“I’m talking about the things that attacked me and my sergeant this morning—out there,” Bell said. Bell hadn’t been allowed to change his bandage. It was dirty, a bright red stain showing through the gauze that had been taped to his wound. For some reason the bandage reminded Miles of a book he’d read as a boy:  The Red Badge of Courage.

“You’re bleeding,” Miles said.

Bell looked down at his side. “Yeah. I’m not crazy, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

A deputy came up to them and started to unlock Bell’s manacles and leg irons.

“I’d like to interview the prisoner,” Miles said.

The deputy scratched his head, picked the chains up and put them on the counter behind him. “What for, Miles?” he asked.

Miles didn’t answer. He was afraid to say why.

*   *   *

Rebecca stared at the people picketing the front of her father’s store. “Guns Kill!” one of the picket signs said. No shit! What do you think they’re for, she thought. There were more picketers than usual. “Question Authority,” another sign said. The picketers were city types, mostly young, in their twenties. Rebecca watched a girl her own age; their eyes met as the girl passed by the shop window. The girl was on her cell phone. Rebecca held up her middle finger in a universal gesture. The girl saw it and turned away, shocked.

“Don’t get mad, get even,” her father said from the behind the counter. “I put an ad in the paper. We’re having a 50% off sale tomorrow, on all ammo.” He laughed.

“I don’t see why they care so much about guns,” Rebecca said, turning toward her father. She searched her pockets for a cigarette.

“I’m not sure. But I’ve given it a lot of thought this morning, watching them walk up and down in the cold. They’re scared, I think,” her father said. “I asked them to come in and talk about it with me. But they were afraid of me. Like I was evil.”

“Scared of what? Guns? You?” Rebecca came back along the long glass counter that was filled with handguns of all kinds. She reached over and kissed her father on his receding hairline. She couldn’t imagine anyone in the world being afraid of her dad. She went to one of the clothes racks and slipped an orange Day-Glo hunting cap over her blond hair. She had a habit of wearing something from the huge assortment of hunting gear when she was in the store. It was something she’d done since she was a little girl. Her father looked at her and remembered the little girl he’d been left with when her mother had run off. He loved his daughter so much that he didn’t know how her mother could have walked out on her.

“If people don’t understand something, they get frightened of it,” her father said.

“Why don’t they want people to have guns?” Rebecca came around the counter.

Her father was getting a new Swarovski rifle sight out of its box. He laid it out on the counter and began to take out the parts putting them in a line on a green piece of felt he used for resting pistols on.

“Maybe they’re right about some of the assault rifles, I don’t know,” her father said. “I’ve thought about getting rid of the assault rifles myself. But now the hunting rifles?”

Rebecca was shocked. She looked at her father in amazement. It was the first time she’d ever heard him question himself.

“Since that kid fired on the school in Newtown, I haven’t been sleeping too well,” he said. “I mean, it could happen here in Timberline. I couldn’t take that. If it was one of my guns that killed those kids.”

“You said they were just a fad anyway. We could get rid of them. We don’t even sell that many,” Rebecca said. “People here don’t buy many assault rifles. They buy handguns, mostly.  But I draw the line with hunting rifles and shotguns.”

“Yeah, I did say that. These military style guns are mostly Chinese made. Not even American.” He took a semi-automatic AK-47-style assault rifle off the long rack behind him. Forty-odd assault rifles were chained to the gun rack, but they were still the minority of long guns he had for sale.

“You’ve just been listening to these tree huggers,” Rebecca said, lighting her cigarette.

“Well, I been reading their signs all morning. They get you to thinking. Some of the ideas aren’t bad. Like that one that says ‘Question Authority I like that,” her father said.

“You’ll start smoking dope pretty soon, if you don’t watch out,” Rebecca said. “Then I’ll have to throw your bail.”

The shop’s doorbell rang and Sharon Collier walked in. A huge dirty-looking biker walked in behind her. It was impossible to tell how old he was; he could have been twenty, or forty. Rebecca had seen the man around town since the summer. People knew the gang sold crank; more and more of the drug was being used now, especially by the unemployed.

“Hi, Mr. Stewart,” Sharon said. Her eyes were furtive, the young girl’s skin pale as paper.

“Hi, Sharon,” Rebecca’s father said.

“Hi, Sharon,” Rebecca said.

The biker with her didn’t say a word. He put his hand on the Sharon’s shoulder and prodded her forward. She walked toward the counter. Quentin’s daughter had on a pair of black yoga pants and her midriff was bare and red from the cold. The bearded and tattooed hulk followed her; his eyes darted around the store, appraising it. Finally he looked at the two people behind the counter. The biker stopped Sharon, grabbed her by the arm and whispered something in her ear. Then he pushed-moved her forward to the counter again.

Rebecca shot a look at her father.

*   *   *

It had started snowing again. A dozen Harley Davidsons, some with old-school butterfly style handlebars, were parked under a kind of low-slung, bleak-looking carport. The back end of the carport had collapsed under the weight of several feet of snow.

Lacy let her VW idle on the street in front of the house and its adjoining carport. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. The front door of the house was open. She reached over and turned off the car’s radio. She’d driven to the high school, found Sharon’s best friend at her locker and demanded to know where her sister was. The girl had given her this address. It was what she’d expected; she’d heard her sister talking about the place.

She saw a man in leather pants and black leather vest walk by the open door. A grey pit bull came flying out of the open door as if it might have been kicked out. The dog landed against one of the parked motorcycles, knocking it over. The pit bull scampered away up the road yapping, obviously hurt.

A young girl with long black hair stood in the doorway holding a can of beer. She was laughing; someone grabbed her and yanked her back inside the house by her arm.

“Great,” Lacy said to herself. She pulled the car around and parked directly in front of the house. This is my sister we’re talking about here. If it was Mom she’d walk right in there and yank Sharon out.

She looked up the street. The dog was coming back toward the house, its nose close to the snow-covered road. Lacy turned off the WV’s engine and got out of the car. She waited for the dog to come to her. The animal growled at first, but Lacy bent down and made soft mothering sounds. The dog came forward and let her pat its wide ugly head. Eventually the dog licked her hand.

“What’s wrong, boy, huh?” She looked up at the house behind her. She heard laughter. Someone kicked the door shut. The dog pulled away from her and ran out into the middle of the street, spooked by the loud sound of the door being slammed. The animal was almost hit by a passing car.