Chapter 24

Once out of sight, the Cab whips around the corner of a sidestreet.

Effen means to reach the road to Fair Mantle Village well ahead of the cortege. He's not a speeder; he's never seen the need for a radar detector. This morning, however, he pushes the Cabriolet as quickly as safety allows on roads slicked with snow. Without a radar detector, he must trust that the police will be too involved with the exodus from town to notice him.

So far, so good. He reaches the end of Harrison. The county road leading to the state park is in front of him. There are no cars; nor is there any indication of oncoming headlights. Effen rams the pedal; the Cab zips toward the park.

The road is empty. No cars. No deer. No police.

There’s the sign warning that the park entrance is 1500 feet away. Effen slows and trips the directional.

He has no trouble turning into the entrance. Five hundred feet in, two National Guardsmen wait with rifles at the ready. One approaches the driver's window. “Sorry, sir, you'll have to turn back.”

Effen identifies himself and asks the Guardsman to radio Bruton at the park office.

The Guardsman says he doesn’t know if he can do that.

Quietly desperate, Effen clutches the steering wheel so hard it hurts. He lies. “Look, word is there’s going to be a demonstration up here. My wife is at the Fair Mantle Village office, and I would really like to get her home.”

The citizen soldier fumbles for the two-way radio on his backpack. He’s still trying to explain things to a higher-up when a snowmobile whizzes through the trees on the left. Another snowmobile whizzes through the trees on the right. The Guardsmen shout as they catch the breezy wake of a third. White light floods the Cab and the surrounding woods.

The Guardsman drops his radio and bangs on the Cab’s hood, yelling, “Go! Go! Go!”

The fellow's action is so extreme, Effen throws the Cab in gear. As he steps on the gas, he hears a gurgly roar. The Cab jolts, struck in the rear. Effen believes he's being catapulted up the road, but after several hundred feet he realizes he’s not flying through the air, he’s being pushed by a Gargantuan piece of machinery -- and the pace is picking up.

The park roads haven't been plowed. Large vehicles have cut ruts in the snow with big, thickly treaded tires. Move out of the ruts, and the little car will get hung up on the icy berm in between. Effen is trapped. All he can do is hang on and steer.

As he nears the Fair Mantle Village parking lot, he sees various cars and four-by-fours turn onto the trails leading behind and beyond the village. The ruts he's been riding in shallow out. He has a fleeting vision of making a break for the parking lot, where the snow has been plowed, but the image is bullied away by an even more fleeting image of being creamed by a pickup truck pulling up from the rear. The vehicle that’s been pushing him, which he now suspects is a utility truck, shoves him onto a trail bearing right from the village. The trail is in the same condition as the roadway. Going uphill isn’t so bad. The descents and the curves make his hair stand on end. Strings of vernacular knot in his mouth.

Effen hadn’t been entirely truthful when he told Anne that he’d done regular kid things when he was her age. The one regular kid thing he religiously avoided was the amusement park. He hated the rides. He’d found out he hated them when Uncle Ed took him and his cousins on a huge whirling thing that heaved them up and down and made them toss their cookies while they were still on the ride. In those days, he figured it was the most embarrassing moment of his life. He swore he'd never upchuck for as long as he lived. His determination served him well. Until now.

He’s bouncing around so vigorously he feels like a food processor. Any second now, the lid will fly off and the puree’s going to slop all over the place. With great difficulty, fearing to let go of the steering wheel, he turns on the air conditioner, opens a window and blasts the radio. He'll do what he can to keep his mind off chucking up.

The Cab flies along, wailing “What a day, what a day, for an auto-da-fe,” from Bernstein's ‘Candide.’” "It's a lovely day for drinking and for watching people fry."

The trail leads to a picnic area that slopes into a glen. Effen steels himself for yet another descent. All at once the light and the roar behind him are gone. The truck is way behind him, at a standstill.

Jaysus, the glen!

Effen stands on the brakes. The Cab skids, then spirals down the slope. There’s a brain-jarring jolt as the rear tires come to rest against the trunk of a fallen sycamore. Effen flops out the door and scrambles up the slope through snow that rooster-tails around his knees.

Dawn is breaking. The snowy woodland has a bluish tint. It’s bright enough to see the dozen Guardsmen ringing the picnic area, rifles to shoulders, eyes to sights.
All around, headlights twinkle through the breeze-stirred forest like lights on a Christmas tree.

Tom Von Aldo and several park rangers are standing next to a state park four-by-four that has a crinkled bumper. No words are exchanged. There is no sign of emotion. They stand loose, staring down the Guardsmen.

A news team jogs up. Automatic rifle fire cracks the silence. Puffs of snow spring up around the cameraman's feet. The entire news team flattens. So does everybody else, including Effen, who didn’t know he could move so fast.

Nobody says or does anything as Tom walks to the scene of the outburst and ascertains the targets are unscathed.

“Yeah, I guess it feels a little like Fort Sumter, early in the morning of April 12, 1861: citizen against citizen,” he amiably calls to the Guardsmen. His face brightens with recognition. He just his chin at a lieutenant colonel. “Hey, Davidoff! You’re a Civil War reenactor, Confederate, the Army of Northern Virginia, right? Tell me, what cause are you fighting for this morning, states’ rights or peoples’ rights?”

The Guardsmen hold position as Tom saunters up to the rifle barrels.

Tom maintains a friendly tone. “That’s what this is all about, buddies: people’s rights. This land is held protected for the people. It belongs to the people. The people are the state, not the bureaucracy.

“Now, we’re not armed. You see that. Shoot us, and you’ll be known as slaughterers for as long as you live. Just like your colleagues at Kent State, the ones who shot those student protesters to death in Ohio during the Vietnam conflict more than twenty years ago. If you want to follow in their footsteps, go right ahead. We’re ready for it.

“The question is: Are you ready to answer for it?”

Eyes directed through sights roll into timid peeks at neighbors. Crooked elbows relax. Rifles are lowered. Davidoff looks annoyed. “Damn you, Von Aldo, you always did have a way with words. Come on, guys. This is stupid.”

The woods erupt in cheers. Guardsmen shake hands with challengers. Davidoff radios everything is under control.

The sense of relief is dizzying. Effen kneels in the snow, waiting for the spinning to stop. Maybe he’s going to be sick, after all. He’s not a creature of action and adventure. He learned that in the scuffle with the trooper.

His attention is diverted by the feel of a heavy hand roughing his hair. “Holy Mother of God, I thought that was you, but I didn’t want to believe it! What did you think you were doing? Where are Gustie and the girls?” Tom doesn’t ask Effen if he wants a hand; he just hauls him up from the ground.

Embarrassed, Effen brushes snow from his coat, mumbling. “The ladies are at The House. At least, that’s where I left them.

“Then what the hell are you doing here?”

“Oh, uh, I wanted to make sure a few people were okay."

"Who?”

“Forget it. It’s over.”

Effen returns to the Cab. There’s no damage aside from a rumpled backside and a broken taillight. Still, it refuses to take the slope.

Tom asks Birdsall to tow Effen down to Bruton. Effen really is out of place here. He’ll probably be out of place at the village, too. But that’s Brut’s problem.

The chairman of the board is directing the removal of large conservation crates from green National Guard transports. Shortly before midnight, he gave orders to evacuate the village. He reversed the orders when Davidoff radioed news of the taking of Mount Can’t.

He sees Birdsall separating the Cab from the that’s tethered it to the state four-by-four. The Owner waits close by, looking for all the world as if he’d been roused from sleep and rushed from home.

Brut can’t believe the implications. “Christ Almighty, Francis, don’t tell me you were part of that rabble.”

Effen doesn’t know which is more controversial, being a part of “that rabble” or the truth of his role in the alleged siege. “Oh …” He stuffs his hands deep in his coat pockets, casually looks around the village. Farrell. Where’s Farrell? Where’s that teal green parka?

Brut is waiting. “Well?”

“Oh, I was just wondering … if anybody is ready for breakfast.”

Ah. There she is. Up there. At the general store, holding open the door for a Guardsman carrying a box. She’s laughing. She looks rested. Fresh. Alive.
Should he speak to her? Should he tell her what happened? To what end?
Now that everything is over, he feels silly. He doesn’t know what his panic was all about. He doesn’t believe he can explain himself rationally.

Birdsall asks him to make sure the Cab is drivable. He does; it is. With a little wave, no words, Effen drives away.

Bruton doesn’t understand. Francis Hume was never a private man. Discreet, definitely, but never guarded, and never, ever as socially disheveled as he's seen him this morning.

Bruton turns to Birdsall for answers.

The ranger spews a hacking cough. “I’ll tell ya, but ya might not believe me …”