Beyond Ables, the earth was rumbling, shouts and trampling footsteps approaching fast. Banish first saw the tops of heads, then bodies filling in around the vehicles, advancing upon the scene. The protesters had somehow broken free. They had rushed all the way up the new road and hundreds were now charging onto the mountaintop. If they overran the cabin, they would easily obscure Ables. Some of the nearby agents stepped back, greatly outnumbered, guns aimed. There was going to be shooting. Ables’s face showed that he knew exactly what was going on behind him and he grinned cockily. This was his dream fulfilled.
A body moved at the top of the road facing the stampeding crowd. It was Blood. He stopped in front of them and fired a single shotgun blast into the air, then recocked the weapon and aimed it at the mob, halting them all. The lead protesters stopped fast, others piling up quickly behind. “Not one more foot,” Blood announced. They stood there breathing heavily, pressing against one another, stunned, looking at the local sheriff standing up to them and beyond him to all the armed agents and Banish, and the figure standing there in the skirt and wig.
Ables realized what had happened behind him and his confidence failed. “Back off, all of you!” he shouted to the agents. “I’ll kill the FBI man!”
Not one man moved.
“Get back!” he shouted. “I’ll do it!”
No one retreated. Barely any motion from any of the men. Only Fagin moved. He started over toward Ables, in plain view from the right. His gun was up and aimed and obvious.
Ables saw him coming peripherally, and surely saw his black skin. “I’ll kill him!” Ables shouted, eyes on Banish. “I ain’t afraid to die!”
Fagin kept coming. Ables’s eyes darted from Fagin to Banish and quickly back and forth again. But Fagin just kept coming. Ables’s gun hand shook. His eyes twisted around and saw Fagin’s gun nearing his head. “I ain’t afraid to die!” he said.
Fagin stopped next to him, arm outstretched, his gun muzzle not six inches away from Ables’s left ear. “Here’s your big chance, then,” he said.
Ables’s face was a wide-open display of desperation. His eyebrows ran high as though trying to pull his head back from the muzzle. The .45 shook in his hand but stayed up.
Banish lowered his gun and tucked it loosely into his belt, then started forward.
Ables’s head turned just a little. His face could not comprehend what was happening as Banish approached him unarmed. The .45 remained high.
“After all your talk,” Banish said to him, halfway there.
Ables’s face clouded over in anger. “Son of a bitch,” he said, reasserting the .45.
Banish came closer until he was standing right in front of Ables, the muzzle of the .45 leveled flush at his heart. He watched Ables’s face under the dark wig, shaded with ash, small and weak-featured, and popping, and seething, and pathetic. He saw the flames reflected in his small black eyes. He saw the man standing there behind the gun. Behind all the rhetoric and the hatred, a small, pitiful man. In over his head and too blind to see it until just that moment. All the trouble he had caused, and all it had cost him.
Banish reached out and pushed Ables’s .45 away and stepped up to him. Ables was breathing fast. He was staring at Banish. Banish felt nothing for him. All the time and money spent, the man-hours, the equipment. Everything Banish and his men had gone through to arrive at this triumphant moment of surrender, to deliver this man from his home. “This is all it comes to,” Banish said. Fagin came around Ables and relieved him of the .45, ripping off his sling and pulling both his arms behind him. Ables grunted in pain. He twisted his head around to see the black-skinned man taking him into custody.
Banish turned Ables around to face the mob. He saw Deke Belcher pushing his way to the front of the crowd there. He saw Kearney standing next to Blood.
Banish pulled off Ables’s wig and tossed it to the ground. He could feel the spirit of the mob, palpably, its cresting triumph dying suddenly there in front of him like a ghost slipping free of a corpse. Here was their savior before them, revealed. Here was their tarnished soul.
Sheriff Blood turned back from the stilled crowd. They were mere bystanders now, as though snapped out of a trance and happening upon this strange scene. Blood came up in front of Ables and took a piece of paper out of his coat pocket. He pressed it to Ables’s thin chest.
“Served,” Blood said. “Notice of eviction.”
Fagin had handcuffs out and was snapping them tight around Ables’s wrists. “You have the right to remain silent,” he began loudly, adding under his breath, “you fuck.”
Banish stepped forward then. He felt a sad sense of piety looking out over the mob. There was no glory here. He eyed the thick stream of bodies stretching down the freshly cut road. “Go on home,” he told them. “Get out of here, all of you. It’s over.”
A lilting silence. Failure brought to the mob a small, ringing moment of true peace. Then the people in front started, reacting suddenly, buzzing again and looking to their left, Banish’s right. He turned. A figure was emerging from the woods. It was Rebecca, the fourteen-year-old daughter. She held the infant Amos in one arm, a .38 in the other. Marshals and agents were backing cautiously out of the way. She saw her father standing there in a skirt and handcuffs and was moving toward him, aiming mainly at Banish.
Banish held his open hands out toward her. “No,” he said. He said it simply, extending his arms, trying to stop her with sheer will. “No,” he said. “Don’t do this.”
The marshals were all backing off, giving her a wide berth as she walked with the baby and the gun from the trees in toward the burning cabin. The girl was crying. Tears rolled in two clean streaks down her face. She wore a plain, frayed cotton dress and sandals with broken straps.
“Let him go,” she said.
Banish moved between her and her father. His arms were out. “Don’t do this to me,” he said.
“Becca—” said Ables behind him, followed by a grunting noise, Fagin shutting him up.
Tears rolled liberally down the girl’s face. “Let my daddy go!” she screamed, the gun shaking.
She stopped a few yards in front of Banish. The baby was waking in her other arm. Marshals moved in slowly around her.
“No, no, no,” said Banish. His arms were out and he was simultaneously holding off the marshals and pleading with the girl. “No,” he said, trying to stop time, trying to hold everything.
The marshals slowed, remaining close. Banish slipped his gun out of his belt and tossed it away. He started forward toward her. He was shaking his head. If he could not talk her down, he would jump her himself. She was aiming fully at him now.
“Give me the gun,” he said. He reached one open hand out to her. “Give me the gun. It’s all over.”
She shook her head wildly. “You let him go!”
Banish moved again closer. His hands were out in front of him. He was pleading. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Give me the gun.” He was walking forward, close to her. He was shaking his head sadly. “It’s all over now,” he said. “It’s over. It’s over.”
The corners of her eyes crinkled, then fresh tears squeezed out. One lip came up to comfort the other. The siege had taken its toll. He saw now that she was looking at her father standing there in custody. She was fighting reason. She shuddered twice, two small, silent sobs. A revolution going on within her. The baby boy, Amos, held in a sitting position, looked blankly at Banish.
“It’s over now,” Banish said. He was getting through to her. Her lower lip quivered as her face crumbled inward. The baby and the gun both heavy. She was fighting hard to hold her composure. He was convincing her. She was only fourteen years old.