For All Nails #149: Uncle Torsten's Coon Dog
by David Mix Barrington
Foreign Minister Michael Murphy was a tired man, but one with significant untapped reserves of strength remaining to him. His leader, on the other hand, had apparently enjoyed a fairly uninterrupted night of sleep, to judge from his relatively fresh appearance as he perused the morning military and intelligence briefing. Skinner had met with Murphy every morning since he'd taken office, or at least every morning they were both in Burgoyne.
"Turnin' the rockets south, you say?" FN1
"Yes sir. There are several New Granadan targets within their range."
"And we got a ship right there, set to send the whole place sky high?"
"That's right, sir. We could eliminate the entire base on short enough notice to cut off any launch of theirs. At the cost of thousands of German casualties and God knows how many thousands of civilians, of course."
"Well, now, we dam' sure don' want anything like that to have to happen, Michael, do we now? Michael, did Ah ever tell you the story of mah uncle Torsten and his coon dog?"
Murphy had learned over the years that Skinner's rural anecdotes were far from mere rhetorical devices. Before polishing them for use in his speeches, he used them to crystallize his own thinking, sometimes during a private conversation with a trusted aide. As far as Murphy knew, the only truth in these anecdotes was a vague correlation between the characters' names and those of Skinner's actual relatives in central Georgia.
"Well, mah uncle Torsten had himself a nice stretch of varmint-huntin' woodland over by Ephesus -- he weren't no squire or nothin' but it was good land, and he partic'ly liked to hunt it with his coon dog Tarquinius Superbus. Now came this time poor Tark took sick in the head, 'n started breakin' out and stealin' Torsten's neighbors chickens. And the neighbors, they din't come talk to Torsten, no, they figured Torsten, who's a pretty old man by then, gon' be all sentimental and ever'thing 'bout his dog, and instead they decided to take care of it themselves. They formed themselves a posse comitatus FN2 and came onto Torsten's huntin' ground to find old Tark and put him down. You followin' me, Michael?"
"Yes sir." Skinner had begun the story with his usual affable, sunny face, but it abruptly turned much darker.
"Now what those boys seemed to have forgotten is that ol' Uncle Torsten, old man though he was, spendin' his time mostly on his front porch sleepin' or tellin' stories, Uncle Torsten had himself the biggest Goddam' shotgun in the county. And he took hi'self out to where this posse was walkin' around and first thing he done, kinda to get their attention, is he let hi'self off a good blast o' that shotgun over their heads. Well, they all dropped their guns, and Torsten motioned them all into his duck blind which weren't too far off there, and he sat 'em down and put down his own gun and put his thumbs under his braces like this and said 'Boys, let's drink whiskey'. You still gettin' my meanin, Michael?"
"Yes sir. The test in Manitoba is all set for noon Western, one our time."
"And we got our powder dry, so to speak."
"It'll go off." Stephen Urquell had been the key man in the CNA's superbomb project, but far from the only genius on the payroll. The scientists claimed the tritium bomb had been ready to test for several months. "Do you want a public announcement?"
"My boy Will tells me ever'one with a size-mo-meter in the whole dam' world gon' know this thing went off, and whereabouts. I think it's more civilized to let it speak for itself and not make any big thing 'bout it, don't you?"
"I quite agree, Governor-General. So I'll start making the arrangements right away for the duck blind and whiskey, shall I?"
Sunshine broke out again on Skinner's face. "Michael, what Ah like 'bout talkin' to you is Ah'm not always havin' to explain mahself. The duck blind and the whiskey, Michael, that's right, we all got us some talkin' to do 'bout them chickens."
Forward to FAN #150 (2 January 1975): The British Are Coming.
Forward to CNA Politics: The Hotline.
Return to For All Nails.