Walter Williams - The Rift

“Something the matter?” Omar asked.

“I hate heights,” Knox said in a strained voice. “Can’t stand bridges.”

Omar was amused. When he’d got to the end of the bridge, he told Knox it was safe and Knox opened his eyes and began to breathe again.

“So you’re on a speaking tour or something?” Omar said. “The Grand Wizard didn’t make that clear.”

“Speaking. Recruiting.” He gave Omar a look with his strange eyes. “Fund-raising.”

“Can’t have raised too many funds if you’re traveling by bus.”

Knox shrugged. “I raised money here and there, but I didn’t keep it. I sent it to other Crusader groups.”

“That’s good.”

Knox shifted uneasily in his seat. “You got a bank in Shelltown, or whatever it’s called?”

“Shelburne City. And we’ve got two.”

“I might need to get some more money.” He scratched his head. “Either of the banks owned by Jews?”

“Nope. You can do business in either of ’em.”

“Mm.” Knox pulled his feet up into the seat and crossed his arms on his knees, resting his chin on his forearms. His fingers tapped out strange little rhythms on his flannel-covered biceps.

“I got a good feeling about Shelburne City,” he said. “I think we’re gonna give people something to think about.”

Omar and Knox didn’t talk much on the way to Spottswood Parish. Knox clamped his eyes shut when they crossed the Bayou Bridge, then sat up and grinned. “We’re in Liberated America now!” he said.

“As liberated as it gets,” Omar said.

“This is the only county in America not run by ZOG. You chased ZOG out of Spottswood County.”

“Parish,” Omar corrected automatically. ZOG was Zionist Occupation Government, a term that some of the people used.

They passed a sign with a blue spiral design and the words evacuation route. Knox narrowed his eyes as the sign passed.

“What is that? Is that some kind of nuclear war thing?”

“It’s in case of a big hurricane,” Omar said. “This state is so flat that a big enough storm could put half of us under the Gulf of Mexico.”

Knox looked around. “It’s flat all right.”

“It looks flatter’n it is,” Omar said. “You can’t really tell from looking, but most of the parish is actually higher than the country around. In the big flood of ’27, thousands of people saved their lives by evacuating here.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Knox said. He peered at a strange figure that strolled up the road toward Hardee. He was an elderly black man dressed in worn overalls, with a ragged wide-brimmed hat on his head. He carried a wicker bag over one shoulder, and a stick over the other shoulder with a half-dozen dead birds hanging from it.

“What the hell is that?” Knox demanded.

Omar grinned. “That’s ol’ Cudgel,” Omar said. “He’s from down south in coonass country somewhere, came up here fifteen or eighteen years ago. Lives in a shack up in Wilson’s Woods, has a skiff on the bayou. Lives off what he can catch or trap, fish or birds or animals.”

Knox turned around in his seat, looking at the strange figure loping along the road in his homemade sandals. “Looks like he just came down from the trees,” he said. “He looks like the original Mud Person.”

“Mud people” was a term that some of the groups used for inferior races. The theory was that they weren’t created by God like white folks, they were spawned out of the mud.

“Cudgel’s all right,” Omar said. “Cudgel’s never been any trouble.”

Knox gave Omar an intent look. “Ain’t none of ’em all right. I’m from Detroit and I know. They chased us out of Madison Heights, they chased us out of Royal Oak. They’re animals, every one of ’em.” He flung himself back into his seat with a thump. “They should be put to sleep,” he said. “I get upset just thinking about it.”

“Well,” Omar said, “you’re in liberated country now. You can take it easy.”

“Hurricanes,” Knox muttered. “Swamp-niggers. Floods. Jesus H. Shit.”

Omar figured that the rest of the day was going to be very long. He was looking forward to getting his guest to the bus station in Monroe next morning. The kid was just too twitchy, too moody. He doubted that Knox had anything new to say about the situation. He wondered why the Grand Wizard had arranged to send him here.

Knox was pleased by the election signs and flags that were still visible in Hardee, and by the way some of Omar’s neighbors waved at him as he drove by. “You got some real support here!” he said, slapping his thighs. “That’s great! It’s great to see this stuff!”

Omar slowed as he approached his house. “I want to check if there’s reporters around,” he said. “I don’t want them following us to the meeting.”

“Jesus, no,” Knox muttered. He slumped low in his seat, just letting his eyes peer above the level of the door.

“I think most of them went home,” Omar said. “They got a short attention span, you know, Madonna farts over in Hollywood and they’ve got to go cover it.”

The road was empty of any living thing except for a couple of cur dogs panting in the shade of some forsythia. Omar parked in his carport. Knox seemed spooked by the idea that reporters might be lurking around, and he continued to slump in the passenger seat until he got out, and then kept his head down as he left the car and collected his duffel from the trunk.

Wilona wasn’t home, and Omar remembered that this was the date for her afternoon tea with Ms. LaGrande. Omar showed Knox through Wilona’s sewing room to the bedroom that Omar’s son David had occupied until he left for LSU. “Thanks, Sheriff,” he said. “This’ll do fine.”

“Would you like a beer?” Omar asked. “Co-Cola? Lemonade?”

“Coke would be good,” Knox said. He stowed his duffel under David’s narrow bed.

Omar got Knox a Coke and himself a beer. He sat on the sofa in the living room, and Knox sat crosslegged on the floor in front of him. He looked down the length of the building, through Wilona’s sewing room to his own bedroom.

“Why do they build ’em like this?” he asked. “Long and narrow, all the rooms in a row?”

“Ventilation,” Omar said. “A shotgun home was built so that any breeze would blow through all the rooms.”

“But now you’ve got air-conditioning.”

“Yep.” Omar sipped his Silver Bullet. Knox fidgeted with his Coke, making a continuous ring of ice against the glass.

“I’m curious,” Omar said. “The Grand Wizard didn’t really have a chance to tell me where your outfit is based.”

Knox turned his staring green eyes on Omar. “My action group formed in Detroit,” Knox said. “Most of us are in the West, I guess. Montana, Oregon, Washington State. But there’s no particular place we meet- we all travel a lot, and we only get together on special occasions.”

“A traveling Klan?” Omar smiled thinly to cover his unease. He was beginning to feel a degree of anxiety about his guest. “You all salesmen or something?” he asked.

Knox shook his head. “Not like you mean. I mean we all recruit, yeah, but we travel because we’re all warriors in the cause. See, I don’t know many other Crusaders- I’ve only met a handful. I only know the ones in my action group- that’s my cell. That way if one of us is an informer, he can only betray so many.”

“Uh-huh,” Omar said. He sipped his beer while alarms clattered through his mind. He didn’t like what he was hearing.

“You’re a police officer, right?” Knox said. “So you know how it is that serial killers get away with what they do.”

Omar thought about it. “You mean that there’s no connection-” he began.