The First Rule of Ten by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay Page A

down venison.
    Or an unwelcome trespasser.
    My eyes further noted the worn jeans and work boots, and my mind tilted, seeking to reconcile his calm demeanor and choice of apparel with the other two members of the cult. The facts didn’t compute.
    “Who are you?” I said, finally. It was the best I could come up with on such short notice.
    He squinted at me, slowly lowering the rifle.
    “You a cop?” he asked, his accent a rough Western twang.
    “LAPD,” I said. I figured we could work out the finer distinctions later.
    “Thought so,” he said. “Only a cop’d meet a pointing gun with a question. What are you doing way the hell up here, anyway? Them crazy hippies done something wrong?”
    He proffered his right hand. “John D. Murphy. Most people call me John D.”
    “Tenzing Norbu,” I said, returning his shake. “Most people call me Ten.”
    John D worked his brain around my name a few times, then gave up and jutted his chin toward the fields beyond my car. “That’s my farm, across the way.”
    “Okay,” I said. “I hope I’m not trespassing.”
    “Naw. It’s just I don’t see many folks on the road this late, so I like to take a look.”
    “Sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you. Have you lived out here a long time, John D?”
    “Yep, my whole life,” he said. “Made my living off ah-mens, till the blight came.”
    For a brief, terrifying moment, I thought I had made a bad mistake and John D was a crazy cult member after all, one of those types who believed they were going to survive some cosmic disaster by rising up into the air, leaving the rest of us sinners behind. Then I realized he was saying the word almonds —his odd, nasal pronunciation a half-sigh, half-benediction—and by blight he meant an actual tree fungus.
    “My daddy worked these fields, too,” he went on, “but my kids? They never wanted much to do with raising almonds, and I’m beginning to see their point.”
    I opened my mouth to commiserate when a raspy voice rang out through the night air. We both reached for our weapons.
    “That you up there, John D?” God’s favorite night watchman, Nehemiah, strolled up the hill, bathed in moonlight, shotgun at the ready.
    “Hey there, Brother,” John D called down to him. “Sorry, but I can’t quite recall your name.” John D leaned his rifle against the side of my car, and I removed my hand from under my windbreaker.
    “Name’s Nehemiah,” Roach called back. He swung his legs over the fence and sauntered toward us. His eyes darted in my direction. They were narrow and beady, like a ferret’s.
    “Who’s this?” he asked, in a none-too-friendly voice.
    John D didn’t miss a beat. “This here’s my son, Charlie,” he said. “My older son. You’ve prolly met my other son, Norman, that works for the county water department.”
    “Don’t look much alike, do you?”
    John D laughed that one off. “Charlie here, he comes from my first marriage, to my Chinese wife.”
    Mild irritation spider-walked my spine. If you want to rankle a Tibetan, tell somebody he’s Chinese. I mentally exhaled—this wasn’t the time or place for petty sensitivities. There was a bad man with a gun involved.
    Nehemiah strafed my features with his lifeless prison-eyes. He said, “What brings you here in the middle of the night?”
    John D clapped me on the back and said, “Charlie here is thinking about coming home, getting back into the family business.” He could lie like a champ.
    I played along. “It’s a fact. People are eating a lot more almonds these days.”
    Nehemiah wiggled his jaw around. “I wouldn’t know. I got teeth problems. Ain’t crazy about real crunchy things.”
    “Well, I guess we oughta get on home,” John D said. “Charlie just got back. Couldn’t wait to see the lay of the land again.”
    “Where you been?” Shotgun asked me.
    Yes, where had I been?
    “Navy Reserve,” John D said. I straightened my shoulders. I was tempted to try out a salute, but that