by John Enright
“I’m not driving through there,” Vernon said. “Most of those folks will be from Catskill and will know me. Being black in that town is bad enough, I’d rather not add pagan to it.” Vernon put the Caddy in reverse and backed the way they had come until he came to a place where he could make a three-point turn. “We’ll try another way.”
The other way involved dusty and bumpy back farm roads that were murder on Dominick’s sore ribs no matter how cautiously Vernon tried to navigate them. After what seemed like miles and a series of right turns they crossed the county road beyond the Van Houten place and bounced along again on two-rut tracks past fields and woods. Mustang was totally alert to everything they passed. Dominick was totally aware of every axle thud and sudden swerve. Vernon seemed to be enjoying the excursion; he was humming something to himself. Finally they stopped, and Mustang scrambled his way out the passenger-side front window and onto the ground with a territory-claiming bark.
“Close as I can safely get you,” Vernon said.
Off to their right, in the direction Mustang had headed, past a broken-down fence, was the back of an old wooden barn. Beyond the barn, bright in the slanting late-afternoon sun were the cupola and roofline of the Van Houten house.
“I’ll give you a hand getting your stuff up there,” Vernon said, “then I got to get back.”
Mustang went with them, leading the way actually, his head down, sniffing the trail ahead. Dominick carried his bag, and Vernon dragged the cooler by one handle. All was peaceful at the house. There was no one about. No one saw them come up through the kitchen garden. Vernon lifted the cooler up onto the back porch, and Dominick dropped his bag beside it.
“I am almost out of cash, Vernon. Can I settle with you later?”
“Sure. You’re not going anywhere, and I still have most of your stuff hostage at my place. I don’t know why you want to get involved in this. It’s not like you’re from here or anything, but I’ll leave you now.” Vernon turned to go. Then he stopped by a tomato plant in one of the raised garden beds on which one cherry tomato was red enough to be ripe. He stopped to pick it. “By the way, good women don’t deserve to be hurt. Sissy is not just my daughter; she is also a good woman. Come on, Mustang.”
Vernon and Mustang walked off together.
Chapter 22
Morgan’s return had been typical. Of course, she had not called back, so Amanda had not had the chance to warn her about the Wiccans being there. And by the time she did return that afternoon a crowd had begun to gather down on the road by the driveway entrance. Amanda was watching them from her bedroom window when Morgan’s red rental sports car arrived. Its roof was down. There was a man with her. Morgan honked her horn at the back of the crowd and yelled something Amanda could not make out. The crowd slowly parted to let Morgan through, but she stopped in their midst to harangue them. Amanda could only hear random scraps of what she said—“Got nothing better to do?” “Where does Jesus say mess with innocent people?” “Go on, go home and beat up on your dog or your kids.”
A few people in the crowd dared to answer her, but not as loudly, so no single voice was distinct to Amanda, just a murmur like a growl. Morgan sped up and turned into the driveway, honking her horn and scattering people. She flashed them the finger as she left them behind. A few rocks and yells followed her—“Already damned.” “A Christian community.” “Black witch.”
By the time Amanda reached the front veranda, Denise and Lloyd were already there—Denise in her marigold gown with her shotgun, Lloyd in his desert camouflage outfit cradling a long hunting rifle with a scope, sort of a late-American Gothic couple. So many cars were parked along the edge of the driveway that there was nowhere for Morgan to park, so she pulled right up to the front steps. She and the man with her were arguing.
“Differently, that’s all,” the man said, and when he said it, in a slight soft Southern drawl, Amanda recognized him. It was that lawyer Barnett from Virginia.
“What? Should I have thrown money at them?” Morgan said, turning off the car.
“Did you hear what that one boy said?” the man asked, unbuckling his seat belt. “He called me a Nigger-loving Jew.”
“That’s sweet. So what?” Morgan said.
“I’m not Jewish. I wanted to tell him that, but you just drove away.”
“It was not a moment for rationalism. Those were not rational people. What difference does it make if you are Jewish or not?”
“And you almost ran over that woman’s dog,” Barnett said, extracting himself from the sports car.
“Was that a dog? I thought it was a rat on a leash.”
“I don’t know why I let you drive,” Barnett said.
“Because I knew where we were going.”
“And missed the turn-off.”
“Stuff it, Frankie,” Morgan said as she got out of the car. She looked around at all the vehicles then up at the veranda where Amanda and Denise and Lloyd were standing with a door full of Wiccans behind them. “Popular destination we have here today,” she said. “What’s with the guns?”
“Self-defense,” Lloyd said. “Who are you?”
“That’s Morgan,” Denise said. “I don’t know the male.”
“More to the point,” Morgan said, coming up the steps, “who are you?”
“This is High Priest Lloyd from Saugerties,” Denise said.
“High on what?” Morgan said. “You better point that gun in some other direction, GI Joe. What’s going on, Amanda?”
Amanda was staring at lawyer Barnett, who looked ridiculous in shorts and a sports shirt. He was still standing down by the car, taking snaps with his cell phone of them and the house. “What is he doing here?” she asked.
“He’s here to land Nemo. Excuse me, what is this?”
“Land Nemo? Nemo is gone,” Amanda said, “and this is the pagan defense force. I tried to call and warn you. I left a voice message.”
“Wiccan defense force, heh? Listen, your camo highness Floyd—”
“High Priest Lloyd,” Denise corrected her.
“Floyd, we won’t be needing your defense force now that I and my pass-for-Jewish negotiator Mr. Barnett here have arrived. So you and your clan can peaceably depart ASAP, get back to your very demanding, I’m sure, normal lives. You are excused, and please take all your weapons with you.”
High Priest Lloyd laughed. “I do not take orders from women. Much less a colored woman with no respect.”
Morgan just smiled and turned to Denise. “Who picks your friends for you, Denise? The same person who picks out your gowns?” Then she looked back to Lloyd and came up the last step to the veranda to face him. “Listen, chief, this colored woman happens to own this property, and as of now she has decided that you and your troop are trespassers and persona non grata—that’s ghetto talk for scram. Now.”
Lloyd just looked at her.
“Frank, bring my things, would you? That’s a dear,” Morgan said, still standing in front of Lloyd and returning his stare. Then she turned to the front door, jammed with gawkers. “Excuse me,” she said, walking up to them. No one moved. “Get out of my fucking way,” she said, and they did. “Amanda,” Morgan said over her shoulder as she went in, “can we have a word?”
Amanda followed Morgan up to her room, which Morgan unlocked before going back to find Frank and her luggage. Amanda waited in the room, where the air was stale and hot. She opened the windows. There was something terribly wrong about Barnett being there, but she was not sure what it was. Was he the answer to the quandary of Morgan’s behavior, or was he just a new complication? In any event, Morgan now had her cohort in the fight, just as Denise now had hers in Lloyd. Only she, Amanda, was standing alone without a man at her side or her back or wherever. Everything in nature was paired for survival. No other way had worked—it was all male and female, Eden and Darwin and Mendel and family trees. Solo didn’t make it in the long run.
Morgan returned, leading Barnett with her luggage. They were laug
hing.
“He liked it when I saluted him,” Barnett was saying as they came into the room.
“But ‘nice gun’? Who says something like ‘nice gun’?”
“I figured it was something like a pet. If he had been standing there holding a cat, I would have said ‘nice cat’ just to be polite.”
“But he’s a psycho,” Morgan said, gesturing to where Barnett should put her bags.
“Why acknowledge that? Why remind him he has that excuse?” Barnett put down Morgan’s bags. “This room has some real potential. Hello, Amanda. Good to see you again.”
Amanda was not sure why she disliked Frank Barnett so much. She just did. It was a given. She had felt that way since the first time they had met in his office with Marjorie. There was like an avoidance pheromone between them. She was sure it was shared. When he said “Hello, Amanda” he folded his arms across his chest.
In the conversation that followed, Amanda felt ganged up on. It was not that Barnett had much to say—he didn’t—but it was as if Morgan with Barnett on her side no longer needed Amanda as a cohort. By just the tone of her questions Morgan seemed to imply that the presence of Lloyd and his crew, the congregation down on the road, and even the newspaper article were all somehow Amanda’s fault, or at least her problem.
“I gave that reporter’s boss at the paper an earful yesterday,” Morgan said.
“Groundless threats,” Barnett added.
“We’ll see,” Morgan said. “He was pretty uncomfortable by the time I left. And Frank met with Nemo, who seems more inclined to sign on than before.”
“You met with him?” Amanda asked. “Where?”
“Over in Hudson.”
“How did you find him?” Amanda asked.
“I got a phone number from the Sissy woman,” Barnett said. “He took the papers with him. Is this the bathroom?” Barnett was at the door to the cupola stairs, holding the doorknob.
“No. That’s locked. The john is out and down the hall to your right,” Morgan said. She was standing at the window, looking down at the road. As Barnett left the room Morgan said, “Christ, now they have a fucking crucifix erected down there. If they set fire to that sucker, I may just have to borrow Chief Floyd’s rifle and shoot someone.”
When Barnett came back, Amanda got from him the number where he had reached her brother. She needed some sort of backup, and Nemo was her only option. She left them there, standing at the window watching the scene down on the road. She heard Morgan ask, “If you’re not Jewish, Frank, are you a Christian?”
“I’ll plead the Fifth on that one,” Barnett said.
Amanda called Dominick, and he said he would come out.
***
Dominick left his bag and the cooler on the kitchen porch, taking out only Amanda’s bottle of vodka. There was no one in the kitchen or in the downstairs hallway. Outside the closed doors to the front parlor/Wicca chapel was a big pile of shoes, not all of them women’s. He could smell the incense and hear someone speaking—a male monotone—behind the closed doors, but he knew better now than to peek in. He went up the stairs and to Amanda’s room. He knocked.
“Go away,” Amanda said.
“It’s me, Nemo,” Dominick said. “I brought your vodka.”
When Amanda opened the door the first thing she wanted to know was how he had gotten there. “I’ve been watching the driveway. You didn’t come through that crowd.”
“There is a back way in,” he said, “from behind the barn.” He handed her the bottle of vodka. “A siege of Christians?”
“Just citizens exercising their right to be righteous. Thanks for the vodka.”
Dominick went to the window to look down at the road, where the crowd had grown and more cars were parked along the shoulder. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of intolerance,” he said to the window pane.
Amanda joined him at the window. “What do you think we should do?” she asked.
“I haven’t the slightest idea. We will want to avoid confrontation, obviously, seeing as we are vastly outnumbered, but we can’t let them hurt the house.”
They stood side by side at the window, watching for a while in silence. Someone, a man, was praying through a bad amplifier and a lousy speaker. They could hear him, but what he said was garbled with feedback and filled with the usual gibberish.
“They seem angry about something. But what?” Amanda asked.
“Beats me,” Dominick said. “I guess they are upset by a perceived foreign body in their midst and are gathering together to deal with it somehow. Maybe just pray at it and feel better about themselves.”
“But way out here in the country? I’m sure most of those people had to be told how to find the place.”
“I guess they’re that hungry for an enemy, and some of them are probably just along for the show.”
“And why are you here?” Amanda asked.
“Didn’t you invite me?”
“No.”
“Originally?”
“That was Morgan, not me. She was miffed that you got half of Marjorie’s money and wanted us to get all of it.”
“She drew up the papers. I thought I might sign them. You said she and Barnett were here. Are they still here?”
“That’s her red sports car down there. She is trapped here with her boyfriend for now.”
“Fort Diligence Retreat and Spa,” Dominick said. “I suppose if we raise a flag it would be a Wiccan banner.”
“Dominick, seriously, why are you here?”
Dominick did not know the answer to that question, or at least an answer that he felt like giving to Amanda. It had something to do with Sissy and something to do with the house itself. They were two things he was reluctant to leave behind. He could not remember the last person or place he had been reluctant to leave behind, so it intrigued him.
“If you came back to help me out,” Amanda said, “I appreciate it, but I really don’t know how you can help.”
It had never occurred to Dominick that Amanda might need or appreciate his help or anyone else’s. From the first moment he had met her—holding a knife on him in Marjorie’s kitchen—he had taken her to be someone whose needs were pretty much self-contained—a woman of a certain age and depth of experience who expected no favors and offered no apologies. He had admired that in an abstract way. Women who could take care of themselves were a plus in his estimation.
“On the phone you mentioned fireworks and bullets and armed Wiccans,” Dominick said.
“Denise has brought in reinforcements. Morgan told them to leave, but they haven’t yet.”
“They are having a prayer meeting downstairs,” Dominick said. “How armed?”
“Two or three rifles at least. I don’t know what else.”
“They have to leave,” Dominick said.
“I didn’t invite them. They are Denise’s guests.”
“Let me talk with Morgan and Barnett, our legal brain trust, and see if they have any idea what to do,” Dominick said. For some reason he felt as if he was missing something. He glanced down at Amanda beside him—her full head of vaguely controlled wet-and-dry-hay-colored hair, her wide shoulders in a thin white cotton blouse. He had to bend down to see her face. In the second before she noticed him looking he caught the tiredness there, the resignation in her distant blue eyes. Then there was the seed of a smile at the corners of her mouth.
“What?” she said.
She is not Marjorie, Dominick told himself. All women were foreign lands, but not all the same country. He put an arm around Amanda, squeezing her shoulder. “This sort of sucks, doesn’t it? And you have been putting up with it for days.”
“When a rocket hit the house, I had to put the fire out by myself,” she said.
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“I wanted to leave. I tried to leave, but I couldn’t. I came back. I just want to be somewhere else, but I don’t know where. Stop looking at me,” she said, but as she did so she leaned closer to him, h
iding her face against his chest. “Denise shot my new car.”
“Well, it seems to me that what has to happen is that everyone else has to leave, and you and I stay here to see this through,” Dominick heard himself say. “Both our friends of the Lord down on the road and our disciples of Satan here in the house have got to go. This isn’t our battle, and this house is just a focus through happenstance.”
“Sounds good, but how?” Amanda said.
“Don’t know. Surely both sides have families to go back to. Look, why don’t you get some rest, and I will go consult with Morgan and Barnett and see what we can come up with. Are they in her room?”
“Probably. I guess. Are you here to stay?” Amanda pushed herself away at the mention of Morgan’s name.
“I brought a bag and a cooler of food. I left them down on the kitchen porch.”
“I’ll bring them up here. Nothing is safe down there.”
“I can do that,” Dominick said.
“No, let me. I need something to do. You go strategize.”
They left the room together, headed in different directions—Amanda down the stairs, Dominick to Morgan’s room, where Frank Barnett answered his knock at the door.
“Well, look who’s here, Morgan,” Barnett said. “Come on in, Dominick. How the hell did you get here? Drop from the sky?”
“Totally terrestrial, Frank,” Dominick said. “Hello, Morgan.” Morgan was seated cross-legged on the bed, dressed in a tank top and a pair of short shorts. There was a lot of smooth brown skin showing. She looked different, younger. She had done something with her hair.
“How are you feeling?” Barnett asked.
“Not so hot,” Dominick answered. The ride and the hike with his bag had surged the pain in his ribs over his pharmaceutical defenses. “May I?” The only spot he could see to sit down and relieve the pain was the foot of the bed beside Morgan. She scooted herself back as he plopped down. “Back,” he said in way of explanation, “ribs.” He got the vial of pain pills out of his pants pocket, opened it, and shook three into his palm. “Would you…?” he began, but Barnett was ahead of him, was already standing in front of him handing him a plastic bottle of water. Dominick swallowed the pills one at a time. The water was warm but welcome, and from the slightest hint of a cosmetic scent from the mouth of the bottle he knew this was Morgan’s bottle of water.
