Authors: Phoenix Williams
“Gentlemen,”
Tim started, his voice so tired from his cold and his responsibility,
“I don't think that I can sell you the angel.”
“Why not?”
Mr. King asked, surprised.
“Well, you
see, I'm a man of beliefs, too,” Tim explained. Barney watched
him, eager to hear what Tim had to say. “I believe that I
cannot run away from my purpose. That I can't just cut my losses and
flee the scene because of misfortune.”
Barney's eyes
darted in confusion. The older man's brow furrowed. “What do
you mean?” he asked.
“I mean that
I was chosen for something,” Tim said. Did he really sound so
crazy to them? “I believe that this angel is my responsibility.
I plan to maintain that.”
“What would
you say to one and a half million dollars?” Mr. Jordan asked.
His eyebrows were raised in an expecting way. The way one chess
player waits for the other to realize he was checkmated. Tim's
expression wavered none.
“I would have
to say no, still, sir,” Tim answered. He sipped on his water.
They looked
exasperated. The younger one seemed less able to accept Tim's
rejection while Mr. Jordan stared with displeasure at the ill
rancher. Barney looked over all the faces, unsure of what to do. No
one looked at him, to his own relief.
“Is there
nothing we can offer?” Mr. King stammered.
“I'm sorry,”
Tim said.
Mr. King looked
like he could have gone on a rant at that point, upset by his defeat.
Mr. Jordan put a hand on his shoulder and kept his stare on Tim.
“That's okay,” he said. “We understand when a deal
can't be made. We very much appreciate your time, Mr. Simacean.”
The two businessmen
began gathering their jackets and papers, sauntering over to the
front door. “I'm sorry, gentlemen,” Tim said to them,
standing up so that he could shake their hands as they left.
Mr. Jordan handed
the rancher a card. “I'm sure you'll change your mind. Call us
when you do.”
“First
thing,” Tim said. “Travel safe.” He locked the door
behind them.
The old man kind of
limped as he began getting himself prepared for a nap. Barney stayed
seated where he was around the coffee table. Tim pretended not to
take note of him.
“Are you
serious, Tim?” Barney asked.
“Like a heart
attack.”
-Chapter Eighteen-
Inspection
A handful of days
later when the sun was deciding on what warm tone to be as it creeped
up past the hills to the east, Tim had another visitor. The rancher
yawned as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and worked at unlocking
the booth when a government worker pulled off from the highway and
approached the ranch. Tim watched as he brought the key toward its
respective lock. The man stepped out of his vehicle devoid of an
expression with the exception of slight annoyance. He kept that face
for the duration of his approach.
“Are you Mr.
Simacean?” he addressed Tim just as he figured out how to
unlock the booth.
“Yes I am,
what can I do to help?” the rancher replied, coughing up
morning phlegm.
“My name is
Henry Douglas and I'm from the Environmental Protection Agency,”
the government worker introduced himself. “I've been passed a
couple reports on this thing,” he indicated the angel, “on
your property and I'm here to run a couple of very quick, noninvasive
tests to make sure that it's, you know, safe for people and the
environment.”
“The EPA?”
Tim echoed.
“Is that
okay?” Mr. Douglas asked.
Tim looked over his
shoulder with strain toward the metallic angel for a moment before
turning back to Mr. Douglas. He nodded. “Yeah, that's okay,”
he answered, squinting in the early morning sun.
The EPA agent went
about his work as Tim set up shop and unlocked the facilities. Every
now and then the rancher paused for a moment and watched the man. He
had some devices that Tim wasn't familiar with connected to power
cables running all the way back to Mr. Douglas's van. He seemed to
make sure not to actually touch the metal of the angel, shaking his
head as he took his readings.
Barney and the crew
pulled up in a pickup truck, Gus and Frank sitting in the bed. A
suspicious and annoyed expression formed on Barney's face when he saw
the EPA van. He got out of his truck without looking away from the
working agent, walking to Tim, who had finished setting up the booth.
“What's this
about?” he asked, jutting his thumb back at Mr. Douglas.
Tim shrugged at
first, but when that didn't seem to satisfy his associate, said,
“EPA. He's testing to make sure the soil isn't toxic or
something.”
Barney appeared
shocked. “What?” he yelled in a whisper. “Does he
have a warrant?”
“Barney,”
Tim started, “it's not a bust or anything. We're not under
arrest. He's just doing a drop-in.”
The younger man
snorted in response. He grabbed the gate key from the booth and took
his guys to work.
The wall that
encircled the entire property was designed to be a sturdy walk-atop
wall, much like the Great Wall of China. It was hollow but held up by
sturdy scaffolding on the interior. The wall had two narrow
staircases that one could use to access the ramparts from the ground.
It was practical and safe. The construction crew was banging out the
flaws in the place before they were to start an ambitious project to
make the inside of the wall a long, hall-like museum. Maybe even a
gift shop.
Mr. Douglas seemed
to be reaching the end of his inspection, all of his wires and
machines packed up in the van. All he had left to do was paperwork.
Once he had a good look through his clipboard, the government worker
walked to Tim.
“All done?”
Tim called out, trying to sound cheerier than normal.
“Yes, sir,”
Mr. Douglas replied, glancing down at the clipboard. “It passed
for organic toxins and bacteria, but I'm sorry to inform you that
your statue here is intensely radioactive.”
“What?”
Tim was shocked. “I don't know how that can be, I've been here
exposed to it for months!”
“It's a
peculiar case, sir,” Mr. Douglas responded, holding his hand
out to calm the rancher. “The radiation is isolated to the
metal of the angel. It doesn't bleed or leak like normal radiation.
The air contains heavy carcinogens at about one tenth of a millimeter
from the surface of the metal, and then there's nothing.”
“So,”
Tim hummed, running the information over in his mind, “it's not
dangerous unless it's touched?”
“Well, I
couldn't know for sure without further testing, but that
is
what it looks like,” Douglas explained. “On the metal's
surface, however, the radioactivity is so intense that it would
obliterate most organic material on contact.”
The image of the
dying cow, burnt in half, slid through Tim's thoughts. The rancher
opened his mouth, unsure of how to respond. Of course this was
terrible news. Of course he'll be told to shut down the business. He
looked to the towering structure, pondering it. Too dangerous?
No.
“As you know,
this kind of dangerous material cannot, and I mean CANNOT be exposed
to the kind of activity you have going on here. I'd even recommend
you move away from the angel yourself, but for now, I am enforcing a
ban on commercial activity on this property. If you continue, you
could be subject to – ”
“Wait, no,
wait,” Tim interrupted. “I can't shutdown. This is my
only income!”
“Sir, it is
dangerous for anyone to be around here,” Douglas rebutted. “You
must place safety as your top priority.”
“It is safe,
man,” Tim moaned, gesturing back toward the construction.
“We're building a safe wall around the angel so no one can even
get near it. If it's not wide enough, we can always build a bigger
wall.”
“It's not
about that,” Douglas said. “We don't know for certain if
it leaks; if there could be radiation in the soil. Maybe even in the
water. If there is, it can and will cause long term harm to you and
your customers.”
“How am I
going to explain this to people? The more fanatic of my customers
would force their way in to see the angel, welcome or not. I couldn't
stop them,” Tim defended.
“We're not
asking you to stop them, just stop welcoming them,” Douglas
breathed, worn from this argument. “You must stop commercial
activity and mark this area clearly as private property. Place up no
trespassing signs. Anyone who breaks the law and gets themselves
harmed on your property cannot hold you liable –
once
you do that.”
With that, Mr.
Douglas tore off a copy of his written warning from the clipboard
clutched in his fingers and handed it to Tim, who grimaced at it. The
agent nodded and then walked back to his van, determined not to
bicker anymore. It was likely that he wasn't paid to bicker.
But really!
Tim thought.
I can't just close up shop.
Every cent that Tim
owned was wrapped up in building expenses. If he were to cut his
income now, he wouldn't even have enough to buy milk in the morning.
Wrinkles crawled and cracked their way along Tim's features as he
thought about it all, very distraught.
By the end of the
day, all Tim had done was secure very legible “DO NOT TOUCH”
signs at every angle around the miracle. He shrugged the rest of the
worry off, tossed the government warning and continued about his
work.
They'll probably
just forget all about me,
Tim mused.
-Chapter Nineteen-
The
Dead of Night
Business slowed a
little bit. Tim assumed that the signs might have discouraged some of
the more skittish and paranoid of his visitors. Even a few had
comments about the policy, suggesting touching the statue as a joke.
Because of this, Tim pulled one of the guys from the crew and had him
stand next to the angel and watch over the flock. They took turns
while the construction continued in the background. It created an
ambiance of tools clanging and things being shuffled or tossed around
while people had their photos taken in front of the miracle and
prayed.
Four nights later
as the old man lay asleep in the pitch dark night, something moved
outside. Whatever the culprit was crawled up and over a wire fence
with a clatter. The sound repeated twice while Tim's unconscious
brain heard the creaking, that resonating clang of metal upon metal.
Something in him remembered that the fence was filling in the last
remaining gaps where the wall encircling his property had not been
constructed yet. He jolted awake. He sat in the dark for a moment,
fighting off the successive waves of sleep that had blanketed him all
night. Then he realized what was going on.
He almost leapt out
of bed but stopped and slowed to a crawl. Whoever was here didn't
need to know that he was awake. He pulled on a robe and grabbed the
twenty-two that was leaning against the wall beside his closet. He
opened his nightstand and grabbed his box of bullets and began
loading them into the rifle. He pulled the bolt back and loaded a
round into the chamber.
He was outside in
no time.
It was stale cold
outside, breezeless but brisk. The sky was overcast and starting to
tint into the darkest shade of jet blue above the horizon line. Tim
didn't stop to check his clock but he could guess that it was
somewhere around four-thirty in the morning. He crouched as he
walked, keeping low as he pulled himself to the closest stairway onto
the wall's ramparts. He praised Barney and his crew for their sturdy
handiwork. Nothing creaked or moaned as he made his clumsy,
half-awake ascent. He slowed his pace just as his line of sight
peaked over the top of the stairs.
For just a moment,
Tim relaxed and laughed at himself for being so jumpy when there was
nothing to see. He thought he had tricked himself into alertness, but
then he saw it. A quick flutter of motion down in the center of the
facility. Someone was moving around the angel.
His next instinct
tossed the stock of his rifle up against his shoulder as he took aim
at the intruders. Almost from instinct, he stopped aiming and watched
over his sights. He didn't even know who he was aiming at. Or how
many of them there were.
Soon, he noticed
that there were three. The longer he sat and waited, the clearer the
action became. The intruders moved in a sneaking manner so that they
would be harder to detect, but Tim had the advantage of height. All
of their movements came across as incriminating. They knew that they
were not welcome. Tim just couldn't know for sure how they would
react if he found them. If they thought that he might have a gun,
perhaps they brought one as well. It terrified Tim. He could be
dealing with anything from a couple of bored teenagers looking for a
thrill to organized criminals.