The Flock

by James Robert Smith

  After securing the disk, he went back to his bedroom and began to assemble his clothes for the day. He picked out some denims and a white cotton shirt. It would be sufficient if he were going back out to Holcomb’s compound. He thought of the place sitting there, so close to Salutations, but so isolated from everything, all of that wilderness looming just beyond. Thinking of that, he got a pair of lightweight hiking boots out of the closet and drew some good thick socks out of the drawer. That would do it.

  Quickly, he went to his bathroom and took a hot shower. He didn’t linger, as he normally would on a Saturday morning, enjoying the warm water as it washed away the sweat and dirt of the previous hours. For now, all he wanted was to get clean and get out of the house and over to see Kate. In a few minutes he was done, had draped a towel around his hard waist, and was headed back to his bedroom.

  And, intent merely on getting out of the house, he did not see the men hiding just beyond the doorway, waiting for him to emerge. Ron walked out, turned toward the bedroom, and was knocked instantly to the floor by the power of a strong sap-carrying right at the base of his skull. He went down, the towel still tight around his waist, his cheek meeting with the hardwood floor. The breath whooshed out of his lungs in a prolonged oof.

  Before he could do much more than acknowledge that he’d been struck, Ron felt rough hands grip his wrists and peel him from the floor as two men stood him up, slamming him against the wall. Almost immediately, a fist plowed a vertical furrow into his stomach and he doubled, going down again, this time to his knees. He felt a couple of woody splinters driving into the flesh just at the top of his shins. “Oog,” he said.

  The men grasped him by the hair and pulled him up that way. His scalp screamed in agony. He almost forgot the pain in the back of his head, in his gut, and in his knees. And he did forget when one of his so far unseen assailants slapped him expertly across the front on his face, splitting both of his lips. Wincing, Ron could taste blood.

  “Don’t look at us, boy. Keep your eyes shut.”

  Ron did not have to be told again. He could feel what might have been a gun barrel stuck in the base of his throat.

  “Now, where is it?” The voice was calm, smooth.

  Ron swallowed. “Where is what?”

  The same hand slapped him across the lips again, and Ron tasted a new trickle of copper as the blood burst through his clenched teeth and onto his tongue. “We’re not here to play games, son. Just tell us where it is—keep your fucking eyes shut!—and you’ll live through this. Now,” a fist smashed against his right ear. “Where the fuck is it?”

  “I—” was all Ron said before he heard the intense crack of something wooden against what sounded to be something harder. He heard one of his attackers go down as the second released him, the object at his throat vanishing. He opened his eyes.

  And he watched as Mary Niccols released the short section of two-by-four she was holding so that she could punch a strange man solidly in the face. The blond crewcut invader tried to dodge the blow, but Mary’s work-hardened fist met him perfectly in the midst of his big nose and there was the unmistakable sound of cartilage snapping; Ron had heard it enough to know what it was. Broken-nose backpedaled, away from Mary, stumbling over his partner who was trying to rise, his brown-haired scalp ruddy with blood.

  “Assholes,” Mary screamed. Her right foot lashed out and caught the blond assailant full in the rectum. She knew that the man would be passing blood for at least a week. The guy finally did go down, but was up again, scrambling for the front door. His companion, who was a bit slower, due to having been bashed over the head with a two-by-four, found his own ass the target of a renewed and well-planted kick. He grunted once, fell forward and found himself outside as his companion led the way toward their automobile, a dark, late model sedan.

  The pair at last made some speed toward the car and climbed inside. Mary latched the front door behind them, and watched as the two cleared out, tires spinning in the sandy soil as they left. Mary waited only to see that they were leaving before going back to assure herself that Ron was not seriously injured.

  “You okay, Ron?” She reached out and put her hard hand on Riggs’ left shoulder.

  Ron ran his tongue across his front teeth. “Yeah. I guess.” He shook his head, damp hair dangling into his eyes.

  “You sure you’re okay? Looks like they smacked you around pretty good before I stopped them.” She patted Ron’s shoulder, reassuring him. “Who were they, anyway?”

  “Hell if I know.” He looked up, into Mary’s face for the first time. A feeling of guilt shuddered through him when he felt a surge of desire for her. “Did you get their tag?” he asked, doing a good job of ignoring the feeling.

  Mary shook her head. “No, man. I was worried about you. Just made sure they were running, is all.”

  “Jesus. What the hell is going on here?” Ron reached down and picked up the towel, covering himself. He turned away from Mary and took an uncertain step toward his bedroom.

  “Damn. There’s going to be a nasty bruise at the base of your skull.”

  Ron’s fingers traced over the lump there. “Bastards hit me with something when I came out of the bathroom. I didn’t even see them. Didn’t even hear them come in.”

  “Who were they?” Mary asked, following Ron. She watched her old boyfriend sit heavily on the side of his bed.

  “How the hell should I know? Two jerks hunting for something. They kept asking me where something was.”

  “I know. I heard that much while I was sneaking up behind them. Dumb bastards. What were they after? You must have some idea.”

  Looking up at Mary, Ron blinked, shook his head to clear it, to assure himself that he was okay. “Yeah, I know what they were after. I don’t know why they’re after it, but I know what it is. At least, I think I know what it is.” He paused, blinked again, and looked at Mary. “And what brought you here? You haven’t been down here in months. Not since I…” He let the statement trail off.

  “Well, if you didn’t live so far out in the boonies, I’d come around more often. But to answer your question, I heard about that reporter, Dodd. He’s dead, you know.”

  Sighing, Ron admitted it. “Yeah, I know.”

  “I tried to call you. About thirty minutes ago, but I couldn’t get an answer. So I figured I’d drive out and see you. I had to come out this way, anyhow. See some people about a problem gator up near Lake Caloosa.”

  “Couldn’t get an answer? I’ve been right here all morning.” Ron stood up and stepped over to the phone. “It’s dead,” he said, staring at it. “They cut the lines?” It had to have happened just after he’d talked to Kate.

  “What are you into, Ron? What do you know about this Dodd fellow getting killed?”

  “I don’t know anything about him getting killed. Jesus. All I did was take that disk from him. Damn.” He reached for a pair of briefs and put them on.

  “Thanks,” Mary said. “I was getting tired of looking at your bare ass.”

  “What the hell were you doing looking at my ass?”

  “Hey! I just saved your ass.”

  “Doesn’t give you the right to look at it.” He went for the pants, next, and pulled them on. “How does my face look?”

  “Looks like you been smoking firecrackers, is what it looks like.”

  Riggs felt at his lips, could tell that they were, indeed, swollen. “I guess I should feel lucky that’s all I have to worry about.” He looked Niccols in the eye. “Thanks, Mary. I owe you. You really kicked their butts.”

  “Don’t mention it. For now, at least. I’ll wait until I need a heavy-duty favor.” Niccols stood and waited while Ron finished dressing. “So. What are you gonna do, now? Go to the cops?”

  “Yeah, I am. But first I’m going to go see someone about what they were after.”

  “Who? Where?”

  “Gonna go see who’s home at the Vance Holcomb residence out past Salutations. See if I can’t get a certain young
lady out there to take a look at something.”

  “At what?” Mary asked.

  Ron strode over to his work desk, opened the top drawer, and pulled out the white envelope marked with the scrawled D. “At this,” he said.

  “Mind if I ride along?”

  “Hell, no,” Ron told her. “Way things have been going, I might need you either for backup or as a material witness.” He hiked up his jeans, wiped his lips with the damp towel. “You ready?”

  “Ready Eddie, they calls me.”

  The pair walked out, locking the place behind them.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Word had come by courier that William Davis Cauthen was on his way. It was important, it was big, and it was for Grisham’s eyes only. That meant that there would be no bull on the table when Senator Cauthen got there.

  Cauthen was a pal of Grisham’s from way back. From before Vietnam, from before he was so much as a captain in the Marines. They had both attended the Virginia Military Institute together as young men, and before that, they had known one another. Even their families went back several generations; their great-great grandfathers had conducted business together. That was the mark of something that went deeper than friendship. That was the mark of two true-blooded American families. They were both steeped in the South and bathed in loyalty. Each knew that the other’s word was steel. He looked forward to seeing Davis.

  So, when his friend, the esteemed state senator from the panhandle of Florida called him to say that something big was in the works, Colonel Winston Grisham, U.S. Marines (retired) listened. He had told his wife to have the cooks prepare an early supper for his friend’s arrival: a good, southern meal. Grisham was inspecting the kitchen, to see how things were going and what was being prepared. He stepped through the door that led from the parlor into the dining room, and the faint scents he had detected from the other side of the house were stronger.

  Collards, he thought. How he loved a good mess of collard greens. He straightened his shirt, tucked it neatly into his pants, his stomach still as flat and hard as it had been as a teen, and pushed on the lockless door that led into the kitchen. Wonderful smells surrounded him, and he smiled, his big grin cracking his weathered face.

  “I see you ladies are busy,” he said, surveying the action.

  “As long as you don’t get in our way.” It was his wife, and she was overseeing the activities, as usual. Mazie was still beautiful to him. Like the Colonel, she was lean and erect, only the crow’s-feet around her eyes, the whiteness of her hair proving that she was older than her figure would indicate. She could still fit into her wedding dress. Grisham knew, because he’d seen her in it not two months before. She’d been in the upper room, the main guestroom where she stored it, trying it on when he’d walked in. God, I’m a lucky man; he’d told her. Indeed he was.

  There were three other women with her, doing their best to attend to her instructions, and to keep up with her when she put her own hand to the task. All of the women were black, and all of them had been with the Grishams since they had bought the land and built the farm twenty years before. These women knew that the Colonel was called a racist by many. But he had never shown them anything but kindness, had even hired their young sons to work around his farm when he wasn’t being visited by the groups of stone-faced men who came to the farm from time to time to act like soldiers and troop out into the bush. Of course, none of the women had ever read Grisham’s mind. If so, then they would all surely leave at once and never return. His mask of kindness where they were concerned was merely that: a mask.

  Grisham breathed deep, sucking in the aromas. “Let me see,” he said, exhaling. “Collards, of course.” He sucked in again. “And sweet potatoes.” Again. “And okra, and squash. Fried squash.” Grisham stood on tiptoe to peer over his wife’s shoulder. “Fried chicken, of course,” he noted, watching as Mazie moved breasts and thighs, drumsticks and wings about a truly huge cast iron skillet full of hot oil and frying chicken. The batter was turning a golden brown. “What’s for dessert?”

  “Shoo! You get out of here, now.” Mazie had turned on him, handing the big two-tined fork over to Elaine, one of her cooks. The place usually needed all four of them at meal times, especially when Grisham was running one of his military camps or training sessions. Which he was doing more and more often of late. Even at that moment, the bunkhouses and the apartments over the barn were filled with the serious men who came to talk and prepare for a time when they thought they would be needed to save the nation. Mazie knew what was going on. “You’ll see what’s for dessert when it’s served this afternoon.” She prodded her muscular husband until he relented and backed out of the kitchen and returned to the dining room. “Now, get.” He let the door close in his face and he chuckled.

  That woman. How she can work those niggers.

  Slowly, savoring what remained of the cooking smells that clung to him, he went out of the dining room, through the parlor, and into the foyer. There, he stood and looked around him, at the antiques he’d carried from his father’s house to this one when he’d put up the farm more than two decades before. All of the furniture in that room had been in the Grisham family for generations. Some of it predated the War Between the States, in which his great grandfather had fought, in which his great uncles had all died, leaving the Grisham lands to the line that had culminated in Winston Grisham and his two sons.

  And then he frowned, his mood broken by the reminders.

  Both of his sons had been lost to him. One, Ronald, had rejected military life on so-called moral grounds, had even refused to join the Marines, and had spent his two years as a conscientious objector in the Coast Guard, of all places. But the worst of the two had been John, who was dead to him, if not in reality. Of course, he couldn’t know, for sure. He’d forbidden anyone in the house to ever speak John’s name, and he knew that there was no one with guts enough to break that particular taboo. Sometimes, Grisham did think of John, but he tried not to do it around Mazie, for she could see through his masks, could see exactly what was going on in his mind, sometimes. She would know if his thoughts ever turned toward memories of that traitorous, homosexual beast. Grisham rubbed his eyes, and John was gone again.

  Today, he was tired. He was tired because he’d spent most of the previous two weeks out in the country with his boys. This was a particularly gifted group. Most of them had been talented soldiers until they’d been discharged, all of them honorably, within the past few years. These were good, brave, focused men, who were not yet ready to retire their anger and their talents. Grisham gave such patriots a place to prepare for the coming struggle, which they all knew must come sooner or later. He hoped it would come soon, sometimes. For despite his daily workouts and the fact that he was in enviably fine condition for a man of his years, he was getting on and the day would arrive when he’d no longer be able to lead these young soldiers into the bush to train.

  Thinking of that, Grisham went through the wide foyer and out of the polished oak doors that led out to a covered porch that wrapped around the big farmhouse. He had planned and overseen the construction of every square inch of that porch. It was twenty feet wide, the roof twelve feet overhead, with silently, slowly spinning fans wafting air every eight feet the length of the porch. And there were oak rocking chairs all along the walls, thirty of them. He picked one out and sat down to relax and to think. It had been a long time—six months or more—since he’d seen his friend, Davis. It would be good to see him.

  In a moment, although he hadn’t asked anyone, a tall glass of iced tea appeared on the little table next to his rocking chair. He hadn’t even noticed exactly who had brought it, only that it had been one of the colored women. He picked up the glass, put it to his lips, and enjoyed the sweet taste and the cool drink as it trickled down his throat.

  And he waited for Davis.

  The Mercedes arrived just before three in the afternoon. Grisham had actually dozed as he’d sat and rocked, and had only noticed
when the big, white car had pulled up to the split rail fence at the edge of the lawn, about fifty feet away. Quickly, he stood, rod straight, and marched down the red brick stairs to meet his friend. He grinned in genuine pleasure as Davis Cauthen emerged.

  Cauthen was currently serving his fifth term of office in the Florida State Senate. For years he had fended off the badgering requests of hundreds of men, local fans to real shakers and movers, that he run for some national office. It wasn’t his style, he had told them. He did things best in the more informal state house, where he could get things done, where he could still have time for his family and his friends. Where he could still work the kinds of deals his father had worked, which his grandfather had worked, and at which even his great-great grandfather had already been adept those generations ago. His family had almost been original snakes in the grass. They were good at it.

  Grisham, standing at the foot of the steps, greeted his old friend. They looked almost to have been stamped from the same mold. Tall, lean, weathered, both men were in better shape than they had a right to expect to be. But of course they expected nothing less than everything they ever wanted. And both usually got it.

  “Davis, how are you doing?” The colonel’s arm was extended and he took his old friend’s hand and gripped it.

  “I’m fine, Win. You know, I think you must have the only three-mile long driveway in the state of Florida. And I should know, because I’ve been down the ones at most of the really big estates. Can’t recall another one quite this length, though.” He smiled back at his old school chum and both men went up the steps to the porch.

  “Well, you know how I feel about things. Same as you, only I can’t tolerate the Yankees and the niggers the way you do.”