April Smith - Judas Horse

I have fallen in love with a horse. It is peculiar as hell.

“We’ve forgotten what freedom is,” Megan goes on. “Mesteno is saying, This is the way it’s supposed to be.” Something inside me melts. “It breaks your heart,” I say, not quite understanding why.

“It softens your heart,” Megan replies, correcting me. Her moist green eyes hold mine. “Will you come to our rally? We want to call attention to the deputy state director of the BLM slaughtering these animals. And profiting from it.” “Where?”

“At his son’s school. When all the kids are getting out.”

“I don’t know. What about the son?”

“Nothing to do with him — nobody wants to hurt a child. We’ve been tracking Laumann. We know his routine and when he’s there.” “Okay, I’m in. Hey, Bill Fontana’s speaking. Are you going?” “If Julius ever stops jabbering. He admires Fontana, and he wants to get over there. Just never ask him a question about the law.” The big man is holding forth with another guy his age. He is wearing a fresh pinstriped shirt and jeans, the frayed red suspenders, and a beanie over his ponytail because of the air-conditioning. His pal has asked if the school can legally force his daughter to dissect a frog. Now he’s listening to Julius’s answer with acute concentration, arms crossed, one hand thoughtfully pressed against his cheek. I can see why. Julius Emerson Phelps’s intelligence is a breath of clarity in a sea of nutcakes.

“If your daughter is averse to cutting up a frog in biology class,” Julius is saying, “I’m afraid she’s on her own, Ralph.” Ralph ponders. “Can we argue it’s against her religious beliefs?” “Great thought, but there’s no legislation in place to protect that belief when it comes to student dissection. Trust me. I have written model laws regarding alternatives to dissection in the classroom, but to my knowledge, no statute has ever been enacted.” He checks his watch. To Megan: “We’d better head over to the ballroom. It’s going to be a showdown.” “I’ll close up,” she says. “You get seats.”

Julius, still lecturing, hurries off with his friend.

“Julius is a lawyer? I thought he was a farmer.”

“He went to law school, but he doesn’t practice. He helps folks out for free. Figures the advice is worth what they pay for it.” My cell phone buzzes.

“Just got a call from L.A.” Donnato’s voice is urgent. “Where are you?” “At the hazelnut booth.” I smile at Megan. She is locking the cash box.

“We have a situation,” Donnato says. “Julius Emerson Phelps is an alias.” “That’s interesting. I can’t wait to talk to you about it.” “When the status report went to headquarters — bingo — the alias hit the computers. Julius Emerson Phelps was an infant who died of meningitis in DeKalb, Illinois, in 1949. This guy is an imposter who has taken on the name.” I watch the big man disappear down the hall. The last I heard, Ralph was asking for free counsel on his divorce.

“At this time we don’t know who Phelps really is, or why he’s living under an assumed identity. Exercise caution.” “Okay, Dad,” I say cheerfully. “See you there.”

I close the phone.

“That’s my dad. He loves hazelnut brittle. Could I get a couple of pounds?” Megan has already shouldered her handbag.

“You’re packing up,” I say apologetically, pocketing a card with the farm’s phone number.

“Chocolate or regular?”

“Regular. Thank you.”

She puts her bag down.

“I know we’re in a rush, but — sorry — would you mind wrapping it up with some ribbon?” “For a friend of the horses? Of course,” Megan says graciously, and unrolls the cellophane.

Her fingerprints will be all over it.

A weighty mist invades the city, rain without really raining, beading up in beards and hair. The deserted streets are mirrorlike and slick. We, the protesters, are staked out for the anti-BLM rally in an artsy, mixed-race neighborhood dominated by gangs; even at 2:30 in the afternoon, the place feels edgy. A dozen of us huddle in a staging area beneath the defunct neon marquee of the Excelsior Theater, a plaster-work movie castle built in the twenties, long boarded over.

Megan is on the cell, listening to Julius track the target.

“There he goes. It’s Laumann!” she reports excitedly as a burgundy government sedan sweeps by.

For a moment, we glimpse a profile of the BLM’s deputy state director, a thin fortyish white male wearing a tan raincoat — like a character actor in a supporting role, cast because his unremarkable looks will not draw attention from the leading man. But, of course, all he desires is to be the leading man, which is why he squared off with Fontana at the convention. You can see it in the tense shoulders and self-important squint, like he’s driving a vehicle of distinction, and, as the taillights flash in a spray off the road, in the decals that declare his support of the sheriff’s office, the police and fire departments.

Herbert Laumann travels in the brotherhood of heroes.

“Where’s he going?” I ask. “The school is the other way.”

“He’ll park in the red zone at the coffee place. He stops there every day, and every day he gets a refill of Irish vanilla,” Megan replies. “Then he jumps back in the car and makes it over to the school just in time to cut a few people off and get a good spot in the car-pool line.”

“You know his pattern.”

“Julius taught us to do our homework.”

“It was so easy,” mocks a young man with a long neck and heavy black-framed glasses. “Laumann always gets a refill in his Bureau of Land Management nifty commuter mug.”

Other protesters giggle and snort.

“To show he cares about the environment?”

“Because he’s such a good guy.”

I smile and nod approvingly. What a bunch of dipshits.

“What’s the plan?”

“When Julius tells us, we head up the hill. St. Luke’s is on the right. The kids will just be getting out.”

“Is there security at the school?”

“This is Portland, Darcy.”

“Okay, but what about Laumann’s son?”

“Alex?” Megan says the name as if she’s somehow claimed it.

“How’s he going to react?” I ask eagerly.

Darcy craves action. Excitement. Blood on the walls.

“Nobody wants to hurt a child, but hopefully Laumann will be so humiliated in front of his son that he’ll finally get the message.”

Her cell again. She looks up with eager eyes. “Julius is at the school. It’s a go.”

A swell of anticipation sends people rushing to their cars to retrieve homemade signs and lock up watches and rings and wallets in the unlikely event of arrest.

Laumann rolls down a fogged-up window and sets the hot coffee mug in the cup holder. He makes sure to flash the BLM logo every place he gets a refill, eager to set an example of earth-friendly recycling. As deputy state director, he is the government — not an easy role these days.

Just this week, the psychos at FAN accused him on its Web site — and it made the legitimate press — that he has been stealing the horses he’s supposed to protect. Since then, the phone and fax lines to his office have been jammed with threats of violence against anyone who supports the Wild Horse and Burro Program — including secretaries, suppliers of tack and hay, even veterinarians. He thinks he kicked that poser Bill Fontana’s ass pretty good at the animal rights convention, calling the story “a fabricated radical conspiracy,” but in truth, Herbert Laumann needs the money. His civil service pay grade is way out of line with tuition for a private Catholic school, and Laumann and his wife want the boy to have a good education, and to be safe. Even in this transitional neighborhood, where angry white youth patrol the streets, Laumann (who grew up in a farming community) believes his son is less likely to come into harm’s way than in the public schools.