Gundown (4 page)

The guy was a real showman. Hank smirked at Mitch, who nodded back.

The TV screens cut to a close-up of the man the crowd squinted to see. He appeared to be in his sixties, good-looking but not handsome. A full mustache concealed his mouth and made his face sober, serious. His dark eyes glowed with intelligence. And intensity.

Hank wondered if he was in for a fire-and-brimstone harangue. Then a smile transformed Stone’s face into friendliness, and his eyes sparkled with humor. Hank resisted the pull of the man’s likeability.

Stone said, “Hi.”

The audience breathed a sigh.

“I’m Noah Stone, and I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. And to talk to you about joining me in the Alliance.

“The reason I want you with me is simple—I want to live a good life in the richest country in the world. But it’s not material wealth I’m after, it’s the things that make getting up in the morning a good thing to do. Shelter. Food. Good air. Good water. Safety. Work to do. Health. Community. Freedom. Is that what you want?”

The crowd muttered, “Yes” and “You bet” and “Tell me about it.”

Stone frowned. “But I can’t prosper with a gun held to my head. I can’t prosper when courts flood the streets with criminals. I can’t prosper when schools are so impoverished that they can’t teach my children. I can’t prosper when corruption is the standard, not the exception. In today’s world, I can’t prosper.”

• • •

Jewel clenched a fist and murmured, “Right on.” The Latino beside her whispered,
“Es verdád.”
Damn right it was the truth.

Stone moved in a circle on the stage, the overhead screens keeping his face in view. He said, “Like you, I’m willing to work hard to prosper, but I can’t do it alone. You might argue, hey, we’re not alone, we have government and religion to help us. The sad truth is that, despite everything governments and religions do, and sometimes
because
of what they do, we are steadily losing to a growing crush of problems.

“It doesn’t even help to be rich. The rich don’t have clean air. Or safety from kidnappers who take them for ransom. Or a healthy world that holds promise for their children.

“The rich don’t prosper.”

• • •

A woman in the third row whose husband’s income was sixty thousand dollars a day pictured her youngest, his backpack oxygen tank and face mask warding off daily asthma attacks caused by toxins in the air whenever he went outdoors. She nodded.

Stone said, “It doesn’t help to be religious. Yes, a church community can help you bear the burden, and perhaps you’re promised something better after you die—but while you live in this world, prayer and faith are losing ground to crime, poverty, guns, and drugs.

“Even worse, faiths collide and fanaticism spawns death and destruction. Worshippers are led to murder in the name of God or Allah, and the worst of all human wrongs becomes exalted as a virtuous act.

“The religious don’t prosper.”

• • •

A woman who had lost her husband and her oldest child to a Palestinian suicide bomber in Tel Aviv nodded. Tears spilled as she kept her gaze fastened on Noah Stone.

Across the arena from the woman, a Palestinian-American bit down hard at the memory of his parents, slain in Gaza by an Israeli Defense Force missile.

Noah’s eyes crinkled with an ironic grin. “Luckily, though, we can count on our government, can’t we?”

The Palestinian joined the crowd in a bitter chuckle.

“We can count on our ‘leaders’ to gridlock because of sheep-like partisanship—to pander to ignorance and to fearmonger—to grasp for money and reelection—to vote according to influence, not conscience—to rule by ideology, not govern by reason.

“Back in the nineties a Kentucky legislator introduced a bill to allow police officers to destroy confiscated guns, and the cops were all for it. But lobbyists claimed it was gun control that threatened Second Amendment rights, and the bill was changed to require the police to sell the guns and then use the money to buy bulletproof vests. Thousands of guns were put back on the street, and the cops had brand-new bulletproof vests to protect them from those weapons.
Stupid
is too nice a word for that kind of idiocy.

“Guns. Guns that kill. Lethal firearms.” He gazed at the floor of the stage for a moment, and there was a sad quality to his voice when he continued. “Now
there’s
cancer that robs us of our future, where murdered children and men and women cannot give us their energy, their lives, their creativity, their smiles, their songs, their laughter. Their love. For so long, it has been politically impossible to do anything to control unrestricted gun violence because of the cultural logjam nurtured by gun makers and the National Rifle Association.”

• • •

Jason Schaeffer, proud member of the Mackinac Militia, bristled at the insult to the NRA. Well, he had a message for Mister High-and-Mighty. He slipped his hand into the roomy pocket of his camo pants and caressed the cool steel of his pistol. It was time to get closer to the stage.

He stepped into the aisle, said, “Excuse me,” and slipped past the woman standing there.

• • •

Mitch clenched his fists. Here came another baseless attack on their rights. Oh, he sensed the lure of Stone’s appeal, all right, but he had no trouble remaining detached. He observed the rapt faces around him and saw the power Stone had. This man was dangerous.

But he was just a typical gun-control nut. There were plenty of laws on the books to make sure only honest people got guns. They just needed to be enforced better. And criminals ignored laws anyway. There was really nothing new laws could do.

On the stage, Noah said, “To be fair to the NRA, the root of the problem is America’s Wild West mentality—
our
Wild West mentality—that feeds the NRA’s growth and influence. You see it in the militias that thrive in our nation, nourished by anti-government paranoia. The problem is not ‘them,’ it’s us. There isn’t a way to fix that anytime soon.

“But maybe there is a way to use that cowboy attitude
against
the shooters who say we’ll be safer when there are
more
guns. Until now, that sounded like nonsense to me, but where I live, more guns
are
the answer.

“We’re putting defensive guns into the hands of the people who are the victims, the women and men who are unarmed targets. Now, armed with nonlethal guns, they can fight attackers such as rapists, robbers, shooters, and racists.” He smiled and lifted his gaze. “And they do, much to the sorrow of the bad guys.”

He chuckled, and then looked out at the audience. “The other day I was asked if I was for or against guns.” He grinned. “I said yes.”

• • •

Hank looked at Mitch, who scowled down at the stage. “You didn’t tell me about that.”

Mitch shrugged. “It didn’t seem important.”

“But it is. The whole point of having a gun is to defend yourself.” He focused on Stone again. How could the guy be against guns if he was arming people?

Mitch turned to him. “The defensive stuff he’s talking about won’t protect us from tyranny by our so-called ‘government.’”

Hank shook his head. “Come on, you know that’s nonsense. Isn’t going to happen, this is America. Our democracy is just too strong.”

“You never know.”

Stone’s voice surged with energy and enthusiasm. “What we’re doing about guns is just one example of how we, as a people, are strong and smart. We clean up after floods and earthquakes. We conquer disease. We fight famine. We defeat oppressors. Together, we work wonders. But these days we’re breaking into smaller and smaller bits—cults, religions, militias, jihadists, splinters that are angrily pro this and anti that.

“We don’t prosper.

“When religion separates us, when politics isolate us, when money divides us, how can we work together to change things? How do we step around our differences and understand our sameness?” Stone’s voice grew quieter. “I offer you two things that can help turn us around—a promise, and a compass.

“The promise is one every Ally makes: I promise to help, the best I can.” He paused, then whispered, “I promise to help, the best I can.

“That may not sound like much to you, but think about filtering everything you do through that and see what happens.

“It’s a simple promise. You don’t have to be a saint to keep it. Just try your best. We know there are times when our best isn’t very good. When I get mad, I’m sure not likely to be helpful.”

He smiled. “Kinda like you, I’ll bet.”

Hundreds whispered, “Yes.”

“But the promise can help stop me from being hurtful. And it has.”

• • •

Jason had made a promise, too, when he joined the militia—to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Well, Noah Stone, domestic traitor, was going to get a .38-caliber dose of promise tonight. Jason’s anger rose as he shoved his way through the people filling the aisle, but a sharp “Hey, be careful” from an old guy slowed him down. He didn’t want to attract attention, at least not until he had Stone in his sights. He wiped a sweaty palm on his jacket and said, “Please excuse me” as he slipped closer to the stage.

• • •

Hank could never make the kind of promise Stone was talking about—police work and war sometimes called for merciless violence, the polar opposite of help. Hell, he didn’t see how anybody in this world could make such a promise and keep it for more than ten minutes.

He wanted a sense of the man, not just the words and the image. He nudged Mitch with an elbow. “Going for a closer look. I’ll meet you at the exit.” He edged through the crowd that stood in the aisle.

Onstage, Noah Stone reached into a shirt pocket and pulled out something too small for Hank to make out.

Stone said, “The promise is our engine, but we need something to keep us on course.” He raised the minuscule thing high in the air. “We need a compass.”

Hank caught himself squinting hard to see. A huckster gimmick.

The view on the big screens zoomed in to show a fuzzy length of orange thread dangling from his fingers.

“Thread is our guide.” He spelled it out. “T-H-R-E-A-D. An operating system for people. Not religion. Or business. Or political parties. Just us.”

The picture changed to a close-up of Stone. He said, “Just you and me, one at a time.” He grinned and his eyes twinkled. “Bear with me on this, I worked hard to make the letters come out right.”

Hank braced for a heaping spoonful of happy horseshit. He glanced around; all faces were turned to the stage, looking eager to swallow the invisible hook at the end of that thread.

Stone said, “The
T
in THREAD is for tolerance.” He smiled. “Have you ever driven past a yard littered with little statues and fountains and other yard art and thought it was dumb?”

Hank had to smile; he’d done just that.

Noah Stone said, “I used to think that way. But then I realized that the people who lived there went to a lot of effort to create that scene. They spent hard-earned dollars and their time. Then they stood back and said, ‘Man, this looks great!’

“It didn’t hurt me. Let it be.

“What does it matter that someone has hair you don’t like, plays music you don’t get, has a pierced tongue that makes you cringe, follows a religion that’s alien to you, loves in ways you can’t stomach, or comes in a skin color that doesn’t match yours? If it doesn’t harm you, let it be. Tolerate.”

Just as Hank thought the next words would be
love thy neighbor,
Stone said, “Why not love instead of just tolerance? Aren’t we taught to love our neighbors? Hey, if my neighbor is a nasty slob with a dog that barks all night, I’m doing a helluva job just to tolerate the guy. Don’t ask me to love him—I’ll fail. Requiring unconditional love guarantees failure for anybody who isn’t a saint. Unearned love? I’m way too far from sainthood. Tolerance? That I can do. And so can you.”

He held up the thread again. “THREAD. The
H
stands for honor. Integrity. Every unkept promise undercuts all of us. Every sloppily done job shortchanges each of us. Every bribe, every embezzlement, every corrupt act cheats us all, including the cheater.”

Stone said, “THREAD. The
R
is responsibility. You do what you say you will, and you’re accountable for the consequences of what you do. You steal, you pay back; you destroy, you rebuild.

“For many in our land of
caveat emptor
, the
E
in THREAD is the hardest. It stands for empathy, the opposite of ‘buyer beware.’ Without concern for what others are experiencing, tolerance is a plant without water, help is a sail without wind.”

• • •

Movement in the aisle caught Jewel’s eye. A guy eased his way through people, heading down toward the stage. She’d seen those broad shoulders moving away from her before—it was her rescuer. She still owed him her thanks. She stepped into the aisle and followed.

Stone waved the thread. “Tolerance. Honor. Responsibility. Empathy. The
A
is for accord. As we’ve seen in government, partisan politics means gridlock. As we’ve seen in the abortion wars, uncompromising disagreement leads to misery and death. In the Alliance, we are bound to stick with it and reach accord when we disagree. Accord creates unity. And that creates strength.

“The last letter is
D
. The last word in THREAD is
do!
Make the promise and keep it. Ideals are hot air if we don’t have the guts to do the hard things that need to be done. Being a good ally is hard, and to succeed, we must do!”

He raised the thread. “A tiny thing. Alone, it is weak.” He broke it in two. “Weave it together with many others, and you have”—Stone plucked at his shirt—“something powerful enough to keep out the bite of cold.

“
THREAD
is only a word. But words have power because they bring us ideas, and ideas change human societies.” His voice grew stronger. “This thread of principles weaves people into an alliance. An alliance that has power. Power to change the way things are to something better.” Stone paused and surveyed the crowd.