this Kriegel? Sounds like some kind of a foreigner to me.”
“English,” a voice answered. “He’s from our English counterpart.”
“German,” someone said. “Kriegel.”
“South African,” said another.
“Sounds like some kind of foreign faggot to me,” the first voice said.
The groups of men were drifting toward the bonfire.
Carrie said, “I really think it’s time to say good night, Fletch. I mean, get the E=MC2 out of here!”
“Gee!” Fletch did not feel even slightly jolly. “Just when the dancin’ is about to begin?”
“You’ll want to see this, I think, “Jack said. “The dance.”
Recovered only somewhat, Leary was only a few meters away from Carrie.
“I don’t need to,” Carrie said. “I really believe I don’t need to see the dance. I’ve seen enough.”
“Give me a minute,” Fletch said. “You’ll stay here with Jack?”
Carrie said, “You take the worst times to pee.”
Jack inserted a disk in the player. He turned the volume up. “Loud enough?”
“Can’t hear you,” Fletch said. “The music is too loud.”
The music was martial.
Immediately, like puppets on strings, a few men around the bonfire began lifting their knees to it, marching in place, waving their bottles. In the firelight immediately their faces seemed transported into some kind of a fantasy.
FLETCH AMBLED INTO the woods behind the trailers.
Once in the woods, he did not stop the sound of his own walking over dead leaves soon enough. He also did not hear over the sound of the loud, martial music.
He heard the crack against his head just above his ear. He saw the flash of light.
Knocked to the ground, he rolled over.
Sheriff Joe Rogers stood over him with a wrist-thick tree branch.
Staring down at Fletch on the ground, the sheriff said, “Shit! What are you lookin’ up at me for?”
“You’re in the landscape.” Fletch put his hand over the lump developing over his ear. “The skyscape.”
“You’re not supposed to be lookin’ at me!”
“Can’t kill me while I’m lookin’ at you, is that it, Joe?”
“Sure I can.” The sheriff swung his club at Fletch’s head.
Fletch grabbed the club and pulled. The sheriff began falling toward him. Fletch put one foot up and caught the sheriff in the crotch.
Then Fletch rolled out of the way of the falling sheriff.
Fletch jumped up.
For a moment, facedown, legs spread wide, the sheriff remained still on the ground.
“Are you fixin’ to kill me, Joe?” Fletch kicked the sheriffs ass. “Are you fixin’ to kill Carrie, too?”
Fletch kicked him again, harder. “Get up, you bastard. I want to see such a two-sided son of a bitch from the front!”
For a heavy man, the sheriff got to his feet quickly and smoothly. He stood close to Fletch.
“Son of a bitch,” Fletch said. “The Enforcer for the Tribal Nation.”
The sheriff said, “Chief of Internal Affairs.”
Fletch scoffed. “Sure! Big titles justify anything, right? Bunch of psychotic children!”
“You could only be here for one reason, Fletcher. To destroy us. Somehow.”
“You’re just doin’ your job, right, Sheriff?”
“You’re damned right.”
“Last night, you and your deputies supposedly were out in the rain looking for ‘Commandant’ Kriegel. You let him slip right through, didn’t you? What was all that garbage you gave me this morning? Carrie was carrying one dangerous hombre on the back of her truck. I thought you were being too damned agreeable. You were pretending to be a little drunk, right?”
Eyes as wide and bright as a pickup’s headlights, the sheriff took a step toward Fletch. His fists looked as big as bowling balls.
“I thought I knew you, Joe.”
“You fixin’ to tell me how you mean to destroy us, Fletch? Will you tell me what the hell you’re doing here, or do I have to beat it out of you?”
“You can try. You’ve already discovered I’ve got a hard head.”
“Talk, goddamn it, before I twist your fuckin’ head off!”
The woods were flooded with the inane sound of martial music.
“I brought Kriegel here.”
“Sure you did.”
“You lost sight of him on my farm, didn’t you?”
“The hell you brought him here. You’re not one of us.”
“How can you be sure, Joe?”
“I’m damned sure. I know you, Fletch. I know all about you, Irwin Maurice Fletcher.”
“I guess you do, at that.”
“There’s only one reason you’re here. You mean to screw up our organization somehow. I’m in an important position here. I protect these people. And you’re lying. Only way to stop you from whatever you’re doin’ is to do you right here and now.”
“And that way no one back home will ever know what a murderin’, two-sided son of a bitch you are. That right, Joe?”
The sheriff smiled. “That’s right, too.”
Fletch said, “Don’t smile when you say that.”
Taking a sudden step forward, the sheriff began to wrap his forearms around Fletch’s head. He tried to grab his chin, force him to the ground, possibly break his neck.
Fletch spun faster than the sheriff expected. As he spun, he raised the side of his right hand fast and hard into the base of the sheriffs nose.
Fletch thought he was free of the sheriffs reach.
Until he felt something the size of a bowling ball slam against his head.
Fletch tripped over his own legs.
Lying on the ground, he saw right in front of him the club the sheriff had used on him.
He grabbed it.
Kneeling, he saw the sheriff lunging at him.
Using both hands, Fletch plunged the sharp end of the tree branch into the base of the sheriff’s stomach.
As the sheriff fell, Fletch jumped up.
Fletch clubbed the sheriff on the back of his head.
On the ground, the sheriff did not move.
Fletch felt the pulse behind the sheriffs ear. It was racing. The sheriff was unconscious, not dead.
Staggering, Fletch headed back toward the main cabin of the camp. His head hurt. It felt as if all the blood in his head was congealing into an immobile mass. His neck hurt. His vision was poor.
The first time he fell to his knees he vomited. “Camp Orania,” he said to himself. “Where the whole world comes to puke.”
The second time he fell, he was at the side of a trailer. His legs were too weak to continue. He fought unconsciousness. He was feeling worse rather than better.
He had to clear his head. He had to get Carrie out of there.
He leaned his back against the stacked cement blocks holding up one corner of the trailer.
