Kearney pushed on. “Mr. Mellis wanted to be let through to talk to you people. I told him that no one gets through, so he went over my head and talked to the marshals, and they said no too. Then a TV crew got Mr. Mellis on camera, standing in front of the bridge, and he told them what had just happened and how he was being treated unfair, and that’s when things really started to get ugly. That’s when people started to yell.”
Perkins pointed and said, “There’s Belcher.”
Blood looked. Deke was standing near the front of the bridge, grinning wide and adding his hand to the support of a crude cardboard sign that read FEDERAL BUREAU OF INFIDELS.
Blood turned back to find Banish frowning, probably at him. Kearney pushed on, doing his level best, pursuing whatever it was that he was pursuing.
“The thing is, sir, Mr. Mellis knows Glenn Ables. He says that maybe he can get through to him.”
Banish dismissed it with a single shake of his head.
“But he says Ables will listen to him. Maybe if they could get to talking, it might ease some things—”
Perkins said, “People always inflate relationships with a hostage-taker during a crisis. Hero mentality.”
“But aren’t the hostages really only Ables’s family?”
Banish shook his head. “No one crosses the police line.”
But rookie Kearney wouldn’t let go. “I understand that, sir,” he said, “but it’s the man’s son up there. All he wants to do is just talk to someone to find out if his family is all right.”
Banish looked hard at Kearney. “No one crosses the police line. Especially family members. Is that clear enough?”
Another egg fell nearby. Banish turned and regarded it with some interest. The yolk spread lazily out of its shell and oozed onto the dirt. He seemed to discover the hate literature in his hand then, and pawned the pamphlets off on Perkins. He looked over at Blood.
“This appears to be a riot,” Banish said. “You are the sheriff in this county, aren’t you?”
“Thought I was here as an observer,” Blood said. “A volunteer, I think was how you put it.”
Banish nodded. “I’m wondering why you’re here, too,” he said. “What’s your read on the character of this crowd?”
Blood did not turn back to look. “It’s a pretty good cross section, I’d say. We run the gamut up here. These would be resisters, protesters, evaders, constitutionalists, survivalists, separatists. Or do you want me to be more specific?”
Banish didn’t say no.
“Home schoolers, tax protesters, old hippies, conspiracy buffs, Vietnam veterans, religious fanatics, radical environmentalists, outlaws, Christian Patriots, assorted mystics and so-called doom sayers white supremacists, and sure, probably some people from White Aryan Resistance. Some skinhead members of The Truth as well. Did I leave anybody out, Brian?”
Kearney said, “I sure hope not.”
Blood said, “A pretty good patchwork of angry special interests. All except for one unifying principle.”
Banish said, “Not Glenn Alien Ables.”
Blood nodded at that. “Their hatred and distrust of the federal government. Most of them, the locals anyway, that’s why they live where they do. Instead of, say, a mining community, this here might be considered a protest community. That’s why they’re taking this whole thing so personal.”
Banish stood there inspecting him, clearly deliberating something. Then he nodded. “All right, Sheriff,” he said. “I’m putting you in charge down here, because I don’t have another man to spare. I want a local face of authority dealing with these people. I need you to monitor protests and media reports, collect newspapers and all circulated literature, and report twice a day directly to me.”
Blood looked at him. “That sounds like quite an honor,” he said.
Kearney said, “I’ll do it.”
Banish said, “It’s an important job. If you can’t handle it, you will be replaced.”
Blood nodded. “I had a paper route once,” he said. “I guess I’m qualified.”
Kearney said, “What do you need me to do, sir?”
Banish seemed to really notice him only then, and made as though he was giving him some serious thought. He asked him his name and Kearney gave it to him. “I want you to help the sheriff and the marshals here with security,” Banish told him. “So that absolutely no one crosses the line. That is of primary importance. I need a liaison to the front here and you two are it.”
Kearney said, “Yes, sir,” with all the willingness of a good soldier.
Now it was Blood’s turn to shake his head. He couldn’t help but grin, what with the foolishness going on here amid the chaos all around them.
Banish said, “Something funny, Sheriff?”
“No,” Blood said. “I just like watching you boys work.” But he couldn’t push it too far. Banish was an animal that could turn on him.
Perkins was staring and thinking. “We could try moving back the roadblock,” he said.
Banish shook his head. “Too late for that.”
Then the crowd was surging again beyond the creek, tangling and pulling like human taffy being made. It swelled dangerously, then crested back, and in the give-and-take an older woman was ungracefully bumped to the ground. She was clearly somebody’s grandmother, wearing as she did a blouse and pink polyester slacks and a mop of tightly curled white hair, getting to her hands and knees on the dirt road before the bridge.
She was helped back up by the concerned people on either side of her. Something she had been holding had fallen to the floor of the iron bridge and now she was giving the business to the nearest marshal. He seemed to be offering to retrieve it for her but she was refusing, or insisting in — any case, she was bickering to be let through. Then suddenly the crowd that had knocked her over threw its full support behind her. She brushed off her short coat and motioned over to where Blood and the other three were standing, and the mob rallied loudly behind. This grandmother was a tiger. You had to feel something for the bridge marshal as he turned and looked helplessly back toward them for help.
Blood saw Banish eyeing the scene and frowning bitterly. He clearly wanted to stall things out but the crowd would not quit, their ranting jeers increasing in decibels like a thunderstorm coming over the mountains, until it seemed as though things were just about to break completely out of control. Banish said to Perkins then, under his breath, “Let her through.”
Perkins motioned to the marshal. An unforgiving cheer rose from the crowd as the marshal helped her duck under the yellow web of police ribbon and onto the checkpoint bridge. He inspected the package she had dropped, then returned it to her with a polite nod. She thanked him and crossed the iron bridge with an air of pride and determination, like a spy being exchanged between countries, and the crowd behind grew quiet, hanging on the imminent encounter.
She stepped past Blood to get to Perkins, who she assumed was in charge. Banish had moved off to the side. She held in her hands a blue Tupperware bowl covered with tinfoil. The woman peeled back the wrap and revealed a batch of homemade brownies, which she then kindly presented to Perkins.
“I just wanted you to know,” she said, “a lot of us Montanans here are behind you boys one hundred percent.”
Perkins tried not to look too surprised as he accepted the gift of fresh-baked goods. “Well, that’s much appreciated, ma’am,” he said.
The grandmother smiled and nodded to the rest of them, then returned to the bridge. The crowd hooted and hollered and a few more eggs were launched. They had been betrayed. In their rush to power they had nominated a representative from the opposing party.