“Well that’s a little much,” Peggy says when she and Alec show up with tea and scones and diapers and more fly dope. “Should have worn a gas mask and mixed up a couple of Molotov cocktails to make them fellas feel like they’re earning their keep, at least.”

“You wanna fight there, thugs?” a voice cackles from the treetops. “Shove your heads up your arses and fight for air!”

The gentlemen of Phalanx Security Inc. do not respond to Char’s invitation. They don’t respond to the early morning mosquitoes and blackflies, or to the fact that it must be hotter than the hobs of hell inside those thick, black uniforms. They don’t even flinch when Peggy flings a mittful of mud at the captain’s shield. To the untrained eye, this wall of man and muscle looks immovable. But to these thoroughly squirrelly eyes of mine, there is a way in. A way out. Hints of it flit all around the captain’s head. I just need to push a few buttons to see if what I think I know is actually true, and then see if I have the guts to go out on a limb again with my fledging sense of what makes people tick.

Willy could sleep forever on a tack, so I crawl into the tent and wake him.

“Get up, b’ye.”

He flashes a fresh-from-a-dream smile. “Time for some morning nature lovin’ is it?”

“No. You got a wedding to go to.”

“Whose?”

“Ours.”

If there is indeed a divine Universe that conspires to help the plans of the righteous pan out with a spooky sense of ease and synchronicity, while giving the finger to forces of greed and stupidity, well, it gave us a glimpse of itself today. Within a couple of hours, people had begun to arrive at our little standoff site, armed with casseroles and squares and more booze than you could shake a stick at. Tents and tables sprang up all over the back half of my land. Allie’s brothers showed up with a band. Father Delahanty brought a white archway and platform, the leftover manger set from the Christmas pageant. Bonnie from the Hairport even brought a fancy flower crown and a silky white-ish muumuu for the bride to wear. And when the top of it didn’t fit quite right, Peggy pulled out that shiny old peacock brooch and used it to cinch the bodice shut.

“A Fortune family heirloom,” she whispered, “to keep your boobs tucked in.”

By noon, word was out that Crow and Gimp were getting married in the woods out on the back part of the land. By the time we clambered up onto the little platform to officially be united in holy matrimony by Brother Smart Alec Gyaltso, there were forty or fifty people gathered to watch and share in the celebration to follow. But maybe the cosmo-licious Universe of joyful abundance had nothing to do with it. Maybe this is just the kind of magical shit that people around here make happen. When it really counts.