Lou felt his throat tighten. He checked the time and pounded his forehead with the heel of his palm. It was five in the afternoon.

He had missed giving Filstrup’s speech by two hours.

Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

Until such time when government entitlements threaten our liberty and the pioneering spirit of our founding fathers, the Neighbors shall hide in plain sight and will be in appearance what their name suggests: neighborly. Each Neighbor shall remain committed to the overriding ideals of blending in with their community and enjoying the fruits of life, while sharing in the glory of God.

—LANCASTER R. HILL, 100 Neighbors, SAWYER RIVER BOOKS, 1939, PP. 10–11

Cap was awake and actually watching television when Lou entered his hospital room bearing a large box of chocolates, a paperback thriller, and a couple of glossy magazines. He immediately brightened.

“Hey, buddy,” Cap said, “long time no see.”

“Yeah, like two hours ago while they were getting ready to discharge you from the recovery room. I hope those drugs are feeling as good as they’re acting.”

“Man, I get so out of it from them, Stevie Wonder could be singing at the foot of my bed and I wouldn’t remember. How you doing?”

“Let’s just say if we were allowed to trade in days, I would have done it for the last couple.”

“Same here, amigo. Don’t know if I ever properly thanked you for what you did for me out in the woods. That was a pretty dumb, clumsy thing for me to do.”

Lou made a face suggesting that the mea culpa was totally inappropriate.

Cap’s airy room, on the eighth floor, was a double, but at least for the moment he was without a roommate. His bed was the one by the window.

“The docs said the surgery was a big success,” Lou said, setting down the stuff he had brought.

Cap’s face was puffy from all the fluids he’d been given. He gestured at his elevated leg, suspended above his bed by an elaborate contraption of ropes and pulleys, and held in place by a steel external fixation frame.

“Guess I’m going to have to take a pass on trail running for a little while,” he said.

“Day at a time, bro. Now, who could have taught me that?”

Most of the pins, plates, and screws Leonard Standish inserted into Cap’s leg to hold the fragments of bone aligned were now a permanent part of his anatomy. A test for the TSA people at the airports.