Emmetsburg: Thirty-two

The standoff at the Himmel farm swept through the countryside like an autumn frost, seeming to materialize out of the air and paint everything. Like a frost there was a beauty to the news, like a victory had been won by the common folk; a certain refreshing, to reference the good Thomas Jefferson, of the freedoms paid for in the blood of generations of common folk. Power, privilage and exploitation had been knocked back on its heels.

It was a time to rejoice and reflect, but there was a much danger as well, as it threatened to unleash the forces of chaos and anarchy. It threatened the age of might and the bully, and of schemers behind the bully. For nothing in that world was bound by the law and of mutual compromise and community, but by of ego and gluttony and division.

Up town, an angry crowd of farmers, church folk and a certain class of folk more akin to scavenging dogs gathered in front of the courthouse. They carried signs and marched up and down. They roared and yelled, as though they were going to war, over inflammatory words by a baptist Minister from Cedar Rapids. They were outraged and in full agreement with Avery Lysander, and brought almost to tears by a hand full of furtive, stammering words from Myron Himmel.

Sherriff Bremer, in a big tan ten gallon hat, and a couple deeply conflicted deputies watched all this from the jailhouse. They let the crowd do just about as they pleased, hoping they would get the worst of all this, the wild and unchecked emotion burn away. Bremer nodded respectfully, folding his arms and rocking on the heels of his dusty black ranch boots when they paraded past the jail. And when they shouted and demanded to know where he stood on the issue Bremer had no wish to be pigeon-holed by either side. With an ironic smirk and a shake of his head he only waved and disappeared with his men into the jail.

How folks came to all this drew the battle lines rather than discourse, and only succeeded in dragging Emmetsburg and surrounding counties into ranks. Up to now it had hardly proved more than a distraction for most, except the agitators and those directly involved. It was a curious and uncomfortable topic of conversation. It grew as the night on the horizon, refusing to be ignored. No one, most especially John perkins, could escape the night.

Emmetsburg: Thirty-one

Churning clouds of dust grew in the distance, rising into the pale blue to erase all distinction between earth and sky. In the still and stagnate air the men heard the vehicles some time before they came into view. There were three long dark sedans. The first everyone recognized immediately as C.W.'s hunk of junk. It was followed closely by two big beige '25 Broughams. They were moving quickly, covering the mile and a half from the county road in no time. Fifty or so yards from the blockade they drew to a stop beside the road.

C.W. Climbed out and stretched a pain in his back. He twisted, still stretching, and motioned for the government men to remain behind. In tan trousers and a clean white button shirt he appeared to have materialized from the landscape, like some monotone watercolor in which lines blended and merged. He slapped a bit of dust off his brown cap and placed it carefully on his head.

C.W. was in no hurry to span the gap between the inspectors and the others. He was anxious, squinting through sweat that poured into his eyes. His steps were heavy with a consciously managed confidence, one that he had to manufacture anew. He half wished he hadn't left his revolver in the automobile. C.W. scooped the cap from his head, wiped the sweat from his forehead and pulled the cap back on.

He took his time making his way over, figuring if the moment was weighing this heavily on him then it should weigh as heavily on this rabble as well. They were set in a ragged but closely held line across the road. The sheriff paused a moment to inspect a bent bender on Ernie Vogel's Essex coupe. C.W. ran his fingers over the dent and shook his head with slightly exaggerated concern. He found Ernie's eyes for a moment before the man looked shamefully away.

The Sheriff waded into the men with all the confidence he could muster. He'd known most of them his whole life and had, at least until now, nothing to fear from them. He also knew that Avery was behind most of this, that he had whipped up these men in to a frenzy and set them apart from the law and good order.

C.W. moved along the line, looking purposely into each man's eyes. Some glared angrily. Others refused to meet his gaze, or seemed deeply betrayed by all this. C.W. took heart that at least a few men nodded respectfully, which gave him hope into appealing to their better reason. He took heart that Avery Lysander’s rule over these men was anything but absolute.

Myron Himmel stood at Avery’s side, somewhere between boyhood and grief. There was a look in his eyes, which seemed wholly unnatural, but fully explosive. C.W.s heart went out to the boy, and he felt deeply for the loss of his father. C.W. also knew full well what this inspection might mean for the family, but as a lawman it was the weight of all this that had to be considered. C.W. glanced back at the government inspectors and then again at the line of men, as if seeing those opposing weights, as if deciding where he truly belonged. It was then he realized how utterly alone he was.

Avery's eyes fixed most purposely upon him. They had been from the moment C.W. Stepped from his car, studying him with the keenness and detail of a scientist, or the way a surgeon might carefully discern healthy tissue from diseased with an eye to excising it from the body. Avery's mood was altogether different from the others. His was a direct challenge, and assertion that he and he alone was the master of this moment and these men. C.W. was still working on just the right words when Avery got there first.

“Deeply disappointed you couldn't see your way to our side, C.W.”

He might have responded directly to Avery, but his power and danger lay fully with the men. C.W. signed and looked along the line.

“That what you all think?” he asked. There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Don't split ranks here, C.W.” said Avery. “Divide and conquer, eh? Stand fast, boys!

“That how you feel, Ernie?” C.W. ignored Avery altogether. “Big Jim? Laughton?”

Avery asserted his position, moving between the Sheriff and the other men, all the while keeping Myron close by his side. “If you want to cross this line, Sheriff, you're gonna need a whole lot more men.”

It was more than C.W, could stand. Those massively powerful hands snapped out and twisted Avery's arm behind his back, wrenching it high enough that Avery cried out in pain. His free hand grabbed the back of Avery's neck and forced him to the road onto his knees. Myron bolted through the line of men as C.W. wrestled for control of Avery.

“Started enough damn trouble, Aver…” he began.

There was a blur of motion to one side, followed by the telltale metallic click as the hammer of a weapon clicked back and locked into place. C.W. found himself staring down the twin barrels of a twelve gauge shotgun. His heart skipped a beat as Myron reaffirmed a grip on the worn gray wooden stock.

“Leave him be,” cried the boy, “and get off my property!”

Tears threatened in the boy's eyes. C.W. Knew this wasn't him. He knew that the boy wasn't thinking right, but Myron felt himself cornered and there was no limit to what a cornered man is capable of. Still, C.W. was the sheriff, and that was a non-negotiable issue.

“You're at a crossroads here, son,” he said as coolly and certainly as he could under the circumstances. Avery was silent, as were the others, not a few of whom were shocked the turn of events. “I've been to dinner at your house, Myron. What do you think your papa would say to all this?”

“He'd want me to do right by the family. To...to...protect them.” His voice was low and trembling, but he held the shotgun steady enough, his finger covering the trigger.

“Son, I'm not going to talk you like a child. You're a man now. You proved that well enough. But a man also knows there's consequences for his actions. Maybe you pull that trigger, but that won't put an end to things. Shoot me and a hundred law men will come back here and you'll go to the electric chair for sure. Want to bring that shame to your family and forever stain the memory of your father; my friend?”

There was along terribly uncertain moment. It was a moment so light and delicate that it might have turned unexpectedly with an unguarded breath, or with the turn of the wind. Myron steadied the shotgun in his hands, his gaze solidly fixed upon C.W. They all felt frozen in time, as though everything had stopped all at once, breaths, hearts, the turning of the world.

“Let Mister Lysander go.” Myron's voice was unequivical, but calmer.

C.W. nodded slightly to the boy without breaking their gaze. “Then I'm going back up that road and get those government fellas. They'll do their test and then we'll be on our way.”

But C.W. knew that he had lost. He ran through a dozen outcomes in his mind, all of them ending the same. Once he released Avery those men would never allow the inspectors to pass. He'd have to come with the State Police the next time and make an example. It made the walk back to the car a long and arduous one.

Emmetsburg: Thirty

Gold. Burt Himmel's house stood at the end of a long straight dirt track that ran downhill for the better part of its course. The track was little more than two well worn ruts, separated by a ribbon of deepening green grass. The house, small green barn and smaller chicken coop were centered in a small bowl. It made the farm look so much farther than it truly was. On the post at the top of the drive an official notice of inspection was nailed.

The house, like the yard and chicken coop was well tended. The rectangular coop had recently been painted and stood out sharply in the morning sun. The low roor slanted sharply on one side towards the barn. The barn was sorely in need of repair, with patches of yellowing moss on the roof. Pieces of the roof had rotted or fallen away, making it appear as though the moss was some sort of infection slowly consuming the structure. Beside the barn, upon the slope of a hill a half dozen black and brown cows grazed lazily.

The two story wood-frame house was tall with wood shingles and clean white shutters. A fat oak stood as an exclamation in front of the house. A tire swing hung from the sturdiest branch above a bare spot of ground, nearly lost to an island of midnight shade. Beside the tree, in the cool of the shade, Burt's old Black Labrador, Lincoln, watched laconically the commotion at the top of the road.

A dozen or so vehicles and horse-drawn wagons were arrayed haphazardly to either side of the road so that anyone wishing to pass would have to inch by slowly, snaking slowly through the ramshackle blockade. Ten or fifteen men were gathered in a tight group in front of the blockade. Central among them was Avery Lysander, his arm around the shoulder of young Myron Himmel.

This should have been a time of mourning for the boy. It should have been a time for memories and family and reflection. Instead Myron steeled himself for an epic fight whipped up by Avery and some of the other more boisterous nd energized farmers. The moment felt immense to the boy. As he saw things his family's life and future depended fully upon the outcome. His proper place of course was with them, instead of the men on that road, to whom he offered himself fully and without question. He gave himself fully to men like Avery Lysander who used the boy's tragedy and gullible nature as a means to an end.

The air was still and stale. Even at this early hour the heat seemed to rise from the earth, moistening necks and foreheads and backs. Myron swept the sweat from his face and rubbed it across the leg of his trousers where it left a stain. He looked around at the stern and determined faces around him. He felt at once stifled and saved by those faces.

Avery was saying something. Myron's thoughts were a jumble and so the man's fevered words didn't register. He wasn't so much paying attention as using the murderous energy of the men as a crutch that kept him from crumbling and weeping with grief. Avery shook him and said something. Myron looked dumbly into the man's face, half hidden beneath the shadow of the brim of his hat.

“What say you, son,” Avery shook him again, pausing from his emotional but carefully calculated tirade.

“Me, sir?”

“We're all here for you and your family. We're here for the memory of your father, who all of us cared deeply for. And we're here for each other, for the time those government inspectors come calling to our door.” Avery pursed his lips and shook his head. “Sons-'a-bitches! Fall prey on a man's family when he ain't even fresh in the grave.”

Myron didn't know quite what to say. His chin quivered as he straddled the line between childhood and being a man, for whatever that meant. He was hanging out in space, overwhelmed and baffled at the passing of his father, spun and outraged by the government inspectors, seduced and blinded by Avery Lysander.

“Worried for my mom.”

“Course you are,” said Avery. “Course you are.” He hugged the boy closer to his side. “Damned if I'll let those inspectors set one foot on this boy's land!”

There were nods and agreeable rumblings from the other men. Encouraged and riled by Avery, they had drawn a line at Bert Himmel's farm.

“Go to my grave,” Avery continued, “before I let that happen.”

Myron looked up at Avery. Like his papa, Myron never much cared for the man. He always seemed a little on the sneaky and disingenuous side, like he was figuring all the angles. Now, with the loss of his father, Myron was lost in a blizzard, stumbling blind into an unknown abyss, and desperate for any shelter. That desperation required abandoning conventions he might have otherwise fought hard to maintain.