The Bones of Old Carlisle (2 page)

In 1927, a wealthy US Senator from New York named Fernando
Vestrigue employed a series of bribes, vote trades and campaign
contributions to convince his colleagues that a second line of
defenses was necessary along the Eastern Seaboard.

Should a major ship-borne force attack from the Atlantic,
Vestrigue argued, it would quickly overwhelm the nation’s coastal
defenses, leaving the interior ripe for pillage. Forts and military
supply depots should be built, post haste, 10 to 20 miles inland to
coordinate a counterattack.

Vestrigue was a member of a consortium that owned a considerable
tract of land along one of the rivers that ran to New York’s interior,
but he failed to bring that up. Nor would a search of property records
have necessarily revealed Vestrigue’s holdings in real property.

A sum of $47 million was set aside to purchase or improve 25
military sites from Maine to central Georgia. Unfortunately for his
estate and his heirs, Vestrigue died before he could ensure that his
property was among those purchased. Site selection fell to a committee
headed by Senator Jake Larrangine, from Kansas, who owned no property
in the coastal states but who knew people who owned land elsewhere.
Larrangine proposed that the land could be bought anywhere, not
limited to 10 to 20 miles from the coast, and he set about acquiring
15 parcels of unproductive farmland and scraggle pine, mostly in North
Carolina and Delaware, and mostly belonging to American Paper Co.

None of the 15 sites were actually suitable for a military base,
and in 1939, 13 of them were sold back to American Paper Co., at a
significant profit.

Of the two remaining sites, one became a US Postal sorting
facility and the other became Fort Shergawa, a name based on a
corruption of the local Cherokee dialect, most likely, though no one
was certain. The site for Fort Shergawa, located on the hazardously
inclined eastern slope of Steeple Mountain, was chosen not because it
was militarily or logistically sensible, but only because a Heligaux
brothel owner named Sandy “Madam duSandrah” Jones thought a nearby
military base would be good for business. She called in certain favors
from certain of her clients and, in the first week of June 1942,
America’s nascent war effort was boosted with the emergency
acquisition of 15,000 acres of mostly uninhabited, mostly useless
forest.

The US military of course never wanted the land and struggled to
find anything to do with it. Only after World War II had concluded
(and Madame duSandrah’s brothel had long been shut down) did the US
Army identify a purpose, turning the mountainside into an artillery
and munitions training range. Hundreds of soldiers cycled through
every month to learn the fine art of destroying enemy assets and enemy
people through mortar deployment and helicopter-based assault. The
thud, thud, thud of distant explosions against imagined enemies became
a part of Heligaux life, like the sound of the rushing river or the
wind in the trees.

Without an invitation, gaining admission to Fort Shergawa could
be difficult, or it could be impossible. As Karl Arrowroot crossed the
bridge over the flashing Mittelkopp, he began in earnest the mental
preparations for negotiating the main gate. Arrowroot was expecting
impossibility, it being the weekend, but he’d embarked on the fivemile trek to Shergawa’s main gate with optimism – and what might be
called a focused mindset.

“Shergawa is the body,” he said to himself. “And I am the germ.”
That hippie girl in the wedding dress was a germ too, and she had
presumably gotten through the way germs often do, through a break in
the skin – the skin being the miles of barbed wire-topped chain link
fence around Shergawa, and the break being the hole she – or more
likely, her hippie fiancé – had cut through it.

That was no way to get onto Fort Shergawa. The regular patrols
were like white blood cells, coursing through the fort’s circulatory
system of roads and trails, attaching themselves to anyone who didn’t
belong. Even if the germ fought back, as the wedding girl had, it
would soon enough be overwhelmed.

No, far better to be breathed in, drunk in, eaten in – welcomed
in – where you could pursue your agenda at the core of the being,
without fear of eviction. That’s what the main gate was for, the mouth
of Shergawa, a mouth whose lips were sometimes parted, whose jaw
occasionally unclenched.

Perhaps Arrowroot and his pickup truck would make it through that
Saturday morning. His choice of the truck instead of his convertible
was entirely strategic. He needed to look down on the gate personnel.
Looking up from a ragtop just wouldn’t do, even if he was wearing a
pith helmet.

As luck would have it, the gate officer on duty that morning was
exceptionally tall, and Arrowroot cursed under his breath as the man
drew near, bearing a nose at roughly the same altitude as Arrowroot’s.

“Wassup?” asked the soldier, slim and black, his eyes hidden
under the brim of a cap pulled low over his forehead.
“I’m Karl Arrowroot, the mayor of Heligaux,” Arrowroot, said,
extending his hand. “I’m here on official business that I’m not at
liberty to describe.”
“Awright.”
“Thank you.” Arrowroot rolled his window up and inched forward,
wishing he could see through the trees before him to the Shergawa
headquarters. But all that was visible was a road that curved through
the woods, and immediately before him a flimsy, red and white plastic
affair which, if driven through, would put nary a scratch on his truck
while it would bring the full wrath of the US Army down upon him.
The gate did not lift and the soldier did not move, standing
statue-like beside Arrowroot’s truck.
Arrowroot rolled his window back down. “I’m ready to roll on in,”
he said, and he put his hand out the window and extended it forward,
palmside down.
The soldier mimicked the motion, but held up another hand in
front of it, so that the truck hand stopped at the gate hand.
“Closed today,” he said with a half-smile.
“Of course it is, of course, for common business,” Arrowroot said
impatiently. “But this is an urgent matter. And time-sensitive.”
“Uh-uh.”
“Uh-uh? Did you just say uh-uh?”
“Uh-huh,” the soldier replied, nodding slowly.
“Arrowroot noticed a sharp pain in his fingers. He was gripping
the steering wheel so hard his knuckles had gone white. He pulled his
hands away, massaged them and turned his eyes to the nametag sewn over
the soldier’s right breast pocket: Charlemagne. For perhaps 15
seconds, neither man moved, and there was silence except for the
truck’s idling engine. At last, Arrowroot decided on his next words:
“So you’re the best they could get to run the main gate today?”
“Uh-huh.”
“A man of few words,” Arrowroot observed. “That talent will make
you a general one day.”
The soldier’s eyes were invisible but his mouth conveyed a hint
of surprise.
“Now, could I ask a favor of you?” Arrowroot inquire. “Could I
possibly convince you to call your commanding officer and let him or
her know I’m here to talk to that blushing bride who went on a rampage
around here this morning? There’s a good chance she is a material
witness in relation to an urgent criminal matter in Heligaux.”
The gate officer stepped into the aging white clapboard booth
that had served as Fort Shergawa’s main gate house since the
facility’s first days. The building featured windows on all four
sides, and Arrowroot watched him pick up a phone, speak a few lines,
nod and put the handset down.
“They still ain’t takin’ no visitors,” he announced.
“Did you pass along my message?”
“Yup.”
“Any chance things might change today?”
“Never know.”
“Well, perhaps if I waited awhile, you might take pity on me and
call back up the hill,” Arrowroot said. “Is there a chance that might
happen?”
“Never know.”
Arrowroot smiled, put his truck in reverse and backed it onto the
shoulder of the road. He turned it off, nodded to the soldier and
reached into the truck bed. First, he pulled out a card table, briskly
extending all four legs and setting it on the ground. Next came a
rust-stained, red-checkered tablecloth. Then he drew forth a folding
chair and set it at the table. Finally, he pulled a sandwich and a
canteen from the truck’s front seat, brought them to the table and
proceeded to have lunch.
Had Fort Shergawa not come, the citizens of Heligaux would
certainly have completely colonized the other half of their valley
decades ago, and the little patch of land where Arrowroot was dining
would have been prime real estate. The fort’s main gate occupied a
broad, level area, and the trees had been cleared for 100 yards in
every direction, affording Arrowroot a sweeping view of the mountains
and the valleys north, south and east, of the places where he had
lived, roamed and worked almost all his life: Traxie, where he grew
up, the public schools where he got his education, the office
buildings where he’d practiced, and the old Town Hall, built of yellow
mountain granite beside the river.
The day had matured nicely, a canopy of solid blue over a fertile
green world, the distant trees swaying in a steady breeze. The people
looked like ants as they swarmed the Promenade next to City Hall. A
long train, probably 80 cars or more, was snaking through Traxie on
its way southward.
Arrowroot grabbed his canteen, raised it toward the soldier in a
wordless toast, and sipped. Expressionless, the soldier observed from
the door of the gatehouse for a time, then withdrew into the building,
picked up the phone, gestured and nodded into it for a few moments,
then returned to his lonely vigil.
Two vehicles appeared, both Army-issue humvees, and the soldier
waved them into the fort.
Arrowroot finished his lunch, wiped the table down and produced a
Bible, turning to Psalms:

A spirit glided past my face,
and the hair on my body stood on end.
It stopped, but I could not tell what it was.

As he studied the Word of God, Arrowroot realized he was more
like a thought than a germ. He wasn’t trying to get into the fort. He
was trying to change its behavior. He wanted permission to talk to the
gun-snatching wedding girl, and it didn’t matter where it happened. He
just needed Fort Shergawa to agree.

All a germ could do was make you sick, he thought. An idea could
change your life, if it could get past all the defenses. But people’s
idea defenses were much stronger than their germ defenses. Arrowroot
recalled the futility of arguing religion with his chief of police.

“Floyd, you can’t possibly believe in evolution,” he had said
last summer, over beers on the Promenade.
“Karl, a man of your intelligence can’t possibly believe in
myth.”
“Okay, then, where did all this come from? Where did you come
from, Floyd, where did I come from? And don’t tell me I came from
monkeys – I know some monkeys who might take offense!”
Floyd laughed and went silent. Silence was always the last refuge
of those who had no arguments left.
Maybe Fort Shergawa was willing to keep talking. Another vehicle
approached the gate from within the fort. He didn’t look up as it
stopped.
He heard a door slam, a few inaudible words between the gate
officer and someone new, then footsteps approaching his table.
“Sir?”
The wind had kicked up and the tablecloth was flapping, and
Arrowroot had to clap both hands over his book to keep his place. He
looked up to find a very big man in military fatigues hovering over
his table.
“Major Steve McCafferty,” the man said, sticking out his hand. “I
understand you have a concern?”
Arrowroot took the major’s hand and stood. “Yes indeed, I do,
thanks for asking. I need to speak to that rootin’-tootin’ bride you
picked up earlier today.”
“Okay, okay,” McCafferty said, holding up his hands as if trying
to stop a car, “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Well, rootin’-tootin’ might be a little imprecise,” Arrowroot
admitted, “but she did squeeze off a few rounds this morning, didn’t
she?”
The soldier clasped his hands together and drew in a breath as if
he were about to speak, but ended up saying nothing.
“Okay, okay, I know the drill, let me try again in Army speak,”
Arrowroot said. “You had a perimeter breach this morning, did you
not?”
“We might have,” McCafferty admitted.
“And there was a firearm discharge that might have occurred in
conjunction with, or peripheral to, that breach?”
“That has yet to be determined, Sir.”
“Very good,” Arrowroot continued. “And said breaching civilian
was attired in a garment, or garments, which might to a reasonable
person appear to be the sort of thing worn by a female at imminent
risk of nuptials?”
“A wedding dress?” the major replied with apparent surprise.
“That’s an additional data point.”
“Fair enough,” Arrowroot conceded. “Well, regardless what
weaponry was discharged, or what occasion she dressed for this
morning, her presence on base makes her potentially very important to
an urgent criminal matter in Heligaux.”
“I thought you said you were the mayor of Heligaux.”
“I am indeed,” Arrowroot replied. “Which means the chief of
police works for me. And I’m here with his full knowledge and
support.”
“Okay, then, here’s where things stand,” McCaffery said, clasping
his hands together again. “We are following the protocol for perimeter
breaches, and until we determine we’re not experiencing an invasion,
that’s going to be our focus.”
“An invasion?” Arrowroot said. “Did you say an invasion?”
“We have a protocol to follow,” McCafferty said, “and right now
we are four criteria away from full engagement.”
“Oh, for God’s sakes,” protested Arrowroot. “You’ve got a drugged
up hippie girl who snuck onto base in a wedding dress. Maybe her
boyfriend was with her. Probably wearing a tuxedo. If that’s an
invasion, we have about five of them in Heligaux every weekend.”
Arrowroot’s phone rang, he looked at it briefly, didn’t recognize
the number but answered anyway.
“Hello?”
“Mayor Arrowroot, that you?” asked a deep, urban voice.
“Who is this?” Arrowroot asked. “Oh my God, Roosevelt? Colonel
Roosevelt Thompson?”
“It is. I hear you’re raising hell at the front gate.”
“Just trying to get some information, Colonel,” Arrowroot
replied. “Same matter as before. How you doin’, anyway?”
“Not good,” Thompson replied drily, “That soldier you’ve been
harassing at the gate says he has clearly informed you that our
facility is closed, and you have challenged his authority with
irrelevant comments and inexplicable behaviors.”
“With all due respect, Colonel,” Arrowroot asserted, “that young
fella at the gate isn’t the, uh, the shiniest missile in your, uh, in
your missile closet.”
“Lt. Charlemagne graduated top of his class at West Point, Mr.
Mayor. His duty module today is to keep people out by whatever means
necessary. His assignment wasn’t to appear intelligent.” The colonel’s
voice was rising. “Mr. Mayor, let me share some very classified
information with you, and then I want you to get back in your vehicle
and drive home. We’ve got 20 observed parties breaching, and reports
of shots fired at the general. Until further notice, this military
facility is on total lockdown. Now go home!”
The phone went dead. Arrowroot stared at it, incredulous,
breathing heavily, then looked back up at Major McCafferty. “He just
said – He just said you got 20 invaders!”
“That’s an additional data point,” McCafferty said.
“The hell it is,” Arrowroot said. “You know where that nonsense
came from? That soldier said the girl was 20, the other fellow on the
other radio says ‘What, 20 people?” and the patrol soldier says no,
she’s 20. And Colonel Thompson heard the whole thing. He was the one
cussing out that poor patrol after that hippie girl went and took his
gun.”
“He shouldn’t have been monitoring that channel,” McCafferty
said.
“Well, he was, and he should know what was said,” Arrowroot
observed.
“He might have been, but interpreting that frequency is outside
his duty module.”
Arrowroot was about to say something else when he recalled
Thompson’s other statement: “Shots fired at the general.” There’s only
one place that rumor could have come from.
“So tell me, Major, have you heard from the
Heligaux Herald?
”
“Yes, Sir, there have been media inquiries.”
“And I bet they asked about the general getting shot at?”
“I can’t confirm or deny that report, no.”
“Has anyone asked the general if she happened to notice any
bullets whizzing about?”
“Inquiries of that nature would be taken up by the appropriate
authorities,” the major replied. He paused, looked down, then spoke
again. “But whether or not a party notices the discharge of a firearm
in their direction – well, that’s one data point. And there are
typically other data points.”
Arrowroot realized that he was losing, and that he himself was
part of the reason for his defeat. His only option seemed to be
letting the Army work its way through whatever process it had embarked
on.
“So what’s this protocol you mentioned?”
“It’s a legacy document,” McCafferty said.
“What’s that mean?”
“It was drafted when the fort was conceived.”
“You mean in 1927?”
“Yes, when the fort was conceived.”
“You mean, when they decided to do that, what was it, that second
line of coastal defenses or whatever?” Arrowroot asked.
“It has to be followed,” said McCafferty. “Right now, we’re
applying the criteria to determine if a coastal invasion is underway.
We’re four criteria away from full engagement.”
Arrowroot looked down at his hands, saw they were shaking and
willed them to be still. “Okay, what happens next?”
“Contact report due from the patrol that first encountered the
invading party.”
“So that fellow that got his gun took away has to file a few
words?”
“It’s a 10-page form. He’ll start it Monday. He’s a little shaken
up right now.”
“Oh, for God’s sakes.”
Arrowroot’s phone rang again.
“Yes?”
“Karl, it’s Floyd.”
“Good afternoon, Floyd, what can I do for you?”
“Army just dropped a girl off in front of the station,” Hatfield
said.
“That just makes no sense,” Arrowroot retorted.
“Here’s what they told me,” Hatfield said. “Girl sitting around
in HQ in some fatigues they loaned her, General Brackette comes out,
says, ‘Why is she here, fort’s on lockdown, we’re not giving tours
today.’ So general tells some special ops guys to take her to town.
Must be her, she’s just pulled a wedding dress out of a bag. Oh, damn.
Miss, you can’t change out there! Miss! Aw, shit. Miss! Just a second,
Karl.”
There was a long pause, then a few words Arrowroot couldn’t make
out, in Hatfield’s voice and then the woman’s. Then Hatfield’s voice
again.
“Karl, you still there?”
“Yup.”
“Well, she’s here, anyway,” Hatfields said. “Dress back on. I
zipped it up. Yes, Miss. Thank you. I hope you do.”
“Floyd, what’s going on?”
“She’s leaving.”
Major McCafferty was waiting politely beside the table, and it
occurred to Arrowroot that there was no reason the officer needed to
overhear this conversation. He nodded apologetically to him, held up
one finger and turned away, toward the village across the valley. “You
need to ask her to stay,” he whispered into his phone.
“Got no grounds.”
“You’re just no help at all,” Arrowroot complained. “No help.”
“Look, I’m not going to say much about this over the phone,”
Hatfield said, “but I don’t think she’s going to be very helpful. Just
very odd, she is. Very odd. I’ll tell you more when you get to the
station.”
“Where did she say she was going?” Arrowroot asked.
“I don’t know. To get married, I guess. You might want to hurry.”