Liberty or Death (13 page)

A man garbed more like a commando than a minister was walking back and forth before rows of men seated on folding chairs, gesticulating wildly. All men, I noticed. In one hand, he held a Bible, which he thumped periodically with his fist. I couldn't hear what he was saying and didn't dare get closer to the glass. To do so, I would have had to crawl down into the window well, about a five-foot drop, down into the leaves and the damp and who knew what else, and I'd be trapped there if anyone came along. Instead, I scanned as much of the audience as I could see for familiar faces. There were several I recognized from the restaurant. Baldy, or Beauregard, the man who had reacted so strongly when I suggested that Andre was in the church basement. Guy, the mean one. And Squint. The only one I didn't see was Bump.

I wasn't surprised find see Roy Belcher and his pals. He'd struck me as exactly the kind of guy who would be wherever the action was, dying to be in on it, whether he understood it or not. I was more than a little surprised to see both Clyde and Natty. But why should I have been? The militia appealed to those who felt disenfranchised, left behind, who felt that life wasn't giving them a fair shake and found comfort in blaming the government. Those ideas might have great appeal to men, and boys, who worked for low wages in restaurant kitchens. Once again I felt guiltily mainstream, middle class, and privileged. Out of touch with ordinary lives.

For the first time since I'd come here, I also felt a small thrill of excitement. This might mean something or it might mean nothing, but at least I was getting to be active instead of passive. It was what I'd agreed to do, but being confined to Theresa's, restricted to what I could overhear, was enormously frustrating. I also felt profoundly scared. I hadn't meant to be detecting. I'd come out on this walk to try to calm down after the fevered atmosphere in the restaurant but what I saw made me feel anything but calm.

There were a lot of men in that room. A lot of angry-looking men. Jack Leonard and the Maine state government had a serious problem on their hands. This was just one small town. One of many. Who knew how many similar meetings were taking place in other towns? And I had my own serious problem. How were we going to get these angry men to let Andre go even if Jed Harding were released? I had already heard Jack say, very seriously, "We do not bargain with terrorists." If they wouldn't bargain, what did that leave? Unless Andre managed to escape on his own, either a commando raid or an act of charity on their part.

I looked through the window at the rows of faces and saw nothing charitable. They looked, to a man, hard and angry and brimming with passionate zeal. Jack thought they were terrorists. They considered themselves patriots. It didn't make any difference to me. I didn't care what they were. I just wanted Andre back. Being this close and not being able to hear what was being said was too frustrating. There was only one useful thing I could think of to do. I went back to the parking lot, pulled out some paper and a pen, and staying low and using my flashlight, I started writing down license numbers.

I'd done about three-quarters of the plates when I heard the crunch of approaching footsteps. I slipped into the shelter of a low-hanging evergreen and crouched there, holding my breath. Silly me. I hadn't considered the possibility of guards. A man walked slowly past, coming within four feet of me. He stopped between my tree and a black truck, shook out a cigarette, and lit it. Then he put his lighter back in his pocket. More footsteps. Another man, coming from the opposite direction, stopped by the tree and said to the first man, "Quiet tonight. You got a cigarette?"

I crouched there, my thighs protesting the position, while they shifted their weapons and performed the lighting ceremony. The crackle of cellophane, the flick of a Bic. One of them said, "How's Patty?"

"Overdue. She's so Goddamned uncomfortable she's a bitch to live with."

The other man laughed. "Take her for a ride on a bumpy road."

"Tried that."

"You tried screwing?"

"She won't let me."

The other man gave a dirty little laugh. "Tell her it'll make the baby come."

"I told her it would make me come. She damned near took my head off. Don't know how I'd do it anyway. She's bigger'n a house."

"Take her from the back."

The first man made a humming sound. "She'd never let me. She thinks it's dirty, any way but the regular."

"Yeah, I know. Cherry's the same way. Women'll do anything for you till you marry 'em and then it's not tonight dear, and don't do that, I don't like it. It's uncomfortable. It's nasty. How can you ask me? Cripes. Then they wonder why you're lookin' at other women."

"I heard Paulette would do anything..."

"Yeah. Too bad about Paulette, huh."

"She deserved it."

"I heard they..."

I leaned forward eagerly to hear what he was going to say, the sudden weight shift digging my foot noisily into the ground. A stick snapped and they both fell silent. Then the first man said, "What was that?"

"Probably nothing. Cat or something in the bushes."

I'd been holding my breath so long I was turning blue, so I was grateful when they started talking so I could start breathing again. Now if they'd only say something more about Paulette.

He must have read my mind, because he said, "Well, she practically blew the whole operation, didn't she? How's the job?"

"I get a paycheck. That's about all I can say for it. Goddamned tourists. So. You doin' the armory thing this weekend?"

"Dunno yet. Still waitin' to hear. We'd better get movin'. Don't want the colonel mad at us. Thanks for the cigarette." Then they both walked off.

Just a bit of chitchat about wives, sex, and prospective jobs, but they were carrying guns! I hadn't finished, but clearly it was time to leave. I was surprised they hadn't heard my heart pounding. It thudded in my ears like a jackhammer. I waited until I couldn't hear footsteps anymore, and started back toward the street. The paper in my pocket crackled, crying out as if it wanted to be found. Cursing silently, I rolled it into a cylinder and stuffed it into my bra.

At the front of the church I paused, staring up at the tall steeple, gleaming white against the blue-black sky, backed by a sprinkling of stars. This ought to have been a place of comfort and sanctuary. A place a troubled person could come and feel safe. Instead, it harbored men with violence on their minds. Harbored, and, if that minister had been doing what I thought he was doing, encouraged them to take up their guns and go do harm. Harm to Andre and other good men like him. Men like Gary Pelletier, shot nine times at close range. The thought gave me sharp, stabbing pains in my chest and suddenly I couldn't breathe. I sank down on the steps with my head in my hands, waiting for the spell to pass.

"Hey!" A gruff voice exploded close to my ear. "What do you think you're doing here?"

Startled, I jumped up and turned toward the voice. It was brighter out here near the street and I could see that my inquisitor was a thin, gray-haired man wearing a baseball cap, dressed in dark clothes, carrying a rifle in the crook of his arm. A rifle that was rather casually pointed at me. No wonder I was having trouble breathing. Around here the night spewed out startling encounters like popcorn from a popper.

Oh man. Think quick, Theadora. First I guess the church as a militia site, claim it's a joke, and now I'm found lurking outside in the middle of the night?
Like R2D2's little projector, my mind flashed not on Princess Lela, but on Jack Leonard, saying a grim "I told you so."

"This is a church," I said.

"So?"

"So I was worried. And scared. And I couldn't sleep. So I came here."

He didn't know what to make of that. "In the middle of the night?"

"That's when people who are worried and scared can't sleep." I hoped I sounded matter-of-fact and not impertinent. Over the roar of my heart, I couldn't really tell. I could only hear that my voice was shaky.

"What're you so worried about?" He sounded skeptical.

Wondering what you murderous renegades are going to do next,
I thought, as I pulled the mantle of Dora the waitress around me and began my familiar lie. It hurt every time I did it. My nose didn't grow, but it felt as if my soul shrank. I wasn't good at being a situation ethicist. I liked the comfort and reliability of fixed rules—like tell the truth and thou shalt not kill. "My husband. My ex-husband. Finding me. He said if I ever left, he'd track me down and kill me. I thought I saw his car today." Was I telling him too much? Would I really say this to a stranger? Would Dora, confronted by a rifle-wielding menace, crumple like a wind-struck umbrella?

"Where?"

"Here. On Main Street. I was walking this little boy home. A boy in a wheelchair. I found him stuck in a ditch, down near the restaurant where I work. And this truck went by..."

I took a deep breath. My insides were all tied up in knots. My neck and shoulders felt like a vicious puppeteer was tightening the strings. But this was how Dora really would feel. Never safe, always looking over her shoulder. "Sorry. I don't mean to be telling a stranger my troubles. I was going to walk some more..." Trying not to look at his gun, I got up and took a few tentative steps toward the street.

"Hold on there..." he ordered, gesturing with his arm and attached gun, in a chilling combination of the lethal and banal. "I ain't done."

Now that he was bossing me around, I looked openly at the gun. Obviously this guy's mother hadn't told him never to point a gun at anyone, not even a toy one. I didn't have to fake the fear in my voice. "Could you not point that thing at me, please?" He actually looked surprised, like it had never occurred to him that he might be scaring me. I pressed on with my timid-Dora act. "Am I doing something wrong here? I mean, is there a problem with sitting on the church steps? Because I didn't mean any harm by it... I was just... just... upset."

But he was too befuddled, too much a creature of reaction, not action. Instead of dropping the rifle, as I'd hoped, he reinforced his grip, aiming more or less directly at my pounding heart, and gestured with his head. "I think you'd better come along with me..."

Quiet as the street was, I wasn't too keen on leaving this public spot for someplace more secluded, not with a bunch like this. In a slow-motion pantomime of panic—slow so he wouldn't panic and shoot me—I raised my hands to my chest and said, "Oh, God! You're not... he didn't..." I took another deep breath. "Did he send you? My husband? He hired you to kill me, didn't he? That's what he said. That he'd never let me go. If he couldn't have me, no one could, and if he couldn't kill me, he'd find someone who would."

I was backing away from him now, arms outstretched, toward the street. "I can't believe it. That you'd... Right here in front of a church..." I took a step backward. He took a step forward, his hands tightening on the weapon, bringing it right up against my chest. Now I was the one reacting. I screamed, the longest, loudest, shrillest, most terrified scream I could muster, gasped, "Don't," and collapsed on the lawn, folding my arms defensively over my head. Fat lot of good that would do against a gun.

They milled around me like a herd of restless animals, confused, noisy men trying to figure out what was happening. The man who'd challenged me answered with his own confused and defensive monosyllables. "I dunno."

"She said she was out for a walk."

"Asked me wasn't this a church?"

"Then she says I'm trying to kill her, right, she thinks her husband's hired me."

"Then she goes nuts and starts screaming."

"Jesus, I dunno."

"I didn't lay a hand on her." He summed it all up, "I dunno. Maybe she's crazy?"

Someone knelt beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. Not a gentle touch, like Clyde's, but firm, with fingers that dug in and held on and said, "Don't even think about trying to get away." It hurt. He smelled of a confusing combination of aftershave, bug repellent, and fabric softener. "It's all right. It's all right. No one is going to hurt you." The reassuring words were distinctly at odds with the message of his hand and the tone of his voice.

I cowered there, refusing to look up. "He's got a gun. He put it right up against me. I could feel it... "

"He only wanted to know why you were here."

Yeah, right. Like neither one of us spoke the same language. "But I told him," I said. "This is a church." I was huddled with my knees to my chest, one arm over my head to ward off blows. "He's got a gun..."

"And it's the middle of the night." Like the asshole had never heard of the concept of sanctuary? Like his parishioners knew enough to be troubled only between nine and five? Maybe his female parishioners knew enough to keep their places and never be troubled at all. But my questioner relaxed his grip, patted my shoulder, and turned to the crowd. "Anybody know this girl?"

I'd expected Clyde, but it was Natty's voice that answered, high and young and proud to be the supplier of information. "I do, Reverend Hannon. She's Theresa's new girl. Stays upstairs, over the restaurant. She's kinda skittish. Theresa says she's running away from a husband who beats her up." My life history in a nutshell. Former property of abusive husband; current property of Theresa. Kind of skittish. Like some small pet or beast of burden.

I lifted my head and looked around. Several of them were shining flashlights at me, blinding me, so that I felt like a trapped animal. I raised a hand and shielded my eyes. "May I go home now? Please?"

"Of course. Of course. We're sorry to have frightened you. Clyde can walk you back. Clyde?" He called but no one answered. "Where's Clyde?"

"He's gone home. Left early." The man shrugged. "He's got to be at work, crack of dawn..."

"All right. Nathaniel, can you walk this girl back?"

"Yes, sir."

The Reverend Hannon held out a hand and pulled me to my feet. He seemed surprised to find me at eye level. Surprised and not, I thought, entirely pleased. One of those men who want to be bigger than life, who resent the fact that I am. To appease him, I hunched my shoulders dejectedly and bent my knees, so that I was shorter. Then I looked up at him. Ah, the tricks that tall girls learn. "Whatever it is that I did, I'm sorry. I never thought there'd be something wrong with going to a church. I just thought maybe it would feel comforting..."