"I don't think there are any fire engines in town," Benny said. "Well, maybe one or two old ones."
"Let me see what I can do about that," Julia said. Claire McClatchey towered over her; it was easy enough to see where Joe had gotten his height. "Barbie, it would probably be best if I handled this on my own."
"Why?" Claire looked bewildered. One of her tears finally overspilled and ran down her cheek. "Joe said the government put you in charge, Mr. Barbara--the President himself!"
"I had a disagreement with Mr. Rennie and Chief Randolph about the video feed," Barbie said. "It got a little hot. I doubt if either of them would welcome my advice just now. Julia, I don't think they'd exactly welcome yours, either. At least not yet. If Randolph's halfway competent, he'll send a bunch of deputies out there with whatever's left in the firebarn. At the very least, there'll be hoses and Indian pumps."
Julia considered this, then said: "Would you step outside with me for a minute, Barbie?"
He looked at Joe's mother, but Claire was no longer paying them any attention. She had moved her son aside and was sitting next to Norrie, who pressed her face against Claire's shoulder.
"Dude, the government owes me a computer," Joe said as Barbie and Julia walked toward the front door.
"Noted," Barbie said. "And thank you, Joe. You did well."
"A lot better than their damn missile," Benny muttered.
On the front stoop of the McClatchey home, Barbie and Julia stood silent, looking toward the town common, Prestile Stream, and the Peace Bridge. Then, in a voice that was low-pitched and angry, Julia said: "He's not. That's the thing. That's the goddam thing."
"Who's not what?"
"Peter Randolph is not halfway competent. Not even one-quarter.
I went to school with him all the way from kindergarten, where he was a world-champion pants-wetter, to twelfth grade, where he was part of the Bra-Snapping Brigade. He was a C-minus intellect who got B-minus grades because his father was on the school board, and his brainpower has not increased. Our Mr. Rennie has surrounded himself with dullards. Andrea Grinnell is an exception, but she's also a drug addict. OxyContin."
"Back problems," Barbie said. "Rose told me."
Enough of the trees on the common had shed their leaves for Barbie and Julia to be able to see Main Street. It was deserted now--most people would still be at Dipper's, discussing what they had seen--but its sidewalks would soon fill with stunned, disbelieving townsfolk drifting back to their homes. Men and women who would not yet even dare ask each other what came next.
Julia sighed and ran her hands through her hair. "Jim Rennie thinks if he just keeps all the control in his own hands, things will eventually come rightside up. For him and his friends, at least. He's the worst kind of politician--selfish, too egocentric to realize he's way out of his league, and a coward underneath that bluff cando exterior of his. When things get bad enough, he'll send this town to the devil if he thinks he can save himself by doing so. A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men. You're the one who should be running this show."
"I appreciate your confidence--"
"But that's not going to happen no matter what your Colonel Cox and the President of the United States may want. It's not going to happen even if fifty thousand people march down Fifth Avenue in New York, waving signs with your face on them. Not with that fucking Dome still over our heads."
"Every time I listen to you, you sound less Republican," Barbie remarked.
She struck him on the bicep with a surprisingly hard fist. "This is not a joke."
"No," Barbie said. "It's not a joke. It's time to call for elections. And I urge you to stand for Second Selectman yourself."
She looked at him pityingly. "Do you think Jim Rennie is going to allow elections as long as the Dome is in place? What world are you living in, my friend?"
"Don't underestimate the will of the town, Julia."
"And don't you underestimate James Rennie. He's been in charge here for donkey's years and people have come to accept him. Also, he's very talented when it comes to finding scapegoats. An out-oftowner--a drifter, in fact--would be perfect in the current situation. Do we know anybody like that?"
"I was expecting an idea from you, not a political analysis."
For a moment he thought she was going to hit him again. Then she drew in a breath, let it out, and smiled. "You come on all awshucks, but you've got some thorns, don't you?"
The Town Hall whistle began to blow a series of short blasts into the warm, still air.
"Someone's called in a fire," Julia said. "I think we know where."
They looked west, where rising smoke smudged the blue. Barbie thought most of it had to be coming from the Tarker's Mills side of the Dome, but the heat would almost certainly have ignited small fires on the Chester side as well.
"You want an idea? Okay, here's one. I'll track down Brenda--she'll either be at home or at Dipper's with everyone else--and suggest she take charge of the firefighting operation."
"And if she says no?"
"I'm pretty sure she won't. At least there's no wind to speak of--not on this side of the Dome--so it's probably just grass and brush. She'll tap some guys to pitch in, and she'll know the right ones. They'll be the ones Howie would've picked."
"None of them the new officers, I take it."
"I'll leave that up to her, but I doubt if she'll be calling on Carter Thibodeau or Melvin Searles. Freddy Denton, either. He's been on the cops for five years, but I know from Brenda that Duke was planning to let him go. Freddy plays Santa every year at the elementary school, and the kids love him--he's got a great ho-ho-ho. He's also got a mean streak."
"You'll be going around Rennie again."
"Yes."
"Payback could be a bitch."
"I can be a bitch myself, when I have to be. Brenda too, if she gets her back up."
"Go for it. And make sure she asks that guy Burpee. When it comes to putting out a brushfire, I'd trust him rather than any town firebarn leftovers. He's got everything in that store of his."
She nodded. "That's a damned good idea."
"Sure you don't want me to tag along?"
"You've got other fish to fry. Did Bren give you Duke's key to the fallout shelter?"
"She did."
"Then the fire may be just the distraction you need. Get that Geiger counter." She started for her Prius, then stopped and turned back. "Finding the generator--assuming there is one--is probably the best chance this town has got. Maybe the only one. And Barbie?"
"Right here, ma'am," he said, smiling a little.
She didn't. "Until you've heard Big Jim Rennie's stump speech, don't sell him short. There are reasons he's lasted as long as he has."
"Good at waving the bloody shirt, I take it."
"Yes. And this time the shirt is apt to be yours."
She drove off to find Brenda and Romeo Burpee.
2
Those who had watched the Air Force's failed attempt to punch through the Dome left Dipper's pretty much as Barbie had imagined: slowly, with their heads down, not talking much. Many were walking with their arms about one another; some were crying. Three town police cars were parked across the road from Dipper's, and half a dozen cops stood leaning against them, ready for trouble. But there was no trouble.
The green Chief of Police car was parked farther up, in the front lot of Brownie's Store (where a hand-lettered sign in the window read CLOSED UNTIL "FREEDOM!" ALLOWS FRESH SUPPLIES). Chief Randolph and Jim Rennie sat inside the car, watching.
"There," Big Jim said with unmistakable satisfaction. "I hope they're happy."
Randolph looked at him curiously. "Didn't you want it to work?"
Big Jim grimaced as his sore shoulder twinged. "Of course, but I never thought it would. And that fellow with the girl's name and his new friend Julia managed to get everyone all worked up and hopeful, didn't they? Oh yes, you bet. Do you know she's never endorsed me for office in that rag of hers? Not one single tim
e."
He pointed at the pedestrians streaming back toward town.
"Take a good look, pal--this is what incompetency, false hope, and too much information gets you. They're just unhappy and disappointed now, but when they get over that, they'll be mad. We're going to need more police."
"More? We've got eighteen already, counting the part-timers and the new deputies."
"It won't be enough. And we've got--"
The town whistle began to hammer the air with short blasts. They looked west and saw the smoke rising.
"We've got Barbara and Shumway to thank," Big Jim finished.
"Maybe we ought to do something about that fire."
"It's a Tarker's Mills problem. And the U.S. government's, of course. They started a fire with their cotton-picking missile, let them deal with it."
"But if the heat sparked one on this side--"
"Stop being an old woman and drive me back to town. I've got to find Junior. He and I have things to talk about."
3
Brenda Perkins and the Reverend Piper Libby were in Dipper's parking lot, by Piper's Subaru.
"I never thought it would work," Brenda said, "but I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't disappointed."
"Me too," Piper said. "Bitterly. I'd offer you a ride back to town, but I have to check on a parishioner."
"Not out on Little Bitch, I hope," Brenda said. She lifted a thumb at the rising smoke.
"No, the other way. Eastchester. Jack Evans. He lost his wife on Dome Day. A freak accident. Not that all of this isn't freakish."
Brenda nodded. "I saw him out at Dinsmore's field, carrying a sign with his wife's picture on it. Poor, poor man."
Piper went to the open driver's-side window of her car, where Clover was sitting behind the wheel and watching the departing crowd. She rummaged in her pocket, gave him a treat, then said, "Push over, Clove--you know you flunked your last driver's test." To Brenda, she confided: "He can't parallel-park worth a damn."
The shepherd hopped onto the passenger side. Piper opened the car door and looked at the smoke. "I'm sure the woods on the Tarker's Mills side are burning briskly, but that needn't concern us." She gave Brenda a bitter smile. "We have the Dome to protect us."
"Good luck," Brenda said. "Give Jack my sympathy. And my love."
"I'll do that," Piper said, and drove off. Brenda was walking out of the parking lot with her hands in the pockets of her jeans, wondering how she was going to get through the rest of the day, when Julia Shumway drove up and helped her with that.
4
The missiles exploding against the Dome didn't wake Sammy Bushey; it was the clattery wooden crash, followed by Little Walter's screams of pain, that did that.
Carter Thibodeau and his friends had taken all of her fridge-dope when they left, but they hadn't searched the place, so the shoebox with the rough skull-and-crossbones drawn on it was still in the closet. There was also this message, printed in Phil Bushey's scrawly, backslanting letters: MY SHIT! TOUCH IT AND U DIE!
There was no pot inside (Phil had always sneered at pot as a "cocktail-party drug"), and she had no interest in the Baggie of crystal. She was sure the "deputies" would have enjoyed smoking it, but Sammy thought crystal was crazy shit for crazy people--who else would inhale smoke that included the residue of matchbook striker-pads marinated in acetone? There was another, smaller Baggie, however, that contained half a dozen Dreamboats, and when Carter's posse left she had swallowed one of these with warm beer from the bottle stashed under the bed she now slept in alone ... except for when she took Little Walter in with her, that was. Or Dodee.
She had briefly considered taking all of the Dreamboats and ending her crappy unhappy life once and for all; might even have done it, if not for Little Walter. If she died, who would take care of him? He might even starve to death in his crib, a horrible thought.
Suicide was out, but she had never felt so depressed and sad and hurt in all her life. Dirty, too. She had been degraded before, God knew, sometimes by Phil (who had enjoyed drug-fueled threesomes before losing interest in sex completely), sometimes by others, sometimes by herself--Sammy Bushey had never gotten the concept of being her own best friend.
Certainly she'd had her share of one-night stands, and once, in high school, after the Wildcats basketball team had won the Class D championship, she had taken on four of the starters, one after the other, at a postgame party (the fifth had been passed out in a corner). It had been her own stupid idea. She had also sold what Carter, Mel, and Frankie DeLesseps had taken by force. Most frequently to Freeman Brown, owner of Brownie's Store, where she did most of her shopping because Brownie gave her credit. He was old and didn't smell very good, but he was randy, and that was actually a plus. It made him quick. Six pumps on the mattress in the storeroom was his usual limit, followed by a grunt and a squirt. It was never the highlight of her week, but it was comforting to know that line of credit was there, especially if she came up short at the end of the month and Little Walter needed Pampers.
And Brownie had never hurt her.
What had happened last night was different. DeLesseps hadn't been so bad, but Carter had hurt her up top and made her bleed down below. Worse had followed; when Mel Searles dropped his pants, he was sporting a tool like the ones she'd sometimes seen in the porno movies Phil had watched before his interest in crystal overtook his interest in sex.
Searles had gone at her hard, and although she tried to remember what she and Dodee had done two days before, it didn't work. She remained as dry as August with no rain. Until, that was, what Carter Thibodeau had only abraded ripped wide open. Then there was lubrication. She had felt it puddling under her, warm and sticky. There had been wetness on her face, too, tears trickling down her cheeks to nestle in the hollows of her ears. During Mel Searles's endless ride, it came to her that he might actually kill her. If he did, what would happen to Little Walter?
And weaving through it all, the shrill magpie voice of Georgia Roux: Do her, do her, do that bitch! Make her holler!
Sammy had hollered, all right. She had hollered plenty, and so had Little Walter, from his crib in the other room.
In the end they had warned her to keep her mouth shut and left her to bleed on the couch, hurt but alive. She'd watched their headlights move across the living room ceiling, then fade as they drove away toward town. Then it was just her and Little Walter. She had walked him back and forth, back and forth, stopping just once to put on a pair of underpants (not the pink ones; she never wanted to wear those again) and stuff the crotch with toilet paper. She had Tampax, but the thought of putting anything up there made her cringe.
Finally Little Walter's head had fallen heavily on her shoulder, and she felt his drool dampening her skin--a reliable sign that he was really and truly out. She had put him back in his crib (praying that he would sleep through the night), and then she had taken the shoebox down from the closet. The Dreamboat--some kind of powerful downer, she didn't know exactly what--had first damped the pain Down There, and then blotted out everything. She had slept for over twelve hours.
Now this.
Little Walter's screams were like a bright light cutting through heavy fog. She lurched out of bed and ran into his bedroom, knowing the goddam crib, which Phil had put together half-stoned, had finally collapsed. Little Walter had been shaking the shit out of it last night when the "deputies" were busy with her. That must have weakened it enough so that this morning, when he began stirring around--
Little Walter was on the floor in the wreckage. He crawled toward her with blood pouring from a cut on his forehead.
"Little Walter!" she screamed, and swept him into her arms. She turned, stumbled over a broken cribslat, went to one knee, got up, and rushed into the bathroom with the baby wailing in her arms. She turned on the water and of course no water came: there was no power to run the well pump. She grabbed a towel and dry-mopped his face, exposing the cut--not deep but long and ragged. It would leave a scar. She pressed the towel again
st it as hard as she dared, trying to ignore Little Walter's renewed shrieks of pain and outrage. Blood pattered onto her bare feet in dime-sized drops. When she looked down, she saw the blue panties she'd put on after the "deputies" had left were now soaked to a muddy purple. At first she thought it was Little Walter's blood. But her thighs were streaked, too.
5
Somehow she got Little Walter to hold still long enough to plaster three SpongeBob Band-Aids along the gash, and to get him into an undershirt and his one remaining clean overall (on the bib, red stitching proclaimed MOMMY'S LI'L DEVIL). She dressed herself while Little Walter crawled in circles on her bedroom floor, his wild sobbing reduced to lackadaisical sniffles. She started by throwing the blood-soaked underpants into the trash and putting on fresh ones. She padded the crotch with a folded dish-wiper, and took an extra for later. She was still bleeding. Not gushing, but it was a far heavier flow than during her worst periods. And it had gone on all night. The bed was soaked.
She packed Little Walter's go-bag, then picked him up. He was heavy and she felt fresh pain settle in Down There: the sort of throbbing bellyache you got from eating bad food.
"We're going to the Health Center," she said, "and don't you worry, Little Walter, Dr. Haskell will fix us both up. Also, scars don't matter as much to boys. Sometimes girls even think they're sexy. I'll drive as fast as I can, and we'll be there in no time." She opened the door. "Everything's going to be all right."
But her old rustbucket Toyota was far from all right. The "deputies" hadn't bothered with the back tires, but they had punctured both front ones. Sammy looked at the car for a long moment, feeling an even deeper depression settle over her. An idea, fleeting but clear, crossed her mind: she could split the remaining Dreamboats with Little Walter. She could grind his up and put them in one of his Playtex nursers, which he called "boggies." She could disguise the taste with chocolate milk. Little Walter loved chocolate milk. Accompanying the idea came the title of one of Phil's old record albums: Nothing Matters and What If It Did?