In the park, two teams of men were attempting to flush the keening ravens from the trees. The only plan was to pour boxes of cartridges into the sky. After an initial volley of lead went up, the men followed the birds as they swept low, toward the old carousel by the fountain. Beyond the shooting, chips of brick flew off the downtown buildings, circles of paint leapt off car fenders, and an entire row of windows dropped from the bank. The statue of Harold McGeachie, “The Farmers’ Farmer,” took a gut shot. Only one bird fell, and heads lowered in unison to reload.
We pulled up to none other than Sheriff Dan, standing near the hamburger grill, talking into a radio, gesturing with his thermos. Some other men wore their masks around their necks or on top of their heads as they ate, but Sheriff Dan had none on him. Our driver stopped, got out. He took a few steps toward the grill.
Sheriff Dan glanced at us. “Is that it?” he asked the deputy. “Is that all of ’em?”
The deputy nodded.
Sheriff Dan shook his head. “Any of them sick?”
The deputy grabbed a hamburger bun. “How the hell should I know?”
“Well, put them to work cleaning up those birds,” Sheriff Dan said. He looked like he was going to go on, but then he paused, looking up to the sky. He peered into the blue above, squinting, then drew his revolver. “Get ready, boys,” Sheriff Dan said. “He’s coming by again.”
Other people drew their pistols.
Sheriff Dan pulled an extra box of bullets from his back pocket. “Until someone can verify that chopper’s one of ours, we take him down.”
Suddenly, that little helicopter swooped low over the park, pearly mists curling out behind its prop wash. Bug-eyed, the chopper hot-dogged in, its black bubble windows expressionless, then banked like a dragonfly, spraying us all good, before it zoomed away over the library. Sheriff Dan cracked off six quick shots. A half-dozen men followed suit. If anybody hit the thing, I couldn’t tell.
Sheriff Dan told the deputy, “Now get those convicts to work.”
That spray was already settling into the trees, and those ravens had about five minutes until they would start dropping from the branches.
We got out of the truck. The ground was littered with brass shells, and the way they rolled under your feet, it was worse than walking on ice. The other guys started hauling rakes and hoes and kerosene, but I approached Sheriff Dan.
“My father’s in that building,” I told him. “And I need to see if he’s okay.”
Right then a fireman yelled, “Power’s out again.”
Sheriff Dan looked up to the traffic lights, which were off. “Cowards,” he said to no one in particular. “That’s just great. That’s all we need. Deserters.” Then he lifted his radio and yelled into it, ordering someone to find those dam-keepers, drag them back to the turbines, and get the power working again.
He turned to me. “Sorry, Professor, but nobody crosses quarantine lines.”
“I don’t even know if he’s alive,” I said. “I have to see him.”
Sheriff Dan looked at me. “I sympathize,” he said, “but we have a situation here. It takes everybody. I’ll thank you to respect those quarantine lines and join the officer here in disposing of those birds.”
Hadn’t anybody read The Black Chronicle of Cardinal Ignatius, or Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year? Quarantine lines didn’t save Rome in 1347, and the shutting up of houses only made things worse for London in 1664. Any ghost can tell you that pestilence carves its own swath.
“Sheriff,” I said, “cutting people off from each other is no way to help those in need. Guaranteeing that the sick suffer alone is not a public-health policy.”
“Objection noted, Professor,” he said. “But we’ve got procedures to follow.”
Sheriff Dan was already returning to his work. He cradled his radio against his shoulder so he could talk as he reloaded.
For some reason I stopped him. I grabbed his coat.
Some of his bullets spilled to the ground.
“This park used to be full of squirrels,” I told him. “They’re all gone now.”
He squinted at me, trying to determine if he should be angry or amused. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” I said. “My student Brent Eggers secretly snared and ate them — a pretty clear violation of park ordinances.” In the park, the other team of men began firing into the trees as the birds, now stunned, struggled to fly. Sheriff Dan didn’t flinch at the shots. “I suppose,” I continued, “that you’ll be issuing a warrant for his arrest.”
He couldn’t help cracking a smile.
“Ease your conscience, Professor,” he said. “I think I can look the other way.”
“That’s not all,” I added. “My other student Gertrude Labelle was the one who speared the hog at Glacier Days, and I further confess that I was not only a witness but a conspirator.”
“You maybe haven’t heard,” he said. “Pigs no longer exist.”
“There’s more. In addition, despite my lawyer’s plea of ‘not guilty,’ I am responsible for tampering with a human burial.”
Sheriff Dan indicated a Subaru in which several frozen corpses were piled, stiff legs levitating out the back, arms locked together in ways that seemed oddly tender. “Okay,” Sheriff Dan said, running low on patience, “you are hereby absolved of improper conduct at a gravesite.”
“Thank you,” I told him, “but my point is that, when it comes to enforcing the rules—”
He lifted a hand to stop me. “Please,” he said, “I can see the case you’re making, and you’re right — the rules have changed. I am attempting to save this fair town. Law and order itself is under threat. Measures are called for, and, rest assured, my decisions are in accordance with Judge Connelly and of course your very own warden — God rest.” Sheriff Dan waved a hand toward some men by the hamburger grill, though many of them wore those snouted masks that obscured their faces. He picked up his bullets and dropped them in the cylinder of his revolver. “When we get out of this mess,” he told me, “I guarantee you may go where you like. Until then, consider yourself called upon.”
From behind us, a fireman yelled, “Looter.”
We turned to see a young man down the street, stumbling out of an abandoned market with plastic bags in his hands. I couldn’t tell if he was falling or running or what, but by the time he’d made it to the curb, the men around me had brought their revolvers to bear, and in a hail, they’d wheeled their guns empty on him. As he fell, you could see bullets in the distance tearing the bark off trees and whitening the windows of parked cars. Law and order!
I ran to him. I found him on his back, alive, his unseeing eyes staring at the bright sun. One of his plastic bags contained video-movie rentals and a bottle of Chardonnay, unbroken, while the other spilled open with frozen dinners. Crouching, I realized I knew him. Though his name escaped me, I recognized him as the young drama professor at the university. Lord, how I felt for those sissy-foot English-department types. Their whole lives were fantasies. Their whole existence took place between the lines of obscure poems. And now look at what had happened. For some reason I was mad at him. I wanted to pound on him for getting killed over a few foreign films and a bottle of white wine.
He coughed. His mouth was red inside, and his hands were red from coughing. He looked toward me, but I can’t say if he saw me.