Inside the Security Building, half-a-dozen bored non-coms slouch at their desks shoving paper from the in-box to the out-box and maybe back again, too. Teletypes clack and security monitors scan the perimeter of the missile silo, both above and below ground. Lights show green on motion detectors, though they’ll blink red if either an Iraqi Mukhabarat squad or a field mouse crosses breaks the beam.
Captain Pete Pukowlski, a stocky 40-year-old with a brush cut and a menacing glare, walks through Security Command looking over shoulders, occasionally shooting glances at a bank of video monitors. Airman Dempsey’s face appears on the screen of one monitor, winking into the camera. A non-com buzzes Dempsey through the security door.
“Chow’s here,” Dempsey announces, handing out burgers. Captain Pukowlski grabs two and continues making his rounds.
An airman with loosened tie and grease-stained cuff picks up a ringing phone. “Three hundred eighteenth Strategic Missile Squadron, Airman Cooper speaking.”
In a grimy tee-shirt, Jack Jericho stands at a communications shed, somewhere in the wilderness, speaking into the phone. “Sixty-ninth bucket brigade, swab jockey second class Jericho reporting from behind enemy lines.”
Through the phone, he hears Cooper’s frantic whispers. “Jeez, Jericho, Captain Pukowlski’s shitting razor blades. You better get—”
From somewhere in the room, the captain’s voice drowns out Cooper. “Is that Jericho? Gimme that!”
Jack waits a moment, then there he is. “Sergeant, get your ass back by 1500 tomorrow, and be in uniform for once.”
“Why, you got a war planned?”
“V.I.P.’s are coming from D.C., so try to pretend you’re an airman. And don’t be bringing back any more road-kill raccoons.”
“Yes sir,” Jack says, “but those were possums, and last time you liked them… medium rare.”
“Jericho, you’re a friggin’ disgrace.”
“Captain, are you eating one of those Wrangler burgers, all the way?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“I can smell the onions, sir.”
With the captain still puzzling over that one, Jericho hangs up the phone. Thinking about the brass from Washington coming tomorrow. Knowing the captain will put on a dog-and-pony show and not wanting to be either one.
-9-
Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog
Midafternoon in Coyote Creek, and Brother David drives an old pickup truck with Rachel sitting next to him. David wears a ten-pocket bush jacket favored by Hemingway wannabees and newspaper photographers. Rachel wears a beige dress that comes to her ankles. A stenciled sign on the door of the pickup reads, “Eden Ranch.” Matthew is in the truck bed with a man who calls himself Jeremiah. Matthew’s shoulder-length brown hair is out of its ponytail, and his beard has the unkempt look of an ancient prophet. Jeremiah is an African-American man of 30 with chiseled features and an untamed Afro. A red bandanna is tied around his neck. Both men wear loose fitting pants and sandals.
The truck travels down Main Street, past the Old Wrangler Tavern and the gas station, pulling to a stop in front of a general store.
“Walk with me,” David says to Rachel, and the two of them get out and head down the sidewalk. Matthew and Jeremiah hop out of the truck bed and enter the general store.
Few pedestrians are about in this tumbleweed town. David smiles placidly at a couple of passing ranch wives. “Afternoon, ma’am,” he croons, tipping an imaginary hat, and the women’s pace quickens going by him.
“Your charms don’t seem to work here,” Rachel says.
“They fear what they cannot know.” David clasps a hand around her shoulder, and they stop in front of a rod and gun shop, David admiring a shotgun in the window. “On the other hand, your charm seems to have woven its spell over Billy.”
“He wants to believe. He may even think he believes. But he does not. He is weak and afraid.”
Brother David kisses her on the cheek. “Then we must make him strong and fearless.”
Matthew loads cans of beans and boxes of rice into the bed of the pickup truck. Sensing movement behind him, he turns to see three local toughs surrounding him. All three wear low-slung jeans and cowboy boots. A wiry ranch hand called D.D. because he spends every Saturday night in jail for Drunk and Disorderly, chews on a piece of straw. “Hey Jesus, get a haircut!” he calls out.
Matthew ignores him and continues loading the truck.
“Yeah, and while you’re at it, get a shave,” says D.D.’s husky buddy, a guy they call Hoss because he’s the size of a horse and just as smart. “And take a bath, for Christ’s sake.”
“Everything I do is for the sake of Christ,” Matthew says calmly.
“Yeah, we know,” says the third one, Cletis. “You Jesus freaks think the world’s gonna end.”
“Oh, it shall,” Matthew says, “precisely when it is prophesied.”
“Maybe we should put your lights out ahead of schedule,” Hoss says, and his buddies laugh.
Jeremiah comes out of the general store carrying a fifty-pound sack of flour. As he steps off the curb, Cletis trips him, and Jeremiah tumbles to the pavement. The bag tears, and flour spills. Jeremiah gets up, dark eyes blazing. Matthew lays a calming hand on his shoulder. “Let it go, Jeremiah.”
This sets Hoss to giggling. “Jeremiah? I thought it was Aunt Jemima.”
“Naw,” D.D. says. “It’s like the song.” Which he tries to sing, “Jer-e-miah was a bull-frog.”
Just as tuneless, Cletis joins in, “Was a good friend of thine.”
Hoss bends over and scoops up a handful of flour from the torn bag. Slowly, he approaches Jeremiah, who stands motionless, waiting. “We don’t like hippies, coloreds, or queers around here,” Hoss taunts him, “and you look like all three.”
“Yeah,” D.D. adds. “We know what you choir boys do out at that ranch. Pray all day and bugger all night.”
This sets Hoss to giggling in a high-pitched squeal.
Jeremiah is silent. Matthew doesn’t make a move.
Slowly, deliberately, Hoss extends his hand — palm up and filled with flour — toward Jeremiah. For a long second, neither man moves. Then, Hoss blows a cloud of flour into Jeremiah’s face. Cletis bursts out laughing. “Hey, Jeremiah, you got your wish. You’re a white boy now.”
Still, no movement from Matthew or Jeremiah.
“What’s the matter, waiting for the Lord to help you?” D.D. mocks them. Then he sees that Jeremiah is looking past him. D.D. turns to find Brother David and Rachel on the sidewalk behind him.
“The Bible tells us to turn the other cheek,” David says with equanimity. “But the Book also instructs that we must teach the children so that they will know. Therefore, we must show you the light.” He nods to Jeremiah.
It happens so quickly that Hoss never moves, never raises his hands, never even cries out. Jeremiah’s hip pivots and he throws a lightning age-zuki, the knuckles of his right fist striking Hoss squarely on the Adam’s apple. The big man topples to the street, gagging.
Matthew snaps out a mae-geri front kick, catching D.D. in the groin, then spins into a ushiro-kekomi, a thrust kick to the rear, which lands directly in Cletis’ solar plexus. Cletis drops to a knee, sucking wind. Matthew locks his hands together and drops Cletis to the pavement with a thunderous downward punch to the back of the neck.
Hoss gets to his feet and reaches under his pantleg for a knife sheathed to his leg. But he is too slow, Jeremiah peppering him with a flurry of jabs to the face. Hoss brings up his hands to protect himself, but he’s already spouting blood from gashes above the eyes and his nose is a leaky faucet. With Hoss warding off head blows with his arms, Jeremiah backs up and lands a kick squarely on his sternum, cracking it, and the big man goes down, clutching his chest, coughing up blood-stained mucus.