His head sagged forward and his shoulders rose as he began to sob, Botree continued to stroke his hair. Joe went to the sink for water and drank several glasses in succession. He hated Orben. He hated Rodale, He hated himself.
At the table, Botree placed her hand on Johnny’s arm.
“What happened to your clothes?” she said.
“I dragged him to the river and threw him in. My shirt and jacket were bloody and I threw them in, too.”
“Where’s your gun?”
“In the river.”
The hum of voices rose and fell in Coop’s room like locusts. Dallas and Abilene were yelling from the bathroom. Joe’s anger lent his mind a focus that he hadn’t known since leaving home.
“Listen to me,” Joe said. “You did everything right. If you’d not shot, he’d have killed you. You got to look at it real hard. You’re no good to any of us dead, especially your little girl.”
“I’m no good, all right,” Johnny said.
“That’s not true,” Joe said. “You were smart. You got rid of everything and came home. The family needs you.”
Joe walked around the table, aware that Johnny and Botree were watching him. His knee hurt but it was a reminder that he couldn’t give up. He’d gotten himself safely out of Kentucky, and now he was trapped in another battle that wasn’t his.
“Johnny,” he said, “I want you to lie on the couch for a while. Botree, give the kids more toys and books, whatever it takes to keep them in the tub. Tell them it’s a boat or something. Do you have the key to the rifle cabinet?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to open it, and check the rifles and ammunition. We’ve got to keep the kids away from them, but it can’t be locked. Are there any illegal rifles here?”
“Not in the house,” she said. “There’s ten buried outside in PVC pipe.”
“Nothing else?”
“No. You’re not digging them up, are you?”
“I don’t want anything around here that we can get put in jail over. No grenades or Mini-14s.”
“There’s nothing like that inside.”
“Good. Use the CB to see if the roadblock is set up south of here, too.”
Botree left the room and Joe helped Johnny move to the couch. Moonlight slid through the slit where the curtains met. Johnny’s voice was husky from medication.
“You know what Coop did on the Fourth of July when we were kids?”
Joe shook his head.
“He put a half stick of dynamite under the anvil and blew it sky-high. I looked forward to it all winter. Then in summer I’d wait for Christmas. Coop used to climb up on the roof on Christmas Eve, He’d stomp around and yell ‘Ho, ho, ho’ in the middle of the night,”
Johnny’s chest swelled in a sigh, prolonged and weary. He closed his eyes.
“I wish that damn Frank had never come back around.”
Joe tucked the blanket beneath Johnny’s chin as his mother had for him. Dusk turned the sky orange with smoke as shadows joined to form the night. Botree stood beside him at a window.
“Road’s blocked both ways,” she said. “They’re using Humvees with heavy-weapon mounts. Six people who tried to leave are in custody. The only road out of the valley is Skalkaho and there’s an army guarding it.”
“We’ll have to wait.”
“For what,” Botree said.
“I wish I knew.”
“Who do you think that was in the woods?”
“I don’t know,” Joe said. “Maybe a hunter.”
They prepared a meal together and allowed the kids to eat at the table. Coop refused food, preferring the company of his glowing dials and distant voices. There were occasional bursts of communication on the scanner and CB. Every half hour, Frank recited from the Bible and the Bill of Rights. He claimed a growing army of two hundred men.
For the first time in weeks, Joe and Botree didn’t talk after supper. Joe was afraid that if he started, he’d never stop. He wanted to be alone. He missed the safety of his cabin on Rock Creek.
Botree read to the boys in the tub. Joe roamed the house, checking weapons and ammunition, peering through each window. The outside air was very dark, the stars obliterated by smoke. Coop slept in his chair, his chin on his chest, his stomach against the card table. Botree was curled in a sleeping bag by the tub, her dark hair shining on the floor. Joe watched her sleep for a long time. There was nothing for Joe in Blizzard if he returned — no school, no mother, nowhere to receive mail. Home had ceased to exist except in his mind.
He made a pallet from furniture cushions by the front door and lay on his back with his pistol on one side and a rifle on the other. Perhaps Morgan’s decision to remain in the hills was best, since he still had the land and occasional visitors. He had dealt with his enemies one man at a time, rather than facing an unknown army in the night.
Joe slowed his breathing and willed his mind to rest. Twice his body jerked him awake. He rolled on his side and pulled his knees toward his chest. He was very tired. The smell of smoke was in the air.
When he woke, something in the house was different. He lay immobile, his ears straining for sound. From the bathroom he could hear Botree’s quiet snoring. One of the children moaned. The hissing sound of the radios flowed like water along the hall. Joe listened for a long time until he realized that the refrigerator had stopped humming. He turned on a light and nothing happened. He found a flashlight and checked the fuse box but all circuits were complete.
Careful to avoid standing in front of windows, he rummaged the mud room for candles. He lit one and placed it in the bathroom sink. The candle’s glow illuminated the gentle planes of Botree’s face. The children lay in the tub, curled around each other like cats. Joe remembered winter storms that blew down power lines at home, and his mother reading the Bible aloud by lantern. He double-checked his weapons. Perhaps the fires had burned a transformer.
Coop was wheezing terrible breath, a sound like an old bellows. A large flashlight sat by the radios, aimed at the ceiling. More marks were on the map, a series of black marks that moved closer to the circled P. He had switched the equipment to batteries, and voices filled the airwaves, overlapping and joining as if stitched into fabric.
A flat voice came from the scanner.
“White Dog to Delta. What’s your sitrep?”
“No change. Visual confirmation of hostile position.”
“Estimated number of hostiles?”
“Unknown.”
The transmissions came from the mountains visible through the window, their peaks lit scarlet by the dawn. Smoke hung in lines like layers of earth, in a cliff. Joe stared at the map. Botree knew the back roads and logging trails. They could take his Jeep south.
Coop moved only his arms and hands, squelching the scanner’s feedback, adjusting volume and channel. Briefly, Joe imagined that Coop was controlling the events unfolding on the mountain.
Frank’s voice came over the air.
“Patriots, traitors, countrymen,” he said. “Greetings from the mountaintop. Camp Megiddo is warm and safe. Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven. Go to channel three.”
The machine squawked and was quiet. Coop switched channels. The scanner hummed, its electronic circuits waiting to catch sound. After a minute of silence, Frank spoke once more.
“The sun is in our eyes. It’s at their back and they will come. I have entered the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. So be it.”