Divided We Fall (26 page)

“Really, Eric?” JoBell asked. “What if someone calls while you’re at school?”

“No problem,” said Sweeney. “As soon as Trixie gets near school, she puts her clothes and glasses back on and becomes Hot Librarian Trixie. She’s the best digi-assistant ever programmed.”

“We don’t have time for this,” I said. I ran upstairs for privacy. If Mom was having an attack, I didn’t want to parade it around in front of the others.

“Mom?” I said when I tapped in to the call.

“Danny? Oh my gosh, Danny, are you okay? I saw on the news …” Her breathing came in a wheeze. “They said … they said the border was closed. They’re not going to let me go home, Danny. They’re not going to let me come home. What are we gonna do?”

“Mom?” I tried.

“How are you gonna get by all alone?
I’m
all alone. When this conference is over, I can’t afford to keep paying for a hotel.”

“Mom.”

“Can’t afford an apartment.” She coughed. “They say you’ve all been ordered to federal duty. But if you go, they’ll arrest you, Danny. You can’t go. What if they don’t arrest you, but send you to war? They could stick you in Iran, Danny, and all those Idaho boys were killed there the other day.”

“Mom!”

“Oh, Danny!” There was a sound almost like retching.

“Mom, listen to me!”

“Oh. Oh, don’t yell at me, Danny. I don’t know what to do!”

“Shhhh. Mom, it’s okay. You’re okay. Breathe. Force the air in.” I heard her breathe, shaky, but deep. “Now exhale.” I could hear her breathing. There were little sobs, but we’d get this ironed out. “And breathe in, deep as you can. And let it fall out. Have a seat in the chair if you’ve got one there.”

We sat there like that on the phone, breathing, for about five minutes. I was out of time for debating my options. I had to make some decisions and I had to make them now.

“Danny.” She seemed calmer now. “What are we going to do?”

“Okay, I’m not going to report for federal service,” I said. That was the first decision I made.

“But then they’ll call you a criminal like the governor and —”

“They’re already calling me a criminal, but they can’t get in here to arrest me. So relax about that.”

“Oh, Danny.” She sounded like she was going to cry again. “Maybe I should rush home right now. Maybe I can make it across the border before the soldiers can really stop anyone from —”

“No, Mom. You know, stay in Washington for now. Carry on with your conference for the rest of the week. Anyway, this is probably going to blow over soon.” I squeezed my eyes closed, praying I wasn’t talking a lot of false-hope gibberish. “The government will get this mess straightened out in no time, and the president will at least have to let normal Idaho people come back home.”

“But what if —”

“If it drags on longer, I’ll look online for a place for you to stay. I’ll take out a loan and buy you an RV. Something.”

“You’re only seventeen, Danny. They’re not going to loan you —”

“Then I’ll have Schmidty take out the loan for me. I’ll take care of you, Mom. I promise. Whatever it takes, I’ll make sure you’re okay.” There was silence on the line for a long time. “Mom?”

“You’re a good boy, Danny,” she said sadly. “Well, a man really. I don’t know when you stopped being a boy, but I’m proud of the man you’ve become.”

I talked to Mom a little longer, trying to get her mind off the fact that she couldn’t come home, trying to keep her calm. Eventually, after we agreed to check in every day, I tapped out of the call.

Downstairs, the earlier party mood had vanished. JoBell’s dad had insisted she come home right away, but she had argued that she needed to have one last dinner with her friends. Her dad gave in, but he got in touch with everyone else’s folks, and he promised to check up on the rest of us from time to time. Sweeney’s folks didn’t seem as worried as he thought they should be. They seemed to think it was like a longer vacation. His dad let him know how to tap certain emergency funds he had set aside. Becca’s parents worried about their farm and wanted to make sure she’d be able to continue to take care of the cattle, but they seemed reassured when we all promised to help her.

Cal surprised me. He wiped his eyes, turning away from us so we couldn’t see.

“What is it, Cal?” JoBell asked, sitting down beside him and putting her hand on his shoulder.

“My old man,” he said quietly. “He’s out on the road. On the way back from a lumber haul to Minneapolis.” The last part of his sentence sounded a little choked.

“I’m sorry,” JoBell said.

“Even if he can’t get back home,” I said, “his rig has a big sleeper. He can keep trucking. He can still make money. When this is all over, he can —”

Cal faced us. His eyes were red and watery, but he was smiling. “He was calling from the parking lot of the Lookout Pass resort, right inside the state line. He said the Montana Highway Patrol closed the border about two minutes after he crossed into Idaho.” He held up a fist in front of his chest. “Good old Dad. Always brings the rig home right on time.” A tear rolled down his cheek. “Oh hell, give me another beer.”

I laughed as I handed him another round. Cal was so big and tough that I sometimes forgot there was more to the guy than partying and busting heads in football. His old man was a real a-man-needs-to-take-care-of-himself type guy, and he left Cal on his own a lot while on trucking runs, so I was happy he’d be able to make it home now.

Later we gathered at the table to enjoy Becca’s lasagna and the Wild Moose beer. Becca served us each a big square, and then sat down with her own. Cal grabbed his fork, stabbed right into it, and was about to take a huge bite when Becca held up a hand.

“Wait a second,” she said. “How ’bout we say grace first?”

“What?” Cal said with the steaming mass of cheese and pasta in front of his open mouth. “Oh yeah.”

We all bowed our heads. Becca led the prayer. “Lord, thank you for this food we are about to eat. Please help us and help our parents as we go through this difficult time. Thank you, Lord, for letting the five of us be together tonight. Thank you for this friendship. Amen.”

“Amen,” we all said.

I reached out for JoBell’s hand and she squeezed mine. I looked at Sweeney, who took a drink. Cal had stuffed down that huge bite of very hot lasagna and was holding his mouth open, breathing heavy, trying to avoid burning his mouth. Becca laughed at him, and then her eyes met mine, and she flashed the warmest, kindest smile I’d seen in a long time.

Becca was right. We should be grateful to all be together. Silently, I thanked God for my friends. That night, though, they felt like more than that. Closer than that. More like family.

“I love you guys,” I said.

“Oh, Danny.” Sweeney spoke in a high-pitched voice and dabbed a napkin to the corner of his eyes in big, exaggerated movements. “That’s sooooo sweet!”

JoBell laughed until her face was red. “That’s what you get for trying to get mushy around these lunkheads.”

“Hey,” Cal mumbled with his mouth full. “Ahm na a lunhea.”

I pointed my fork at Sweeney. “Nobody likes you very much.”

He held his beer up to me in a mock toast.

Glass shattered in the living room. We heard a thud on the floor and squealing tires and a horn honking from outside. My fork clattered to my plate and I was up and sprinting toward the front of the house.

“Danny, wait!” JoBell yelled. “It could be dangerous.”

I was glad I had my shoes on, because the living room floor was covered in glass. I ran out the front door, jumped off the porch, and bolted to the street as fast as I could, but I only caught a glimpse of the taillights of a car as it whipped around the corner down the block.

I stood in the middle of the street, marveling in the quiet. Most of the media circus was gone. There were only three news vans and maybe about a dozen reporters or camera people. They’d finally found a bigger story to go after.

I heard a camera click, and I spun around to face one of the last reporters in America who was not covering the blockade right now. He started snapping photos of me in front of my busted front window.

“Thanks for warning me,” I shouted at him. “You get a picture of that guy for the news?”

The prick gave me the thumbs-up and then went back to taking pictures of me. Others joined in, rolling video and shooting photos.

“I know this is a stressful time,” said a woman, “but could I ask you a few questions? Getting your side of the story out might help people understand you better. It might prevent stuff like this from happening in the future.”

Cal and Sweeney were right behind me. “You see the license plates?” Sweeney asked.

“Nope,” I said. The girls were looking out through the spiderweb of cracks in the front window with a two-inch hole in the middle. “Nice job the governor’s extra security is doing, huh?”

Cal stepped up to the first photographer to shoot pictures that night, a skinny guy maybe in his early thirties. Cal’s upper arm looked about as big as the reporter’s waist. “Cool comm,” Cal said. The reporter took a few steps back, but Cal grabbed the comm out of his hands. “Where’s the pics? They go up to your cloud? Pull ’em up!”

“Take it easy,” said the reporter.

“Cal, knock it off,” I said.

Cal held the comm out in his left hand and cocked his big right fist back. “Pull up the photos!”

Other cameras were rolling, getting video of the whole thing. The footage would make Cal look like a monster, and the press would have a field day with that.

With shaking hands, the man did what he said.

“That’s the first smart thing you’ve done.” Cal tapped the screen a couple times. “Dumb bastard has no pics of the car or the rock throwers or anything.” He fiddled with the screen more. “There. All the pictures of me and my friends deleted. And in case this is one of those weird old-fashioned comms with a hard drive and you have any more copies saved to it —”

“Cal, no!” Sweeney shouted as he and I ran to stop Cal from spiking the comm on the street.

“What?” Cal said. “We can’t keep letting them —”

“This isn’t helping me.” I took the reporter’s comm from Cal and handed it back to its owner. “They’re just going to make some terrible distorted story out of all this.”

“Let’s go,” Sweeney said.

We all went back inside, where Becca had started sweeping up the glass. JoBell handed me the rock. It was wrapped in paper tied with string. I ripped off the string, unfolded the paper, and dropped the rock to the floor. “Let’s see what these bastards have to say.”

“What?” JoBell asked.

I gave her the note, then went up to my room. I had thought Schmidty was kind of crazy with his guns and survival bunker, but now he was starting to make sense. From under my bed I pulled out Dad’s nine-millimeter handgun — my gun now. I picked up its empty magazine and the box of shells, wishing I’d taken Schmidty more seriously and gone to buy more mags already. I went back to the others, put the gun and ammunition on the coffee table, and grabbed my comm.

“You’re going to want to hide the beer,” I said to Sweeney. “Hank, get me a voice call with Nathan Crow.”

“You got it, ace! How’d you like to listen to —”

“Shut up, Hank,” I said.

“Hank’s still better than Eric’s porn assistant,” said JoBell.

“Hey, you’ll hurt Trixie’s feelings,” Sweeney said. “She’s very sensitive.”

“Danny Wright!” said Sheriff Crow when he picked up. “Good to hear from you. Did you see the news? How are you holding up through all this?”

“Not good,” I said. “Somebody threw a rock with a death threat through my front window. I’d like to press charges if you can catch the guy, but more importantly …” I looked at Sweeney. “I’m going to be staying at a friend’s place. I need someone to keep an eye on my house. Can you spare anyone?”

“For you, Danny, I’ll keep eyes on the house around the clock. I’m sorry I didn’t have my man watching this evening. The problem is, as you can imagine, with everything going on, we’ve been very busy. Traffic’s all backed up with a bunch of cowards trying to get out of Idaho as fast as they can. I can’t spare any officers, but I do know some men I trust like brothers. I’ll send one of them to keep watch. Don’t worry. Go do what you have to do. Your house will be safe.”

“Thanks, Sheriff.” I tapped out and looked at the others. “I’m going to join the Idaho Guard full-time.”

“Yes!” Cal said.

“Danny, you can’t,” JoBell said. “What about school?”

“I’ll have to see about classes online. Maybe just get the GED.”

She put her hand on my arm. “That will never be good enough for the University of Washington. You have to get your grades up and —”

“JoBell, you and I both know I’m not going to some big, fancy university. That’s part of what you were thinking last night, wasn’t it?”

“This has nothing to do with last night.”

“Last night?” Sweeney asked, but Becca elbowed him.

“Okay,” I said. “Never mind about that. This is something I have to do. I swore an oath to protect my home.” I swept my arm in a gesture to all of them. “To protect the people I care about. Now this asshole president has locked down the border.”

“Montaine was doing the same thing!” JoBell said.

“He was keeping outside military out. The president is keeping out civilians. There’s a difference. My home is in trouble, and I’ve got to help.”

“By going to war against your own country?” JoBell asked.

“Nobody’s fighting,” said Cal.

“I’m going to help keep the state from being overrun by the Fed until they can work out some kind of agreement,” I said. “If nobody goes to back up Idaho, the Fed will send in the Army and arrest me and the other guys in my squad in a heartbeat, and then they’ll go after Montaine.” JoBell was about to interrupt, but I cut her off. “Whatever you think of the governor, he hasn’t let me or my Guard guys down. He’s stuck by us and done his best to protect us. I owe him at least that much.” I brushed a few shards of glass off the couch and took a seat, then opened the box of bullets and started snapping rounds into the magazine.