Donny remembered that once upon a time, even Crowe had given him the same advice. Roll over on me in a second, Donny, if it ever comes to that. Somehow Crowe had known it would.
'Okay,' he finally said.
'Do your duty, Donny. But think about what it costs you. Okay. Think about how you feel now. Then when you get out, do me one favor, okay? No matter what happens to me, promise me one thing.'
Trig winced as if in pain in the hot light of the headlights, though perhaps something had just gotten in his eye. There was an immense familiarity to that look, the strain on his face, the set of it, the clearness of vision.
And .. . And what?
'Sure,' Donny said.
'Open your mind. Open your mind to the possibility that the power to define duty is the power of life and death. And if people impose duty on you, maybe they're not doing it for your best interests or the country's best interests but for their own best interests. Okay, Donny?
Force yourself to think about a world in which each man got to set his own duty and no one could tell anyone what to do, what was right, what was wrong, the only rules were the Ten Commandments.'
'I--' stammered Donny.
'Here,' said Trig.
'I have something for you. I was going to mail it to you from Baltimore, but this'll save me the postage and the fuss. It's no big deal.'
He went over to some kind of knapsack on the ground, fished around, and came out with a folder, which he opened to reveal a piece of heavy paper.
'Sometimes,' he said, 'when the spirit moves me, I'm even pretty good. I'm much better at birds, but I did okay on this one. It's nothing.'
Donny looked: it was a drawing on a creamy page trimmed from that sketchbook Trig was always carrying, incredibly delicate and in a spiderweb of ink, that depicted himself and Julie as they stood and talked in the trees at West Potomac Park.
There was something special about it: he got them both, maybe not exactly as a photograph, but somehow their love too, the way they looked at each other, the faith they had in each other.
'Wow,' said Donny.
'Wow, yourself. I dashed it off that night in my book.
It was neat, the two of you. Gives me hope for the world.
Now, go on, get the hell out of here, go back to your duty.'
Trig drew him close, and Donny felt the warmth, the musculature, and maybe something else, too: passion, somehow, oddly misplaced but genuine and impressive.
Trig was actually crying.
Over the shoulders of the two FBI agents, Peter saw Donny and Trig embrace, and then Donny stepped out of the light and was gone. He'd head to his car, which Peter now saw was but fifty or so yards away. He was screwed.
Donny would see him here with the two feds, who showed no sign at all of moving, and he would have made an ass out of himself.
He felt despair rising in his gorge.
'I have to go,' he said to the larger of the two plainclothes officers.
'No,' the man said back, and the other moved to embrace Peter, as if to wrestle him to the ground. Peter squirmed out of the man's grip, but he was grabbed and thrust to the ground.
The two men loomed over him.
'This is ridiculous,' he said.
They seemed to agree. They looked at each other foolishly, not quite sure what to do, but suddenly one of them pointed.
Then the engine of Donny's car came to life and its lights flashed on.
The man with the camera pulled away from Peter, leaving the other, the bigger, to lean on him, and ran toward the gate.
Well, did he help?' said Julie as they walked through the dark.
'Yeah,' said Donny.
'Yes, he did. He really did. I've got it figured out now.'
'Should I go meet him?'
'No, he's in a very strange mood. I'm not sure what's going on. Let's just get out of here. I've got some things to do.'
'What did he give you?'
'It's a picture. It's very nice. I'll show you later.'
They walked through the dark, up the hill. Donny could see the car ahead. He had an odd tremor suddenly, a sense of not being alone. It was a freakish thing, sometimes useful in Indian country: that sensation of being watched. He scanned the darkness for sign of threat but saw nothing, only farmland under moon, no movement or
