“No harm in the world,” says Sandy.
They clink their bottles together, both still smiling, both still holding their shotguns, raised and pointed. I smile back uneasily, and then there’s a long moment, everybody assured of everybody else’s good intentions, everybody nevertheless frozen with guns drawn. The way of the world. Behind Billy and Sandy, between their RV and the back of the Taco Bell, is the little private universe they’ve created. A big old charcoal grill, heavy and black and belching smoke like a steam engine. A rickety beer-making apparatus, a tangle of plastic hoses winding around cylinders and barrels. And there, behind a low wire fence, running around on a ragged layer of straw is a bustling tribe of chickens—rushing past and around each other on their weird alien feet, cackling like merrymakers on a parade ground, waiting for a concert or an execution.
Billy breaks our tableau, stepping forward one step, and I retreat one step, aim the SIG at his face. He squints and pulls his head away, mild annoyance, like a lion ducking back from a mosquito.
“Here’s the story, brother man,” he says. “I got the beer and I got the gun, you can see that, right? You can take the beer and hang out for a bit, we’ll even feed you somethin’ before you shove off. We got a chicken on the cooker right now, since it’s coming up on suppertime. It’s a big one, right, baby?”
“Right,” she says. “Claudius.” She grins. For a confusing half second I think she’s calling me Claudius and then I realize that’s the chicken. “Three birds a day,” she says. “It’s how we keep track of the countdown.”
Billy nods, “That’s right.” Then he sniffs, tosses his hard-rock hair. “Or, option B, you do anything hilarious, you try and fox one of our chickens, and Sandy’ll shoot you dead.”
“Me?” she says, laughing with astonishment.
“Yeah, you.” Billy smiles at me, like we’re in on this together. “Sandy’s a better shot’n me, especially when it gets later and I got a buzz on.”
“Shit, Billy,” she says. “You always got a buzz on.”
“Like you don’t.”
This woman looks nothing at all like Alison Koechner, it is clear to me now. The resemblance has receded like a tide.
“Well, brother?” says Billy. “A beer or a bullet?”
I lower my gun. Sandy lowers her gun, and then at last Billy lowers his and hands me the beer, which is warm and bitter and delicious. “Thank you,” I say, as the two of them step back and gesture me into the courtyard. “My name is Henry Palace.” The dog shuffles in behind me, staring warily at the fat feathery strangeness of the chickens.
A new tune is blaring from the speakers, something heavy metal, something I don’t recognize. There are two hammocks suspended on ropes between the restaurant and the RV, swaying above paper plates littered with old chicken bones. Chinese lanterns are hung from the trees around the edges. The speakers are mounted on the outside of the vehicle; the engine is on and idling, powering the tunes, the lights, the world.
I wonder in passing how Trish McConnell is doing, back at Police House. Dr. Fenton, at Concord Hospital. Detective Culverson; Detective McGully, wherever he ended up. Ruth-Ann, my favorite waitress at my favorite restaurant. Everyone back somewhere in time, doing something else.
“Serious, though, man,” says Sandy, laying a hand on the small of my back. “You fuck with our chickens, and we blow your mopey face off.”
*
The chicken is delicious. I eat a polite portion, but Billy and Sandy tell me to take more so I take more and feed a bunch to Houdini, who eats with vigor, which is nice to see. I offer up three bags of honey-roasted peanuts as a side dish, which my hosts accept with delight, raising a series of enthusiastic toasts to my generosity.
They’ve been living here, “at this particular location,” for about a month, maybe six weeks, they don’t know for sure. It’s their third site, though. “Third,” says Billy, “and you gotta figure last, right?” The chickens they rustled up from their second site, a farmhouse between here and Hamlin, the next town down the highway coming up from the south. They’re snug on the hammock and I’m on the ground beneath them, sitting with my back against the vehicle while we enjoy the last of the peanuts. The chickens, Sandy says with a happy shake of her hair, were “a goddamn gift from the gods, man.”
“We got sixteen of the little emperors left, at this point,” she says. “Three chickens a day times five days equals fifteen.”
“Plus a bonus chicken,” puts in Billy.