Radioman (A 2/19th Spinoff) - Complete

An Offering in the Old Ways

It was just after sunset when I heard the knock on the door. Authoritarian, demanding. The knock of an official on official duties. I'd been expecting it all day, and had sat on the couch after Brianna had called me to let me know nothing had changed, waiting for that knock on the door. I sighed, set down my last bottle of orange soda and walked to the door.

When I opened it Sheriff Wesley stood in front of me.

"Come in," I told him, stepping to the side.

"You need to come down to the station, Mister Foster," he told me, stepping inside. I shut the door behind him. "I'm going to need to to place you under arrest."

I walked past him, deliberately turning my back on him. "So Gail called you this morning, did she, Sheriff?"

"There's people in the hospital. There are people dead," he told me. "There are witnesses who saw you committing serious, felonious assaults."

"So?" I asked him.

"I'm sworn to uphold the law. You can't run around hurting people, Foster," The Sheriff said. "This isn't a god damned action movie, you can't do this!"

"Apparently I can. Since when has any of that ever mattered, Sheriff?" I asked him, facing away. "You've looked away for so long, and now you suddenly care?"

"I have always upheld the law," he stated.

"Unless the Keagans or the Haverstons are involved. Unless a junkie is involved," I shrugged, still facing away from him. "After all, we wouldn't want to get in the way, would we?"

Aine had told me everything I needed to know when she was talking to the Sheriff right at the table.

And I'd missed it.

"Paul Foster, you're under..." he started, stepping forward and grabbing my right arm.

I twisted, taking control of his arm, forcing him on his knees. I was staring off into the distance, not really seeing the snow outside the sliding glass door. I heard a rumble outside that quickly died away. The storm was back, we'd passed through the eye of the storm already.

"You can't get away," the Sheriff gasped when I put some pressure on the arm.

"Why not?" I asked quietly, still staring at the dancing snow. "You've gotten away with it since, what, 1970? Maybe even before then."

He looked up at me and I saw actual fear in his eyes.

"When did it start, Sheriff? After Hamburger Hill? While you in Walter Reed?" I asked him.

"What, what do you mean?" He asked me.

"Everyone in the military knows about it," I told him, still staring out the glass.  "We talk about it late at night in the NCO Club."

He swallowed thickly.

"Heroin, Sheriff," I said, still watching the snow flurry around. I pulled him up, keeping control of his arm. I could feel the stiffness under his shirt with my arm as I shifted his body. He gave a low groan of pain at the pressure. "I know, Sheriff. I know all of it."

He stared at me, his eyes wide.

"Bring it in hidden inside a section of a hollowed out log, take it to the mill, send it out with the lumber," I said. "Gail's family's mill, Dave's family's trucks," I shook my head. "Your contacts in Vietnam and Cambodia."

His mouth was opening and closing slowly. I stared out the window, staring into the snow.

"Kansas is perfect. The middle of the Mid-West. The feds don't look this deep," I sighed. "All of that, even your hand in destroying my life, my childhood, I could have forgiven."