Baldwin, 2008

When he had worked as a busboy at Studio 54, years and years ago, Alec was rarely out of the club before six or seven in the morning. He grew to hate the disorienting feeling of waking at two or three in the afternoon, bright sun leaking through the blinds in his tiny apartment and the warmed air making him hot and sweaty in a tangle of sheets. Oddly, for all the money he had made working in film, sometimes he found himself in the same position: after a night shoot, eyes gritty with fatigue, he’d fall into his expensive bed only to awaken in the late afternoon, vaguely nauseated, like he’d been out drinking all night long.

Addie was the cure for that biorhythm-blip-induced hangover. There was something about being awakened by an excited little girl bouncing happily on the edge of his bed that banished all the disorientation. She anchored him to reality, instantly and permanently. He’d started acting for what he could get out of it (“It’s all about the chicks,” his brother Stephen had said when he started acting), but once Addie had come along, he did it for what he could get for her.

That punishing disorientation and nausea only worsened after the divorce. Nobody to bounce on the side of the bed, nobody to anchor him. These days, Addie lived in Los Angeles, with his wife. He kept making that mental slip, referring to Kim as “his wife.” He knew it was over, but he’d gotten so accustomed to thinking of them as a team. It was un-PC, but she seemed like a part of him for so long. He didn’t say, “This is the hand that is at the end of my arm.” He said, “My hand.” Just as he’d said, “My wife.” Just as he’d said, “My daughter.”

This morning, he had opened his eyes in Idaho. Even thinking it made him chuckle ruefully. This Irish kid from New York, here, in Red State Potato-ville, with the white supremacists, militias, and Republicans. Well, it was still America, and he was still an American, so he could go anywhere he wanted, even if the politics of the area saddened and sickened him.

Besides, he liked Idaho. He liked his ranch. It was small by Hollywood standards, but Alec had never really bought into that scene, the idea of wearing or driving or living to advertise your success. His dad and mom, God love ’em, had been solid working-class people. His father was a social studies teacher and football coach, for Christ’s sake. With six kids to raise, there hadn’t been a lot of money for frills and flashy junk. Alec had developed an appreciation for stability and dependability. Thus, the ranch: a mere hundred acres or so for privacy and plenty of horseback riding room. The horses were for Addie, of course. There was a small lake about a mile from the house. The ranch house was built with thick log walls against the brutal winters, two fireplaces, four bedrooms, and a large kitchen. A fully equipped guest house that was almost as large stood out back.

It was a place for family vacations, for uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents. A place for exploring and hiking, games of tag that ranged for acres, for marathon games of Go Fish beside the warmth of a log fire. A place for reading to Addie as she curled up beside him on the cracked leather couch, a horse blanket thrown over them both.

That was what he wanted when he bought the place. It had been that for maybe two years, before the marriage took its turn for the worst. Alec had even offered it to Kim in the settlement, as long as he could spend some time with Addie, but that plan had gone to hell, too.

Baldwin looked down at his coffee cup. He sat in the swing on the ranch house porch, barefoot, in faded jeans and fisherman’s sweater, listening to the morning birds at dawn. He’d been spending too much time alone with his thoughts lately, sometimes going for days without speaking to anyone. He screened all his calls. Mostly, the voices from his answering machine speaker were his lawyers relating more dismal details of the court battle with Kim. Baldwin saw no reason to pick up those calls.

He’d just finished another film, this one in Chicago. It was David Mamet; he thought he’d done well, for a film. It was quick, compared to a play, and the money was good, but he needed to be in Los Angeles, to be close to his daughter.

He was due for a week with Addie, to make up for the days he’d missed with her while filming in ChiTown, and the thriller that followed in which he would play the villain. The financing on that had fallen through, leaving him unexpectedly free. But his daughter had been in Georgia, visiting Kim’s parents. So Alec had stopped over at the ranch for a few days. Not just for the solitude, he wanted to do some work. Get his hands dirty. Chop wood, clear some brush, curry the horses. Acting…well, it challenged one part of him, and when you nailed that line so perfectly even the crew laughed or applauded, that was gratifying. But somehow, it didn’t have the same kind of in-your-bones satisfaction as spending a day with tools in your gloved hands, repairing a sagging corral.

He thought, looking down, he was getting heavier than he liked. It annoyed him to see his athlete’s body getting soft with middle age. On one hand, he tried to avoid the frantic vanity he’d seen in so many actors, but dammit, he was too young to have this kind of gut. A few days on the ranch would remind his body of what it could do, and he could begin to get back in shape. He wanted to be in shape for Addie; a ten-year-old girl had a lot of energy, and he wanted to be able to keep up with her. He wanted her to have memories of her dad beside her as they snorkeled or skated or bicycled. He didn’t want her primary memory of him to be a distant figure, watching from a shaded beach chair. And, he knew he’d sleep better if he spent the day swinging a sledge or an axe.

He drained the coffee and walked back inside to the kitchen. He scrambled some eggs, tossed in a few fresh chives from an herb garden that Kim and Addie had planted, and topped it off with some grated cheese from the refrigerator. He’d have to make a run into town later, pick up a few fresh groceries. Tofu wouldn’t keep in the fridge between his visits, and it was terrible frozen. As a vegetarian, his choices were limited here in Idaho (all the potatoes you could eat, he thought), but he could suck it up for a week or so.

At 7 am, just as Alec finished washing the breakfast dishes, John Hanner, the ranch foreman, drove up in his pickup nicknamed “Old Blue.” It was maybe the third or fourth Old Blue he’d had, along with his third German Shepherd, Queenie III.

Queenie hopped out of the cab of the truck when Hanner got out, made a quick circuit of the exterior of the house and then settled in a corner of the porch. The old foreman climbed the steps and knocked on the door. He always did that when the family was here—never barged in, always mindful of the privacy of his employer. He was a short, thin man with iron-gray hair and mustache, a lined face and steel-rimmed glasses.

“Come on in, I just started a new pot of coffee,” Alec called. Hanner stomped his boots on the front mat, swept the battered Resistol from his head and walked to the kitchen. He had his own mug hanging from a wooden peg over the sink. Alec passed it to him. Hanner grunted his thanks and filled the mug.

“Didn’t think I’d see you ’til July,” the older man said after his first sip.

Alec shrugged. “That other movie fell through. I’ve got a little time before I see Addie.”

Hanner nodded. “You going to be able to bring her up this time?” He had a soft spot for the little girl. Alec had never learned much about Hanner beyond his three marriages and some military service in the past. He never volunteered much about himself, but he worked constantly, if his behavior around the ranch was any indication. The man was nearly sixty, but tougher and with more endurance than most people Alec had ever met. Still, he doted on Addie, as solicitous as if she were one of his own kids. Alec’s bullshit meter had never once blipped about leaving Addie alone with Hanner. He had a sense that Hanner would die before letting anything happen to that little girl.

“Don’t think so,” Alec answered. “It’s a day getting here, with the wait at the airports and the drive, and a day getting back. I’ve only got a week this time, and I haven’t seen her in over a month.”

“Makes sense.” They stood side by side, looking out the window at the fields and forest, finishing their coffee. Using the tiniest dribble of water, Hanner rinsed his mug in the sink and hung it on the peg. “Queenie says it’s time to ride the fence. Better get to it.”

“Give me a second to put on my boots.” Baldwin had a pair of shit-kickers back in the closet. They were one of the first things he’d bought after purchasing the ranch…a stuntman he trusted had recommended them in specific and profane detail. “Good pair of boots will treat you better ’n a woman,” the stuntman had said through his chipped teeth. In too good a mood to render a judgment on the truth of that statement, Alec hurried back to the master bedroom. Thick pair of socks, flannel shirt, an old Levi’s jacket and that pair of well-broken-in Frye cowboy boots, and he was ready.

While Hanner saddled the horses, Alec took a baseball cap and leather gloves from a shelf inside the barn and beat them against his thigh to free them of accumulated dust and cobwebs. Then he reached over to hold the reins so Hanner could adjust the cinches.

Hanner’s horse, an older, deceptively placid mare pinto called Nan, stood quietly. Hanner eyed her for a moment, and then kneed her in the abdomen. When she sucked in her stomach, he tightened the cinch. The mare gave him a look that promised much unpleasantness if she ever caught Hanner between her back feet and a wall.

Alec’s horse, a three-year-old gelding he called Sport, was all prancing adolescent eagerness, glad for the opportunity to get out for a while. He paused his restless movement long enough for Hanner to check the saddle, then twitched his tail with impatience. Hanner dropped some saddlebags loaded with tools over the horse’s withers.

As Hanner threw a leg over his own mount, he called out to Alec, “Mind Sport this morning. He’ll run you to Canada if you let him.” Alec nodded his acknowledgement as he climbed up into the saddle. He wasn’t a natural horseman, by any means. He didn’t have a good “seat,” as the saying went. But he had enough years of athletics that he could handle himself fairly well. Nothing fancy, but he was rider enough to get the job done, as long as the job consisted of simply getting from point A to point B. Addie, now she could ride. She’d wanted horses ever since she was just a toddler. She could ride circles around her dad, and he was pretty sure that she’d done her share of racing hell for leather down the dirt roads when Alec wasn’t around. You could only keep a kid so safe…after that, your children were in God’s hands.

Baldwin flicked the reins and Sport obediently trotted out of the barn, turned left, gave a couple of head tosses of pure youthful eagerness, and high-stepped across the pasture. Alec settled into the rhythm of the horse and let Sport hurry across to the trail that followed the fence line.

Hanner didn’t talk much as they rode, but to Alec, that was a given. It was peaceful, nourishing, to be rocking along with the horse, feeling the rising sun on his face, and smelling…my God, smelling the world. The sweat from the horse, the flat, strange tingling scent from the dust, the blooming trees and their multitude of soft fragrances, even the grass that grew along the trail. As much time as he spent in artificial environments, either on stage with the sweetish odor of pancake makeup mingling with the rank sweat of costumes too long unwashed, or on a soundstage with the air conditioning laboring to overcome the heat from the Klieg lights…he grew too accustomed to not smelling anything natural at all. The barrage of sensation from the world around him was almost dizzying.

Ahead of him, Hanner reined to a halt, peered down. He didn’t say anything. Alec rode up beside him. Ah, a teaching moment. Hanner was as egalitarian a man as you might ever meet. His voice never had that trace of subservience that was the Hollywood regional accent. He’d never once asked Alec for gossip about “the business,” didn’t seem to care who was sleeping with whom, who was gay, who was an addict. He didn’t seem to much care that Alec was his boss either. He seemed to look on them all, Alec, Kim, and Addie, as his responsibility when they were at the ranch. Hanner and Kim seemed to understand each other right away. It made sense. Kim was really a country girl from Bees Knees, Georgia, and she and Hanner shared some cultural shorthand that escaped Baldwin. And Addie, well, Addie was just a force of nature. Alec sometimes thought that Hanner regarded him, not unkindly, as the least capable and least intelligent of the family. Maybe Hanner took pity on Alec because he was a city boy. Whatever the cause, Hanner was doing his best to teach Alec…maybe to make him worthy of the ranch, if nothing else.

Alec was humbled by the older man’s gift of knowledge and training, and he worked hard to absorb the lessons so freely given. He guided Sport up beside Nan, and focused his attention on the fence post. While the two men pondered the five-foot log, Sport nuzzled Nan, who snapped at him grumpily.

This was an older section of the fence, put up not long after the ranch house had been completed back in the early twenties. There was nothing obviously wrong with the post, besides being so sun bleached it was gray. Alec notice it swayed a little in the breeze. But it swayed from the bottom. “The base is rotted, huh?”

Hanner nodded, pointed to a small gully that ran at right angles to the fence, out from Alec’s ranch to the National Forest beyond. “Runoff has either undercut it, or just rotted it.” Both men climbed off their horses to take a closer look. The gray wood was flaking and crumbling just below the surface of the dirt.

There was a small stand of scrub trees, a couple of hundred yards from the fence. Hanner led their horses to a small area of shade, tied the reins loosely to one of the trees. Alec checked inside the saddlebags, found a small hand axe. From the other saddlebag, Hanner extracted a hammer, over-sized pliers, and an old Army entrenching tool. “I’ll get the post dug out,” he said.

The replacement post was up to Alec. He wandered among the stand of trees with a critical eye. Twisted by the winter winds and summer droughts, most of the trees were closer to pretzels in shape than pencils, but he found a likely candidate toward the center of the stand. It was a Jack Pine, about eight feet tall. Real pretty tree. It probably had been protected by the gnarled guards on the outer edges. Alec almost hated to cut it down, but if the fence went down, no telling what would wander onto the ranch. There were bison over in the deeps of the National Forest. A barbed wire fence wouldn’t stop a determined buffalo, but it might annoy them enough to make them go somewhere else.

It took Alec the rest of the morning to hack through the four-inch trunk of the tree, whittle the base to a point, and strip off the limbs and small branches. Hanner walked back once carrying a canteen, which he hung from a nearby tree. He glanced at Baldwin’s work in progress and mentioned, “You’ll want to cut her off to about seven feet.”

It was nearing noon when Alec walked out of the stand of trees, the canteen dangling from one shoulder, the trimmed tree trunk balanced on the other. Hanner had unsaddled the horses and was brushing them down. He grunted in approval when he saw Baldwin. “Almost lunch time,” he commented. “Let’s eat before we set the post.”

Alec leaned the post against a tree, wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Only if you’ve got a salad in the bags there.”

Hanner gave a kind of grin. “Nope. Got some trail mix, couple of bananas.”

“That’ll do.”

Alec brushed the ground clear of burrs and pebbles and sat down beside his saddle, leaning back against it. He peeled a banana, dipped it in the Ziploc bag of trail mix (chocolate chips, he was livin’ large!), and took a bite. It tasted damned good after his morning of work. He knew his forearms would be burning tomorrow. He welcomed the thought.

Hanner took a bite of a roast beef sandwich, washed it down with a slug from his own canteen. “Those bastards in Iraq…they just blew up a Pet Market.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Heard it on the radio coming in.” Hanner shook his head. “It’s not enough to blow up innocent folks just out doing their errands…but to blow up kids and helpless critters in cages. Takes a special kind of evil to do that.”

Baldwin shook his head in disgust. What kind of twisted s.o.b. would think it was a good move to slaughter children who were in a market, looking at the hopeful puppies, kittens, and canaries? That transcended politics and religion.

Around a mouthful of his lunch, Alec said, “That insurgency. They’ve got to be really angry to do that.”

Hanner spat in the dirt. “Insurgency, hell. Most of those bastards come from outside the country. They aren’t even Iraqis.”

“Really?” Alec asked mildly. So, here it was, pretty much as he’d guessed. Conservative, for sure, Republican, probably.

Hanner looked abashed, like he’d revealed more of himself than he’d planned. Alec wasn’t sure if it was the revelation of his politics, or the revelation of his feelings. “Yeah,” Hanner said after a moment. “They are.”

Baldwin let it pass. It was too pretty a day to argue politics, and besides, what difference would it make out here? The man had been thoughtful enough to bring lunch for the Hollywood vegetarian. Why spoil a beautiful day over a difference of opinion? I’m not an asshole, Alec reminded himself, I just play one in the movies. He took another drink of the warm, flat water in the canteen. “Better get that post set.”

Hanner wiped his hands together and climbed to his feet. “Better.”

The older man had already dug out the rotted base of the old post and pried the staples loose from the barbed wire. Alec walked up to the fence with the stripped log on his shoulder. He paused a moment, checking the lay of the fence. Each post was offset from the other…every other one was on the inside of the wire. This post would need to be set on the outside of the fence. When Alec turned, he thought he caught a trace of approval in Hanner’s eyes, but it was gone so fast he couldn’t be sure it was ever there.

He dropped the post over the wires and into the hole. Hanner took the post in both hands. Alec was taller, the obvious choice to take the entrenching tool and pound the post into the ground, which he did.

Hanner kicked some rocks into the hole, scuffed some dirt over the rocks, and then unzipped his fly. As he urinated into the post hole he said, “The scent makes the wolves more cautious, for a while.” When he finished, he scuffed more dirt over the mud and stomped it down.

Alec braced the post with his hip while Hanner affixed the barbed wire with the metal staples and a hammer. Their heads were close together. “You still planning on leaving the country?” Hanner asked him.

“That was just a rumor,” Alec replied acidly. He’d never said that. Kim had said he’d said it. Well, maybe he did mention it in passing when he was unholy pissed about the direction of the country. He’d thought about it. He’d been disillusioned. He’d even, in an angry moment, moved a lot of assets to Switzerland. He hated the idea of paying taxes to support this administration and their wars. He’d liked knowing he had some “Go to Hell” money stashed somewhere.

Hanner nodded, pounded another staple home. “Just checkin’. I don’t like to wonder when I’m gonna come out to the ranch and find a letter tellin’ me you’ve sold the place.”

“I thought about it,” Alec admitted. “I’ve been so mad about the war and about the court fight and everything, I could just spit. Times like that, I just wanted to get out. Leave it all behind.” He pushed down on the dirt around the post with his boot. “But I’m staying put. This is my country. Leaving won’t make it any better. Besides, I wouldn’t take Addie away from Kim. A kid needs her mom. And Addie loves this place.”

Hanner nodded, not in agreement, just letting him know he’d been heard. Alec looked away for a moment. What the hell was he doing confessing to this old right-wing cowboy? It took him most of the ride back to the ranch house that day to tease the answer out of himself. It was trust. One of the few people outside of his blood kin, including his brothers (even though one of them was certifiably batshit crazy), that he could trust was his ranch foreman.

Hanner stepped back, held the strands of barbed wire so Alec could crawl through. Alec looked dubiously at the metal wire. It was rusty. “Think we should replace the wire?”

“Fix what you can, plan for the rest,” Hanner said, turning his head to trace the line of the fence running off in the distance. Later, after everything had changed, Baldwin would remember the older man’s words. He’d cling to them; make them the foundation of his shattered life and the sword he’d use to avenge the death of his dreams.

Baldwin had only a small travel bag on the front porch when Hanner arrived about noon two days later. Filling his mug in the kitchen, the foreman raised his eyebrows at the dearth of luggage. “Traveling light this time?”

“Don’t need much.” Alec grinned, as excited as a kid the day before Christmas. “I’m bringing Addie back.”

“Good.”

Alec washed his own cup, hung it on a peg. He’d decided last night, just before he fell asleep. He felt better after the three days of working the ranch. They’d ridden most of the fence line, done some repair on the barn, mucked out the stables, and dug a French drain around the back of the guest house. Every night, Alec had slept dreamlessly. He was sore, but it was a pleasant soreness, and he already sensed a new tautness in his gut. It was a feeling he liked.

There was nothing in L.A. he had to do. His next movie was lined up, and he calculated that trying to go somewhere with Addie where they wouldn’t be harassed by the public (or the suck-ups) would require as many hours in traffic as it would take to dash back to the ranch. He’d already made the reservations. Yeah, he’d be the one spending twenty or so hours in airports and on airplanes over the next day and a half, but it was worth it to be with his daughter. He’d take the hit on time and comfort. That was what the father did: take the hit for the kids. If you didn’t take the hit, you weren’t worthy of the name “Dad.”

It was Monday. He’d be in L.A. late, but would pick up Addie first thing in the morning at Kim’s house, and they’d be off. It’d be a hell of a surprise for his daughter, and probably he’d receive another expensive beatdown from his wife’s lawyer for showing up like that, but so be it. “I’ll leave the Jeep at the airfield,” Alec told Hanner.

“I’ll drive you over,” Hanner offered. “’Bout due for an oil change and tune-up, anyway.”

Baldwin checked his watch. Hanner caught the glance, emptied and rinsed his mug. “Burnin’ daylight,” he said.

“The Duke,” Alec replied with a grin. One of the only references Hanner ever made to Hollywood was testing Baldwin’s knowledge of movie trivia, especially old movie trivia. Alec had learned a few interesting tidbits about actors and directors he’d either dismissed or taken for granted. Like Eddie Albert, the old guy who’d been in the television show Green Acres. From Hanner, Baldwin had learned the man was a successful actor before the Second World War, who’d volunteered for service. He was a decorated combat veteran, a Marine officer who’d refused orders to evacuate a Japanese-held island in the Pacific, and had repeatedly waded ashore to carry his wounded men to safety. Alec used information like that to remind himself that you could never judge people simply by what they were doing or what you knew they’d done, but that everyone had another life, one that had been lived out of your sight and beyond your knowledge.

As he walked over to the garage, the beauty of the day struck Alec. The air was clear and cool, a scud of dark thunderclouds far off to the east. There might be a storm coming, but he imagined it would blow over by the time he returned from California. Hanner helped Alec fold back the soft-top on the Jeep. They removed the doors and put them in the back of the garage. Alec climbed into the driver’s seat; he liked driving out here. In L.A., he’d pay someone else to deal with the jams and the stop and go.

The drive to the airfield took almost forty-five minutes. The damn thing was too small to really call an “airport,” although it took that name. First they took a fire road from the ranch to the state highway. As they bounced over the rutted road, Hanner said, “I’ll have Jamal grade the road before this storm comes in.” Alec nodded. They paused at the edge of the pavement, gave cursory glances left and right. Nobody coming for at least fifteen miles in either direction.

Once on the highway, a paved single-lane road through the National Forest, the ride was smoother. This far out, they only saw a few truckers, hauling beef from the working ranches farther out toward the stockyards in Bruneau. Hawks circled on the thermals rising from empty river beds and a few jackrabbits sat by the side of the road, pondering what to do with the rest of their day, perhaps hoping it wouldn’t include a closer encounter with one of the circling hawks.

Alec dropped his speed to sixty as he passed the Chevron station. The package store came up on his right. He eased the pressure off the accelerator, slowing to a careful twenty-five when he approached the elementary school. Parents, mostly mothers, were walking their kids to class. The sight of the children made Baldwin ache for Addie. It was a feeling he’d never had when he was single, before he was a father. He didn’t hate kids back then, it was just that he could take them or leave them. Now, seeing families inevitably brought his mind around to his family. His family: he and Addie. Maybe there would be another wife in his future, but no matter what, Addie was the core of him now. You could find another wife, he thought, but you could never replace your daughter.

The airfield was on the other side of town, a taxing five minutes away. You could see the weather tower first, air sock fluttering. Then the chain link fence, put up mostly to capture drifting tumbleweeds, Baldwin was convinced. Then the small terminal building that was only staffed about six hours a day, four days a week. Beyond that was the expanse of runways where the puddle jumpers sat, the kind of plane where the pilots walked up between the rows of seats to get to the cockpit.

He’d spend an hour flying on one of those eight-seater planes, and then grab a commercial flight from Seattle to L.A. He purposely hadn’t shaved in a week. With a ball-cap, his reading glasses, and his graying stubbly beard, he didn’t look much like Alec Baldwin, movie star morphing into character actor. He looked more like, well, a construction worker. He could live with that. Usually in an airport people were racing too quickly from place to place to recognize him, unless they were the most psychotic of fans.

Baldwin pulled the Jeep up in front of the terminal, left it running. He hopped out, did a quick pat down. His keys and wallet were in place, his cell phone in his jacket pocket. Hanner climbed out as well, went to the back of the Jeep and hauled out the travel bag. “Call me with your arrival time.”

“I will,” Alec told him, taking the gym bag. “We’ll eat at the Stock House when we get back.” His daughter, much like both her parents, had her own mind. She was a carnivore in spite of them, and the Stock House was a favorite steakhouse of both Hanner and Addie. Had a good salad bar, too, and made the best apple pie Alec had ever tasted. It would be a great time.

Hanner settled himself in the Jeep, adjusting the mirrors and seat. “See you soon, Boss,” he said, leaning out and shaking Alec’s hand.

“You, too,” Alec said, watching him drive off.

Check-in was fast. Brenda Freshwater, who also worked at the library, was behind the counter and she quickly verified his ticket and the takeoff time. “You can take your luggage right out to the plane, Mr. Baldwin.” She smiled, and pointed out at a Beechcraft 1900 with its forward door open. Alec thanked her, and walked down a short hallway to the tarmac.

He knew if he had his own plane, he’d get in and out of here faster. A lot of actors owned them, but Alec didn’t think he’d have the time, or the patience, to really master flight. So, he was a little inconvenienced by the need to work around the schedules up here. Big deal. People not in the industry had to do that every day. His face had been on screens across the world, but even so Alec knew he was nothing special. He was lucky. He’d found something he loved to do, and he was paid staggeringly well for it. He was grateful, not just for the money, but for the ability to recognize his ridiculous good fortune. He had become rich by pretending. Rich for playing. You couldn’t beat that, but he also knew if you gave a jerk a lot of money, you usually ended up with a jerk in better clothes.

Out on the ramp, it was warmer than at the ranch. Heat shimmied up off the concrete. Alec leaned inside the plane, casually tossed his gym bag into the rear cargo area. Didn’t look like anyone else was flying this trip. That was good, he could stretch out in one of the seats. He had a hard-used paperback in his back pocket, a biography of Franklin Roosevelt he’d picked up from the library for twenty-five cents. Something about the old boy had begun to fascinate Baldwin. It was still cool inside the plane. Baldwin climbed inside, wriggled into a comfortable position, and immersed himself in Roosevelt’s story.

Alec read about fifteen pages and then checked his watch. Flight time was soon. There ought to be one of the pilots doing a walk-around, checking out the plane before takeoff. Alec swiveled his head, scanning through the window ports. No one.

He held out for another twelve pages. Okay, enough was enough. He was ready to get moving. He left the paperback on the seat, stuck his head out of the airplane’s rear hatch.

There still was no one on the field. He thought he could see figures moving inside the terminal; the sun was shining on the windows and the glare had washed them out a bit. The first flickers of irritation were building up in Alec’s chest as he walked across the asphalt and back into the terminal.

He noticed the noise first. Usually the terminal was a bastion of quiet conversation, the muted noise of luggage wheels on the tile. Now there were running feet, confused voices. And televisions. The TV in the small lounge was blaring. Some men in airport services uniforms were standing in front of the television, staring up at it. One woman was scurrying back and forth, from the bar to the arrival/departure monitors, which, instead of showing times and flights, had been switched to a news station out of Butte, Montana.

Brenda was standing in front of the arrival monitors, holding a cordless phone to her ear, describing what she was seeing. “The news guy, he looks like he’s gonna be sick. He looks so scared…”

Alec touched her arm, and she flinched sideways, like he’d awakened her roughly from a deep sleep. “Brenda, what’s going on?”

There was a long minute as Brenda changed gears. She’d been completely, totally somewhere else, and now she had to return to the terminal and deal with Alec in the very small here and now. “Mr. B,” she finally said, “…they hit Los Angeles. All flights are grounded.”

“What? Who hit what?”

Brenda gestured helplessly at the monitor. There was news footage of smoke and flame, buildings burning. “It was Al Qaeda, I guess.”

It must’ve been the Capitol Records building. Stunned as he was, Alec couldn’t help but thinking what pathetic, clueless punks these guys were. Hit the building because it had so much visual connection with Hollywood and the evil Jews who ran the world. Stupid bastards. “They blew up a building. How many people are hurt?”

Brenda lowered the phone. “Mr. B…they hit the center of the city. People don’t know with what. There’s been an earthquake and all these fires.” She gestured unconsciously at the monitor with the phone. “The news guys say it’s worse than 9/11. Ten, twenty times worse.”

Suddenly, Alec felt a kinship with the woman dashing from the bar to the monitor. He needed to know everything, but the news concentrated on the same shots over and over. Burning building. Pictures of destruction via shaky hand-held camera. But, damn it, there was no perspective. No aerial shots, no context-establishing overview. What was destroyed? How large an area? The yutz on the monitor was doing what all news anchors did in a crisis…working overtime to find new ways to describe the same information. Baldwin took a step toward the lounge, where a couple of delivery guys sat at the bar, their beers untouched as they gaped up at the TV.

“The worst, the very worst attack ever recorded on American soil,” the talking head intoned from above the bar. “Because of the chaos, it’s difficult to get an accurate estimate of the devastation. National Guard units have been put on full alert, in case of invasion from the South.”

National Guard on alert? The border was over a hundred and fifty miles from L.A. “Meanwhile, reports of disturbances are coming in from Chicago and Detroit. We emphasize, these are unconfirmed reports. We have confirmed that all domestic military forces and reserves are being recalled to immediate active duty. We are attempting to reach our affiliate offices in New York City for additional information—”

Alec turned away from the TV. Chicago, New York, Detroit? Jesus God, it was war.

He fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone, ripped it loose, checked the signal. One lousy bar. Not good enough. Stabbing the speed dial, he hurried outside.

Kim’s house. “Come on,” he urged as the cell phone silently tried to connect. Then the message, “No service available.”

No. He stabbed another button. Kim’s cell phone. “No service av—”

His agent. “No serv—”

He forced himself to stop jabbing the buttons of the cell phone, and think for a second. Okay, cell service was out in L.A. Regular phone service might still be operating. Kim might call his parents in New York. Moving with rigid concentration, he pressed the 1 key and held it.

“No ser—”

Feeling a wild despair thudding in his chest, he tried each of his brothers in turn, with the same maddening, terrifying inability to connect. Finally, Billy picked up. He was in Florida, Baldwin thought. “Alec, what the hell—” his younger brother shouted, then there was a burst of static and a strange series of beeps Alec had never before heard coming out of his phone.

Baldwin had to resist the urge the hurl the phone across the asphalt. He heard a car horn. He looked up. His jeep was parked in front of the terminal. Hanner was standing up in the driver’s seat, looking around. Alec stuffed the cell phone in his pocket and trotted toward the terminal…then, he remembered his bag in the plane. He spun, raced back to the plane, slung the travel bag over his shoulder, and ran to meet Hanner.

The engine on the Jeep was still on, rumbling quietly. “I heard on the radio,” the older man said as Alec threw his bag in the back of the Jeep.

“I can’t reach Kim,” Alec panted, climbing in the passenger seat. “Damn cell phone won’t get through. I don’t know about Addie!”

Hanner dropped the Jeep into gear and pulled away from the uncertainty and confusion of the terminal. “Guess we’ll have to go see for ourselves.”

Alec nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He didn’t really believe in praying or psychic powers, now he was hoping, wishing, demanding for both to manifest within him at that moment. A thought was pounding in his brain, and, in spite of himself, he was willing it to be broadcast into the universal consciousness, willing it to reach Kim in time. Get Addie, he willed. Take the Hummer, get out of town, get to the ranch. Baldwin’s hand tightened around the roll bar. The thought quickly reduced itself to its essential element, pounding through his mind: Get Addie and get out. Get Addie and get out.

As Hanner accelerated up the main street, Alec was only vaguely aware of the activity on the street. People gathering in worried knots on the sidewalk, hurrying into stores and shops, looking for confirmation or refutation. Under the crushing weight of his helplessness, his inability to reach his daughter, Baldwin clenched his jaws, afraid the desperate plea radiating to the universe would leak out of him as a scream of rage and frustration and fear.