The Book of Joby (77 page)

Ignoring Karl’s wild gesticulations and shouts of outrage, Nacho did a 180 nollie heel flip on the sidewalk right in front of him, then popped his board up into one hand and sat down on the curb with his back to the infuriated merchant.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Karl demanded ridiculously from the deck behind him. “I asked you to leave! This is a place of business!”

“You didn’t
ask,
” Nacho said without turning to look at him. “You
ordered.
And this is a
public
sidewalk, so I’ve got every right to sit here and catch my breath.” The man made no reply, but Nacho felt his angry silence like a furnace at his back. Turning to look at him, Nacho asked, “What’s your problem, Foster?”

“My problem?”
Karl barked incredulously. “You kids are out here every day, trampling my garden, damaging my stairs, leaning on my deck and fence with your dirty, baggy clothes and surly looks and foul language, like a gang of dope-smoking terrorists scaring off all my customers, and you ask what’s
my problem
? . . . Don’t you have parents? Didn’t anyone teach you
anything
about being
human beings
?”

“Yeah,” Nacho said. “They taught me for
twenty years
before dopeltons like you came here waving fistfuls of money and telling us all we had no right to be seen around
your
town anymore. This was our
home
before it was your
place of business,
Foster.”

“Here you are,” Foster drawled, “how many years out of high school? And what are you doing with your life?”

“As it happens,
richard,
” Nacho snapped, beginning to boil. “I do DHTML and JavaScript with back-end server perl/CGI scripts for high-profile e-commerce Web site architecture, as well as audio/video capture and digitized real-time media streaming. You ever thought about a Web site, Karl? You’d be amazed how it can boost business, even for a little trinket shop like yours. If you’re interested, I could fit you in later this week sometime. How’s Wednesday look?”

Karl just glared at him and curled his lip.

“Hey,” Nacho said apologetically, “did I lose you with the technical stuff? Here, let’s try it in simpler terms.” He began talking very slowly. “A
Web site
is a—”

“You punks think you’re so smart, don’t you,” Karl cut him off, “just because you sit around playing computer games while the rest of us are out here working for a living. But you’ll sing a very different tune when we get a sheriff in this town. You try these tricks in front of my store then, I’ll call the law down on you so hard it’ll make your cocky little teeth rattle. What you do with that board constitutes a clear public nuisance, boy, and they’ll confiscate it. Then you can
walk
here to make fun of me.”

“Woof,” Nacho said. “Woof, woof.”

Karl clearly had no idea what to make of this response.

“What’s it like, bein’ Hamilton’s little lapdog, Karl?” Nacho asked. “She feed her
pretty boy
yummy little doggy treats?”

“I don’t have to take this.” Foster sneered and turned to go back inside his store, but as he reached the entrance he turned back. “You know, there’s a lot of support around here for making skateboarding illegal inside town limits, son. When they take your toys away, they may give you hoodlums tickets too. Hope your computer business pays well enough to cover the cost.” Then he spun away into his shop.

Filled with disgust, Nacho jumped onto his deck, set his board down, and kick-flipped the steps back onto the sidewalk, leaving a splintered gouge in Karl’s top stair.

Karl came racing out after him screaming like a banshee, but Nacho was already soaring down the street, too far away to hear, too free to care.

“It’s about commitment!” Greensong insisted. “You can’t say, ‘I stand for justice’ and then do nothing!”

“Of course not,” Rose said. “But there are ways to act without becoming just like what you’re acting against.”

“There’s no resemblance between me and them!” Greensong shouted. “They trash whole ecosystems to enrich themselves! I’m saving whole ecosystems for free!”

“Saving lives by taking lives?” Bellindi asked quietly. “The kinds of things you suggested to those kids could have left men maimed or even killed. Do you think it’ll be easier to save our forests when everyone thinks
we’re
criminals and
they’re
the victims?”

“Are a few dead men worse than the extinction of every salmon on the West Coast?” Greensong screeched, waving toward the window of her rented cabin as if an entire school of them were swimming in the twilight just outside. “Everything that lives in these forests is in danger of extinction.
Men
aren’t! I’m sorry, but you’re a couple of very
nice
girls from a very
nice
place that knows
nothing
about the real world.”

“If your ‘real world’ is about killing people to protest their lack of concern for the sacredness of life,” Bellindi said darkly, “I don’t think I want any of it here. And I doubt anyone else will either. If you think fighting Ferristaff all by yourself will be more effective, just keep spouting suggestions like the ones you’ve been making. You’ll have your forces down to one in no time.”

“If you’re so sure of your position,” Rose asked, “why did you propose these things to no one but a bunch of kids?”

“Because they can still hear me,” Greensong spat. “They’re not already brainwashed like the two of you.”

“Or because they’re so much easier for
you
to brainwash,” Rose replied evenly. “We came up here because we want to see Ferristaff stopped worse than you do, and you’re about to hand him the war. I’m not about to let that happen. Trust me, if there’s one tree spiked, one
bomb
made around here,” she rolled her eyes, unable to believe Greensong had even suggested such a thing, “we will know, and we will report you.”

“You traitorous little bitches.” Greensong sneered. “Are you sleeping with Ferristaff, or just running his errands?”

Rose looked at Bellindi, who was clearly struggling to keep her composure. “Hate us all you want,” Rose shrugged, turning back to Greensong, “but if you come up with any more plans that stupid, at least have the courage to propose them to adults next time, not just Taubolt’s kids.”

She and Bellindi turned to leave, wanting to finish the long walk home from Greensong’s isolated cabin before total darkness, but as they reached the door, something crashed through a window to their right, spraying glass onto the table there before skidding to a halt on the floor. As both girls froze, a second, closer window shattered. Greensong bit off a scream as a fist-size rock passed within inches of her shoulder and thudded off a low cabinet. Rose and Bellindi crouched down and scurried back toward Greensong who was cowering behind a kitchen chair—the only cover close at hand. The sound of laughter blossomed not far outside. Several men, from the sound of it.

“Hey, Greendyke!” bellowed one of the men outside. “Wanna get lucky?”

More laughter, loud and mean.

“We do!” shouted a second man. “Come out and dance, you tree-huggin’ bitch!”

“Yeah!” laughed the first man, “I wanna spike
your
tree, darlin’!”

More hilarity, and the sound of boots crunching on gravel as the men approached.

“I’ve got a gun!” Greensong shouted desperately.

Perhaps it was the fear in her voice that gave her away, but the men outside just laughed. “So have I, lady!” jeered the second man’s voice. “Hot, hard, and loaded.”

“Know which end to shoot from, honey-cum?” called the first man.

Suddenly the back door just behind them shattered with a clamoring racket, causing all three women to scream and throw themselves against the farthest wall. A third man stumbled through its ruin, leering and obviously drunk. “Boo,” he said, thinking this so funny that he could only lean against the ruined jamb and laugh at first.

“Oh, looky here!” exclaimed one of the men from out front, sticking his face in through a broken window. “Bonus points, Sandoval! One for each of us!”

“Three little tree huggers, lined up on a wall,” chanted the man who’d broken in the door. “Tasty little rabbits, and I’m gonna eat ’em all.” He bent double with drunken laughter as his two companions pushed the front door open and came inside as well.

“What
kind
of animals?” Ferristaff growled in disbelief. “Didn’t they have guns?”

“Of course.” Bruech shrugged. “But it was dark, and they kept missing. Apparently this went on all night, and by morning they’d had enough. They packed up and high-tailed it out of there.”

“Well, I didn’t pay them to turn and run the minute they encountered a little wild life, you can tell ’em there’s no check in the mail.” Ferristaff ran a hand through his thatch of silvering hair, and went to stare unhappily out at the darkness through one of his expansive living room’s picture windows. The house he’d built of local timber here in the hills outside of Taubolt had an impressive view of the coastline meandering north into the moonlit haze. “Frankly, I’m tired of all these ridiculous setbacks, Bruech. Why is it suddenly so hard to get a simple little survey done?”

“I’m as frustrated as you are, Robert, but I don’t know what else to try,” Bruech protested. “It’s like sending men into the devil’s triangle up there. I hire seasoned professionals—people we’ve used lots of times in much rougher terrain than this seems from the air—but they just end up wandering in circles, or losing their equipment. Now this. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Well
someone
has to own that mysterious hole,” Ferristaff grumbled. “Whoever that is could answer most of the important questions. Why haven’t you found them yet?”

“Frankly, sir, I think they’re hiding from us. Or being hidden. It’s the same game these people have been playing since we got here.”

Ferristaff said nothing to this. The memory of his embarrassment when he’d tried to leverage some cooperation from these yokels by reporting their tax evasion was not one he wanted stirred. Someone had beaten him to the punch there, and he wasn’t going to try it again, even if he thought anyone would pay attention to his accusations a second time. “There must be something we can use to make them quit this shit,” he muttered.

His thoughts were derailed by the sound of tires crunching across his gravel drive.

“Who would that be?” Ferristaff murmured, going to the door. Before he got halfway there, someone was banging on it to wake the dead. Angered, Ferristaff picked up speed, Bruech following behind, and yanked the door open to find Tom Connolly glaring at him on the porch.

“I want you out of here!”
Connolly shouted so fiercely that Ferristaff balled
his fists, bracing to block a swing that didn’t come. Connolly just stood there, shaking and livid, and continued to shout.
“Your whole goddamn company and these goddamn thugs you import had better be packed up and—”

Ferristaff simply slammed the door shut again in his face, but Connolly resumed banging on it almost immediately.

“What the fuck is he about?” Ferristaff snapped at Bruech, who simply shrugged, looking startled. “If you can’t calm down and talk to me like a civilized man, Mr. Connolly,” Ferristaff shouted through the heavy redwood door, “then you’d better go because I’m about to call the police!”

“From
Heeberville
?” Connolly jeered back. “Now I’m scared! As it happens, they’re already on their way! I called them half an hour ago!”