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  “There used to be a saying during the Vietnam War years: America, love it or leave it. This was the admonition offered by the proponents of a certain political point of view to those who didn’t agree with them. I always thought the Love It or Leave It people didn’t get it. Our country was founded as a democracy, a form of government that is a contest of opposing views. It is only by pitting ideas, policies and programs against one another that we can find out which work and which don’t. But some people think that their way is the only way. There’s a name for that kind of thinking: totalitarianism.

  “The malignancy espoused by the writers of the mail I saw goes even farther. It condemns people not for the views that they hold as adults, but for the very color of the skin with which they are born. We all know the name for that kind of thinking.”

  Clay paused for a sip of water and moment of reflection.

  “As long as I am the mayor of Goldstrike, this will be a very uncomfortable place for racists. At the next meeting of the town council, I will propose a series of educational forums for residents of all ages. These forums will look at issues of race as frankly as possible. They will look at where we’ve been, where we are and discuss where we ought to go. But more than that, we’ll look at why so many of us, of all colors and backgrounds, feel the need to look down on somebody.

  “That’s the first part of my plan — the love-it part, if you will. Unlike the simple-minded, bumper sticker thinkers of the past, however, we will not have a leave-it clause to our plan. Rather, we will issue a defend-it challenge to bigots of all stripes and hues.

  “If you think a white skin or a black, brown, red or yellow one, makes you better than everybody else, well, step right up to the microphone. We’ll give you a public opportunity to tell us why. But be prepared to defend whatever you have to say. Because we’ll also muster the best minds on the opposite side of the argument to debate every point you make. Which shouldn’t really worry anyone who knows he’s cut from better cloth. So if you’re not just some weasel whose idea of courage is a sneak attack, this is your big chance: Tell us why you’re right and everybody else is wrong. Interested parties may call my office and I’ll pay the toll charges, if necessary.”

  Clay stared directly at the audience — and into the camera — for a long moment to leave no doubt this offer was just what he described it to be: a challenge. Then he shuffled his notes and moved along.

  “The next matter before us tonight is the series of attacks by a mountain lion. In and of themselves, these attacks are frightening. Two runners have been mauled and a small child was placed in jeopardy in the confines of his own backyard. Fortunately, nobody has been killed.

  “Actually, there’s a bit of good news to report. Just before I took the stage tonight, I spoke with Terry Castlewood’s doctors. They report his surgery went very well, and the swelling around his spine is going down at a remarkable rate. They’re much more hopeful than they were just this morning that there will be no permanent physical impairment.”

  Applause and cheers issued from the audience.

  “We’re doing everything we can to track and kill this mountain lion. Warden Cordelia Knox and Deputy Chief of Police Oliver Gosden were out hunting it today, unfortunately without success. I’ve made a personal request to the governor to have more game wardens sent here to help us as soon as possible. He explained to me that state personnel are stretched thin, and that all available game wardens are meeting the needs of other communities, but he assures me that we will have additional help within forty-eight hours. I’ve also been in touch with a houndsman — a professional tracker — from Louisiana. As soon as his credentials can be verified, the town will offer him a contract. If all goes well, we can expect him to be here in two days also.”

  This, too, brought applause.

  “It is my responsibility to do everything I can to safeguard the well-being of the people of this town. That is why I must tell you now: There is no such thing as a curse on this town. If anything, Goldstrike has received more than its fair share of blessings. But recently an elderly woman who was wounded to the depths of her soul spoke out in anger. Her words were publicized, and in light of the coincidence — the coincidence — of the attacks by the mountain lion, this so-called curse has been given credence by too many people who should know better. If you think our town is cursed, be ashamed of yourself.

  “And if you think an elderly woman’s anger gives you license to hate black people, to strike out at them, you should not only be ashamed, you also had better find yourself a damn good lawyer. Because we are going to come after you, we are going to find you and we are going to lock you up.”

  Clay’s anger was plainly visible now. A tic started at the corner of his left eye. He took a deep breath and another drink of water before continuing.

  “This is exactly what we did to a … a man who made the grievous mistake of firebombing the What the Hell restaurant on Pinnacle Drive. Carolyn Mason, the owner’s daughter, was inside at the time. She tried her best to save the place where her father earned his livelihood. As a result, she was burned over fifty percent of her body. I spoke to Carolyn’s doctors, too, before I came out here tonight. They’re watching her closely for infection, but they expect that she will live. Her recovery, however, is expected to be prolonged and painful. I hope all of you will join me in sending out your prayers to Carolyn, Sherm, and Geneva Mason. Our town will be far the poorer should they decide to leave us.

  “Someone who will be leaving us tomorrow morning is Reggie Fansler. He’s the man who threw the firebomb … the man who said he was getting even for Terry Castlewood. Terry’s parents have told me that one of their son’s two greatest athletic heroes is Kellen Winslow — a black man. They also said that Terry liked nothing better after winning a football game than going out to celebrate at What the Hell. Reginald Fansler didn’t act on Terry Castlewood’s behalf. He acted out of the sickness of his own tortured soul.

  “And if I make only one point tonight for any of you to remember, let it be this: Heaven help anyone else who raises his hand against any of his neighbors in this town.”

  Clay gave everyone several beats to absorb his warning. Then he nodded his head to Annie Stratton who rose and stepped forward.

  “The floor is now open for questions and comments,” she said.

  The town meeting commanded TV ratings in Goldstrike that would have levitated network executives to Nirvana, or its multi-million dollar stock option equivalent. But as always there remained an uninterested minority who wouldn’t have tuned in to the Second Coming. First among them was Colin Ring.

  He had a pint of beer in his fist at a bar called the New York Shock Exchange, and he couldn’t believe that wizened old cowboy-and-cop actor who ran the town was on every one of the twelve bleeding tellies in the bar. The man blathered on endlessly in some noxious amalgam of a brimstone sermon and a schoolboy civics lessons.

  Ring would have rather watched anything else. Bloody baseball even.

  He looked around and was disgusted by how everyone else present was riveted to every word. Could all these wankers be so star-struck? Or, worse, were they really interested? If it were the latter, he’d have to reconsider his plans to take up residence.

  The only interest Colin Ring had in Clay Steadman was if somebody handed him some dirt on the old sod. Now that would make a corking good book. But not one that would come easily. He’d already tried everything he could think of to find any gossip about the mayor and come up empty.

  He was just about to drain his pint and toddle over to the Mermaid’s Slipper when the woman came in. Blonde. Either a natural or someone who frequented a very expensive salon. A pearl gray silk mini-dress with a thin silver belt defining a deliciously narrow waist. The breasts were so perfect they had to be implants, but the legs were long and shapely and there was no faking that. As she walked past, though, Ring thought her face bore an unfortunate resemblance to a mackerel. No real problem there, however. He wasn’t a
face man.

  Still, he had noticed the intriguing way she’d smiled at him.

  He gave it a five count and turned around. She was seated alone at a table for two, and she smiled at him again. Cor! She wasn’t wearing any knickers and she just flashed her fanny at him. Her bush had been pruned to a narrow strip.

  Mrs. Ring’s little boy Colin hadn’t grown up shy. He got over to the woman’s table two steps ahead of the waitress, sat down and ordered a pint, just as if he belonged there.

  Then he turned to the woman and asked, “What’ll you be having, darlin’?”

  “Whatever’s right to start a friendship,” Gayle Shipton answered.

  She immediately wished Didi had been there to whisper a better line to her.

  But it seemed to work for Colin Ring.

  Annie Stratton made a point of starting with the townspeople and ignoring the reporters. She’d get to the newsies later. They could stew for a while. She gestured to a woman near the back of the central section of the auditorium. An assistant with a microphone made his way back to her.

  “My name is Lucy Blaine,” she said. The woman looked to be in her early forties, had long strawberry blonde hair and the air of a slightly wilted flower child about her. “I understand, Mayor Steadman, that you support a rationalist view of natural phenomena. But there are many of us, including Native American peoples, who take a more spiritual point of view. We believe a spark of the divine exists in all things. We believe that there are larger powers than ourselves, and they can be influenced to act on our behalf or against us. I personally believe that such a spirit exists in the mountain lion you’re trying to kill. I don’t think you’ll succeed no matter how many hunters and trackers you bring in. But even if you do, what’s to say the spirit of another wild animal might not be turned against us? Or some other type of natural disaster might be visited on us. Before any further life is taken, I suggest we, as a town, approach Mrs. Cardwell and see if we can’t heal the hurt in her heart. I think that’s our only chance to get things back to normal around here.”

  Scattered applause rippled around the room. Annie picked out a man seated in the front row of the right hand section. He was a husky white guy dressed in casual clothes who looked to be in his mid-thirties. He seized the microphone instead of letting the staffer hold it for him.

  “My name is James FitzHugh, and the first thing I want to say is I am not a racist. I was raised to be a good Catholic, and the nuns beat it into my head that we’re all God’s children. I also learned, when I was studying my family tree, that one of my great-grandpas was an indentured servant back in the Old Country after Lincoln freed the slaves here. So, I’m not a fan of human bondage. That said, I also have to say it really frosts me every time I hear a black person say that whatever is bad in his life is my fault. Mine or some other white guy’s. What is that if not racism? Nothing bad that happens to black people in America is the fault of the person who looks back at them in the mirror each morning. I get the impression a lot of blacks in this country think everything would be just peachy if only the white folks disappeared. My answer to that is look at how things are over in Africa — or Detroit, for that matter — and tell me how things are when blacks don’t have whites to use for scapegoats. I don’t know if animals have spirits like that lady just said, but I agree with her that Mrs. Cardwell was pissed off when she laid into our town. Call it a curse or not, she knew she was directing her anger at white people.”

  FitzHugh handed the microphone back, and received significantly louder applause than the first speaker. Annie consciously chose a black man seated at the left of the room as the next up.

  He was of medium height and a slim build. He had a receding hairline. He wore gold wire-frame glasses and a sports coat, giving him a professorial appearance.

  “My name Christian Banneker. One of my forebears, Benjamin Banneker, helped design Washington, D.C. Almost every male member of my family has been a college graduate for the past one hundred years. Almost every female member of my family has been a college graduate for the past seventy-five years. My relatives have become ministers, educators, doctors, and officers in the military. Following in Benjamin Banneker’s footsteps, I am an architect. I am also the heir to two very fortunate traditions. The first is being a member of a family that insists on rectitude and education as the pillars of a good life. The second is to be a citizen of a country that recognizes that human nature is both flawed and perfectible. I don’t blame white people for my shortcomings; I only ask them not to overlook their own. We all have work to do on that person we see in the mirror each morning. Lastly, I would like to express my heartfelt sympathies to the Cardwells, the Castlewoods and the Masons.”

  Banneker’s comments received the best reception yet. When the applause died down, Annie called on a man in the dead center of the audience.

  He was tall and rawboned, wore khaki slacks and a plaid shirt, and looked to be in his fifties. “I’m Ezra Tilden, and I guess I’m kinda like the chief of police up there. I was raised to think that some people were better than others because of their skin color or their religion or their accent or whatever the hell else my parents thought up. And I believed what I was taught for a good long time. But finally I got out in the world enough and grew enough brains to figure out that what I was taught as a child was both right and wrong. Some people are better than others. But there are no hard and fast rules as to why. Skin color surely isn’t a sign. You know how I figured that out? I met a blind racist. This man had been born blind, but he told me blacks were no damn good. I asked him how he knew what the hell color a person was when he couldn’t see anybody. Then just to mess with his head, I asked how he even knew everyone wasn’t playing a big joke on him and he was black.”

  That got a laugh from the crowd. Even the mayor smiled.

  Tilden continued, “I agree with Clay Steadman that our town isn’t cursed. If God wanted to kick some ass around here, He wouldn’t be working on such a piss-ant scale. One mountain lion? If that’s the best God can do, he’s gettin’ old.”

  People started to laugh again, but Tilden held up his hands.

  “Please. I don’t mean to make fun of what happened to the folks who did get attacked, and that poor young Mason girl. Or Reverend Cardwell, either. I’m glad that Fansler punk is in jail, and I hope his pain will be prolonged, too. As for whoever killed the reverend, I wouldn’t mind seeing that sonofabitch nailed to a tree — as long as it was a dead tree. Wouldn’t want to hurt any innocent plant life.”

  Tilden looked over his shoulder at the first speaker, Lucy Blaine, momentarily. “Ma’am, I’m not qualified to say whether we’ve all got a divine spark in us, but I figure if that’s so, maybe people have got a little more of it than mountain lions. I say we trust our police department to catch the people who are dangerous to us, but the state of California has to trust us to protect ourselves from animals that are dangerous to us. A bunch of do-gooders in Los Angeles and San Francisco pass a proposition saying you can’t hunt man-eating predators? Well, to hell with that! It’d be like us passing a proposition protecting drive-by shooters. Wouldn’t those city folks scream then?”

  Amid a flurry of favorable outcries, Ezra Tilden turned his gaze directly toward Clay Steadman.

  “Mr. Mayor, I’ve got to tell you, if I see any mountain lion around my house, I won’t stop to ask if it’s our local marauder. My policy will be to shoot on sight. If that’s civil disobedience, so be it. If you want to prosecute me, I’ll take my chances with a jury of my peers. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

  Clay met the man’s eyes and spoke softly. “I’m afraid we’d have to accommodate you with that prosecution, Mr. Tilden. You or anyone else of a similar mind.”

  Annie Stratton decided it was time to let the working press have its turn.

  Gayle Shipton, who’d spent years in pitch meetings with the sleaze de la sleaze of Hollywood, figured she could put up with just about any man for an hour or two. But this limey letch
was almost more than she could take. He’d ordered stout for her, vile-looking black stuff that looked like it had passed through a barnyard animal with a urinary infection.

  That, and he had his hand up her skirt before she even got a chance to see if he had clean fingernails. Well, okay, she’d flashed him a little of the old beav, but he didn’t have to be so rough about it — and so obvious. They were seated at a small table, and if anyone ever took their eyes off the damn televisions, they’d get quite a show.

  When Colin Ring tried to stick one of his fat fingers inside her, she pinched the back of the offending hand sharply enough to draw blood. He quickly — thankfully — withdrew it, and she tugged her dress down. But when the Englishman spotted corpuscles flowing freely from the rip in his flesh, he saw red in more ways than one. For one head-spinning moment, Gayle thought he was going to bash her right there.

  She saved herself by saying in a husky snarl, “You play rough, I play rough. You play nice, I’ll play nice.”

  Not a bad line, Gayle thought. Of course, maybe she was just remembering it from some old Lauren Bacall movie. Still, it seemed to be working. The brows over Colin Ring’s piggy little eyes unfurled themselves and a grin appeared at the corners of his lipless mouth.

  “Too bloody right!” the Englishman roared with laughter. He slapped the table hard enough to produce a credible impression of a gunshot. For the first time, all the eyes in the bar turned away from the televisions and looked at them.

  Gayle quickly lowered her head. She didn’t want to be remembered being seen with this creep. If people couldn’t see her face, all they’d recall would be her hair and her tits. In this town, that wouldn’t narrow things down much.

  When she thought it was safe, she looked up.

  Colin Ring was regarding her with a devilish grin.

  “Very well, my dear,” he said. “Where shall we go to play nice? Your place or mine?”

  Damn! He was right, she thought. Her stupid line implied an invitation. That was the problem with spoken dialogue: you couldn’t rewrite it.