The Truth of the Matter Read Free Page B

trail was too narrow and Waterman led the way with me in the middle and Dodger Jim behind me. No chance to make a break.
    At first, I kept my mouth shut. I knew Waterman didn’t want me asking questions. But then I thought: What do I care what he wants? I needed to distract these guys so I could get my chance to strike.
    So I asked: “Hey, who are you people anyway?”
    Waterman said nothing.
    I tried again. “I mean, are you the good guys or the bad guys?”
    Waterman snorted. “Doesn’t that depend whose side you’re on?”
    The answer chilled me. I’d heard too much of that kind of talk lately. Nothing is really good or bad, it’s all a matter of perspective, it’s all a matter of which culture you come from, a matter of what you’ve been taught and what you happen to believe. It sounded like Mr. Sherman, a history teacher of mine who’d turned out to be one of the Homelanders. It was just the sort of thing he used to say.
    I’d had a chance to think about it a lot over the last week or so as I was making my way to New York to find Waterman. I’d had to think about it. When everyone is against you—not just the terrorists but the police too— you have to wonder: Did I do something wrong? Am I the bad guy? Should I turn myself in and take the punishment society says I deserve? It’s not like a math quiz or a spelling bee. The answers aren’t as black-and-white as that. But that doesn’t mean there are no answers—and, in my situation, you have to get them right or it could mean disaster. It could mean you die.
    “No,” I said. “I don’t think good and bad does depend on whose side you’re on. I don’t think anyone really believes that either. I think they just say it because they think it makes them sound open-minded and sophisticated or something.”
    “Oh yeah?” Waterman glanced back at me with an ironic smile on his face. “You think there’s just good and bad and that’s it, huh?”
    “Pretty much,” I said. “I mean, maybe we don’t always know what it is. Maybe we goof up as we’re trying to find it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there. That doesn’t mean you can’t get closer to it if you keep trying.”
    Waterman faced forward again, making his way along the narrow dirt path. “Some people would say that’s a pretty simplistic idea of the world.”
    This was good. I had his attention now. If I could keep him talking, I might find the opportunity to make my move.
    “A rock is harder than a feather,” I said. “You can talk and jabber and make exceptions, but in the end, if you have to choose which one is gonna hit you in the head, you’ll choose the feather every single time.”
    Up ahead of me, Waterman made a dismissive riffling noise. “What are you talking about? So a rock is harder than a feather. So what? What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means that simple and simplistic aren’t the same thing. Some things are true whether they’re simple or not. Sometimes people just get complicated so they don’t have to stand up for what’s simple and true. It’s easier. It’s safer. But that doesn’t make it right.”
    I glanced behind me. Dodger Jim was there at my back, his hands jammed into his overcoat pockets. His eyes were turning this way and that, scanning the woods, as if he expected someone to leap out at us at any moment. He wasn’t listening to our conversation. That was good too. He had the gun. He was the first one I was going to take down.
    Waterman didn’t look back as he spoke now. “Well, congratulations, Charlie. You know a rock is harder than a feather. I’m happy for you. What else do you know?”
    “I know freedom is better than slavery,” I said.
    “Oh yeah?”
    “Yeah.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Because I know love is better than hate—and you can’t love something by force. You can’t be forced to love your neighbor or your country or God or anything. No one has the right to force you and they couldn’t if they