The townspeople had reached the gate and were massing behind the giant iron barrier.
"You killed our son!" a woman screamed, her face red and teary, features distorted by rage.
Another man grabbed one of the ornamental crosspieces and started shaking the gate. "Murderers!" he cried. "Murderers!"
Other voices were raised, threats and epithets were shouted.
"Call out the volunteers," the president said in a loud stentorian voice, and his speech overrode all competing sounds. He raised his right hand. There was the faint noise of a whip cracking, and from the trees behind the board members emerged three rows of shirtless men. The volunteers marched onto the road and pressed past Barry and Maureen, heading toward the gate. They were the same men who had been working on the pool and the community center, and this close he saw that some were missing hands. Others had serious facial scars or walked with limps. He thought of Kenny Tolkin's eye patch.
Greg Davidson passed by him, staring blankly, the right side of his head shaved, that ear gone. The crowd parted before the volunteers, allowing them through. They carried no weapons, bore no clubs or guns or blades, but there was about them the hard, unyielding purpose of those who would stop at nothing to achieve their goal. They were Bonita Vista's army, Barry thought, and he wondered if their appearance was as big a surprise to everyone else as it was to him. Nearly all of the residents had brought weapons of some sort, obviously assuming they would be needed, but it appeared now that they would only be a last-ditch backup. The volunteers would be the first line of defense.
Barry watched them go past, far more than he and Maureen had seen before.
"Why are they acting like that?" Maureen said, a quiver in her voice betraying the fear she felt.
"I don't know," he admitted.
"They look like they're ...hypnotized or something."
Unseen, Frank Hodges had moved next to her. "They're indentured," he said shortly. "They couldn't pay their dues."
Neil Campbell, ever-present clipboard in hand, was suddenly on the other side of Barry. "Read your handbook. It explains all about indenture."
"Open the gates!" the president commanded, and the twin metal doors swung slowly outward, pushing protesting townspeople out of the way.
"You bastards can't treat us like this!" a woman screamed.
Bert from the coffee shop raised a shotgun. "You know what you did! We know what you did! And we won't stand for it!"
The volunteers marched through the open gateway.
And the fighting started.
There was a sick feeling in Barry's guts as he watched the shirtless men remorselessly punch grieving mothers in the stomach, watched them grab rifles from townspeople and use them to club the owners' heads. It felt odd to be standing here like this, overseeing the battlefield like generals while others fought on their behalf, and he was suddenly disgusted by his neighbors, by himself, by everyone involved with this travesty.
Surprisingly, thankfully, there were no shots fired, but the conflict was brutal nonetheless, with both sides actively attempting to maim and injure their opponents, and his horror intensified as he saw an one-armed volunteer use his one hand to gouge at the eyes of an elderly man in rancher's J overalls.
He'd wondered where Hitman's deputies were, and just \ as the volunteers appeared to be gaining the upper hand, the lawmen drove up, sirens blaring, lights on. They were forced to park behind the townies' vehicles, which were blocking the road. The flashing lights of their cruisers reflected off metal roofs and shone through glass windshields, bathing the entire area in garishly surrealistic circus colors, while a deep, distorted voice boomed through a megaphone:
"Break it up! Break it up!"
Uniformed deputies ran between the cars and pickups, nightsticks raised, and began to disperse the crowd, collaring and arresting those who refused to obey the orders to cease and desist. Unmolested, undisturbed, the shirtless volunteers, many of them battered and bleeding, turned and walked back through the gateway into Bonita Vista.
Barry looked over at Hitman , and in the strobing red and blue of the lights, he saw the sheriff smile.
Frank had moved between Maureen and Barry. "I heard you tried to fuck my wife," he whispered.
"Elizabeth Dyson's filing a complaint against you with the board," Neil Campbell said on the other side of him. "Claims you forced her into giving you a BJ after Ray's funeral."
"That's a lie!" Barry yelled. "You're both lying!"
The men moved away, laughing, disappearing into the crowd. Someone passed by, bumped him. Another shoved a hand in his back. The scene was becoming more chaotic, and though there weren't nearly as many people here, he was reminded of the climax of Day of the Locust.
He looked desperately around for a friendly face. Mike or one of those anti-association people from Ray's parties'. But there were only antagonistic glares from unfamiliar individuals, and the uniformity of this response made him think that perhaps it was dictated, perhaps it had been ordered.
"Stay here," he told Maureen. He started toward the trees, toward the board. The robed men were watching him, their wrinkled faces serious but their eyes mirthful.
It hadn't been distance or a trick of the light, he realized as he approached. Something about them did look peculiar. Liz was right.
Something was off.
"You must be Barry Welch," the president said as he came closer.
Barry pointed a finger at him. "Don't fuck with me!" he ordered.
Jasper Calhoun smiled slightly, nodded.
Someone bumped him, and he turned to look at the gathered residents and the milling volunteers, but he could not see who'd done it. He again faced the board.
They were gone.
Simultaneously, the lights of the guard shack winked off, and the strobing red and blue of the cruiser lights diminished as several deputies drove their vehicles and prisoners away. Around him, individual flashlights were turning down toward the pavement, moving up the road as homeowners started to disperse. The old men had faded into the woods, and he did not understand how they'd been able to disappear so quickly. Had they turned and run, dashing through the trees, their robes flapping behind them? He couldn't imagine such a retreat by those pompous old men, but the only alternatives were scenarios more appropriate for one of his novels, and those he didn't want to think about.
"They're watching you," a woman said to him as he passed by, and Barry recognized the old lady who lived across from the tennis court. He didn't know if it was a friendly warning or an intimidating threat.
Barry strode angrily back toward where Maureen stood, now talking to Mike and Tina. The people before him moved sullenly aside, strangers casting suspicious and hostile glances in his direction.
"Is everything okay?" Mike asked worriedly.
Barry shook his head.
"What did you do?" Maureen asked. "What did you say to them?"
"It's war," he told her.
Maureen finished answering the five measly E-mails that her web page had generated over the past three days, knowing even as she typed them that their senders would not engage her services. It was disheartening to realize that something on which she had spent so much time and for which she'd had such high hopes was simply not panning out.
Thank God for her California clients.
She leaned back in her chair, postponing leaving the room. In here, she was cushioned from the realities of the outside world. She could pretend that she was not in Bonita Vista, that she was merely an accountant in an office, and that the things happening on the other side of these walls did not affect or concern her in any way.
Barry was still angry, still stubbornly defiant, but he was worried as well.
Maybe it was time to give up, she'd told him, maybe they should return to California.