Liberty or Death (32 page)

I had an awful premonition of what was happening in there. Awful enough to get me off the bed, across the room, and to the bathroom door. Sure enough. She was holding the pill container over the toilet, about to dump them in.

"Oh, Jesus, Cathy. Don't!"

She stopped, startled, and stared at me, the pink in her face deepening to scarlet. "What's wrong with you, anyhow?" she demanded. "You look awful."

But I was still focused on the pills. "Please," I said. "I need those..."

"What for?"

"Pain," I said. "Infection. Because of the miscarriage." I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that she didn't know. She hadn't been there. Her mother wasn't much of an explainer and Clyde was too shy to describe something so personal. I took the container from her hand. Shook out a pill and put it in my mouth. Got one from the second container. Snapped the lids back on and stuffed them in my pocket, away from her mean-spirited impulse to "get back" at me because she'd had to carry up a tray when she was busy. I grabbed the water glass and drank, the glass shaking in my hand and rattling against my teeth. I gulped it down, refilled the glass, and drank some more.

"Hey now. Take it easy..." She looked nervous and I wanted to whack some sense into her. Either she cared or she didn't, right? One minute she's trying to dump my pills down the toilet and the next she's fretting over me.

What was going to happen to me if I drank too much water, something might hurt? It was a little late for that. Besides, taking it easy had never been in my vocabulary. I had walked early. Talked early. Climbed anything that crossed my path. I had always flung myself vigorously at life. I finished the rest of the water and set the empty glass on the sink. Then I closed my eyes and rested, leaning against the wall for support, hating the fact that I needed rest, folding my hands over the emptiness where my baby had been. How could it just come and go like that, like I was a transient hotel and it was just a passing traveler, when I had wanted so much to know her? Or him. It was just so damned sad.

"Hey." I opened my eyes and looked down at her. She shifted uncomfortably. "Look, I'm sorry about the pills. I just... I was mad, okay? I can't find out what the hell's going on around here. Not only with you. With everything. The whole town is going to hell and everyone is acting like it's normal... and then I've got to wait on you along with the rest of them."

"Look. I didn't ask you to come..." I desperately wanted her to go away because I needed to throw my head back and howl with grief. Despite the names Andre had picked out, it should have been Noel or Holly. A Christmas baby. Long and strong with a curious nature and Andre's wonderful brown eyes. Gone with neither a bang nor a whimper, leaving me with nothing but a searing ache in my body and soul.

She put her hands on her hips and backed out of the bathroom, tossing her hair defiantly. "No.
You
didn't. Clyde sent me."

And then I understood about the green-eyed monster and why Cathy, who usually wasn't this bad, was being such a jerk. "He's a nice man, Clyde. Kind. Not how you'd expect a militia member to be."

"Yeah." She wanted to argue with me but I'd given her nothing to argue against.

"And he's crazy about you. Anyone can see that. And, except for the militia stuff, you like him, right?" Like we were two girls in the bathroom, chatting. Like the world wasn't going to hell around us.

"Yeah."

"Then what's your problem?"

She dragged the edge of her shoe along the floor, watching it with great concentration. "He seems awfully concerned about you."

Hell, she wasn't really this dumb, was she? Were we doing 1950's-style romance here? "You think a man who likes one woman can't be nice to someone else?"

"I didn't say that."

Oh please. I needed food and rest. I needed vision and clarity. I needed my own personal cavalry to perform a daring rescue. This was no time to be hanging out my shingle and practicing marriage counseling. "Isn't one reason you like him because he's good to people? Because he's kind?"

"Yeah."

"So why does it bother you that he's kind to me?"

"I didn't say that."

No wonder their romance didn't seem to be getting anywhere. You couldn't talk to this woman. I took a deep breath, wanting to scream in her face or shake her until some sense dropped into the slot and rolled somewhere it might do some good. "Oh, spare me, Cathy. You're sulking like a two-year-old because Clyde asked you to come up and check on me."

Underneath I thought there was a nice person, but Cathy's veneer had been laid on by her mother. It was self-centered, narrow-minded, and suspicious. "I've got to go," she said, turning and heading for the door. "Got customers waiting."

"Wait," I said. "Your brother Jimmy. What's the story with him?"

She looked nervously toward the door. "I can't talk about Jimmy," she said. "Ma would kill me. Jimmy's just bad, that's all. He hates everybody. You see him coming, Dora, walk the other way."

"Well, thanks for coming. I appreciate it." I decided not to mention the pills.

"Clyde..." she paused for emphasis "...will be glad to hear that."

"Then tell him thanks, too. And give yourself come credit, Cathy. A good man cares about you. That means something." I ought to know. A good man cared about me, too. I closed my eyes against the tears. I didn't want to start, afraid that if I did, I'd never stop. It was only a metaphor, but I could imagine crying my heart out. I felt that sad.

The door shut and then feet pounded away down the stairs. I thought about eating, wondering what Clyde had put on my tray, but it took too much energy. I wasn't hungry at all but people are supposed to eat. Walking back to the bed seemed daunting but if I could get there, I'd have the fan. I attended to necessities, and then, lurching like a drunken sailor, I crossed to the bed. I just lay and let the fan blow over me, waiting for the pills to work, waiting for enough energy to get out of here. It was taking too damned long.

Half an hour later, I'd gone from hurting and enervated to drugged and enervated, which wasn't much of an improvement. It was then that the idea came to me. In preparation for this ridiculous undercover operation, Jack had made me read a stack of stuff about the militia. Also, being Jack, he'd quizzed me and he'd lectured me and he'd brought in an ATF guy to do the same. The ATF guy's job had been to scare the pants off me. That's a lot harder than most people think, especially now that I've been through some awfully scary times. We'd talked about that, and then he'd suggested that even compared to what I'd experienced, these people were particularly bad.

"Fanatics," he'd said, "are almost more dangerous than we can imagine, because they're not deterred by the normal rules. It may seem odd for me to use the word 'normal' here, but most bad guys think maybe it's okay for you to die, but not for them. Lot of these militia types, they're different. When they're willing to die for their convictions, it isn't so hard to imagine taking other people with them. Same when they see themselves as soldiers. Soldiers are supposed to fight for their cause. And in wars, people die. The opposition dies. Traitors die. It's not a very big leap to think that anyone who isn't with you is against you, and thus the opposition, and it's okay to do bad things to them. Wars and armies. It's all about the end justifying the means, isn't it?"

He'd shaken a Camel out of his pack, lighted it, and blown out a long column of smoke. "If I was you, young lady, I'd think twice about this crazy scheme of yours. They won't care if you're young and pretty, or that you're a woman. In fact, for a lot of these guys, the very idea that a woman might try to do something against them is worse than a man trying. See, according to their rules, you're supposed to be at home, tending the fire and the kids, maybe cleaning the rifles and making a few neat little homemade bombs, but even though you might be expected to shoot to protect the homestead, mostly you're supposed to be barefoot and pregnant. It's all about God and property and patriotism and their own twisted version of the Constitution."

His name, honest to God, was Jim Ferret. He was quick and smart. He smoked like a chimney, and he had a sweet, charming, avuncular way about him that instead of scaring me, made me feel safe. Even when he talked about the militia, men with guns, and death. I must be a real twisted sister. Now, knocked on my ass and sweating miserably here in my ugly little room, I remembered something else Jim had told me. Something very important.

"The way they've got things organized, it's hard to break in. Even the guys involved don't necessarily know the chain of command. Don't know who's calling the shots. Only way you penetrate an organization like that is to turn someone. These guys, see, a lot of 'em are pretty simple people. Life has screwed them, and then someone comes along and sympathizes with that and tells them that they can get back in control. It's very appealing, especially to someone who feels helpless against the system. They're comfortable with it because they've been convinced that they're the good guys. What you have to do... what we have to do... is convince them that they're wrong. Or that what the people they're following are doing is wrong. Get 'em to see the light. And then get 'em to talk."

"But Jim... how?"

He wasn't done. "Not too many of these ordinary guys who joined 'cuz they've got a beef with the government... guys like Harding... are real comfortable with the idea of blowing a daycare center fall of kids to bits. They love their kids, their families. Love their country, too. Just that they've let someone twist their minds around..."

It sounded good to me, but Jim shook his head, lit another cigarette, and inhaled deeply. "Sounds easy, but it isn't. Not easy at all. People don't like to feel like fools. Don't like to give up beliefs that make them feel safe. And most of all, don't like to rat out their buddies." There was actually a twinkle in his eye when he said, "It's a guy thing."

But Clyde was in the militia and Clyde was a decent and gentle man. There had to be a way to reach him. Didn't there? That was the last thought on my mind before I fell asleep. This time it wasn't dreamless. In my lifetime of hideous dreams, these were among the worst. I was being pursued through a forest at night, chased by a camouflage-clad army of gigantic babies. When they opened their mouths, their gums were toothless. They were bald and clutched their rifles in chubby fists. They spoke no language but communicated by strange cries, like the body snatchers. Just as I thought they were about to catch me, I burst out into a clearing lit by a huge bonfire.

In the center of the clearing, Andre lay on the ground, bound with so much rope around his arms and legs he looked like a mummy. Over him stood Jimmy McGrath, gigantic and menacing in the firelight, an ax in his hand. As I approached, Andre turned toward me, his eyes pleading with me for help. I hurried forward but I was surrounded by babies. They babbled and clutched at me, holding me there so that I couldn't help. Jimmy McGrath, with a malevolent grin, raised the ax and swung it at Andre's head. In my dreams, I can't close my eyes.

I was screaming. Screaming. Screaming. I didn't know how long I'd been screaming but my throat was raw and sore and I was soaked with sweat. Someone touched my back, feather-light and gentle, and made a soothing sound. Before Andre, I had never slept well. Having him there comforted me. The hand settled firmly on my shoulder. I murmured "Andre" and reached for it. "Andre. Thank God!" Clasped the fingers with mine. And knew it was not Andre's hand.

Clyde jumped back in surprise as I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, all the panic rushing back. In the hand that hadn't been comforting me, he still held a spatula.

"What the hell! I thought you were being murdered in your bed..." he began.

"Only in my mind. Sorry. Excuse me. Sick." I headed on trembling legs for the bathroom, not sure I'd make it, Clyde trailing after me with the absurd spatula still outstretched before him. My knight with shining cutlery.

I've probably thrown up, with all the drama and noise attendant thereto, before more strangers than anyone else in America, except perhaps that poor president who did it in China for TV cameras and got to be broadcast all over the world. It's one of those things that do not improve with experience. Throughout my performance, Clyde stood in the doorway, looking miserable, maintaining a white-knuckled grip on his kitchen tool as though it were a magic talisman which would protect him from the evil enchantments of a witch like me.

I tried to reassure him. Between bouts of puking my guts out, I repeatedly told him I was fine, but while he couldn't quite bring himself to help me, he couldn't bring himself to leave, either. Finally, when I was finished and stood leaning against the wall, my face buried in a towel, he found his voice. "You want me to call a doctor?"

"Just shoot me."

He was silent, perhaps actually considering my request, then he said, "You want me to get Cathy?"

"What for? Cathy hates me."

"Cathy doesn't hate you, she's just jealous."

I dropped my towel and stared at him incredulously. "Jealous? Please. If she wants my life, she's welcome to it." He didn't answer, only filled the water glass and handed it to me. I took a sip, wanting to gulp down the whole thing, knowing that moderation was the wisest course. Knowing that in my nature, despite years of imposing severe self-discipline, moderation never came easy.

And now that my death was no longer imminent, he turned to what he'd just heard. "Andre?" he said, suspicion warring with compassion on his wide face. "Andre?"

Always move from a position of strength, I thought. Right. I, who could barely get out of bed. Shaking all over, I took a deep breath and went for the gold. "Clyde, I'm not who you think I am."

 

 

 

Chapter 22