For Punch McGonigle, a six-footer with a burly build, a salt-n-pepper beard, and a receding hairline, several years of living aboard an aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy, a stint with Naval Intelligence, then more time at sea had more than compensated those youthful dreams and romantic notions of life on the Bounding Main. He had had more than his share of adventure, camaraderie, satisfaction, sense of achievement, and good times in ports of call too numerous to remember, and he had no reason to complain. But at some point, being a sailor must have gotten to him, because upon retirement instead of opting for salt air and vast, unlimited seascapes, he had settled into the nether regions of the Montana wilderness, where the air had the pungent scent of pine needles and the lusty aroma of moist humus, and the surrounding mountains offered stark contrast to the heaving flatness of the open sea.
Having been a sailor most of his adult life, he had situated himself in a log cabin overlooking a fast-flowing creek that tumbled over rocks and small boulders at the bottom of a wooded slope. Here, amidst the glories and sounds of unadulterated nature, he intended to live out the remainder of his days: undisturbed by the raucous hustle and bustle of cities, towns; municipalities of any sort. The prospect of trout fishing in the morning, a detective thriller in the afternoon (Nero Wolfe being his favorite), and a porch rocking chair in the evening suited him to the smallest iota of perfection. If the contentment of a man can be measured by a total lack of desire for anything more than what he already has, then in this respect, Punch had indeed achieved perfection.
Livingston was the nearest community of any size, and it served as his supply depot. Two or three times a month he made the trip down the long, winding mountain road in his jeep to replenish whatever he needed in the way of milk, butter, eggs, and so on. Though the trip was mostly a necessity, occasionally it had a secondary function. It afforded him an opportunity not only to restock his pantry, but also allowed for a healthy dollop of social time: a couple of quiet beers in one of the bars along Main Street while chatting with the bartender or palavering with a local.
It happened that on one such occasion he met Art Jimson. A month earlier the man had just survived a gauntlet of newspaper reporters, television cameras, and a passel of outraged animal rights activists who had followed him down the street to his car, howling and hooting their displeasure at the unconscionable acts attributed to him by the media. For the entire month after the ordeal, he had taken refuge out at his ranch, hoping that by the next time he went into Livingston, the hullabaloo would have faded. When he finally did resurface, he showed up wearing dark glasses and entered his favorite hangout through an alleyway door.
Once inside, he had taken off his dark glasses and, along with a schooner of draft beer and a bag of pistachio nuts, had ensconced himself in a booth at the back of the room. There in the cool dark of the bar, he had sipped his beer, cracked pistachio nuts, and pondered whether life would ever again be normal, as it was before the eruption of so much antagonism. Somewhere between thinking it might be and the certainty of knowing it wouldn’t be, Punch McGonigle had walked up.
“I’ve seen you,” he said. “You’re that guy on television, the one they were givin’ such a rough time. Right?”
Wordlessly, looking up, Art nodded.
“How’s it feel to be a celebrity?” Punch asked, his eyes crinkling with humorous intent.
“Not nearly as good as you might think,” Art replied, and for the first time in a long time, had laughed.
“Can I buy you a beer?”
“Sure. Sit down. I could use some company.”
The two men hit it off right from the start. The simplest explanation would be that each, in his own way, was something of a loner and for this reason welcomed the opportunity to talk. But the deeper reason had to do with shared experience. As an old Navy man, Punch had his own memories of being singled out. As a young man, fresh out of Navy boot camp, he had come under fire on two different occasions by Vietnam War protesters who had reviled him almost in the same way the animal rights activists had gone after Art. He recalled his own reaction to their ugly verbal assaults and sign-waving vehemence.
Barely out of high school at the time, he was proud of his uniform and equally honored to be serving his country. Not fully understanding the war, but nonetheless agreeing with its alleged necessity, he felt he had been made a scapegoat for a lot of pent-up rage. He recalled the hostility that had been directed at him as though he himself were somehow responsible for the nightly scenes of bloodshed that appeared on television. And he remembered that afterwards, once away from the scene of the demonstrations, he had felt violated, even traumatized. In the years since then, the feelings had been submerged and mostly forgotten; but now, sitting here listening to this man who recently had been through something similar, they all came back.
“Yeah, it’s the damnedest thing,” he commiserated. “You feel like you’re about to be attacked by a mob. Everybody’s yellin’ and shoutin’ and wavin’ their fists, and their faces are all screwed up with a lot of hatred…and you just wanna get the hell outta there. The only thing goin’ through your mind is ‘These sonsabitches wanna kill me.’”
“That’s exactly it,” Art said. “And that’s exactly what I was thinking.” And the memory brought a surge of emotion he had managed to repress until now. “And it scares the hell outta ya, too, I don’t mind admitting,” he added, with a tightness in his throat. “It shakes you up bad, real bad.”
“It makes you wanna go into hiding. I know that’s what I wanted to do.”
“Damned if it don’t!” Art managed another laugh, relieved to be talking to a kindred soul.
The subject of the FBI’s visit to the ranch didn’t come up until after the third round of beer. By then, the words flowed from the normally taciturn rancher’s mouth as eagerly as though he were a penitent kneeling in a confessional, wanting to unburden himself from some long-ago crime.
For his part, Punch listened with the wide-eyed, incredulous attention of one for whom such a story seems too bizarre to fathom. He could accept the incident at the courthouse, with Art the victim of a lot of enraged, hyperventilating protesters, because he had seen it on television and could draw on his own experience for reinforcement of the image. But that a group of out-of-state protesters wanted to go after Art’s cattle to make a statement about the inviolability of wildlife—well, that verged on the hard-to-swallow.
“You mean to tell me,” he said, when Art had finished, “that these people actually plan to do a hit-n-run style raid against your ranch…kill a bunch of your cattle?”
“Yep. It’s what them FBI boys was tellin’ me. Came all the way out to my ranch and wanted to know if I’d cooperate.”
“If they already know so much about the miscreants, why don’t they just arrest them? I mean, why go to all the trouble when you can just pick them up? Sounds a little odd, doesn’t it?”
“I wondered the same thing myself.” Art laughed. “But, hell, I guess it’s because they wanna make a fine show of it. DOMESTIC TERROR GROUP FOILED, CAUGHT IN THE ACT—a big story…in all the newspapers…nationwide coverage. And sends out a message that them FBI boys are on the job. Clampin’ down on the bad guys…rootin’ them out. See what I mean?”
Shaking his head, Punch chuckled.
“Well, I know a little about that kind of thing myself,” he said. “I used to work in Naval Intelligence, ferreting out drug activity, internal theft, and other criminal activity. But part of the job, too, was to sniff out subversive activity in the ranks. It was the tail-end of the Vietnam War, when servicemen of all stripes were going AWOL, crossing over into Canada an’ even overseas—though some of them just went right home to Momma and said, ‘Fuck you! Come and get me!’ Most of it happened in the Army, but the Marines and the Navy saw their share of it.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yep. I did it for five years. It was the kinda thing you never heard much about, though…bad publicity, and all that.”
“Maybe them FBI boys’d like to talk to someone like you.”
“I’m retired. Besides, I don’t know what they could use me for. Anyway, I might miss out on too much good fishing if I got myself involved in anything. Hell, you never can tell what’ll come of undercover work, if that’s what they’d want.”
“I hear ya there, I surely do,” Art said and sipped off a swallow of beer. “But, listen here, I’m a fly fisherman myself. Do most of it up in the Valley, in spring creeks and along the Yellowstone.”
“No shit?”
“Yep. I use a Lamson Velocity, a six-n-a-half ouncer. Been usin’ it for years—a real beauty.”
“Damn! That’s what I use…”
A week later, Punch got a call from Bill Hammerstein. He had just walked in the door with an armful of groceries when the phone rang.
“This is Punch…”
Bill introduced himself.
“Understand you’re an old Navy man.”
“Damn! I figured Art’d say something to you boys. But, yeah, I served my time, and now I enjoy the fruits of my labor. But I know you got somethin’ in mind, so let’s hear it.”
“First you gotta tell me how you got that name of yours. Is that a real name or just a moniker you picked up along the way?”
Punch laughed.
“When I was a couple days old, a nurse picked me up and I hit her in the nose. It didn’t amount to anything, of course, but she told my mom and pop, and my pop liked the idea. He thought I might grow up to be a scrapper, so he decided to call me Punch.”
“So, are you a scrapper, Mr. McGonigle?”
“You ever heard of an old Navy man that hasn’t been involved in a few barroom scrapes?”
Bill laughed.
“That’s pretty much a given, I guess. But lemme tell you what we need…” Bill outlined the plan.
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, that’s it. We just want you to be a polite host for a day or so. You’re a local environmentalist, and you’re in complete sympathy with the group’s goals. You might wanna get some of the literature and have it around. Also, if you have any hunting trophies over the fireplace, put them outta sight. Make yourself as convincing as possible. It’s all about role playing.”
“I’ve done lots of that.”
“Naval Intelligence, right?”
“I expect you know all about me by now…”
“We gotta know who we can trust, Punch. It’s just business.”
“Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have a few kids hanging around for a day or so. I could keep them entertained with war stories and my rebellious ways. I’ll play up a conversion from an avid warmonger to a genuine peace-nik on the verge of becoming a vegetarian. That’s sure to create an aura of benevolence and goodwill.”
Bill chuckled.
“That’ll more than likely do it. But if they see those fly rods of yours, they might smell a contradiction of sorts.”
“That’ll be the last obstacle between me and full-fledged vegetarianism. I’ll tell ’em it’s a daily struggle, like trying to give up cigarettes.”
Both men laughed.
“But tell me a little more about these people…I don’t wanna go into this a blind man.”
“And we don’t want you to, Punch. So let’s get together…we’ve got some files you can read. What works for you?”
Sometime later that day Bill and his partner drove up the mountain road to Punch’s cabin. When they got there, Punch took them out to the deck, which had a view through the trees of the fast-flowing creek below, and invited them to sit down in two wicker chairs. The two agents made themselves comfortable, and the three men talked.
“There’s nothing fancy going on here, Punch,” Tom said, tilting his hat back and scratching his head. “We got straight dope on this group. We know exactly what they’re gonna do and when they’re gonna do it. And you can play your part whichever way suits you best…”
“That’s right, Punch,” Bill said. “Our boy Rick is an ex-Marine trained in demolitions. You two can work out some kind of former relationship. Maybe you were part of the same operation in Kosovo. You don’t have to go into detail…keep it hush-hush.”
“Or you’re part of a local environmental group he contacted. As a concerned activist yourself, and as someone who has a fondness for wolves, you’ve agreed to help out. You can familiarize them with the lay of the land, take them out around Art Jimson’s place so they don’t wind up in somebody else’s backyard. Just be a general source of information.”
Punch tipped his baseball hat back and stroked his beard contemplatively. His first inclination had been to say no; to tell them that playing host to such a group might violate the sanctity of his mountainside Shangri-la. A vague apprehension stood in the way of committing himself. Retirement and all that it represented—the freedom to get up and the freedom to go to bed when he pleased, a daily routine of his own making, the quiet enjoyment of fishing in a cold mountain stream, and the general feeling of having few cares and even fewer worries—somehow seemed in jeopardy, as though he were about to tamper with the balanced and ordered state of being he had created for himself. Even all the assurances they could give him about life returning to normal afterwards didn’t mitigate the anxiety. Having worked undercover in the Navy, he understood only too well how nothing ever went exactly as planned; that more often than not something unforeseen could undo in a moment a well-thought-out scheme. There were no guarantees: a maxim the prudent operator always kept in mind.
On the other hand, he could appreciate that an occasional spoonful of variety helped to maintain the balanced and ordered state of being he cherished. It kept things from getting stale. Retirement afforded him the opportunity to catch up on a library shelf of reading he had postponed for years. It also allowed him to bring home a panful of fresh trout any day of the week he liked. And the quietude of the evening, as he sat out on the deck sipping a whiskey and soda, amounted to a kind of therapeutic rejuvenation of the heart and mind that money couldn’t buy. Certainly, he had found his own little nook of contentment, a contentment too dear to let the noisiness of life interfere. Still, he had to admit to occasionally feeling a tug in the other direction. He supposed it only natural that a craving for a little diversion cropped up now and then.
“Well, I might have to perform some kind of Oriental cleansing ritual afterwards—you know, burn incense—but, yeah, I suppose I can do it. But only for as long as it takes to get them steered in the right direction, an evening and part of a day.”
“No more, no less. You get them out to ground zero, and we’ll take over…” Bill assured him.
“Yeah, we’ll have ’em bagged and tagged and ready to haul off before they know what hit ’em…”
“‘Bagged and tagged’?”
“Figuratively speaking, of course.”
“Besides,” Bill hastily added, “there’s no reason for them to associate you with any kind of double-cross, if that’s one of your concerns. If they blame anyone, they’ll likely blame Rick. He’s the guy that’s talked them into coming out here.”
“He’s the ex-Marine. Tell me more about him…”
Bill opened a file folder.
“There’s a ton of information here, and you can read through it if you like. But the thing you wanna know most about him is that he’s a ‘burn-out.’ Whether because of drug use, alcohol, bad memories of his time in action, or a combination of all three, he’s like a spent cartridge. He doesn’t much give a fuck about anything anymore. And he needs the stimulus to keep going, massive doses of it. Like a lot of vets, he misses that adrenaline high, and he tries to get it from a motorcycle, a marijuana joint, in bed, or from rye whiskey. He got in with this group for just that reason—because it was like an exciting, slightly dangerous game. He’s no more concerned about the environment or the wolf population than W.R. Grace was about the effects of its vermiculite operation on the residents of Libby, Montana. But he’ll go along because his ass depends on it.”
“That’s a code phrase, I take it?”
“We got him by his balls, absolutely.”
“What about the others?”
Bill set Rick’s file aside and picked up one containing information about Heidi. He opened it to an eight by ten black-and-white photograph. The photograph showed her coming out of a Starbucks, a tall latte in her hand. She had on her customary black beret, cocked to one side, and a sleeveless jumper over a white blouse and a dark skirt. She apparently didn’t know she was being photographed because her focus was elsewhere.
He handed the photo to Punch.
“She’s the ringleader, huh?”
“Graduated from Reed College in Portland. You either have to be pretty bright, have money, or be an alumnus kid to even get accepted. She majored in political science, worked on a couple of presidential campaigns, did some charity work, and finally got into the environmental movement. At this stage of her involvement, she seems to be pretty obsessed with it all, almost to the point of being pathological about it. As with many obsessive people, she’s also very controlling. I’m sure you’ll see that right away.”
“Just runs the show, huh?”
“She tries to run the group like a tight-knit guerrilla outfit, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Too much independence and not enough dedication. I suspect each member of the group has his or her own motive for being involved in the first place, motives that have less to do with the environment than with personal agendas.”
“They connected up with any other groups?”
“None that we can determine, though I suspect they’ve tried to model themselves on groups like Earth Liberation Front and PETA. They use a similar shock strategy.”
“Who else we got?”
Bill produced another folder. A black-and-white photograph just inside the cover showed Carlos standing beside a sleek sports car, his hand on the door handle and looking over the top of the car, as though talking to someone. He wore a sports jacket and a white shirt, with the shirt unbuttoned at the collar.
“This guy’s a bit of an enigma,” Bill said, giving the photo to Punch. “He’s got a typical Hispanic background…parents came over from Mexico and worked their way up. He graduated high school, worked construction for a time, then enrolled in college. Right now, he works as a loan officer, making more money than any of us. But he hangs out with this group and, as far as we know, takes part in most of its activities. I surmise that with him, more than anything, it plays to a desire to be part of the mainstream—the other group members all have solid middle-class backgrounds, and being with them gives him a feeling of acceptance. But…just my opinion.”
“Good-looking guy, too. With a sports car like that and the kind of money those mortgage guys make, he oughta be out chasing señoritas instead of getting his ass in a sling.”
“You’d think so. But, from what our informant tells us, he’ll be here right along with the rest of them.”
“I’ll brush up on my Spanish.”
The agents chuckled.
“Better yet,” Tom quipped, “serve tacos for dinner.”
They all laughed.
“Couple more of interest…” Bill continued.
He flipped open another file and removed another photograph.
“This fella’s another peculiarity. He’s an ornithologist by training and teaches high school biology. I can understand his interest in the environment, but otherwise he doesn’t fit the profile of a radical activist…”
Punch looked at the photograph. He noted Ralph’s slack-jawed, mild-mannered visage with its incipient double-chin and thinning hairline. He looked more like a kindly doctor, with a frank expression in his eyes, than someone apt to give serious consideration to blowing up a bridge or sabotaging a construction site. One might as well have believe one’s dad or uncle a serial bomber than the easygoing, peaceable guy one had always known him to be.
Punch handed the photograph back.
“No real take on him, either, huh?”
“Not really. Not until we interview him, if it ever comes to that.”
“Same with his girlfriend,” Tom added. “Here, take a look at her.”
The black-and-white glossy photo of a smiling young woman with an upturned chin, a puckish glint in her eye, and a face framed in a pixie cut produced the same expression of disbelief. She could have been a high school cheerleader, a young starlet, or a receptionist new on the job and eager to please. Punch stared at her photo as though to reconcile what he saw with what the two agents were telling him about her.
“A dead ringer for my kid sister, but she’s a bona fide part of the group, right along with the rest of them. Tough to figure.”
“Hell, if I had a daughter, I’d want her to look like that,” Punch commented.
“Got one more here for ya…”
Jody’s dour, unsmiling face and tight lipped expression seemed to capture something of an inner discontent. She sat at a sidewalk cafe table and, hands folded in her lap, looked off to the side of her chair. She might have been listening to something she didn’t especially want to hear, or she might have been mulling over an unpleasant proposal. She had on the same French beret and turtleneck sweater she wore on most occasions, and her mannish wristwatch—that of a diver or an airline pilot—added a final touch of severity.
“What’s her story?”
“Catholic girls’ school. Mother was a high school English teacher, dad a lawyer. Used to be a summer camp counselor and taught English at the community college level. Wrote her master’s dissertation on John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Zeroed in on the male-female role reversal that takes place in the Joad family…”
Punch laughed.
“I read the book in high school,” he said. “I remember we discussed that. Just looking at her picture, it doesn’t surprise me that she’d wanna focus on that.”
The two agents laughed knowingly.
“I can’t speak to that part of her anatomy,” Bill said. “But, nowadays, you never know.”
Handing the photo back, Punch scratched his balding head and looked out beyond the deck railing, through the growth of timber, to where bright sunlight gave a crisp definition to the silvery creek and its straggled array of dove-gray boulders along either side. Oftentimes, during the heat of day, towel and soap in hand, he might mosey down to its rock-strewn edge and, under the naturalness of an open sky, strip down to naked nothingness and bathe himself in its mountain freshness. In the beginning, a novel way of bathing, it had become, over time, a ritualized affirmation of something elemental and profound. Normally a man who eschewed the deeper, introspective maunderings of a philosophical kind, he had come to an intuitive realization that at such moments he somehow took on a oneness with his surroundings that Native Americans must have once felt, though without the baggage of modernity and self-consciousness.
“Well, I’ll be real frank with you,” he said. “This isn’t my quarrel and my inclination is to avoid it. But Art Jimson’s become a friend of mine, so I’ll oblige you just to help him out. But keep me out of it otherwise. I’ll be a silent player, but nothing more.”
“We’re not asking any more of you than that, Punch,” Agent Hammerstein said.
“And, of course, you’ll be compensated for any expense and inconvenience.”
“Fair enough…”
Punch shook hands with the two agents and walked them to the door and out to their car.
“Incidentally, what kind of time-frame are we looking at?”
Bill had the car door open. He said, “According to our source, they’re all ready to leave. They’re just waiting for him to confirm things out here with his contact.”
“That’d be me…”
“Yeah. We’re gonna get back to him when we leave here and let him know it’s a go.”
“Well, keep me posted.”
Punch watched them drive up the gravel driveway and turn onto the dirt road that would take them back down the mountain and into Livingston. Standing by his jeep, looking up at the road, he waved as they went by. Then he went back into his cabin and closed the door.