(Nine months after Longview)
Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town! Chicago, Chicago, I'll show you around! -old Frank Sinatra song
Elias Horakova was having a really bad day.
That
sweltering July morning he arrived late at his job at the Chicago Tool
and Die Company’s last functioning American plant in Calumet Heights,
after a train commute that had stretched to three hours due to several
mechanical breakdowns, and also due to a dead goat on the tracks from a
Santeria ceremony the night before. Needless to say, the air
conditioning on both the local rail and the El was broken. It hardly
ever worked any more.
When
Eli finally got to work, he learned from a memo in his mailbox that the
venerable factory was finally closing its doors, and the last jobs were
being shipped to the new plant in Guatemala. Eli took his lunch break
in the Moose Lodge tavern down the street, quaffed one too many Old
Style beers, and when he returned to work, he took a swing at his
obnoxious Mexican foreman with a pipe wrench. For this he was informed
that he would lose fifty percent of his severance package. The company
Human Relations Committee also told him they were notifying the FBI of a
possible hatecrime. Then after the endless trip home on the oven-like
trains, Eli had arrived at his home in Cicero to find a dead nigger
lying in his living room.
The
dead man was still bleeding. He wore a filthy tank top, an empty
holster on his hip, jeans and boots, and on his coal-black head was
glued the remains of a bright multi-colored wool toboggan cap that was
soaked in blood and brain matter. Horakova’s 16-year-old son Eddie, a
chunky tow-headed youth whose arms and hands were already as big and
muscular as his father’s, was sitting on the couch, still holding the
old .45-caliber Colt automatic he had used to shoot the huge congoid. A
nine-millimeter Glock automatic that Eli had never seen before was lying
on the coffee table. “Jesus Christ! Eddie? What the fuck happened?”
croaked Elias, his throat suddenly bone-dry.
“It’s
that Jamaican badass Rico Tubbs,” Eddie said in a toneless voice. “He
was gonna take Millie to the Center. For questioning, he said.”
“Mother
of God!” cried Eli in horror. Everyone in Chicago knew what such
questioning in a Neighborhood Watch clubhouse would have entailed for a
13-year-old white girl.
“Where’s Millie? Is she all right?” he demanded.
“She’s
in her room,” said Eddie. “I already laid it all out for her, Dad. She
was in her room the whole day, on her computer, or listening to music
with her headphones on, and she didn’t see or hear nothing. No matter
what the cops do or say to her, she didn’t see or hear nothing. She
understands. She won’t break, Dad. This is all on me. I won’t let them
involve her.”
“It’s
not the cops I’m worried about, it’s Rico’s nigger buddies down at the
Neighborhood Watch,” said Eli, sitting down in an armchair and shakily
lighting a cigarette. “Tell me what happened, Ed.”
“It was maybe half an hour ago. Rico came in the door…”
“Did he break in?” interrupted Eli.
“No, he used his house key, the one the city made us give to the Watch,” his son told him.
“Did he have any papers on him about Millie, about the family? Anything from the FBI or the Human Relations Commission?”
“Nah,”
said Eddie. “He just walked in. Millie and me were sitting here
watching TV. Rico walks over and grabs Millie by the arm. He says, ‘You
be coming wit me, little mama. We got some questions for you down at de
Sen-tair,’ you know that crappy Jamaican accent he had. He didn’t even
look at me. He didn’t care I was there. I was just a white boy, what was
I gonna do? But I knew what I was gonna do, Dad. I didn’t say nothing. I
just got up and went into your bedroom and got the gun from your stash,
jacked in a round like you showed me that time we went shooting down in
the Forest Preserves, and I walked back in here. Millie was kicking and
screaming, and Rico was laughing as he dragged her out the door. I shot
him once in the chest and put him down. He was lying there gasping like
a fish out of water, clawing at his holster for his gun. I leaned over
and took the gun. That’s it on the table there. Then I put the muzzle
right onto his teeth and I pulled the trigger again. Outfit style, like
Stash says they used to do back in the day. I just did what I hadda do,
Dad.”
“I know, son,” said his father, his heart breaking. “Where’s your mother? Does she know?”
“No. Mom’s still at work. Tommy’s still at day care. Mom is picking him up on her way home.”
“What about Stash?”
“He
wheeled himself into the room when he heard the yelling and screaming
and the shots. He’s out in the garage now. He said he was getting some
stuff we’re gonna need.”
“What stuff?” asked Eddie’s father, still trying to take it all in.
“Dis
stuff,” said Eli’s father Stanislas, a lean and wiry old man in his
seventies, as he rolled his wheelchair into the living room. On his lap
were several hacksaws and a roll of black garbage bags. “I’m glad you’re
home, Eli, because it’s gonna take two of you to get dis buck’s clothes
off and get him into de bathtub. Den you gotta cut him up. We put de
pieces in dese garbage bags, we weigh de bags down wit bricks or scrap
iron, and tonight you and Eddie take de van, and you toss de bags into
de lake. Throw each one in at a different place.”
It
was a testament to the realities of life in the United States, and
Chicago in particular, that the idea of calling the police was so
foolish it never even occurred to Eli to suggest it. His son had raised
his hand against a man with a black skin; in Chelsea Clinton’s America,
his life was now over. “They’re gonna come looking for him,” said Eli
hopelessly, gesturing toward the black carcass on the floor. “There’s
what? Three white homes left on Kildare Avenue, and we’re the only
family with a girl? If the brothers didn’t know where he was going,
they’ll figure it out soon enough.”
“Dat’s
why we have to hurry and get dis cleaned up,” said Stash. “Once we get
de cutting done, you guys have to dump de bags and de girls will have to
scrub down every inch of dis room. If de real cops get involved, dey
might use dose luminol lights for bloodstains, but we’ll tell ‘em you
came home drunk and you knocked Lorna around a few nights ago.”
“I’ve never laid a hand on Lorna!” protested Eli angrily. “I’m not a wife-beater!” Not like you, he thought silently.
“Dey don’t know dat,” said Stash evenly.
“Did you ever cut up a body before, Grandad?” asked Eddie.
“I
doubt it,” snarled Eli. “Eddie, I thought you’d figured out by now that
all those Outfit stories were bullshit. Your grandfather spent forty
years working like a dog in the same place I just got laid off from
today. If he was mobbed up, we wouldn’t be living in a three-bedroom
bungalow in Cicero with a half-million-dollar mortgage, he wouldn’t be
sleeping on a roll-out sofa bed in the garage, and you wouldn’t be
sharing a room with your brother.”
“Sorry
to hear de plant’s closing down, saw dat comin’ a long time ago, but we
got other problems to deal wit now,” said Stanislas. “Eli, you get his
head and Eddie, you get his feet. Take him into de bathroom, strip him,
and I’ll walk you through it while I watch from the doorway. Eddie, give
me de gun.”
“Why?” asked Eddie.
“Because
if anybody walks in dat front door while we’re doin’ dis besides your
mother, I’m gonna kill him, and dat’s no bullshit.”
Eli’s
wife Lorna, a faded blond woman with a work-worn face, arrived home
half an hour later with five-year-old Tommy. She saw what her husband
and son were doing in the bathroom, and went into hysterics. Eli managed
to get her calmed down after another half hour. Then he sent the little
boy into Millie’s room, telling a white-faced Millie to play a computer
game with him and keep him in there, while Lorna got busy with the
Ajax, a scrub brush, and a mop. Then Eli and his son went on with their
gruesome task while old Stanislas offered helpful supervisory
suggestions that made Eli wonder if his long-held, skeptical estimation
of his father’s alleged criminal past might need re-thinking. By nine
o’clock that night, the bathtub was piled with doubled black garbage
bags, firmly closed with plastic ties, and Lorna had managed to whip up a
big pot of macaroni and cheese, which she served as supper along with a
plate of buttered slices of cheap white bread. This was how the family
always ate anyway, since the Food Stamps program had gone bankrupt years
before. Every dime she and her husband earned had to go for the house
mortgage and her father-in-law’s twice-weekly kidney dialysis
treatments; food was a necessity of life that had to be provided as
cheaply as possible.
There
were no recriminations at the dinner table. This was America, these
were poor white people who knew the score, and the only concern now was
to save Eddie’s life. “I know what I gotta do,” said Eddie soberly.
“Mom, Dad, give me some money, as much as you got on you, and I’ll leave
town. After we get rid of the bags, Dad, take me up the Tollway as far
as Interstate 90, and drop me off at some truck stop. I’ll hitch from
there. I can make it to Wyoming in three or four days if I’m lucky, and
then I’ll sneak across the border into the Northwest Republic.”
“But when will you come back?” asked his sister Milada, a thin girl with long blond hair who was on the verge of tears.
“I
can’t ever come back, Millie,” said the boy. “I’m sorry it played out
like this, I’m sorry I jammed the family up like this, but what’s done
is done.”
“There has to be some other way!” moaned Lorna.
“There
isn’t,” said Eli harshly. “He’ll be tried as an adult in one of those
goddamned new Hate Courts, and he’ll get life in prison, although in his
case that won’t be long since we all know what happens to teenaged
white boys in Joliet.”
“What would happen?” asked Millie.
“I
won’t last a week,” explained Eddie brutally. “The first time the
niggers try to fuck me in the shower I’ll fight back, and they’ll stab
me to death with their shivs.”
No
one questioned what Eddie said. Life for white people in blue-collar
Chicago was grim, and even Millie was old enough to know what he was
talking about. Little Tommy simply stared. He knew something bad was
happening, but he didn’t cry; already he understood by some mental and
emotional osmosis from the others that in this world, his family was
surrounded by enemies, and he must not show weakness. “We all have to
go,” said Eli. “They’ll be coming after all of us now, because of that
Parental Responsibility Act, and they’ll give Millie and Tommy to It
Takes a Village to be sold. Hell, might as well make a break for it,
just on general principles. I ain’t got no job any more, and at my age I
ain’t getting another job. I been thinking about it for a while.”
“Maybe
it will be all right,” ventured Lorna. “The angels watched over Millie
and Eddie this afternoon, maybe they’ll keep on watching over us.” White
people in America dealt with the unbearable strain and tension of life
surrounded by a slowly rising sea of mud in many ways. In Lorna’s case,
it was through her Catholic faith, and a resolute belief in the
existence of angels on earth who would somehow make everything work out
in the end. She had a shelf full of books and a rack of video discs, all
on the subject of angels. No one else in the family believed in them,
and no one was so cruel as to argue with her on the subject. “But we
can’t all go,” Lorna went on “What about Stash? He’s supposed to go for
dialysis tomorrow. And besides, it’s against the law to move to any of
the Northwestern states now. We’ll be arrested at the state line.”
“That’s
why it has to be just me, Mom,” said Eddie. “I broke the law when I
shot that ape, but you guys haven’t yet, unless you shelter me. That’s
why I gotta leave on my own, so I don’t get you guys into more trouble.”
“I
don’t give a damn about the law of this goddamned country no more,”
said Eli. “Two tours in Iraq, and what did this country ever give me in
return? I got a piece of shrapnel in my leg that still hurts like hell,
but the goddamned VA doctors won’t take it out because it costs too
much. There’s no more Medicare or any kind of help for my father.
Neither of you kids are learning a damned thing in school, and if your
mother and I didn’t stand over you and make you learn on the computer
every night, neither of you would even know how to read and write! Now I
got no job, because those Jews on the board of directors sent it to
some shithole in Guatemala where they’ll train some Indian to push the
buttons on the robot that actually does what I used to do. Nothing but
niggers and Mexicans everywhere like a plague of goddamned locusts! Now
they do this to my family? That nigger was probably getting paid more by
the city for swaggering around the neighborhood with his gun and
molesting any white woman he met than I was getting paid at the
CT&D. He comes into my home and expects to rape my daughter just
for shits and giggles, my son defends her, and now he’s gonna get
thrown away like a piece of garbage? To hell with the law and to hell
with America! I say we all go Northwest!”
“But what about Stash’s dialysis?” asked Lorna.
“De
answer is simple,” said Stanislas. “You guys go Northwest. You go
tonight. You can’t take me, and you know it. I’m stuck in dis chair, I
can’t even take a shit by myself, and I gotta get hooked up to dat
goddamned machine in de hospital every three or four days. You’re gonna
have to run de border, where de TV says dey got army and Marines and
special police units setting up barbed wire and minefields because so
many white people want out of this latrine. You can’t be lugging me
along while you’re cutting through barbed wire and dodging machine gun
nests, and you can’t push me across a minefield in dis chair.”
“And what about our friend in the bathtub?” asked Eli.
“Before
you go, stuff de garbage bags in de crawl space under de house,” said
Stash. “When de Neighborhood Watch shows up looking for deir head nigger
in charge, I’ll just clam up and tell ‘em I don’t know nuthin’. When
Tubbsy starts getting ripe and people notice de smell, sure, dey’ll find
him, but I still don’t know nuthin’. I mean, like I killed him and
stuffed him under de house? In dis chair? Yeah, dey’ll figure out what
happened, but you’ll be long gone.”
“Then
they’ll just kill you,” said Eli. “They’ll beat you to death or drag
you out into the street and run over you with their patrol SUVs like
they did poor old Frank Metesky back in October when he hung blue, white
and green streamers on his porch.”
“I’ll talk ‘em out of it,” said Stanislas. “I can act like a real dumb and pitiful old bohunk when I want to.”
“And suppose you managed to do that, what will happen to you then, Stash?” asked Lorna. “Who will take care of you?”
“I
still got some friends down at de precinct,” said the old man. In
Chicagoese, he was referring to the Democratic Party precinct house, not
the police precinct. “Dere’s still a few old bohunks down there who can
get me a check of some kind, and if not, I’ll go into a nursing home.”
“You’re
not going into a nursing home,” said Eli. “Especially not the ones for
indigent old white people in this city, where you’ll be starved and
beaten by the Filipino and Nigerian orderlies, and then one night one of
them will cut your throat for your IV. I’m not leaving you in a place
like that while we run away, Stash.” He sighed. “Eddie’s right. He has
to try and make it on his own. We’ll dump the bags in the lake, and then
I’ll drop him off up where I-90 begins. When the Neighborhood Watch
comes looking, Eddie just ran away, and none of us knows anything. If
they honestly don’t know what Tubbs was up to for his entertainment this
afternoon, maybe we can get them to believe us. Eddie, go get dressed
for the road. I got about forty dollars on me, I think.”
“I’ve got twenty or thirty,” said Lorna, sniffling.
“I have about a hundred dollars in my piggy bank,” said Millie, her eyes tearing.
“Aw,
Millie, for Christ’s sake, you been saving that since you were eight,”
said Eddie with a sad laugh. “I don’t need your money.”
“You
saved me from that nigger,” said Millie, weeping openly now. “I know
what he was going to do to me. I ain’t a stupid kid any more. Now you
have to go away forever because of me. I can at least give you my pig.”
“Take
me out to de garage and let’s give ‘em some time,” said old Stash to
his son. Eli and Eddie had built a ramp, and Stanislas could get back to
his roll-up-bed sofa in the garage well enough on his own, but Eli
wheeled him out anyway. When they got out to Stash’s hootch he’d made
for himself, he said, “Eli, dis is bullshit. You can’t break up de
family like dis. All of yez gotta make a run for it, get to de
Northwest. Leave me. Don’t worry, I’ll be okay. Pack your shit, and take
it on de arches. Tonight.”
“Leaving
you behind would break up the family,” said Eli, “You’re right. You
can’t run a border full of armed guards and land mines in a wheelchair,
and that doesn’t even take into account your bum kidneys and your
dialysis. Eddie’s young, he’s smart, and I’ve taught him how to work
with his hands, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, not to mention how to
keep that piece of crap van running. Hell, he’s handier around the house
than I am. He can take care of himself and make a living in Seattle or
someplace like that. You can’t. We can’t take you, and I’m not leaving
you, so this is the only way. Maybe if all of us white people had stood
up to the government like those Jerry Rebs in the Northwest did, things
would be different, but we played it safe and stayed on our bellies, and
things ain’t different. So that’s the sitch, and we’ll deal with it.”
“Even
if you can somehow talk your way out of it when dose niggers come
nosing around, you got no job any more, and from what you said at dinner
de goddamned FBI may be coming after you for hatecrime as well,” said
Stash.
“This
is our home. Grandpa and grandma came to this country as DPs and spent
twelve years working their fingers to the bone, grandpa swinging a pick
and shovel and grandma waiting tables and sewing in a Jew sweatshop to
buy this house. You grew up here and so did I, and now so have Eddie and
Millie. Eddie has to leave now, but you don’t, and the rest of us
don’t,” said Eli, desperately trying to convince himself.
“Bird
turd!” snarled Stash. “Why do you think my parents came here after
World War Two? Dey was one step ahead of de fucking Communists back in
Czechoslovakia, is why. Dey was done dere, and now we’re done here, Eli.
Dese things happen every few generations. All of yez need to accept
what’s happened and clear out. Leave me. I’ll be okay.”
“You’re my father. I’m not running away and leaving you behind to face the music,” said Eli stubbornly.
“You know damned well I was a lousy father, just like I was a lousy wiseguy,” said Stanislas.
“Well,
if you’d been a better wiseguy, maybe we’d be living in a nice suburb
now and we wouldn’t be in this shit,” said Eli bitterly. “Okay, let’s
say for a moment that I believe you. If you really were with Giancana
back in the day, why didn’t you stick with it?”
“Your
mother,” said Stanislas with a sigh. “Just after you was born, I got
caught up in one of dose big Crime Commission sweeps dey used to pull
every few years, all de politicians and cops downtown standing in front
of de TV cameras and telling everybody how dey was gonna shut down de
Outfit and clean up Chicago. Yeah, like dat’s ever gonna happen. Half of
‘em were on Accardo or Momo Giancana’s pad even while dey were talkin’
dat crap. I was a little fish, and my charges were all petty bullshit
beefs, running a couple of handbooks, receiving, nothin’ I couldn’t
beat, and eventually I did.
“But
for de only time in her life, your mother put her foot down. She said
you wasn’t gonna grow up never seeing your old man except on visiting
day. She didn’t care what I did when I was home, so long as I was home
every night, otherwise she was gone and so were you. I knew she meant
it, so I went to my precinct captain and I got a union card and a job at
CT&D. So instead of seeing me only on visiting day, you got to
see me home every night, usually drunk and whaling on your mother or you
or your brothers, taking it out on you because I was working a drill
press instead of running numbers and hustling and driving a new Caddy
every year.” Stash looked up at him. “Eli, I was a rotten son of a
bitch. I’m damned if I know why you let me live here after de way I
acted all dose years. You don’t owe me nuthin’, rather de reverse. You
take your family, and you get in dat van and you head Northwest, before
Rico Tubbs’ homeys come knocking on de door, which could happen any
minute now if you don’t move your ass.”
“I
told you, you’re my father,” said Eli. “It’s not about what kind of man
you were, it’s about what kind of man I am. I’m not leaving you
behind.”
He
walked heavily back into the house. Lorna and Millie were sitting on
the sofa crying and hugging Eddie. In all the stress and turmoil of the
day, Eli had forgotten that Stash still had the .45. He was just nerving
himself up to tell Eddie and the women that it was time, that Eddie
needed to say his goodbyes and they needed to get the van loaded with
the macabre black bags and get moving, when they all heard the gunshot.
Lorna screamed. “Stay here!” Eli ordered them, and he ran into the
garage.
“Stan
the Man” Horakova had performed one last hit, or possibly his first, on
himself. Eli would never know. His father’s bloodied head was thrown
back in the wheelchair, and the wall and ceiling of the garage was
covered in dripping blood and gray matter. The gun lay on the concrete
floor beneath the chair. There was still a lot of stuff left in the room
from the days when it had been an actual garage, one of them being a
can of vermilion spray paint. Old Stash had taken the can and
spray-painted one word on the back of the garage door: “GO.”
* * *
The
Horakova family pulled out of the driveway of the house on Kildare
Avenue in the first thin light of dawn. They were driving a battered
white van that was the last remaining relic from Eli’s attempt, some
years before, to start his own part-time electrical contracting business
using the umpteenth re-finance on the house mortgage. Then Stash’s
kidneys had gone south and most of the capital went into keeping the old
man alive.
The
business had spluttered along for two years and then been shut down by
the federal government for failure to meet OSHA standards, although that
was just an excuse. It had long been the policy of the U.S. government
to destroy any white entrepreneurial endeavor wherever it raised its
head, either through regulation or taxation. The American ruling élite
disliked and distrusted self-employed white people. They wanted
everybody in the country working for a paycheck that could be cut off,
if it ever became necessary to get a handle on someone. The two parties
differed only on tactical details, not in their commitment to full
economic control of the white population. Republicans wanted that
paycheck to come from a large multinational corporation, whereas
Democrats preferred that it come from the government. Democracy in
America had long since been reduced to a matter of who controlled the
patronage. It was Chicago writ large.
Eli
carefully packed the van with the things he thought they would need,
mostly clothes and the tools he and Eddie would need to earn a living in
the new land. The first stop was an automated teller machine at the far
end of Kildare Avenue, where Eli drew out $220 of the $227.15 in his
and Lorna’s joint account in $20 bills, the family’s entire worldly
wealth. With what they had on them, as well as the contents of Millie’s
pig, they had almost four hundred dollars, which would not be enough
even for gas. But Eli had a large jerry can of gasoline he kept for
emergencies, and this qualified. He also packed a siphon hose. “If we
run dry we’ll just steal some gas,” he told them. “Preferably from some
Jew’s Cadillac.”
They
headed northward on Interstate 90. Traffic wasn’t too bad, and they
were past Rockford and well into Wisconsin by noon. Eli did the driving.
The others took turns beside him in the passenger seat so they could
get some air; little Tommy sat on Lorna’s lap, while the others sat in
the back as best they could on the heaps of clothing and boxes of stuff
they had packed. They watched the green forested landscape along the
interstate go by in silence. They were all exhausted, no one had gotten
any sleep, and the events of the past 24 catastrophic hours were finally
starting to sink in.
Eli’s
father, the children’s grandfather, was dead. Their home, the only home
Eli himself and the children had ever known, had been torn from them in
the blink of an eye because of a nigger’s casual lust for a little
white girl. They had known others who had defied the politically correct
system, and those others had paid the price. Now it was the Horakovas’
turn. Their names had been drawn out of the Mad Hatter’s topper in the
insane lottery of life under political correctness, and now they were to
be hurled onto the burning altar of Moloch, god of equality and
diversity, like so many others during the past century. No mercy, no
appeal, just down the tubes. It was a quintessential American
experience.
Once
they got past Madison, Eli pulled off at a rest stop. The stop itself
was long closed, due to some long-forgotten round of state or federal
budgets cuts, but people still used it anyway to rest and to dump their
garbage in a large landfill pit someone had dug out of the ground. There
were several other vehicles pulled over in the parking area, all of
them white motorists, fortunately. Eli was in no mood to deal with
nigger or Mexican bullshit at the moment. The way he felt right now, if
any of them approached him to beg or Mau Mau or steal, Eli probably
would put a bullet in the shitskin’s head from the .45 he kept in the
small of his back. The gun had killed twice in the past 24 hours and Eli
no longer cared if it killed again, just so long as it killed someone
with dark skin. He had finally been pushed beyond the point of caring.
The
toilets and sinks were no longer functioning in the restrooms, which
were supposed to be locked, but someone had broken down the doors, and
people had been using the facilities anyway. In the summer heat, the
stench inside was so powerful that the family all went off into the
woods to relieve themselves. Then they had a breakfast of sorts,
consisting of whatever immediately comestible items Lorna had found in
their kitchen cupboard back in Cicero. This included several candy bars,
a can of dried apricots, half a can of dried plums, several cans of
Vienna sausages, and some cold pop-tarts washed down with cans of soda.
“Okay, it’s time we all got some rest,” decreed Eli. “The women and
Tommy make themselves a bed in the back as best they can, Eddie and me
will sleep in the front. It’s probably best we do most of our traveling
at night anyway.”
They
pulled into the most removed parking area in the rest stop and settled
down for a few hours of restive, disturbed sleep. They were all awake by
six p.m., and five-year-old Tommy was finally starting to get cranky.
Millie kept him quiet by sharing a hand-held video game. Eli, Eddie, and
Lorna looked at the road map of the United States he had brought,
spread out on the side of the van.
“We
need to make our decision on where to try and break through the
border,” said Eli. “We’re coming up to the fork in the interstates.”
“Wyoming is the closest,” said Lorna.
“Hey, maybe Dad and I can become cowboys,” suggested Eddie with a faint smile on his lips.
“Agreed,”
said Elias with a nod. “Wyoming is the closest, but for that very
reason it will probably be more closely watched by the military and the
security agencies, since I-90 is the quickest route there from the
Midwest. If we take I-90 and head west, we’ll go through South Dakota’s
Black Hills country and hit the Wyoming state line, or what used to be
the state line, in about 20 hours, depending on traffic, which would be
great if we were tourists on vacation and we were taking the scenic
route. But we’re not, we’re refugees running for our lives. Wyoming is
technically one of the states handed over to the Northwest Republic by
the Longview Treaty, yeah, but from what I can remember from the TV and
internet news, it’s still pretty wild and woolly out there, with some
fighting still going on between the new white government and American
forces, and also some of the local people who want to stick with the
United States. We don’t need to go driving right into a war zone where
we might get shot at from all sides. Also, I drove down 90 once, and I
remember those badlands out there are really barren. I mean it’s like
you’re on the fucking moon. We might run out of gas a hundred miles from
the nearest help.”
“So where, then?” asked Eddie.
Eli
pointed to the map. “If we head north from here and we get onto I-94
west, we’ll go through North Dakota and eastern Montana until we get to
West Montana, or whatever the Northwest Republic calls it now it’s their
part of the state. There are some cities we’ll have to go around,
Fargo, Bismarck, Billings and Bozeman, and that might get a bit hairy
with cops watching, but it also means we can get gas there and maybe a
little food. The trouble is that at some point, most likely around
Bozeman, the troops and cops will start getting really thick, and we’ll
need to get off the interstate and try taking the back roads around any
roadblocks. That’s where it will start getting funky. But the best
aspect of using the northern route is that unlike Wyoming, in Montana
there’s a clear border, Interstate 15. I don’t know if the highway
itself is still being used by traffic at all, but once we’re on the
western side of it, we’re in the Republic and home free. It’s a finish
line in this race for our lives, something we can shoot for.”
“Let’s
go north and try for Montana, then,” said Lorna. “I know the angels
will help us, but we should also help ourselves as much as we can.”
Before
sunset, they pulled off at one exit and found a roadside market, one of
the many unofficial bazaars that had sprung up across the United
States in the past few years that paid protection to assorted cops and
local authorities to be allowed to trade without licensing or
regulation. Most of these markets were run by Middle Easterners, and
they specialized in selling discontinued stock, or big box discounts, or
whatever the current term was for stolen goods, especially cheap
processed and canned food items, since food had become so expensive. The
Horakovas were able to replenish their supply of Vienna sausages,
beans, several boxes of crackers, and a block of processed cheese food
one of the dusky Hindu traders had in an ice cooler. At Eddie’s
recommendation, Eli also bought a cheap burner cell phone that had the
capacity to receive netcasts from CNN, Fox, and the major news networks.
All the Horakovas had their own phones, but Eli had forbidden their use
and removed their circuit cards with the federally mandated built-in
GPS microchip, lest they be used by the Chicago police or the FBI to
track them down. Then they were back on the road.
They
cut their available funds almost in half filling the van’s gas tank in
St. Paul. They were now about eleven hundred miles from Butte, Montana, a
town split down the middle by Interstate 15. “In theory we should be
able to get one more fill-up and make it,” said Eli. “We could, if we
were just driving down the interstate, like you could before all the
trouble. Technically speaking, the Northwest Republic begins at Exit
227, where I-90 runs into 15. But there’s no way they’re going to just
let us pull off and check into the nearest HoJo’s.”
Then
began the long trip down I-94 through the darkness, through Minnesota
and then across the broad, flat expanse of North Dakota. The silence in
the van was broken only by the newscasts that Eddie found on the new
disposable cell phone and put on speaker. He would try the Chicago
internet stations for a while, to see if there was any news about what
they had left behind in the house on Kildare Avenue, and then he would
scan for news items or anything to do with border conditions ahead. “As
near as I can tell from the news, the barbed wire and the barriers and
the minefields are all on the American side, so once we actually get
into Northwest territory we should be safe,” said Eddie.
“After
Billings we have to get off the interstate and find a way to get to
I-15 by back roads, at night, and then cross over without being
detected,” Eli said.
The
Horakovas noticed there were a lot of headlights all around them,
almost all of them heading west. “I wonder how many of the people in
these other cars are doing like we’re doing and trying to get into the
Northwest Republic?” asked Eddie.
“Quite a few of them, I suspect,” replied Eli.
“Maybe we should all form a wagon train together like the pioneers did back in the old days,” suggested Eddie.
“That’s
not a good idea,” said Eli. “Those assholes in D.C. admit they’re
monitoring traffic on the interstate from satellites in space, and at
some point down the line here, the cops and the military are going to
start straining out anybody they think might be trying to leave the joys
of the so-called greatest nation on earth for someplace where niggers
don’t come into your house and try to drag your daughter away. We have
to get as close as we can to the border and find a place where we can
cross without being noticed. Eddie, ride the internet on that thing, and
see if you can get some idea of what’s going on in the border area,
what kind of trouble we might be running into.”
Finally,
as the dawn broke, they crossed the state line into the plains of
eastern Montana. Eddie and Millie and Lorna stared out the windows of
the van at the vastness of the land under the rising sun; they had never
been farther out of the city than the Forest Preserves, and they had
never even imagined that such a huge amount of space uncluttered by
brick or asphalt or concrete could even exist. “It’s all empty,”
whispered Millie, staring out the back window of the van. “How are we
going to find the Northwest Republic in all this?”
“Imagine
what it was like a hundred-and-fifty years ago when the first pioneers
were walking across these plains with Conestoga wagons pulled by mules
and oxen,” said her father. “A lot of white people have made this trip
before us, Millie. We should have made it ourselves, long before we were
forced to. Then we wouldn’t have to be doing it now, like this, on the
run and with only the shirts on our backs. I remember once, many years
ago, I looked at one of the old Party web sites and that old guy was
trying to tell people just that. I didn’t listen then. I wish to hell I
had.”
Their
first problem came that afternoon outside Billings, when they were
pulled over by a Montana State Highway Patrol officer. Eli looked up and
saw the flashing LED lights in his side mirror. He pulled over to the
shoulder of the interstate. A tall white state trooper, about 30 years
old, got out of the unit and walked up to the driver’s side of the van.
His name tag read Cornwell. “License and registration, please,” he
demanded laconically.
Eli
produced them; fortunately, the registration on the van was up to date.
“What’s the problem, officer?” he asked, acutely aware of the cold
metal of the .45 pressing into his back underneath his shirt.
“Where
are you headed, Mr. Horakova?” asked Trooper Cornwell. To Eli’s
surprise he pronounced the family name correctly, the first time.
“We’re
on vacation,” said Eli. “We’re going to get on I-90 going south at
Billings and drive down to the Little Big Horn to see the monument
there. Where Custer fought the Indians. Pardon me, the Native
Americans.”
“I’ve
heard of it, yes,” replied the highway patrolman in a dry tone. “I’m
just going to issue you a warning this time, Mr. Horakova.”
“A warning for what?” asked Eli. “You still haven’t told me what law I’m breaking, officer.”
“The
law of self-preservation,” said Cornwell. “My warning to you is to quit
being so fucking stupid, because you’re going to get yourself and your
family killed. You’ve got what looks like everything you own packed in
this vehicle, and all of you have that blank poker face that any cop
learns to recognize in his rookie year, the face that’s a dead giveaway
that you’re up to something, and we both know what. You’re not going
down 90 East to commune with the spirit of Custer. You’re going to get
on 90 West, but you’ll never make it. A few miles down from here, just
after Billings, is where the army and the FATPO checkpoints begin, and
if you try a moronic story like that with some of those men, they will
drag you all out of the vehicle and shoot you through the head,
including the little boy. It’s happened before, and there is not one
damned thing the Patrol or anyone else can do about it. Actually, by
this time next week, anyone using any interstate highway at all in
eastern Montana will need a permit. They can enter and exit only through
checkpoints, and they have to file a trip itinerary with somebody,
don’t know who yet. New regulation from the highway czar in Washington,
D.C. The government of the United States is a wounded
animal, Horakova, the most dangerous in the world. My warning to you is
to turn around and head back to Chicago.”
Something
made Eli decide to take a chance, or maybe he had just run as far as he
was inclined to run. “We can’t go back,” he told the state trooper in a
level voice. “Not ever.”
“Why not?” asked the cop.
Eli
jerked his head toward the back of the van where the kids were
hunkered. “That’s my son, Eddie. He’s sixteen. That’s my daughter,
Millie. She’s thirteen. Two days ago, a nigger carrying a gun and a
semi-official badge from the Cicero Neighborhood Watch walked into my
home and tried to take Millie by force down to their clubhouse for a
little rape and sodomy session. Eddie shot him dead. Originally the idea
was for Eddie to try and make it Northwest on his own. My father was
crippled, confined to a wheelchair, and suffering from massive kidney
failure treatable only through dialysis, so we couldn’t bring him with
us, and I refused to leave him there at the mercy of those black and
brown animals. That night, my father stuck a gun into his mouth and blew
his own brains out. He did it to lighten our load, so all of us could
make this trip together. We’re not going back, Mr. Cornwell. Now do
whatever the fuck you think you gotta do.” Eli didn’t mention that he
had the .45 and Eddie was packing Rico Tubbs’ Glock. He figured the cop
could fill in the blanks for himself.
The
trooper looked at the ground and sighed. “Jesus!” After a while, he
looked up. “Okay, listen good, because I’m only going to say this once.
You folks have to get off the interstate. I mean it; do not try to get
past a checkpoint looking like you do. They will read you like a book.
The McCurtain isn’t just a fence, it’s a whole network of obstacles and
checkpoints and surveillance and patrols covering hundreds of square
miles on this side of Interstate 15, and you’re about to run right into
it. Last I heard, the first FATPO roadblock is around Park City
somewhere. You need to get out of Billings and take the northbound exit
at Laurel. From there take County road five thirty-two up to Broadview,
then get on state Highway Three going north. Then when it runs into
Highway Twelve, head west. There are still a lot of patrols and
helicopter surveillance even on Twelve, but it’s a big country out
there. On the interstate you have no chance at all.”
“We got a pretty good map,” said Eli. “We’ll find our way.”
“Twelve
will take you right into Helena, or the American half of Helena, but
don’t do that,” Cornwell told them. “The American sectors of Helena and
Butte are crawling with Fatties, military police, FBI, and Blackwater
contractors that the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law
Center have hired as bounty hunters to stop white people from entering
the Republic. A lot of people have been killed in the towns, trying to
climb over the barbed wire or tunnel under the fence to get into the NAR
sector. The Blackwater goons and the FATPO both just shoot to kill. The
FBI likes to arrest refugees so they can torture them, waterboarding
and the electric chair and the bath of flies, the whole nine yards. For
God’s sake, don’t let the Bureau catch you. They’ll make your kids
watch. They have been publicly defeated and humiliated by white men, and
they are out of their minds with rage and hate. If you absolutely must
surrender to anyone, try to make it local police or the MPs, although
some of them are just as bad. Lotta Mexicans. Your best bet is to get a
few miles away from Helena in either direction. Helena’s smaller and
there’s fewer hostiles in that area. Then find some back road that will
get you right up to the fence along the American side of I-15. You’ll
have to cut through, but be careful. Some sections of the fence are
electrified now.”
“They’ve got the whole interstate fenced off?” asked Eli.
“Yeah,”
said Trooper Cornwell in disgust. “For fifty years they couldn’t put up
a fence along the Mexican border to keep illegals out, but when it’s a
matter of keeping white people in, they can build the McCurtain and
fence Montana in half, in nine months. Go figure.”
“We got bolt cutters,” said Eddie from the back.
“When
you get to the fence, be careful,” said Cornwell. “There are minefields
in a lot of places leading up to it. Some of the minefields are posted
with signs, some aren’t, and sometimes they’ve got the signs up but no
minefield. I can’t give you any advice on where to try and break
through. I don’t know that part of the state well.”
“Why not come with us, and cross over with us?” suggested Lorna.
“Can’t,” Cornwell told her. “I have to keep my nose clean. My ex-wife and my two kids are living in Pittsburgh.”
“Oh, they wouldn’t… ”
Cornwell
cut Lorna off. “Oh, yes ma’am, they would,” he said bleakly. “They
would indeed. We got a memo that made it very clear. That’s all I have
to say, except I still advise you to turn around and find some way out
of your problems besides heading west. You’ll probably be dead by this
time tomorrow. Forget you ever saw me.” Cornwell turned and stalked back
to his patrol car.
“Was that an angel, Mommy?” asked Tommy.
“Maybe,” Lorna told him.
“No,
son,” answered Eli. “That was just a good man who has been placed in an
impossible position by this hellish country and this sick society we
live in. Just like us, son. That seems to be America’s specialty,
destroying everything that’s good in it. It’s been going on for a
hundred years now. Those people on the other side of that fence are
trying to fix what’s broken in the world, and that’s why we have to get
there.” Eli pulled the van back onto the interstate.
They
got lost only once following Cornwell’s directions, and by midnight,
they were coming into Helena on Highway 12. They passed a mileage sign
that said Helena 14.
“How’s the gas, Dad?” asked Eddie. “We’re pretty much out of money.”
“The
dial shows we got about a quarter tank left,” said Eli.
“Better than I
thought we’d do. We need to get off this highway. We could start running
into military patrols or those private goon squads the cop mentioned
any time now. This is where the dangerous part begins.” He chose a side
road at random and exited. A few miles down the road he pulled over into
a stand of pines and killed the engine and the light. “I’m going to put
the gas from the jerry can into the tank,” he said. “That ought to do
it for us, for better or worse. Give me a hand, Ed. Bring the funnel.
You girls get out and stretch your legs. Hang onto Tommy’s hand.” They
carefully drained the fuel from the can into the gas tank, and Eli
tossed the empty can into the trees. He looked up at the star-filled
sky. “Guess I know now why they call it Big Sky Country. Let’s see how
much I remember from my army map and compass training. That’s the North
Star, so we need to keep on moving west, in that direction,” he said,
pointing down the road.
“Dad!” said Eddie. “That sounds like a helicopter!”
“Get
away from the van!” commanded Eli. “They may have infrared tracking
equipment, which means that hot engine will show up like a Christmas
tree on their scope!”
The
family moved off at a trot up a small hill and lay down behind it,
almost a hundred yards from the vehicle. A helicopter slowly settled
down into the air over the little pine grove, hovering, and then a
spotlight beam snaked from the chopper’s belly, weaved around for a bit,
and found the parked van. Eli couldn’t see any markings at all on the
chopper. It seemed to hang in the air over the van below it for a long
moment, like a scientist studying a specimen under a microscope, and
then a chain gun opened fire on it in a stream of lead and tracer
bullets. The van’s gas tank exploded and a ball of fire rose into the
sky, singeing the pine needles on the trees and hurling burning debris
all throughout the stand. Then the copter rose lazily into the air and
ambled off back into the sky.
“Those stupid assholes set the woods on fire,” said Millie, staring after them. “They just don’t care.”
“They wouldn’t have cared if we were in it,” said Eli. “Maybe they thought we were.”
“They didn’t even try to find out,” whispered Lorna, horrified.
“They
probably have a quota of white people they have to kill every week,
like cops have a quota of speeding tickets,” said Eddie.
“Oh, Eli, everything we had in the world was in that van!” cried Lorna in despair.
“No,
honey, everything we have in the world is right here. Tommy, are you
okay?” asked Eli, reaching over and giving his son a hug.
“Bad men,” said Tommy calmly.
“Yes, son. Very bad men.”
“Now what?” asked Lorna.
“If
I remember the map right, I figure we’re about three miles from
Interstate 15,” said Eli. “We walk. We have to stay on the road because
if we blunder around in the woods we’ll get completely lost. It’s risky,
but we have no choice. I’ll go first, then Eddie. Eddie and me will
take turns carrying Tommy. Lorna, you and Millie follow us, and hold
hands, to make absolutely sure you don’t get separated. If somebody
comes and I yell move, we get off the road and hide about twenty yards
into the woods. We stay together at all times. Now let’s go. Millie’s
right, those stupid bastards have probably started a forest fire here,
and we need to clear out. Maybe it will serve as a distraction, although
again, I think Millie’s right. They don’t seem to care what they do.”
The
family began walking down the road, away from the burning trees and the
smoke. There was no moon, but the sky was clear and the stars overhead
were bright enough to illuminate the two lanes of asphalt in a thin,
ghostly light. Every now and then, they passed unpaved access roads
gleaming white in the half-light, leading off to the right or the left,
and occasionally darkened houses and mobile homes on either side of the
road, none of which seemed to be occupied. Twice vehicle headlights
appeared, once behind them and once in front, and they scuttled off the
shoulder and into the woods to lie in concealment in the scrub brush.
The first vehicle was a private car of some kind. The second set of
lights turned out to be a pair of Humvees containing men with M-16
rifles, moving slowly down the road. In the darkness it was impossible
to discern any insignia or tell who they were, army, FATPO, Blackwater
mercenaries, whoever. When they were gone Millie and Lorna took the last
two small bottles of water out of their handbags and shared them
around, making sure Tommy drank most of it. Then they trudged on.
Even
summer nights in Montana were cold, and all their warm clothing had
been in the van. No one complained, and Tommy did not cry. Eli’s heart
swelled with pride at his family’s courage and hardihood in the face of
an adversity that Americans weren’t supposed to be able to meet any
more. He began to get a glimmer of understanding as to how the rebels of
the Northwest had done it, how they had thrown off the tyrant’s chains.
At the very last minute, just before the darkness descended forever,
something had awakened in the white man. Eli could see it now in his
wife and his children. Freedom was near. They could all feel it, sense
it.
Eli
had no idea how far they had walked, but at around three o’clock that
morning they saw a glow of light ahead, and ten minutes later they were
standing at a chain link fence looking down an embankment at Interstate
15 below. Now the McCurtain was literally a curtain of steel, through
which they could actually see the Homeland. The roadside lights were
still on, and they could see the empty highway below them clearly. “I
remember from the news something they said about this border along 15,”
said Eddie. “Technically speaking the border runs down the median strip.
The northbound lanes are on the American side and only American
official and military vehicles use it, otherwise you have to have a
permit. The southbound lanes belong to the Northwest Republic and they
let anybody use it who wants, just remember it’s at your own risk
because of all the gun-toting federal goons on the other side of the
road.”
“I
don’t see anybody,” said Eli. “Our bolt cutters got incinerated in the
van. We have to find some way to get through the fence.” He looked up
and saw a coil of razor wire at the top.
“Climbing’s out. We have to
find someplace to dig under. Let’s move along and see if we can find
some kind of dip in the ground, but be careful. Remember what that state
trooper said about land mines.”
As
they moved along the fence, searching the ground, Lorna said to her
husband, “Eli, I don’t know if this makes it any better or not, but
Stash was right. There is no way we could have made it this far with him
along.”
“I
know,” said Eli. “It just pisses me off. I always accepted that one of
the immutable facts of my life was that my father was an evil son of a
bitch, and I was this really big man for turning the other cheek and
taking him in, and not letting him die in one of those hellish state
nursing homes. One of the few points in my plus column. Now as the last
act of his life, Stash proves he was a bigger man than I’ll ever be.
Damn him!”
“You’ve got four other points in your plus column, Dad,” said Millie.
“Thanks honey,” said Eli.
“Dad,
look here,” said Eddie, pointing. By the dim light of the interstate
lamps, they could see a small, grassy ditch worn by rain water drainage,
about two feet wide and two feet deep that ran under the fence. There
was about a foot of clearance between the jagged bottom of the chain
link and the ground. “We can enlarge this.”
Eli
and Eddie both had clasp knives on their belts. They attacked the sides
and bottom of the ditch with the blades, breaking up the soil, for
about five minutes at a time, and then they and the women clawed at the
earth, burrowing the dirt away with their bare hands and throwing it
aside. Then it was back to hacking away at the ground with the knives.
“You don’t think this fence is electrified, do you?” asked Lorna.
“I
don’t hear any humming, and I don’t see any joint boxes or ceramic
fittings or connectors,” said Eli. “We may have lucked out, honey. Just
dig this out enough for us all to slip through, then we dash across the
highway and we’re free. I doubt we’ll be the only white people showing
up in the Northwest with nothing but the clothes on our backs. As long
as Eddie and I can work, we’ll make it. But we have to get this done
before the sun comes up. If anybody does see us, we’ll be sitting ducks
in the daylight.”
They
dug away like lunatics, even Tommy helping to carry the soil, and
slowly the hole under the fence grew bigger. It was on a downward slope,
and so if they could just get the aperture beneath the fence deep and
wide enough, they could get through. But dawn comes early in Montana in
July, and by the time the hole was sufficiently enlarged, they could see
without the need of the stars or the highway lights. “Okay, Millie
first, then we hand Tommy through to Millie,” said Eli. “Then Lorna,
then Eddie, and me last.” Eli was a large man, and the hole wasn’t quite
big enough for him, and so for another five minutes he had to chop away
with his knife and dig with his hands, but finally all five Horakovas
stood erect in the dawn on the other side of the fence.
Lorna
looked across the highway. The countryside there looked no different
from what they had just left, scrubby brush and low stunted pines, but
they all stared at it. “There it is,” whispered Eddie. “Free land. White
man’s land. No niggers with guns from the Watch, no Mexicans, no
junkies, no crooked cops beating us and robbing us, no Jews laying Dad
off, no more of their goddamned laws and judges and creeps in suits
telling everybody what to do and how to live. No more America.”
“Let’s
go,” said Eli. “Eddie, you carry Tommy.” They slid down the embankment,
onto the shoulder, and stepped onto the highway, just as a convoy of
armored vehicles came around the bend from the south. The lead vehicle
was a black Humvee with a mounted M-60 machine gun; behind it was an
eighteen-wheeler, and behind that a truck, carrying armed men in black
fatigues. The lettering on the side of the Humvee said Blackwater.
“They’ve seen us!” bellowed Eli. “Run!”
The
family’s sudden appearance caught the mercenaries by surprise, and they
were almost across the interstate before the first machine gun and
rifle bullets began snapping over their heads and cracking into the
concrete. They leaped onto the soil of the Northwest American Republic
and ran toward a small stand of pines, but the driver of the Humvee
apparently decided to ignore little niceties like an international
border, and the vehicle swerved across the interstate and pursued them.
So close! Eli screamed in his mind. So close, and now these animals are going to murder my family for money! FOR FUCKING MONEY!
He whirled, whipped out the .45, dropped down on one knee and carefully
emptied the magazine into the oncoming Humvee that was plowing up the
low hill after them, trying to hit the driver. He must have hit
something, because the vehicle swerved and stopped, but the M-60 gunner
opened up again. Eli remembered enough of Iraq to hit the dirt, roll
out, then jump up running, throwing the empty gun away as he did so. He
saw his family ahead of him, and they seemed to disappear. He reached
the point where they had been and saw that they were down in a kind of
ditch or gully. He looked back and saw that the body-armored mercenaries
had de-bused from their truck and were running through the scrubby
pines after them, fanning out. He jumped down into the wash and yelled
“Come on!” to the others. “Eddie, gimme the Glock! I’ll hold them off
while the rest of you get into those trees!”
“Any last standing to be done, Dad, we do it together,” said his son. Eli
realized that they were trapped in the dry wash. Surrounded by the
enemy gunmen, the minute any of them poked their heads up they would be
picked off. At least we’ll die in the Northwest Republic, he thought,
bitter bile and rage rising in his throat.
Lorna,
Millie, and Tommy were huddled against the wall of the dry wash, their
faces white with terror. All around them the mercenaries could be heard,
shouting and firing their weapons, maybe even shooting at each other.
The gunfire seemed to increase, the rattle of the M-16s mixing with a
more hollow, popping roll of automatic fire. Goddamned Iraq all over
again, thought Eli, and then something hit him. “Yeah,” he said out
loud, puzzled. “Just like Iraq! Those aren’t just sixteens, those are
AKs!”
“What?” asked Eddie.
The
Horakovas heard the engine of a motor vehicle coming toward them, but
from the western side of the wash. Then a man wearing tiger-stripe
camouflage and a coal-scuttle helmet appeared over their heads about ten
feet away, kneeling and firing a weapon Eli remembered as an MM1
revolving grenade launcher. The shield on the side of his helmet was
blue, white, and green. The soldier fired again and again, and they
could hear the explosions as his projectiles slammed into the targets.
Then a camouflaged Humvee drove into sight behind the soldier, on which
was mounted a Browning .50-caliber machine gun, the muzzle spitting fire
and thunder back and forth. For another minute there was shooting and
shouting and then it all died away, leaving behind an eerie silence.
A
man got out of the Humvee and walked over to the wash, where the
Horakovas stared up at him. He was tall, and despite his light amber
beard he seemed little older than Eddie. He wore tiger-stripes and a
peaked Alpine cap, and on the cap and over his right shirt pocket was an
eagle and swastika. He carried a Kalashnikov rifle on his hip, the
sling over his shoulder. On one collar tab was a single black first
lieutenant’s bar, and on the other were the black embroidered letters
NDF. “You folks okay down there?” he called. “Anybody need a medic?”
Eli looked at his family. None of them seemed to be hurt. “No,” he croaked, shaking his head.
“We
were shadowing those apes along the fire road on our side back there,
and we saw you make your break for it,” said the lieutenant. “Don’t
worry, they’ve all skedaddled back across the highway.” He reached down,
took Eli’s hand, pulled him up to ground level and said, “Welcome Home,
comrades!”
Eli Horakova looked down at his wife. “Lorna,” he said, “I think we’ve found your angel.”
