entranceway and at the windows, staring at something outside.
A woman shouted,
Being of diminutive stature occasionally has it advantages. I was able to slip, sidle, and squeeze through the clot of people in the entranceway and make my way out to the porch, where I maneuvered around more people until I was able to claim a spot at the railing.
The screech of tires I'd heard had, I assumed, come from the Jeep Wagoneer that was now resting half up over the curb with its nose on the sidewalk at about the spot where the three men from the Community of Conciliation had been passing out their fliers. One of the blue-shirted Community members was sitting on the ground, ashen-faced and stunned, his fliers scattered around him. The other two men were trying unsuccessfully to hold their ground against a heavyset man, presumably the driver of the wayward Jeep, who kept advancing on them, bumping first one Community member and then the other with his barrel chest as he snatched at the fliers in their hands. The big man wore camouflage fatigues and a khaki tank top. He wore his blond hair cut very short on the top and shaved on the sides. I decided he was too young, probably in his early twenties, to be a veteran of anything more serious than Grenada. Except for the black sneakers he wore, and the fact that MPs and commanding officers take a very dim view of servicemen driving up on sidewalks and bullying civilians, he looked as if he might have just stepped out of a Marine barracks or boot camp.
A woman from the Community of Conciliation had joined the group since I'd come in. She was now standing by herself on the other side of the sidewalk bisected by the nose of the Jeep, her back straight, head high, and chin thrust out as she held aloft a neatly lettered cardboard sign stapled to a wooden stick. Whatever message the three men had been trying to convey with their fliers, there was nothing subtle about the message on the woman's sign. It read: STOP THE DEATH SQUAD.
There was something vaguely familiar about the woman, and I moved a few steps to my left in an effort to get a better angle of her face. She was tall and slender in her jeans and blue T-shirt that outlined small but firm breasts. I put her in her mid-forties. She wore steel-rimmed glasses that glinted in the light from the streetlamps, which had just come on. The most striking feature about her was her long hair, a light blond that was almost white, dramatically streaked with gray and hanging almost to the small of her back. The hands that clutched the wooden stick seemed too large for the rest of her frame, with the nails unpolished and cut very short.
They were hands I'd seen before playing an acoustic guitar as well as or better than any of her equally famous contemporaries as she'd sung her protest songs in a dulcet, achingly beautiful soprano.
Shades of the 1960s: antiwar protests, sit-ins, civil rights marches, Pete Seeger, Harry Peal, Judy Collins, Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Baez. The middle-aged woman standing on the sidewalk, defiantly holding up her sign, was none other than Mary Tree, one time 'Queen of Folk,' and my brother Garth's all-time secret heartthrob for more than twenty-five years. Although Garth had always disagreed with her pacifism, and a good deal of her politics, he'd bought every one of her records as soon as they were released, and had attended all of her concerts throughout the sixties and seventies whenever she appeared in the New York area. Then the war ended, the 'Me Generation' blossomed into adolescence and adulthood wearing hundred-dollar sneakers and pushing five-hundred- dollar baby carriages, and Mary Tree's popularity faded like Puff the Magic Dragon, along with most of the protest movements of which she had been such an integral part. Her concerts became rarer, in smaller and smaller arenas. The woman who had once been able to sell out Madison Square Garden ended in tiny coffeehouses similar to the ones in which she had begun her career. And then she disappeared from public view altogether, and no more records were released. Garth was heartbroken, and he finally got around to transferring all of her records to tape about one playing or two before the needle on his record player would have broken through the vinyl. We both wondered what had happened to her. Now I knew; she'd apparently been living in Cairn, working with the Community of Conciliation.
It appeared that Mary Tree was about to have her commitment to pacifism sorely tested.
The burly young man with the thick chest and potbelly had tired of bumping the two standing Community members around, had finally snatched their fliers out of their hands and shoved both of them to the ground, where they sat, hands to their faces as if to ward off blows. But their tormentor had lost interest in them and was stalking back across the lawn toward Mary Tree.
I glanced to my right, up the street toward the town's business district, expecting-hoping-to see an approaching police car. The street was empty.
To my left, Jack Trex had pushed his way out onto the porch and was about to go down the steps when Elysius Culhane caught up with him, grabbed his arm, and went up on his toes in order to whisper something in the veteran's ear. Trex angrily shook his head, and Culhane whispered some more. Trex appeared to hesitate, then abruptly pivoted on his undamaged right leg and pushed his way back into the house. Aside from the few people acting as an impromptu cheering section, it didn't look like anybody in the house or on the porch was inclined to do anything but watch.
The man in the camouflage fatigues and khaki tank top had reached Mary Tree and was crowding her. He stuck his flushed face close to hers and shouted obscenities. Mary Tree's response was to stand her ground and hold her sign even higher.
Suddenly the man stepped back three paces, did a little hop, then abruptly spun clockwise and leaped into the air. His right leg shot out, and he executed a near-perfect roundhouse high kick. The side of his foot caught the stick Mary Tree was holding at just the right point, with just the right velocity, snapping it cleanly an inch or two below the cardboard sign, which went flying through the air to land on the lawn about twenty feet in front of me.
The high aerial kick and clean breaking of the stick was an expert move, very difficult to do, and definitely not the kind of martial arts maneuver you expect to see executed by a heavy man with a gut. The young man had surprising speed and advanced expertise in either karate or tai kwan do. That made him a dangerous man-not only a loose cannon but a loaded one.
After her initial startled reaction, Mary Tree glared into the man's face, then turned and marched up the lawn. She threw aside the stick, then bent over to retrieve the sign. But the man was there a step ahead of her, and he'd planted his foot on the sign. When Mary Tree gripped the edge of the cardboard with both hands and tried to free it, the man shoved her shoulder with his stomach, pushing her to the ground and knocking her glasses askew. As she straightened her glasses and tried to get up, the man moved forward and planted his legs on either side of her body, forcing her down onto her back. Then, still straddling her, the man grabbed his crotch and began to grind his hips in her face, all the while continuing to scream obscenities. Mary Tree crabbed backward, trying to get out from between the man's legs, but he kept shuffling forward.
There was still no sign of the police and no indication that anyone else intended to do anything.
Ah, well; as it was, Garth was going to be very displeased with me for playing spectator for so long. I vaulted over the railing onto the lawn, strode forward, and picked up the picket stake Mary Tree had discarded.
'I think you've made your point, pal,' I said to the man's back, and then goosed him hard with the jagged end of the stick.
He whooped and went about three feet straight up into the air, releasing his crotch and grabbing with both hands at his insulted anus. He landed and wheeled around to see whence had cometh his discomfort. I didn't like what I saw at all. The young man's eyes, one of which was slightly cast, were the color of milky green jade; I saw madness glittering there, along with murderous rage. His mouth was half open, revealing small, gapped teeth. He was alternately panting and growling like an animal.
He obviously hadn't enjoyed being goosed, and in a moment of absolute mental clarity, I understood that he intended, at the very least, to break things in me. This man with the milky green eyes and small teeth was definitely not a partner with whom I was going to spend a lot of time on the dance floor.
His right hand darted out and grabbed the end of the stick in my hands, and he yanked. I immediately released my grip so as not to be pulled to him, then ducked beneath a hard, straight side kick that would have bashed in my face and snapped my neck if it had landed. The man was definitely serious. The momentum of his kick carried him forward, and by the time he regained his balance, with his feet slightly apart, I was already behind him and launching my own aerial act. I sprang up and back, whipping my right foot up between his legs and burying the toe of my sneaker in his groin. I landed on my back on the grass, immediately kipped to my feet, and walked around to the front of the man to see what kind of damage I had done.
Not surprisingly, the young man's jade-colored eyes had gone wide with shock and pain. His face was almost the color of blood. His mouth opened in a wide O as he clutched his groin with intent, slowly sank to his knees, and
