—
WHEN VIRGIL HAD PARKED, he looked over the trucks parked in the field. D. Wayne Sharf’s wasn’t there, unless Sharf had changed vehicles, which was possible. Virgil knew what he looked like, and so climbed out of his 4Runner, wandered over to the driveway and down to the sales field. Fifteen or twenty guys were standing beside their vehicles, drinking from Big Gulp cups or steel coffee cups, and talking with each other, country-looking guys in jeans and boots and long-sleeved shirts.
Most of the trucks and trailers were small, but three larger trucks, pulling larger trailers, showed stacks of empty cages with hard floors and wire sides: they were the bunchers, Virgil guessed. A red-faced older man in jeans, a rodeo belt, and cowboy boots and hat was talking to the men by the bunchers’ trucks. He had a sheaf of papers in his hands, and Virgil thought he was probably Dillard, the farm owner.
Virgil wandered down the line of trucks, looking at the men and peering through windows. He didn’t find Sharf, but he got a bad impression about the handling of the dogs: a lot of the pens had three or four animals stuffed inside, so they could hardly move. He saw one dog he thought was either sick or dead.
He’d just finished his initial survey when a couple more trucks arrived, both pulling trailers. One trailer was covered, but the other was open, stacked with wooden and fiberglass pens full of dogs, like chickens being hauled away for slaughter. The truck with the open trailer, an aging red GMC, rolled down the line of early arrivals and wedged itself into an opening in the line. It was not D. Wayne Sharf’s truck, but it was D. Wayne Sharf who got out of the passenger side.
The driver was a young, thin man, who might’ve been Roy Zorn’s younger brother: same red hair and freckles, a nose that somebody had pushed out of line, aviator sunglasses. Sharf was dressed like everybody else, with cowboy boots, got out and yawned and walked down the side of the trailer, looking up at the dogs. The freckled guy joined him, and pointed at something at the top of the pile of cages: they were talking about unloading.
Virgil ambled toward them; he didn’t want to startle Sharf. He’d closed the gap to twenty yards when he noticed that his caravan was rolling down the driveway into the parking area. Actually, he thought, they were blocking the driveway. Johnson got out of the lead truck, and Virgil saw that he was talking on a cell phone—but he wasn’t talking to Virgil.
Whatever . . .
Virgil started walking toward Sharf again, when somebody asked, “What the heck is this?”
Virgil looked where he was looking—and saw another caravan of cars, probably thirty or forty of them, rolling over the hill. He looked toward Johnson, and Johnson was looking at them, too, and still talking on the cell phone.
Now everybody was looking, and the caravan pulled to the side of the road, further blocking exit from the farm field.
Somebody nearby said, “They aren’t here to sell dogs.”
“Hey, those are TV trucks.”
Two white trucks with television call signs swerved off the road, and cameramen got out, already hoisting cameras to their shoulders.
Somebody else started shouting, “Hey, Arnie? Arnie Dillard? You better come look at this.”
Virgil knew that Dillard’s first name was Arnie, but he wasn’t sure that Arnie could fix whatever was about to happen. People, lots of them, probably eighty or ninety, were climbing out of the cars and trucks. Most of them were empty-handed, but right in the middle of the caravan, twelve or fifteen women got out of five or six SUVs. They were dressed identically, in black jeans, black shirts, and black bicycle or motorcycle helmets, some with face plates. Some wore knee pads or football shoulder pads. Most of them carried aluminum baseball bats; two or three carried iron bars that looked like spears.
Another voice, close by: “Oh, shit.”