Divided We Fall

by Trent Reedy

  —• passed the Texas House and now it looks like the measure might narrowly pass in the Senate. With us on ABC’s Sunday in Washington are Speaker of the House Jim Barnes and Senate Majority Leader Laura Griffith. Mr. Speaker, Senator, it’s an honor to have you with us today. Thank you for joining us.”

  “Thanks, Rachel.”

  “It’s a pleasure to be on the show.”

  “Mr. Speaker, with the ongoing crisis in Idaho, what will it mean for America if Texas votes to nullify the Federal Identification Card Act?”

  “That’s an excellent question, Rachel. As you know, I voted for the act, but the version of the bill favored by me and by most of my Republican colleagues was different in key ways. The law as it was passed was a result of bipartisan compromise, and most of the components of the law that Idaho and Texas are objecting to were added by Democrats. Am I entirely happy with the law? No. Do I believe that nullification is the answer? Absolutely not. But what are we as Americans going to do about this situation that the president has allowed to drag on for so long? Look, like I promise in my campaigns, I believe in commonsense solutions, and I think the commonsense solution here is to delay implementation of the law while Congress comes up with revisions that are more manageable, that help restore unity. Now the Republicans in the House already have a plan for —”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Speaker. Senator, you’re shaking your head. You disagree with Speaker Barnes? Why am I not surprised?”

  “I do agree with the Speaker that nullification is not the answer. Let me make this absolutely clear. Nullification is unconstitutional and illegal. It is a dangerous crime that threatens the way this country works, the way it was designed to work over two hundred years ago when the Framers wrote the Constitution. It will not be tolerated. It is really insurrection, and should be treated accordingly with all due swift and immediate force. But I’m telling you right now that I will resign my Senate seat before I allow any compromise legislation to pass the Senate.”

  “Proving Democrats are impossible to work with!”

  “Spare me your partisan cheap shots, Mr. Speaker. The federal government does not change its laws at the behest of state legislatures. It’s the other way around! I will not allow any state to hold us hostage by throwing a little nullification fit. I trust Texas will come to its senses and stop this nonsense immediately. And I have a message for Governor Montaine. You do not have infinite time, Mr. Montaine. You will comply with legal federal demands, you will obey the law, or you and the members of the Idaho legislature who are cooperating with you will face serious penalties.”

  “In the spirit of compromise, I hardly think threats are in order. This is exactly the sort of Democratic heavy-handedness that got us into this mess in the first —”

  “That is not a threat, Mr. Speaker. That’s a promise. •—

  I’m not gonna lie. Me and JoBell had had fights before. Show me a good couple who hasn’t. That’s what love is, still loving each other even when we both were mad. I wouldn’t have cared if JoBell was angry enough to hit me in the head with a ball-peen hammer. I would’ve still loved her. By Sunday, I was already missing her, but when I tried to call or text her, Digi-Eleanor wouldn’t let my messages through.

  Weirdly enough, missing JoBell made me think about how she was constantly tracking news updates, and that made me check to see what was going on. The coverage, if not the mob of reporters outside the house and all over town, actually backed off the Idaho Crisis for a while on Saturday night, after the Iranian military hit US troops with a surprise attack in some place called Birjand. Maybe the attack reminded everyone that we were supposed to be fighting Iran, not each other, or maybe the seven Idaho soldiers among the forty-six killed made the “hate Idaho” crowd remember that we were all still Americans. I was just relieved that none of the casualties were from my unit. I guessed the deployed guys from the 476th Engineer Company were stationed closer to Tehran.

  The governor seemed to be doing his best to make sure that Specialist Stein was the last Idaho Guardsman that the Fed could get its hands on. The Freedom Lake cops and the state police drove by the house a lot to make sure everything was okay. Good old Nathan Crow was living up to the promise he’d made. My father would have been proud. Crow became truly aggressive, arresting any reporters who trespassed on private property. Then he convinced some of his friends on the city council that the public sidewalk in front of my house was unsafe and needed to be torn up and replaced. While it was torn up, reporters weren’t allowed to use that sidewalk space to film their stories. Even better, he made sure there were always plenty of cars and trucks parked on my street so that news vans couldn’t get near my house. He had even arranged to have my mother moved out to her nursing conference undercover, driving her in his own car to Spokane. Despite all his efforts, though, the media still swarmed all over Freedom Lake.

  On Sunday night, Schmidty finished the upgrades to the Beast. He’d worked overtime all weekend to weld two-inch steel pipes inside the doors and fenders and under the hood. The normal windows had been replaced by glass that was rated to withstand 7.62 rounds. Where he found that, I’ll never know. A heavy steel-pipe push bumper had been welded to the truck’s frame and wrapped the grill in a cool sort of cage. He’d even put a false bottom in the back behind the seats, raising the carpeted floor and toolbox to make a small hiding place back there. All of this made the truck even heavier and cut down further on gas mileage, but it would be safer if I ran into another crazy shooter like the one after that football game. It felt great to be up in the driver’s seat of the Beast again.

  On Monday morning, I was relieved to see the school had hired private security to keep the parking lot clear of the media mob. After ignoring the reporters shouting questions from the street in front of the school, I moved quickly and quietly, hoping to avoid detection. I had a very serious mission, though it made me grin like a dork. When I reached my destination, I was in with a few quick spins of the combination lock, and I let out a little breath of relief. I would pull this off without being caught.

  “Hold it right there,” said a voice from behind me.

  I froze in place. I’d been so close, only to be stopped now.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  I turned around to face JoBell and held out the bunch of roses I bought for her the night before. “I was trying to sneak this into your locker as a surprise. I thought you had a student council meeting this morning.”

  “We wrapped up early.” She smiled and took the flowers. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.” I had hoped for a warmer reaction than that after our fight, but that would have to do. She held the flowers up to smell them. “What’s the occasion?”

  “No occasion.” That was only partly true. “Just … Well. I’m sorry. I should have told you about the fight at the rodeo right away. I thought it would be better not to worry you about it, but I was wrong.” I’d been practicing that speech over and over all the way to school. “And with everything that’s been happening lately, I was thinking about how much I …”

  It felt weird saying it, right out in the open hallway. Dylan was messing with something in his locker a few doors down. He’d have some jackwad comment at practice if he heard me getting all mushy.

  JoBell looked down at the bouquet. “How much you what?” she said quietly.

  I wanted to touch her, to hold her, but she stood a few steps away, and oddly enough, the roses were between us. “I’m a lucky guy,” I said. “To be with you, I mean.”

  Her expression brightened a little, and that gave me some encouragement. “Thank you,” she said. “For being man enough to apologize. And I’m lucky too.” She smelled the flowers again. “I’m going to go put these in the office so they’ll get some water and won’t get all crushed in my locker. Thanks so much for this.” She spun so that her hair whipped out behind her and headed off down the hall.

  “Smooth move with the roses, Wright,” Dylan said as he closed his locker. “Th
at’s a slick trick. You’re a master.”

  What guys like Dylan Burns would never understand was that it wasn’t a trick at all. I loved JoBell and liked to see her happy. She liked flowers and nice surprises. I only wished that this particular surprise had made her happier. It hadn’t gone as well as I hoped it would, but at least we were talking again. Sort of.

  The halls were beginning to get crowded. Samantha Monohan and a group of cheerleaders taped up signs on lockers for the JV football game this Wednesday. A freshman girl hurried by with an instrument case. A group of kids copied a worksheet that was probably due first hour. They wrote down the answers in a big hurry.

  I sighed. All of these different parts of high school life used to seem so important. I remembered scrambling to get some sort of assignment ready for my teachers and liking the way the locker posters signaled I was part of the team. Now half the country wanted me in jail or worse, and the other half seemed to talk about me like I was some kind of hero. I had never liked school that much — hated the assignments and couldn’t stand a lot of the teachers — but I had belonged here. Now this place was like the rodeo. I felt my old life slipping away.

  Becca found me in the hall on the way to government. “Hey, cowboy, you still sore from the weekend?” She grinned and elbowed me.

  “I’d be a lot worse off if not for you helping me with those three idiots,” I said. “I bet that dumb bastard’s balls are still in a sling. Without your help, they’d probably have put me in the hospital or something.” I shrugged. “I’d have gotten more behind on my schoolwork. Flunked all my classes. Failed to graduate.”

  “Golly, I’m glad I saved you then.”

  “I wouldn’t say you saved me, but you definitely —”

  “I saved you! And good thing, because your grades are bad enough.”

  “Ouch!” I said. “Keep talking, Wells. Just remember our bet.”

  Becca stopped walking, her eyes wide. “What bet?”

  “You remember when we were in, like, third grade, at your brother’s graduation, and you had to explain to me what the valedictorian was?”

  “I do remember that. You kept pronouncing it valley doctorian.” She narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together. “Hmm. And I think I was your ‘girlfriend’” — she flashed air quotes with her fingers — “for that whole weekend.”

  “Oh yeah!” I said, remembering. “You dumped me the following Monday.” I grabbed Becca’s arm. “But don’t try to get off topic. At that graduation, you said you were going to be our valedictorian, and I bet you a hundred dollars that you wouldn’t be.”

  “Hey, cut me some slack.” She gave me a little push, and we went on toward class again. “I was in third grade!”

  “A bet’s a bet. What are you ranked, sixth in the class?”

  She gazed at the floor for a moment. “Eighth.” Then she fixed me with that look that said she had an idea. “I seem to remember you were a pretty fast runner back then.”

  “I’m still a fast runner!”

  She shrugged. “You said if I was ever a faster runner than you, you’d kiss me.”

  I laughed, though my cheeks felt a little hot. I knew where she was going with this. “You cut me some slack. I was in third grade!”

  “I seem to remember beating your time in the open eight hundred in track last year, so, um …” She stepped close to me. “A bet’s a bet.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I looked at Becca, with her green eyes and the sprinkling of a few freckles on her nose, her red-brown hair and the purple butterfly hair clip she always wore. A tingle shivered up my spine.

  Her lips passed less than an inch from mine as she leaned forward to whisper in my ear. “You owe me.”

  Then she hurried into Mr. Shiratori’s room. I followed her into class, trying to fight back the disappointment at being faked out like that, trying to fight back the guilt over that spark of disappointment.

  * * *

  Mr. Shiratori paced the room and tapped his stick on the floor. Step, step, tap. Step, step, tap. “We’ve finished our study of Article One of the Constitution. Your test on this material will be on Wednesday.” He stopped for a moment and finally looked up at us. “In case any of you were interested.”

  He went back to tap-walking. Sweeney looked at me like, What’s he doing? I shrugged.

  Mr. Shiratori drew in a long breath. “Your homework for the weekend probably didn’t require much writing. Four or five short paragraphs at the most. But it did require a lot of thinking. What was your assignment for the weekend?”

  Oh crap. The assignment. I’d forgotten all about it. I slid down in my seat a little.

  JoBell raised her hand, as usual.

  “Someone besides Ms. Linder for a change,” Mr. Shiratori said. “How about Ms. Monohan?”

  Samantha sat up straight in her chair the way she did whenever she answered a question. “We were supposed to write a paragraph for each section of Article One that had significant … relevance … to … circumstances … being reported in the news.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Monohan, for that well-memorized verbatim reply,” said Mr. Shiratori. “I’ve been thinking …” He loved dramatic pauses. “… about what is fair.” He looked right at me, and I knew I was doomed. “I think after the events of this last Friday night, some of you might have been a little shaken, and you might need more time to write and revise your essays. Also, in your papers, I want you to imagine how some of the things happening today might develop in the future, and how those events could become relevant to issues regarding Article One. So I expect this assignment in my inbox before we take the test Wednesday, whether or not you are in school that day. No late work when you can easily wire it in on your comm.”

  I sighed with relief and sat up a little. One more chance. That was good, since my grade in this class was already not so hot.

  “ATTENTION. PRIORITY MESSAGE.” A deep robotic voice blasted out of my comm. “ATTENTION. PRIORITY MESSAGE …”

  I jumped up in my seat, scrambling for the mute switch. I swear I had switched off the sound when I got to school. I checked it. It was shut off. How was it still making noise?

  Mr. Shiratori pointed the Stick of Power at me. “Mr. Wright. You just bought yourself a detention.”

  “It’s not even Hank! I turned the sound off! It’s off right now!” I said. Normally I wouldn’t dream of giving Mr. Shiratori back talk, but this wasn’t fair. The screen read:

  “ATTENTION. PRIORITY MESSAGE. ATTENTION. PRIORITY MESSAGE …”

  “You’re testing my patience, Mr. Wright.”

  “Mr. Shiratori. It’s the … Army calling. I think I need to take this one.”

  I kept my eyes locked on him and tried to ignore the stares from everyone else. The hardness went out of Mr. Shiratori’s face. “Oh. Well, then. Go ahead. Why don’t you step out into the hallway, Mr. Wright?”

  When I was alone, I tapped to accept the call.

  “Hello, sir. This is PFC Wright.”

  “Private First Class Daniel Wright.” The voice somehow threw extra emphasis on each individual word, almost as if it were spitting them. “By order of the president of the United States of America, you are hereby requested and required to report for active duty service at Fairchild Air Force Base no later than zero eight hundred hours Wednesday, September 29, for an initial period of service not to exceed seven hundred and thirty days.”

  I backed up until my back pressed into the lockers and slid down the cool metal until I sat on the floor. Now the Army was calling me in the middle of class to try to trick me into giving myself up? This couldn’t be happening.

  “Private Wright, are you there?”

  I licked my lips. “Yes, sir.”

  “Your official orders will be in your inbox later today. You’ll need those orders as proof that you’re on active duty. Report to the main gate at Fairchild Air Base, and the personnel there will direct you to your duty station. Uniform is MCU. Do you have any questions?”


  “Sir, I can’t serve. I was involved in … I started … the shootings at Boise. There’s a warrant for my arrest.”

  “I know who you are, Private Wright. You think they have a lieutenant colonel calling every single member of the Idaho National Guard? No. I have a gymnasium full of lieutenants here calling Idaho Guardsmen and ordering them to active duty. I’m instructed to inform you that the soldiers involved in the Boise incident will receive a full pardon upon completion of their active duty service. All you have to do is come and serve your country, and then you won’t be caught in the middle of this circus anymore. If there are no further questions, I have other calls to make. If there’s a glitch and your orders don’t come through by this time tomorrow, call me back at this number. You’re expected on duty by zero eight hundred hours Wednesday. Richingham, out.”

  The call ended. A pardon? They were finally giving up on punishing us for Boise? Could it be that simple? Could I trust them? Even if I could, it would still mean as much as two years of full-time Army life. JoBell and me had enough problems without a big separation to deal with. And how would Mom cope with me being gone for so long? I put my head back against the lockers.

  Mr. Morgan came out of the office, and of course he spotted me right away.

  “Daniel? What are you doing out here?”

  I rubbed my eyes and held up my comm. “Call from the Army.”

  Morgan straightened his tie. “Yes, well, I trust it was something important.”

  What did he expect, that the Army called in the middle of the day for no reason? What an idiot. “I’ve been ordered to active duty,” I said. “I’m supposed to report to Fairchild Air Force Base Wednesday morning.”