“You’re going to see Crystal. I thought she was out of pocket.”
“I hope to see Crystal.”
“Maybe she’ll show you her son’s postcards from Greece.”
“Maybe.”
“What if she does?”
“I don’t know.”
Carrie quoted Fletch: “‘We’re all mysteries awaiting solution.’”
Fletch said, “We’re all histories awaiting execution.”
“I don’t know what else you can do,” Carrie said. “I mean, you’ve got to try to see Crystal, soon as you can. Whatever else that kid is, or isn’t, he saved our lives last night as sure as God made bedbugs. I was awake much of the night. I must have turned fourteen miles.”
“I know.”
“Fletch, I’m not sure what I heard, saw yesterday. All those wild-lookin’ men together. Their crazy eyes. Their guns. The foul condition of the women and children. Those three guys ol’ Leary kindly run off after smashin’ two of their heads together. What I heard of that obscene speech. ‘Mud people.’ ‘Children of Satan.’ ‘Z.O.G.’ Chants of ‘White rights’ have been ringin’ in my ears all night. Everybody throwin’ up. Did Jack really cause that with his electronic gimmicks? That violent dancin’ around the bonfire. Those stupid men bumpin’ into each other like battery-operated toys, whackin’ each other over their heads. Seein’ Sheriff Joe Rogers killed with a single stroke of that boy’s hand. The cook hangin’ from the tree branch, his face all pooched out.”
Carrie’s face did look as if it had spent the night in a pail of warm water.
“Pretty rough on you.”
“You, too.”
Fletch said, “I’m still not sufficiently sure of anything. Maybe it’s the bangs on the head I got. I still don’t know why all this has happened, or what, if anything, to do about it.”
She said, “I won’t really know what I saw and heard until I know if Jack is really your son. Does that make sense?”
Fletch hesitated.
“I mean,” she said, “if Jack is your son, what is he doing with these people? Whoever he is, why did he lead us into this putrid mess?”
“Isn’t that what kids do? I’ve heard something like that, from parents.” Fletch picked up the phone. “I’ve got to call the sheriff’s department.”
“I wish I could call Francie,” Carrie said. “Guess I’ll have to wait.”
“Maybe forever,” Fletch said.
“AETNA? HOW COME you’re workin’ Sunday morning? The choir can’t do without you.”
“Hydy, Mister Fletcher. Everybody else seems just plumb wore out, after all this excitement about those escaped convicts, and all. Haven’t heard gurgle or burp from the sheriff since sometime yesterday. He could be dead, for all I know.”
Fletch neither confirmed nor denied.
“Say, Aetna, we have a dead body out here in the gully.”
Carrie’s eyes popped.
“You don’t say.”
“I do. He’s been there all day yesterday, from the looks of him. His body is all swollen up. He’s popped his shirt buttons and split the zipper on his jeans.”
Across the room, Carrie wrinkled her face and said, “Oouu…”
“Do you suppose it’s anyone we know, Fletch?”
“It’s a good bet it’s one of those escaped convicts you all have been lookin’ high and low for.”
“The sheriff will be glad to hear that. The boys are sort of disappointed they didn’t catch a single one. I’ll call him before he gets dressed. He might want to run out and take a look before church.”
“You do that.”
“Is Carrie within hailin’ distance?”
“She’s right here.”
“Let me speak to her, will you? I got that recipe for firecracker cake from Angie Kelly I know Carrie wants real bad…”
Handing over the mouthpiece, Fletch said to Carrie, “Aetna wants to talk to you. Firecracker cake.”
“Oh, good!” Carrie crossed the study and took the phone receiver. “Ha, Aetna, how’re you this mornin’?”
Going upstairs to dress to go to Chicago, Fletch muttered, “God! We’ll never get rid of that damned body!”
21
“M
Commandant Wolfe looked down at the map. “Miami?”
“Miami!” Jack said. “Phew!”
As Tracy looked down at the map, his face glowed.
Shortly after three o’clock Sunday afternoon, only the four stood around the cabin’s table.
They were meeting later than planned.
Jack had awoken in time to set up the sound system for The Reverend Kriegel’s religious service, prayer meeting, sermon, harangue, newly scheduled for eleven o’clock.
As Jack put together the sound system, he saw the burial brigade, seven men with long-handled shovels, return from the woods. They stood around him drinking water from the cabin’s garden hose. He understood from the thirsty men they had dug one very big hole. They had dropped the hanged cook and the unexamined corpse of Joseph Rogers into the same hole with the shot and shredded remains of the bull calf.
The Reverend Kriegel then had said a few words over the grave. To the men’s amusement, he commented on the appropriateness of “burying the cook cheek to jowl with roasted beef.”
Before Kriegel’s eleven o’clock service, Jack again played martial music over the sound system, as Kriegel had ordered. After their party the night before, the members of The Tribe were bleary-eyed and listless as they gathered for the sermon.
Each holding a Bible, Commandants Wolfe and Kriegel sat on camp chairs on the porch.
Looking angelic, his eyes raised to the flag, Tracy introduced “our fuhrer, The Reverend Doctor Commandant Kris Kriegel, whom lately God has released from the talons of the Zionist government.”
The congregation sitting on the ground muttered, “Heil.” A few raised their right hands to chest level.
“That government,” Kriegel began without preamble, “which has committed treason against every true white citizen of these great United States.”
“White rights,” the congregation rumbled.
“Today,” Kriegel announced, “we are witnessing the beginnings of a great, new, worldwide revolution. Some might call it the reemergence of nationalism. It is the revolution of The Tribes! We all shall rise and do glorious battle against each other! I tell you, my brothers, we must be ready to rise as a white nation! As every tribe, as every nation in this world is now doing, so must we purify ourselves, cleanse ourselves ethnically, rid ourselves of everyone who is not one of us!”
At the electronic console, Jack inserted earplugs before putting on his earphones.
Then he fiddled with some of the dials.
To his regret, it was a very pregnant woman who began vomiting first, then two children.
Very shortly, though, the men, all revelers the night before, were on their knees, puking on the ground. They
