“I know you’re angry, Dale, but don’t talk like that,” Bellman said. “We’re not here to talk about killing.”
“What else will they understand? Should we have a demonstration? March? Carry signs? Vagina hats maybe?” Chalmers was getting hot.
“You fight when you are out of options,” Turnbull said. “Not while you have other ones. Because if you fight, then you don’t know where it will end up.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You’ll probably get yourself dead. Lot of other people too.”
“They came into my town and smashed my face in in front of my wife and kid,” Chalmers said. “You think I won’t fight?”
“No, I think you’ll fight. I’m not sure how well. But we’re not there yet. We can do other things. We need to consider… nonviolent solutions,” Turnbull said, hardly believing those words were coming out of his mouth.
“The Founders didn’t look for nonviolent solutions to the damn redcoats,” Chalmers said.
Turnbull said nothing – the guy had a point. And he wondered if his advice might be different if his orders were not so specific.
There was a disturbance at the front of the restaurant; people were getting up out of their seats staring out the window. Becky the waitress rushed back to Bellman, her eyes wide, frightened.
“They’re back,” she cried.
Turnbull was past her and at the front door, staring down the street, assessing. Bellman joined him.
“What do we do, Kelly?” the minister asked. People were already rushing off the sidewalks, terrified.
“We don’t do anything.”
Turnbull stepped out of the diner into the street, his Wilson .45 nestled in the Uncle Mike holster in the small of his back. Bellman watched from the diner doorway, holding the puppy. It had wanted to come along.
The People’s Volunteers numbered eight, four per sedan. They were in a couple of Chevys, late ‘00s, obviously “liberated,” with “PV” spray painted on the front doors. The thugs were smiling, happy, in fact, very happy. One fired five rounds into the air from an AK, and he giggled as the already scattering townspeople ran even faster. The sound echoed across the town, just as it was meant to.
This was going to be fun. And easy.
Except for the man walking down the middle of Main Street from the direction of the courthouse, his left hand held up in the air. A big man. A man with a wan little smile.
A man who did not seem afraid.
The PV leader, who wore his black coverall uniform unbuttoned down the front, displaying a concert t-shirt from some rapper with silvery lettering, saw him first.
A man, walking down the middle of the street.
Why was his left hand up in the air?
The leader laughed.
“What the hell?” he said, holding his AK up toward the sky with one hand. He was smiling. His friends went silent and their eyes went to the approaching gentleman with the odd left hand.
The man stopped about ten feet away, a half dozen of the AKs trained on him.
“Hi,” Turnbull said.
“Hey bitch,” said, the leader, now walking forward, AK still pointed upwards, laughing a little. “Don’t you know how to give up?”
His cohort found this highly amusing.
The man just smiled.
“Give up?” Turnbull asked.
“Yeah, you put both your hands in the air.”
“Oh, I see the problem,” Turnbull said. “We have a misunderstanding.”
“Yeah, you’re right. We have a big misunderstanding.”
“See, I’m not giving up.”
The leader blinked, computing.
“You’re not giving up?”
“No,” Turnbull laughed. “Why would I do that?”
“Cuz I’ll cap your country ass.”
“Nah, you won’t shoot me.”
“Oh yeah, I will.”
“No. Curiosity. You really want to know why I have my left hand up in the air.”
“I don’t give a shit…”
“No, trust me on this. You really, really do give a shit why I walked out here with my left hand up in the air.”
The leader said nothing. From behind him, one of the gang, his head wrapped in a do-rag, shouted.
“Hey, just shoot that motherfucker!”
Turnbull stared in the leader’s eyes, and the leader paused, uncertain.
Why did he have his left hand up in the air?
“You could do what the particle physicist in the do-rag says, but I think I’ve piqued your interest,” Turnbull said.
“Why are you holding it up?” the leader asked.
“Do you deer hunt?”
“What?
“Deer. Like Bambi, except all grown up.”
“I know what a deer is.”
“But have you ever hunted for deer? Perhaps this is outside of your experience since the new government recruits you People’s Volunteers out of cities and there’s not a lot of large game animals wandering around there, unless you count the women and children you guys always seem to hit when you’re shooting at each other. So, let me share with you,” Turnbull said evenly. “Okay, hunting is banned now, but just about everyone around here used to do it, so we have some experience with it. To hunt deer, you can walk around the woods looking for a deer, and that’s good. It’s a challenge.”
“Shoot that bitch!” shouted Do-Rag, impatient to get back to pillaging, and maybe worse. The leader ignored him, his attention fixed, trying to figure out exactly what was happening here. And it began to occur to him that it could not be anything good.
“But some guys hunt deer another way,” Turnbull continued. “They set up a blind and hide in it and then they wait. Let the deer come to them. Sometimes – and this is usually against the law, but people do it anyway – they even bait the deer to come on in right in front of their deer blind, all unsuspecting, thinking everything’s fine. Then the hunter – who’s using a hunting rifle with a scope and big old bullets – just… pow. Drops ‘em.”
The gears in the leader’s mind were turning; Do-Rag’s not so much.
“You know all these country boys around here? All of them were deer hunters,” said Turnbull. “And not a one of them turned in his deer rifles.”
The leader looked around, his eyes darting to roofs, windows, cars, doorways.
“So,” asked Turnbull. “Since I don’t have a radio or anything fancy to communicate with, what do you think happens if, for any reason, this hand drops?”
The leader swallowed, then puffed out his chest.
“And you know you’ll be the first to get shot,” the leader said.
“No, I’d be second. But I’m betting you’re smart, at least smarter than Do-Rag over there, which can’t be hard. Still, I’m rolling the dice, but I’m feeling good about my chances. And now you’re thinking about whether you ought to roll the dice, and all I can say by way of advice is ‘Fürstenfeldbruck.’”
“What? Fürstenfuckfeld?”
“Fürstenfeldbruck. Ah, don’t bother trying to pronounce it. It’s a German airfield – damn, my arm’s getting tired so I better hurry. Fürstenfeldbruck is the airfield the West Germans had the Palestinian terrorists who kidnapped the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics go to to meet their getaway plane.”
The leader blinked, baffled. Turnbull continued, patiently.
“See, except it was an ambush. The Germans were waiting there for them. But the operation went really wrong. They teach you all about it in sniper school. See, the Germans only had one sniper per bad guy – actually, less than one shooter per bad guy. So you can probably guess what happened. When they opened fire, they missed taking out all of the bad guys out on the first volley. Tragically, the dirtbag Palestinian terrorists survived long enough to murder the hostages.”