Trent Reedy - Divided We Fall

The next morning, dressed in regular jeans and a sweatshirt, I drove down to the shop. The news was playing on the radio. Word of the “border skirmish” was already out. Schmidty looked up from the engine of the little Honda he’d been working on. “Danny. It’s good to see you.”

That wasn’t the greeting I’d expected. Coming from him, that was downright cheerful. He lit up a cigarette from a pack on his desk, squinting a little as the smoke wafted up in his eyes. “You just can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can you?”

“I… almost killed a guy yesterday, Schmidty. I wasn’t aiming at him. Suppressive fire, but…”

Schmidty blew out smoke. “You did what you had to do. Like I did one day in Gulf War One. Wish I could say it gets easier.”

“Maybe I need to find a way to make it easier. Or… not easier, but so I can deal with it better. I went down to help the guy I’d wounded, and after I saved his life, a Fed medic tried to arrest me. I guess I should have—”

“Known you can’t trust the Fed.” He flicked some ash to the floor. “Not anymore. They’re talking on the news about working this all out real peaceful-like. But this situation is a lot like Vietnam or the second Iraq war. Once blood is spilled, we’re stuck in the fight for the long haul, because if we quit early, if we work out a compromise, then what was the point of those casualties?” He took a long drag on his cigarette. “We’re all too deep in this now. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. If it ever gets better. Ain’t no running away from this.”

“I’m not running away,” I said. “I only wish there was something I could do to make things right.”

“Nothing you can do to fix this mess.” He put his hand on my shoulder and led me out to the driveway. He pointed at the faded old American flag fluttering in the breeze. “See, way I reckon, this country is like its flag. When troubles hit the country like the weather on that flag, people got different ideas about how to fix that trouble. They start arguing about it. Folks getting madder and madder at one another, pulling apart in different directions, until, like that flag, there are little threadbare spots, small tears. Finally, something comes along that’s too much, and those little worn spots rip open, leaving the flag, like this country, in tatters.”

Schmidty was making a lot of sense, but it felt weird hearing him all serious like this. “That’s real poetic of you,” I said.

“W’d’ya shut the hell up?” He led me back into the shop.

“Sorry,” I said with a smile so he’d know I didn’t mean it. “Anyway, I’m here because I’m going to go bring my mother home from Spokane.”

I heard footsteps on the pavement behind me, and I reached under my belt for my gun.

“Hey, babe.”

It was JoBell. I turned to face her. She ran to me, throwing her arms around me and pulling me close for a hungry kiss.

“I missed you,” I said. “I’m sorry—”

“I’m sorry about what happened at Cal’s. Let’s not fight anymore?” she whispered.

Behind us, Schmidty hacked and then spat on the floor. I stepped back from JoBell. She brushed a strand of that golden hair out of her eyes. “Saw your truck out front. I couldn’t believe it at first, but here you are. I thought you had to go back on duty.”

“You really gonna do it?” Schmidty asked loudly, as if to make a point to JoBell. “Jump the border?”

JoBell’s eyes went wide. “What?” She pressed her palms to my cheek and made me look at her. “Danny, what is he talking about?”

“I got to,” I said. “You know my mom. She can’t handle being trapped over there much longer. Says she’s going to try to sneak back into Idaho. After what went down yesterday morning, I can’t let her do that on her own.”

JoBell took a couple steps away from me and looked down at her comm. She tapped away.

“What are you doing?”

“Texting the others. Telling them to get over here.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” I made a halfhearted grab for her comm to stop her, but she twisted away from me. “I mean, I can see them when I get back.”

JoBell shook her comm up above her head. “Maybe they’ll talk some sense into you.”

“You’re high if you think you’re going alone,” Sweeney said after he arrived with Becca and Cal.

“I am going alone.” I paced to the other end of the shop, squeezing my hands tight into fists. “I mean it. I’m not putting you guys in danger again. It’s not your problem. You don’t have to do this.”

“Nobody has to do this,” said JoBell. “Nobody’s jumping the border.”

Cal put his arm around JoBell’s shoulders. “Oh, come on, JoJo, Danny’s mom is totally cool. We can’t leave her trapped over there.”

She was too upset to even bother complaining about the nickname. “I know she’s great.” She pulled away from Cal. “I love that woman…” She paused a moment, then smiled and added, “and her son. Which is why we shouldn’t encourage either of them to take the risk of trying to run the blockade.”

I was both happy to hear what she said about love, and sad that I would have to disagree with her again. “I’m sorry, JoBell,” I said. “But I am doing this no matter what you say. I’m going alone. None of you are coming with me.”

“Yes, we are, Danny,” said Becca. “We’re your friends. Besides, it will be great to have the whole group back together.”

“No, it won’t!” Schmidty was coming up the stairs out of the basement, blinking against the cigarette smoke in his eyes, carrying the AR15 in his hands and its spare loaded magazines under his arms. Gross, I thought. The magazines would be funkified by Schmidty’s nasty, sweaty armpits. “It won’t be great. This ain’t the damned senior prom. If you try to travel on paved roads into Washington, the Feds will stop you all and arrest Danny on sight. So first you’ll have to find some way to hide him, or else try to cross in the woods somewhere. The way back will be even harder. You have spooked-out, pissed-off soldiers on both sides of the state line. Be real easy for y’all to end up in the crossfire.” He held out the rifle to me. “Here. It’s what you came for, right?”

I cleared the rifle, slung it over my shoulder, took the ammo, and then held up the magazines to show them what my life had become. “Schmidty’s right, Becca. That’s why I’m going alone.”

“You won’t make it by yourself,” Becca said. “Anyway, if you try, we’ll just follow you in one of our cars. You won’t be able to stop us. So we’re with you — or I’m with you — no matter what.”

The argument dragged on for an hour. Eventually I had to give in and agree to let them come. I believed them when they said they would follow me in their own vehicles whether I wanted them to or not. Even JoBell changed her mind, figuring she got along real good with my mom, and she might need JoBell’s help.

We thought getting out of Idaho would be the easiest part, provided the Feds didn’t find me. I’d ride on the floor behind the backseat until we approached the border, when I’d wedge myself into the storage space under the false bottom that Schmidty had installed. Sweeney already had a fake ID, but he made new ones for everyone else so the Fed couldn’t recognize their names and link them to me. For the return trip, Cal said he knew a tiny dirt logging road near the Canadian border. If the Fed had that blocked, we’d off-road up into Canada and come back down into Idaho on one of the smugglers’ routes.

“Cal,” I said, “you think you can drive? If the Feds find out I’m hiding back there, you’ll have to whip the Beast around and get us back into Idaho fast.”