Twenty-four

“COME 0n, Y0u sunuvabitch. Get that damn crate out of the road!” Jonathan gripped the steering wheel, wishing it were the neck of the driver in front of him. For the past hour he’d tailgated an old Ford pickup that had wobbled around the curves with maddening slowness, due either to woefully misaligned tires or a woefully inebriated driver. Every time the two lanes widened to allow passing, the Ford sped up and shot to the middle of the road. When the road climbed the mountains through narrow switchbacks, the ancient truck slowed to the point that Jonathan had to brake to keep from running into it. Finally, at a town called Madis­onville, the battered truck turned east. Jonathan blasted his horn, just for spite. As the truck wob­bled on toward Sweetwater, a gnarled hand appeared from the driver’s window and gave him the finger.

The detour Jonathan had taken from Carolina had led him hours out of his way. He’d driven mountain roads that had neither name nor num­ber, causing him to take a wrong turn and wind up almost on the other side of Lookout Moun­tain. Now, after a trip to Wal-Mart for a road at­las, he was nearing Tremont, Tennessee. He’d stopped at several pay phones and tried to get in touch with Ruth, punching in Little Jump Off’s number but getting no reply. He’d called both the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Nikwase County sheriff’s office. At the THP he’d gotten a voice menu. The Nikwase County sheriff’s line rang busy. With a coldness in his gut, he pushed the repaired Whirlaway north.

“One more hour,” he said softly. The guy at that store said people had been hurt at these demonstrations, but he hadn’t said how. Had the cops taken clubs to them? Tear gas? Could they have been trampled in the chaos of a violent crowd?

“Don’t go there,” he snapped aloud, wishing Whirlaway had a radio so he could turn on the news for more information. “Ruth is a good mother. She would have gotten Lily out of there at the first sign of trouble.”

But if she did that, then where is she? She isn’t back at Little Jump Off. Could Clarinda have talked her into driving out to Oklahoma? On TV he’d seen the governor of Tennessee furious, wiping pie off his face, and the equally furious demonstrators confronting cops and soldiers with rocks and spittle. What had started as an Indian demonstration over a field of bones had grown into a fierce protest of government policies about everything from logging rights in national forests to the ecological impact of gas-burning cars. A goodly number of Americans were acting out their sub-basement opinion of the nation’s leaders. It made him sick to think of Lily and Ruth caught up in such anguish.

When he turned toward Tremont, he truly thought he might vomit. National Guard trucks lined his side of the highway, while the westbound lane away from town was littered with all the crap people had ditched as they fled: paper cups, fast-food wrappers, and lumpy bags of garbage lay strewn along the road. He swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat. It looked as if somebody had dropped a bomb on Tremont, Tennessee.

National Guard troops had erected makeshift bivouacs in a strip-mall parking lot. Kids from town loitered, curious and sullen at the lot’s edge.

He turned down a side street to find a parking space in front of a Baptist church. The sign in front of the church advertised a “Prayer Vigil to Heal Our Wounds.” As he strode back to the main drag of the town, it occurred to him that maybe he shouldn’t wait for the vigil. Maybe he should start praying right now, all by himself. Where had his wife and child gone?

People crowded the street, giving the little town the uneasy feel of a kettle on simmer. Civil libertarians, war protesters, and radical ecological groups had flocked to the support of the Native Americans, while the construction workers were aided by flag-waving veterans and sour-looking men who wore heavy boots and carried signs provided by the local brotherhood of teamsters. “Can you tell me where to find the Save Our Bones people?” Jonathan called to a Guardsman directing traffic.

“The who?” The helmeted soldier looked no more than eighteen. Beads of sweat dotted his upper lip.

“Save Our Bones,” Jonathan repeated. “The Indians.”

“I can’t give out that information, Sir,” the kid replied. “You’ll have to check with Command.”

“Where’s that?” Jonathan yelled over a jeep that badly needed a new muffler.

“Courthouse. That way.” The Guardsman pointed north.

“Thanks.”

He hurried up the street, dodging more Guardsmen and nearly stumbling over a thick fire hose that was refilling a pumper truck. Finally he saw a redbrick building with a clock tower on top: “Nikwase County” was engraved across its granite facade.

He started to run, pushing his way through the thickening crowd, not caring whose toes he stepped on. He needed to see his wife. He needed to hold his child.

An Army tent was pitched on the courthouse lawn. He hurried toward it. Inside, another soldier sat at a collapsible table, drinking coffee in a cup. His hair had been shaved so close that his pale scalp was visible, and he had a tattoo of an eagle on his right forearm.

“Sergeant.” Jonathan recognized the man’s rank from his own days in the Army. “Do you know where the injured are?”

“Most are at the hospital. A couple have made the morgue.” The man scowled up at Jonathan. “Who are you looking for?”

“My wife.” Jonathan’s mouth felt like dry ice. “She came to the Indian rally.”

“One of them Bone people?” Jonathan nodded.

“Bunch of them folks got thrown into jail. I’d check the sheriff’s office, if I were you.”

“Where’s that?”

“Brick building on the side of the courthouse.’’

The coldness spread inside Jonathan. What if Ruth and Lily were the two in the morgue? What if they’d been beaten to death by those construction goons? What would he do if that had happened?

Suddenly he heard someone call his name.

“Jonathan?”

He stopped.

‘’Jonathan?”

A woman ran toward him. For an instant he thought it was Mary Crow, then he saw the shorter hair, the smudged face and dirty clothes. Her heavy breasts swayed as she ran. She flung herself in his arms, burying her face in his chest. His wife, Ruth. She pressed herself into him des­perately, as if he and he alone could save her from some unimaginable fate.

He held her for what seemed like years. People swept in and out of the sheriff’s office around them, indulgent of the two young lovers who had found each other in all the chaos. Now all they needed to do was get Lily, and get out of here. Go back to the mountains of Carolina, where they belonged.

He loosened his embrace and looked down at her, brushing the hair away from her eyes.

“Where’s Lily?”

“Come on,” Ruth said, grabbing his hand. “I need you to talk to the sheriff.”

“The sheriff? What for?”

“Come on, Jonathan.” She was tugging him into the building. “We need to talk to the sheriff.’’

“Where is Lily?” he demanded, his heart jumping like something caught in a trap.

Ruth’s face crumpled like paper. “She’s gone, Jonathan,” she sobbed. “Somebody stole our baby!”