The Good Brother

26

An immense loneliness settled over Joe. He was both exhausted and exhilarated from the talk with Orben, as though he’d suddenly gone home for a day. The events that had transpired in his absence lay like unsorted lumber in his mind.

The sky was streaked by smoke. His eyes burned and he wondered if they needed to evacuate. The sound of aircraft echoed off the river. He walked up the slope past tumbleweed piled against the broken fence line. He had no idea how much time had passed. Orben’s accent still roared in his head. He felt as if the hills of Kentucky were walking away from him.

In the house the kids were sitting on the couch. Abilene sucked his finger and held Dallas’s hair, who cocked his head toward his brother’s grasp.

“Coop’s mad,” Dallas said. “He said if we came in his room, he’d shoot us.”

“Nobody’s shooting anybody around here,” Joe said.

Joe went to his old room, where Coop slumped over the radio like a cardplayer in an all-night game. Botree held a finger to her lips. A new map lay on the table, unmarked save for a single black circle among the whorls of elevation. Inside the circle was the letter F like a cattle brand. The CB squealed and Frank’s voice crackled over the air.

“Hear this, you jackbooted thugs? Hear it?”

There was the quick noise of scraping metal and a louder sound of something ramming into place.

“That’s full-auto rock and roll. Camp Megiddo is waiting. My army of patriots has fifty-caliber machine-gun emplacements. We have antitank artillery. We have surface-to-air missiles. The man who kills me is only following orders. The Bill of Rights is dead. If the government excludes itself, why must I then abide? Bless them, Father, they know not what they do.”

The transmission stopped abruptly. Coop’s face was slack and haggard, but his eyes gleamed.

“Does Frank really have that stuff?” Joe said.

“I don’t know,” Botree said.

“It might be more of his bullshit.”

“Coop picked up people on the scanner. I heard it, too. You can tell it’s official.”

“Probably firefighters.”

“It sounds like Feds,” she said. “ATF or somebody. Other people in the valley heard them, too. Frank’s been calling for volunteers all morning.”

“I hope Johnny didn’t go.”

“I got word to him at the Wolf. Asked him to come home. Then he radioed in and said there was a roadblock a few miles north of the ranch. He said he was going to leave the truck and follow the river home.”

Joe studied the topographical map. The black circle was ten miles from the ranch, accessible only by a narrow draw. It reminded him of Morgan’s place — one way in, one way out. Morgan had lasted forty years. With the weapons Frank claimed to have, he could repel all but the most fierce attack. The Bills would have to be overrun, bombed, or burned out.

The scanner sputtered and Coop turned slowly, his body moving like a machine that needed to be taken apart and cleaned. He squelched the noise and adjusted the scanner’s controls until a different voice came.

“White Dog to Delta. What’s your sitrep?”

“The approach is in our control. Repeat, the approach is in Delta control.”

The voice gave way to a buzz of static, Botree was right, it sounded like a military operation rather than firefighters. Joe realized that White Dog was the command post while Delta was a ground force moving into position.

Coop leaned over the map and drew a small line with a pen. There were other marks that Joe hadn’t noticed, tiny black dots that progressed up the draw. The last one was at the top of the hill near the F in a circle. Joe understood that he was seeing Frank’s holdout, and the advance of the attacking force. He wondered how many people had joined Frank.

From the CB came Frank’s voice again.

“Come and get it, heathens,” he said. “Your day of calamity is at hand. Thomas Jefferson warned us two hundred years ago—‘The strongest reason for the people to keep and bear arms is to protect themselves against tyranny in government.’ ”

The transmission ended, leaving a sudden silence in the tiny room. Joe hoped each side was attempting an elaborate ruse designed to make the other surrender. The attackers might have superior firepower, but the Bills knew the terrain and wouldn’t be bluffed.

Coop reduced the volume on the scanner and began changing channels on the CB, revealing scraps of talk along the valley as he moved slowly down the band.

“… won’t let you drive past the Jackson place…”

“… a trick, I’m telling you. They wouldn’t…”

“… plenty of water and ammo, what else…”

“… she thinks it’s Armageddon but I say the FBI…”

Joe felt as if the walls of the tiny room were compressing him. He left the room, feeling empty as last year’s bird’s nest. Missing his mother’s funeral was the worst blow of all.

The sound of gunfire startled Joe, three quick shots. He thought it came from the radio until Botree ran down the hall.

“That’s outside, Joe.”

“Where?”

“Toward the back pasture.”

“Put the kids in the tub.”

“What?”

“It’ll protect them.”

He withdrew the.38 from the nylon holster on his belt and went to the mud room. He found a towel in a corner and wrapped one end around the pistol and placed the other in his mouth. He peered through the window. As he turned his head, the pistol moved with him like a snout. The pasture was empty. Wind cleared smoke from the air, and the sky shone like the waters of a lake. When his eyes burned, he reminded himself to blink.

The shadows of the treeline stretched along the grass of the pasture. His bad knee began to ache and he shifted his weight. He was hungry. Metallic voices issued from the radio down the hall. Joe strained to recall the gunshots, hoping to gauge their caliber, but the memory eluded him. He wondered if they had been a signal to a team that was preparing to attack the house.

Joe shook his head to concentrate on the pasture. Lines of smoke rippled along the distant peaks. A man left the woods and ran toward the house. Joe leveled the pistol sights at the man’s chest. His hand swayed back and forth as the strained muscles of his arm began to quiver. He steadied the gun and inhaled. He wanted to wait until he was certain of his target. The man was close, running very fast, and Joe recognized Johnny.

Joe leaned against the wall, his legs trembling, the pistol aimed at the ceiling. Johnny slammed the door open. He was panting. Mucus ran from his nose. His shirt was gone and deep scratches covered his body. He opened his mouth, but could not talk. He began to shiver.

“It’s all right,” Joe yelled. “It’s Johnny.”

Joe led him through the house to the kitchen. Johnny held his hand on the wall as he walked, like a man with unsure legs. He was wearing an empty holster with the end tied to his thigh. Botree met them at the table and helped ease Johnny to a chair. She talked in a low murmur, more a constant soothing tone than speech. She used a wet cloth to clean blood and dirt from Johnny’s wounds. His face twitched, the muscles jumping. She applied disinfectant, working down his chest, along his arms to his hands, and Joe remembered the gentle efficiency of her hands. She gave Johnny two of Joe’s leftover pain pills.

She sent Joe for a blanket and he walked through the house, trying to comprehend the events of the day. Coop sat immobile as stone before the CB and scanner, flanked by shelves of skull and bone. Joe peeked in the bathroom, where Abilene slept in the tub. Beside him, Dallas was hunched over an Etch-A-Sketch, duplicating the posture of Coop and his radio. The sky through the tiny window was bright blue, as if a panel of dyed deerhide was stretched within the frame.

At the kitchen table Johnny was drinking coffee, and Joe wrapped the blanket around his shoulders. Color had returned to Johnny’s face. Botree sat beside him. Joe felt as if he were watching them from a great distance. They seemed like strangers with whom he was forced to share a table at a busy diner.

“What happened?” he said.

“There’s Feds all over out there,” Johnny said. “They’re wearing armored vests and helmets. They got M-i6s, radios, and Jeeps. I mean there’s an army.”

“But you got past.” Botree’s voice was soothing and warm, as if talking to her kids. “You came home.”

“We got to tell Owen. They got helicopters, Botree. Black helicopters, just like Frank said.”

“We heard the shooting,” Botree said. “Were they shooting at you?”

“No,” Johnny said, his voice a low moan.

He looked at his injured hands, which were beginning to swell. The steady sound of static came from the door to Coop’s room. A voice spoke briefly and after a few seconds, they could hear Frank’s voice reciting coordinates for an airstrike, daring the Feds to attack. Joe rose and closed the curtains.

“Is someone out there?” Botree said to Johnny. “By the house?”

“No.”

“Was there?”

Johnny nodded.

“Is that who shot?”

Johnny shook his head. He moved his hand to the empty holster. He looked from Botree to Joe and back to his sister. He began to talk, each word separate and precise, like a man who’d discovered the power of speech.

“Somebody was hiding in the woods,” he said, “I was moving quiet like Owen taught me. I couldn’t see who, but I figured it was one of those Feds. An ATF or FBI, or whoever they got out there. One of the spies they sent out. I guess he heard me because he turned around and aimed a rifle at me. I already had my gun out. I don’t know how it got in my hand. I was scared, but I didn’t want to do him like I done Joe. I was too scared to be yellow this time. I shot him three times. He fell down, but he wasn’t a Fed. All he had was a little.22 rifle. He wasn’t no older than me. Oh, Botree, what’d I do?”

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.”

The transmission stopped. The only sound was Coop’s hoarse breath. Botree came into the room, her face swollen from sleep. She shivered.

“What’s going on?” she said.

“It’s happening,” Joe said. “No power anywhere.”

“We’ve got plenty of batteries.”

“We’ll need them.”

“Owen stored tanks of propane in the barn and there’s a generator, too. The pump’s electric, but we got plenty of water cached.”

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, the same way as Abilene. Her face was worn but lovely. Joe wished he’d met her years ago, before her children, before Boyd’s death.

The scanner emitted a squeal and settled into speech.

“White Dog to Delta. Attempt communication.”

“Affirmative.”

Silence rushed over the airwaves. The sky through the window was becoming pale. Joe held Botree’s hand.

“Bills,” Frank said. “Hold your fire and let him talk. We honor his First Amendment freedom of speech.”

A man’s voice entered the tiny room through both the scanner and the CB as if in stereo.

“Your position is surrounded. You cannot escape. Throw down your weapons and come out. You will not be harmed. Repeat. You will not be harmed.”

The amplified tones of a bullhorn rendered the sound inhuman, the echoing metal of a talking machine. Joe watched dry stalks of curly dock sway in the wind. The flight of a magpie made a black and white blur. The children giggled from the tub.

The sound of automatic-weapon fire blasted from the CB, then stopped.

Botree closed her eyes and moved her lips in prayer. Coop remained still, his face red, his pulse throbbing in his neck. Sunlight glinted on the gold rings that wrapped each of his fingers. Joe wondered how much extra weight they added to his hand. His mother had never worn jewelry of any kind.

The voice on the scanner spoke.

“White Dog to Delta. Casualty report.”

“Negative.”

“Prepare for insertion.”

“Delta prepared.”

Coop held a pen at the black spot closest to the circled F, watching the radio as if it possessed the power to attack him. His hand quivered. Botree was audible now, a steady murmuring drone.

Frank’s voice entered the room. His tone was modulated to an eerie warmth.

“I’m going to read from the Montana Constitution, Article Two, Section Two. ‘The people have the right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent state.’ ”

Joe stared through the window at the early sun on the slopes. Smoke outlined the mountain peaks, turning the sky crimson and brown, laced with rusty strips of blue.

The scanner spoke.

“White Dog to Delta, stand by for insertion.”

“Standing by.”

“Go, Delta.”

Gunfire sounded from the scanner. The Bills responded with a long barrage of return fire. There was no more talking, only the noise of automatic weapons tearing the air to pieces. The sound rose and fell in waves as the men emptied their clips and reloaded and emptied them again. The pitch of battle increased, and Joe realized that the assault team was nearing the Bills’ camp. The noise reverberated in the room, tinny and unreal through the cheap speakers. It reminded Joe of old machinery rattling.

Slowly he realized that the CB had stopped producing sound. All gunfire came from the scanner, short bursts that received no answer. The time between rounds lengthened until the airwaves hushed. A line of cattle walked along a path outside the window. Their heads dipped with each step.

Botree squeezed Joe’s hand until it hurt. She was crying. He watched twilight pass to day as he waited for radio sound.

After a long time, a scratchy voice came over the scanner.

“Delta to White Dog. Objective achieved.”

“Casualties?”

“Negative.”

“Outstanding, Delta. Hostile casualties?”

The voice of the Delta radio man changed tone.

“All, sir. Uh, there was no attempt at retreat.”

“How many?”

“Four.”

“Repeat, Delta. How many hostile casualties?”

“Four, sir. That’s it. There’s no army here. No artillery. Just a radio and four dead. It’s a mistake, sir. We cut them to bits.”

“Terminate radio contact, Delta. Repeat, terminate radio contact.”

Coop pushed against the table and stood. He leaned on the windowsill, raising dust that began to settle in the golden light that streamed through the glass.

Abilene yelled for his mother, and Botree hurried to the bathroom, as if grateful for a task. Joe left the room and walked through the house. Johnny lay on the couch. Even in sleep, his face showed stress. Joe felt sorry for him.

He knelt by the fireplace and began twisting old newspaper into tubes of kindling. His mother was probably buried beside his father, who was next to Boyd. There were more empty plots and Joe realized he would never claim his. He wished he’d asked Orben if Rodale’s dog had lived.

Joe went to the kitchen, ran water in the sink, and washed the supper dishes. He wondered how far Orben’s body would float. When he didn’t return, people at home would believe that Joe had killed him. Someone else would come. The faucet dripped. Joe went to the mud room and began searching for a gasket to fix the leak. He felt as if another man had killed Rodale and he was simply held to account. He wondered if town water had reached Blizzard yet.

He should have gone with Ty. Now he’d have to leave anyway, and he didn’t know where to go. The prospect of beginning again in a new place filled him with dread, although he couldn’t imagine faring much worse than he had in Montana. He decided on Alaska. He would convince Botree to sell her share of the ranch, and they could homestead with the kids. He wished he had the possum.

He bent to retrieve a child’s mitten on the floor. It was blue with a hole in the palm, like a pair he’d shared with his brother. He wondered how much Sara’s kids had grown. He’d forgotten to ask Orben about his mother’s house. The family wouldn’t sell it, and Sara preferred the privacy of the hollow. She was probably mad at him for making her responsible for the homeplace. If he had stayed, he could have sold his trailer and moved into his mother’s house. He and Abigail would be married by now.

From outside came a steady thump, like gusts of wind slamming a tin roof. He went to a window and watched a dark helicopter descend to the road. Machine-gun barrels on the exterior swiveled with the motion of the pilot’s head. Dirt blew from the earth as the helicopter settled. Two men jumped to the ground, carrying rifles. One man ran to the corner of the barn and the other man squatted behind Joe’s Jeep.

Joe put his pistol in the freezer. He slipped a white dish towel through the ring on the end of a broom handle. Dust rose from the helicopter’s blades, but he could see that the hull was dark green with flat black numbers painted on its side. He opened the front door and poked the broom out. He hoped the men in the yard wouldn’t shoot.