“Goddamn it, Juliette Rose,” Roger was saying. “You didn’t tell me the whole damn town was going to be here.”
“Brother Armitage,” Juliette Rose said suspiciously as he approached her. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m fine, Sister Julie,” Brother Armitage smiled, “and how are you?”
“A little busy at the moment.”
“So I see. Brother Ellis.”
“Brother Armitage,” Roger said. “Good to see you, as always.”
Brother Armitage held out his hand to DJ. “I’m Brother Armitage.”
“So I gathered,” DJ said, shaking his hand. “I’m DJ Kincaid.”
Brother Armitage cocked his head and pulled at his ear. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to stare, but – have we met? There’s something very familiar about you but I can’t…quite….”
“I’m sure I would have remembered,” DJ said politely.
“It would have been a long time ago, perhaps?”
“Sorry.”
“Something we can do for you, Brother Armitage?” Juliette Rose asked, her impatience showing.
“I thought there might be something I could do to help.”
“Thank you,” DJ began. “I’m sure–-“
“We appreciate the offer,” Juliette Rose cut in quickly, “and if there’s anything you can do, we’ll let you know.” Brother Armitage ignored the implied dismissal. “Was there something else?”
“Ah,” Brother Armitage said, turning toward the door. “Here he is now.”
A tall, beefy man in a uniform had just entered the store. There was a badge on his shirt, a gun in a holster on his belt, and a scowl on his face as his eyes dissected the room, grid by grid. When he finally reached the section of the room that held Juliette’s booth, he made a face and started toward her. When he caught sight of Brother Armitage, he made another face. DJ provoked still a third face. For a taciturn man who rarely lost his temper and never seemed to experience any real joy, he had a very expressive face.
“Juliette Rose,” he nodded when he reached the booth.
“Chief,” Juliette nodded back.
“We’re not going to have any trouble, are we, Juliette?”
“I suppose that would depend on what you mean by ‘trouble’, Matt.”
“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about, Juliette Rose.”
“If you mean protests and demonstrations and petitions and other lawful exercises of our democratic rights, then yes, there’s going to be trouble. You got a problem with that, Chief?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it,” the Chief said calmly. After all the times they had butted heads, he knew better than to rise to Juliette’s bait. “I’m referring to possible illegal actions to stop this road.”
“We’re not planning any illegal actions, Matt,” Roger said.
“You never plan them,” the Chief answered, “but they seem to happen just the same.”
“We won’t be responsible.”
The Chief sat on a corner of the table and rested his hand on the butt of his gun. “Of course you will, Counselor. You will have gotten everybody stirred up over this thing. Remember what happened last time?”
“That’s not fair, Matt,” Roger protested. “We had nothing to do with that and you know it.”
“No? You didn’t rile everybody up? Juliette Rose didn’t go around making inflammatory speeches about how the State was going to send in the National Guard to take over the town when she knew damn well they weren’t going to do any such thing?”
“I never said that,” Juliette Rose interrupted.
“I’ve got it on tape, Juliette Rose,” the Chief said evenly. “Want to hear it? It was a good speech. Rousing.”
“You taped me?” Juliette gasped.
“Not me personally. Somebody else did and gave it to me. They thought I might want to know about it.”
“It’s not illegal to tape public speeches,” DJ shrugged. “Just like it’s not illegal to make them.”
“I don’t know you, ma’am, do I?”
“DJ Kincaid. I just…moved in.”
“DJ?”
“Yes. DJ.” She was all but daring him to ask what the initials stood for. He had other fish to fry and let it go.
“You involved with–-“ He looked at Roger pointedly but finished, “–-Ms Rose’s little war against the State?”
”Come on, Matt,” Roger said, miffed. “This isn’t a ‘war’. Now that’s inflammatory language.”
“Alright, Counselor, calm down. I withdraw the question.” He stood up. “But I want you to know I’m going to come down on any funny business like a hammer. I’m not going to see this town turned into a battlefield over nothing.”
“Nothing?” Juliette Rose exploded. “Nothing? You call the destruction of the State Forest just so a few big shots from Boston can get to Springfield fifteen minutes faster nothing? You call the threat to develop Wilbur into another Tully nothing?”
The Chief let his irritation show for the first time. “Stop it, Juliette. Wilbur is on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Road or no road, nobody’s going to spend the money to develop it. Wilbur is in no danger of becoming civilized, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No? Then why are property values suddenly skyrocketing in Entwhistle, right across the river?”
That took the Chief by surprise. “They are? Well, Entwhistle’s at the bottom of the mountain, on the flats, not on top of it.”
“But the highest re-valuations are on property at the top. Rich people like to live up above everybody else.”
“That’s Entwhistle,” the Chief said stubbornly. “They’ve got stores, the railroad station, the paper mill. It’s a real town, not a bump on a hill. We don’t even have a gas station, for god’s sake.”
“We will once they start building condos on Amos Pepperell’s farm and Don Nelson sells out his hundred acres on Bright Road to housing developers. That’s what the road is meant to do, Matt – make it easier for people who work in Boston to commute from out here. Make it an hour’s drive instead of an hour-and-a-half and they’ll buy us up like toys at a Christmas sale. There’s a fortune to be made if they can get that road built. Everything we love about Wilbur, everything that keeps us here, protecting it, will vanish into thin air.”
“There is a certain…feeling here, Brother Matthew,” Brother Armitage added dreamily. “A certain atmosphere of simplicity and directness that’s disappearing from the modern world. It would be a great loss if it perished altogether, don’t you think?”
