The Rift (70 page)

TWENTY-SIX

At half past 6 o’clock in the morning it cleared up, and believing the danger over I left home, to see what injury my neighbours had sustained. A few minutes after my departure there was another shock, extremely violent
—
I hurried home as fast as I could, but the agitation of the earth was so great that it was with much difficulty I kept my balance
—
the motion of the earth was about twelve inches to and fro. I cannot give you an accurate description of this moment; the earth seemed convulsed
—
the houses shook very much
—
chimnies falling in every direction.
—
The loud hoarse roaring which attended the earthquake, together with the cries, screams, and yells of the people, seems still ringing in my ears.

Extract from a letter to a gentleman in Lexington,

from his friend at New Madrid, dated 16 December, 1811

The radio calls were confused.
Officer in trouble. Shots fired.
But it was David calling. Omar recognized his son’s voice.

Omar spun the wheel of his cruiser and mashed the accelerator to the floor. Turned on the flashing lights as acceleration punched him back into his seat. There was a jar and a cry of metal as the car bottomed out on a partly-filled-in crevasse. Omar didn’t slow down.

In front of the A.M.E. campground he found a half-dozen vehicles with flashing lights, all casting long evening shadows across the highway. A big car, an 1972 Oldsmobile with one primer-gray fender, had crossed the highway and was nose-down in the bar ditch. There were bullets stars in the windows. The driver’s door was open and a body lay by the door.

David stood nearby, his arms akimbo and his cap tipped forward over his eyes. There was a smile on his face. Omar saw him unharmed and felt his racing heart begin to ease.

A knot of deputies, some of them Omar’s specials in civilian clothes, stood around him in a knot. One skinny black man was seated on the asphalt at the rear of the car, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Omar parked and almost vaulted from his car. He ran to his son.

“Are you all right?” Omar called.

David looked at him, his smile broadening. “I’m okay, Dad. Just shot a guy, is all.” He gave a little laugh. “It’s martial law, right? It’s okay.”

Omar looked at the dead driver, saw a young black man, maybe twenty, with splashes of bright Technicolor blood all over him. Then he glanced at the camp, saw the wall of men, the hostile black faces, the stony eyes.

The smell of food floated on the air. The camp had been served their supper just before this happened, and Omar saw plates being carried by some of the onlookers, but nobody seemed to be eating.

Reverend Morris stood among them, his face long, a brooding in his eyes. And for some reason the calm sorrow on Morris’s face seemed more frightening than fury on the dozens of faces that surrounded him.

Omar looked at David again. David, standing easy, smiling among his friends, among the neighbors who’d known him since he was a boy.

“Okay,” he said. “We take pictures of the scene. Then bag the deceased and send him to Tree Simpson.” He took David’s arm, drew him aside. “And you tell me what happened.”
And then we work out what to tell everyone else,
he thought to himself.

An amateur cop, son of the King Kleagle of Louisiana, had just killed some black kid. Omar knew that there would be consequences to a story like that, whether David was justified or not, whether there was martial law or not.

In fact, he couldn’t think of any
good
consequences at all. Which was why it was important why David’s story had to cover all the bases, and why everyone else had to tell the same story as David.

Omar was relieved when David’s story sounded okay. A couple bad boys had got stir-crazy in the camp, decided to go for a joy ride even though there was no place to go. Were in their car before anyone knew they’d got into the parking lot. And then ignored shouted orders to stop, until David drew his firearm and shot the driver.

“Everyone here saw the same thing? They’ll all back your story?”

David shrugged. “Sure. It’s what happened.”

Omar nodded. “Good,” he said. “Now what I want you to do is give me your pistol, then go to my office at the courthouse. We’ll do the paperwork.”

David looked at him in surprise. “I don’t get to keep my gun?”

“Not one that’s been used in a shooting, no. And you’re off-duty until Tree Simpson rules the shooting was justified.”

Omar collected David’s gun and sent him off to Shelburne City. He sent the handcuffed boy in another car. He told the deputies they’d each have to give a statement at the end of their shift. He sent one of the deputies back to Shelburne City for a camera, then told the deputies who had rushed to the emergency, and who weren’t normally assigned to the camp, to go about their normal business.

“Boss.” Merle’s voice quiet in his ear. “I need to tell you something.”

At Merle’s hushed tones Omar felt his heart sink. His son, he thought, trembled on the edge of the abyss.

“What is it,” he said, and the words almost failed to leave his throat.

Merle drew him aside. “David got a little carried away, there,” he said quietly.

Omar licked his lips. “Tell me.”

“The kid drove off, okay? David drew and fired, and the car went across the road and into the ditch.”

“It’s martial law,” Omar managed. “That was justified.”

Merle nodded. “Sure, Omar. But what David did next was maybe a little, I don’t know,
dire.
See, that Negro wasn’t dead when he crashed the car. David pulled him from the car and shot him twice when he was lying on the road.”

Omar’s mouth went dry. He took off his hat, wiped sweat from his forehead.

Merle put a hand on Omar’s shoulder. “I’ll stand by your boy, okay? We’ll look after David. He’ll be all right.”

“Any witnesses?” Omar said.

“Some of the other deputies. They’ll be okay.” Merle looked sour. “But some people in the camp, yeah. They saw it. And Morris, he saw it, too.”

“Reverend Morris,” Omar repeated.

“Yeah. Morris. He was in his car, about to leave the camp just when the whole thing happened, got a bird’s-eye view.” Merle nodded toward the camp. “There he stands, with the others. Watching us like a black buzzard settin’ on a power line.”

Omar closed his eyes, felt himself sway like a willow in the wind. Even with his eyes shut he could feel the touch of Morris’ hooded gaze.

“I’ll talk to him,” Omar said, “and we’ll see what he says.”

He crossed the road and took a long stride across the bar ditch and walked through the grass where the people at the camp had parked their cars. As he came closer he could see the tension grow in the knot of people around Morris, see the shoulders hunching as if against a blow, the fury blaze brighter in the stony eyes.

There were white people in the camp, Omar knew. A few, anyway. Where were
they?

Omar politely touched the brim of his hat. “Reverend Morris?” he said. “I understand you may have been a witness to the shooting?”

The preacher’s eyes did not leave Omar’s face. His words were enunciated with care, with great precision. “I saw the crime,” he said. “Yes.”

The crime.
Not the accident or the pursuit or the shooting.
The crime.

Omar felt his face prickle with heat. Kept his voice under control, kept his hands calm, thumbs hooked over his belt.

“Do you want to come to the courthouse and make a statement?”

“Possibly,” Morris allowed. “Possibly I will make a statement. Possibly I will reserve my statement and give it to the federal authorities at a later time.”

Omar’s head swam. He licked his lips, managed to speak. “Why would you do that, Reverend?” he asked.

Morris hooded his eyes and pretended to consider. Black bastard was enjoying it, Omar thought.
He couldn’t beat me in the election, but he’s got me whipped now. Whipped like a cur dog in a hailstorm.

“
I
saw your son shoot that boy,” Morris said. “He put two bullets into him without reason. What would be the point of giving a statement to
you
?”

“You tell him!” a woman called from the back of the crowd. “You tell him!”

There was a chorus of assent. Omar stiffened. Behind his sunglasses he looked at the faces in the crowd, tried to memorize them. The faces he already knew he was going to need to remember.

The hostile masks swam before his gaze. His heart fluttered in his chest.

“If you want to make a statement,” he told Morris, “you can make it any time.”

Omar turned his back carefully and walked away through the grass and between the parked cars to the highway. He had turned his back on more than the camp, he knew; he had turned his back on his life, his position. Every thing he’d achieved, every advancement to which he’d clawed a path. His future.

“Is there anybody else from Shelburne City in the camp right now?” Omar asked Merle.

“There were some church people in there, but they left before the shooting. Morris is the last.”

“Nobody leaves the camp,” Omar said. “Nobody but Morris.”

He got in the car and got on the radio. He got ahold of Micah Knox, and told him that he and the rest of the Crusaders were relieved from their regular duty and should meet him on the highway by the John Deere dealership north of the Corp limit.

Omar knew that his own life— that everything he’d built and stood for— was already lost. But if he had to move heaven and earth to do it, he was going to save his boy.

*

Trucks began rolling into the compound in late afternoon, bringing people back to the men’s camps. Jason was introduced to the leader— “guide”— of his unit, a lanky red-haired man named Magnusson. Mr. Magnusson had a band on one arm that had probably once been white. Though he looked and for the most part smelled as if he’d been working in the hot sun for days, his chin was shaven blue and there was an alert look in his eyes. He called everyone by their surnames, as if first names were too much to bother with.

“We’ll be heading in to dinner when we’re called by the PA, okay?” he said. “We’re the Samaritans.”

“Samaritans,” Jason said. “Right.”

“Thing to remember is, you don’t leave the camp unless you’re working, or unless you’re called. People are doing important work out there, and they don’t need you bothering them.”

Jason didn’t like the sound of this. Everyone was supposed to stay behind a fence made of string?

“When can I see my friends?” he asked.

“Morning and evening services.” Mr. Magnusson squinted as he looked down at Jason. “What denomination are you, by the way?”

Jason hesitated. He had a suspicion a truthful answer— his mother’s belief in pyramid power and Atlantis, and his father’s lack of any religion whatever— would not be received well.

“What kind do you have around here?” he asked.

“Well, Reverend Franklin, he’s sort of his own denomination— or he’s multidenominational, depending on how you look at it. He’s Charismatic and Fundamentalist, anyway. We’ve also got Baptists and Pentacostals, okay? Lots of Lutherans, but our pastor was killed in the first quake, so we’ve kind of split up among all the others. The Catholics— uhh, the same. Not that there were so many Catholics to begin with.” He narrowed his eyes and looked at Jason. “You’re not Catholic, are you?”

“I’m Presbyterian,” Jason said.

“Well,” Magnusson said, ”we ain’t got any of those. So I guess you’ll just have to pick a congregation from the ones we got.” A gleam entered his eye. “I’d recommend Brother Frankland’s,” he said. “He saved
me
.”

Jason had hoped that Presbyterianism might leave him out of this issue altogether. “I’ll pick the one that my friends join,” he said.

Mr. Magnusson nodded. “Fine. Any questions?”

Jason pointed at the man’s arm. “What’s the white armband mean?”

“It means I’m in charge. Any more questions?”

“I guess not.”

“Good,” he said. “I want you to buddy up with someone who will show you the ropes and keep you out of trouble. And that someone will be Haynes over there.” He pointed to a skinny, freckled boy in a baseball cap. He lowered his voice, bent to Jason’s ear. “Now Sam Haynes lost his parents in the quake, okay? So what I want you to do is look after him, all right?” He put a hand on Jason’s shoulder.

“Okay,” said Jason, confused by this brisk, over-efficient manner of intimacy.

Mr. Magnusson straightened, shouted out. “Haynes! Heaven-o! I want you to meet Jason here.”

Sam Haynes was a few years older than Jason. Jason shook his hand. Haynes didn’t seem to have much to say. “I want you to show Jason the ropes,” Mr. Magnusson said. He picked up a roll of large-sized plastic garbage bags, tore a bag off the roll, then handed it to Jason. “This is your ground cover. You sleep on this.”

Jason looked at the bag. “Right,” he said.

“You two go have fun now.”

Jason slung his telescope over his shoulder and prepared to follow Haynes to whatever fun might be found in this place.

“Hey!” Mr. Magnusson called after him. “Adams!”

Jason turned around. “Yes?”

“What’s that
thing
on your shoulder?”

Jason looked at the Astroscan and decided he was already fed up with this place. “It’s a portable nuclear reactor.” he said.

Mr. Magnusson hesitated. His eyes narrowed, as if he was trying to decide whether or not to size up Jason for a liar. Jason tried to assume an expression of earnest good intentions.

“A nuclear reactor, huh?” Magnusson said. “Like the one in Mississippi that blew up?”

“Well,” Jason said, “not as big.”

Mr. Magnusson hesitated again. He propped his wiry arms on his hips. “
That
one ain’t going to blow up, right?”

Jason tried to exude authority. “Not if people don’t mess with it,” he said.

“Well.” Mr. Magnusson chewed his lip. “You don’t let anyone touch it, then.”

“I won’t.” Jason decided he’d better ease away before his guide had time to think about this, so he gave Mr. Magnusson a little wave and headed into the camp.