Part 19 (2/2)

I decided to try the house first. All three porch steps groaned when I stepped on them. Or was that me groaning? It had been a long trip. The paint on the screen door, what was left of it, was peeling. The screen was torn at the corner.

I knocked.

”h.e.l.lo?” I called. ”Anyone home?”

With no answer I turned to the barn, but my chances of finding anyone there looked remote. This place was deserted. I'd made the trip for nothing.

Halfway to the barn a voice stopped me. ”Hold it right there!”

I turned to see a man with a gun rounding the house. A faded red ball cap was pulled down tight, trimmed around the edges with ragged gray hair. His flannel s.h.i.+rt was wrinkled and his overalls were worn and dirty. He advanced until he was close enough to kill me without aiming.

I displayed empty hands. ”I mean you no harm.”

”That's the difference between us, then,” he spat. ”I mean you plenty of harm unless you jump in that car and go back to wherever you came from.”

A huge black hole at the business end of a shotgun punctuated his point. For reasons unknown-other than that I have a tendency to see the ridiculous side of danger-I imagined myself getting a load of buckshot in the backside. My only hope was that it would hit the left cheek to balance the dog bite on the right and my limp would then be even.

Offering my friendliest smile to the man, I said, ”There's no need to-”

BLAM!.

Shotgun thunder rent the air. With a practiced motion he pumped the next round into the chamber and leveled the sights at my chest.

”All right!” I shouted. ”All right! I'm going!”

I began working my way around the front of the car.

”It's just that I came all the way from Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., to-”

BLAM!.

Another round scattered the air. He reloaded and took two threatening steps toward me.

”I'm going! I'm going!”

Only for some reason I seemed to have forgotten how to open a car door. I clawed repeatedly at the latch but for some reason the combination of what to push and what to pull had suddenly become a mystery to me.

”What's your name?” the man barked.

Oh . . . great . . . not only couldn't I remember how to open a door, I couldn't remember my name. ”Um . . . um . . . it's, um . . .”

Give me a second here, will you, buddy? Do you know how embarra.s.sing it would be to die because you couldn't remember your own name?

”I . . . um . . . ah . . . Ah! . . . Austin. Grrrr . . . Grrrant Austin.”

”Who do you work for?”

”Actually, I don't work for-”

”WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?” he shouted.

”I'm a writer! Freelance! I wrote a book about the president.”

His brow furrowed as he chewed on that.

”Step around the car,” he said. He motioned in the direction he wanted me to go with the barrel of the shotgun.

I did as he instructed. I stepped around the front of the car until nothing was between me and the shotgun.

”Take your shoes off,” he ordered.

”My shoes? What do my shoes-”

BLAM!.

Bending over, I pulled off my shoes without unlacing them.

”Socks too.”

The socks flew off.

He blinked hard several times to focus on my feet with eyes so bloodshot I couldn't see any white in them. His tongue worked the inside of a cheek that was rough with salt-and-pepper whiskers. He tilted his head to get a better look at my feet. Then he leaned over even farther.

Do you know how hard it is not to wiggle your toes when someone is looking at your feet? He leaned so far it must have made him dizzy. He stumbled sideways, but caught himself. ”Shuffle them in the dirt,” he said.

I started to object, then figured the fewer times he pulled the trigger on the shotgun the better my chances of leaving here alive. I shuffled my feet in the dirt.

”Let me see the bottom of one,” he said.

I lifted my right foot and showed him the bottom.

He nodded and seemed to relax a little, but he didn't lower the shotgun. ”Austin, you say.”

”Yes, sir.”

”You're the idiot they paid to write all them lies about Douglas. Or maybe you were duped. You don't look like the mercenary type to me.”

”I researched the book thoroughly,” I insisted.

”Did you now? You wrote what they wanted you to write and that makes you a liar, only worse, since you sugarcoat the lies so nice that people smile when they swallow them.”

”Listen,” I said, my ire rising. ”Just because you hold a weapon doesn't make you right. Who are you to pa.s.s judgment on what I wrote, or upon me for why I wrote it?”

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