Emmetsburg: Forty-eight

The Government inspectors climbed into one car, piloted by a State trooper. The pale sedan crept forward towards the farm and the ready line of men waiting there. It was flanked by troopers, truncheons at the ready, like a somber funeral procession, like a mafia phalanx for a fallen thug, scowling for retribution. Their faces were carved in stone, spirits hardened fo the inevitable battle. It was more than their duty.. The law was the sovereign of these men, and they had fully taken that realm into their hearts.

The men opposing them were cousins of a different sovereign. Their king was an ambiguous notion of freedom, filtered through flawed hearts. They saw themselves as defenders to the ramparts of their individual fortresses. The lawmen were alternately enemy and ally. In moments such as this, when the law waved the enemy banner, it was impossible to see that it was the law that maintained peace when the ramparts encroached upon their neighbor.

They met in the road, pausing for a moment, crushing the air between them so that it was explosive and alive. It was inevitable, the battle, and as brutal and calamitous as promised.. On cue, as if it had all been choreographed, truncheons rose in the heated air on the lawman's side. This, this was the moment where law and liberty could not be reconciled, and would be defined in violence and blood.

Clubs met fists and fists and two by fours. Men cried and fell and bled, as the tempo of battle rose. At first numbers and determination favored the famers. Still the lawmen pressed forward, driving their adversaries steady back across the ditch. The battle spilled into the yard where it degraded into individual grudges.

C.W. was in the thick of the fight. Struggling against neighbors and old friends, he found the whole mess utterly obscene and decided it was enough.. Seizing Stan Pickett by the collar, C.W. shook him hard, hoping to wrestle enough sense that together they might stop all this. For a moment he truly believed it was in the power of a single man to stop the fight by no more than strength of will and charcter. When an axe handle came down upon the crown of his head all reason disappeared in a cold white flash of pain and gushing blood.

The sound of solid wood meeting skull momentarily stopped the fight. It sounded like a gunshot, and might have brought down a lesser man. Instead it set C.W. on fire with anger. Pouring blood down the front of his body, C.W. tore the two sides apart, with the ease of an autumn twister smashing a path through tall harvest corn. Opening his arms wide, as though he might embrace the troopers in those massive arms, C.W. herded them back to the ditch, all the while shouting at the farmers to retreat.

On both sides the injured and bruised gathered themselves up and rejoined their ranks. It created a sudden vacuum he was quick to seize upon. C.W. went across, straight to Stan. Avery pushed his way through the line and strode right up to Stan Pickett. The men closed ranks quickly behind Stan. Avery Lysander pushed his way forward, standing beside Stan.

“Your boys had enough, C.W?” said Avery, fighting to catch his breath.

“Pipe down, Avery,” said Stan, sympathetic to the wounded man before him. “Ain't suppose to be how neighbors settle things, C.W.”

“Then put an end to this, Stan,” said C.W. “No point in seeing anyone else get hurt.”

“Afraid I can't. Stand my ground and defend my family.”

C.W. looked at him a good long time, trying to figure another way. Stan, Avery and the others had dig in their heels, and there was no other way but the hard one. He turned and rejoined the troopers. The moment he reached them they started forward in a line towards the seething anxious mob opposite. This time Avery was out front.

“Send 'em to hell boys!” he cried, before the end of a police club caught him in the gut and then across the shoulders.

The troopers now enveloped the farmers like a glove. Stan Pickett led them forward at the center of the police line, but it was a trap. The line curled around, forming an unbroken circle. One by one the farmers were hauled from that circle to a spot where they were forced to sit at gunpoint.

“Sit still, boys. Sure would hate to pull this here trigger,” cautioned one of the troopers, holding a twelve gauge. It was loaded with salt pellets and not lethal buckshot, unknown to the momentarily defeated farmers.

Was predictable that the inspectors would find several sick cows among the herd. It was enough to condemn them all. Herded together, three State troopers went from animal to animal and put a bullet in their head. That done the carcasses were doused with gas and set alight. The smoke rose straight into the calm air, like a call to war that could be seen for miles. C.W. watched it from the floorboard of his auto as a trooper patched up the wound on his head.

“Took a wallop there, Sheriff.” By now most of the men had been released. C.W. thought better of arresting anyone, most especially Avery Lysander. Not that he didn't have ample cause. The gash in his head was enough to send someone to the penitentiary. C.W. did not want to give them the power that would accompany an arrest. It seemed such an action would only enflame the fears and emotions running like a wildfire through the hearts of men.

“Got a good hard head,” C.W. said, not taking his eyes off the column of smoke.

“Think maybe folks will get the idea we mean do uphold the law,” said the trooper.

“Nope.” He knew better. “Bad day's coming. This won't stop till blood gets shed.”

This wasn't a victory, by any measure. There was no room for satisfaction, and affliction he fought to hold at bay. This was a tragedy, pure and simple. Any man who saw it any differently had a hard reckoning to make with the Lord one day.

“Looks like you shed a fair amount yourself, Sheriff.”

C.W. Ignored him. He closed his eyes and groaned slightly, “Bad day is coming.”

Emmetsburg: Forty-seven

“Between a rock and a hard place, ain’t that what they call it, C.W.?” Stan Pickett stood alone in the dusty dirt road with the Sheriff near the gate to his farm. They were like two pauper chieftains negotiating terms between two opposing armies. Except these two armies could find no terms, and instead seemed poised, even eager for battle.

Just down the road a line of thirty-some State troopers in blue stood ready near where an old Maple beside Stan’s big red barn bent her shade over the road and a cluster of vehicles. They were thirty of the biggest, meanest, hardest looking men the governor knew, picking ech man personally. They faced a bigger number of farmers gathered tensely to the entrance to Stan’s farm, a small drive across a weedy drainage ditch. Behind them Stan’s wife stood on the wrap-around porch of their white-washed two story home with their three children. A number of the other wives joined her there, some eager or more eager than their husbands to join the fight.

C.W. and Stan stood at the fulcrum of this moment, hands in their pockets, talking calm and low, as if they might discuss the rising heat of the day or Wes Ferrell’s no hitter against the St. Louis browns, Chaplin’s new movie or Hoover’s ineptitude. Neither was fooled by the gravity of all this. They knew only too well that what gentlemanly agreement they might come to in the middle of that road would dissolve in the face of inevitable history and raging emotion.

Forty men stood at the entrance of Stan Pickett’s farm. They stood in the road, running in a ragged line down across the ditch and halfway across Stan’s yard. Forty men had filled their hands with clubs and shovels, some of them. Others rolled up their sleeves, and spit into their hands, prepared to send those troopers back to Des Moines and the governor as a lesson. Backed into a corner there was nothing else they could do as men but stand and fight.

“That what they call it, Stan?” C.W. rubbed the moist back of his neck. “Rock and a hard place?”

“It’s something.” Stan tugged a rag from his pocket and dabbed the sweat from his face. He looked at the men in his yard and back at C.W. Both man regarded the troopers or a long worrisome moment.

“It’s something all right.”

“Like Sittin’ Bull and Custer out here,” Stan smiled weakly.

“Both know how that turned out.”

“Question is, which of us is Custer and…” his words trailed away Stan pushed the rag back into his pocket.

“Good question.”

Stan looked C.W. squarely in the eye. His expression suddenly stark and grave. “Know I can’t let them inspector near my cattle.”

C.W. groaned. He’d played checkers with Stan Pickett and half the others a thousand times out front of Bert Himmel’s place over the years. He recalled the night his wife had complications delivering their third child, the small boy hovering t his mom’s apron on the porch. He raced Stan and his wife to Emmetsburg in the back of his truck. When the boy was born healthy later the next day he and old Stan celebrated by getting good and lit at a local watering hole.

“And you know I've got to uphold the law, Stan.”

Stan scratched the top of his head and shrugged, resigned to the events rolling across his farm like an avalanche. “Different ways of looking at the law.”

“Don't have that luxury.”

C.W. stared coldly at Stan, whose gaze was away across the fields and his herb dotting the yellow green hillside opposite. He tried to imagine himself in Stan's place, and wondered if he wouldn't react the same. The moment evaporated. Stan nodded sharply and pursed his lips.

“Expect I should be getting back.”

C.W. Nodded fatally and frowned. “God help us, Stan.”

Emmetsburg: Forty-six

“George,” John nodded.

The deputies stopped behind, and just to either side of Bremer, like over-protective sons than public employees.Both of them were young and baby-faced.. At least that's how they appeared to John, serving only to make him feel a bit ancient. One of them was tall and well built, the other short and a little on the doughy side.His name was Ray. His parents ran a tailor shop downtown. None of the men were armed. Ray held a set of wrist irons. He nervously shifted them from hand to hand. George nodded respectfully and motioned to John's wound.

“John. How's that hand?”

“Help you fellas?”

“Hope you'll forgive the intrusion, but we've come for him.”

John scrtached the back of his head trying to figure why Louis didn't seem immediately surprised. Then all at once his expression changed, as if it was manufactured or contrived.

“John, I swear I don't...” Louis began before Bremer cut him off.

“Best you not say another word,son.”

“What's this all about, George?” asked John.

Bremer went over and laid a hand gently upon Louis' shoulder.. “I think your guest knows.” His eyes met Louis with a judicious quality. He patted the man's shoulder almost sympatheically. “My deputies here trust you won't be any trouble.”

The deputies were patient as John pulled Bremer aside. They had known each other for almost their whole lives. George Bremer was the first person John had seen the day he stepped off the Milwaukee line from the war. John led him over to the cellar door.

“What's this all about, George?'

Bremer kept his voice low. His brow was tortured. The words fell heavily. “A wrecker pulled his car out of the creek. John, there was a body inside, a white woman.”

“George, I was all over that car, if there'd been...”

“She was in the rear compartment. Her hands and feet were bound. There was a rope around her neck.”

Both men looked over at Louis. John felt a shiver of dread that he had left Louis alone with Anna. He felt betrayed by Louis. It raged red hot in his veins.

“You're sure?”

“Afraid so.”

“Who was she?”

“Don't know.”

“He says his name is Louis, Louis Stanton.” John hesitated. “About all I've been able to get out of him.Like they both fell out of the sky.”

“Folks just don't fall out of the sky.”

.

Emmetsburg: Forty-five

John set out one of the dining chairs beneath the willow for Louis. The air was cool and gentle there. John hooked a thumb in a belt loop of Louis' trousers. His arm was slung across John's shoulders. It proved a fair test of that hurt hand as he helped Louis downstairs and out into the yard. He could feel the bifurcated flesh moving independent of one another. John pursed his lips and felt tears fill his eyes. Didn't help that Louis' legs were about as firm as wet spaghetti. Felt like no small milestone when at last they reached the back step.

“Step down,” said John, wanting to scream from pain. Instead he clenched his teeth and gave hardly more than a stifled groan.

“Just a little farther,” he said.

John was already dreading the idea of getting Louis back up the stairs. If it was a warm enough night, he mused, he'd just as soon leave Louis under the tree. Throw a blanket over him and that would be that. Or maybe set him out on the curb with a bushel of apples that Louis could sell at 2 cents a pound to help earn his keep. The thought made John smile, tempering the pain in his hand just enough.

It was a near perfect day. There was hardly a cloud in the sky. Now and again small puffy-white clouds glided eastward, carried on a silken breeze that washed through the yard with the lemon-pepper scent of fresh cut grass somewhere. John breathed it in deeply, carried bck to his childhood for a moment, and the perfectness of rolling in freshly cut wet grass. The breeze headed off across the yard to the tree line and small creek. Beyond the line of trees a pair of burly brown horses pulled a plow across the hillside.

“Feel like an invalid,” said Louis as John deposited him in the chair.

“Far cry from last night.” There was fresh blood in the bandages. John held the hand to his chest. “Suppose you don’t recall running across the yard like your pants were on fire?”

“Not a thing.”

That so?” John gave Louis a long suspect look. “Screaming to the stars. Suppose you don’t remember none of that either?”

Louis cocked his head, as if he didn't or couldn't understand what John was saying. Just then a car pulled up out front. Three doors opened and shut quickly. On that quiet little street such a thing was enough to draw John's attention immediately.

It wasn’t a moment before George Bremer rounded the corner of the house with two young deputies in tow. Their expressions were artificially austere, as if any affront to the law was a personal assault. By contrast Old George was serious but aloof, as though this was nothing more than a task, akin to washing the dishes or tending some meddlesome repair. John stepped forward, placing himself squarely between Louis and the lawmen.

Emmetsburg: Forty-four

“How's the wife?” asked Bremer, following C.W. around to the back of the coupe. The heat of the day made him sluggish and distracted. He fought for focus on the grim task before him, concentrating on the dead girl’s family. There was nothing to be done for her. It was the family who would cry for justice and vengeance. Theirs would be the burden of the living. Justice is never for the dead.

“She runs good,” C.W. winked with a grin. He laid a hand in the trunk. “Ready for this?”

George drew a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his nose and mouth, to little effect. “Sure is a stinker.”

“That she is, poor thing.”

“Welp,” Bremer rallied himself. “open her up, let's have a look.”

The latch had broken in the crash. C.W had to lean on the trunk with his full weight and pull at the edges at the same time. It opened grudgingly, creaking loudly. Bremer's brow crumbled. He turned his head aside, then shook it slowly. He gave a weighted sigh and spit into the ditch.

“Haven't called the State Police just yet,” said C.W. “Wanted to run all this by you first.”

“Close her up.”

George went around the side. C.W followed. He could see it in George's face. He could see George knew something more.

“Got an idea you know who did this?”

“State Police will just come in and make a circus of things, claim credit and get folks all riled up.”

“I'm listening.”

“Keep this quiet a bit,” said Bremer. “I'll take her over to Brennan's funeral home, get her cleaned up a bit.”

“Got an idea who might have done this.”

George waved over the tow truck driver. He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket and squinted against the bright sunlight at C.W. He'd heard of the stranger up at John Perkin's place. Putting two and two together was about as simple as things get in the Sheriff-ing business. He'd have a chat with the tow truck driver and ask Joe Brennan to keep this quiet for a while. No need to give folks a reason to worry, have them locking their doors at night and getting all out of sorts for no reason. He nodded slowly.

“Got an idea.”

Emmetsburg: Forty-three

I, searching
I, absurd
Am, the wind
Am, contradiction
You, the world
You, salvation
Are, absurd
Are, searching


C.W. settled down on the running board of the Twenty-eight black Chevy wrecker. The cool shade of the square two seater cab fell across his shoulders, in stark contrast as C.W. tilted his face to the warm morning sun. He gave a burdened sigh, unable to escape the image of the woman in the trunk of the car on the hook at the back of the Wrecker. He thought about her life, about her death and about the man who might have killed her. The thought left him far colder than the sun could possibly warm him.

There was only so much he could tell about the woman. She’d been dead about a week, as near as he could tell. There was a fair amount of guessing in that estimate. Time, the creek nd the elements had seen to whatever beauty she possessed. In such a state it was difficult to surmise her age to any safe degree. By the tone of her slender calve C.W. thought she was in her Twenties, but anything beyond that was pure speculation.

In the still humid air the sickly-sweetness of decomposition was inescapable. It was evident right from the start, chasing the owner of the tow truck up the road a ways, leaving C.W. alone to discover the body. Her hands and ankles had been tied with long strips of cloth. A robe was wrapped tightly around the woman’s throat, enough that her blackened, swollen tongue protruded grotesquely from her lips. The eyes, now dark plastic pools were open wide.

It was difficult to remember the last time anyone had seen a murder around in Emmetsburg, or the county. Murder was something that happened far away. It was the product of a frustrated soul who could see no other way. It was the product of a weakened and selfish soul who lacked the will of muscling through and the culture of getting by. Murder was, in the end, a lack of commitment to God and the community for the believers, and humanity and civilization for the non-believer. It was a rare thing for folks in these parts to fail at a commitment. Like bad harvests, cruel winters and broken hearts, they somehow found the strength to weather through the toughest times.

A car approached from Emmetsburg. C.W. looked up, recognizing George Bremer’s dark Ford instantly. It cleared a rise, bouncing almost comically as it came down the other side. Inside Bremer’s elbows, the hands wrapped tightly around the wheel, flapped like clipped wings on a goose. C.W. stood, removing his hat and fanning himself with it. Bremer pulled to a stop across from the Wrecker, partly off the road. Climbing out, George managed a respectful smile. He met C.W. in the road with a handshake, the smell of death drawing his attention instantly.

“Came as quick as I could,” said Bremer.

“Wish it was under better circumstances.”

The two met in the middle of the road with a warm handshake. Still holding firmly to C.W.,s strong calloused hand, George looked back along the road to the tow truck driver. George knew him from St. Mary’s, knew him to be a good family man with two small girls. He seemed terribly upset by all this. Wasn’t a regular thing for a murder to happen here. He was standing up a ways, far enough to keep away from that awful smell. A cigarette burned away in the man’s trembling fingers. He nodded sharply to George and looked off across the fields.

“He find the body?” asked George.

“Said he knew something was amiss the moment he got out of his truck. He hauled the car out of the creek, but I found the body.”

“Looks pretty shook up.”

“I’d say so,” C.W. agreed.

Bremer laid a hand on C.W.’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You holding up okay? Heard about that mess at Bert Himmel’s place.”

C.W. thought a moment, squinted through the bright sunlight. “Trying to be mindful of folks through these inspections. Tell ya, George, got my own misgivings about those tests.”

“Can see that. Think a lot of folks do.”

“Getting out of hand, though. Think this’ll get worse before it gets better.”

“Can’t have a bunch of rabble-rousers putting you off your sworn appointments either. The law is the law. Pay a lot of smarter people than us to make ‘em.”

“Trying not to start a war here, George.”

Bremer agreed, twisting his mouth trying to figure all the permutations. “If it was me, I’d stop this cold, C.W.”

“How so?”

“Bring up a bunch of State police bruisers, and if this keeps up, give ‘em what for.”

“Violence.”

“I’ll bet there’s a couple stirring things up, like this fella, Avery Lysander, who was stoking things in town the other night.”

“Pegged old Avery right.”

“Maybe someone ought to go havea look at his place.”

“Reckon?”

“Show of overwhelming force and most of ‘em will run from Lysander,” said Bremer. “Then you put the fear of god into him.”

“Coming your way next with these inspections.”

Bremer nodded agreeably, “I’ve already been on the phone with the governor. He talked to Hoover himself, n they’re both inclined to send down the National Guard.”

Emmetsburg: Forty-two

Silk Black. The crunch of shovels offended the midnight peace behind Avery Lysander’s barn. The air was scented with newly disturbed earth, diesel and the sickly musk of the dead calf still chained to the back of Avery’s tractor. It was the second of his cows to die in as many months. Not far away the first grave was conspicuous by hay and some rusting farm implements strewn to appear random upon the rectangular patch of barren earth.

Avery paused with a shovel full of dirt and loose stone and warily tried to gauge what might be running through the minds of Ernie Vogel, Myron Himmel. The men were at the far end of the hole, curiously quiet. They were a good three feet into the dark earth. The moon was just coming up, filling the hole with silk black shadow, so that it appeared the three men were wading in some nocturnal pool. Empty fields and hills swallowed the sound of their work, long before it might have been heard. The nearest farm was the better part of a mile away. Myron lifted another shovel full of dirt and paused.

“Government really run by Communists like you say, Mister Lysander?” Myron threw another hovel full of dirt onto the growing pile beside the hole.

“Communists in the government,” said Avery, “bank-rolled by the Jews who own the banks.” He wiped line of sweat from his brow.

“Can’t imagine they own all the banks,” Ernie Vogel scoffed a bit, pulling another shovel full.”

“Awe, don’t listen to that sap, Myron. What do you think this whole cow scare is all about, huh? It ain’t about some sick cows. It’s about money, pure and simple.”

“How’d ya figure?” asked Myron.

“Simple, boy. Can’t ya see what is staring you in the eyes?”

Vogel spit into the would-be grave and leaned heavily on his shovel. He’d been ruminating over a thought all night. Fatigue and the late our only served to encourage it. “Cows got the bug, Avery.”

“Because two come up sick,” Avery shot back bitterly, “don’t mean they’re all sick.”

“Got to admit, there’s a pretty good chance…”

“Just have to get the rest to slaughter. One more week, that’s all.”

“What if it makes someone sick, that meat,” offered Myron, “like Sherriff Saunders said?”

Avery let the shovel fall. It hit the ground with a combined metallic wood sound. He went to Myron and Ernie, folding his arms and looking upon them as if he was about to recite a sermon. The building rage in his expression drew both men to a wrapped and humbled silence.

“Boys, its all nonsense! We’ve all been around sick animals all our lives. The tuberculosis has come and gone before. Any of us ever come up sick? Anyone we know? Don’t buy all this crud. We don’t look out for one another against the Jews and Communists in the government, who will?”

Avery knew. He knew that to rule meant to divide and sub-divide the world into simple parts pitted against one another, and then to carefully manage those divisions. It is a simple thing, as that is simple heart’s singular weakness. The door to that heart was fear and ignorance masquerading as anger. It wanted to rush through that door and rampage in the world as an orgy of self interest. Avery looked into the wavering souls before him and threw open their doors fully. If that failed there was always the law.

“I don’t know,” Myron shook his head, staring into the ground.

Ernie Vogel was staring at the dead cow a few yards away. “Got to go with the kid on this one, Avery.”

“And what do you think’s gonna happen if someone gets a whiff about my two,” he emphasized two, “my two cows when they hear you fellas helped me bury the evidence? You don’t think those inspectors’ll be at your door like yesterday?”

The boy looked to Vogel, who gave a heavy sigh. Crime and secrets were the scoundrels surest road to guaranteeing obedience among the weaker willed..

“Myron,” Avery continued, his voice firm but sympathetic, “you went from a man overnight. Didn’t even let you catch your breath and that Commie sympathizer Sheriff brings the government right to your door! They pick on the weak and all alone. I mean, we all know them tests don’t work, but what do you suppose would happen if them inspectors didn’t find a single sick cow? What’s some young kid and his widowed mom gonna say when they condemn your whole herd, huh? Nothing, that’s what! A holy man without a congregation is just talking to the walls. A Jew is poor like an honest Catholic without someone else’s money, and a Communist from the government takes power by enslaving the working man. Only way for folks like us to keep what we worked and fought and bled for it to stick together.”

Vogel wasn’t entirely convinced. “Don’t know, Avery. Besides, bunch of poor farmers can’t fight the federal government.”

“Know what?” Avery was indignant. “Don’t want anybody in this fight who doesn’t have the stomach for it. No half way here, boys. Think the founding fathers of this great land, fighting for the freedom of all of us, went half way? God no! They risked everything, their lives, their families, their fortunes. They stood together.”

Avery picked up the shovels and held them out, begging and daring each to reach for one. In doing so Avery could count that he held them fully. Myron was first. Ernie Vogel bowed his head and looked away. Avery sneered and shook his head. He tossed the shovel on the grass beside Vogel and went back to work with Myron. Ernie stood and picked up the shovel. He studied it in his hands a moment before joining the others.