Fourth of July Creek (42 page)

You don’t have to go with me and Pom. You find some other people you want to hang with, that’s cool.

Oh, I like you guys fine
, she said meaningfully. A skosh of worry in it.
Really, I like you and Pomeroy a lot. I’m not jealous of you two or nothing.

Yo exhaled smoke and smiled.

We like you.

You do?

Yeah. I knew I would from the way Pom was telling me about you. It could be weird or it could be cool, and with Pom it’s always cool.

Rose didn’t know what to say or to ask.

You want a beer?

Yes.

Yo ran off. Rose rubbed her legs. Yo returned with a number of girls and they gave Rose beer from a sack, Yo making introductions, the girls checking Rose out. The night turned cold as they spoke about people Rose didn’t know and places she hadn’t been.

And when Pomeroy came back out, a few hours later, pink in the eyes, and aweave in his foot placement, and grinning, colliding gently into the coterie of girls around the car, what did he do?

He threw up, nearly on Kenny. A short bolt of laughter escaped Rose that she clipped off when Kenny looked to see who it was.

Yolanda took him off through the lot and Rose hurried after. They dropped next to a chain-link fence that jangled where Pomeroy fell into it, laughing himself. It was moist in the weeds from the nightdew.

I’m cold
, Rose said.

Too much beers
, Pomeroy muttered.
I’m about like to trip out.

He had to arc up his ass to get his hand into his jeans pocket—Rose resisted the urge to touch his naked stomach—and pull out a plastic Baggie. The light on it fairly glowed white and illicit in the dark.

Was it coke?

No.

Was it MDA?

Maybe.

What was it?

What it was was Yolanda taking a sniff off a matchbook and shaking her head and handing the Baggie to Rose who looked at it and then over among the cars where there was a scuffle happening and then toward the street and then back into the Baggie and taking it up like she’s seen Yolanda do.

What it was was a sweet knife of tingling and then a slow drip of jitters, and handing it back to Pomeroy who was vaguely nearby asking for it and the sound of him taking a short blast and saying oh man and hot rushes up and down her arms that she imagined was Braille, some text in her body, but was only goose bumps.

What it was was Yolanda laughing and standing and Rose was up and standing and walking as liquid blurs slithered past.

What it was was they were in the Monastery now. Pomeroy had her by the wrist as they birthed themselves again and again through the wet and heated throng. A strobe froze each posture in giddy eternities, a mandarin and a geisha with elongated faces. Sparkling beards. Howling caryatids of pale shirtless boys. Dark gauntlets. What it was was an arm thrown round her shoulder and pulling her up under her armpit to bounce, and Rose lost Pomeroy’s grip and gave over to the mass of arms and sweat and stomp. Completely naked men on the speakers, the small gyre of their cocks as they danced. She was hefted up, passed from fag to fag and deposited in a bank of airline seats.

She could not stop laughing.

A furry animal tossed up and down in the lap of the man next to her.

She tapped his arm. He didn’t look over.

You have something there!
she yelled.

The man opened his eyes and smiled at her and said,
Yes, yes I do.

She looked again and the man clutched the animal and it was a human head giving him head. There was a bottle under her. She unscrewed the cap and drank hot fire and nearly threw up. She stood and heaved herself back into the mass. Disappeared into it.

P
inkerton had met Pearl at a loggers’ swap meet in the Idaho woods. He was undercover, had been coming and going in the area for the past three months by the name of Joe Stacks. He’d done odd jobs—every man was a handyman up here—and lived in a cabin the ATF had bought just the other side of the Montana border in Boundary County, Idaho. He’d gone to the meetup with a swarthy dimwit by the name of Ruffin, a big-talking hyperactive conspiracy freak.

This is where he meets Pearl, a country roundup where the folks in the region trade stories and sell chain saws, rhubarb, and crafts made of pie tin and rope. There was nothing inherently political about the gathering, just rumors that so-and-so was Posse Comitatus, Truppe Schweigen. Or not. And among the people Ruffin introduced Stacks to was one Jeremiah Pearl. The real deal, Ruffin says. Tribulation-ready, Race War–ready. Set up to handle the National Guard, the Shit-Covered Fan, the feds, the unraveling of the social compact.

Pearl introduces the missus, the kids. Missus is rubber-gloved to the elbows stirring a pot of preserves over a campfire. Grins wanly, waves. A quiet, serious woman. Gorgeous kids, knees as ruddy as red apples. They sit arrayed around Pearl in the pickup bed like a kinder court. The baby boy in Pearl’s lap and little Paula and Ben right close, and Ruth and Esther sitting beside him and the oldest boy, Jacob, standing on the ground between where his father’s legs dangle off the tailgate. It was like Pearl drew some strength from the brood, the way they climbed on him, the way he goosed them.

Joe Stacks
, Pearl says.
That’s an interesting name.
Asks is it a nickname.

Pinkerton says
No, no it isn’t.
Asks does Pearl want to see his driver’s license.

Pearl says not unless you’re in need of someone to cut it up for you. Smiles.

Pinkerton’s bosses want informants. The Truppe Schweigen did the synagogue job in Portland, blew the front wall and doors into kibble, killed three. Pinkerton is to run down every last lead, even though he knows Ruffin and Pearl aren’t involved with anything. Ruffin’s a dipshit, and Pearl, he’s got all those kids. It’s just obvious that he loves his family too much to get into that kind of trouble. But the ATF wants somebody inside, inside of something, anything. It’s a pissing contest anyway, the Department of Treasury vying with the FBI. The ATF wants somebody up fucking in there. Yesterfuckingday.

So six weeks later, after several informal visits in truck stops, Stacks, Ruffin, and Pearl meet in Ruffin’s truck in Sandpoint, Idaho. It’s cold and windy on the city beach, the gusts off Lake Pend Oreille buffeting Ruffin’s pickup. Ruffin’s shit-talking as usual. He’s gonna knock over the First Interstate branch in Boise. He’s gonna pick off the marshals when they come for him. Then he’s gonna find a nigger church and toss a Molotov cocktail into it.

Pearl is quiet.

Stacks mentions he’s got some friends in Seattle who could use some sawed-offs for a job or two. Double-barrel, preferably.

Ruffin asks what job.

Pearl asks how much.

Stacks tells Pearl he can pay $150 for single-barrel, $200 per double.

Pearl says can you go three.

Stacks says he isn’t sure. Pinkerton can go three, but he doesn’t want to seem too eager.

I have to have three
, Pearl says, sad as hell, like he’s having to ask Stacks for a set of kidneys. Pinkerton thinks maybe there’s something wrong with one of the kids. The guy doesn’t say a word for forty minutes of Ruffin’s shit-talking and then out of nowhere,
How much, I have to get three
.

The guy is just busted-ass broke, Pinkerton realizes. He asks Pearl to give him a few days. He’ll call.

I don’t have a phone
, Pearl says.
Call Ruffin. I need three and I gotta move quick if we’re gonna do it.

Pinkerton makes it happen.

The biggest regret of his career.

Pearl and Stacks start to meet up without Ruffin, because the deals run a lot shorter without him. Cash, shotguns, I’ll meet you in two weeks for more. Seven transactions total.

Once, Pearl muses how strange it is that he could get in trouble, how he could do time for sitting under a pine tree with a hacksaw and a couple of bird guns.
Some kind of world
, he says. This is the same occasion where he announces that he needs $350. He has to be careful, buying up all these guns. He has to drive farther and farther, gas money and everything cutting into his profits.
Gas and money
, he mutters.
Shekels and oil the world over.
And Ruffin has been bitching. Thought he should’ve been cut in on the deal, so now he and Pearl are on the outs.

Ruffin says you’re a fed
, Pearl tells him.
You a fed, Stacks?

Pearl looks sad. It’s like he already knows. For a minute there, Pinkerton thinks Pearl’s going to do something stupid. Pinkerton can feel the pistol in its holster against his calf, wonders can he get it out before Pearl does something stupid.

You’d be burned by now if I was
, Stacks says, wedging a laugh into the air.
I bet you’re the fed, you crafty fucker.

It’s always hard to tell exactly what Pearl is thinking behind that beard of his. Is he as world-weary as he looks. Is he ready to die already. Without his kids around, the guy’s like a lump of oatmeal, like something on the bottom of your shoe. He’s saying again he needs the $350. He just needs the money, the damn money.

The thing is, the ATF is done throwing money at Pearl. Pearl is over. Pinkerton’s supposed to be setting up other buys, moving up the chain. But there isn’t a chain to move up. There’s just this sad guy in the sticks who will go all the way to Miles City for a shotgun to chop. $350, and it’ll be worth it. The sum total of his prospects is what the ATF pays him to break federal law.

Stacks sighs, says he’s been meaning to talk to Pearl about this, that his partners are flush with shotguns. But does Pearl know where to get anything with a little more bang for the buck. Does Pearl have a line on anything like that.

Don’t do it, Pearl
, Pinkerton is thinking. Begging.
Don’t do it.

No, he doesn’t have a line on anything like that. Lump of oatmeal. Shit on your shoe.

Weeks of no word. Pearl didn’t set up another meet and Ruffin’s not talking to Pearl and pretty soon Ruffin isn’t even talking to Stacks. His bosses decide Pinkerton’s been made. They’re going to relocate him to California. He did fine work, it’s just time to bag it.

He’s mucked out the cabin and packed everything (sleeping bag, pistols, cast-iron cookware) when Ruffin comes barreling up the road in his truck. Asks where Stacks is headed. Pinkerton thinks fast, says the owner of the cabin’s selling the place from under him.
Fuckin asshole
, Ruffin says.
But
you’re in luck
, Ruffin says.
I just leased some property, have a trailer already up on it and everything.

Whereabouts?
Stacks asks.

Jeremiah Pearl’s is where. Sweet little spot.

It’s a nice Airstream trailer, on the other side of the meadow from the Pearls’ house, abutting a stand of buckskin tamarack. Wild mushrooms and carpets of moss and bumblebees turning figure eights in the slashes of sun in the woods, as if they too are stupefied by the beauty of the place. It’s a slice of heaven, Pinkerton can see right away.

Ruffin racks out a couple nights with Stacks, and Pearl sloshes through the mucky meadow every evening, and they even drink a little beer together. Pearl looking over his shoulder up toward the house.

He says the old lady has the spyglasses on him.
Hand to God, she’s the brains behind the whole operation.

There’s maybe a little rift there. Money worries and the stresses inherent to their worldview.

Ruffin says Pearl’s allowed a beer every once in a while. Especially now he’s got a job harrowing a large farm out near Three Forks and the money from the timber lease. Working puts food on the table, he can have a little beer now and again.

One night, he takes a walk. Full moon or nearly so. It’s warm and clear and he hikes up the hill and takes in the view from the cliff overlooking the place. He’s sitting on the edge and when he gets up to leave sets a few rocks tumbling over, cracking the quiet. When he climbs down, he’s nearly blinded by a powerful jacklight.

What were you doing up there?

Just taking in the view, Mrs. Pearl. Could you get that light off my face?

You’re not allowed up there.

Why the hell not?

I don’t know you.

My name is Joe Stacks.

Are you saved, Mr. Stacks?

Saved?

Saved by the Lord?

Oh yes. Of course.

I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you are who you say you are.

I don’t know what to say to that.

Don’t be going around the property. You stay at that trailer.

She traipses away to the house, tells the kids who must be sentried there to go on in, get back to bed.

In a few days, Ruffin returns, in high psychotic spirits as usual. He’s brought a used chain saw and a splitter and also a few sawhorses for some undisclosed project.

What’s all this?

Firewood.

This is the first Ruffin’s mentioned anything about it.

Maybe we should wait until Jeremiah gets back.

The fuck for. I have bills, you know. I need this firewood money to get liquid. Cover my nut for winter, we get cracking.

I dunno.

Ruffin asks what the hell did Stacks think he was up here to do? Drink beer and live free? This is how Stacks is gonna cover his rent on the Airstream.