Ryne Pearson - Capitol Punishment

“Huh?”

“A big ol’ hunk of skin is gone, Brother Moises.” Darian let his head go. “It’s gonna be a scar. A good one.”

Moises took the bandanna from around his neck and pressed it to the wound. It stung, but it didn’t hurt. It did not hurt. “Fuck it.”

That’s the attitude, Darian thought. As he did the first police cars, light bars flashing, passed left to right behind them.

“Where are you hit?” the police officer asked as he knelt down. Two civilians had already come to the victim’s aid.

“The leg,” Vorhees answered, laughing nervously. He saw the cop looking at him and thinking “shock.” “It’s a prosthesis.”

The police officer watched as the victim pulled the left leg of his sweatpants up. He held the beam of his flashlight on the sight. “Unbelievable.”

Vorhees heard more sirens approaching as he stuck three fingers into the gaping hole halfway between his knee and the artificial ankle. He moved them around, making a clinking metal sound. “Blew the hell out of it.”

“Better it than you,” the police officer said. He ran his light over the rest of the victim. “What’s that?”

Vorhees noticed the blood on his hand for the first time. “It’s the punk’s. I laid one on him.”

The police officer examined the bloodied hand. There was a large class-type ring on the third finger, some pieces of torn skin jammed between it and the finger, and — he looked closer — yes, even some short hairs still embedded in the skin. “Don’t touch anything with this. I want to get this in an evidence bag. The leg, too, I’m afraid.”

“It’s no good to me anymore,” Vorhees said.

“But how…”

“Don’t worry.” Vorhees laughed a bit, silently likening himself to a car. “I have a spare. An old one, but it’s got a few miles left in it.”

John Barrish stepped from the house near Fulks Run for the last time and gazed eastward over the trees. The morning sky glowed with a jaundiced hue that filtered through sheer fingers of clouds flowing northeast, the cold nip of winter stinging his cheeks. It was a beautiful morning. It would be a glorious day.

“John.”

He turned just his head toward the voice, then looked away from his wife’s face.

Louise Barrish came from the house, wearing the closest thing she had to a winter coat. It did little to stave off the sharp chill. “John, Toby is leaving soon.” She said this to his back. Silence followed. “How long will he be gone?”

“A while.”

Louise drew her arms tight against her chest, gripping opposite elbows. “John, does it have to happen?”

Trent wrote once that “ doubters are not followers. Instead they favor proximity to the bold, for it is with them that they find nourishment for their weakness. Doubters need visionaries to justify their existence. The lion is a visionary. The grizzly is a visionary. The slug is a doubter. Doubters are prey. ” Do not feed the doubter, John recalled Trent proposing. It was better to let the behavior starve.

“So many people are dead already,” Louise said, her voice having a surprising edge to it. “Do more have to die?”

“Toby will make the call tonight, then he’ll be back,” John said to the forest. Sparks of light flashed off the ice-covered trees as rays of sun began to crest the horizon.

“John, think about this,” Louise implored. She stepped closer, even though she could see her husband’s fist ball at his side. “How many more?”

“Make sure you make a big dinner. I’m sure he’ll be hungry.”

“John… Don’t do this. Stop it. You can stop it.”

“ Don’t let a doubter become a challenger. Challengers are parasites that infect he who allows them quarter .”

“Please, John.” He was so young, so strong, with such powerful convictions, such grand ideas, such determination. How could she not have fallen in love with him then? So long ago. Now she understood the reality of it all. Her reality. One did not love John Barrish. One either hated him or respected him. Louise knew now that she was unique among those groupings. She was a creature of two selves. She did not love him. Infatuation at one time, maybe. Starry-eyed adoration. But never love. Respect, yes. Fear, most definitely. “Don’t make our sons like you. Don’t.”

John unclenched his fists and slid them into the pockets of his jeans. “Steak. We have some steaks left. Toby and Stanley both like steak.”

“John!”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “They’re my sons! They’re nothing like you! They never have been, they never will be!”

Her eyes were glistening, her cheeks red. Neither were from the cold. “Please!”

Now he turned his whole body and faced her, just looking, not lifting a hand, not making a move. It was a posture he had mastered against more worthy doubters. This one, like the others, would not become a challenger. “One other thing, Louise: if you say anything, do anything, even think anything that crosses me in front of the boys, I’ll kill you.”

Her body didn’t move an inch, but internally she cowered, hunching down into the smallest fetal position she could imagine, hands shielding her face from the monster that stood over her like a giant. The monster looked down upon her, then walked past. It could have stepped on her if it wanted.

It might still, she knew.

“I can’t believe we’re here,” Felicia Griggs said to her husband as they were escorted to the upper level of the House chamber.

“I’m in a suit,” Darren said. “Believe it.”

“I can’t get him in a suit even for church,” Felicia joked, looking back to Anne.

“I can’t get mine out of his,” Anne responded, realizing from the shocked look on her newest friend’s face that there was too much interpretation possible in that statement. “You know what I mean.”

“I know,” Felicia said.

“There was a lot of security outside,” Felicia commented. “There were soldiers on the roof of the Supreme Court building.”

“Just a few,” Darren reminded her, though he had noticed, too.

“Art promised it was safe,” Anne assured them. Of course he was miles away watching the whole thing as the guest of some government bigwigs. Well, they were guests of the biggest bigwig, Anne knew.

The House usher stopped and motioned a left to the guests of the president. “This way. To the second row on the right. You’ll be behind the first lady.”

Felicia froze momentarily, as did Anne. Collectively they thought, The First Lady!

“Come on,” Darren prodded. He led them down the steps, past the half-filled rows to the seats indicated by the usher. It was still early, and the House chamber was only sparsely populated, but more legislators were entering every minute.

“Do you think there’s someone selling peanuts?” Anne asked.

Felicia giggled at the joke and looked toward the podium where the president would be speaking. They were above and to the left of that spot, one of the choicest seats for the yearly event. It was where those whom the president had chosen for special recognition of some sort sat, along with the first family.

“Do you think she’ll bring the baby?” Felicia inquired.

“Not if he yells like he did at that speech the president gave last summer,” Darren answered.

“The child has lungs,” Anne commented.

“I think he’s cute,” Felicia said in defense of the little boy. She squeezed her husband’s hand as thoughts of another little boy filled her head. Darren, not surprisingly, squeezed back.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, but Art Jefferson was when Secretary of State James Coventry met him in the foyer with a long-neck hanging lazily in one hand.