Read Online The Deadline by Ron Franscell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ron Franscell
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is a spirit, if you believe that shamanistic Indian crap. But I think he’s looking for dinner. Damn rabbits are thicker than spinsters in the front pew. But it’s a sight no city folks ever see,” he said.
Old Bell raised his glass.
“Welcome home, kid,” he said. He sounded genuinely pleased.
Morgan clinked his glass and turned to watch the darkening sky. Old Bell pointed toward the setting sun.
“I pay taxes on all you can see to the west, for better or worse,” he said, sweeping his arm in a slow circle. “The town’s to the north over there, and the damned Forest Service has most of the mountain out back. To the east there, that’s Malachi Pierce’s land. Runs all the way to the Black Thunder River. He’s one scary son of a bitch, that Pierce. All that anti-government, racist crap. Some nights, I watch the stars from the garden and I hear automatic weapons fire over there. He sure as hell isn’t hunting goddam deer, I’ll tell you.”
“I remember him from when I was a kid,” Morgan said. “Didn’t have much use for local folks, I recall, but an assault weapon goes beyond being unsociable. Is it some kind of militia?”
“Malachi Pierce has been bent all his miserable life. First he got God, then he got mad. At everybody. Must have been thirty years ago when he started writing these crazy goddam letters to the paper every week. At first, they were just long, rambling diatribes about how folks didn’t obey the Bible anymore. Sticking it to the ‘godless’ ones, he’d say, all those goddam liberals who didn’t believe America was a white man’s sanctuary. There was always a racist stink to those letters.”
Morgan knew Old Bell and Pierce had clashed more than once, in print and at least once physically in the parking lot behind the Elks Lodge. They were enemies in spirit as well as body, one as inclement as the other.
“He just got older and meaner. Then he had that girl, the retarded one,” Old Bell continued. His points grew vigorous, so his wine nearly sloshed out of its glass. “He’s past eighty now, but he’d married late in his life to some teen-age girl, fourteen or fifteen. There he was, a twisted old man in his fifties, squirting out more wrong-headed children. That little daughter of his must be near thirty now. She was still pretty young, maybe eight, when he tried to have her put away, but they wouldn’t let him. He’s kept her out there at Wormwood Camp ever since.”
“Wormwood Camp?”
“That’s what he calls that god-forsaken ranch now,” Old Bell said. “Go back and read your Revelations, where some angry angel hurls a star called Wormwood into the Earth and it poisons the sea. A third of the men who drink from it are embittered. Pierce believes it was the sea that covered these parts at Creation, and that Wormwood smashed into the pisspot he now calls home. That bastard knows his Bible and he uses it like a deadly weapon.”
Morgan looked into the distance and saw a hawk swoop steeply toward the ground, like a falling star. For a new editor trying to get his feet firmly planted in the community, he knew Pierce could be a problem.
“A lot of these militia guys are all wind and no water,” Morgan said. “Is there anything going on at Pierce’s ranch beyond target practice?”
“I guess you might call it a compound now, with all its fences and locked gates. Make you wonder, doesn’t it? He’s gathered a few of his crazy sympathizers, mostly drifters and other invisible people. They all live out there in cheap trailers and shacks. They put up their own church and even run their own candidates for county offices. Scariest goddam people you’ll ever want to meet. Loonies who carry guns.”
“Have they made any trouble?” Morgan asked.
“Not yet,” Old Bell said, looking down into his glass. “But they’re fixing to. I feel it in these old
Old Bell raised his glass.
“Welcome home, kid,” he said. He sounded genuinely pleased.
Morgan clinked his glass and turned to watch the darkening sky. Old Bell pointed toward the setting sun.
“I pay taxes on all you can see to the west, for better or worse,” he said, sweeping his arm in a slow circle. “The town’s to the north over there, and the damned Forest Service has most of the mountain out back. To the east there, that’s Malachi Pierce’s land. Runs all the way to the Black Thunder River. He’s one scary son of a bitch, that Pierce. All that anti-government, racist crap. Some nights, I watch the stars from the garden and I hear automatic weapons fire over there. He sure as hell isn’t hunting goddam deer, I’ll tell you.”
“I remember him from when I was a kid,” Morgan said. “Didn’t have much use for local folks, I recall, but an assault weapon goes beyond being unsociable. Is it some kind of militia?”
“Malachi Pierce has been bent all his miserable life. First he got God, then he got mad. At everybody. Must have been thirty years ago when he started writing these crazy goddam letters to the paper every week. At first, they were just long, rambling diatribes about how folks didn’t obey the Bible anymore. Sticking it to the ‘godless’ ones, he’d say, all those goddam liberals who didn’t believe America was a white man’s sanctuary. There was always a racist stink to those letters.”
Morgan knew Old Bell and Pierce had clashed more than once, in print and at least once physically in the parking lot behind the Elks Lodge. They were enemies in spirit as well as body, one as inclement as the other.
“He just got older and meaner. Then he had that girl, the retarded one,” Old Bell continued. His points grew vigorous, so his wine nearly sloshed out of its glass. “He’s past eighty now, but he’d married late in his life to some teen-age girl, fourteen or fifteen. There he was, a twisted old man in his fifties, squirting out more wrong-headed children. That little daughter of his must be near thirty now. She was still pretty young, maybe eight, when he tried to have her put away, but they wouldn’t let him. He’s kept her out there at Wormwood Camp ever since.”
“Wormwood Camp?”
“That’s what he calls that god-forsaken ranch now,” Old Bell said. “Go back and read your Revelations, where some angry angel hurls a star called Wormwood into the Earth and it poisons the sea. A third of the men who drink from it are embittered. Pierce believes it was the sea that covered these parts at Creation, and that Wormwood smashed into the pisspot he now calls home. That bastard knows his Bible and he uses it like a deadly weapon.”
Morgan looked into the distance and saw a hawk swoop steeply toward the ground, like a falling star. For a new editor trying to get his feet firmly planted in the community, he knew Pierce could be a problem.
“A lot of these militia guys are all wind and no water,” Morgan said. “Is there anything going on at Pierce’s ranch beyond target practice?”
“I guess you might call it a compound now, with all its fences and locked gates. Make you wonder, doesn’t it? He’s gathered a few of his crazy sympathizers, mostly drifters and other invisible people. They all live out there in cheap trailers and shacks. They put up their own church and even run their own candidates for county offices. Scariest goddam people you’ll ever want to meet. Loonies who carry guns.”
“Have they made any trouble?” Morgan asked.
“Not yet,” Old Bell said, looking down into his glass. “But they’re fixing to. I feel it in these old
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