EMMETSBURG: Ten

Bumping and banging along in that rattling truck it took the better part of an hour to reach Mallard. The town appeared quite suddenly, more as a crossroads, a meeting point for local farmers than a real town. There was a small schoolhouse church, the Savings and Loan, a scattering of houses and Bert Himmel's general store.

The store faced the church. It was a long squat wood frame, with a low flat roof. There was a couple petroleum pumps out front. At the corner, beside the telegraph pole was a white red and green Sunoco sign. The sign was competed with the church as the tallest structure in town, and could be seen for the better part of a mile in most any direction. There was trouble up ahead, and John felt a chill run down his spine. Not for anything specific just yet, but from a sense of impending calamity.

John steered around a horse drawn wagon and turned off the road at Himmel’s. The store had been there forever just about, and looked like something out of those languishing ghost towns out west. There was some sort of dust up near the door. A half dozen men, local cattlemen and farmers, mostly, had Mallard’s sheriff cornered against the wall.

There was Big Jim Connolly, who had lost his wife the year before during childbirth, and tended a herd of cattle with his two boys. Jesse Laughton from just the other side from Mallard, who had served during the war but hadn't left the States. Ernest Vogel was there. Tall and bent like a reed in a steady breeze, Ernie's wife, Jeanie, had just given birth to their third. Beside him was a fellow whose name John couldn’t recall, and several other fellows he didn’t know, all of who looked fit to burst. Some of their wives and kids were clustered near haphazardly parked wagons and beat up old trucks, looking every bit as fierce (maybe more so) than their husbands.

Old Avery Lysander was there, but just sort of observed beside the door. Avery seemed nice enough, at least for all the times he and John had spoken. He was a bit older than John, not by much, though he looked a good deal older. Nice enough guy, but there was something about him that John never quite trusted. The way he sort of leaned, lazy and bent, a brown wool newsboy cap pulled down to obscure his gaze, always reminded John of punks he'd seen trolling the docks in New York. Each had an angle, a w ay to get over on someone with the least amount of effort possible. This day, the way he was leaning up against a post, sort of half hidden in the shade Avery reminded John of the skulking blackmarket thugs in Paris back alleys during the war. They were all cut from the same cloth, he thought.

The Sheriff, doing his best in a rotten situation, was a hulk of a man by the name of Calvin Wilson Saunders, known to everyone as C.W. He stood head and shoulders above most of the rabble. With arms like trees and quite a reputation in these parts when he was a boy, Saunders might have brushed them all aside with hardly any effort. C.W. wore a simple brown-rimmed hat that threw a deep shadow across a round’s face deeply cut by the years. He wore coveralls and a blue work shirt, looking like he’d just come off the farm he ran himself just east of town. His face burned bright red, accentuating the stubbly growth of beard along his jaw. Saunders spotted John climbing from his truck. The middle-aged sheriff’s ponderous green eyes almost pleaded for rescue.

“Fellas,” John heard Saunders say to the men, “I appreciate what you’re saying, but it’s really for the best.”

“Ain’t for my best, or your best, or any of us!” one of the men grumbled.

“I know it ain’t right, Bill,” said C.W., laying a hand on the shoulder of the only man there how could give him a real fight.

Connolly looked uncomfortably at the hand on his shoulder. The two men were friends, but this threatened to unravel that bond completely. “What gives the State the right to come in and tell us how to run our farms.”

“Listen, boys,” Saunders fired back, folding his arms resolutely, “I’m in the same boat as the rest of you. I got cattle, but the law is the law.”

Saunders grew frustrated, felt trapped. Even the hardest man could see that he wasn’t too happy about the law either.

“Whose side are you on, Calvin?” said one guy, in a heavy Dutch accent.

Saunders nearly snapped at the guy, but thought better of it. “Now we can all argue this till we’re blue in the face, but that won’t change the law!”

“Well, maybe we ought take it to a higher law,” said the Dutch fellow. Connolly shook his head at the ground. An oddly conniving smirk came to Avery Lysander. It went unnoticed by everyone but John.

EMMETSBURG: Nine

The emptiness of the road lent itself perfectly to deeper thoughts, and John indulged them fully. Where had life gone off to, John wondered, his brow furling unconsciously. Not as though he had wasted or squandered it in any way. He had lived life the best he could, and within his means, which weren’t much. There were no regrets over not living someone else’s life, because he didn’t know those lives. He knew the one he had and that was more than enough to worry about.

Sure he might have wished more for Anna, but more is an un-ending word. More doesn’t take stock of blessings. More is blind, and consumes without conscience and without end. With Anna, John could never have wished for more, nor would it ever have sufficed. He knew, however, that a day would come when their life together would come to an end, and knew on that day he would wish for more.

He topped a small bridge fording a creek. The trees and shadows all but hid the creek from view. In glimpses John could see that the storm had fattened the creek. It thundered across empty fields and rushed in muddy brown torrents, licking at the bottom of a bridge that should have cleared it easily. To the right tightly clustered trees clustered to the steep banks, obscuring much in midnight blue shadow. He thought for a moment he'd caught a glimpse of something down in the creek, but it was gone as he settled down from the other side of the bridge.

John looked off to the left where it spilled out and ran among the deep troughs of freshly plowed brown fields. The flood's swift tentacles mirrored the cerulean sky. He passed over quickly, giving any of it little more than a passing thought. There was nothing to the scene that seemed at all out of place.

EMMETSBURG: Eight

The world was changing, coming to something. It was like the universe had its own intention, like a phonograph record, where he could lift the needle and move it forwards and backwards. The outcome was always the same. The songs never changed, for the grooves were predetermined and immovable. John could only guess how impossibly large that phonograph would feel to someone the size of an atom. The grooves would be monstrous canyons of immense width and incredible heights. From that perspective the record would hardly be predictable at all.

But the world was coming to something, there could be no doubt. The old world, a time before Aeroplanes and telephones, radio and automobiles, was all falling away. The last survivors of the war between the States could be counted on one hand. The veterans of the Great War between nations were graying at the temples.

Not that the old world intended to go quietly. Not by any means. What wasn’t open to question was the shape that cataclysm would take, and whether it would again drawn in the whole world into a terrible and bloody abyss. John had his own thoughts on the matter. He didn't see folks changing all that much, making the same mistakes again and again.

The world was at peace now, mostly. Enough that it almost made John feel thyat the war, and what it had wrenched from him had somehow been noble and worthwhile. Of course that was the perspective of the living. The dead had long ago abdicated their voice to that argument. John felt alternately blessed and self-serving for that voice.
Strange, but John felt his own life was coming to something as well. Not like a storm brewing at the horizon, where the wind turned chasing birds to safer roosts, or where the leaves had flipped, offering their lighter bellies to the rain. It was nothing that was that certain. Each impending moment was a mystery, but each with an unmistakable certainty. Not as though they were predictable, but even still there was a familiarity when they at last occurred. That said, John could feel his feet firm upon a very definite path. Like the world, that path was also coming to something.

It was hot in that old truck. Maybe that’s why John was in such a mood and thinking all these crazy things. Not so much for the heat of the day. It was still cool, especially in the shadows. The unspoiled sun bore down on the truck’s rusted metal roof and barely a mile from town he was already sweating buckets into his clothes. John hooked arm outside the open window and leaned his face out enough to feel the rush of wind. Behind him golden dust wallowed in great clouds, obliterating the road and Emmetsburg.

EMMETSBURG: Seven

Blue sky overwhelmed the rolling farms and small painted banks of woods as John turned his truck onto the county road south from town. The road ran straight to mallard through the sweet oblivion of the Iowa landscape as a ribbon of dusty white gold. The storm left the world reaffirmed for its passing. Bright green trees glistened in the folds. The world was as perfect as a painting. Even a flock of geese, moving in from the east seemed part of some earthly ballet, each movement precise and choreographed.

John pushed the clutched down hard with his left foot and wiggled the gear shift until it caught with a crunch and the old Ford lurched forward a bit. It was getting worse with time, and he could feel them slipping more and more. He’d picked up a fair bit of knowledge on fixing these contraptions in the army and afterwards, but knew the parts would cost him a fair penny. It’d be just one more strain on their finances. He'd tinkered and fought to keep the old truck going all he could, but the old girl's days were numbered. Give John a wagon and a good horse, like the old days, and he'd be just fine.

Still, he thought, they were far better off than lots of folks, like those poor souls, the families and drifters and refugees from Oklahoma and Kansas who trudged, hitch-hiked or rode the rails through Iowa to some uncertain and undecided future. John managed enough through odd jobs to keep food on the table, while Anna picked up a couple Dollars sewing and looking after some of the town’s older citizens. They weren't saving anything, but there was just enough to get by on, which was about everything these days.

Just outside of town, draped upon a small rise beside the road, stood St. Mary’s catholic cemetery. White and Marble stones caught the growing morning sun. John had to force himself not to look there. It was like tearing at the scab of an old wound, but merely the thought, the proximity of the place was enough to darken his mood.

He tried to stem that tide by finding other thoughts. The damage to the house from last night's storm was not quite as bad as he feared. He could patch most of the places easy enough. That and a few other repairs and he was confident at getting through another winter, which is how he had taken to looking at things. Some folks called it scraping by, but John and Anna's fingers were dug in deep and fighting for every inch.

Anna had made him the best breakfast he’d had in some time; two eggs sunny side up, a couple strips of bacon, and warm sour dough bread she’d baked fresh that morning. Nothing she hadn’t made for him a thousand times, but making love with her, not out of grief, or rage or expectation, but for simple desire had lifted him. It seemed to lift Anna as well, and brought to mind those days when life and love were fresh and new and an exploration. He could still taste the bacon on his tongue, savoring its slowly fading memory.

Emmetsburg shrank behind him as an oasis of trees, with the tall rectangular steeple of St. Mary’s rising from them. There was nothing much to the town that anyone would lament if one day the whole town simply disappeared, but John could scarcely imagine a more perfect place to spend a life. With Pershing had seen Paris, the choked streets, mayhem and racket of New York and was never swayed for a moment by them. He only longed for Anna and this little town.

It was the people. It was the people. There was a solemn intensity to folks in these parts. Hard living and long winters helped sculpt ever deepening lines from early ages upon stern but honest faces. This was the stuff of life. This was where the negotiation between nature the elements, life and death were as intimate and bloody as any self-respecting religion. Hard drinking, a firm handshake and clear consciences were the measure of a man. And that’s what it was for John. That’s what held him so firmly to this place. Out in that other world he just couldn’t accurately read what was behind a man’s eyes.

EMMETSBURG:Six

At barely two thousand souls, Emmetsburg was a smudge upon the green tiled mosaic of northwest Iowa. It was an anchor to most who called the place home, a sanctuary for others, and purgatory to a few. To big city people it might have proved a backwards place, the sort of town where slipping behind the times was as much a virtue as a curse, depending, that is, on one's mood, the weather and the time of day. Sort of the way most folks came to the good Lord; it all depends.

Make no mistake, Emmetsburg wasn't separate from the world. It wasn't a “world” onto itself. No, it was whipped and tossed and seduced by the unstoppable winds of history just as surely as any other place, and, arguably even more than some. The town had spilt its share of blood on the battlefields of France fighting the Kaiser's army. Fewer than a lot of places in the country, but in a place where everyone was just about family those losses resonated deep, and took generations to fade. If there was any blessing to be found in that, it was that here a body could retreat a bit from those fickle and stormy winds of history.

The burnt ochre steeple of St. Mary's Catholic Church rose welcoming and prideful at the tattered approaches of town met farm fields and pastureland draped upon lazy stretches of low hills. Sunoco station marked the edge of town. From here Main street runs straight as an crucifix through the heart of town, where it crossed Broadway before descending sharply to the marshy and wooded shores of Medium Lake.

Tree lined streets ran away from main, through modest houses set among bright spacious lots. Gardens have grown to over take the yards as families learn to depend more and more on themselves as the times grow tougher. Likewise, folks collected all sorts of things no rusting and rotting along walls, in corners, adorning yards like some sort of vagabond sculpture garden. The longer and deeper the Great Slump continued most learned to save everything out of some belief there might be some use or some exchange for something useful in an indefinite future.

The Mulroney house was hardly a stones through north from St. Mary’s. The house, with its great yard, sunny turrets and grand porch was perhaps the closest thing to an estate Emmetsburg could boast. It was built by the late John Mulroney, who along with his kid brother Kieran, were among the first Irish settlers in these parts. They'd hardly settled in when Little Crow's Lakota warriors swept out of the Dakotas to raid and massacre settlers on the frontier. Those two boys proved themselves as heroes, but the war weighed heavily on John. It left him terribly torn, and made him a harder man for it. The Irish could well sympathize with the Lakota's plight. It was after all broken promises by the government and corrupt traders that compelled them to war, much as the British had forced the Irish to assert their own uniqueness. But the brutality and the wanton cruelty against innocent settlers and children at the hands of Little Crow's warriors was more than a just man could bear. Poor old John T. carried that long burden every Sunday to St. Mary's, when finally the good Lord solved it once and for all.

Further one, the railroad cut across the waist of the town. The Chicago Rock Island and Pacific came through like clockwork three days a week. Together with the Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul Emmetsburg maintained its greatest connection to the world beyond Iowa's sheltering borders.

The centerpiece of downtown was the white-domed town hall. The grand entrance was framed by tall granite pillars. Tall, broad windows looked down from all sides upon a pleasant park filled with the welcoming shade of chestnut and maple that grew tall and straight from the black Iowa earth. There was a Union cannon overlooking main. On the benches beneath one could always entice a long-winded tale from the usual collection of old timers with hardly more than an unguarded glance or an inquiry as to the time of day.

There was talk of putting up a statue to the town's namesake, Robert Emmet, who'd died fighting for Irish independence. Times being what they were there just wasn't the money for such things. Hard as they were, these times couldn't last forever. They'd get to the statue soon enough. In a practical place like Emmetsburg everything had its own time.

The jail was just behind the town hall. Set back enough to make it inconspicuous, the jail was a short walk to court in the town hall. Not that Emmetsburg saw anything approaching the murderous mayhem of big cities like Milwaukee or Chicago. There was hardly anything more insidious than the occasional bootlegger, a brawl or two at the local watering holes, a few drunks and a hand full of small time thieves that come in on the trains from time to time.

Most days a passer-by could catch George Bremer, the town sheriff, out on the porch of the jailhouse having a smoke with his deputies, or trading gossip with fellas whose butts generally made peace with the town hall benches. Bremer was tall and slender with wispy golden hair so light and thin made him appear ancient older though he wasn't much older than John. He'd gone bald as a young man, but never much seemed to care. A pair of bifocals teetered at the edge of his nose. Most folks recalled him as a man whose expression seemed almost whimsical and wise, like an oracle or a travelling man. It was full at odds with reality, as Bremer was a man of deep conviction who took all those fiery Sunday sermons to heart, but with temperament and patience of a man who believed all men were always one fool hardy decision from sin.

Just a block up from the courthouse, past the Main Street shops and homespun family restaurants stood the two story Hotel Kermoore. Elegant to a fault within, it seemed all but impervious to the hard times. Might have seemed unlikely that such a small town, hidden away as it was, but the Kermoore had become a destination for people far and wide. All the fancy expensive cars, ritzy flapper girls and dapper suits provided ample faire to locals about gangsters and G-men. Saturday evenings these curious visitors would stroll along Broadway, take in a movie and walk by the lake. There would always be a hand full of kids, hovering somewhere between delinquency and entrepreneurship, trying to hustle a few pennies for a shoeshine or a cigarette.

Next to the Kermoore, a silent film was showing at the movie house. Cost a nickel to get in, and another two cents for a bag of buttered popcorn. A lot of movie in these hard times. Still on a Saturday afternoon seemed like half the town turned out for a matinee It was evidence how Emmetsburg had been spared the worst of the Great slump. Not that it had escaped it completely, but it had come through better than most. And if the Sunday Masses were any indication the townspeople were surely counting every blessing. But the raging river of the world would soon overrun the banks of Emmetsburg and threaten it in ways no one could have foreseen, pitting neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother. John Perkins would soon find himself at the center of that flood