washed up and get your skinny little behind to the table before I come back or I will sell you to the Arabs.”

Giving me the wounded child look, she turned off the cd player and started to pull off her shirt, which I stood at the door and made sure she finished doing before going back into the hall and down to the bath. She is the worse young'un to not want to change her clothes. It's like peeling skin off. Whoever said little girls were made of sugar and spice must've been an ugly poet with no wife.

Even though we had already washed up at the shop, we had to submit again once entering the house. I don't know where we were supposed to pick up any dirt from in the last 30 yards, but wash before you

eat is Nancy's rule and I found out a long time ago saying yes'm was smarter than arguing. Eli still thinks he can outwait her, but it hasn't happened yet. I was dashing some water over my hands, listening to her tell him that he wasn't getting anything to eat until his hands were clean.

I heard his chair scrape back while I dried. Passing him in the hall, I just grinned. “What?” he demanded, going to the sink and turning on the water.

“Orie!” I called, “I'm coming in and you had better be decent.” I peeked around the corner into her room just as she turned around just a little to quick for innocence. “Orie,” I explained, “Washing clothes is why your Mother gets up in the morning. It's like her favorite thing to do. You don't want to make her sad, do you?”

“I guess not.” She sighed, bending back down to pull shirt and pants out from under another pile of toys.” Out little dirty angel.

“So,” Nancy started, after the blessing was asked and the food was being passed, “Who was out at the shop with you tonight?”

How she does it I do not know, but that woman is instantly aware of everything and anything that goes on around her. One night, outside it was dark as the inside of a cow, rain coming down in sheets, she knocks on my bedroom door and tells me to get up because someones walking up to the house. A moment later there came a knock and a neighbor with a flat tire was asking to borrow my job lite so he could see what he was doing. Weird.

Eli clearly didn't want to discuss what was to him an intensely uncomfortable subject, that being

girls. Specifically one girl, and especially with his mother. The fried potatoes and Spam held his complete attention.

I really didn't want to get into explanations either. This looked to be something Nancy would instantly

see all kinds of problems with. 15 year olds are to young to date. Why didn't you tell us you invited someone to the house. Why didn't you bring her to meet the rest of the family. So on and on...

But Eli wasn't going to be volunteering anything anytime soon and his Mama sensed that that was the case and to her that was clear evidence that something needed to be discussed so I decided to try and nip things in the bud by telling her myself.

“Eli took up for some girl at the school, and she apparently took it upon herself to come visit. Her name is Juney and she lives down the road with her Mom and Dad.” Nancy looked at me, waiting for the rest. Unfortunately I had no rest. “Her Dad drives a truck.” I offered lamely, hoping it was enough.

It wasn't. She wanted to know what her last name was and how Eli met her and how come we had never seen her before and did we lock the shop door because she might be scouting out the place for a burglary....

“Stop Mom!” Eli said, sighing with disgust. “ She moved here last month. Her name is Juniper Walter, and they've been living in Etowah, she used to be a goth and no one likes her at school. She just came over to say hi, that's all.”

Goth, I thought, that's like a cathedral, radius for the arches pulled from the side instead of center...

no, thats not what he means. Goths are those kids that wear black makeup and dress like vampires.

Uh oh.

It got very still for a while as Nancy digested this.

“Did you say Goth? As in ..”

“Not anymore Mom, she stopped. She's different now, OK? Can we just drop it, please? I'm trying to eat.”

Nancy gave me a very arched eyebrow, and I knew we would be discussing this later. Somehow I

knew this was going to be my fault. Well, I'm a man, so most things are my fault.

Nancy actually has a sweet disposition, but raising two kids with her brother in law while her husband is missing in action somewheres in Afghanistan will bring out the brittleness in anyone eventually.

Evenings were when she had it the worse, Missing Dan at the table, reading the paper, telling about what some fool decorator asked him to do on a job or commenting on how beautiful she was today.

Dan had a way with his words that made everybody look forward to his company, and I know that after two years she was getting tired of hoping and wishing and missing him.

Well, I missed him too. Almost as much as she did, I reckon.

Chapter four

Dan and me

“Mr. Walston. “ The judge asked, “What has this to do with the bank?” I told him I was getting to that, but before the bank, he needed to know....

I was born in this house, right there in the same room I sleep in and that Dan and I grew up in. Mama

would have had me in the hospital but she said I was the impatient type and Pop had to do the honors while Dan ran to the phone and called Grandma. Mama's the one the red hair comes from and Pops the

one who had the kind heart. He hated to see anybody in pain and he told me later, when I was in my teens, that he hated me for hurting Mama so bad, right up 'til the point when I popped my head out and started crying. Mama said I was bald and wrinkled and all blotchey looking, but Pop held me up to her and said he thought I was the most prettiest baby in the world. Then Dan came in with Grandma behind and asked, “ What kind of critter is that, Daddy?”

Dan had a way with words from an early age. Four years older than me and acting as if he were twice as brave and a whole lot smarter. He was the kind of brother that would use you for target practice with his new BB gun, then come and stop the bleeding and put on the bandage, He got out all my splinters and pulled all my baby teeth for me. He made sure I remembered my homework and didn't leave my coat at the barn.

He made sure the mean kids didn't pick on me and warned me when Mama was in a mood. He was tall and lean and fast on his feet. All the girls wanted to flirt and all the boys wished they could whip his butt.

The day he graduated high school, he signed up for the Navy, and it nigh broke Mama's heart. I might be her baby but Dan was her pride, and she hated to see him go, but once Dan made up his mind it was made. I remember Pop asking him, why the Navy, for goodness sakes.

He wanted to see the world, just like it said on the posters. He wanted to save up some money and he wanted to go to college. He wanted to come home and marry a certain dark haired girl who had a sharp tongue and a quick mind. Dan always had a plan, and he always made it work out.

I spent the next four years wishing and waiting for Dan's next leave. I read his letters over and over, soaking in all the details until I could recite then by heart. His arrival at Great Lakes Recruit Depot.

The marching and saluting, the tear gas chamber, the week of fire school. He hadn't had any plans for

trying for the Seals, but when they asked who wanted to take the swim test, Dan just had to see if he could pass. It sounded to me like they wanted to see how many fool recruits they could drown, when I read what they had to do in the pool, but of course Dan had no problem, so he went off to Coronado and instead of an electricians mate he became a U.S. Navy Seal. That would have been in '89.

Two years later he was somewheres in Kuwait, counting tanks and guns while pretending to be a sand dune. Two years after that he was back home and married to Nancy, looking through college applications and telling me how I was making a big mistake when I came home and told everyone I was going to be a sailor too.

Things never seem to work out the way you think they will. The Navy was going to teach me how to fix airplanes. I had the paper that said so. Boot camp was about as hard as spending the weekend hunting coons with my uncles, except the Navy fed us better and we got to sleep during the night and only ran around in circles during the day. Dan got accepted at the University of North Carolina.

Nancy announced she was going to have a baby, and got promoted to head teller at the savings and loan downtown. Pop got up 1500 bales on the first cut that summer, Mama won a free weekend trip to Myrtle Beach all expenses paid, all they had to do was listen to a forty minute sales presentation. Life was good.

But on the day we had our swim test, with all 200 of us standing in our government issued swim shorts, that damyankee instructor looked right at me as he said “Anyone, except you southern rednecks who never learned to swim, who thinks they can make the grade for seal training step out now” Since I was the ONLY southern boy within 500 miles, I knew who he was talking to, and so did everyone else.

He had it in for me from the first day. My shoes weren't shiny enough, my utilities weren't ironed enough, my rack wasn't satisfactory, my watch cap wasn't stretched around my raincoat right...

So next thing I know I'm in the water with my life flashing before me. Green River back home was colder and faster, but at least you could touch bottom when you got tired. That pool in Great Lakes RTC had the bottom a loooong ways beneath my thrashing legs.

But just like Dan,I made it to Coronado also.

Coronado was it's on version of hell on earth. The Pacific will do it's best to claw you into it's depths.

The cold eats into your chest until your heart feels like a chunk of ice. The exhaustion numbs your brain, slows your hands, makes the simplest job a agony. The instructors were sadist, screaming in your face and spitting tobacco juice in your eye. You couldn't flinch, ever. You couldn't talk, ever. You weren't human in that place, just an animal, part of the herd, pushed along from place to place and given task after task which was always unsat. You never slept, you never took a break, you never had just a moment alone. And if you thought, just for a second, that what you did or thought might have been the right thing to do or the correct thing to say, there the instructor was snarling in your face, his stinking breath reeking of garlic and stale beer, as he reveled in your misery, anxiously anticipating with glee witnessing your agonizing and he hoped, imminent death. I figured then and still do that they got paid a bonus if they cut the class down with a dozen or so drownings. I saw a third of our class having the corpsman pounding the water out of their lungs at one time or another. I saw half of us puking our guts out and running in step in the pouring rain while the other half held them by the arms to keep them from falling out. My hair and fingernails quit growing the second week and I had green gunk growing in my ears by the third. My body stayed wrinkled from being waterlogged until the skin started to peel. The nightmares I still have every once in a while aren't about what came later, but are about that boat we carried, and that stinking log. The log that went everywhere. Out to quarters, salute

the colors, pick up the log. Carry the log to the field. Secure the log for the exercise. Return to the log and pick it up and go to the next station. The log started out covered with splinters and tar. When we were done it was smooth and shiny and the splinters and tar were all on us.

Then there was the boat. Rubberized vinyl and air, slick as snot and heavy as a dead elephant. Into the water, into the boat. Paddle the boat, get out of the boat, get into the boat, get out of the boat, grab a line and swim while pulling the boat. Pick the boat up. Carry the boat. Drop the boat? Take the boat back into the freezing water and do it all again.

The boat , the log, and that fat whorish brass bell, just waiting for someone to ring it and take back their freedom. That's all it took, stagger up and ring three times, and it was over. No more night swims with the jellies, no more running 'til you puke your guts out, no more maniacs screaming in your face all while you and your buddies are toting that slimy flaccid boat or that obscene pregnant pole. Because if you didn't, tomorrow was going to just get worse, and the next day worse still. Mind over matter, they told us. If the instructors don't mind, it don't matter.

One of the boys went nuts, he started crying and never stopped. He was sobbing for his mama when the corpsman led him away, the instructors screaming in his face what kind of a slimy slut they knew his mother was. It was not a nice place.

I thought about the bell. I thought about ringing it every second of everyday I was awake and I dreamed about ringing it every second I was asleep. I promised myself when this swim, this run, or this task was over, I was walking up, picking up a sledge hammer and whacking the snot out of it and then spitting on it when I walked away. There were times I would have promised anything, given anything, to be able to ring it and stop pretending that this was something I could finish.

But I didn't.

Dan sent me a letter, telling me he and Nancy were proud of me for finishing hell week. They would have come to graduation but Pop was feeling puny and they wrote again to say they had to stay and milk until he got better. Mom had fell and broke her hip last year and the beach trip had been a bust, two days of salesmen begging them to buy a timeshare, and when she got home her leg kept giving out.

A year later the cancer took Pop and the pneumonia took Mom, though Nancy said without her husband, it was her heart just not able to keep on beating.

Milk prices were low, feed shot up, the rain quit coming and Dan baled less than 900 bales from both cuts. Dan decided to not worry with UNC and enroll at the Community College over by the airport. He wrote and asked me if I'd be upset if he took the Government dairy buyout, since half the farm was mine, and I said no. I had other things keeping me busy at the time. Dan used most of the money to pay our inheritance tax. Seems Congress is so worried about rich kids inheriting the family estate they've made it almost impossible for regular kids to inherit the family farm.

The Savings and Loan went belly up a year later and Nancy lost her job, Dan wrote and asked if it was alright if he used the money we still had left from the buyout to buy some tools and start building cabinets. They were building golf courses right and left in the county and anybody with a saw and hammer could get hired like, now. I was out of the country, way out, so I didn't find out about it until six months later, when I called home and Nancy answered the phone with “ Green River Kitchens and Millwork, how may I help you?” That's how I found out I was going to be a cabinetmaker.

I came home for good in '98. My adventuring over I was ready for a little peace and quite. Spending the day in a wood shop beats the stuffing out of milking cows 4:30 in the morning, getting whacked in the face by a tail caked in frozen cow pie, and it sure beats ducking and dodging in and out of the

woods and watching behind your back 24/7. Dan did the figuring and Nancy did the bookkeeping and I did the sawing and planing and nailing. Dan and Nancy had Mom and Pops old room and Eli got the daybed in the living room and I had my and Dan's old bed.

Nancy cooked beans and corn and Dan did the garden while I played uncle. Every month it seemed, a new development took the place of someone's old dairy, or orchard or cornfield, so we stayed busy.

When Nancy announced she was going to have another baby, Dan went down to Greenville and joined the reserves. One weekend a month and two weeks a summer and the money was good,right? Whoever heard of the reserves actually going to war? The newspaper started reporting on some kind of cheap drug made from cold medicine. George Bush got elected president. I bought a Remington 77 chambered in .308 and shot a 8 point buck opening day, Dan gave Eli a Ruger .22 for his eighth birthday and we ate squirrel dumplings the next Saturday. That year had the September the Arabs flew some planes into the Pentagon and Trade Center towers. Nancy called us in from the shop to watch the Today show after the first one hit. I was saying it was surprising that the pilot hadn't noticed he was about to hit a building and how do accidents like that happen anyway. Dan was shaking his head saying , no, this couldn't be just an accident, when we saw the second plane hit the other tower.

Dan's unit got called back to active duty. He went to Afghanistan. His team went on a mission and no one has heard or seen anything from them since. No bodies, no blood, no videos posted on the web, nothing. Nancy had a little girl and named her Ora Mae, after her Aunt. She doesn't watch TV news much anymore, just ballgames. She decided to homeschool Eli. She says it's because she can do a better job at home, but I see her looking at him and know it's because she sees his daddy everytime she looks at him. It's the closest she will be to her husband before eternity comes, though I never would say that to her. She waits for the mailman everyday, rain or shine, and the phone can't ring more than twice

before she answers it.

We're still getting along OK. Life doesn't stop. I hired Sam, Nancy's scatterbrained brother. She runs the business and I run the shop. We both miss Dan.

I guess we aways will.

Chapter 5

Meeting Juneys' Mom

The last couple of months we had been kind of slow in the shop. Plenty of time for fishing, but I'd had to hustle to keep both me and Sam busy. The Floridians who were selling their condos for big bucks and than moving up here have stopped coming since the housing market fell apart down there.

There are still some big developments going, but all their stuff in being built on speculation, and I have

no idea where all their money could be coming from. But since I depend on them for my living, I don't much care. I suppose I'll have to find something else to do once the last mountain is shaved down for the last golfing community, but there's no going back to farming. That's gone forever around here. Used to be seventy dairies in the county, now there's three. Used to be apple orchards all over, now only over

by Bearwallow. It's called progress.

Juney shows up most days after school. If Eli has his bookwork done, they stay out in the shop with me and if Eli is behind on his school she sits in the kitchen and plays with Orie until he gets done. He does seem to get his math, something he hates with a purple passion, much faster these days. I just wish the paper and mail were as dependable as she is.

Nancy had a hard time with this at first. Juney was in the way. Juney could get hurt. Juney needed to be home with her own family. I told her that I didn't care, but it was nice to have her come and do the sweeping, and she did a good job sanding, a chore no one in the shop cares for, and it was money in our pocket. Nancy compromised and said she could come when she wanted, as long as she left before supper. We had enough to do to feed the mouths already in the house. She could, however, ride with us to church on Sunday. Juney declined, and I didn't push it. That shames me a little bit, since instead of wondering why she would pass up another day with Eli, or being concerned about her soul, I just didn't want to get involved. I was just mainly relieved that friction with Nancy was avoided.

It was early in November, a Thursday, when we got the first blast of what winter had in store for us. A cold rain that turned to ice, the wind gusting straight down from Canada. I was building a china cabinet for a lady who wanted to show her porcelain pekingese dog plate collection. Cherry with a built up crown and beveled glass. Juney came dragging in wet and shivering. I really hadn't thought about her coming, and felt a little guilty when I saw her peeling off that same ratty hoody, soaked thru and thru, and hang it up by the stove.

Up 'til now, I had been letting Eli drive her home in my truck when it was rainy or cool. Even though he only had a learners permit, driving one mile on a two lane gravel road didn't seem to be an excessive stretch of the law . It was right touching to watch. He would start glancing at the clock as

soon as he knew school had let out, and I am pretty sure he knew how long it took for the bus to make it from there to where she got off and then for her walk up the road to our place. If she was late, he would contrive some reason or other to go out to the truck or barn, which I knew that he was looking for her. The few times she didn't come, he would moon around until supper, and go to bed right after. One of those times I suggested that he just call her on the phone, but he shook his head. Wasn't that he was too shy, like I figured, just that her house had no phone. Another odd thing I filed away in my mind.

Anyhow, she came in with a shuddering “Hi Uncle Jack” to me and a “Wassup Eli!” to him, and went to work stoking the stove with scraps, then hopped over to where Eli was feeding stock through the planer to off bear for him. Her jeans were soaked too, and it occurred to me again that I knew next to nothing about this girl who had gone from guest to regular to employee in my shop.

Of course I didn't mention to Nancy I was slipping her a little cash on the side. Like the Bible says, a workman's worthy of his hire. Plus it took the load off my conscience. No sense worrying Nancy about it. Still I couldn't help noticing Fall was coming on pretty strong considering all this global warming stuff, and she still wore only that thin little jacket. Later, while she was sanding molding, I asked Eli why she didn't wear some warmer clothes.

He said she never got to go shopping. Her Mom didn't have a car and her Dad was always gone. That's why she also didn't want to go to church . She was afraid she'd be laughed at.

Like a knife to my heart let me tell you. I looked at her, squinting at a piece of wood that I was planning on making hundreds of dollars with. Way past time to do something Jesus would have done, I saw.

First I thought, I'd better clear it with her Mother,. Plus, icy roads weren't something Eli needed to be

driving on.

We wrapped up about 5:30 and I said “ Juney, you and Eli hop in the truck, I'm giving you a ride home tonight. No weather for a girl to be out walking.” She grinned at Eli and said” No smoking the tires tonight Eli.” Eli cut a glance at me as I gave him my best hairy eyeball. “ No,” I agreed “ We won't be spinning out any tonight.” Pulling on my coat, I herded them into the truck and got the scraper to work the ice off the windshield, something that took awhile. Eli and Juney were pushing and giggling like kids when I huffed in behind the wheel, and immediately straightened up when I threw it in first. That lasted about to the end of the gravel. After all, kids is what they still were.

I pulled into the drive where she pointed and coasted to a stop in front of a dingy white bungalow trimmed in black. Gummy green shingles needing replacing on the roof. I had passed this place a thousand times, usually with a “For Rent” sign out front, but this was the first time I had been close enough to get a good look.

There was a low porch with the floorboard ends blackened in rot. The beaded strip ceiling was drooping down in places where the roof had leaked. The left side was covered with a mound of plastic trash bags as tall as my head, and on the other end was an old moldy sofa, which had maybe been red in better times, but was now faded to pink.

The house itself was the old four room style. I'd yet to enter, but I've seen and worked on dozens just like it. A small living room and bedroom up front, kitchen and bedroom in back. Somewheres there would be a added on space for the plumbing, and a closed up fireplace with a oil heater added on the hearth for heat. In the late fall gloom, the freezing rain coming down, it smelled and looked old and musty and neglected. A chill ran down my spine as I stepped up onto the porch, which had nothing to do with the weather. Something about the place gave me the willies. I hadn't had that feeling in some

years. The only light was the soft glow of a TV through one window.

Juney breezed right by me and pushed open the door. “ Come on in if you want” she called over her shoulder. I looked and Eli as he looked at me. “You ever met her folks?” I asked with a low voice.

“Nope, never got out of the truck before.” He offered. “Guess now's as good a time as ever.”

The floor was covered with that orange deep pile carpet that went out with lava lamps and bell bottoms. Some time in the past, dogs had clearly lived here, the evidence was overpowering. The cracked plastered walls had once been white but were now an indeterminate color of grey, with dingy splotches around the corners and light switches where countless unwashed hands had been.

Juney had ducked into the room to our left, and I tentatively followed. There, seated in an immense white vinyl lazy boy, was a woman with frozzy blond hair graying at the roots. She had a face that had clearly been very attractive once, but was now wrinkled and pasty. Her mouth turned down at the corners, severe enough to make me consider stroke. I reckoned her age to be in her late thirties, and they looked to be hard years. She was wearing a blue jogging suit and had the remote in one hand and a glass of something that looked like water, but I thought it wasn't, in her other. I assumed this was the Mother. She had part of a tattoo visible on the right side of her neck, a dragon or lizard tail, it appeared.

She hardly looked up when us two strangers walked in. “ Mom. This is Mr. Walston and that's Eli.” Juney said to her. I stuck out my hand for a moment, dropping it when it was clear she wasn't going to take it. The woman didn't even look up. The wide screen TV on the other side of the room seemed to captivate her. Vanna White was turning over the vowels.

“ That's nice Juniper. Be a good girl and fetch me some ice in this” she said, handing Juney her glass. Her breath could've knocked a skunk off it's feet. 100 proof at least.

I said something polite about her daughter being a big help and what a nice girl I thought she was and

all those other things you say in an awkward moment like that. I backed out the room and walked into the kitchen where Juney was cracking ice from a tray. The situation was rapidly becoming clear to me.

“Juney,” I said, “Where's your room?”

“ I sleep on the couch up front.” she said. The strain in her voice got to me. I walked up the hall to the front and looked into the living room. A sad brown cloth couch and two chairs were all the furniture there was. Cardboard boxes sat in the chairs, and a blanket was folded up on the armrest.

Juney walked into her Mothers room with the glass topped up with ice. I went back to the kitchen as Eli stood and watched as I opened a paint chipped cupboard door. Packs of crackers and Cheez Whiz lined one shelf, cobwebs the other. I opened the refrigerator to find two bottles of tonic water and a six pack of beer. I shut the door and opened another cupboard and saw three bottles of Bourbon and a sack of apples. Good thing the school has a lunch program, I mused. No wonder she was skinny. Eli stared with his mouth hanging open, something that always annoys me to no end .

“ Close your mouth before you swallow a fly Eli” I sighed at him.

Juney came in the kitchen, looking at her shoes. Back to that, I thought. I put a hand on top of Juneys' head as I walked past her. I poked my head into her mothers' room and wished her a cheery goodnight,

getting a grunt in response, then me and Eli got in the truck and went home, leaving Juney waving at Eli from her saggy little porch. I breathed a lot easier the further down the road we went. Something about that house just got to me. And that sweet little girl, waving goodbye.

I did a bit of thinking and then a bit more of praying that night before drifting off to sleep.

Friday evening I told the two young'uns that I had a job I needed their help on the next day, be ready

to go by 8:00

I told Nancy we would be gone for most of the day, but I'd be back in time to watch Orie while she went to town.

We hit Wal-mart and K-mart and got her a good coat, five pairs of socks, three shirts and two pairs of pants. We got her gloves and some girl stuff she picked out while me and the boy looked at tires. We got her a blue dress which she modeled for a blushing Eli, and a pair of new sneakers and a red toboggan cap and a red scarf. Then we went to chick-filet and I stuffed chicken into both of them before stopping at the mall, where Eli snuck off to Hallmark while I wandered through JC Penny with her, trying to find something for Nancy's Christmas.

We went to the Lumber yard and I bought ten 1x12's in Ponderosa pine and 6 drawer glides. We got back to the house by 3:00 and waved to Nancy as she drove out the drive in the truck on her way to Ingles grocery store. I set Orie up in the shop with a book and a stuffed bear by the stove, stoked full of split oak. I gave Eli a list and he started cutting up the wood while Juney made hot chocolate. We made a six drawer chest in about four hours and Juney was holding a yawning Orie in her lap by the stove when Nancy got home.

I was holding the drawer glides in place while Eli sank the screws when Nancy walked in the shop a few minutes later.

I had to be careful here.

It was pitch dark outside by now. I looked up at Nancy looking down at me. She had her hair pulled back in a pony tail and she looked tired and worn to a frazzle. Her green eyes boring into me at the

time, were beautiful. She nodded towards Juney, “About time she headed home, don't you think?”

I jerked my hand out of the case real quick like and said a bad word, heck or darn, something Nancy wouldn't get too bad upset about, and stuck my thumb in my mouth. Eli looked startled and started to say something about how could I get hurt when he wasn't anywhere near my hand when I took my thumb out of my mouth and told him to hush, I didn't want to hear it. I gave him a wink where Nancy couldn't see. He's not the sharpest nail in the keg, but he caught on that I was up to something and kept his mouth shut.

“Nancy, it's cold and dark and we've got to get this thing finished tonite, how about you give Juney a ride and give us a few more minutes here.” Then I gave her my best I'm-so-mad-I'm-about-to-throw-something-through-the-window look.

She looked at me long and hard for a second. At first I didn't think she was going for it, but then her face softened, and she stood up.

“Come on Juney, lets get you home. I've got a ham to cook.”

“Make sure and take your stuff” I reminded her, as I crawled back into the case.

Juney slid Orie into the chair and pulled her new coat on, then picked up two bags of new clothes from the floor and walked out. Nancy hesitated, then picked up the other two and after shooting me and Eli an quizzical look, followed her out to the truck. Soon as we heard them leave, Eli asked “ What was that about?” I grinned at him and said “There's more than one way to skin a cat, Eli.”

“Huh?” he said, puzzled, which his normal reaction when I think I'm being clever.

“Just wait, I know your Mama. Let's get Orie down to the house.” Which we did. When she's asleep, it's like toting a bag of cement. Eli carried while I led the way. We got her into her room and pulled off her jacket and shoes and were tucking her in, when she woke up enough to say “Where's Juney?”

“Gone home, honey. But I think we'll see her tomorrow.”

Fifteen minutes or so later, we were sitting at the table when the truck pulled up next to the house.

We heard the door slam, then the other door shut. Two sets of footsteps crunched up to the door.

Nancy walked in, followed by Juney. “Plates are in behind the door above the stove,” Nancy said to Juney “ make sure you get washed up first. That goes for everybody” She added for us.

And that's how Juney came to eat supper with us everynight after, and church every Sunday.

I felt pretty smart, going to bed that night, if I do say so myself.

chapter 6

Thanksgiving

“Mr, Walston,” the judge asked, “Am I to understand you needed money? It seems you were having a hard time making ends meet..” No, no. Nothing like that. We always can figure out a way to get along. The Lord always gives his blessing. After all...

We killed a hog Monday before Thanksgiving. It was cold and windy, and thank goodness the pig man hauled the carcass off to do the butchering. It had been a long time since I had to do it, and even

then it was with Dan and Dad to help. M&M meat packing makes modern life so much easier.

I point this out so you will know that we could have had plenty of pork for Thanksgiving. Pork chops, ham, roast, all of that, , but Nancy lives by tradition. Thanksgiving means turkey, and that means me

and Eli and Orie had to eat it.

Nancy is a great cook. She makes a chocolate cake any Frenchman would cry for. She makes greens and beans taste better than prime rib. She has a way with casseroles and cabbage and corn...

Oh my goodness, her creamed corn. I would crawl over broken glass in the middle of the Sahara for one bowl of her creamed corn. Actually, I have crawled over broken glass in the Sahara, but the judge didn't want to hear about any of that.

So, I told him about how she can't cook a turkey worth a toot. Dry as sand, tough as shoe leather, bland as cardboard. Think I would tell her that though? I'd sooner gargle with thumbtacks.

When Nancy and Dan first started seeing each other, he would go over to her house Sunday after church and drag me along to hang out with Sam. That was his excuse, see. He didn't want anyone to know that he actually liked, you know, a girl. He wasn't going to see her, he was going to deliver his kid brother to a neighbors house. The fact that Nancy chose Sunday afternoons to bake cookies, or a cake, had nothing to do with her liking him either, She was just being nice to her kid brother and his snot nosed buddy.

We would sit on the porch, or in the kitchen if it was cold, and munch on goodies while Dan tried his best to impress her with his wit and charm, of which he possessed a lot more than most boys but a long ways less than impressed her. We sometimes wound up tossing a football out in the back yard, until one day Dan said something about how nobody could catch him on a downfield run and Nancy's green eyes flashed and she hitched up her pants and told Sam to pass the ball to Dan. Then she ran him

down and blew him off his feet, I mean just knocked his socks off. Snot flew out his nose. When he hit the dirt it sounded like a tree dropping. He gasped and wheezed for ten minutes or more, staggering around with his hands on his knees, the whole time acting like nothing was wrong. Me and Sam thought it was hilarious.

When I was off having my adventures with the Navy, I would be lying in some hole or cooking under a Ghillie suit, and I would think about Dan sitting down to Nancy's dumplings, or pot pie, or beef stew.

Then I would think about Nancy plastering my big brother into the ground, and suddenly life was a little more fun again. It was something to keep me occupied, and sane. But that's not part of this story either.

Anyhow, there we were. Me sitting in the kitchen picking toasted turkey out of my back teeth with a toothpick, Nancy in the living room screaming in frustration at the TV antenna which refused to allow her to see the game, only the beer commercials. Eli was up by the barn, teaching Orie and Juney the finer points on how to hit a tin can with a .22.

I was thinking about getting out a shotgun and going after some crows that were becoming pretty brazen lately. I have nothing against crows so much, but if you don't keep them warned off, come spring they will flat eat a garden up. PETA people clearly have never had a row of sweet corn that they took a day to plow and disc and till and plant disappear in a minute from a crow infestation. Popping a couple every now and then through the year helps keep them in line.

I had just gotten the shells out of the cabinet when the phone rang. Nancy picked it up and said hello, then after listening a moment, said sure, we'd send her right on home.

Hanging up, she got up and walked to the door, opened it and hollered for Eli to take Juney on home, her Father was wanting to see her.

Juney looked a little pale as she got in the truck with Eli, I put it down to the turkey and said I'd be over later on to say hello to her Dad, then walked off up to the back pasture where I'd heard the crows hollering.

About an hour later, no crows having volunteered to present themselves for a sacrifice, I was ready to head back anyway when I heard the truck horn blaring three times in a row. That was the recall signal, ever since I was a kid. It meant drop what you're doing and head to the house now. With a sense of foreboding, as we say, I hurried down the path .

I could see Eli and Nancy by the back door from the gate. Nancy had a green sweater thrown over her shoulders , her arms crossing her chest and was shaking her head and Eli was clearly angry about something, which is very rare for him. Stubborn, yes. Annoying, yes, but he hardly ever was angry, and as I came up to them I found out why.

Nancy was saying. “You are not going back down there. Let Jack go. We don't know what's going on and we don't know even if anything is going on and it isn't something for a boy to handle by himself!”

“Going on where?” I gasped. It was a long run down that hill.

Eli whirled on me. “ I took Juney home like Mom said to. She didn't want to go, but she wouldn't say why. When we got there, there was a Peterbuilt parked in the back with a trailer and she told me that was her Dads', but there was two other cars also that she said she didn't know whose they were. She was real nervous Uncle Jack. She told me she would come back in a little while and tell me if she could come over tomorrow, and it's been over an hour and she isn't here. I want to go and find out where she is but Mom won't let me.” he looked at me, pleading, “ She really was scared, I mean really.”

As I caught my breath, I remembered the last time I had been to that house. How creeped out I had felt. Nancy stood there with her arms crossed, looking at both of us. I knew what she had to be

thinking. This was none of our business. Probably everything was fine, no need to worry. All girls get strange notions in their heads from time to time....

Actually, I don't remember Nancy ever getting nervous over nothing, and now she was biting her lip.

“Maybe you had better run on down there Jack.” she said, “ That house, I just don't know. Juney never talks about her family. She didn't seem right when she left. Her mother, drunk all day long. Maybe you better go. Just to see.”

We stood there like that for a second or two. Common sense said stay home, don't get involved.

I took the shotgun and slid it behind the seat and told Nancy and Eli what I wanted them to do.

“First thing,” I said, “ Is we make a reconnoiter...”

Crawling through the Ivy on my belly was not what I had in mind for Thanksgiving night. Branches scratching, cold wind blowing, peering through the gloom with straining eyes. It had been years since I last did this sort of thing. I had not planned on ever doing it again, but here I was. To tell you the truth, I wasn't all that sure why.

I operated with guys who claimed to have a sixth sense, who claimed they knew when things were about to get hot, could feel the hairs on their next raise. For me, It always came as a surprise when someone tried to kill me. Naive, I guess. Crawling down the hill behind Juneys' parents house, I figured there were any number of reasons she was nervous about going home. Maybe she had a bad report card, maybe she wasn't supposed to leave her mother the lush alone every night, maybe she forgot to feed the dog or wash the dishes.

But I had definitely been uneasy inside that house, and I hadn't seen any dog or any food to make any

dishes dirty.

There was also this thing. I don't know how to express it. You see, Eli likes her. And Eli doesn't have a whole lot of charisma. He's always been the kind of boy to tell chicken crossing the road jokes, the kind who thinks a Youtube video of college boys lighting there farts is high art. I guess what I'm saying is that Eli is a clod, a wall flower, maybe even a bit of a dork

Then this waif of a girl with bangs and a shy smile walks over one day to see him and suddenly he's polite, considerate even. He talks with her, worries about her, stands up for her, starts saying yes maam to his mama and picking up his clothes and shutting doors and I 'm not so blind that I can't tell why. He's growing up and she's his inspiration. Girls do that for a boy.

I was getting close enough to the edge of the woods where I could see the back porch, thinking about this kind of thing when I should have been thinking about what I was doing. So it was by the grace of God that when the biker guy wearing chains and black leather walked outside and shone a flashlight straight at me he wasn't looking where the light was but instead was looking back inside at whoever was talking to him.

I froze, like an ice cube. People cue in on movement. You can hide in plain site if you keep your outline hidden and stay still. I was dressed in mossy oak camos and facedown in the Laurels. Biker dude swung his light towards the tractors trailer and waddled over that way, followed by a tall bald guy

in a grey windbreaker carrying what looked to be a .45 browning in each hand. Yeah, that focused my attention.

Biker dude and bald guy seemed to be a little unsteady on their feet. Maybe a little early season eggnog? Probably not, they seemed to be more the straight bourbon type. I watched them unlock the trailer door and climb inside. I looked back towards the house.

Where I was I could see into the kitchen window on the left and the back bedroom window on the right. There were lights on in both rooms, but nothing was really visible. That glass hadn't seen a cloth in a good while. I looked back to the trailer, where biker dude was dragging what looked like a bale of old cardboard to the lift gate. You've seen them, recycled cardboard about four foot square with metal bands holding the wad together.

Situational awareness, the instructors used to call it. Assess what you see, and what you know, and develop a theory on what the target can do, may do, and is likely to do. Bald guy stepped out onto the lift as biker dude jumped down to the ground. He hit hard and stumbled to the mud, as bald guy made some rude comment on biker dudes ineptitude, which I won't repeat.

The situation is, these guys are drunk, armed, and willing to drag a large pile of recycled pasteboard about in the rain. So the situation is that either they are nuts or that bale has something inside that isn't apparent, something worth protecting.

I really, I mean really, wanted to crawl back up that hill and fetch Nancy and go back to our warm house with the kids and forget all about this. Let someone else deal with it. It is not my problem. I am not the hero type at all, this was not in the job description my brother assigned for me when he left Take care of them for me until I get back, he said. Promise me, he said.

I had a choice to make, right then and there.

I turned back to the house. There are at least three more inside, maybe more. Maybe armed. One is probably not an effective, the others are probably also drinking, one is probably the leader since he's not out in the freezing rain. There are four rooms, five if you count the bathroom.

One hostage, Juney.

“What did you do next?” The judge asked. He was getting into it now, leaning forward on his elbows, coffee gone cold and forgotten.

Well, it went like this.....

Biker dude and the bald guy had both pulled out pigstickers and were hacking away at the wads of baled up cardboard at the back of the trailer. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see what was happening here. They were searching for something, but trying to cut compressed cardboard with a barroom showoff knife wasn't going to get them anywhere fast. I flipped open my cell and punched in Nancys' number. She picked up on the first ring.

“What's happening?” I whispered into the phone..

“Not much” she answered. I wasn't surprised. Her hide was across the road opposite the drive and several big white oaks blocked her view. I had been more interested in keeping her out of the way than how good a view she had. Now I was wishing otherwise.

“Tell me what you can see.”

“ There is a light on in the room on the left. I can see at least two people that have moved in front of the window. There could be more, but I'm not sure.”

“Do you see Juney?” I asked. I wanted to know as precisely as I could what was going on inside the house, but we had no gear, no intel, and half of us had no training. I waited.

“No.” she finally answered. “ I don't. You think she's even in there? Why don't I just go and knock on the door?”

“NO!” I hissed. Quickly I told her about the two out back with the guns and knives. Quick girl, I knew

she would understand the implications.

“We should call the cops.” she said. “This isn't something we can to handle, Jack.”

I couldn't have agreed more. This looked like a very good job for the cops. It was exactly what cops are trained and paid to do, not cabinetmakers. But I had a little more experience with these things than the average cabinetmaker.

I saw a vision of a sheriffs deputy pulling up in the front yard, maybe two. One slips around the back of the house while the other knocks politely on the door and Biker dude shoots an entire magazine through the middle panel, while bald guy waits for the back door deputy to turn to the sound, then back door deputy gets it in the back of the head. Guns and liquor and criminal intent do not a happy combination make. Bullets flying around tend to kill anybody they hit, regardless of age or gender. Cops showing up unexpectedly could be a good diversion though.

The first thing they taught us in surreptitious entry class was to stack the deck in your favor as much as possible before going in, and I knew I was going in. Just not yet. I heard Nancy speaking again.

“Wait, Jack, I think someones getting beat up! I can see someone big swinging his arm down at something below the window.”

“ Can you see who it is getting hit?

“No. Jack, do something!” Nancy hissed.

I am doing something woman, I'm thinking. I would just peachy keen like it to be the right something before I do it. Bald guy hopped down from the trailer and walked around to the side and unzipped his fly. Biker dude looked at the pile of halfway cut up cardboard, he looked disgusted with something, and hopped down himself and started walking to the back door.

“Jack,” Nancy said into my ear, “ I think it's Juney! I can see someone holding someone else and she looks Juney's size! Do something now or I'm going to!” I closed my eyes, asked God for a little of his attention for the next couple of minutes, took a deep breath and spoke into the phone.

“Stay still! Keep listening to the phone, when you hear me say' we're leaving' you get in the truck and come straight to the driveway. Do not drive to the house! Do not! We will come to you. When you start the truck, call 911 and say you think you see a house on fire and that somebody was screaming when you drove by. Got It?” Please God, I prayed, make her pay attention to what I say this once. I started to move.

“We're leaving, call 911, house on fire and screaming woman,” she repeated, What kind of...”

“Nancy” I hissed, “ Just do it, and no more talking.” I was in a low crouch now, moving towards bald guy, who was still attending to his business behind the trailer.

“But what are you doing?” she asked.

“ Hush now, I'm going to pick them off,” I told her, “One at a time.” I closed the phone.

In sniper school we had this instructor, some little sawed off Navajo with a face like a car crash. He'd been in every scrape in every country the military had went into for the previous twenty years. He told us that no white man was worth a cent as a hunter. We were always thinking about women, or money, or work, when what we should be thinking about was deer, or bear, or elk. I remembered that, and as a result I came home in more or less one piece. Poor bald guy, he wasn't thinking about deer.

I hit him on the back, right on top of the third rib. I heard the bone crack. He grunted as the wind went

out of his lungs and immediately panicked when his paralyzed diaphragm wouldn't let him suck in a new breath. I had him in a sleeper hold two seconds later and he went out like a light. An hour ago I would have waited to check his pulse. An hour ago I was still a cabinetmaker, but now the rush was on, and I was ten years back, operating by a different set of rules. I checked his pockets for weapons. I figured he might have a few. He did.

Biker dude was standing at the open back door looking inside, when something made him turn and look over his shoulder. Alcohol really dulls the senses, he should have known better than to drink and work. I threw the knife at his head and when he yelled and grabbed for his torn face I took the last two steps and broke his kneecap sideways. He went down still hollering, until I piledrived the heel of my hand to his forehead. That shut him up and put him down for a while. Big as he was, I had to be sure he wouldn't be able to give me any trouble. I stomped on his right hand, hearing several fingers break. I turned and ran through the weeds back around the corner and down the side of the house. Quick now. Time was important.

I got to crawl to the front door, eased an eye to the glass pane and peeked inside. I could see another man blocking the doorway to the room where I had met Juneys' Mom. I flipped open my phone and pressed recall. Nancy picked up. “ Jack, I've got to tell you something!” The man was obviously puzzled. He had heard some yelling, but no one was coming to explain. Two big men with booze and attitudes might indeed be having a disagreement. The fact that it was entirely something else that was the matter was slowly percolating through his brain though. He pulled out the biggest doggone pistol I have ever seen in my life, turned to face in the room and spoke something rough sounding, then turned back and walked down the hall, hugging the wall with his hand cannon held in front. I turned the doorknob.

“Jack, do you hear me? Jack!” I flipped the phone shut. What did she think I was doing here? Playing four handed poker? I remembered, of course, that the front door squeaked on it's hinges. I saw bad guy number three swing around the back door with his gun leading, I saw him stiffen as he saw where biker dude was laid out on the ground, I watched him move out of the house. I pushed the door open as I shrunk down to the right. The door hinges squeaked nicely as the door swung wide.

Number three took the bait and came charging back inside quite nicely. He was yelling about the mean things he was going to do to the person he assumed was bolting out the front door. When he stopped in the doorway, another beginner mistake, and glared out into the darkness, I swung my foot like a baseball bat into his groin toe first. He squealed like a pig as he folded right up. This was as good a time as any to take his gun away, so I caught it in my left hand the way you do so the thumb slides under the hammer, then used my other hand to bend the gun hand backwards. If you do it quick enough and your opponent is distracted enough, the trigger finger breaks nicely. His made a fine snap.

I whacked him pretty hard behind the ear, hoping that the gentlemen out back weren't reviving anytime soon. Knocking people out and them staying out as long as it is convenient isn't what we were taught to expect. We were supposed to follow up any confrontation with a more permanent solution, so I understandably was in a fair rush, and not paying as much attention to details as I should.

“Juney!” I called, as I flipped my phone back on and hit redial “Where are you!” no answer. I went through the doorway fast and low, spun to the right and saw that room to be empty. I moved a quick step to my left and spun back to where I had first seen number three. The TV was showing a game show, with no sound. There was blood dripping across the upper corner. I looked down to the floor. There were three bodies laying there, all covered in blood.

I darted in and checked the first I came to, laying on the floor. It was Juneys' mother, her jogging suit had been pulled open and things had been done to her. She had a faint pulse.

“Nancy, we're coming out!” I hissed into the phone. Not waiting for a reply, I moved to the next. It was Juney, and her chest was moving, but her face was so bloody I couldn't tell if her eyes were open. The last was a man tied up and seated in the lazy boy recliner. He didn't look good at all. He was missing some parts, and what I could see of his arms was covered in cigarette burns. Once you see them, you will always remember what they look like. I had a decision to make, and I made the only one I could.

Gathering Juney up in my arms, I was turning to go when I felt the cold steel of a pistol barrel press into the nape of my neck. My bad, I thought, had to be the bathroom. Belatedly I realized that this much blood meant splattering, and number three, which I was sure would still be folded up on the front porch, hadn't any blood on his shirt or hands.

Baddy number four told me to drop the gun. I did. He told me to turn around. I turned around.

He was crew cut and thin lipped , with two of the coldest grey eyes I had ever seen. Killer eyes, I suppose a poet would call them, and I knew he was going to kill me, then Juney.

I wish I could say I did some more tricks and stomped his teeth in and got away with the girl, but that stuff works best when the other guy is distracted or not alerted. The correct response to this kind of scenario is to put something solid between him and us and run like a scared rabbit, but I had a broken girl in my arms and nowheres to run. He smiled, obviously a man that enjoyed his work. He backed up one step, then he began to squeeze the trigger, slowly savoring the moment. His mouth stretched into a greasy smirk. The tip of his tongue slid out and licked his upper lip.

I looked at the young girl in my arms. I thought how I had balled things up. Not reading the “situation”. Not wanting to get involved. God had sent her to us, to Eli, to Nancy, and I had failed her. Now we were going to die here. At least she would never know....

The sound of the shotgun blast came simultaneous with the sound of shattering glass. The pellets took him on the left side from the hip to the chest. Too close for the pattern to spread, it was messy. Glass and blood showered us as I flinched away from the the pistol shot that I expected, since all muscles in a body will contract reflexively when suddenly shocked, but nothing went off. He just slid down into a pile of arms and legs and died. I looked to where the window used to be and saw Eli, my 12 gauge 870 at his shoulder, smoke curling from the barrel and a very determined look on his face.

Chapter 7

Commitment

“Good Lord man!” the judge exclaimed, “What in the world were you thinking!”

I tell you what I was thinking, I was thinking thank goodness my nephew didn't like doing what he was told. I continued....

We got Juney to the house and Nancy cleaned her up in the Bathroom while we listened to the sirens come up the road. Eli picked glass out of the side of my head with tweezers at the table. His hand was steady at the moment, I was relieved to see. The boy had saved our lives. Maybe I should have been

raking him over the coals for leaving his sister asleep and alone in the house, slipping through the woods to where he knew I had posted his mama, getting the shotgun he remembered me putting behind the seat, then creeping up to the other side of the house. The night could have turned out a whole lot worse than it did if he hadn't been so shot full of luck.

Of course, if he hadn't, it would have turned out a whole lot worse for two of us anyway. No, I wouldn't be doing much fussing this time.

That's what Nancy had been trying to tell me, that there was another man in the house. While she was watching, she had also seen Eli sneaking down out of the woods and up to the house. She was as appalled at the chance he had taken as I was, and secretly proud of him, though of course, she wasn't going to let on about it, that wouldn't be Nancy. I decided to wait and deal with it tomorrow.

“Where's your sister?” I asked him.

“In bed, still asleep” He answered. “Hold still, there's a little piece stuck in the ear.”

“When you get done there, I think you better go check on Juney.” He yanked and pulled what felt like a whole hunk of meat off my head.

“That's it,” He said, putting down the tweezers down on the table. He got up from the chair and headed for where the women were. Stopping at the hall, he turned and looked at me. “Uncle Jack,” he said

“Yes. Eli?”

“Thanks.” Then he turned and went to where his mother and friend were.

Juney had a long gash over her right temple. She was going to have a whopper of a black eye when the swelling went down, and both her lips were split. Her arm worried Nancy some, it didn't seem

broken but it was giving her a lot of pain. Nancy thought there were other things that needed a doctor to look at, making a face. “Old wounds” were all she would say. Praise God she was alive, at least.

Nancy shaved her hair and washed out the wound, then held ice to it until the skin was numb. Using some blue thread she had been hemming Ories jeans with, she stitched the edges together and covered it with tape and gauze. Don't ask where she learned to sew up people, I have no clue. Guess it comes with being a mother.

She gave Juney some Tylenol and put her in my bed and told Eli he could stay with her for a while, but she needed to sleep. She crooked a finger at me and I followed her out of the room into the kitchen, looking in on Orie as I passed.

Nancy sat and sighed. “ What are we going to do now?” I admit, it was a good question. I sat there doing some thinking. Our options were pretty much all bad.

If we went to the sheriff, who probably was right now down the road stepping over yellow crime scene tape, Eli for sure and probably me also, would be going to jail, and that wasn't something Nancy could stand. The part about Eli, I mean, I knew that.

Clearly Juneys' folks were caught up in something illegal, and since my gentle nature had prevented me from making sure of three of the bad guys, they knew we knew it too. Not good.

Her Mom had been alive and presumably would tell her version of what happened to the detectives, but how much me or Eli would be remembered was hard to say, she had been pretty out of it. That was good in some ways and not good in others.

Finally, Juney really needed to go to a doctor. And any doctor worth his salt was going to be suspicious, certainly enough to call child services and the cops.

Eli came to the table and sat down to inform us that the dead man had been Juneys' father. Oh boy.

What a thing for a young girl to see.

Eli was getting the shakes now, just trembling all over. Adrenalin does that to you. I knew that wasn't the only reaction he would be having either.

He said that she told him when she walked in the door, at first she thought he was in one of his usual drunks after returning home. Her Mom was sobbing and her Dad was standing in her room with a sick smile on his face. After Eli drove home, she had prepared herself for a slapping, which was his way when he drank, but instead found out that the house was full of men with guns who wanted to know where something was, and her dad wasn't cooperating. Not even when they started doing things to her mom, or her.

Nancy stopped up her ears at that point. Eli began to cry a little, more reaction to what he had seen and done. His mother took him in her arms, something she hadn't done since he was little. I knew he was embarrassed, and clearly she didn't want to handle anymore of this tonight. I told her to go and get some sleep. I would stay up and keep an eye out. Eli would stay in the living room on the couch. She nodded and stood up. She bent down and kissed the top of Eli's, head, then gave me a hug and went off to her room. I waited until I figured she wouldn't be coming back, then I went to the gun cabinet and took out my .308. I came and sat down by him, as he tried to stifle the tears and tremors. I told him that what his body was going through is normal. No shame. He thought about that a bit, then reached down and picked up a box of shotgun shells as I loaded up with the heaviest grain bullets I had.

“You know, it isn't shooting that man that bothers me so much.” I told him I figured that was so.

“ It's that I left her there and drove home. I wish I hadn't done that.” Reckon that will bother him a lot longer. There are some things I wish I had done different too. They still bother me.

“Where do you want me?” he asked.

“You stay with her.” I said, “ I'm going to be out at the trees. Maybe walk around a bit. If I want in, I'll knock twice, than three times.”

“No one's going to come and try to hurt Juney, or Mama or Orie, are they?” he asked.

“No Eli,” I answered, “ If they come tonight, they'll be looking for me. Just make sure you don't shoot at any good guys. If they break in the door or window though,” I added, “Plug them.”

He thought about that for a minute, before saying “That should be easy to remember.”His trembling was almost stopped, and the tears were drying on his cheek. Hard way to grow up,fast, I thought.

It was a long and wet and cold night. No one came.

In the morning, I made sure and knocked two and three, and just to really make sure, I hollered out to Eli to get his itching finger off the trigger.

Inside was warm and dry. Nancy had her hair tied up and was making eggs and cinnamon toast. Orie was sitting at the table with, surprise, Juney sitting next to her.

“Hey girl,” I said, sliding into a chair and propping the rifle behind me, “How's the head this morning?”

“ Hurts.” she mumbled through her mangled lips. I knew it did. If anything the bruises made her look worse than last night when she was a bloody mess. Her whole face was black and blue, the bruising

going down the side of her neck. She didn't seem to be sitting comfortably either.

“ Here's breakfast.” said Nancy, as she set a plate in front of Me and Orie. “Juney, you feel like some juice maybe? I doubt you want to do much chewing this morning. Eli, get her some apple juice”

“Thanks” she said, taking the glass. I watched her wince as she sipped. I had already made the decision about what to do. Now I had to tell Nancy, which is not an easy thing. Nancy doesn't do well when I try to tell her things. There wasn't anytime to be working her up to it though. Well, here goes.

“Nancy, I've spent the night thinking, about what we should do now. How we should set things right...”

That's as far as I got before Nancy held up her hand. She set Eli's plate before him, put her hands on her hips, and said, “ Juney will be staying with us from now on. She's not going anywhere I can't keep an eye on her.” she turned back to the stove and brushed a strand of hair back in place.

“I want you to go find out how her Mother is doing and tell her where her daughter is. If she doesn't like that, you will tell her I will go to the judge and explain the conditions her child was living under. Then you tell her I will come to see her with Juney and work out the details.

Next”, she continued, ignoring my attempt to speak, “ you will go to the newspaper and find out what they know about what happened last night. Read what they wrote this morning if it's in todays', but find the reporter and offer to buy them lunch. Tell them it's because you live a mile from the house and you are worried about your family, which is the truth. Reporters never pass up a free meal or a chance to talk about a crime.” I looked at Eli and Orie and Juney, Eli looked pleased, Orie looked pleased, and Juney tried to smile, but I guessed it hurt too much.

OK, I guess it was easy after all.

“One more thing,” Nancy said, turning back with the coffeepot in her hand. “ Get the camper on the

truck, Go by Mama's house and catch as many guineas as you can fit in the back, then ask her to dig up Dad's Browning, and get me some 20 gauge shells.” her face hardened. “ Double ought buck.” she added. “ I'll need it in the car when I take Juney to the doc.”

The easy part was now officially over.

Chapter 8

Understanding the situation

“I think I see where this is going .” said the judge. “Interstate travel, violence....” But I cut him off, which he didn't like, but he motioned for me to keep going, so I did.

If it seems likely to you that this story has something to do with drug smuggling, I will admit that I thought the same thing too. That was the judges guess too, but as it turns out we would all be wrong about that.

Still, that morning after the most exciting Thanksgiving ever, as Orie would forever call it even though she had slept in her bed during all the really interesting parts, drug smuggling was the theory I was operating on.

I was pretty sure that neither biker dude, bald guy, nor number three had gotten a good look at my face. Number four had, but he wasn't going to be telling, at least not in this world..

Juneys Mom might just have been in good enough shape to recognize and remember me, even though I thought it unlikely, so the first order of business was to find her and do a little discreet interrogation. Since no detectives had been waiting on our doorstep this morning, it was safe to assume she hadn't

spilled the beans yet. I figured she would be down at Pardee hospital, so after fetching Nancys' guineas and shotgun, I headed off to town.

I had made a discreet surveillance of the Walker house in the wee hours. There had been plenty to see, what with four ambulances, most of the counties law enforcement and even a couple of state troopers parked in the road. The bodies, both living and otherwise, had been removed before I got there, so I didn't have a count on who was which, but I got a good look at what was being brought out of the back of the trailer.

Just cardboard, piles and piles of it. Harry Anson, who was Steve Anson's second oldest boy, and some pencil necked geek type spent and hour popping bands and tearing bales apart, and not once did they indicate by word or manner that anything interesting was found. I couldn't get close enough to see what was going on inside the house, but on the trip to the hospital I was gratified to see someone I knew. Jenny Davis, standing on the porch while writing in a notebook and chatting up several of the officers. They might not be as young and single as she was but I was sure they would be hoping. I had taught Jenny in Sunday school for three years and had helped her in the shop with a tenth grade science project booth. I figured she would know all I needed to find out. Later.

Right now I was heading to the hospital. I had my tool belt and blue coveralls in the back. I had a clipboard with a bill from McCuen lumber on the seat behind me. One thing I have noticed is that when someone who looks like a repair guy walks into a building, no one questions who he is, they just figure he's three days late and it's about time someone called about that door/roof/sink or whatever.

Sure enough, I walked right into the emergency room past the counter lady and down to the first door. I stared at my clipboard at the yellow copy of what I knew was a bill for 300 board feet of fas maple, but as far as she knew was a work order from maintenance. I pulled out a screwdriver and popped the

cover off the door closer and peered intently at the innards.

One thing about working on a door, everyone in the world has to walk through it as soon as you get started. Sure enough, about 3 seconds after I started pretending to be adjusting the hydraulic gear, two doctors came bustling around the corner and right into me.

“Excuse me, “ I mumbled as they huffed off. I let them get two steps and then tucked my clipboard under my arm and marched right after them, looking for all the world as if I belonged.

The third examining room had a uniform standing outside. He was looking inside when I stopped and

tapped him on the shoulder.

“They still using this room?” I inquired politely.

He straightened up and said “Yes, what do you need it for?” I told him I had to check the tag on the oxygen valves.

“Sure,” he said, “ no one's in with her just now.” And simple as that, I was in. I felt slicker than James Bond.

Juneys' mom, or Martha as I had found out from Juney, was laying flat on her back and had several tubes and wires stuck in her. One machine I recognized as a breathing machine, it's bellows pumping away, was feeding air through a tube into her nose. Monitors blinked and flashed around the bed, so I assumed she was alive, but her eyes were closed. It was going to be a while before we did any talking. I leaned in and made a show of inspecting the calibration tag on the gauge, then scribbled on my clipboard. I looked at the officer and cut my eyes towards Martha.

“She alright here?”

“I guess so. Doc's say she's stabilized. Don't know if she'll be ever waking up any time soon though.” Not for a long time, I hoped. Time to skip.

Out the room and a quick cast past the others. No other uniforms. Hmmm, that's interesting. I would have sworn two of those guys from last nights fracas would be here, if not all three. I ducked into each room and scribbled same as before, then on the way out, not stopping but slowing down as I approached, asked the officer “Where are all the others? I couldn't get in earlier.”

He didn't even glance up. “ This is the only one I've got here, don't know why they would've kept you out.” I kept on moving to the door. “ 'less it was because of that wino flipping out. The skinny nurse knows karate and punched him in the jaw. Knocked out three of his teeth. Quieted him down real fast.”

“Must have been it.” I agreed over my shoulder. In and out. Time to change.

I left my tools and coveralls in the truck and returned to a different door where the front desk was. A pleasant faced volunteer pink lady helpfully told me that Mrs. Walter would be moved to the intensive care ward later that morning, and would not be having visitors until the doctor had seen her. Well now, that was peachy keen, I thought. No statements to the police either. I had some time.

I returned to the truck and drove out the parking garage. I flipped open my phone and dialed the newspaper office. Used to be, you got a live person on the other end, but now everybody has a recorded voice wanting to know what I wanted and who did I think I was and did I speak English or Espanol?

Ordinarily that annoys me to death, but this time it came in handy, since the recorded voice told me that if I didn't know what I was doing, punch 7 and get an office directory listing employee numbers.

I got Jenny's and dialed it next. She answered on the second ring.

“Hey girl,” I said, This is Jack Walston, how're you doing these days?

“Oh, hello Mr. Jack, Getting along alright, I guess. What can I do for you?” I was driving down Church street, thinking this wasn't going to sound good unless I phrased it right.

“ I saw you down where all the ambulances were this morning as I was driving to town. What in the world is going on at my neighbors'?” Here was the hook. “You got any clue?” No woman wants it implied that she isn't on the know, whether it's who's husband is tomcatting around or who got killed in the front room.

“You mean you don't know yet?” she asked. Yes I do, better than you can imagine. “ Five men where murdered last night at that rental house where you saw me. Two were in the house and three were in the backyard. Four had been beaten and tortured.”

“Oh my goodness.” I exclaimed, “ Did you say five men?”

“Yes, and a woman was still alive when the ambulances got there. She was barely kicking. She had been tortured too. The cops think drugs were involved.” so did I, though as I mentioned, we were all to be proven wrong. “ It was awful. I've never seen anything like it before. Lieutenant Benjamin said it was like they had been executed. Three were shot through the back of the head with a pistol and the other with a shotgun to the side,” I closed my eyes briefly at that. If it hadn't been for Eli... “ and one they think had a heart attack while being tortured.” Those cops had really been entranced with Jenny, spilling the beans to a reporter like that. “Did you and Ms. Nancy see anything last night?”

Oh you could say that, I thought. Time to get off.

“ No, we were sleeping off all that turkey and dressing” I replied, hoping she'd never had the opportunity to have any of Nancys seared cooking.

No one gets sleepy after her turkey dinners, too busy coughing up ashes.

“Well, I've got to go and get my copy in. Good talking to you.”

“Same here Jenny, say hello to your Dad for me, Goodbye.” I snapped the phone shut. Whoa. Five dead. Three shot in the head. That was not what I expected. Not at all.

I was heading south on Spartanburg Hwy, figuring on stopping at Rex's gun shop to buy some buckshot for Nancy, when it hit me. Whatever happened, had to happen in the twenty minutes or so between Nancy's call and the First responders from the volunteer fire department. There would have to been someone else there quick enough to find all three of the live ones, get them all in one place, and finish them. Then leave before being seen. There couldn't have been any time to make off with one of those bales I had seen in the back of the trailer.

Either what was hidden there was still there, or it wasn't in the bales. The deputies had looked there. I had not looked in the house at all. Maybe it was something small enough to put in a pocket? I was still thinking drugs, you see.

I prayed whatever it was, if it was worth killing for, that the killers had found it and were long gone from Green River. I pulled into Rex's lot, got out and went into the store.

What if they didn't? What if they were still looking? Would they try to get to Martha Walter, currently unconscious in a hospital bed? What if, I thought, they knew about Juney?

I bought a whole case, Federal high speed game loads. Seemed to be the prudent thing to do.

Chapter 9

The plot thickens

In past years, the day after Thanksgiving was a big hunting day. You should savor the irony. I sincerely hoped I wouldn't be the dead meat this year. Somehow it didn't seem that a gaggle of guinea hens and shotguns would be much of a deterrent if whoever murdered those five men decided to come after us. The drive home was filling my head with doubts and worries, and by the time I hit Green River Road I was on the point of calling the sheriff and trying to explain my way into prison.

I know you're thinking I was worried about nothing. The whole thing could be seen as self defense, protecting a minor that was being abused, etc. That could in fact be the case, but I have reason why I didn't have faith in a just and fair outcome.

There was this country down in South America, I'm not saying which, that had a problem with revolutionaries. Like many South American countries, the revolutionaries funded their revolution with coca and kidnappings. The United States had military agreements with this particular country to send in American “advisors”, which in this particular case meant me and 11 other guys flying into a military airport at 0330 in the morning.

We were dressed in a mix of service clothes, from several different countries, and carried our gear in plain brown suitcases. The plane taxied to the far end away from any lights where we jumped out and

moved into an old fueling pump house. There we stayed for two days and nights, baking under a metal roof with no windows during the dry season. Yeah, it was just as much fun as it sounds like.

A national helicopter loaded us up, again at 0330 in the morning, for the insertion. We had our native contingent that we were to “advise”, waiting for us at the jungle landing zone 30 klicks west. One guy,

who only spoke a local dialect of patois. We took him with us but relied on our charts.

We had a brisk little hike of about six hours next, humping all our sleds up and over one razor backed mountain after another, and I do mean steep. The leaves on those shrubs had edges like razors, and it felt like walking through a twelve mile long tanning bed. When we reached the primary, we didn't so much set up camp as collapse in a heap.

The lieutenant let us sleep a few hours til dark, then we split up in two man teams to get the lay of the target, a supposed rebel camp where a couple of left wing American politicos were being held for ransom by their very grateful captors. I imagined the look the faces of rich white guys from California when they found out exactly how their friends, the rebels, planned on using them to help the cause was pretty funny. They had been there for 2 years, several toes and fingers being part of the negotiations, and the new administration was ready to get tough.

This was not the first time someone had gone looking for them either. Taking jaunts into the jungle following up scanty intelligence is a mainstay of black ops. You are always getting ready to party, but hardly anyone bothers to show up. I figured this to be more of the same, but this time I was wrong.

The camp was in a cleared saddle between two hills five clicks South. It consisted of two huts and a fire ring. There was an aerial poking through the roof of one hut and several ragged rebels warming themselves by the fire. We were pretty high up by now, and it gets awfully cool in the mornings at that elevation. I was shivering myself as I scoped out the target. We would be doing a lot of this for a couple of days, sentry changes, patrol schedules, visitors, mealtimes, sleep locations, we would have it all

down before making a move. It would be nice if we could verify by eyeball that the two hostages were in the camp, but we would have to be very lucky for that to happen.

As it turned out, the morning of the second day we found out for sure when a dozen or so rebels arrived escorting another prisoner. He appeared to be an officer of the National Guardia, since he still had his uniform on. That poor smuck was in for a rough time unless he was really a big wig, I remember thinking.

The recent arrivals tied the officer to a stake they pounded in the ground away from the fires warmth. Then they sat and made themselves some breakfast. Following that, the one that looked to be the leader gestured to one of the camp guards we had named “smokey”, because he was always smoking a cigar, and he went into the hut without the aerial and pulled two disheveled men, plainly American, out into the sunlight. They were not happy campers. Jackson and I started getting nervous. We knew that hostages are rarely allowed out from under cover during the daytime. That's when our eyes in the sky were at their best, and while the rebels might need all their fingers and toes to do simple math. they weren't dummies by a long shot.

One had a bloody bandage around his right hand, the other had to dragged, apparently his feet weren't working too well. Smokey plopped them by the fire and began pointing and laughing at the two Americans. The rest of the rebels got in on the fun also, and it looked like everything was going to be cool, then the rebel officer pulls out an automatic, walks over to the Guardia officer, and puts three bullets into his head, just like that. He was dead before the body hit the dirt.

Jackson had his big sniper rifle lined up on the shooter as I called it in to the lieutenant. I knew we weren't set up to go in yet, which the lieutenant confirmed, but if they started popping the Americans we were going to be ready. Op orders were to try and get both out alive, regardless of cost.

Looking through my binoculars, the two Americans looked close enough to talk to,. I could see by their expressions that they were really past caring what had just happened. That we would have to carry them out until we could reach a safe evac position was painfully obvious.

Luckily, that was all that was on the list for the days entertainment. The Americans were hauled back into the hut and the door slammed shut. The body was untied and drug off where I assumed left in the bush for the scavengers. We went in that night.

I did my thing with my crossbow, Riley and Jason did their thing with their FN's while Jackson covered us with his nighted up rifle, and we were in and out with no one chasing us, yet.

The two Americans fancied themselves as “Benefactors to the oppressed peoples of the third world” , which told the rebels they were rich enough that the ransom was worth more than the take from a donation. We humped ourselves with all our gear and the two on litters the two clicks back to base camp, where we called for the chopper. After a breather, off we went across another mountain or two until, right at nightfall, we came out of the trees into a clearing in the bottom of a valley with a stream running through it. We lay in perimeter all night, sleeping by turns. Skipper said we'd be making rendezvous at first light, if things went right, which rarely happened, but as it turned out the chopper showed just after 0530. We popped smoke at the sound of rotors and watched as a little bird swooped down to a landing.

I'd been hoping for a big bird or two, maybe with some gunships, so we could ride out. Oh well, another beautiful day in the bush. That's what comes of letting the CIA run the show.

Out jumped a man dressed in jungle cammies. He ran up to the lieutenant and spoke briefly. The lieutenant saluted, then turned and told us to saddle up and skedaddle. Any rebel worth his beans had

heard that chopper, and would heading this way.

I thought it odd there was no corpsman looking at the rescued men, nor any move to load them up.

We were up in the trees when we heard the shots. The lieutenant, just in front of me, jerked like a puppet on a short string. We were already heading back to protect the chopper when we heard it lifting off. We could see the bodies of the hostages laying by the stream. The lieutenant was cursing with rage, and I didn't understand at all. I looked at Jackson, laying 5 yards away, who seemed as puzzled as I was. I looked back to the lieutenant.

“Whats the deal, skipper?” I asked, totally clueless.

The government, you see, wanted us to risk our lives, so they could make sure the two guys they were sending us out after wouldn't be ransomed, ever. To this day I have no idea why, but that's the reason I'm not too eager to put the future of my family in some government agency's hands. Call me crazy, but just because someone is paranoid , doesn't mean there is no one out to get them.

So that's why when I got home early in the afternoon, and saw the plain silver Ford parked next to the back porch, my mind wasn't working towards calling the cops. Now you understand why I wasn't so much scared as I was wary. And angry. Who would have had the time to pop Baldy and Skinny guy before the firemen got to the house? Seemed likely I was about to find out. I did not need this. I had enough problems without some wacked out drug dealer making things more complicated.

Nancy's' new guineas were making their usual outraged guinea racket as I slammed the truck door and stomped off to the barn. My mind was clear as a bell, none of that back and forth stuff that had clouded

my decisions the night before. But because I was mad, I was committing another error. Action should be based on a cold assessment of facts, not jumping to conclusions. I had that drilled into me a long time ago, but for the moment all I could think about was....

First objective, get the enemy away from noncombatants. If they wanted me, then they would have to leave the house and come after me.

Second, create a situation where I would have a position of strength to negotiate from.

Third, disinformation. Keep Nancy and the others out of the picture.

Fourth, run. Not fast enough to discourage pursuit, but enough to stay ahead. I slid open the barn door and climbed up into the hayloft. Pops old hayfork was propped in the corner by the nail where fifty or so years of old bale twine was wound around a 40 penny nail hammered into king post. I heard the back door open and footsteps approaching the barn. Two people, I judged. I picked up the fork, swung around the opening in the big loading door at the rear, and dropped to the ground. A teeth jarring drop. I hit and rolled on the rough ground of the musty feed lot, unused for more than 12 years. A man's voice was calling my name out front. I crouched down and ran to the north side of the barn. I had a bad moment with the bottom strand of barbed wire, ripping the inside of my jeans from knee to crotch. Another thing for Nancy to get tiffed about, I thought. Scrambling through finally, I edged along the wall, holding the fork handle across my chest, left hand knuckles down, right knuckles up, tines to my left. I stopped at the corner and waited.

It was 50/50 whether the second man would come this way, but this was the side blind to the house, and luck was with me. I caught the man coming to cover the back door across the bridge of the nose with a forward stroke, then took him down with a thrust to the abdomen. That's a good way to rupture the diaphragm, but I didn't want to hurt him too badly. I wanted just him to keep quite for a minute or

so.

I took his pistol, which he hadn't drawn yet. They have some funky way of getting it loose of the holster, and it bumfuzzled me for a moment. The man tried to fight back, which meant he was tougher than most guys I had whacked lately, so I clocked him on the elbow with the fork handle and left him puking in the grass as I moved around to the front of the barn. The elbow has a lot of nerves and a blow there often has that effect. So sad, too bad.

His buddy was standing with his back to me. How convenient, it's so nice when the target cooperates.

He must have heard me behind him, but spun too late, just as I brought the handle across in a downward sweep. I missing his clavicle but hit his gun wrist with a satisfying crack. He knew a few tricks himself though, and my feet went flying from the ground sweep I should have been prepared for but wasn't, the fork flying from my hand. Humiliating, but understand it had been awhile since I faced someone from the first team.

I rolled and twisted the way you do to turn back and prepare for the next attack, but he already had

his pistol in his uninjured hand, the other held out palm forward. It wasn't lined up on my forehead though, but rather at my feet. We stood there for an instant, taking each others measure, I suppose. I was tensing for a spring when he spoke.

“Mister Walston, please calm down and listen to us for five minutes. I'm special agent Pitts of the F.B.I., I have no interest in shooting you in front of your family today, nor do I wish to arrest you.” I hesitated, this wasn't what I 'd expected.

“We may be able to help each other. No cuffs, I promise.” he said. I relaxed slightly. I could always run after I'd heard what he had to say. Briefly. I guess he read my mind, for he quickly continued, “We had the house wired.” My stomach began to sink. “ We also had surveillance cameras.” Hoooo, boy.

“So we, or maybe I should say 'I' , have a good idea of what happened.” I noticed the change of pronoun, or whatever you call it. The 'I' instead of 'we”. That seemed significant. He paused. I considered.

“You one of those rule book demon cops,” I asked “ or one of those unscrupulous cops?”

He smiled, not a very warm smile, no teeth showing. “Oh, I'm definitely not, what did you call it? A rule book demon.”

Well, OK then. Let's talk.

Chapter 10

The deal

“Would that be the man calling himself special agent Smith, who is even now cooling his heels in my courtroom?” asked the judge.

It is, I assured him. The judge smiled a little, then reached down and opened a bottom drawer in his desk. He pulled out a cardboard box and opened it.

“Doughnut?” he asked, offering me the box. “Continue.” he said, as I bit into a jelly glazed.

We were there in the kitchen. Nancy hadn't liked even letting them in the house, badge or not. We had a pretty intense discussion before agent Pitts finished it by shoving his way past me and telling Nancy that this was a “emergency situation”. She mad enough to spit, so I took her by the arm and back to the bedroom we went, where I explained to her that we weren't going to chase them off, but would have to manage.

“Manage!” she hissed through clenched teeth.

So I told her how I thought we could best do the managing.

Agent Pitts partner was still curled up in a ball, sitting on the couch in the living room. Orie was standing in front, solemnly gazing at him while sucking her thumb, a habit we haven't been able to break her of yet. He didn't act like he was holding any grudges, but I wasn't taking that at face value. Nancy came out a minute later, calm and poised. She scooped Orie up and pried her thumb out of her mouth, told us she would be right back. She went into Ories's room and returned with Ories little tape player, her favorite toy. Orie crawled up into Juneys lap behind the kitchen table and pulled on her headphones. Nancy started making coffee. Pitts was making a survey of the room, looking into the closet, checking out the contents of the gun cabinet. He walked down the hall, peering in each room as he passed. Nancy sat down beside Juney and whispered into Ories ear. Orie giggled and nodded.

Eli was beside Juney and when I pulled up a chair they were sitting between me and Nancy, Juney with Orie still in her lap. Nancy had turned on Orie's player, which was sitting on the table in front of her. With her headphones on, she looks like a cute Klingon. Juney, with her arms wrapped around Orie, didn't look like she was feeling much better, but she was hanging in there. Eli had his inscrutable look firmly planted on his face, Nancy looked like she wanted to hit someone and not too particular who it

was. Agent Pitts looked calm and professional, leaning forward with his elbows on the table while drinking from his cup held in both hands. The perfect picture of complacency. This too, I wasn't taking at face value.

“It appears that you, mister Walston, used reasonable force in the rescue of a minor who was being illegally detained. Your nephew or your sister in law, I'm not sure on this point but it had to be one of them, was responsible for the death of a criminal who was in the process of perpetuating an aggravated assault. You now have a minor female who you are not related to in your home, apparently of her free will but without the knowledge of her surviving parent. Four of the dead men were shot with a 9 millimeter handgun, one with a shotgun. Do you have a handgun, Mister Walston?”

“ Jack didn't shoot anybody, If that's what you're asking.” said Nancy.

“Where were you, Ms. Walston? Can you provide an alibi?”

“ You had the place miked and spycamed.” I wearily pointed out. “I imagine you know what happened better than we do.” Nancy looked about to blow. Agent Pitts took another sip of coffee.

“ Yes we did. I am laying out for you how it could go if it came to an investigating authority what your involvement was. This is a best case scenario, you understand. “

“You knew what was happening in that house! You knew Juney and her mother and father were being tortured, and you did nothing!” Nancy exclaimed. “Don't come in here, drinking my coffee and sitting at my table and get all official with me, Mister F.B.I. Man! I'll not have it!”

Nancy,” I said “ I think what he's trying to say is that we both have something we rather not get into court.” Nancy opened her mouth, starting to share some more thoughts on the subject, but I cut her off.

“Just what do you propose? I'll tell you right now that Juney isn't going to be going to be taken from here.” Juneys hand was trembling as she placed it on Ories shoulder. Eight months she'd been a part of

our lives. No, that wasn't going to be on the table. I was making that clear. I wanted something else made clear. “These children are all we've got. If you're thinking of threatening to take then away, you better have more than a piece of paper to help you.” Never mind my frame of mind, Nancy would have done her best to shoot them on the spot if he tried that. I didn't want any blood in my house.

“No,no, you misread what I said, Ms. Walston. As mister Walston points out, publicity of any kind would not serve the governments purpose here.” He sat back straight in his chair, setting his cup down in front of him. “ Your children,” he continued, glancing at Juney, “ all the children here, are not an issue. Nor is your actions of last night. There is the problem with a certain 911 call placed from your cell phone last night, though.” I closed my eyes in understanding. Drat it all, of course Nancy's number would be recorded. That's how they had found us so fast. “So we will have to come up with a plausible cover story for that.” He smiled that toothless smile again. “ Since the bureau has taken over investigation of the case, that shouldn't be to much of a problem. What we do require, is your complete cooperation until this matter is settled.” he paused, giving me a speculative look. “The patriot act gives me authority to compel you, at risk of incarceration for a indeterminate period, with no right to communicate or habeas corpus.” He cocked his head, “ Do you know what that means, mister Walston.”

Oh yeah, I knew what that means. He wants me to do what he says, and will throw me in jail and not let me out if I don't.

“There is no appeal, mister Walston. It really doesn't matter if you were acting in self defense last night. The fact is,” and this is the part that got to me the worst, “The government now owns you.”

In a pig's eye, I thought. I glanced at Nancy to see how she was taking all this. She had her hands clasped in front of her and was placidly staring at her fingers. Good girl, she's remembering what I told

her. I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. I rubbed my hands together, attempting to appear the perfect picture of submission

“OK, Pitts,” I said “ What is it you want from us?” The million dollar question.

“ Without giving out any privileged information, I can tell you that we are tracking a shipment of something very valuable. It was supposed to be delivered to Simon Walter's house last night. It wasn't there. We know, because we looked very, very hard for it. We want very badly to know who was going to receive it and what they were going to do with it. That's why we had the house under surveillance. That's why we had to let things play out, we have to know what happened to the shipment. Absolutely have too. I should stress that it is a matter of national security.”

“What is so important that you would stand by and let a girl have that ,” Nancy exploded furiously, pointing at Juney's battered face, “that done to her?” I couldn't imagine either, but I was eager to learn.

“Ms. Walston, there are a lot of things I can't tell you. What I can tell you is that I am a father myself, and a lot of people will die, if I don't find out where that shipment is and who has it.” Not mollified in the least, Nancy stood up and squeezed past us, heading for the sink. Agent Pitts looked at me and whispered, “She's not going to do anything rash, is she?” I shrugged.

“I wouldn't let her behind me.” I whispered back to him. He looked thoughtful, then turned around in his chair.

“What I want you to do is to make a phone call.” he said to her back. “One phone call from the same cell you used last night.” he added. “Then I will need your brother in law to cooperate with my partner and me for a day or two.”

So there you have it. He's from the government and he's here to help.

Not.

The phone call would be the bait, Pitts explained. It had to be Nancy's phone so the bad guys would think it was genuine. When he and his partner, who he called Suggs, had pulled the 911 spills, they discovered there was a logged record of prior access. It was supposed to be a secure database, but someone else had already been looking. Uh oh. Nancy immediately demanded to know how since Pitts had found us he didn't expect the baddies to show up at our door later that evening. Pitts winked at Orie. Orie stuck her tongue out back at him.

“The cell provider only had a mail box number at the Tuxedo post office, for a Nancy Carter. I went to the post master and she told me to check next door at the store. A very nice lady told me that Nancy Carter was now Nancy Walston and gave me directions to the house.”

Well, of course Janelle would. Her and Nancy had been big buddies in school, playing ball on the same team, both wanting Dan for a husband. Carter was Nancy's maiden name and when she first got her mailbox she hadn't married Dan yet. Could someone else figure that out? How many people had Janelle told about the stranger coming into the store looking for Nancy? Pitts knew what I was thinking.

“I suggest you talk to the postmaster and ask her not to tell anyone else what she told me. I've got some people watching just in case.”

“The same people you had doing such a good job watching Juney, I suppose.” Nancy spat out.

Pitts had the decency to wince, but it was Suggs who answered, the first he had spoken since finally getting his wind back., though his voice was a little squeaky.

“We do not have many options on where to set up a station. This is the country. Any van parked on the side of the road sticks out like a red flag. The closest we could monitor was in that same stores

parking lot. We were on the way as soon as we realized that the primary subjects were down....” Nancy skewered him with one of her most scathing glares. He dropped his eyes, then continued. “ I know we must seem callous, but the consequences can not be over emphasized.” He stopped talking and looked at Pitts, questioning.

Pitts resumed, “ I represented myself as a newly hired life insurance agent to the young lady. I mentioned to her that looking up people from old high school annuals to make sales calls to is a common instruction, and that demonstrated to her why I didn't know Ms. Walston by her married name. Satisfied?”

Pitts had an answer to everything, but I still wasn't buying. “What do you want me to say?”

“Not you, her, mister Walston.” Again, in a pigs ear, thinks I.

“Nancy's not doing any calling, Pitts. You want this done it's me and nobody else.” The words were scarcely out of my mouth before I realized I had messed up.

“Jack,” Nancy began in that cool tone of voice that I know so well. The tone that means 'I have had enough now shut up and sit down'. She does not like at all being told what to do, least of all by me. “ I will decide what I will and will not do.” she walked over to the window and stood there looking outside. Her arms were still crossed and her head was held high, the late fall sunlight made her face glow. “Can you protect us? Better than you did last night?” she turned on her heel and faced Pitts. “Or will you and your partner be sitting in a van somewheres else and listen while we are being beaten to death also?”

There it is, I thought, that's the problem in a nutshell. Now lets hear how the silver tongued devil gets by this.

“Ms. Walston, I will have this house monitored, of course. I will have mister Walston wired and under observation at all times. But if it comes down to it,” he paused and took a deep breath “I will allow

every single person in this one horse community, including me and my team, to be beaten to a pulp before I scare off the target.”

That's not what I expected him to say. That's what I expected him to think, but not to say it. Nancy was taken aback by Pitts brutal statement of fact, but I could tell it had the designed effect.

“This is that important?” she asked.

“It is indeed that important.” he solemnly assured her. Nancy walked to the door and stared out at the guineas, happily scratching at the remains of yesterdays Thanksgiving dinner. She rubbed her back, then turned to face Pitts.

“Give me the number you want me to call.” she said, “And tell me what to say. Then we're going to talk some about what you're going to do for me.”

Thursday, February 10, 2011

the beginning