Free Jericho by George Fetherling Page B

on of hands in the Bible. Somebody always had a mitt out of his pocket for one reason or another and then somebody else got theirs out too, and the first guy ended getting appointed or anointed. (Ha! That’s not bad.) So it came to pass that the elders of Snaketown seemed to be calling to me, saying unto me to appoint and anoint this Beth as my acolyte slash intern slash moll. I could tell she was going warm and rigid for me. I could see how she looked at me when I didn’t use the words she was expecting. Of course, she’d probably never known anybody who really understands how to talk and make an art of it. She’d likely only met people who could talk about the weather and the price of grain. I mean she was straight: rural straight, and there’s no straighter. But instinct and the elders’ voices told me there was more to her than that.
    It took quite a lot of slow, patient work. I remember sitting in the White Spot telling her about getting back to the true ancient roots of Civ as it first came down from the mountain, you might say. I was pretty wired that night, and of course all that coffee, one after another, didn’t even me out. I think I must have been in top racing form. When Itold her I was leaving town her eyes went wide like she was completely surprised. Finally, over the next couple days, we got to the point where she was quitting her job to come with me. This made me happy, of course. It’s better to take the supplies you need with you cause you don’t know if you’ll be able to live off the land. But it put the spook into me too. I guess I was conflicted but maybe not.
    I told him I’d never done anything like this before and he told me not to worry. I felt more excited than scared, at least until it was over. I couldn’t figure out what he was feeling. He was calm but incredibly focused. Me, I couldn’t stop talking, or I’m sure that’s the way it sounded. I noticed he was wearing gloves inside the car. He told me not to touch anything.
    We drove along in silence for a few minutes.
    “Nobody’s ever robbed one before.”
    I didn’t understand what he meant by that.
    “Nobody’s ever stuck up a video store. Have you ever seen a news report about a video store being hit?”
    I admitted that I hadn’t, but then I didn’t read the papers or watch much television. Still, I thought there was a reason why what he said was true. “Maybe it’s because they don’t get robbed?”
    “Exactly.”
    He was squinting through the windshield, negotiating late evening traffic but not doing it like a pro exactly.
    “Maybe that’s because there’s not very much money at a video store?”
    He seemed to take this remark as a challenge. “Nonsense!” he said. “On a Friday night, are you kidding? You’ve seenhow busy that place gets. And they don’t take credit cards. So they’ve got to start out with a pretty good float and by about now I bet they’ve done their peak weekend business. So I’m not stupid, right? Right now there’ll be the maximum of cash in the register and the woman there gets so stoned at night she won’t be able to identify us if she tried, which she won’t. It’s a target-rich environment. Now’s the moment to strike.”
    Just then the light changed at the intersection and the engine stalled. I think it was probably Bishop’s fault and not the engine’s. He looked like he was going to flood it. I wanted to take over the wheel and show him a trick I’d learned driving Mr. Steenrod’s coaches. You can’t go stalling a funeral procession, tying up traffic. But of course I kept my mouth shut except to say, “I didn’t know you drove. How long have you had this car?”
    “About half an hour,” he said.
    We pulled up in the lane behind Cult Video. He rehearsed our roles again. I’d go in first and act like a customer and browse and see how many people were in the store. If I didn’t come out again in fifteen minutes, it meant the coast was pretty clear. I’d keep