Uncle River: Passing the Torch

Prabaht froze, a look of panic on his face.

“Hi, Colin,” Esther answered. “Any idea what’s going on?”

“It’s a mess,” Colin replied, striding toward Esther and her companions with notable agility for a man who weighed nearly four hundred pounds. “Everything all right with you?”

“Just fine, except I’ve been trying to call my daughter in Socorro and can’t get through.”

“If it’s an emergency, I could try.”

“No, just want to be sure she’s okay.”

“I think the circuits are pretty tied up,” said Colin. “Probably clear out later. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Sure thing. Thanks.”

Colin headed toward the Tellez Mercantile.

“You can start breathing again,” said Peter quietly to Prabaht.

“Did you notice how evasive he was?” Prabaht replied, as they continued on to the post office.

Stella Martinez, the postmistress, was terribly upset. There had been no mail delivery at all yesterday. Today, the mail had come in, almost on time, but it was extremely skimpy, and thfe weekly advertizing circulars that should have arrived yesterday still weren’t here.

“Any idea what’s going on?” Esther asked.

“It’s the Governors’ Executive Commission,” the postmistress answered. “They decided that the Federal Government wasn’t doing enough about crime, so they got up a warrant for four million people. Of course, it didn’t work very well.”

“Idiots,” said Esther.

“That’s not it at all,” Joe Galloway chimed in as he shut his post office box and pocketed the key. Joe, in his mid-thirties, with heroic chest and shoulders and receding chin and hair, was a part-time logger, part-time outfitter’s assistant, and part-time barfly.

“You heard better news?” Stella asked.

“Yeah,” said Joe, “just a few minutes ago. They’re saying now that it was a sort of palace coup at the F.B.I. They been accused of racism again. Got the top dogs at each other’s throats. Someone figured to embarrass someone else by issuing this mass arrest order under the Known Criminals Law.”

“Any idea who?” asked Prabaht.

“Nah,” said Joe. “Maybe they’ll say on the five-thirty news.”

“Well, that’s clear as mud,” said Suzie Romero, who came in just in time to hear Joe’s explanation of events. She was older than Esther and half Apache, her long hair still more black than grey.

“Should have grilled Colin,” said Esther. “He certainly acted like the cat that ate the ballot box.”

Suzie, Joe, and Stella all laughed. Manuel Tellez had been sheriff two terms, so he couldn’t run again. The primary was only six months off.

“Colin was on duty when the order came in,” said Stella. “With the sheriff out of county delivering a juvenile to Las Cruces, and an arrest list of a hundred and ninety-two, he figured that a four-man department wasn’t enough personnel. So he’d wait till Manuel got back to do anything.”

“Pass the buck. Smart man,” said Joe.

“A hundred and ninety-two people’s 10 percent of the county,” said Esther. “That’s a lot of votes.”

“Sheriff didn’t get back till noon today,” said Stella. “Now Colin’s glad he didn’t do anything. State and Feds picked up about thirty people here in county. I hear most of them are already planning to sue.”

“That was fast,” said Esther.

“Magistrate gave them the idea.” “Oh?” asked Esther.

“Colin called Grant Harkins ’cause the jail was full… at five in the morning.”

Joe guffawed. Everyone looked his way. He explained. “Grant closed down the Dry Gulch the night before. Bet he had a head like a watermelon.”

“He asked Colin where the arrests occurred,” Stella went on. “When Colin said at people's homes, Grant told him to let anyone out that wasn’t arrested by the State Police, ’cause the other officers didn’t have jurisdiction. Turned out a BLM Officer signed all the papers. Way I heard it, Colin hollered, “Weren’t none of these arrests legal,’ opened the doors, and told everyone to go home. Of course, anyone that lived out of town was stuck for a ride, and it was still just past five A.M.”

“Ol’ Colin ain’t so dumb,” said Joe. “He’ll get my vote.”

“What if there was a real crime, like a hold-up?” asked Peter.

“Colin’s a crack shot, and he knows this country,” said Joe.

“If the percentage was the same nationwide,” said Prabaht, “does that mean someone tried to arrest twenty-five million people yesterday? That’s crazy!”

“Things looked pretty crazy to me, ” said Peter.

“Oh?” said Joe.

“Came up from Socorro,” Peter explained. Everyone ignored Prabaht’s facial contortions.

“It’s worse than crazy,” said Suzie. “It’s stupid. ”

Nobody said anything about who the hundred and ninety-two people on the list for arrest might have been.

“All these damn generators are giving me a headache,” said Esther. “I’m ready to go back where it’s quiet.” She said good-bye and headed for the store, tossing the week’s mail into the car on the way. There was a letter from her sister, Grace, in Abilene, which she knew would be mostly about doctors and barely legible, and half a dozen solicitations to buy things she didn’t need and couldn’t afford. At the store, Esther bought a can of coffee, a head of lettuce, a pound of bacon, a pound of margarine, a gallon of milk, and three onions. She let Peter add three candy bars and a bag of chips… and carry the sack to the car.

“If you’re too tired, I can drive,” said Peter.

“I’m just tired of banging generators,” said Esther. “Anyhow, you drive too fast.”

“You’re no slouch yourself.”

Esther smiled. “I mean on the dirt. Way you crossed the creek this morning, you’d punch the shocks right through the floor.”

Esther invited Prabaht to join them for dinner. He accepted, but suggested they stop at his house for a chunk of meat.

Prabaht had taken an elk that fall, sort of legally. He had a license, for bow season, but his method was a little unusual. He lassoed his elk from a tree, then jumped down on its back and slit its throat. Between being stiff from waiting nearly forty hours for an elk to walk under him and the fact that the elk fought back, Prabaht was half-crippled for a month afterward.

He had a somewhat unorthodox freezer too, an old camper shell he had buried and lined with foam insulation. He had to crawl in with a flashlight to get anything. The compressor ran directly off a water-wheel on the creek. Prabaht intended to generate electricity off the same water-wheel, but never got around to building the system. He had been in a war for a year with the State Engineer, known locally as the Water God of the West, over the water-wheel. Prabaht claimed that he didn’t realize he needed permission, since it was nonconsumptive use. “Mean-ass, murdering son-of-a-bitch is just trying to deny my permit ’cause I applied after the fact! Bastard’ll claim I need a permit to breathe air next!”

“Do you like acorn squash?” Esther asked, to change the subject.

“Sure,” said Peter.

“Good. You clean a couple. They’re in the back bedroom. I’m ready for another little nap. If I’m asleep in an hour, rub them down with oil, and set them in the oven on three seventy-five.”

Esther dumped the junk mail in the firestarter box, set the letter from her sister on the side table by her chair, and took a toke from her pipe. “Help yourself,” she said to Peter. Then she lay down and pulled the blue wool blanket over herself. She wasn’t really sleepy. She just needed to withdraw and think.