Linked

Since Jordie’s father tars and repairs rooves and the second swastika was “painted in roofing tar,” the police question Jordie (34). He feels paranoid that many townspeople suspect him. A story in the local paper covers the second swastika, noting that the paleontologists and their families account for the majority of the town’s “ethnic diversity” (34). The story quotes Link’s father saying the swastikas are unprecedented and then includes a report of the 1978 “Night of a Thousand Flames,” when KKK groups from across the West “ringed the foothills around Chokecherry with burning crosses” (35).

Walking to school with Link and Pouncey, Jordie discusses the news article. Link calls it “[f]ake news” by overenthusiastic journalists “thrilled to finally have something to write about” (36). But Pouncey quietly admits that his grandfather and father, who was five years old at the time, were both there. Jordie asks if his father is in the Klan now, and Pouncey is noncommittal, noting that he has as little to do with his family as possible and that he does not believe the Klan is active anymore. At school, Link points out to his friends that tolerance education will probably resume. As a delivery truck “pulls away from the school’s receiving dock” (39), another swastika is revealed, painted white on a dark metal dumpster.