Wildside

  There were two soldiers standing four feet away and I pulled the mirror back, before it caught the light from the convenience store parking lot and caused somebody to look at my hole.

  I eased back into the tunnel and thought about this.

  I had to get them out of there before I came through. It didn’t have to be for long, but it had to be done. I crawled back through the tunnel and out to my pile of supplies, hoping desperately that one of the soldiers wouldn’t step on my hole and fall in. That would cap a perfect week.

  I had everything I needed, though to get the plastic bag I had to dump a bundle of freeze-dried meals. Groaning, I took my shotgun, the plastic bag, and a completely full can of pepper Mace back into the tunnel.

  I stilled my groans and breathing as I got back into position under the hole. I took the remote control for the gate out of my pocket and held it in my left hand. The can of pepper Mace I pushed up into the hole, wedging it there, half out of the ground. I was hoping that the black plastic cap would be invisible in the dark. Then I took several breaths of air and pulled the plastic bag over my head, tucking it into the neck of my shirt.

  I put the shotgun barrel against the bottom of the twelve ounce can of pepper Mace, pointed straight up, and pulled the trigger.

  In that enclosed space the sound was deafening. I dropped the shotgun, double-checked my grip on the remote control, and started pulling down dirt and grass, widening the hole. When I wormed my way up out of the hole, there was a cloud of white vapor all around me. I could dimly see figures running away while they rubbed at their faces, but, near at hand, a figure was collapsed on the ground, clawing at his face and choking.

  I scrambled to my feet and grabbed his collar, then dragged him upwind, as fast as I could limp.

  I was still holding my breath and the plastic bag over my head was fogging up. A gust of wind carried the mist away, but I didn’t think it was safe yet. I staggered on a few more yards, then dropped the soldier’s collar and ripped the plastic bag off my face. Soldiers were running toward us, their footsteps crunching through the mesquite leaves, but they were giving the cloud of vapor a wide berth.

  I pushed the remote control button.

  The gate shut.

  At the terminus, the tops of six half-filled cans of aviation gas were sheared open. Perhaps that would’ve been enough, the heat generated by the plastic being cut might’ve set off the fumes, but the spark created when the top half of the coffee can was cut in two certainly set off the pint of gunpowder. Between the two, the underground chamber filled with gas fumes and air became a pressurized combustion chamber.

  The ground bulged like a blister and then ruptured. A jet of flame and light shot a hundred feet into the sky, lighting the ground and throwing stark shadows. Most of the blast went straight up, but there was enough lateral force to knock the running soldiers sideways and to slam me back on my side, twisting my bad knee, yet again.

  I just lay there.

  There was no longer any need to hurry.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “TRY AND STOP THEM.”

  They frisked me, taking the gate control, then hustled me into the helicopter and flew me back to the ranch, getting me out of the way before the county fire and rescue people showed up. I wondered how they were going to explain it?

  I made them carry me; I wasn’t walking another foot on that leg and especially not for Bestworst. I asked them what they’d done with the horse, but they wouldn’t talk to me.

  Bestworst took his time coming to see me.

  They put me in the barn, my arms handcuffed behind my back, seated on a bale of straw in one of the stalls. I was watched by six soldiers who were supervised by Bestworst’s redheaded assistant—the jack-in-the-box man who’d nearly shot me in the back of the head.

  “How are your eyes?” I asked him.

  He just looked at me for a moment, then exhaled. “Better. How is your ear?” His expression was empty.

  “Ringing. Some hearing loss. Don’t know if it’s permanent.”

  “We can hope.” He didn’t look like he cared one way or another.

  Bestworst arrived, by car, I guess, and entered the barn with Captain Moreno. His eyes were red and he kept blowing his nose.

  For a second I thought he had a bad cold, but then I realized. “Downwind, were you?”

  He gave me a baleful look and sneezed. His voice, when he spoke, was hoarse.

  “Was the gas really necessary?”

  “What happened to the horse?”

  He dismissed my question with the wave of a hand.

  I persisted. “You want any answers to your questions, tell me what happened to the horse.”

  He looked angry. “The damn horse was turned loose inside the fence on your property. Now why the gas?”

  “Did anybody unsaddle him?”

  He pointed across the barn. Impossible’s saddle and bridle were sitting on the tarp-covered table saw.

  I exhaled. If they’d just shot him, I didn’t think they’d bother carrying the saddle back here.

  “Okay. I used the pepper Mace because I had to be sure,” I said.

  “Sure of—” He broke into a paroxysm of coughing. He waved his hand at Moreno, unable to stop coughing.

  Moreno said, “Sure of what?”

  “I had to be sure nobody was on the site when I blew the gate.” I waited until Bestworst’s fit of coughing ceased. “You were right. I’m not prepared to kill anybody.”

  Bestworst went into another fit of coughing. There was a wheezing sound as he inhaled.

  “Get him on oxygen,” I said. “His bronchi are closing up.”

  Moreno eyed Bestworst, then turned to one of the soldiers, “Get Livingston. Have him bring the oxygen set from Blackhawk One.”

  The soldier came to attention. “Uh, sir? Livingston’s under arrest.”

  Moreno frowned. “Right. All right. Just bring the oxygen set.” The soldier left at a run and Moreno turned back to me. “What do you mean—you ‘blew the gate’?”

  “I used a combination of gunpowder and aviation gasoline and blew it up. Bang. Finito.” They looked at me in disbelief. Slowly, with heavy emphasis on each word, I said, “I destroyed it.”

  I think Bestworst would’ve laid hands upon me if he’d been able to breathe.

  “Ever have asthma?” I asked.

  The soldier showed up with the oxygen set and Bestworst took several deep breaths. After a minute, his color came back, and he took the mask away from his face to croak, “Why?”

  I thought about the condor, floating high in the sky. And the mastodons, the wild horses, the camels—even the dire wolves. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  He took another hit of oxygen, then leaned forward. “So you’ll just have to build another one. Too bad. If you’d given us the other one, you might be free now. Now you’re stuck.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. “You don’t get it. I blew it up to keep it away from you.”

  I opened my eyes. “Why do you think I’ll make you another one?”

  His eyes narrowed. “What makes you think you have any choice?”

  “I was considering the thirteenth amendment of the Constitution. That’s the one that deals with involuntary servitude.” I gestured at the soldiers standing behind him. “The United States Constitution—the one these guys took an oath to defend.”

  He glared at me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the soldiers shift his weight, but don’t know if he was disturbed by what I said or just changing his posture.

  “But besides that, what makes you think I even know how to build another gate?” I was weary beyond any previous experience and the aches of my body were a loud, dull chorus in the background. This man in front of me, with his single-minded, compulsive, compassionless drive to control, faded into the background noise.

  I knew he was dangerous—I just didn’t care anymore.

  I closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall. I could hear him b
reathing, the hiss of the regulator on the oxygen tank, but he didn’t say anything. My shoulders, cranked behind me by the handcuffs, ached, and I concentrated on relaxing.

  After a moment Bestworst said, “Put him with the others.”

  Fortunately for my knee, we didn’t have to go far. They’d put them in the tunnel, figuring, I guess, that it was the last place I’d reopen the gate.

  There were eight soldiers on guard at the barn end of the tunnel. My guys were all beyond the terminus. All the remnants of my fake gate and the wooden barrier were gone. I hoped they were wasting lots of time at some lab, somewhere, trying to figure out how the machinery worked.

  Dad and Clara said, “Charlie!” at the same time, and started moving toward me. Four guards stepped in front of them, rifles pointed slightly above the prisoners’ heads. Dad and Clara stepped back. Dad’s fists were clenched and I wondered who he was angrier with—the guards or me?

  I saw that they’d been given sleeping bags and bales of hay. The hay was being used intact as chairs, or spread to pad the sleeping bags.

  Bestworst’s video cameras were still in place and the “Record” lights were on.

  Just before I reached the guards, my escort unlocked my handcuffs. I stepped across, past the guards, leaving the escort behind.

  Before she could ask, I said, “Impossible’s wandering around the ranch—on the tame side. They unsaddled him, but I don’t think they fed him.”

  She nodded, exhaling suddenly. Her eyes ran over my face and clothes. “Are you all right—under all that dirt?”

  I smiled. “I’ve been better. I could sit down.”

  Dad let me settle on a bale of hay with my back against the wall before he said, “What happened?”

  “I destroyed the gate.”

  He nodded slowly. “The explosion? We felt it. How’d you do it?”

  I moved my eyes sideways, at the cameras. “Aviation gas and a case of shotgun shells.”

  “So the gate is shut,” Rick said.

  I nodded. “For good.” I looked at Luis. “Have any of your phone calls borne fruit?”

  He shrugged. “Not so you could tell. They brought us straight here and, except for some individual interrogations out in the barn, we’ve been right here the whole time.”

  “Interrogations? What did they ask? What did you guys tell them?”

  Luis smiled. “Richard and me, we talked about the criminal penalties they could expect for violating our civil rights. Your father talked about the oath he took when he became an air force officer.”

  Clara shook her head. “I wouldn’t talk to them—period.”

  Marie nodded. “They tried to threaten me with deportation back to Vietnam, even though I’m a US citizen. I said, fine, let’s go.”

  Rick shrugged. “I didn’t have anything to say, so I didn’t. They got tired before I did.”

  Joey hung his head. “They offered me alcohol. I almost got to Bestworst before his assistant pulled me back down. I did get to spit on him, though.” He covered his eyes then drew his hands down his face, pulling his cheeks down. “I wanted that drink. I wanted it bad.”

  Marie put her arm around him. “You didn’t take it, though. That’s what matters.”

  Joey shook his head.

  “You did good, Joey,” I said. “Give yourself a break.”

  He shrugged, but brightened a bit.

  While they told me this, Dad had been staring at the side of the tunnel, his brow furrowed. Now he looked at me and narrowed his eyes. “So you destroyed it?”

  I blinked. “Right. That’s what I said.”

  He pursed his lips. “Was that really the best thing to do?”

  I stared at him, tired, but I could feel all my doubts surfacing, those nagging voices that always sounded like him. “What would you have me do?” I asked quietly. Then, almost against my will, my voice rose. “Give it to them?”

  He blinked. “Maybe. Negotiated, perhaps.”

  “We tried that! They shot at us, they chased us, they threatened us. They didn’t negotiate.”

  Clara flinched and I realized my voice had risen still more.

  Dad frowned. “Well maybe you shouldn’t have come back. Just held the gate until cooler heads prevailed.”

  “And left you guys to rot?”

  He looked around at the dirt walls and then at the guards. “Looks like we’re still rotting.”

  “But now they don’t have any reason to hold us. Whatever they do to us, they can’t get the gate. Dad, it didn’t matter if it’s these guys with guns, or the attorney general with a check. If the gate still existed, they’d take it, by legal means or other.”

  “Is that so bad? As long as they let us go and they paid for the property?”

  “And then what? Strip mine? Start shoving nuclear waste through the door? What would happen when word of the gate gets out? When other nations find out that there’s an entire world over there where there’s land without overcrowding, without drought, without polluted soil and water. Are these guys going to give them access? I don’t think so.

  “You ready for that war?”

  He looked thoughtful. “Maybe they can keep it classified.”

  I didn’t bother responding to that one.

  He just didn’t get it. Just like he couldn’t see how hard I’d worked, how much I’d accomplished?

  How much I’d sacrificed? I closed my eyes.

  Give it up, Charlie.

  It was over. Dad always second-guessed my actions—I doubted he would ever change. It would never matter what or how much I did, it would never be the right thing or enough. I opened my eyes to see him staring at me, half-angry, half-surprised.

  My voice was quiet, calm. “It’s done, Dad. You want to complain about it, do it someplace else. I’m too tired to listen.”

  He looked shocked as did Clara, Marie, and Joey. Behind them, Rick held up his hand in a thumbs-up. Luis gave me a simple nod of approval.

  “Where can I lie down?”

  Dad started to say something, then stood abruptly and held out his hand. “Here, use my bag.”

  When I looked at his face it was blank, closed, but he helped me over to his sleeping bag and steadied me as I lowered myself down.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  It wasn’t an apology, or an acknowledgement, but it wasn’t criticism, either, so I took it inside me, and slept.

  “Charlie, wake up.” It was Clara’s voice. I was deep in REM sleep and it took me a moment to surface. Someone was arguing but it wasn’t one of us. The guards?

  I sat up and blinked. The arguing was coming from the barn door. One of the guards—it was Sergeant Costner—was talking through the doorway to someone unseen. “I don’t care if you’re God himself. You’re not coming in here without Captain Moreno’s authorization.”

  A voice from the other side said, “Sergeant, look at my face, then get the hell out of my way.”

  Costner dropped back suddenly, raising his rifle to present arms and snapping to attention.

  “General! Sir, I didn’t recognize you in mufti!”

  A gray-haired man stepped through the door. He was dressed in a business suit, but he walked as if he were marching. The other guards snapped to attention. He glanced at them, then looked at us, at the end of the tunnel.

  “Jesus Christ!” He turned and looked back into the barn. “I presume these are your clients.”

  A woman, wearing a pinstripe suit and carrying a briefcase walked through the door. She was short, below most of the soldiers’ chins. She blinked in the fluorescent light.

  Luis straightened and exhaled a deep sigh of relief. “That’s Marta Rigby from Snodgrass, Messenger & Sons.”

  The general said, “I’d hoped it wasn’t true.” He turned back to the guards. “The rest of your unit is assembled outside. Fall in with them.”

  Sergeant Costner protested. “Sir! What about the prisoners?”

  The man i
n the suit stepped up to Costner and said genially, “Sergeant, do you know what an order is?”

  Costner turned white. “Sir! Yes, sir!”

  “Then carry on, before you make me cranky.”

  Costner led the other guards out.

  I stood and exchanged looks with Clara. She had straw in her hair and she looked wonderful. I took a whiff of myself and wrinkled up my nose.

  The woman, Marta Rigby, walked down the tunnel until she stood in front of us. “Luis,” she said, nodding. She gestured at the general, still standing by the door. “This is General Alderman. He’s the Battalion commander in Panama from which these soldiers were ‘detatched.’” She paused, then asked, “Which one of you is Captain Newell?”

  Dad stepped forward.

  “Your wife is outside.” She looked around and wrinkled up her nose. “Come on, let’s get out of this place.”

  Dad said, “All of us?”

  For a moment, a look of anger came across her face, and she said, “You bet your ass, all of you.”

  It was midmorning and my eyes took a moment to adjust when we emerged from the barn. I was last, limping, letting Clara help me more for contact than aid.

  All the soldiers were standing in formation by the hangar, though Captain Moreno was nowhere to be seen. There were more cars in the yard, so many of them that they lined the dirt road from the gate. Most of them were plain, but two of them said Department of the Army and two others were Brazos County sheriffs.

  Standing on the porch was a white-haired man who looked vaguely familiar and my mother.

  Mom’s posture was stiff until she saw us, but then her shoulders dropped and she exhaled through pursed lips.

  General Alderman said, “Here they are, Senator, Mrs. Newell.”

  Mom came down the steps and touched Dad on the shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  He smiled. “I’m all right. Charlie’s had a rough time of it.”

  She turned to me and her face dropped. “What did they do to you!”

  “It’s okay, Mom. Most of it’s just dirt.”

  I heard Clara mutter, “Most of it.”

  The senator on the porch said, “I cannot tell you, ma’am, the extent of my outrage. You can be sure that these violations will be looked into at the highest level.”