socialize a little. Even with those idiots, it would be an improvement.”
“Sure, you can try, but he won’t go.”
“You forget where my skill set lies. If I can get college students out to the polls, you’d better be damn sure I can get my brother to walk into the backyard.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so.” He leaned a little out the window, and I kissed him on the mouth. Then he reversed out of the driveway and spun out onto the road, disappearing past the trees in a blue-gray haze of burning oil.
Another week passed before the gun club met again, and Dodge managed to hassle Cade into coming along. Cade was already in a bad mood. The ten resumes he had sent to various offices in D.C. two weeks before had resulted in no phone calls at all, and what was worse, the news had gotten back to him that Drew Fielder had taken a permanent position on Mark Bylina’s staff. The previous night Cade had been downright morose. He had drunk an entire six-pack of beer in front of the TV, slept for two hours and then was up half the night cursing at the clothes dryer he had suddenly decided to repair. He had looked like death when he woke up at four-thirty in the morning, but that afternoon he returned from work in the chipper mood I recognized from his days of campaign volunteering. It was one-dimensional and deceptively shallow, but he could muscle through a bad day with a smile on his face as long as he kept moving.
As Dodge packed his cooler and ammo into the truck, Cade approached Elias and nudged his shoulder. “Hey,” he said good-naturedly. “C’mon. Don’t make me do this on my own.”
Elias looked at his brother over his shoulder, barely raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think so.”
“Just this once. I don’t want it to just be me and those dipshits.”
“Jill’s going.”
“Yeah, but they’ll leave her alone. I’m the one they’ll be giving all the shit to.” He barraged the back of Elias’s shoulder with pokes of his index fingers. “
Elias sighed heavily and stood up, and Cade clapped him on the back. As he headed out the door behind Cade, I felt impressed with Cade’s work. Maybe he was right about his brother after all; maybe Elias just needed more encouragement.
Dodge drove his truck up the slim dirt road that snaked into the woods, but the rest of us walked. As I followed Cade and Elias up the trail I saw the trees clear into an opening that revealed the closest thing to a party I had seen since my arrival. An ancient boom box blasted an ’80s heavy-metal sound track; the fresh piney air carried the smoke from the grill, filling the clearing with the scent of hamburgers. On a series of tree stumps surrounding an ashy fire pit, the men of the club sat drinking beer from bottles shiny with condensation. As they drank they chatted and cleaned their guns with loving care.
“Your old hangout,” Dodge announced to Cade and Elias, climbing out of the cab of his truck. “You know you missed it.”
Elias looked over the scene before him. “Not really.”
Dodge chucked the package of paper targets onto a fallen log. Cade reached into a cooler and retrieved two beers, offering one to Elias, who held up his hand to decline it. Even Candy had come along; she stood at a card table removing sheets of plastic wrap from bowls of pasta and potato salad, scooping a spoon down into each one. Scooter looked expectant, standing on the sidelines squinting at us through his little glasses, arms crossed over his chest, displaying the oversize tattoo winding around his biceps. Beside him squatted Matthew, balancing his small weight against the butt of his rifle pressed against the ground. He had received the gun for his eighth birthday, Candy had told me, and he often shot birds and squirrels with it in the woods behind the house. According to Candy he did this only with Dodge’s supervision, but that seemed to be a flexible rule. He wore it slung on his back at every opportunity, regardless of whether his father was home.
The other men moved easily around the space, but Elias stood more or less where Cade had left him, holding the uncomfortable posture of a new kid approaching the high school cafeteria. I got him a cheeseburger from the grill and carried it over, offering it to him on a paper plate with a flourish and a friendly smile.
“Keep it for now,” he said. He looked around the perimeter of the clearing, eyes steady. “Know what, I don’t think this was a great idea. Why don’t you walk me back to the house.”
“No, you don’t,” called Dodge. “It’s a beautiful day and we’re about to get started. Leave now and you’ll miss all the fun.”
Somebody pulled back the slide on a handgun, and at the click of it Elias shook his head. “No. I don’t like this.”
“I’ll walk him back,” I called over to Dodge. “It’s not a problem.”
Cade planted a foot against the fallen log beside him. “Come over here and sit down, Eli. I’ll hang out with you until my turn comes up.”
Elias looked at Cade’s earnest face, then at the log, and brushed past me to where his brother stood. He eased himself down beside Cade, but at the metallic clunk of a magazine being locked into a rifle his arms twitched, and I watched as he pushed a hand back across his hair to make the sudden jerk of his muscles look natural.
Dodge was standing at one of the wooden posts wedged into the dirt, unwrapping the pack of targets. I sidled up to him, turning my back to Elias and Cade. “Hey, I think Elias ought to go home,” I said. “I think he’s too nervous for this.”
He picked up his staple gun and glanced at me as he fastened a target against a post. “I think he can be the judge of his own self. How about you stick to cutting the balls off the poultry and let Elias keep his for the time being.”
I breathed in deeply through my nose, not eager to create a scene that would make it obvious to Elias that I had been talking about him. As I retreated toward the grill, Dodge barked, “Jill. Cade. You two get to go first.”
He handed a .22 to me and another to Cade, then rattled off a list of rules that appeared to be for Matthew’s benefit. When I racked my rifle, Cade snickered and shook his head. “I’m so screwed,” he said. “You’re probably a hundred times better than me at this.”
“Probably.”
He grinned, and I focused on the target and sighted in. Candy laughed and said, “A pregnant lady shooting a rifle. If that isn’t the doggone funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Dodge gave the signal, and we both fired. When I glanced over at Elias his shoulders had relaxed, and he watched us with more engagement in his eyes than I had ever seen when he sat in front of the television.
“I try.”
“I had no idea they’d trained you so well at militia camp.”
“It’s not militia camp, it’s homesteading camp.”
“Or so Dave claims. Looks to me like—”
A loud cry from Matthew snapped my attention to the sidelines. As I lowered the rifle I saw the boy hurrying toward his father with his arms extended, a black plastic zip tie tight around his wrists. “Now, what in the hell did you do to yourself?” demanded Dodge.
“I was just playing. I pulled it with my mouth.”
“Well, that’s not a good way to play, is it?”
He whipped out his buck knife from its case on his belt and set to work trying to convince his son that he wouldn’t cut off his hand at the wrist in the process of removing the tie. I rolled my eyes and unloaded my rifle. Beside me, Cade grinned and did the same. “Game over,” he said, and only then did I focus past the tussle between Matthew and Dodge to see Elias doubled over behind them. Candy was rubbing his back, her long hair falling forward as she leaned down to talk to him.
“Hey, I think Elias is sick,” I said.
I hung back while Cade rushed over. Even from a distance I could hear Elias’s gasping, stilted breathing, see him nodding rapidly at the soft things his siblings said to him. Sweat trickled down his temples in slow, broad droplets. “Matthew’s fine,” Cade was assuring him. “It wasn’t even all that tight.”
“I know. I know.”
“So don’t worry about it. Just breathe.”
