Big Blue Sky: Five

It occurred to Molly that a morgue ought to smell like something. There should have been some hint of death or sickness layering an artificial chill to the air. There should have been the pungent bite of ammonia and disinfectant, but there was nothing. It was as if the living were as transient in this place as the dead, and perhaps less welcome. Federal Agent Molly Karaman was certainly use to feeling unwelcome. For the last two years she had bounced around half the Middle East consulting on Terrorist bombings. Too often she suffered the ambient and overt distrust of cultures that viewed America ultimately as an adversary, but which also saw the necessity of short term cooperation, like riding a tiger to cross a swollen river. That she was a professional woman in a patriarchal world only complicated matters.

She waited at the door for the guard, staring into her reflection from the thick security glass. Molly was disarmingly pretty, with long wavy black hair, normally worn up and more official looking. For this call it didn’t seem to matter. Her skin was fair with deep green exotic eyes, the blessing of her Latin and Turkish heritage. But at thirty-seven Molly helped shadowed by the unjust conventions of society that believed men age with distinction while women simply age, becoming less substantial and less important. Her mother always told Molly she had her father’s looks. Truth was, she had never known him, except from a hand full of scratched and faded Polaroids taken when he and Molly’s mother were courting. All she knew was that they met in Paris where Molly’s mother was visiting relatives. Two weeks after their wedding he was knifed in a mugging and died alone in an alley. Molly’s mother flew home to New York where she learned soon after she was pregnant.

The guard opened the door, tearing Molly from thoughts of her childhood, and what might have been. The guard was a young marine corporal. He dutifully checked her FBI identification and waved her through. It was a quick walk down another sterile hallway and through second set of set of doors. Here was the low scent of death and blood and disinfectant, and Molly almost felt rescued for it.

Arpel Bernstein lay naked upon the cold steel examining table, well beyond all modesty. His flesh was ashen in color and drawn. The only color was at the giant “Y” incision across his torso and round belly, and the tuft of pubic hair. At a glance he seemed like some hastily re-stuffed toy. The flesh of his head, like some thick rubber mat, had been neatly cut and was rolled down over his eyes. The top of the skull had been removed, exposing the grayish pink brain within. Leaning over the body was a heavy set balding man that Molly knew only too well. His expression was fixed as he peered at the scribbled notes of an autopsy report through a pair of heavy framed eyeglasses.

He was Doctor Caspar Asgari, a man of gruff manners and meticulous standards. In court, often called upon for his expertise, Asgari’s reputation was unassailable, respected by both the prosecution and the defense alike, which is what made his expression so vexing for Molly. She pursed her lips and took a deep breath, as though preparing herself. She had a feeling that what should have been a simple case was about to become something more.

“Hello, dear,” he said, without looking up from the report. His accent was still thick, and layered with British, though he had fled the Shah’s Iran almost forty years earlier. Asgari turned the page and scratched the back of his neck. He liked her. He liked her complexity and how she was less interested in law enforcement than justice. As for Molly she sometimes liked to imagine her father would have been something like Caspar Asgari.

“Don’t like that look,” she said.

“The face I was born with, I’m afraid.”

She was looking for anything that might indicate the incident with the water had contributed to the Congressman’s death. For the moment she was still be held for “psychiatric evaluation.”

“Is there a case here, Caspar?”

He shrugged, thoroughly stumped. “In my opinion he was not a healthy man to begin with. The Congressman had severe arterial blockage, aggravated by dangerously high hypertension, but that did not kill him.”

“What does that leave?”

“Something…strange, I don’t…come take a look at this.”

He drew back the folded flesh at Arpel’s temple. With two fingers Asgari pointed to a reddish sort of blister, no more than an inch in diameter.

“Looks like a burn,” she remarked.

“In fact it is. I thought perhaps it had happened in the ambulance or at the hospital, but then I decided took a look at his brain, believing that he had died from an aneurism.”

“That was my first thought when I saw the news footage.”

“Indeed,” he said, wagging a finger knowingly. “But when I opened the brain cavity a great deal of blood poured out.”

“So it was a hemorrhage?’

“Ah but here.” Asgari bulled back the spongy brain and ran a long cotton swab along the inside of the skull. He held it up. It was stained rust red with blood, but also with a charcoal black substance.

“There, you see?” he said.

“What is that?”

“Come,” he said. She followed him across the room to two large x-ray images at a small desk. He held one of them up against the light for her to see. Tree-like blood vessels showed up as solid black. Limbs and branches converged then came to a sudden stop, appearing as though they had dissolved. Molly leaned closer, squinting at the image.

“That would be…”

“The hemorrhage,” Asgari finished the sentence. From the table he produced several other X-rays. They were similar, showing blood vessels of the brain. Except in these other images there were tears or bubbles at the point of rupture, but nothing like in the first image.

“These are normal hemorrhages,” he continued. “But in Bernstein’s X-ray it, the, the blood vessels were burned away.”

“From inside.”

“I believe so,” he said.

“Is that possible?”

He chuckled darkly. “That isn’t even the strangest part.” He produced two more X-rays. Each showed the same dissolved pattern as Bernstein’s.

“These are also his?”

He pointed to the image on the left. “This is of an Army Colonel from the Pentagon Accounting and procurement office who died suddenly three weeks ago.”

Molly pointed to the second image. “And this one?”

“A US Attorney who, coincidentally, was working closely with Bernstein.”

Angry Jasper: Forty-eight

Maury’s spy charged into the open before the others could react. Jazz groaned and climbed to his feet, and started after him but Skull boy, with all his might, knocked him hard to the ground again. Jazz turned and had half a mind to slug the kid, just for good measure. The hell with it, he thought and reeled back to clobber the kid. By now Maury’s spy was half way down the street by now. Jazz doubted he could catch the guy, even if he ten years younger, a time he was in the best shape of his life.

“You let him get away, you little brat.”

“No, look!” Skull boy pointed as a huge plasma bolt cleaved through the street. The spy saw it too, an instant before he disappeared forever, incinerated in the blink of an eye. Hell, there wasn’t even a puff of smoke. Just like that even the myriad atomic particles comprising his body ceased to exist.

“Kid, I don’t know if I should thank you or smack you!”

“Thank you works fine,” said the boy.

Buzz, meantime, had been observing the spectacle and found a certain haphazard pattern to the plasma bolts. They came in pulses, waxing and waning with gaps in between. He made a quick calculation. It was precise or perfect by any stretch, but the littlest robot figured it was the only chance remaining.

“I think we’ve got a few minutes here, if we can reach the ship by then.”

“We’ll see,” Jazz dusted himself off. “No time to lose.”
Jazz went first, moving carefully from the relative safety of the underground into the wide boulevard. Once the street had been dubbed the Magnificent Mile, but there wasn’t anything magnificent about the place now. Stumbling into the open he looked askance at the blinding beam. It left Jazz dazed and rubbing the image burned momentarily into his retina. More that that, the radiant heat from the thing was almost unbearable. It singed at his hair and flesh, and was growing quickly in intensity. Here and there dry brush had begun to smoke.

The sound was just as terrible. A continuous thundering roar was followed by a horrible ripping sound that grew louder and nearer. Together they shook the street so that it was almost impossible for Jazz to keep his feet. Walls collapsed all along the ruined boulevard. He didn’t have much hope that this would turn out good, but he kept his mouth shut and waved for the others to follow.
.
He caught Katy just as she emerged. He tried to throw a hand across her face and keep her from looking at the beam. They struggled a moment before she grabbed his hair with both hands and gave him a violent shake.

“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted above the din.

“The beam, don’t look at it!” he cried.

She batted his hand away, and had half a mind to smack him.

“I’m not stupid,” she shouted above the din. “What kind of idiot would look at the beam?”

Jazz chafed at the remark. “Didn’t want you to look at it?”

“God, no!”

“Not even a little?”

Kate frowned and shook her head. “You looked at it, didn’t you?”

“So what if I did?”

“That’s cause you’re stupid.”

“Maybe we could discuss this later,” said Buzz.

An ear-shattering roar eclipsed the thundering beam as a deep crack tore apart the earth’s crust just to the west. The ground whipped like a snake throwing Jazz, Katy and the others hard to the ground. Steam, dust and spouts of red hot magma unleashed spit a thousand feet into the air. Boulders and stones, from deep inside the planet rained down, some as big as houses.

“What the hell is that?” said Jazz.

“The planet, it’s breaking up,” Buzz announced. “By my calculations we have ten minutes to get off the planet. No more.”

“It’ll take that long to get to my ship.”

“We’d better haul ass then,” said Kate. To the east a new crack opened. Magma flowed into the dry Lake Michigan basin.

“What’s the verdict, Skull boy? Are we going to make it?”

“Depends how fast you can move, old man.”

Jazz raised a hand, but held back at the last minute. “God, I hate this kid.”

Emmetsburg: Eighty

They were gathered tightly above him. Some of the faces were familiar. Others were strangers to him. One of the soldiers was waving people back, urging the others to give John some air, as if air could undo the mortal damage done to his body, as if air could stop the crimson blood flowing freely from John’s body into the warm Iowa soil.

The rain had moved off. A thunderhead grew in the distance. John watched it grow along an axis, spreading across the eastern sky, Like floating white-capped mountains. It was like another world that he could well imagine among the folds, the contours and plunging canyons. He imagined towns and roads and farms where love and life were idyllic. Not like this one, burdened with sin and guilt and pain.

Someone wiped sweat and dirt from his face. He could no longer feel it, much as he could no longer hear the voices, the birds fluttering in the yard or the Myron Himmel weeping nearby. Life was falling away, darkening at the edges. It was losing focus, everything but that distant thunderhead, which felt like a destination. It felt like home, and like home broke his heart and gave him hope just the same.

Anna pushed through the circle of faces around him. Kneeling cradled his head, her expression somewhere between a forgiving smile and unfathomable grief. For John seeing her was the ultimate destination. Whatever awaited him beyond the threshold of this life, it was her face that would see him through. There was nothing more. There was no sadness, no guilt, no sense that he was leaving the world too early. Worries and recriminations are the fantasies of romantics and novelists. In the end it all comes to nothing, sweet beautiful nothing. Death comes. Death comes.

Emmetsburg: Seventy-four

Blue-gray.

“Here they come!” someone cried. Above the heads of the citizens upraised bayonets gleamed brightly against storm clouds. Thunder spoke loudly, chasing lightening over the land. The storm awoke fully in sheets of rain.

Men contrive. Avery contrived to protect his own sins by sacrificing Myron, but he was as swept up in things that had grown much larger than himself and his self-serving schemes. They rejoined the crowd now surging into the road and forming a wall in the faces of the soldiers and police.

When men resolve to violence no amount of reason, no fellowship among country men and no love among brothers can steer them from that course. Both sides found that in one another. Both gambled that their spirit, that their violence would carry the day, and both swore by the righteousness of their cause. Reason and commiseration would only come long after the battle had ended, long after the physical wounds had healed and the dead buried, but only to a few.

Avery and Stan Pickett had a hold of Myron. They worked their way forward, angling towards the opposite side of the road. Avert wanted to keep out of the direct line of sight of the troops, and should it come to things, out of the direct line of fire. Near the center of the crowd he paused to survey the troops opposite. They had stopped, leveling their rifles and bayonets. It brought the citizens to an abrupt halt. Thunder roared again and fled across the fields, leaving the chorusing rain.

The soldiers were tense and frightened, Avery observed. A gunshot was likely to panic them into opening fire. He recalled Ernie’s reference to the Boston Massacre, and how the thuggery of a handful of youths and drunkards had provoked untested and frightened British lads into a stupid reprisal. Rebel leaders vaulted the moment to mythical proportions to inspire a revolution. Avery looked at Myron, looking every bit as terrified and apprehensive as the soldiers. The boy teetered at the edge of a precipice. Avery determined to push him over.

“All revolutions are started by a single brave and selfless act,” said Avery. He held Myron by the shoulder with one hand. The other hand covered the pistol Myron cradled to his gut. “be brave son. The rest of us will follow.”

Just them Ernie Vogel lunged for the pistol. Stan caught him by the color, but it was too late to keep him from getting to Myron.

“Can’t let this happen.” He and Avery and the boy struggled for the gun. “I’ll go to jail, I’ll go to the grave before I…”

Stan cut Ernie’s words short with a well placed slug to the side of Ernie’s face. He was out instantly, falling limp to the ground. Stan nodded once and watched as Myron and Avery disappeared through the crowd.

Emmetsburg: Seventy-three

John wheeled suddenly and brought the pistol up to the Deputy’s nose. The blood drained quickly from the kid’s face. It was then John found his conscience again. But he had come too far to turn back now.

“Need you inside,” he said quietly.

“Jesus H., Mister Dugan.”

“Have to do this, son. I’m sorry”

“Please don’t pull that trigger, okay?”

“Won’t if I don’t have to,” John replied.

John motioned with the pistol and glanced back along the mostly deserted street. There were a couple of soldiers at the corner, but they were too far away to notice what was happening. The boy slid past John into the cool and quiet of the courthouse.

“Lock the door,” John said coolly.

The boy complied, fumbling nervously to wrestle a string of keys from his belt. They rattled loudly in the emptiness. He glanced back at John, feeling for the right key among the others. He pushed it into the lock and turned the key until the bolt slid into place with a resounding clunk.

Emmetsburg: Sixty-four

Blue. The wind picked up, coming straight out of the north. It was a cool wind, kicking up dust and made the deepening shade of the barn almost uncomfortable. A string of little white clouds grew as a breath along a front across that previously unblemished sky out beyond the lonesomeness of the General Store. It’d be raining by morning, adding a certain urgency to all this. Perhaps it was that urgency that helped wrestle loose the question John had been mulling for some time now.

“What do you figure this is all about?” he asked, his gaze drifting along the distant horizon.

“Nothin,’” The Indian’s reply was unequivocal.

“Nothing?”

“Grand scheme? Nothin’ but what you wish it to be about.”

John thought to reply. He almost said something smart, more because of the absolute sense of emptiness that whole idea carried. He almost said something, but the idea was just too much to dismiss or react too quickly to. Instead he let the moment slip away in solemn silence. Strange, he thought, that the idea that life really amounted to nothing in the end was both disconcerting and liberating all at once. He looked up at the old Indian.

“And fate?’

“Told you, it’s all about perspective. Want to have any say in your fate, got to change your perspective, that’s all.”

John nodded thoughtfully and climbed to his feet. His shirt had just about dried by now. His belly groaned. John remembered he hadn’t eaten since the day before. He reached into his pocket and found two bits there. He figured it’d be enough for a gas and a cup of coffee. John rubbed the back of his neck.

“One more question.”

“Told ya when you sat down, questions don’t cost nothing.’”

“Let’s say a fella knows the time and place of his own death, and he knows that something good will come of his death, but if he didn’t die those good things wouldn’t happen. If that was you, just speculating here, would you go to that fate.”

Without hesitation the man opened his eyes and looked up at John. His eyes were the most amazing green, like some sort of polished stone. His reply almost made John feel foolish for its simplicity, and selfish for its immediacy, as if John had completely overlooked something fundamental and unquestionable.

“Wouldn’t you?’

Emmetsburg: Sixty-one

Pale. It was a larger than usual rabble in front of Himmel's General store in Mallard. There was a tension to the tight clusters of men. It was the weight and the ominous uncertainty born from men's convictions. It was, in a very real sense, a war council.

The day was overcast and humid. An unseasonably cool wind came out of Canada, bringing a weight to the day that gave some the sense of impending calamity, and others the feeling of a funeral, like the injustice of a child's burial in which there are no decent resolutions.

In the distance, a muddled pillar of smoke rose to meet those shrouded gray clouds. Now and then the men collected in front of Himmel's would look to that smoke with something approaching resignation, but more akin to guilt. They knew. If they hadn't known then, they all knew now, and by being here shared in that common action. Invariably, when they looked, their eyes drew a line to what they knew were the smoldering remains of C.W. Saunder's home.

Myron Himmel knew as well. He knew more than the others and felt doomed for his part in the crime. Standing in the road, in the shadow of the church across the road, Myron wondered if the path to redemption was in throwing himself upon the alter and confessing his crimes before Jesus Christ, or whether seeing this through was the surer path.

It wasn't simple enough to choose sides. The sides had been chosen for him. It wasn't simple enough to paint one side good and the other evil. Each side was right and wrong in equal proportions. It was just that as each side dug in their heals harder and harder, each side abandoning the foolish notion of compromise, the fight became more about ego and past transgressions than about a mutually beneficial resolution. Each side demonized the other in ever darkening degrees so that now all that remained was to vanquish and destroy the other side. All this for the words of fools and the specter of fear in men’s hearts.

Avery came up and stood beside Myron. Neither acknowledged the other right off. Their gaze was fixed upon the smoke rolling lazily skyward from C.W.'s house. An hour ago that smoke had been black and boiling. It was a softer gray now, just a bit darker than the clouds that consumed it ultimately. Avery looked over at Myron, trying to figure what was going through his mind. It didn't take a lot of figuring.

“It's a hard thing,” said Avery

Myron didn't answer right away. Avery could see that the boy was tearing himself to pieces, which was dangerous at a moment like this.

“Took a big step today,” said Avery. He looked up the road again. “They have to know that we are serious.”

“Don't know, Mister Lysander.”

“What would your father have done?”

Again, Myron didn't answer right off. He'd come upon a single thought in answer to Avery's question. It was the clearest and steadiest he'd had since his father'd passed. The boy looked to the ground, changed deeply by the morning's events. If he had looked over at Avery that moment he would have seen the man for what he truly was. He might have, but Myron never looked over.

“Don't think my dad would have gone for all this.” Myron could almost hear his father's voice.

“Knew your dad a lot of years, boy,' said Avery, with a scolding quality. He wasn't about to allow any of this to unravel. “One thing he wouldn't stand for was bad men taking advantage of poor hardworking folks. He wouldn't let some bureaucrat destroy lives with the stroke of a pen. Am I right? I am, ain't I?”

Myron squinted, still struggling. He replied, but certainly unconvinced. “Suppose.”

“Alot of us took a big risk coming out to stop those inspectors from ruining everything your father worked and sweated his whole life to build. We didn't have to do that. Not one of us asked anything in return, but that don't mean you don't have some responsibility here too.”

Myron chewed his lip, more confused and conflicted than ever. He looked over at Avery, his head still hung heavily. “Heard the Governor might call out the National Guard. They say maybe Hoover himself might get involved.”

“They don't dare.”

“After this morning?”

“They brought this on themselves,” said Avery. His hand slid along the boy's shoulder to hold him by the back of the neck. It wasn't enough to hurt him much, but enough to hold the boy's undivided attention. Avery leaned close. From the corner of his eye he could see Big Bill Connolly headed his way.

“Remember this, if you don't remember nothing else,” Avery's voice was filled with venom. “You are in this with the rest of us up to your neck. You best remember that if one of us goes down we're all gonna swing by the neck if it comes to a real fight.”

Emmetsburg: Fifty-nine

Emily stood and started for the river with the coffee pot. There was a narrow trail through the trees along the bank. Emily turned for him, beckoning with a smile that was somewhere between seduction and eternal disappointment. She disappeared through the trees into the darkness. John followed, finding her at the bank.

She was silhouetted against the inky darkness of the river. Off in the distance heat lightening flashed silently. There was a storm off towards des Moines, seemingly another world away. Fireflies filled the warm night air. It was a shade cooler here by the river, the trickling obsidian waters whispering lazily by. She crouched at the river's edge and dipped the pot in the water.

“Don't know if your dad knew what to make of me when I pulled up,” John searched for something to say. “Strange fella showing up unannounced.”

“Papa had himself a stroke last year. Ain't been himself since. Then we lost the farm. Think that was the worst for him.”

“And you?”

“Ain't never been able to call no place home for very long.” Emily stood, holding the pot with both hands. She shrugged. “Can't miss what you never had, right?”

She was close to him now. Emily looked up at John, sort of mulling him over in her mind. John found he suddenly had the urge to kiss her. In fact, hungered for her lips as he had never hungered for a woman before. His desire for her raged beyond all control. If only he could muster the courage, If only she offered some sign that she felt the same he would have happily tumbled to the ground with her, pushing up her dress, devouring and tasting her. He would make passionate love to her love, spilling over and into her all his desire, grief and anger.

“Didn't much have a taste for coffee,” he said.

“I figured,” she replied softly, at hardly more than a whisper.

John gently lifted the pot from her hands and set it on the ground. He reached up and cradled her face, surprised at the coolness of her soft cheeks. Emily's hands went to his sides.

¨Could you love me?¨ she asked. Emily pressed her belly against John. She marveled at the perfection of that fit. She warmed with the mutual rush of excitement. Emily found eternity in his eyes. But there are different views on eternity.

As for John, he found more than one answer to his question. There was, almost overpowering all reason, the answer of the moment and his body. It was a moment filled with excitement and discovery, as if her body and the unpredictability of her movements, of the promise of furtive breaths, the taste of her lips, of moans and cries of ecstasy were a new culture and mysterious land begging to be explored. And there was the moment of his soul and of Anna. In each answer there was Louis's insinuation, and this moments demand for greater context and importance. His reply belied John's strident revolt against that larger question.

“I could.”

She might have kissed him. John was far too terrified to undertake that himself. She would have kissed him, but there was something behind the words. Not reluctance, necessarily, but a shadow of something else. Emily couldn't say exactly, but it was as though, to John, she wasn't a destination, but a waypoint on a greater journey. And that was something she did not care for anymore. It was a need she recognized within herself better.

Emily touched his face. John turned and kissed the palm of her hand.. His lips lingered there, where he breathed in the perfume of her palm. They remained frozen there for a time, almost as if consoling one another over the loss of a friend, or over the passing of an opportunity. Slowly they drew apart and faced the river.

Emmetsburg: Fifty-eight

She was so very different from Anna. Long brushed autumn hair was drawn back smartly from her narrow features. Even in this light John was aware of the subdued nature of her blue eyes, which seemed to catch fire the moment they met John's, as if she recognized him from somewhere without knowing where exactly. There was the slightest tension to her brow. It betrayed some distant tragedy, some scar that had healed itself mostly.The woman paused. She looked at John a little strangely, as if she was about to greet him by name.

She appeared so terribly familiar to him as well. It was an impossible notion.. Still, even John could not readily dismiss the idea. He found himself smiling at her without hardly realizing.

“Mama, you sit,” she brushed back a lock of hair.

She laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder. Her eye’s held John’s, with a beckoning sort of sexuality.

“Don’t mean to be a bother,” he said.

“No bother, stranger,” she paused near enough to John for him to become aware of the scent of a cigarette on her breath. His gaze fell to her partially bared breast, something she seemed not to particularly bothered by.

John followed her to the fire. His attention was fully on the motion of her shapely hips and buttocks beneath the dress' thin material. He mapped those subtle movements, mapping the figure beneath She paused looking back over her shoulder, and smiled coyly. She continued again, the dress flowing in perfect harmony with the crackling fire.

There was a big metal coffee pot on a smooth stone beside the fire. It was scorched black on the bottom, and part way up the sides. The rest of the pot was scratched dented and dulled by years of use. Three tin cups, just as dented as the pot, stood beside it, turned upside down on a log. There were two more dining chairs to either side of the stone. She lifted the pot. John went to the fire, hoping he wasn't being so obvious in his surprisingly sudden and intense attraction for her.

“Running?” she asked, almost matter of fact.

“Sorry?”

“Not that I care. I mean, it ain't none of my business. Just, I have a knack for picking out lost souls.”

“That so,” John replied, trying not to let on.

“Don't mean for the law, or nothing like that.”

“Didn't take it that way.”

“Everybody 'round here's running from something,” she shrugged, opening the lid on the pot and peering inside.

“And what are you running from?” John knelt by the fire.

“Me?” she laughed. There was a history in that laugh. She sat at the edge of one of the chairs. She looked skyward, following the sparks into the night sky. As a child she thought they were angels returning to heaven.

“Long story,” she said.

“Don't mean to pry.”
He held her eyes again. Or rather she held his, almost refusing to let them go. They warmed him, and made him feel electric. It made him feel like that first time with Anna. John felt younger for it, and innocent again, something he thought he'd lost in the war.

She took a deep breath, lifted her shoulders and let it out slowly. “Hust not in the habit of airing my laundry to strangers.”

“John,” he replied almost immediately. “John Perkins.”

“John,” she repeated thoughtfully, holding the word and pondering it. “That's agood name. I'm Emily. Emily Bauer.”

She extended a hand as he came over. Emily was relieved that the glowing fire concealed the blush in her cheeks. He took her hand in a gentlemanly way, almost bending to kiss it, but thinking better of that. She liked him, and found she could hardly keep from smiling herslf. He was a brief and gentle current upon a sea she felt lost upon. He was her savior of the moment. He was an elixer but not a cure.

As for John, he could feel himself getting swept away with her. He wished to fall to her, take her into his arms and kiss her. She was a fresh country for a man who believed he had lost his. Her eyes fell to the gold band on his finger and lingered here.

“Got my own long story,” he said.

“That's your business.”

Emmetsburg: Fifty-six

Vermillion rose from the umber haze and lavender dusk, like a ghost, like a destination; a concoction of umber shadows, like tombstones set against the dying horizon. Not that the town was John’s intended destination necessarily. Not that it wasn’t either. Outrunning fate, he figured, could entail the smallest of actions as well as the boldest. A body is always a heartbeat away from a thousand different fates.

There was nothing much to distinguish tiny Vermillion, save for the church, the college, a feed store and pale wood frame houses that almost appeared organic, as if they had grown from the table flat plain on their own, and were now being slowly consumed by the land once more. Some were refined, in a Victorian sort of way. Others appeared cobbled together. A few leaned precariously, or settled poorly, as if they were melting into their foundations. The town stood at the edge of time, still clinging to that other century as the new one struggled for purpose.

Side streets were unpaved and deeply rutted, and as still as a graveyard. Candlelight glowed faint from a handful of windows, but otherwise the place might have been deserted. An ivory moon grew from the eastern horizon, fat and squat. That moon only added to the emptiness of the place, and made it seem as if it was frozen in time, like a perpetual memory.

John went slowly through the town. The truck found uncomfortable paths among the criss-crossing ruts, or dipped and slid into muddy holes that might easily snap an axle, bust a spoke or shatter a tire. The rattling old truck and the engine’s pained assertions as it climbed over holes brought yelps and howls from a couple of dogs somewhere. It made him feel like more of an interloper, like an unwanted thread through the simple weave of the town. A mangy gray cat scuttled across the road, hissed at the truck then disappeared down an alley.

John stopped in the center of town, at something of a cross street. Like the dust coming to settle around the truck Johns rampaging emotions, which had carried him here, fell around him. They filled the cabin of that tiny truck, and gave a terrific weight to the warm evening air. To the west the day died quiet as a sliver of crimson, fading to a legacy and a promise to the coming day. Stars blanketed the sky, interrupted here and there by lazy pale yellow clouds still holding desperately to that last bit of daylight. Night deepened at the edges of town.

Grief and regret tore his heart in two. John gripped the wheel tight in both hands and pushed himself hard against the seat. A long low groan escaped him as the realization of what he had done became apparent. He’d left her. How could he have left her? John covered his face and pressed his dirt and sweat streaked forehead to the wheel, still warm from his hands. Would pride and the great wall of shame ever allow him peace for that grievous act?

All of this, Louis, the storm, Burt Himmel and Anna, they all whipped like a cyclone in John’s thoughts. Made all the worse in his despair and physical exhaustion. All of it had whipped like a cyclone in his mind for days. It was made all the worse for his exhaustion. John knew full well there wasn’t enough gas to get back home, even if he’d been in a place to make that decision. Nor was there enough money in his pocket, even if he’d wished. John had painted himself into something of a corner. For better or for worse any decision would have to wait till morning when he was better rested and could see more clearly. There would be a chance then to make a better accounting of things.

Emmetsburg: Fifty-five

Black. Men contrive. They contrive to exalt their own deeds and conceal their misdeeds. It eventually occurs to a man, as he negotiates a path through a life that he does much more of the latter. It makes those contrivances less about some Biblical concept of evil than about the weakness and weariness of men's hearts when faced with the process of the world. A man will champion those sins to the grave, cocooned in a fundamental angst that he alone plays the fool in a universal lottery. And he’ll stay that course as long as it pays, or until those sins betray him.

It was no different for Avery Lysander. He wasn't an evil man. Was he weaker than most? Perhaps, but better than other men. As he stood before eight thousand farmers beneath the golden dome of the state capitol Avery knew full well his sins, and contrived fully to cloak them no man's land between freedom and the law. He would not be the fool, though he knew deep in his own heart that he was (not understanding that wisdom and humility are the surest paths from foolishness). That night, before a tense and agitated crowd he bandaged that fool’s heart in patriotism and the skewed permutations of liberty, despite that patriotism is a favorite hat and liberty is like capturing the sky in one’s hands.

He raged at them, in the face of a driving downpour. Avery beat the air with his fist and strained red-faced in order to set their souls on fire. Avery invoked God Almighty, charging that the government would come for each of them as a wolf in the night soon enough. Charges of Bolshevism and Communism were window dressing to the hole his words drove like a knife into each of their hearts. Men not easily swayed otherwise were driven to fear and consumed by it. Women prayed to God and Avery Lysander to see them through, like some modern day Moses come to deliver them to the promised land.

Thunder exploded, joining the stinging rain. It did little to dampen the spirits of the protesters, who dwarfed the nervous line of police guarding the gold-domed capitol building. All that held them back from overrunning the police and setting the place to flame was the thinnest veneer of civilization straining at the seams. Men contrive, but a frightened man is more than dangerous.

Communists! Bolsheviks! Avery's voice broke with emotion. The crowd rose along with him, rising up to the stormy sky to challenge the lightening and dethrone the thunder. Radicals! Subverting the constitution! He could feel them, that wild and angry and fearful crowd sweeping around him like a hurricane. Dear God, it was better than sex or any drug! It was more than power, as power is fleeting. Power are the walls of a besieged city. This, this was control. No, it was symbiosis. Their bodies were joined, merging cell to cell. Their souls were wedded in a wild orgy passion for every word Avery spoke.

Avery thought to turn them against the police. He would teach the government a lesson by tearing down the capitol. He'd fashion them into disciples, not soldiers, for ultimately a soldier wishes one day to return home. But Avery's disciples would fill the nation, sweeping aside dissent and anyone who might have the slightest suspicion of Avery's original sin.

Anyway, that's what Avery was thinking as he stood silent and nameless among the crowd. There were other speakers, men far more eloquent than he could ever hope. Before the governor and all the politicians in their tailor-made suits, their chamber maids and expensive brandy these men promised nothing short of revolution if the government continued down its treacherous path. It was a threat none of those manicured men with their crafted words and couched speech took lightly

When the rally ended Avery Lysander climbed back into his truck and started for home, content the tide was turning against the government, and that no one would discover his cattle were sick. He get them off to slaughter, feed his family and no one would be the wiser. Behind him the storm crept slow across the Iowa farmland. Ahead of him the day was drawing to an end.

Emmetsburg: Chapter-three

Take me in your arms, lover.
Let me feel the love flow from you.
The hero that stanđs before you is a frauđ.
I, alone know the lies only others suspect.
I, alone desire the soft salvation of your breast,
And feel the love that flows from you.
Take me in your arms, lover.


Take me in your arms, Lover.
This love that steals me from ruin.
You are a warm sun-drenched field of cool green grass.
I am lost to the wilderness, forever searching for respite.
It is only your song this blind fool goes,
Still the winds of ego seek to tear me away,
Take me in your arms, lover.

Take me in your soul, sweetheart.
Not as a selfish sanctuary from besieging cold.
I am the sinking ship that defines the sheltered harbor.
I am the weary traveler that gives the blanket meaning.
You are warmth and peace to my guilty heart's privilege,
Take me in you, in your...lover.

Emmetsburg: Fifty-two

The morning paper screamed at him from the yellow Newspaper box in front of the town hall. Behind him Main Street was busy with traffic. The street bent downhill through a tunnel of summer-green maples, to where the sun played across the blue-green waters of the lake. The headline sucked the air from John's lungs. He felt the blood run cold from his face, tumbling icily through his body. It rebounded as a quiet gasp. It was just what Louis had foreseen.

THREE GIRLS DIE IN SPIRIT LAKE FIRE
the world seemed to tilt and twist away beneath his feet. One of the oldtimers on the bench nearby caught him at the last minute. Big powerful farm-hewn hands held John fast.

“Hey there, fella,” he said, quite concerned. “Having a spell, son?”

“Lost my balance,” John grinned dumbly, then hurried off along the street.

At the corner he lifted his hand skyward and let the sun filter through his fingers. So it was true, he realized. Everything that Louis had predicted had come true. And if that was the case, then what was to say that the rest would not come true as well? There was no reason to believe what he had said about Anna, and about John's death. That said, was there nothing he could do. Was fate a mighty river running inexorably to so unpredictable, but all too certain fate? Was it as small as a flower unfolding in spring or as large as the whole universe? In either case was he a king or a fool to that fate?

A truck turned the corner past the diner. John decided at that moment it was high time to put the issue of fate and Louis to the ultimate test. The truck coughed and lurched through its aging gears. It roared, belching black exhausted and charged up the street in John's direction.

John decided that thinking about it would only complicate things. It was a reflexive action, as he had learned to do in the war. Best not to think about what amounted to organized mass suicide, but rather just throw one's self into the gap once that whistle blew. John took a breath and stepped off the curb at the precise instant when it would be impossible for the truck to stop. He felt hollow and resigned, but more than that, fully at the helm of his own fate, which may or may not have been an illusion. John turned to face the onrushing truck directly and closed his eyes.

There was a rush of wind and the heat of the truck's engine. Tires screeched and a woman across the street screamed. John remained frozen, his eyes still closed. Not tightly closed, but closed. The woman, the birds in the maple trees and the burping exhaust as the truck's motor stalled were distant.

John opened his eyes to the billowy white clouds and summer blue sky. He was vaguely aware of someone shouting, even if he couldn't make them out at first or even cared. He was alone, sealed off and protected from the world. It took a moment before it all came rushing back in on him.

“Damned crazy fool!” shouted the truck driver, shaking his fist in rage. The burly, square-jawed fellow was red faced. Relief and surprise and fury competed alternately upon that red face. “Ought to have your head examined!”

John looked at him for a long moment, as though the driver was an alien creature, and that all of this was an observation or an experiment of some sort. He glanced over at the newspaper box again before turning up the street towards home.

Emmetsburg: Fifty

George Bremer's office was just up the stairs. With each step John was tearing this moment apart. He wondered what George would say, or if he would think John a fool. By the time he reached the top of the stairs John wasn't certain himself. When he reached the Sheriff's door John was convinced that he was indeed. Despite himself John's hand went out and knocked without confidence on the door. Without awaiting a reply John turned the brass knob and pushed his head through the gap.

The room was a fog of bitter cream-white cigar smoke, carrying herbal chill. It hung as strands and nebulous banks, scattering sunlight [pouring through half open blinds in a rhythm of shadow and light. George sat in the far corner of the room upon a small wooden chair, away from his desk and almost lost to dingy shadow.

The cigar was a mere stub between George's teeth, where it was more chewed than smoked any longer. With the thumb and forefinger George pulled the stub from his teeth. He gave a casual nod and gestured John into the room. John obliged, sweeping a hand before his face and disturbing filaments of smoke there.

“Best close the door, John.” he said with a whimsical quality. “Mildred hates the smell. Like having two wives. Don't imagine how them Arab fellas do it. Got enough on my plate with just one, and Mildred.”

John managed a smile. “Something again air, George?”

“Not as long as I can see it!”

“Don't know, George,” said John, waving at the smoke again. Not that it really bothered him all that much.

George leaned forward in the chair and stretched to tap a butt from the open window. “Wife won't let me smoke at home.”

“Can't imagine why.”

“Never had a taste for the smoke, eh?”

“Never cared for it personally.”

“Cigarettes,” George began, thoughtfully, “are for young boys, the nervous and the condemned, but a cigar, John, a cigar is for the thinking man.”

“That so,” said John.

George popped the cigar back into his mouth, moving it from one side to the other between his teeth. “But you didn't come here to talk about cigars, now did you. What can I do ya for?”

“Need to see Stanton.” John felt as if he had forced the words out, like spitting out something vile and distasteful.

George was immediately against the idea, shaking his head strongly from side to side. “John, I'm...”

“I'm asking this one favor,” John said quickly, almost pleading, at least as much as his ego and soul would allow.

George leaned back, tipping back in the chair and chewing the end of his cigar, as though it helped him to think.

“What's your business with this fella?”

“Can't say.”

“Something that might concern the law, John?”

“Nothing like that.” John looked him square in the eye. “Business between him and me.”

“Nothing to do with that girl?” George asked.

“Nope.”

George studied the cigar in his fingers and pursed his lips. He rubbed his bent brow roughly with a thumb and forefinger.

“Put me in an awful spot, John, anyone should hear of this.”

“Five minutes is all I'm asking.”

Man could get in a lot of trouble in five minutes.” George took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His gaze hovered near the floor a moment. Tapping out a butt, he threw the cigar back between his teeth and looked up at John. “I'll give you two.”

John nodded his appreciation. “Two'll do just fine.”

Emmetsburg: Thirty-six

Pearl-white. The fog fled the no man’s land quickly now. With the lifting fog came the obsessive German guns, chasing the rest of the squad back across the no man's land. Bullets chopped at the rim of the crater and at the body of the German boy. They tumbled the body backwards, where it slid limp and lifeless and shattered. The bullets were like stones into a murky puddle. John laid across Roddy and contented himself that the shooting wouldn't last forever. He knew, though, that what would come would be far worse.

It was unlikely the Germans knew he and Roddy were there. The fire swept a broad stretch of ground. Even as it chopped the air overhead John wasted little time. He set to work, covering Roddy and them himself with dark French mud from head to toe. That done he quickly piled and packed mud into a small barrier to one side of the crater should a German grenade come flying. It wasn't much, hardly more than a yard long and a foot or so high. John hoped that it would offer a modest bit of protection, which was about as much as he could hope for.

When the barrier was done John hauled Roddy behind it, careful not to poke his head above the edge of the crater. From a laying position John turned the man on his stomach. So that he might appear dead John moved Roddy’s arm and leg away from the body. The effort, from this position and in his weakened state left John utterly and almost catastrophically exhausted.

He paused a moment and looked to heaven, each breath burning in his chest. Black smoke drifted lazily overhead. The German fire had all but ended now. John said a small prayer and began to cross himself, pausing when he noticed a small silver crucifix around the dead German boy's neck.

John crawled a few feet away and lay on one side, facing the German lines. The Enfield lay nearby, with the long bayonet attached and ready. Under his body John clutched a revolver and trench knife. There was nothing more to do now but feign death(which was more than death itself) and wait. With luck they would survive till dark, when John would have a better chance to get them back to friendly lines.



The heat of the day rose quickly. It was a steaming, stifling heat that choked the sweat and life from John. With it rose the stagnate rot of the crater, like a sewer or morgue. John's throat burned with thirst, the sun baking him beneath the heavy steel helmet. Flies buzzed and swarmed, over the German boy and flitted upon the pool of water reflecting the clear blue sky.

John stared into the pool trying in vain to see Anna's face. What else was there to do but go mad? It was as if she had never been real and his whole life had been a mirage. That he could not see her, or adequately recall anything of his life beyond that corrupted crater seemed to betray that it had all been an illusion.

How he longed to run his fingers through Anna's buttery-soft sunset-red hair. He would have given all eternity just to hear her peacefully warm voice once more. He prayed to god for nothing more than to see her once more, even if it was a fleeting glimpse as his soul fled this world. And if he should survive? John resolved that each day beside her would be a blessing, and he would give thanks for as long as breath filled his lungs.

Another voice contradicted that hopeful and contrite voice. It told John he would not survive, and that he would die in that ignominious hole. It only served to remind him that predicting tomorrow was a fool's exercise. It was arrogant to expect anything of tomorrow. He squeezed back tears threatening his eyes. John's heart was so heavy that it almost compelled him to cry out.

Emmetsburg:Thirty-three

Louis was well enough to sit up. Not great, but better. He rose to meet John just crossing from the stairs with a glass of milk and some bread with sweet ruby-red rhubarb jam. The bread was still warm from the oven. Louis' eyes widened a bit at the thick pieces stacked upon the small flowered china plate. John set the plate and milk on a bookshelf and hurried over to help him sit. He held the milk in his good hand, with the plate balanced on the forearm. With the darkly bruised and swollen fingers of his injured hand John steadied the plate.

“Go slow,” said John. John set the plate and milk on a bookshelf and hurried over to help him sit.

Louis waved a hand in the air. He felt dizzy and weak, but when his feet touched the hard wood floor for the first time Louis felt alive again. Not a lot alive. The pulsing thunder behind his eyes made life and consciousness and balance all negotiable points. He looked up into John's rescuing eyes.

“Maybe I ain't quite ready yet,” he managed a weary smile. “Gravity seems a little trickier than I remembered.”

“You really took a shot,” said John. “Gonna take a little while before you're back among the living.” John knelt and studied Louis' dark brown eyes, and saw his own face reflected there. “Stand to eat something?”

John stood and took the bread and milk from the shelf. He paused a moment, his gaze moving over some old dusty volumes; GOODRICH'S PICTORAL HISTORIES OF THE UNITED STATES, Mary Macgregor's THE STORY OF ROME, BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIER BUSH by Ian Maclaren, and THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. He saw them, but his thoughts were at war whether or not to ask Louis about Bert Himmel.

“Bert Himmel passed away,” he finally said. John turned slowly and scooted the stool beside the bed watching Louis for the smallest clue to something hidden. John sat looking scant-ways at Louis.

“He a friend of yours?” Louis asked, gobbling down a bit of bread and jam madly.

“Was,” his tone was leading. John placed the glass of milk in Louis' hands.

Louis' silence was potent, as he stared into the white liquid. When he spoke it was quiet and low, leaving John with far more questions than he might have wished.

“Sorry for your loss.”

“Lived up there in Mallard,” said John, leaning a bit in hopes of gauging Louis' expression. “Ever been up there?”

“Can’t say I have?” He hesitated, still refusing to look directly at John. Louis lifted the glass and emptied it in just a few gulps.

“Pulled you out of that creek just this side of Mallard,” said John, with deepening suspicion. “Seems that was the direction you were coming from.”

Louis pursed his lips, turning the empty glass in his hands. He held it out abruptly and John took it, holding the glass and Louis’ hand fast for a moment. Alarmed, Louis lifted his eyes to John.

“Told you,” he said quietly, “don’t recall nothing before the accident.”

John sighed and stood, as Louis lay back and turned towards the window. He was asleep almost instantly. John shook his head and thought this all very odd, and wondered if he wasn’t losing his mind.

Anna was waiting for him already in bed. He undressed quickly and slipped beneath the sheets beside her. She was up, straddling him in an instant, her long full red hair tumbling over his face and shoulders as she kissed him deeply, catching him fully by surprise. It all took him aback for a moment, before his body responded to hers. Anna rose and lifted away her gown, letting it fall to the floor. She helped him from his shorts and guided him to her. Anna sighed deeply and threw her head back, their bodies now a rhythm joined and rushing headlong to climax. Outside the crickets and night seemed to fall away, as if nothing beyond that lover’s bed existed

John quickly felt himself at the edge, straining to meet her as Anna focused on her own pleasure. Nearly there, John strained, moving a hand across her soft full breasts. Suddenly there was a sound from the kitchen. It was the sound of the back screen creaking open on its ancient hinges before banging closed again. Anna froze, her eyes wide with sudden alarm. John pushed her off and went for the pistol, fumbling in the dark and interrupted sex for the bullets in the bottom of the box. He managed barely one round in the cylinder, the rest falling and clanging upon the floor at his bare feet.

“John,” she gasped, covering herself with the quilt at the end of the bed. “Someone is in the house!”

“Be still.” He snapped the cylinder in place and pulled the hammer back. Naked, John lifted the weapon before him and went to the door. It was then he spotted Louis out back, staggering through the night towards the line of trees at the back of the property.

“It’s Louis,” said John, laying the Pistol on the bed and pulling on his trousers.

“What’s he doing?”

“Damned if I know,” he said, lifting the revolver again, “but I’m bound to find out.”

Emmetsburg: Twenty-six

John pulled to a stop dead center of the crossroads at the edge of town. Leaning across the wheel he squinted east towards Cylinder. A golden morning sun hovered above the hills and fields to the east. It was fat and round, the heat, already becoming a presence. The sun was suspended, held aloft by arms of ochre dust rising from parched fields. A sweltering south wind painted a fine layer of sweat upon John and Anna's faces. John took a long breath and let it out dramatically through his nose. Anna knew immediately what he was thinking and touched his leg.

“Think maybe we ought to stop,” she said.

John was tortured at the thought and peered into the distance.

“Don't know.” he said simply.

“John,” she touched him again, firmer and more adamant this time. His gaze remained among the fields, lost there. Anna persisted. “John?”

“Maybe sometimes best just to let things be,” he said.

“Sometimes,” she said softly. “Sometimes best to put things to rest.”

John pursed his lips and felt the full weight of the moment.

“Just been so long, and the other night and all. Don't know if I want to risk that, Anna.”

She took his hand and lifted it to her lips. She breathed him in. He looked at her. figuring.

“I took that as a sign,” she said. “Time to say goodbye and get on with things, John Perkins. Start new.”

He conceded and yanked the truck into gear. Not a mile out of town St Mary's cemetery blanketed a rectangular patch of ground beside the road. It was a pretty little of green earth, such as it was, a solemn island bounded on three sides by unplowed fields. Nine tall firs separated that island from the world. Their mottled shade blanketed most of the cemetery, falling over ranks of neatly arranged stones. There was no fence or boundary. Instead it was as if those who resided there had reached some agreement with Iowa's endless farmland, or as if the land had given ground to those who lived and sacrificed and died here.

John guided the truck up to the gravel entrance and pulled to stop. They had not been here since the funeral. He leaned on the wheel and chewed his lip. There was a time when this place felt like a destination for John and Anna. Like a traveler might feel looking off along empty tracks leading to some unknown yet certain home. He looked at Anna, and pulled the truck forward when she gave a slight nod.

EMMETSBURG: Eighteen

John squinted against a scalding pain as the young nurse cleaned the gash running across his palm. It was about as much emotion as he cared to show. She left the room for a moment and John studied the wound. He could see deep into his hand, past the bulging yellowing fat pads, the sinewy red muscle, bluish veins and glimpses of gleaming white bone. He’d come as near as he cared to losing the hand. He counted himself as lucky, still it was just about as good as John could expect with his luck.

He was more concerned with infection. Bad enough and he’d lose his hand for sure, and then where would he and Anna be? He’d seen enough of that in the war to know it was the danger. He’d seen men die by infections from wounds much less severe. When a bug got in the wound and took hold there was just no stopping it.

It took all of twenty stitches to close the wound. The nurse wrapped up his hand so much that it just look sort of silly, as though she'd accidentally covered a baseball with the hand. Down in the lobby Sister Dougherty gave him a sympathetic smile.

John sighed, realizing that his hand was all but useless, holding it up and turning it before his eyes. That wouldn’t do, of course. It meant that he would have to sit still a while, and that was just something John couldn’t stand. Couple days at most and it would have to come off. Fresh air and a bit of cautious use, he thought would do the trick, at least that what the most stubborn part of him wished to believe. What the mind believes and the heart concedes are as different as night and day.

It didn’t hurt, at least not as much as John feared that it might. Of course it was still a fresh wound. He’d taken a kick from a horse as a boy, busting three ribs. It wasn’t until they started to heal that the pain grew almost unbearable. For now there was just a warm sensation, and the feeling of two self-determined slabs of meat moving against one another. And there was also a sense that the assumption of his body’s inviolable space had been breached, like the betrayed body of a woman.

EMMETSBURG: Fourteen

Rust red, the roof of the cab was now like the top of a furnace as the afternoon sun’s full fury bore down. Halfway to Emmetsburg John had more or less forgot about all the hubbub at Himmel's place. Tensions and emotions were running high these days, John convinced himself, but the bond between neighbors was stronger for the same reasons that drove those wilder emotions.

The creek was just ahead. He’d be home soon. With a bit of luck he could get up on the roof and patch a few places. Anna would be down at the Conlon place. He meet her there and take him time walking her home. John was lost in the perfect nature of that thought as the truck bumped and bounced along.The shade of the tree line was splashed across the road. John would be happy for the shade's cool respite, if only for a moment.

Sweat poured into his eyes and burned there. He reached up and swept it away with his fingers. He flicked it away, the drops falling fat and wet upon the dash and floorboards. From the corner of his eye John caught sight of something just off the road. Half hidden among the trees, tipped down into the rushing creek was the back of a car. It was cocked at an odd angle. The left rear tire was off the ground and cleaved by a ray of golden sunlight slicing the trees.

John ground to a stop beside the bridge. The engine was still sputtering as he leapt out and ran across the road. He stopped short of the steep and grassy bank. One slip and we might tumble into the creek and be carried under by the churning brown waters, where he risked getting caught beneath the auto or swept under the bridge and drowned. There was no sense in risking life and limb if the driver was finished or had abandoned the wreck and was already back in town. Of course there was no way to know for sure without getting down into the water.

The car had taken down a small tree. One branch jutted from beneath the auto where its feathery green leaves were tugged by the swift current. John tested his weight on the branch, keeping a hand against the side of the car for balance. The branch kept John clear of the water, but on the high side of the wreck making it impossible to see inside. He took hold of the tire and gave it a good hard shake. The front end was wedged into the creek bed and pinned against a tree. John stretched, going up on his toes in a vain attempt to see inside.

Suddenly the branch snapped. It gave a sharp clapping sound, like lightening close by. John twisted, flailing and toppled forward into the icy cold water clear to his chest. At the last instant he managed to grab hold of the running board, but it was tentative hold and not at all sure. His feet kicked madly, failing to find bottom.

He hung there for what seemed an eternity, his fingers burning for the strain as they held him from being swept away. The water was an immense force and John seemingly intent on dragging him under. He kicked hard one last time with a mighty cry, hoping to haul himself up onto the running board.

The river surged, slamming him against the car. One arm swung wildly, but now the force of the river was sapping his strength rapidly. John breathed deeply to rally his strength and focus and started to drag himself from the rushing waters, his feet digging at the mud and refuse at the bottom of the creek. John failed to notice the log tumbling at him until it was too late.

He cried out and braced for a collision that struck his back like a hammer on the right side of his chest, smashing the air from his body. His hands slipped from the running board. In an instant John was swallowed by those brown waters and carried under.

EMMETSBURG: Twelve

“Wish they’d take that mess down the road a piece,” Bert grumbled before his eyes met John’s. He paused like he’d been caught at something, and half smiled a bit sheepishly for it. “Put up a sign that says social center and new village hall!”

Burt was a shade taller than his boy and a good deal huskier now that the years were creeping up on him steadily. He had icy white hair that had receded a tad. The sweaty ends were matted to his forehead and temples. Smelled of cigars, sweat and engine grease. His powerful arms were stained with grease and oil clear to the elbows, where it stained the rolled up sleeves of a blue denim shirt. Bert scooted around the counter and stood next to Myron. Was like a looking glass that showed the future. Burt was fighting to catch his breath. He was leaning on the counter, his chest heaving a little too hard. His chubby dirt-streaked face was red as a beet. Bert smiled weakly and grabbed his boy’s arm. The gesture had the quality of a plea.

“Fetch me a cup of water,” he said. Myron was away in an instant. He looked to John, who trying his best not to appear overly concerned at Bert's rough condition. “Hell getting old.”

“Do my best to avoid it.”

“Wasn’t but about a block I run. Damned if I can’t catch my breath.” He chuckled, and coughed. “Was a time I could outrun any lug in the county.”

Myron returned with a tin cup of water from the pump out back. John had taken a drink from that well many a hot day. he could smell the soft mineral scent of the water and could almost feel its coldness as Bert Himmel chugged it down. Ample amounts dripped onto the fat man's blue shirt. Bert let the cup bang against the counter. He finally seemed to catch his breath.

“Where are my manners,” he said. “What can I do for you, John?”

“Mister Perkins was inquiring about another roll of tar paper, Pop,” said Myron.

“Run on it this morning, with the storm and all. Heard it might have been a twister.”

“That right?” said John

“How much do you need?”

“Seven Dollars worth?’

“Cover the whole neighborhood?” Bert coughed mid laugh.

“Hoping to pick up a job or two.”

“Real blessing, strong back and shoulders.”

“Bout all I got these days,” John nodded. “That and my wits, for whatever they’re worth.”

“How soon do you need it?”

“Figure two days up on the roof. Before it rains again, I suppose.”

“See what I can do,” Bert came around and laid a hand heavily on John's shoulder, as much for support as neighborliness.

John started for the door. He turned back to Bert and Myron. Bert was already behind the counter, collapsed in a chair and fanning himself.

“Could use a hand, if you can spare your boy a day or two,” said John. Myron looked eagerly to his father.

Bert sort of leaned back over the chair, looking a bit like a rag doll someone had tossed there. Both men could see the excitement in the boy's face.“Interested?”

“Gee, could I, Pop?”

“Couldn't pay but about two bits,” said John. “Promise a couple good home-cooked meals.”

“I'd do it just for Mrs. Perkin's cooking!”

“You'll take the two bits as well,” said John.