“What’s wrong, hon?” his wife asked when he came home from work and she saw the troubled look on his face. She was giving Samuel reading lessons, her finger moving down the lines of the book as he read them out loud monotonously. He could read fine, but could never understand what he was reading at the same time. You could read it to him, and he’d understand perfectly. Sandy was tearing this morning’s newspaper into slim ribbons and diligently rolled those up into tight cylinders.

“I got a call at work,” Otis said and walked straight to the kitchen. He knew his wife would follow him shortly. This was how they managed to get private moments away from the ever present twins. He loved his sons dearly, but they were a handful. He had always been grateful his daughter was very capable to navigate her own way through life. Up until recently, that was.

He had opened a beer and thirstily gulped down half of it, when his wife joined him.

“Who called?”

Her husband looked at her with tired eyes.

“John, from John and Joan, called. He told me he had just had a call from Richmond Taylor, one of the Taylor brothers, and it sounded to John as if he was being recruited to join a posse..!”

“A posse? What, did someone steal a horse?”

“No,” said Otis, not smiling, “it seems they was some ruckus in the shantytown today, and Marge Knickerbocker’s oldest kid got badly beaten by a gang of lemurians led by a half-breed called Johnny.”

“Oh, shit.”

“What? What do you know about it? You know something…”

“I’m not sure, but I got a call earlier, too. From school. It appears our daughter skipped school again today…”

“She what? Where is she?!”

“She’s in her room, calm down. She’s locked herself in. I heard her coming home, in the middle of the day. She ran up the stairs like lightning and slammed her door shut. She wouldn’t answer me through the door, so I threatened to take an axe to it, and I heard her sniffling something that sounded like, ‘go ahead, I don’t care about anything.’ She’s clearly very upset about something, so I suppose it’s related to what happened at the shantytown. Sandy got her to open the door to him, and they talked for a while, but he won’t say what about. All he said was, ‘Faye’s fine, but the world is mean.’”

“This just gets worse and worse.”

“Well, it seems our problem is being taken care of, doesn’t it? If Johnny’s taken care of, we won’t have to send her to boarding school either.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“What?” She took the bottle of beer from his hand, took a sip and gave it back. “They won’t kill him, will they? If they beat him up some and sent him running with his tail between his legs, that’s fine with me. I’m not a fan of mob justice, but this is our daughter we’re talking about!”

“You didn’t let me finish. John didn’t call me because he’d thought I’d like to join some posse. He called me to tell me this half-breed Johnny was suspected of diddling with a human girl—that’s supposedly why Marge’s boy went to have a word with him. John had heard that that human girl was our daughter Faye.”

“Oh, god. So everyone knows! That’s why she’s locked herself up. I’d almost pity her, that damn fool!”

“So what I’m saying is, since he’s believed to be diddling—”

“Stop using that word.”

“All I’m saying is, people have been killed in these parts for looking at a white girl. We know people can turn savage at the drop of a hat…”

“Did you call the police?”

“I doubt that would do much good. The police in this town are the brothers and fathers of the people forming the posse. No, I didn’t call the police, but I called a policeman. I called my old buddy Elroy.”

“Oh, now he’s your buddy again? And the two of you are going to stop a posse?”

“Have some faith. I’m going to take care of it.”

“If you take care of the posse, we’ll still have the Johnny-problem. I swear, any moment now he and Faye will get the bright idea to run away together!”

“I’m going to take care of Johnny, too.”

They drove down Grandview Avenue towards the town’s outskirts. Otis had never been in the shantytown, but he’d ridden past it countless times. Elroy had picked him up in his police car. That wasn’t what Otis had been expecting. Elroy said he was still on the clock, and Otis suggested they take his car. But Elroy told Otis to trust him, this would keep those hoodlums back, “You’re car will get stripped for parts when you blink your eyes.”

Elroy said, “I don’t know, partner, but if it’d been my daughter, I don’t think I’d be interfering much. Let the evening take its course, is what I’d say.”

“Hey,” said Otis, “my daughter and the lemurian are just friends, you understand?”

“Of course, of course, I’m not suggesting anything here, partner.”

Otis wished it were as easy to lie about it to himself. He wasn’t the possessive type of father who’d get sick at the thought of his baby girl having relations with a boy. She was almost seventeen, and she had a good head on her shoulders and wouldn’t do anything she didn’t want to do. But the idea of her with a lemurian boy went beyond him. He just couldn’t fit it anywhere in his mind. What kind of future did she think she could have with a guy like that? It had already started to ruin her life, surely she must have realized that by now.

Otis had to admit it wasn’t fair to the boy, this Johnny, at all. The guy was born half-human/half-lemurian, for crying out loud. Falling for a human girl must be as reasonable as falling for a lemurian girl. How many half-human/half-lemurian girls would there be for this boy to pick from, anyway? This Johnny had been dealt a bad hand, that was clear.

He couldn’t be too terrible a guy, when all was said and done. His precious daughter, after all, had proclaimed she was ‘in love’ with the fellow, and she may have acted like an idiot recently, but she was no fool. The boy must surely have his qualities. And Otis had met his kid sister, and she had been an absolute delight…

…But if the guy was going to fall for a human girl, next time he should pick a girl without parents, Otis reckoned. Pick a nice orphan.

He had felt sorry for the boy before, when he’d been picked up and released a couple of states away. That hadn’t been Otis’ intention when he’d reported to the police that his daughter was being bothered by a lemurian. He had expected them to give the boy a good talking to, or keep an eye on him, or do whatever they did if a human boy had bothered a girl. But would he have gone to the police if it had been a human boy? He would have looked the boy up himself, wouldn’t he? Or he would have talked to the boy’s parents. Deep down he had been as bigoted as his red-necked neighbors. But he’d never meant for him to be exiled. He was sure about that. They hadn’t even given the boy the chance to change his ways. Well, Otis was going to give him one last chance now.

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“Jesus Christ, it looks like we just rode back into the Stone Age!” said Otis, looking out the window as the scenery slowly passed. Clumps of people huddled around campfires outside their rickety shacks. Pots hang above the fires and pans were held directly in it. The police car was given the evil eye by most Mexicans.

“I remember ‘bout ten years ago,” Elroy reminisced, “couple of these fellers banded together and had started constructing a proper house here, bricks and mortar, large enough for several families. Me and the boys were called in to keep these folk at bay as the house was torn down again.”

“Why was it torn down?”

“Rules and regulations, of course. You can’t just start building houses wherever you please. This isn’t the Wild West, partner.”

“Jesus, give these people a break…”

“Rules are what’s keeping this country from falling apart, buddy, and it’s my job to enforce these rules. There’s no two ways about it. Now, you have me here bending the rules, but for old time’s sake—”

“Don’t give me that crap.”

“Hey, this lemurian kid just coming back here after we’ve told him to get lost and stay lost? And then going after the same girl again..? You know, we don’t appreciate repeat offenders in this line of business. You knew what you were doing when you gave me a call, instead of the station. So yeah, I’m bending the rules here for you.”

“Let’s just say you’re preventing someone getting lynched, okay? I’m sure that’s somewhere in that book of rules of yours.”

He told Elroy to stay in the car. Three pairs of amber eyes glowed at him as he walked up to them. They sat around a fire, with plates of fish on their knees and eating with their hands. They didn’t wear any clothes, which he supposed was normal. They had fur. Pearly was the first to get up.

“Mr. Mason,” she said, “how nice to see you.”

“Hello, Pearly,” he replied. She looked and sounded more serious than she’d been at his house. Not quite the happy-go-lucky girl he’d gotten to know, but she was still friendly, and very endearing.

“Would you like some fish? There’s still some carp left, it’s marinated. And for your friend, too,” she said, gesturing at the police car.

It did smell good.

“No, thank you, Pearly. The wife is keeping my diner warm till I come back.”

“And how is Mrs. Mason? Fine, I hope. It’s a pity I haven’t been able to visit again for so long, but, well, things kind of happened…”

“Yes, I noticed things have had the habit of happening lately,” Otis said with a smile.

“Let me introduce you. This is my mother, Dawn…” Pearly said, and the mother gave him a slow nod. There was no telling what she was thinking. “…and this is my brother, Johnny.”

The boy jumped up, wiped his right hand on a cloth, and gave Otis a (still a bit fishy) handshake. “Pleasure to meet you, sir,” the boy said nervously.

Otis couldn’t believe it. He had planned to be reasonable but forceful, and now he was shaking hands with the guy. Pearly had quickly taken the wind out of his sails.

“We met before,” Otis said, “for about half a second. I’m sure you’ll remember.”

The boy looked away, smiling anxiously. The boy was tall for a lemurian. He came up to Otis’ chest, was only slightly shorter than his daughter. His facial features were clearly half-human, and especially the way he emoted was human and familiar. He could do with a haircut.

“Can we talk privately?” Otis asked.

The boy looked at his mother and then at Pearly, and said, “I’d much rather have them stay. They know everything.”

“They do, huh? I wish someone had taken the time to tell me everything, Johnny.”

Otis had kept his tone friendly, but the boy only seemed to get more jittery. “Here,” he said, “take my chair, sit down.”

The chair creaked under Otis’ weight, but it would hold for a while. The mother looked at him steadily and absolutely fearless. Otis could see she was a proud woman. He gave her a nod now that he said across from her, and said, “ma’am.”

“Johnny,” he then said, “I hope you’ll agree this has all gone too far.”

Johnny looked at his mother and then back at Otis. “You mean with those boys turning up earlier?”

“Yes, and I mean with the small army of very concerned citizens on their way here, out for your blood.”

“Who? Why?!”

“Because you and your gang badly beat Marge Knickerbocker’s kid and broke his eye socket.”

“Gang? What gang? I don’t have a gang! There’s about thirty-five lemurians living here, thirty of whom are elderly. Pearly and me are the only young people here. If you think—”

“That was me,” the mother interjected. “Johnny wasn’t here when they came looking for him. I hit the boy.”

Otis gave the woman a look. He knew lemurians were strong, but still, it was hard to imagine this small wiry woman beating up Marge’s kid. The boy was about Otis’ size… he could imagine the kid being embarrassed about being beaten up by a tiny woman and making up a story of lemurians ganging up on him… all of a sudden Otis wondered about the mother. How did she get a half-human boy, anyway? How did that happen?

“And the boy wasn’t beaten,” she was saying. “It was one slap. The boy has a soft skull. Tell his mother I’m sorry, but she should also teach her son some manners.”

“That’s neither here nor there. They are on their way and they want Johnny. They also know about his involvement with my daughter, and that kind of thing gets their juices going. It will end very messy.

“So I’d like to make you a deal. I’m obviously not happy about you and my daughter, but I don’t think you should be lynched for it. My buddy in the police car can tell the posse you were taken into custody. They will make a lot of noise about it, but we’ll handle it. That does mean you can’t turn up tomorrow. My buddy won’t appreciate being made to look like a fool. Neither will I. You have to be gone, and you can’t come back for a long time.”

“I’m not going anywhere! I’m not running from anyone!”

Otis took out a square of folded bills from his breast pocket. “This is five hundred dollars. Enough to get you and your family out of here and start over somewhere where you’re more welcome. I honestly don’t understand why you’d want to live down here anyway. Go north, fall in love with a girl there. You have no future here, and I’m not letting my daughter throw away hers.”

“I can’t leave Faye!”

“That’s very noble, kid. But I’m afraid I must insist. I’m not going to stand by and let my girl ruin her life over some silly crush.”

“A crush?!” The boy seemed fired up, and was about to say a whole lot more, when his mother stopped him.

“Take the money, son,” she said.

The boy’s big eyes looked from her to Otis and back again.

“Take the money,” she repeated, and her voice carried a lot of weight.

Johnny’s reluctant hand took the money.