Way Down on the High Lonely

8

The next afternoon Neal hiked over to Hansen’s house and knocked on the front door. He was surprised when Hansen answered it himself.

“You have nerve, Neal. I will give you that.”

“May I come in?”

Hansen stepped out of the doorway and ushered him in.

For a large house, it was remarkably simple. The rooms were all rectangles. The walls were eggshell white with western paintings hanging on them. The floors were wide-plank hardwood with bright Indian rugs.

“Come into my office,” Hansen said.

Neal followed him into a small room with a plain wooden desk, a swivel chair, and a straight-back cane chair. He gestured for Neal to take the cane chair as he sat in the upholstered swivel. Neal figured that this positioning was used to intimidate employees, let ’em know who was the boss, as if there were any question.

“What was last night all about?” Hansen asked.

“It was about keeping Cal out of prison.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know Cal. He would’ve killed Mills. Then where would he be? More important, where would we be? If Cal had any brains he’d be thanking me for jumping him.”

“You’re a smart man, Neal.”

If I were smart I wouldn’t be here.

Hansen continued, “But I don’t know how committed you really are.”

“I’m committed, Mr. Hansen,” Neal answered. Or should be, anyway.

Hansen tapped a pencil on his desk as he looked Neal over. Then he said, “It’s a dilemma for me, Neal, it is. Because I was about to make you a full member of our brotherhood. We were even planning the swearing-in ceremony.”

Great. Terrific. Good job, Neal. Screw everything up in a barroom brawl.

Neal looked him square in the eye. White man to white man. “There’s nothing I want in the whole world more than to be a member of the brotherhood, sir.”

Hansen nodded. “That’s fine, Neal. Because we need you. We need your skills.”

Damn right you do. You couldn’t knock off a gumball machine without me telling you how.

“We’re going to rob an armored car,” Hansen said.

Or an armored car.

“A sympathizer in Los Angeles has ‘tipped us off to this opportunity, so it will be an ‘inside job,’” Hansen said, his eye twinkling as he trotted out his criminal jargon. “An armored car company services the little banks and the mines around here. It’s making a big run in two weeks. I was hoping you could organize the hijacking.”

Neal whistled. “An armored car is a lot tougher animal than a pimp or a card game or a pickpocket, sir. I don’t know if we’re ready for it.” He sat quietly for a few moments, thinking it over. “How much money are we talking?” he asked.

Hansen’s eyes widened. He leaned forward in his chair and carefully pronounced, “Two to three hundred thousand dollars.”

“Two hundred large,” Neal said. “That’s a lot of money.”

Hansen sat back again. “I can’t begin to think what getting that money would do for the cause,” he said.

“Getting it and getting away with it are two different things.”

“That’s why we need you, Neal.”

Well, come and get me, Bob. Neal stood up and offered his hand. “I’d be real honored to help, Mr. Hansen. I want to fight for my race.”

Hansen stood up and took his hand. “I’m so glad to hear you say that, son. And after this mission is over, you’ll become a brother. I promise.”

Then Hansen bent on one knee, pulling Neal down with him.

“Let’s pray together, Neal,” he said. He bowed his head and said, “Oh, Yahweh, bless this, your fine young warrior, and bless our common endeavor. Bless our holy war against your enemies. Your will be done, amen.”

“Amen,” Neal echoed.

Now let’s eat.

Two weeks, Neal thought as he walked over to the bunkhouse to make his peace with the boys. I can do another two weeks.

He didn’t get it. He got about two hours.

While he was sitting in the bunkhouse with the boys, talking about the swearing-in ceremony, and the End Time, and about the big job they had to start planning, Steve Mills came to call on Bob Hansen.

“It’s good of you to come over, Steve,” Bob said as they sat in his kitchen. “We been neighbors too long to have bad blood.”

They were drinking out of jelly jars. Steve was having some of the scotch that Hansen kept for guests, Hansen was drinking milk.

“I don’t have any hard feelings for you, Bob. But lately, the hands you’ve been hiring… they have a certain low tone. Anyway, I was a jackass last night and I apologize. If we can round up your boys, I’ll shake their hands.”

It seemed like the opening Hansen had been waiting months for. So he told his old neighbor Steve all about it. How he’d first come across some literature from the Reverend C. Wesley Carter, how he’d visited his church while on business in LA, how he began to see his true Christian identity and his rights and duties as a white man. Hell, they both knew what was happening to this country. The damn federal government was taking over everything, telling a man what he could do and what he couldn’t.

“It’s true,” admitted Steve. “You can’t raise a cow or cut a tree without seventeen bureaucrats giving you permission.”

Wasn’t it the truth, Bob continued. The government had already ruined both coasts and was working its way toward the middle. Why, this was the last open, free country on earth, up here on The High Lonely, but it wouldn’t be long before the government destroyed what they had here. And he was sure that Steve knew why.

Steve allowed that he had some ideas about the federal government.

Jews, that’s why, Bob told him. The Zionist conspiracy to rule the world. That’s why they’re letting those subhuman niggers run riot. And homosexuals. They’re all in on it. The IRS, the Federal Reserve, the FBI-all were riddled with Jews.

Bob told him all about the True Christian Identity Church, how becoming a member had changed his life, made him see things the way they were, and promised him salvation. How Jory had come to see the truth too, and how he now hired only men who were committed to the cause. And as his friend and neighbor for these twenty years, he felt it was his duty to invite Steve to join.

“Well, I don’t think I can do that, Bob,” Steve said when he was finished.

“I do wish you’d give it a try.”

Steve shook his head, finished his whiskey, and set the glass down on the table.

“May I ask why not?” Bob said. He felt his hopes for Steve fading away.

“Sure,” Steve answered. “I guess it’s because I’m Jewish.”

Which stopped the dialogue.

Feeling the need to fill the conversational void, Steve added, “Half Jewish, anyway. On the top side. Mother was Irish as a drunken wake, but my old man’s old man came over from Russia. I think the original name was Milkowski, something like that. Got shortened somewhere along the line. Anyway, I don’t guess you want me in your church.”

“Get out,” Hansen said. His face had drained of color.

Steve stood up. “You bet,” he said.

He took his time getting to the door while Hansen sat in his chair, staring at the table.

“Oh, Bob,” Steve said from the door. “Shalom.”

Hansen sat in a rage for a couple of minutes before the thought hit him. Then he got up and ran toward the compound.

Neal looked up from cleaning his gun as Hansen burst through the barracks door.

“Where’s Jory?” Hansen yelled.

All of the men froze at his rage. No one wanted to speak.

“I think he took Shelly to lunch in town,” Neal said. “Is something wrong?”

Hansen looked like he might have a stroke any second.

“Steve Mills is a goddamn Jew!” he roared.

Yup, Neal thought, something’s wrong.

They all sat there looking at one another for a second.

“Get off your asses and go get him!” Hansen hollered. “Get him away from that Jew bitch! Bring him back!”

Hansen turned and stormed out the door.

“You heard the man,” Vetter said.

Cal Strekker let out the whooping laugh he’d been holding in. “Well, how about that! Prince Jory’s been cuddling with a Jew! And don’t know it!”

“Let’s get after it,” said Carlisle.

“Let’s all go,” Cal suggested. “This might be some fun.”

They scrambled out of the bunker and ran toward their trucks. Neal followed them.

“We can all fit into two!” Cal yelled as he started his truck. “You coming, Carey?”

“Wouldn’t miss it!” Neal yelled. Which is goddamn true.

He hopped in the back of Cal’s truck just as Cal hit the gas and sped out.

“I wouldn’t have believed that of Bob Hansen,” Peggy said after Steve related the story of his visit.

“He told me himself,” Steve said. “I was so damn mad I could have punched his lights out right there. But I figured I’d done about enough of that.”

Peggy set a plate of chicken-fried steak down on the table and said, “Barb never would have stood for this nonsense.”

“Oh, I don’t think he’d have ever gotten involved if he still had Barb. Grief does strange things.”

She sat down at the table with her own plate and started to cut a piece of meat. “It shouldn’t turn a man into a bigot, though. It’s going to be awfully hard being neighbors, though, and…oh, shit!”

“What?”

“Shelly’s in town with Jory.”

Steve set down his fork and headed out the door.

The kids were finishing dessert at Wong’s when Cal and the boys came through the door.

Neal lingered in the background, trying to fool himself that he could stay close enough to keep things under control but not be seen.

“Hey, Jory!” Cal yelled. “Your daddy sent us to fetch you!”

Cal took a second to grin at Shelly and let his eyes wander over her body.

“Is he all right?” Shelly asked.

“Oh, he’s okay, just a little excited at the moment,” Cal answered. “Hey, Jory, guess what-”

Neal stepped up to the booth and said, “Jory, your father wants you to come home now.”

“Neal?” Shelly asked. Her scared, bewildered look cut into him.

“Yeah, he’s got news for you!” Cal said, elbowing his way past Neal. “Seems like your girliefriend here is a Jew.”

“Come on, Jory,” Neal said quietly.

Jory looked at Shelly. “Is that true?”

She shrugged her shoulders and looked around. The gang had formed a semicircle around the booth, trapping her in. Evelyn had come out of the kitchen and was standing in the background.

“Yeah, I guess… I think Daddy’s…”

“Think nothing,” said Cal. “Daddy’s a Jew. Boy, Jory, I hope we got to you in time. I hope you haven’t screwed this little-”

Shelly stood up in the booth and slapped him.

Evelyn hurried out the door.

Neal stood in paralyzed horror. He was watching a young girl being tortured and trying to stack that up against the potential life of another child.

Cal rubbed his face and grinned, then said, “I don’t suppose screwing a Jew is much different than screwing a nigger.”

“Let me out of here,” Shelly demanded.

Nobody moved. Jory sat frozen in his seat with his face in his hands.

“Jory?” Shelly asked. “Jory? Jory, for God’s sake, say something! Jory?”

He slowly lifted his head and looked at her.

She smiled at him, a don’t-we-live-in-a-world-of-fools smile. An it-doesn’t-matter-because-we-love-each-other smile. She slid her hand across the table to take his.

“Jew bitch,” he hissed. “Goddamn Jew bitch.”

The boys hollered and whooped and slapped his back.

“Goddamn Jew bitch tried to get me to screw her last night! Jory shouted.

There was more whooping and hollering and Shelly just fell apart right there, curled up into a ball and sobbed.

Every human instinct Neal Carey had screamed at him to go hold her and take her out of the restaurant. But he kept his cover and just stood there.

“Let me out,” Shelly moaned. “Let me out.”

“Come on, Jew,” Cal said. “You wanna screw us all?”

“Yeah, you want to screw us all?” Randy Carlisle echoed. “Do you, Jew?”

“Neal, help me!” Shelly cried.

All eyes were on him.

“Neal, please!”

He looked at her and shook his head.

“You know, Shelly,” Cal said, “you really oughta let folks know that you’re a Jew, maybe wear one of them Stars of David on your sleeve-”

“You let that child up or I’ll shoot your damn head off!” Evelyn was standing five feet in back of them, the shotgun at her shoulder pointed straight at Cal.

They all turned to look at her.

“Evelyn, you wouldn’t use that thing,” Cal said.

“Cal Strekker, I’m an old lady and my hands shake and this is a hair trigger. Now you let that child pass.”

Cal and Randy parted to make space for Shelly to get up.

“Come on, honey,” Evelyn said. She held the shotgun in one arm and stretched out the other hand to Shelly. Shelly got up slowly and Evelyn cradled her in her free arm. “Now all you scum get out. And don’t be coming into my store, neither. I don’t want your business.”

“If we was Jews or niggers you’d have to serve us,” Randy said. “It’s because we’re white men we have no rights in our own country.”

“I’ll serve any human being that comes into my place, but you’re just garbage.” She held the sobbing girl as she turned away. “Come on, honey, I’ll take you home.”

Cal yelled after her, “You think you can survive without the business of the Hansen Cattle Company?”

She turned back to him. “Stack all of you up against a man like Steve Mills and you don’t come to a thimbleful of piss. And everyone in this town feels the way I do. You tell your boss that. Tell him I don’t want to see him or his ever again.”

She turned to Neal, “And you, Neal Carey. The Mills took you in when you was down and out and this is how you repay them. You’re worse than any of these vermin.” She spat on her floor and walked outside.

Cal went out into the street after them and the rest followed.

“Jew lover! Jew bitch!”

Neal stood on the sidewalk and watched as the old lady helped Shelly up the street toward her house. Shelly was doubled over, holding her stomach and crying.

Which was the first thing Steve Mills saw as he raced the truck into town. He took one look at his daughter and the jeering gang of Hansen’s cowboys, heard the cries of “Jew bitch,” grabbed his rifle off the rack in back of him, and jumped out of the cab.

“Look out!” Randy yelled.

The cowboys ran for their trucks as Steve came pacing up the street. Cal grabbed his own rifle and got behind his truck. Vetter did the same. Randy pulled a cheap pistol from under his coat. Dave ducked down behind Vetter’s truck and Jory sprawled flat on the ground under Cal’s.

Neal Carey stood on the sidewalk.

Steve ignored them, walked straight up the street, and gently took his daughter from Evelyn.

“Did they touch you, darlin’?” he asked.

Shelly shook her head.

He put his arms around his daughter and walked her slowly past the cowboys’ trucks toward his own. He opened the passenger door and lifted her inside. Then he started to walk back up the street toward the gang. Cal and Vetter shouldered their rifles and took aim, steadying the barrels on the trucks’ hoods. Seemingly oblivious of the three guns pointed at him, Steve walked back up the street toward Neal.

Neal stepped out into the center of the street, trying to put himself between Steve and the guns without making it obvious. Steve stopped a few paces from him.

“You coming with us?” he asked Neal.

Neal felt every eye and ear in the whole damn world on him. He even felt Karen’s, and she wasn’t even there. He felt Levine’s and Graham’s and The Man’s and Anne Kelley’s and Cody McCall’s.

“No,” he said.

“You with them now?” Steve made a contemptuous gesture toward the men hiding behind the trucks.

“Yeah.”

“You were on my side last night.”

So the tracks have come together, Neal thought. Not somewhere over the horizon, but right here, right now. And now they’ll go in different directions. And you can’t have one foot on both anymore.

“Last night,” Neal said, forcing himself to look his former friend in the eyes, “I didn’t know you were a kike.”

Steve looked back at him for a second as if he were going to say something. Then he turned around and walked back to his truck to take his daughter home.

And it isn’t over yet, Neal thought.

He was in the cabin packing his stuff when she came.

He was pretty sure it was Karen when he saw the headlights coming toward the creek, because the lamps were set narrow like a Jeep’s and he figured she was going to come. But he picked up his rifle anyway before he stepped out on the porch. He watched the car stop on the far side of the creek and saw the flashlight coming toward the cabin.

The light was just a few feet away when he saw for sure that it was Karen. He lowered the rifle and stepped back inside. He was putting his books into his pack when she walked in without knocking.

She started right in. “I had to come tell you myself what a bastard I think you are.”

“Thanks for taking the trouble,” he said. He kept his back to her and went on working. He couldn’t tell her the truth and she probably wouldn’t believe it anyway.

“Is that all you have to say?”

There’s a lot more I could say, Karen. I could tell you about the lesson I never seem to learn: never get personally involved on the job. Especially not when you’re undercover. You only end up hurting people.

And whatever you do, never fall in love.

He shrugged and laid a pair of jeans out on the bed, then carefully rolled them up and put them inside his pack.

“Steve and Peggy want you out of here by morning,” Karen said.

“Tell them not to worry. I want out of here.”

“Are you going to move in with those racist pigs?”

“Oink.”

Having brought her too close, the job now was to drive her far off. Out of harm’s way.

“Do you even want to know how Shelly is?” she asked. “Do you care?”

“Not especially.

He’d known for a long time that he couldn’t have this job and a life. Where he’d made his mistake was in thinking he could leave the job for a life.

“You lied to me,” she said, the anger and hurt almost palpable in the closed cabin air.

Undercover is a he, Karen. You start by hiding who you are, and you hide it and you hide it while you become other people, and then when you want your own identity again, you can’t find it. It’s like that little treasure you store someplace to keep it safe, and a long time later you forget where you put it.

Karen, how would I tell you if I could? It’s just that you play so many characters that after awhile you don’t have one of your own. Or maybe that’s backward. Maybe I never had any character to begin with.

Anyway, he didn’t answer her, so she asked, “How long have you been with them? Just recently, or the whole time?”

“Since before I came here,” he answered, because this was a chance to push her farther away. “I’ve been convinced for a longtime now that we have to do something to preserve our white race.”

“You disgust me.”

Get this over with, Neal thought. Because if you don’t you might break down and tell her the truth. Shit, if it were an adult involved, a responsible grownup who had screwed up, I’d tell her right now. But it’s a kid. It’s a little boy who might still be alive and who has only a slim chance, and that has to be more important. If my stupid, messed-up excuse for a life means anything at all, a child has to be more important.

He turned around and said, “And you disgust me, Jew lover.”

He saw the tears come to her eyes and saw her face twist in hurt.

“I was ready to love you!” she yelled. “I was ready to love you and now I hate you! Do you understand me? I hate you!”

I understand you, Karen. “So leave,” he said.

Those blue eyes sparkled with rage. “Go to hell, Neal,” she said. Then she left.

On my way, Karen. I’m on my way.

He finished packing and started the long, cold walk to the Hansen place.