Parchman, стр. 19

About a couple of hundred yards out from the camp there was anassortment of various different vehicles in a horizontal line facing thecommunities camp with men and women stood or sat around the carsdirectly opposite them.

‘This is some real bad Mad Max type scenario here Tals,’ said Chuck, whohad caught her up.

‘How long have they been here?’ she said to Chuck or for that matteranyone who would listen.

‘Pretty much all night,’ Nathanial said, turning away from Carlgren andeffectively stopping the argument they were having.

But Carlgren hadn’t finished. ‘We need to try and make contact,’ he said.‘We leave it like this,and they might think we’re the enemy. They couldhelp us. Look at the vehicles they’ve got. They’ve got a goddamn gas tank,’ he said pointing to the truck, which was indeed a petrol carrier. ‘Wesit back watching them and they might think we’re getting ready to attackthem, whereas if we send someone over and make contact we could strikea deal.’

‘You offering to go out there?’ Chuck interrupted.

‘Hey, he’s the President,’ said Carlgren pointing to Nathaniel.

‘Was,’ said Nathaniel. ‘Was the President.’

‘Either way, sitting back on our asses and doing nothing isn’t gettinganything done,’ said Carlgren, who was now extremely red in the face.

‘I’ll go,’ said a voice from the crowd. It was Brad Holton Senior.

‘Brad, I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Nathaniel. ‘You’re not in theright frame of mind to go over there and start negotiating with people. We have no idea if they are friendly or not. I mean, not to judge a book by itscover but they don’t look overly friendly.’

As if on cue one of the men stood on the front of a converted jeep and setoff a flame thrower whilst the rest of the group starting howling andwailing loudly.

‘I’m exactly in the right frame of mind,’ said Holton. ‘I know howimportant it is to keepthese families together. I’m going. I won’t hearanother word about it.’

Holton puffed his chest out and started walking towards the group whowere now all off their cars and stood waiting in a line for the arrival of thisman of the community.

The others watched from afar as one of the men, half his hair shaved onone side, skinny and with arms and bare chest covered in tattoos sprungtowards Holton and started sniffing the air around him. It was too far awayto hear what was being said but Holton stood there with the man who wasnow right up in his face whilst Brad was clearly trying to speak to him.

The man stepped back away from Holton and put his hand to his chin as ifhe was in deep thought. Holton had stopped talking and looked to beawaiting a response.

‘What’s happening?’ said Carlgren.

‘Your guess is as good as ours Carlgren,’ said Nathaniel, trying to makeout what was going on.

The man from the other group looked to start shouting at Holton andbrought a machete out of the side of his trousers and pointedit in Holton’sface.

‘He’s going to kill him,’ said Carlgren. ‘He’s going to kill him.’

Holton turned towards the community and started walking towards them.The other man was still shouting at him as he left. Eventually Holtonreached Nathaniel and the others.

‘What did he want?’ said Carlgren.

‘He has offered terms for them to let us live,’ Holton said stuttering.

‘What terms?’ said Nathaniel, with the rest of them listening avidly.

‘Ten woman and ten others and they will leave,’ said Holton.

‘I’m sorry, what now?’ said Tallulah butting into the conversation.

‘We give them ten of the women from our community under the age offorty and ten other people of any age, ethnicity, sex and they will turnaround and go,’ said Holton.

‘And what the Hell do they plan to do with these women?’ said Tallulahangrily.

‘I think I can guess,’ said Nathanial. ‘And it sounds like the other ten aresurplus to any use other than as food to these animals,’ he shook his head.‘No, the answer is obviously no.’

‘But,’ started Carlgren. Everyone looked at him, before he could evenfinish what he was going to say.

‘I need to speak to this man myself,’ said Nathaniel.

‘Then I’m comingwith you,’ Tallulah replied.

‘Bearing in mind what he just suggested I think you should stay behind.’

Tallulah gave Nathaniel a look that made him realize he had just made aserious error of judgement. ‘But of course you have an equal vote on theboard,and I couldn’t stop you coming even if I wanted to.’

She smiled, just enough to let him know he’d made the right choice.

‘OK, let’s go,’ she said.

Although Holton had literally just made this walk, it seemed even longerto Nathaniel and Tallulah doing it themselves. He looked down at her andnodded. ‘It will be ok,’ he said squeezing her arm affectionately.

The man was still stood in the same position with one arm rested on theother and his chin on his fist. The machete swung from his free handprecariously down by his knee.

‘Ah, so you must be the organ grinder,’ he said in an English accent. ‘Andthat makes you?’ he sniffed Tallulah’s hair.

‘That makes me the person who will kick your ass if you come anywherenear me again,’ said Tallulah pushing him backwards.

The man looked behind at the other men and women. They were dressedin all sorts; dungarees mixed with top hats, ripped suits, men in dresses.They were a right mix up of the good, the bad and the out and out ugly.They laughed at him as he pulled a face of mock horror and chuckled tohimself. ‘I like her,’ he said. ‘Feisty.’

‘So,’ he said. ‘I have made an official offer to your