Chapter 4
“I’ve had just about enough of children telling me how to run this town,” Burly says.
“You point that rifle elsewhere, Burly,” Margery Wingard says, a whole different kind of serious than I’ve ever heard. If I had to guess, I’d say their affair ended just this second. “You do that right now.”
Probably because she’s holding her own rifle, Burly makes a face but points the rifle back at the Land.
“All you young people with all your opinions that seem so all-fired important. You have no idea how the real world works. You still think people want the truth! They don’t.
People want certainty! They want the comforting lie, the one that lets them sleep at night.
They want to know who their enemy is, because they’re never, ever going to believe it’s themselves. ”
So much I want to say. My face does a lot of talking, though.
“And you.” He looks at me. “With that mother of yours. Do you know how much we could have accomplished here without her always in the way?”
Then I remember I have not one, but two middle fingers, and I hold both of them up to him.
Burly just shakes his head. “She loves the wrong people, Ben. And that love has made her forget where she’s from. And that’s going to end. That’s going to end right here, right now.”
Without another word, he fires his rifle.