“You’re a good guy, Kevin.” She kissed her finger and pressed it into the middle of his forehead.
He took a deep breath and then blew it out through puffed cheeks as she pulled away. He let her hand slip through his.
“Man, you’ve got it all figured out.”
She laughed. “Oh sure. That’s me.”
Hunter scooped up her bag and then paused with her hand on the door knob. She returned to the nightstand and lifted Kevin’s gun belt. Underneath it lay a postcard she’d bought on her first day in town featuring a picture of maple trees being tapped. It was already filled out with a mailing address and a stamp she’d stolen from Kevin’s desk drawer at the police station.
Kevin watched her.
“I thought for a second there you’d changed your mind.”
She shook her head. “Tell Janice I said good-bye. Tell her she was the best damn barista I’ve ever known.”
He snorted a laugh. “Yeah, yeah.”
Bag in one hand and postcard in the other, Hunter left. She walked to the motel office and dropped the postcard in the outgoing mail before hopping in her car and pointing south.
Chapter Nineteen
Seven a.m. came and went as Frank watched restless protesters rise, wave and crouch their way through mock march-ins and sit-downs. By eight, a full party had broken out. Children played tag, Clubsoda touched up his posters, militia men marched and Foliage demonstrated how to squat in such a way you couldn’t be moved.
At first, no one noticed the single bulldozer, silhouetted by the morning sun, rising into view like a mechanical dinosaur. It crept closer to the field, belching smoke, until a child running too far from the group spotted the cigar-chomping driver and a suited man hanging from the cabin. She ran back to alert the group, screaming as if she’d spotted a killer clown.
Frank stretched his back, heard his spine crack with the effort, and made a mental note to never, never, ever sleep anywhere but in his own bed again. He watched the child running toward the group, waving her hands above her head and screaming words he couldn’t make out.
“Here we go.”
A bulldozer chugged over the horizon and stopped short of the bomb fence surrounding the tomato field. A man wearing a suit raised his bullhorn, one newer and shinier than Foliage’s.
“You, people! Disperse! This is private land!”
Frisbee and paddleball games ceased as the party’s attention swiveled to the mechanical yellow monster lurking at the far edge of the field.
“Raise your posters!” screamed Foliage.
The crowd scrambled for their protesting accoutrements. Someone starting singing ‘My Country ‘tis of Thee.’
Mac, Frank, Bob, Tommy and Declan made their way to the far bomb fence, Tommy filming the entire scene from behind his iPhone.
“This is all a little dramatic for one of your films, isn’t it?” Bob asked him. “And doesn’t everyone have to be naked?”
Tommy shrugged. “I’m growing as an artist.”
Declan scowled. “Did you say naked?”
Mac cleared his throat and called out over the steady rumble of the bulldozer. “You move another inch and you’ll go up in a cloud of fine powder, buddy!”
Frank recognized the suited man as the one who’d visited them in the bar the night before. He cupped his hands around his mouth to make himself a homemade bullhorn.
“I’ve put in a call to a judge. You’re going to have to cease and desist,” he yelled over the din of the machine.
“You have papers?” asked the suited man through his much louder bullhorn.
Frank frowned and dropped his hands from his mouth.
Showoff.
Tommy lowered his camera and motioned at the bulldozer. “Can you turn off that thing? It’s messing with the dialogue.”
The man said something to his driver and the bulldozer’s engine cut. He dropped off the cabin and walked toward the men, pointing at Tommy.
“Your chin is still red,” he said.
Tommy raised his phone to cover his chin.
Frank cleared his throat. “Look. The injunction isn’t here yet but—”
Foliage appeared at Frank’s elbow with his own ancient bullhorn pointed at the suited man.
“Hell no, we won’t go! Hell no, we won’t—”
Wincing, Frank snatched the bullhorn from him.
“Are you out of your mind?”
He pushed it against Foliage’s chest and readdressed the suited man.
“Look, mister, this is the Tomato King’s land. He hasn’t even been dead a month. His widow is still in shock. Let’s work something out.”
Behind him, ‘Give Peace a Chance’ surged forth from the crowd camped in T.K.’s back yard.
The suited man strolled to one of the dummy bombs lining the field. He ran his hand over their yellow-grey surface and rapped them with his knuckle. He looked at Frank with a smug smile.
“I’m afraid you don’t know who you’re dealing with here, gentlemen.” He stepped back and upgraded his smug smirk to an evil grin. “My name’s Andrew Hepper, and my father was a Major on this base. I know dummy bombs when I see one.”
The jaws of all four Gophers fell slack.
“Little Andy?” said Mac holding out a flat hand, hip-high, to show Andrew Hepper’s height the last time he’d seen him.
“A little jerk, just like your father,” grumbled Bob.
Andrew Hepper straightened. “My father was a great man.”
The Gophers burst into laughter.
“I’ve seen your dad naked more times than I’ve seen my mailman naked,” said Tommy.
Declan’s gaze snapped to Frank. “He sees his mailman naked?”
Frank waved away his question. “Long story. Later.”
Andrew looked as confused as Declan. “What are you talking about?”
Mac waved his open palms like slow-motion jazz hands. “Your father and his secretary taught me everything I know about sex. Which, I have to tell you, has caused me more than a little trouble with the ladies over the years.
