“You know how many people were killed last year by a bayonet attack?”
Joe shook his head.
“None,” Frank said, “But there’s a warrant out on me over it.”
“What’s a bayonet got to do with these damn things?”
“The Feds were going to drop the charges if I rolled over on Coop and Owen, No way I could do that.”
“Coop and Owen?”
“Sure, Joe. They print them and take them to town.”
Joe couldn’t speak. He threw the bundle onto the pile. Dust streamed away from the impact.
“Welcome to the real world,” Frank said.
“That stuff’s not real, it’s made up. It’s bad.”
“This isn’t about good or bad, it’s about politics.”
“Politics.”
“You bet. You should have seen the leafleting we did in “Vietnam, Iraq, and Nicaragua. It’s just a tool, same as my rifle and computer.”
“Those pamphlets are full of lies.”
“How do you know, Joe? How do you know the Jews don’t run the world banks? Are you sure there are no video cameras on interstate highways? Can you tell me that UN troops aren’t building detention centers in Michigan? Answer me that. Can you for sure say no?”
“It’s hard to believe, Frank.”
“Of course it’s hard to believe. Nobody believes what’s going on until it’s too late. I shed blood for this country and look what it’s become — a multicultural welfare state run by FEMA and the UN. We have to stick together.”
“Who?”
“You get blood in your face, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you blush, you turn red.”
“I reckon.”
“That’s what makes you a white man. And white men got to protect their own because the government’s busy protecting the mud people. Don’t look so funny, Joe. Everybody knows you’re on the run. Let he who is innocent cast the first stone.”
Joe stepped away from Frank. He felt smothered, as if the force of Frank’s words were a fire that had leached the oxygen from the room. He inhaled deeply but was unable to get enough air in his body.
“Let me ask you something, Joe.” Frank’s voice was conversational, as if they were fishing buddies. “Did you know that this country’s been in a declared state of national emergency since 1933?”
Joe shook his head.
“Oh, yeah. Roosevelt did it. That’s not in the pamphlets. There’s a lot that’s not. Do you have a dollar?”
“A dollar?”
“Yeah, a dollar bill. The fake currency that’s not worth the ink it’s printed with. Do you have one?”
“Yes.”
“Take it out.”
Joe opened his wallet and removed a dollar.
“Now look on the back. See the pyramid and the eye? Good, now below is some writing in Latin. Novus Ordo Seclorum. Know what that means?”
Joe shook his head.
“New World Order. This has been coming for a long time, Joe. It’s not new, it’s old. What’s new is public knowledge and armed resistance.”
He smiled and leaned close.
“I am the New World Order.”
Joe stepped backwards and Frank moved with him.
“Do you have a warm coat?” Frank said.
“Not really. A jacket.”
“I’m glad to hear that. In Luke it says to sell your cloak and buy a sword. I get cold in winter sometimes, but my sword keeps me warm. The problem is too many people stay warm the wrong way, know what I mean?”
Joe nodded, willing to agree with anything to leave the room.
“You’re a good soldier, Joe. Now I want you to take some of those pamphlets with you up to the house. Go on and grab some. Don’t be shy. Take a whole pack.”
Joe crossed the room to the stacks of paper.
“Read them, Joe. Educate yourself.”
Joe tried to figure a way that the pamphlets weren’t as bad as he knew them to be. He told himself that having killed a man removed his right to judge.
“Take them, Joe.”
Joe faced Frank. He was very scared.
“No,” Joe said. “I won’t. You all got some good ideas, but those things are evil.”
“What do you know of evil? The Four Horsemen are riding black helicopters over Skalkaho Pass.”
Joe left the room and hurried outside. The valley opened before him, calming him with its vast presence of space and light. The landscape instilled a tremendous sense of loyalty, and he understood the desire to defend it.
He drove past the ranch house and up a rough slope to a clearing that overlooked the river. Sparrow hawks glittered in the field. He wanted to give Owen enough time to set Coop up and leave before Joe returned to the ranch. His sense of disbelief settled into confusion and fury. He wondered if Botree was aware of the pamphlets, then realized that she had to know. He felt as if he’d been betrayed by everyone but Ty. The Bills had duped him all along. Maybe he really was a dumb hillbilly.
Botree met him at the door. Coop was asleep in her childhood room, surrounded by feather and bone. The radio equipment glowed on a card table beside the bed. Botree went into the living room, and the couch creaked in the dark. Light from the stars slid past the curtains.
“I saw the pamphlets,” Joe said.
He sat in a rocking chair that faced the fireplace. His body was very tired. He felt overwhelmed by his feelings for Botree, undercut by loss and shame. The house hummed with quiet.
“I’m glad,” she finally said.
“You knew what they were doing?”
She nodded, a shadow moving in darkness.
“Were you in on it?” he said.
“No.”
“But you went along with it.”
“They’re my family.”
“What’s in those things is wrong.”
“It’s covered by the Bill of Rights.”
“Please.” Joe lifted his hand as if to ward off a blow. “I can’t hear any more of that right now. The only people who get to be free are the ones who think the same way as Frank.”
“I don’t think that way.”
“If those things aren’t against the law,” he said, “why did the ATF want to know who was making them?”
“Other stuff was happening all over the state. Idaho, too. People weren’t paying taxes. One family killed a deputy who came to serve a foreclosure notice on a ranch. Another man went in the bank and shot the loan officer. Some people got thrown in jail for buying antitank weapons. The Feds were looking for anything on anybody.”
“Were Coop and Owen part of that, too?”
“No, they’re not bad people. You know that. Somebody could have got them saving wetlands or spiking trees, and they’d have jumped on it. They were ready for whatever came along.”
“This is a whole lot different.”
“I know, Joe. I came back from Texas in bad shape. I didn’t know what to do.”
“How’d it start?”
“Frank. Nothing but Frank. He grew up here, and joined the service. After the war, he stayed gone another twenty years. He worked for the government, you know, one of those outfits he hates now. When I got home, he was here. He was fun and he was powerful and he could talk for hours. We were a big family. Frank thought the country was in trouble and people needed to protect themselves.”
“When did they start making the pamphlets?”
“Frank bought a handpress and they made flyers against the Brady Bill, and the assault-weapon ban. Then Frank gave them stuff from the Constitution and things the Founding Fathers said. When that ran out, they used quotes from the Bible. Next it was about Indians and Jews.”
“Anybody but themselves,”
“That’s why Johnny left the bunkhouse. He came and told me they wanted him to make new pamphlets. But he wouldn’t. Coop and Owen don’t really believe that stuff.”
“So what. They put it in the world,”
“It made Frank like them, Joe. That’s all any of us wanted. It was important.”