*
Trucks began rolling into the compound in late afternoon, bringing people back to the men’s camps. Jason was introduced to the leader— “guide”— of his unit, a lanky red-haired man named Magnusson. Mr. Magnusson had a band on one arm that had probably once been white. Though he looked and for the most part smelled as if he’d been working in the hot sun for days, his chin was shaven blue and there was an alert look in his eyes. He called everyone by their surnames, as if first names were too much to bother with.
“We’ll be heading in to dinner when we’re called by the PA, okay?” he said. “We’re the Samaritans.”
“Samaritans,” Jason said. “Right.”
“Thing to remember is, you don’t leave the camp unless you’re working, or unless you’re called. People are doing important work out there, and they don’t need you bothering them.”
Jason didn’t like the sound of this. Everyone was supposed to stay behind a fence made of string?
“When can I see my friends?” he asked.
“Morning and evening services.” Mr. Magnusson squinted as he looked down at Jason. “What denomination are you, by the way?”
Jason hesitated. He had a suspicion a truthful answer— his mother’s belief in pyramid power and Atlantis, and his father’s lack of any religion whatever— would not be received well.
“What kind do you have around here?” he asked.
“Well, Reverend Franklin, he’s sort of his own denomination— or he’s multidenominational, depending on how you look at it. He’s Charismatic and Fundamentalist, anyway. We’ve also got Baptists and Pentacostals, okay? Lots of Lutherans, but our pastor was killed in the first quake, so we’ve kind of split up among all the others. The Catholics— uhh, the same. Not that there were so many Catholics to begin with.” He narrowed his eyes and looked at Jason. “You’re not Catholic, are you?”
“I’m Presbyterian,” Jason said.
“Well,” Magnusson said, ”we ain’t got any of those. So I guess you’ll just have to pick a congregation from the ones we got.” A gleam entered his eye. “I’d recommend Brother Frankland’s,” he said. “He saved me.”
Jason had hoped that Presbyterianism might leave him out of this issue altogether. “I’ll pick the one that my friends join,” he said.
Mr. Magnusson nodded. “Fine. Any questions?”
Jason pointed at the man’s arm. “What’s the white armband mean?”
“It means I’m in charge. Any more questions?”
“I guess not.”
“Good,” he said. “I want you to buddy up with someone who will show you the ropes and keep you out of trouble. And that someone will be Haynes over there.” He pointed to a skinny, freckled boy in a baseball cap. He lowered his voice, bent to Jason’s ear. “Now Sam Haynes lost his parents in the quake, okay? So what I want you to do is look after him, all right?” He put a hand on Jason’s shoulder.
“Okay,” said Jason, confused by this brisk, over-efficient manner of intimacy.
Mr. Magnusson straightened, shouted out. “Haynes! Heaven-o! I want you to meet Jason here.”
Sam Haynes was a few years older than Jason. Jason shook his hand. Haynes didn’t seem to have much to say. “I want you to show Jason the ropes,” Mr. Magnusson said. He picked up a roll of large-sized plastic garbage bags, tore a bag off the roll, then handed it to Jason. “This is your ground cover. You sleep on this.”
Jason looked at the bag. “Right,” he said.
“You two go have fun now.”
Jason slung his telescope over his shoulder and prepared to follow Haynes to whatever fun might be found in this place.
“Hey!” Mr. Magnusson called after him. “Adams!”
Jason turned around. “Yes?”
“What’s that thing on your shoulder?”
Jason looked at the Astroscan and decided he was already fed up with this place. “It’s a portable nuclear reactor.” he said.
Mr. Magnusson hesitated. His eyes narrowed, as if he was trying to decide whether or not to size up Jason for a liar. Jason tried to assume an expression of earnest good intentions.
“A nuclear reactor, huh?” Magnusson said. “Like the one in Mississippi that blew up?”
“Well,” Jason said, “not as big.”
Mr. Magnusson hesitated again. He propped his wiry arms on his hips. “That one ain’t going to blow up, right?”
Jason tried to exude authority. “Not if people don’t mess with it,” he said.
“Well.” Mr. Magnusson chewed his lip. “You don’t let anyone touch it, then.”
“I won’t.” Jason decided he’d better ease away before his guide had time to think about this, so he gave Mr. Magnusson a little wave and headed into the camp.
Haynes wasn’t much company. He didn’t seem interested in whether Jason had a nuclear reactor, or indeed in anything else. He just pointed out a place under an awning, near his own, where Jason could stretch out his plastic bag to sleep on.
“Or you can pick any place that’s empty. Plenty of empty places.”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “I noticed that.” The camp seemed more than half-deserted, as if it had been laid out and equipped for a much larger group of people.
“When do we eat?” Jason asked.
“Soon, I hope.” Haynes dropped onto the grass, then flopped onto his back. He pulled his baseball cap down over his eyes. “Let me know when we’re called.”
There were about a dozen Samaritans altogether. They and another group called the Galileans were called to dinner a couple hours later. The meal consisted of a modest piece of baked fish, some mixed vegetables out of cans, and a large scoop of white rice, all served on a compartmented plastic tray that, Jason suspected, had been plundered from a local school. Water to drink, though younger kids got a small glass of milk. During the meal a gospel choir practiced beneath a nearby awning, sometimes swinging into a gorgeous mass harmony before the conductor, dissatisfied with something, stopped them and made them start again.
Jason ate his meal in less than five minutes and asked the others if he was allowed more. He wasn’t.
He had eaten better when he was a refugee.
Mealtime lasted fifteen minutes, after which the Samaritans took their trays to a galvanized trough, washed the trays, rinsed them in another trough, and stacked them for the next shift. After this, Mr. Magnusson marched them back to the young men’s camp.
After that it was another long wait, till it was time for church.
*
It was a long empty road between the A.M.E. camp and Shelburne City. Reverend Morris’ old Ford could be seen for half a mile, even in the fading light, and that was enough.
Micah Knox pulled in front of Morris in a pickup truck he’d borrowed from Jedthus. Another one of the Crusaders pulled out behind the Ford, then tapped its bumper from behind. And then, when everyone had stopped to examine the accident, Omar drove up in his cruiser, parked opposite the Ford, and stepped from the car.
Most unexpected was the lack of surprise in Morris’ eyes. There was a strange silent confirmation in those eyes, as if Omar was only attesting to the truth of the reverend’s opinion of him when he raised his pistol and fired it five times through the window.
After that, the pickup rammed the Ford broadside until it tipped over into the bar ditch and rolled onto its roof. Gasoline was poured into the interior and set alight.
An accident. That’s what would go on the report. Failing light, an old man in an old car, on an old earthquake-torn two-lane blacktop. He must have lost control.
Omar would let someone else find the wreck, report the accident, fill out the papers. He would be miles away.
“Beautiful!” Knox said. He stomped up and down the asphalt in his heavy boots, uneven teeth bared in a grin. “Just like in Hunter.”
“There are more witnesses in the camp,” Omar said.
“Beautiful!” said Knox. Firelight danced in his shotgun eyes.
Omar arranged for charges to be dropped against the boy who had been in the car with the driver David had killed. He turned him over to Knox and one of his friends to be driven back to camp, and he was never seen again.
No one would miss him. He’d been released from jail, the camp wasn’t expecting him back, and that was that.
He had gone where the woodbine twineth.
Omar used the shooting incident that day, plus the earlier shooting at Ozie Starks’, as leverage with the parish council and got permission to fence off the two refugee camps. That night he arranged for chain link and barbed wire, fence post diggers, and extra personnel. Extra cars. Extra guns.
They would start the ball rolling first thing in the morning.