I dropped the potholder onto the middle of the table and placed the pan of spaghetti on it, an inelegant way to serve dinner, but functional.
“Dinner’s ready,” Libby called.
The others traipsed into the room. Jerrilyn took the place of honor at the head of the table, an interesting glimpse into the group’s power dynamics. Boyd sat to her right, Dwight and Darryl to her left. Without asking, Ripper sat opposite Jerrilyn, and patted the seat to his left, urging me to take my place at his side. Tuck sat at Ripper’s right.
Libby disappeared back into the kitchen, then appeared with a pitcher of iced tea. She circled the table, filling glasses. After she poured tea into Ripper’s glass and mine, she paused.
“Mac and I were talking about babies.”
Ripper had lifted his glass halfway to his mouth. He carefully placed it back on the table and swiveled his head toward me, raising his eyebrows.
“Libby thinks that we should have a baby. That it’s our duty to the race.”
In order to infiltrate the Wilcox Brigade, Ripper and I had agreed that we had to act as if we were sympathetic—or at least receptive—to their twisted world views. But—crap—the last thing I wanted was to have a public discussion about Ripper getting me pregnant. We’d never talked about having a baby. I had no idea if he ever wanted to be a father. With my birth control implant, we wouldn’t need to think about it for almost two years.
“Huh,” he said. “Guess that’s something we’ll have to talk about.”
“Ripper’s your road name, right?” Darryl interrupted. “What’s your real name, the one on your driver’s license?”
Ripper leaned back in his chair, completely at ease. Tilting his head to one side, he met Darryl’s eyes. “Alejandro Solis,” he said, carefully enunciating each syllable.
“Shit.” Darryl tossed his napkin onto the table. “You a Mexican?”
THIRTY-THREE
Ripper
“You a Mexican?”
Fuck Darryl. Fuck him six ways to Sunday.
Before I replied, I gave myself ten full seconds to indulge in a mental picture of my fist bashing into his face. “My family is Asturian.”
“Beg pardon?” Darryl smirked. “Ass-what-ian?”
The imaginary beatdown continued.
“My grandparents all came from Asturias, a province in northern Spain.”
Close enough to the truth to pass the sniff test. My great-grandparents all immigrated together from Gijon, a large coastal city in Asturias.
“So are you white?” Dwight asked.
To my surprise, Boyd answered. “Hitler considered the Spaniards to be a Mediterranean subset of the Aryan race, so yeah, he’s white.”
I’d pass muster with Hitler? Fucking great.
From their sour expressions, Boyd’s statement disappointed his cousins. They probably hoped to kick me out on my ass and make a move on Mac. I piled on. “My grandfather volunteered for the Blue Division during World War II. You heard of them, Darryl? Spanish volunteers who joined the Wehrmacht and fought for Hitler on the Eastern Front?”
A bald-faced lie that would make my grandfather spin in his grave. He’d proudly served in America’s Sixth Armored Division during the war, and I just called him a Nazi-loving fascist. Sorry grandpa. Greater good and all that.
Darryl crossed his arms over his chest and sulked.
“Well, now that that’s settled, let’s eat,” Jerrilyn pronounced.
Darryl and Dwight had enough smarts between them to stop eye-fucking Mac, but they kept talking to her.
“How about you, Mac?” Darryl asked, after polishing off his first helping of spaghetti. “Where are your people from?”
She laid down her fork and reached under the table to touch my knee. “I’m kind of a mutt. My dad’s people came from Scotland and England. My mom’s half Danish and half Norwegian.”
“All good, northern stock,” Boyd said.
Mac shrugged and played dumb. “I’ve never thought too much about it.”
“It’s past time for your racial consciousness to awaken.” Boyd pointed at the people sitting around the table. “All of us, we’re the seed germ of the master race. We all have an important role to play in the new world.”
“Me?” Mac looked startled. “I do, too?”
“Especially you. You and Libby. Hitler said that a woman should devote herself to her husband, her children, and her home. There is no greater duty for a woman than to bear and raise right-thinking white children.”
Mac’s nails dug into my knee, but she maintained a wide-eyed, guileless expression on her face. This was the same woman who balked at wearing a German-style helmet the first time I put her on my bike. Who said she didn’t want to look like a Nazi stormtrooper. I liked that stubborn, opinionated woman better than this dumbed down Stepford version.
“Right-thinking white children,” Mac repeated. She turned to me. “What do you think, Ripper?”
“I think I need to sit down and hear Boyd out,” I said. “Make yourself scarce after dinner so the men can talk.”
“Okay.” She glanced at the opposite end of the table and wrinkled her brow. “Libby looks worn out. I’ll help her clear the table and clean up. She said there’s a doctor and a ranch hand in the back of the house, and she brings them dinner every night. Maybe I could help her carry the food.”
Nice move, Mac. I was careful not to let the relief show on my face. Sahdev was alive. I’d suspected as much, but it was good to know for sure and to have some idea of where they were holding him. The more time Mac spent with Libby the more information she could wheedle out of the woman.
“Clear it with Boyd first.”
Boyd was what passed for the brains of the operation. Well, Jerrilyn, too, but the man I was pretending to be would naturally see another man as top dog.
While we ate, Dwight and Darryl carried on about the evils of the pre-pandemic American system. Did Mac know that FEMA—the Federal Emergency Management Agency—had planned to set up concentration camps for their political enemies? That the government had a nefarious scheme to merge the United States, Canada, and Mexico into a single nation? That the president intended to seize everybody’s guns? That the United Nations was up to no good, plotting to destroy the concept of private property?
Had to admire Mac’s self-control while she listened to the nitwits rattle on. Not even a flicker of disdain crossed her face, although every word out of their mouths must have made her want to scream a protest. When Jerrilyn declared the dinner over, Mac jumped to her feet and fled to the kitchen with an armful of plates.
Boyd and I retired to the front porch. Jerrilyn followed us and dropped with a heavy sigh onto the porch swing. Libby scuttled onto the porch and handed each of us a cold beer. Kyle had said that the ranch had some electricity from solar panels and a wind turbine. Guess cold beer was a priority. I popped open my beer and leaned back into my chair, waiting for Jerrilyn or Boyd to speak.
“So what do you think?” Jerrilyn asked. She took a long pull on her beer, then belched.
Careful.
“I sympathize with a lot of what you say, but I’ve always minded my own business, been a live-and-let-live kinda man,” I said.