The Big Blue Sky: Sixty-eight

Waverly clutched the plastic stock of his Bushmaster submachine gun so tightly his knuckles were white. Things were spinning rapidly out of control. His men had become wolves, and he was the leader of that ravenous pack. They were almost blind as he was to the consequences of their actions. But it had become far more than business. Archer Waverly meant to kill Doug Springer if it was the last thing he did.

The campus was more or less deserted for a Sunday afternoon. He wasn’t certain whether or not that was an advantage. It was what it was, he thought, tugging the bolt back and chambering a round.

“This ends here,” he told the men, standing in more or less of a defensive posture. “Teams of two. Ten thousand on top of the current bonus for the team that takes Springer out.”

“Then what?’ asked one of the men.

“Then I don’t care,” he growled in reply.

“Just get it done.”

Waverly and one of the other men waited as the first two teams headed off in different directions. When they were gone he motioned to the Tech Institute. Already he could hear sirens in the distance, coming from several different directions. He knew exactly where they were headed.

“Our boy is in there.”

“How do you know?” the young veteran contractor, a former artillery spotter, asked.

“We don’t have much time,” said Waverly. “Let’s get this done so we can get out of here and enjoy that money.”

“What about the others?”

Waverly looked at him with a cold empty stare. “What others?”

The Big Blue Sky: Sixty-four

It was a war council, a meeting to discuss strategies of attack rather than opportunities for diplomacy. Any pretext of peace was simply to assuage the pride and ego of the nation, and to portray the coming storm as a righteous one. It was a war council, though the men and women wore the finest suits, and were attended by aides in perfect uniforms. All were well-manicured and held advanced degrees from the finest educational institutions known to man. They were constant on blackberries, running to this conference or that committee meeting or media interviews. And despite their wealth and accoutrements they were no different from the tribes gathered at fires on the African plain a hundred thousand years before. They were the same as the ancient Hittitites, Illyrians and Huns, or the Germanic tribes that raged against Rome.

War had been decided, as much by ignorance as by the inconsolable tide of anger by the American people over the still mysterious deaths of the captives. The efforts by the Administration to find a diplomatic solution were abandoned the moment the two freighters were sunk in the Strait of Hormuz. An oblique claim of responsibility by an Al Qa’eda franchise could not be completely verified. Given the strategic peril US forces in the Persian Gulf faced, the President couldn’t take the chance of losing an entire carrier group to a possible Iranian ruse.

Allied forces in the Gulf were already on a war footing. The latest urgent preparations were certain to alarm the already jumpy Iranians, who undoubtedly were monitoring every Allied movement and unguarded communication. From the moment the freighters exploded the carrier group off the Saudi coast was prepared for an attack. Though the Iranians fully comprehended the American response, it was not something they could ignore.

They prepared for an immediate American retaliation. Neighborhood civil defense teams mobilized in every Iranian city, while tens of thousands began evacuating to the countryside and mountains. The Iranian air force scattered throughout the country, hiding in long prepared bunkers among villages, in farms and elsewhere. The Iranian navy left ports for protected coves and coastal areas, from which they prepared to launch a massive assault against the Americans.
Terror cells already activated across Western Europe and America had fallen one by one by sudden police raids. But not all of them had been discovered. These remaining cells prepared to carry out attack against civilian targets the instant the attack against Iran began.

The President leaned at the conference table in the Situation Room staring up at the satellite image of the Gulf and Middle East. This was the historic crucible of mankind’s legacy of war and violence. He appeared exhausted and hopeless, rubbing at the intractable tension now a permanent feature to his brow. The staff, joint chiefs and cabinet members sat pensively, not wishing to disturb thoughts upon which would weigh history forever.

He had hoped to stop a war, and had even run on that promise as a presidential candidate. But peace is not a decision, just as stopping a war is not a decision. Both are living creatures, and like living creatures must be starved or fed or killed just as surely as any other creature. The saddest thing was that peace was the most difficult to nurture and the easiest to kill, for a good peace could die from simple neglect. Peace was fed from the soul. It was heavenly and spiritual and antithetical to the hate and revenge and greed and ego that fed war. He had hoped to stop a war, and now felt as if he had filed the nation, the world and even the innocents in Iran who would suffer so terribly.

He stood and turned to the others. “I want an ultimatum to the Iranians. I’ll call the Chinese Premiere myself to make certain the message is delivered immediately.”

“They’ll need time to debate the points, Mister President,” said the Secretary of State. She had come to the job a little reluctantly, after running as candidate in a long and bitter election. But she had taken to the job at a historic moment, facing a daunting array of International issues, from multiple wars, a resurgence of high-seas piracy, a global recession, the environment and Nuclear proliferation.

She leaned back in her chair, a peach suit coat bunching slightly at the shoulders, her short blond hair lightly brushing the collar of a simple white blouse. The secretary’s eyeglasses teetered at the end of her nose. She was looking at the President, wondering how she might have managed all this if she had won the Presidency. The Secretary could hardly imagine weathering the crisis any differently.

“Time they don’t have,” the President replied.

“I think an ultimatum forces a situation,” said the defense secretary. “It backs everyone into a corner, and that gives us limited opportunities.”

“If see your point,” said the President, “but I do want to give the Iranians fewer options, with an expiration date.”

The secretary of State drew away her eyeglasses, holding them out before the notes and paper before her.

“My suggestion, if I was sitting in that chair,” she shared a warm smile with the President, precisely what was called for at that moment. “Carrot and stick. Offer them something they need with an expiration date which will undercut their international support if they refuse.”

The President sat on the table beside her. “I’m listening.”

She leaned back, finding for the first time that she truly liked the President, and that she had always respected him, but never quite realized it, or admitted it to herself before now.

Behind the scenes we deliver the message through the Chinese, making it abundantly clear the clock is ticking down to zero. We also play this fully in the Press and win the game on that court.”

The President folded his arms and chuckled. “Total bullshit.”

“The secretary laughed. “Welcome to the world of International diplomacy.”

The Big Blue Sky: Forty-three

A storm front was moving in. The darkening thunderhead spread across the western sky above the Keweenaw Peninsula like a great gray-blue hand. As it spread across the face of the sun great golden rays of light reached out like an iconic halo. At that moment Doug could not have escaped thoughts and memories of Jane. Even with all if this, she was constantly with him. And though he longed to look in her eyes once more, to hear her voice and taste her lips Doug would almost feel she was beside him.

There were other thoughts. He wondered about their love. Jane loved to say how she knew they were meant to be together, that they were soul mates, as if the whole Universe had weighed their happiness in its impossibly complex equation. But Jane was gone now and Doug remained at the start of a new and long life ahead. Was it a betrayal of their love if one day he found someone else? The thought tore a hole in his chest, and no amount of strength he could muster could hold back the inevitable tears.

Could he love again, john wondered. Was living the ultimate test of his love for Jane? If he loved again, was he being selfish? And if something of a body persisted beyond life, who would be remain beside for eternity? Would finding love again hasten the fading of her memory? Was it reasonable that he should spend life alone? And what of the girls? These were hardly questions that stood any chance of being answered any time soon.

Her watched as Geoff ushered the girls into a car and climbed behind the wheel. In a moment they were gone, heading west along the highway to a secluded cottage Geoff and carol rented to artist and writers and lovers, or those wishing to escape the world for a time. Doug knew they would be safe and sound there, even as his heart went after them. As the car disappeared in the distance, it was more than Doug could bear any longer.

It wasn’t a sobbing sort of cry, and it certainly wasn’t the first since losing his wife. But the tears came in unstoppable rivers, and the breaths shuttered and caught in his chest. Doug wiped away the tears again and again, gripping the cold plastic steering wheel of the truck and taking it hard. Doug moaned through gritted teeth, and if not for the girls, would have wished for death that instant. That’s when he noticed the Jetta pull into the motel and come to a stop in front of one of the rooms.

Molly climbed from the driver’s seat and tossed the keys to her partner. Doug studied him for a moment, and found something in his movements that made him believe the guy couldn’t be trusted. He would have to get Molly alone somehow, but didn’t have a clue how that might happen.

She remained outside, alone, strolling thoughtfully up to the highway and looking out across the stormy lake. Doug watched her pretty face, as stormy as the Superior, and recalled that moment of temptation in Istanbul. He failed to notice the black Suburban, and the three men within watching her from a lakeside overlook just up the road.

Molly’s partner returned a moment later. She turned and returned to the car, climbing in on the passenger side this time. As they pulled out and turned off onto the highway Doug spied the Suburban as it swung around to follow at a good distance. Doug waited until they were both nearly out of sight before pulling out onto the highway behind them.

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: Fifty-four

Golden pillars of morning light poured in through the tall stained glass windows inside St. Mary’s Church. They drifted and moved, transforming the congregation, the alter and the crowded rows of blond pews into curtains of light and shadow. The blended voices of the choir gave life to those shadows and light, as if those melodious tones were instead a quality to the sunlight, as if the light had been sent by God with a quality and power altogether different from mere daylight.

John was lost in them, feeling suddenly like a castaway from the world. He felt choked by the collar of his white Sunday shirt, and by the knot of his black bow tie. He was sweating under the collar, despite a pleasant breeze through the open doors at the back of the church. John turned and twisted his head and fought a growing sense of panic and desperation. He might have run outside, but that wouldn’t save him either.

Ana was beside him, but felt farther away from John than ever. Not even in the war, an ocean away, sending off a letter and waiting weeks for a reply, hoping it wouldn’t be a note saying he had been killed. She looked at him, wishing to know what was tearing at him so. He wished to tell her, to tell her everything, including his misgivings about their life and their love.

Where would John even begin? He found himself negotiating with fate, without knowing if such a thing was even possible. What was it? Was fate unchangeable and petty human choice the illusion that allowed us distance and insulation from the coldness of our ultimate fates? Perhaps it was indeed malleable and changeable. But what about Anna and her fate? Could she, as Louis foretold (given that it was impossible for him to know about Bert Himmel and the Spirit Lake fire) find someone else and have the child she wished to have? And what about Myron Himmel? Knowing his fate, and knowing that his death would alter their lives for the better, did John have a responsibility to their fates? John felt trapped by those thoughts, and grasped for the only decision he could see.

He'd run. John'd go off and repair his soul. He'd drown it in liquor, or bury it in lust and another woman. As for Anna, if would be a far sight easier for her to get on with things if he'd gone off and left her. Far easier, he figured, to digest betrayal than suffer mourning. There. There was the pit in the armor of Louis's predictions.

He was quiet all day, and didn't let on when she left to take care of Mrs. Conlon. At dusk, before Anna returned home, and without so much as a letter of explanation, John climbed into the truck and drove west out of Emmetsburg. He drove west into the twilight of his bitterness. He drove west into a rust red sun setting among the dusty purple haze of the darkening Iowa landscape.

Emmetsburg: Fifty-three

John sat on a stool beside the cellar door, wondering if he ought to be saying goodbye to the world. A storm was moving in, though the stars were bright and bold. The wind had picked up, carrying the mineral scent of approaching rain. The wind washed through the willow behind the house, tugging at its long flowing branches. There were flashes of lightening, reflected in houses and trees, but it was accompanied by a silence that told John the storm was the better part of an hour away.

The wind chased the off the heat of the day and kept the fire flies to the low branches of trees or among the tall grass at the back of the yard. More than that, the wind settled the storms in his heart that had tossed him madly the last few days. It didn’t resolve anything, and certainly gave him no peace of mind, but it offered a moment’s reprise from which he could collect the shattered pieces of his thoughts a bit.

Anna was already in bed, waiting for him. John felt that tug, the pattern and familiarity of being beside her the better part of his life, it was just that he couldn’t be near her right now. Too many thoughts and feelings besieged him, and too many doubts assailed him. It weakened him. It weakened his tongue and allowed those un-tempered misgivings free reign to charge Anna with things she might well be innocent of, at least as much as John’s heart was concerned. It was better he remain there in the yard where the solitude and quiet asserted themselves as the proper prescriptions for his tormented heart.

John pulled at the bandage. The act drew his mind from the sudden appearance of darker thoughts about Anna, their love and eternity, as if those thoughts had collected themselves from the broken pieces of his thoughts. The end of the bandage came loose, and if it was some sort of puzzle, something hiding a mystery, he began to unwrap it from his hand. He focused on it, forcing away though thoughts, wrestling them to the ground. The effort was fully respected in his face. John’s lips tightened, eyes narrowing and his brow sinking deeply. He pulled the wrappings away more quickly, more forcefully as the task to stop those thoughts became herculean. They fought back, allied with his selfish heart until he was helpless to hold them back any longer. They overran him, turning him from Anna, indicting and vilifying her for manufactured crimes and the hearsay foolishness of a madman.

The bandages lay in a pile at his feet. John held out the hand before him and studied the jagged scar, running from his index finger, through the center at his wrist where it almost reached his wrist. It was dark against the flesh of his palm, reminding him of trenches scarring the rolling farmland of France. He opened his hand, stretching his fingers as much as the pain and sutures would allow. He could feel the pull of the flesh, a tension that threatened to burst and gush warm dark blood.

“John?” Anna appeared at the back door. Her voice was sleepy and concerned. She noticed the bandages at his feet and came down the back step, the wind tugging at her thin white gown. “What have you done?”

“Cutting off the circulation,” he said, his voice held a sulking quality. She knelt before him, resting a hand on his knee. The other gently cradled the underside of his injured hand.

“Are you all right?” she tried in vain to find his eyes. “You’re just not yourself.”

“Fine,” he replied. “Just need to sort out a few things.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

It was as if these thoughts were a sin, a crime that he wished to hide. It was easier to be cruel to Anna than unburden himself. The words came out colder than he could ever recall speaking to her. It was as though someone else was speaking them.

“Can I keep a single thought to myself?” he told her. “Sometimes a man has to sort things out for himself. Now go on to bed.”

Anna stood and backed away, as if she no longer understood the man sitting on that stump. The words stabbed at her, and caused a cascade of reasons for his cruelty. Clearly it wasn’t John. She thought better of a response. She breathed heavily and shook her head.

“When you get things good and sorted out, John Perkins, come to bed.” She pulled open the screen and looked back at him once more. John was looking into the palm of his hand, picking at the stitches and dried blood. She let the door bang closed and went back to bed leaving him be.

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: Forty-nine

Umber. John hesitated at the steps to the jail across from the courthouse in Emmetsburg. It might have been better to leave well enough alone. A weaker part of him felt as though he'd been given a reprieve from the fate Louis described. The better part of him felt sure it was nothing more than the ramblings of a criminally insane man. But if all that was true, why did the questions persist in haunting him so?

How did Louis know about Bert Himmel? That little mystery added an undeniable weight to his ramblings, and had served to call into question so much that he took as unassailable. It plagued and shadowed damn near every thought and action that he might be living his final days, and that Anna would go off and find another love whom she might be just as happy or happier than with him. That specter made every breath and every moment agonizing. More, it caused him to question Anna and the very foundations of a love he prayed was eternal and exalted by God Himself. But if any of that were true, why did Louis not predict his own fate?

It wasn't much of a jail. The dull brown brick building was small, and partly painted in the mottled shade of a crooked oak. There were three cells at the back of the building, with old fashioned bars, straight out of some old Western movie. Most days they went unused, but for the occasional bar brawl, a drunk or two and vagrants coming in on out of town trains. Next to Louis Stanton the most dangerous criminals ever to grace Emmetsburg's jail were a couple out of towner's who, after attempting to blow up the bank at Cylinder, became so lost among tall August corn that they surrendered to the first farmer they came across. John found himself at the top of the step, almost without realizing, as if he was moving in a dream, as if he was a spectator in a foreign body.

John had questions. He had questions about Bert Himmel and how he knew old Bert would pass away that night. What was hardest for John to figure was, if Louis could see the future, why hadn't he predicted his own arrest? And what did that mean for John's fate, at least the one Louis predicted? Was it all the ramblings of a fool, or a con man who could read folks like some back alley Parisian Gypsy?

John went through the heavy wooden door, immediately assailed by the thin stale air within. It felt to him like a crypt, as it the air had not been let out in years, as if it was old and tired but whimsically melancholic. It was warmer inside than out on the street. The windows were up, but it did little for the heat. What it did do was let in the sounds off the street wheich, in that dulcid space, blended to a pale hollow din. On the back wall there were three eight by ten black and white portraits, hung vertically. President Hoover occupied the top spot. Below that was a porttrait of a pompous Vice President Curtis. Last was that of Govenor Daniel Turner. The walls were a faded shade of pale blue. Three heavy metal desks occupied the room, arranged neatly behind the receptionist's desk. All were a soft pea green, each with a pair of cherry-stained chairs set neatly before them. An American flag with dingy gold tassels hung limp on a pole in the far corner beside the stairs leading to George Bremer's second floor office.

Mildred O'connor, the receptionist. looked up from the Underwood typewriter. A report she was working on was being typed in triplicate, each page curling away and separated by thin reused black.sheets of fragile carbon paper.

Mildred had lost her husband the winter before last. Hank O;connor worked a lifetime with the railroad as a signalman. John knew Hank from Hamilton's diner and soda fountain's around the corner, which served the best and cheapest made-rite sandwiches in town. He went quietly in his sleep one night, a heartattack the doctor's said. But grief and the years had done little to diminish a natural beauty, nor an unmistakable enthusiasm that the good Lord put in her body. There wasn't a Sunday John could recall that Mildred wasn't leading the chior at St.Mary's.

Mildred smiled warmly, and invitation to return the gesture John found impossible to refuse. Her sharp blue eyes lit up the moment, further evidence of an uncommon beauty and warmth, neither of which had diminished greatly through the years. The expression darkened to a sympathetic smile, in Mildred's overly dramatic style, when she noticed the bandage on his hand.

“Oh dear,” she gasped. For anyone else such gushing emotion would see fake or condescending. “Looks just awful!. Must hurt something terrible.”

John reached out and gently squeezed her small frail hand. “In the way more than anything, “Miss O'conner.”

“Trust Misses Perkins is taking good care of you?”

He let go of her hand. “Never better.”

“Ah, she's a good soul, just like my Henry was.”

“Th at she is,” he agreed readily.

“You cherish every minute with that girl,” said Mildred.

John nodded smartly. “I do.”

“Gosh,” she beamed cutely, “remember when the two of you were a couple kids. I would say to Henry, now there's a couple meant for each other!”

“Expect Anna would be pleased to hear that.”

“Don't life just go by so fast?” Mildred waxed.

“That is does, Misses O'connor,” said John with a smart nod. “George back in his office?”

“Expect that's what you came in for,” She waved a hand in the air and turned sharply back to her reports. “Look at me, the lonely old widow, babbling on and on.”

“Not at all, hon,” said John. “Always a pleasure.”

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-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-one

John lay in bed, still clothed, staring at the ceiling. Anna was sitting beside him, her legs curled under her buttocks. The long hair fell down across one shoulder and over the breast. Leaning on one hand, she gently stroked his stomach. John frowned out of frustration of not knowing where to begin, and feeling the fool for ever considering any aspect of all this. He finally looked over, feeling even more foolish for her sympathetic smile.

“You must think I’m losing my mind,” he said.

“I think maybe we should call someone.”

“Whom?”

“Someone who can better care for Louis,” she replied. “It’s all too much for us, with your hand, and God forbid he hurts himself or someone else.”

John’s brow furled in thought. He took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling again. He was quiet, struggling with a thought, and then struggling with the words.

“If,” he paused again, “if something happened to me, what would you…”

She cut him off quickly, quite upset at even the suggestion.. “John, I won’t hear another word.”

John’s eyes moved wildly, searching the air, fighting thoughts and emotions not easily framed by mere words. He tried to think of Anna without him, and he tried not to think of such things. Both threatened to tear the heart from his chest. His mouth fell open in a silent lament. He took a deep breath and forced tears back, then looked to Anna again.

“I would want you to be happy if…”

“John, where is all this coming from?” She stroked his chest reassuringly. It tortured her to see him this way. “John, I intend to grow very old with you, whether you like it or not. We can’t predict what will happen today or tomorrow or five years from now, but I love you and while we are together on this earth that isn’t going to change.”

He nodded, though hardly satisfied with the answer. John chose not to press it any further. It only made him feel more foolish at believing any of this. As Anna laid her head upon his chest a single tear escaped. It ran from the corner of one eye, cool and slick, and into his hair. John closed his eyes tight, glad she couldn’t see any of this. He stroked her back and shoulders and gave a long deep sigh that drained away his heartache. Anna was already asleep against him. John held her close and kissed her hair, breathing her in as if his very life depended upon it.

Emmetsburg: Thirty-nine

John knelt in the damp cool grass, With his good hand he gripped Louis by the collar. Instantly Louis took hold of John’s arm, using it as leverage to pull himself close. Taken aback John tried to pull free, but again Louis and that impossible strength held him fast.

“Poor babies, John,” he sobbed in that far away voice, “All burned up. All burned up.”

“Who?, what are you talking about.”

“Them three pretty little girls up at Spirit Lake,” said Louis. “Nothing to be done, John. Nothing to be done. All burned up...” his words trailed away.

John shook him hard, feeling himself at the end of his patience. He growled, fighting emotion and not wanting to worry Anna, still standing in the door. “What the hell are you?”

“You'll be next, John. Go to meet your maker. Anna will get on. Be all right. All for the good.”

“What's for the good? I don't understand.”

“World goes on without us John,” said Louis. “Fills in the gaps. Sun rises and the sun sets. A new day comes. The dead are forgotten, but their actions and deeds live on in all the rest.”

John shook Louis again. He felt pushed to the edge. The blood charged madly through his veins, exploding in his temples.

“What if I break your neck?”

“You'll go, John Perkins.”

“Go where?”

“You'll go to save that boy. You'll go for Anna. You'll go.”

“To die?”

“Of course, John!”

“When? How?”

“One week's time, no more. You'll go, John Perkins, shot by your own hand.”

Louis released him and went limp, as if someone had simply flipped a switch. John pushed away, coming to his feet and backing away to regard Louis Stanton from a distance. He was sleeping, though John might have wished far worse for the man at that moment.

This was all so absurd, he thought. Either he was had or Louis was. Maybe both of them were mad. A shiver ran through him for just a moment as he entertained the thought that all this was true. He shook the thought away instantly. John was still languishing in the aftermath of that dark thought when a hand upon his shoulder startled him.

Emmetsburg: Thirty-eight

Green. Sins. These sins that echo constantly in the soul, like a whisper in the night. How many lifetimes would it take to outlast those echoes? Are they a fair burden, the price exacted for pain and treachery inflicted upon others? They accumulate like locusts on the wind, eventually devouring everything good and redeemable. These sins, small and large, the negotiations with ravenous egos piloting the soul to ruin.

And is religion and the permutations of fleeting morality, bled through the prism of ramshackle ethics, the means of escaping these sins? Not as an absolution by God, but as merely a cloak spread upon that blighted ground. The ground beneath remains ravaged and blighted, but must it remain that way forever? Is there any redemption, any return to the beauty and purity (if it was ever pure) of that original heart? Was God the redeemer, was choice, or is it death(or insanity)?

John weighed that question as he stood at the top of the trench, hidden from snipers by the glare of the setting sun. He looked back across the no man's land. He wasn't sick or exhausted or in pain any more. He was numb and empty. His brow was a ragged line, his eyes fixed upon movement in the distance, a figure moving near the German lines. The German stumbled towards his trench cradling that injured arm. At the edge he turned and looked back for John before disappeared forever.

Were sins something that could be weighed in the balance? For instance, what was a life worth? He hadn't killed the German, though it would have been an easy thing to do. No man would have judged him. War erases all pretentions of humanity and crumbles any construction of civilization. But a man's life was not his to take. It wasn't anyone's to take, which perhaps defined murder as a sin. In that regard, no sin could be undone. The only thing remaining was atonement. As John climbed back into the trench there was much he needed to atone for.

Emmetsburg: Thirty-seven

A moan awakened him. It was long and low, trailing to a pathetic whimper, not unlike that of a small child. John awake3ned with a start, believing for a moment that it had come from him. His body was a conspiracy of knots and bruises, his painfully empty stomach twisting with dysentery. Mud had hardened on his face and hands, tightening the flesh there. He sweltered, dripping with sweat as the caked earth and heavy wool uniform became an oven beneath the afternoon sun.

John's mind spun, fighting to grasp hold of the world once more. Had John fallen asleep, or had he slipped into unconsciousness. It seemed a subtle distinction, and one that John wasn't sure he could answer.

The crater was drenched in deep shadow, mostly. The white gold disk of the sun fell oblique across the shoulder of the crater, carving the far rim in bright day light. That light retreated steadily as the sun teased the crater's edge. Something in that disk drew John's attention. He squinted into it, struggling to make out something moving it its light. Undefined and barely discernable it fluttered and moved excitedly, hovering in that light like an angel. John's mouth opened partly in disbelief and partly that he felt compelled to say something. The angel grew and came nearer until he could make out the blurred and still undefined motion of the wings. His heart rose to meet it, as though it was being rescued from the misery of the crater and the war. When it set down upon the rim of the crater as a small sparrow it was almost too much for John to take.

Each man has his limit and his precipice. Each man has a load beyond which he cannot bear. It is a crushing moment when that limit has been reached, for nothing so defines the soul as that limit. Indeed, nothing defines a soul as much as the way a man comes to that limit. The catalyst plunging a man over the edge may be miniscule or profound. The supreme disappointment that the bird was not an angel come to same him drove Kohn to the very edge of sanity.

The moan returned, this time louder and more sustained. It was all John could do to lift his head to discover the origin. The muscles of his neck had grown stiff, pulling at the back of his skull and sending burning tides of pain through his head. Behind the muddy little wall John had constructed, Roddy writhed and dug at the mud with his fingers, as though that might divert or stem the terrible pain from which he prayed to almighty God for relief or for death. Roddy’s moan evolved into a cry that John knew for certain would bring the Germans down upon them. John pushed himself to a kneeling position, still leaning on his arms and mustered the strength to reach Roddy.

Suddenly the man arched his head skyward and gave the most unholy and painful cry John had ever heard. Roddy's eyes rolled back in his head and his body shuddered unnaturally. With that he began to thrash and sob, repeating again and again, “Kill me!”

John fell upon him, turning him over and clamping a hand across the man's mouth. But Roddy twisted and convulsed so hard, biting down hard enough on John's hand to draw blood, that it became impossible. Frantic and terrified, fully expecting German soldiers to appear at any second, John drew a rag from his pocket and quickly stuffed into Roddy's mouth to quiet him.

There was no doubt the German's had heard Roddy's wailing. The air had stilled. The sound would carry to both lines. John drew back the hammer on the revolver with one hand, and with the other covered Roddy's nose and mouth. John leaned over the suffering man, pressing down with his entire weight.

A German soldier appeared at the lip of the crater. John leveled the revolver and put a bullet neatly through the man's neck, killing him instantly. Another appeared, and John shot him too. A third appeared. John fired again, but the German, a towering powerhouse of a man rolled under it, coming up again with his rifle and bayonet within thrusting distance.

John was ready, and parried away the bayonet with the pistol. In the mud and slope of the crater wall both men lost their balance, abandoning their weapons and ending up in a heap on the far side of the pit. They were instantly teasing and slugging at one another.

John was clearly outclassed against the German. He was nimble and quick despite his size. John was stunned by the man's strength, and the man seemed almost to delight in even the best placed of John's punches. For a minute, as they grappled half submerged in the pool at the bottom of the crater, John almost thought the guy was toying with him. As if to make that point, he turned john around and hook an arm around his neck to strangle him. The fight was running away from him. John had reached his precipice. He'd gone over the edge, clinging to the world by a tenuous hand hold.

John dropped his chin as the German hooked the arm around his neck and bit down. The man's flesh stretched under his bite, then broke gushing warm into his mouth. The man screamed and clawed at Johns eyes, the ragged finger nails drawing deep troughs across John's cheeks and forehead. Finding bone john twisted until part of the man's arm came loose in his mouth.

With that the German pulled away stumbling backwards and falling over Roddy, now still and lifeless. The man froze, a horrified expression coming to him as John rose over him and spit out a piece of the man's arm, blood dripping from his lips. It wasn't fear of death, but more that John had crossed some threshold. It was as though john had uttered some forbidden obscenity beyond what the so-called civilized conventions of warfare allowed. John had become a demon, and that was fully reflected in the German soldier's expression. For him that was the precipice; that was the limit. As John picked up the trench knife the man shook his head once, as if asking the demon to reconsider. John fell to his knees straddling the man's legs and grabbed him hard by the collar. The man closed his eyes and turned his head aside.

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-four

If he'd been running straight Louis might have been half way to Illinois by the time John got dressed. He was erratic though, falling and flailing again and again, and through up the most unholy cries, as though he was in mortal agony. John hesitated at the back screen door. He thought better of the pistol and placed it on the counter, pulling a dish towel over it.

Louis was up again, but making feeble progress towards the tree line at the back of the yard. He turned, upturned face ripped by excruciating pain, mouth agape. Louis washed his hands across his head and torso before going down hard once more. He let out a shriek that faded into a silence far beyond pain.

John was running as hard as he could through the dewy wet grass in his bare feet. Each footfall thundered painfully in his injured hand. He ignored it as best he could, believing that the man was truly dying. It seemed that these were Louis' final agonizing assertions. Anna was behind him on the step, still wrapped in the quilt.

John caught up to him almost at the tree line, where the grass was deep enough to wet the bottoms of John's trousers. Louis was on his hands and knees hardly making any progress at all as he swatted at something unseen torturing at his head and shoulders. Louis moaned loudly and rolled onto his back, drawing his legs up. His eyes were wide and distant, fixed somewhere among the starry heavens.

A body dies from head wounds like the one Louis had suffered. Not right away. Some pass on in their sleep. Others writhe and cry at the excruciating pressure as blood pools in the skull, crushing life from the brain. Louis had seen that before. The memory took him back to the bloodied fields of France 1917.

Emmetsburg: Thirty-two

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

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

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

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

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

Emmetsburg: Thirty-one

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emmetsburg: Thirty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Me, sir?”

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

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

“Worried for my mom.”

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

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

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

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

Emmetsburg: Twenty-nine

Louis Stanton came around a little that evening when Anna went up to look in on him. It wasn’t much, but enough to take a bit of her chicken soup. He sort of looked at her through half closed eyes, as though she was an angel. She was quiet, cradling his head gently as she lifted the soup to his lips. He took a few spoonfuls and laid his head back on the pillow. His brow faltered with obvious pain.

The light from a small kerosene lamp on the shelf was soft, filling the room with the color of warm molasses. The small orange flame danced ever so slightly, throwing competing shadows against the sloping wall. Anna and Louis seemed suspended and eternal in the glow of the lamp, like subjects from a painting by Vermeer.

John was behind her at the top of the stairs. She’d heard him come up. She’d heard the old wood stairs creaking and groaning under his weight. Anna stood, still holding the bowl in both hands. She was radiant.

Anna turned away from Louis and met John at the top of the stairs. Her eyes met John’s, finding an emerging weariness for life; the collective shame, heartache and uncertainty that accumulates with a life. She also found not a small amount of trepidation about their love making the other night. It was, she recognized, a reticence to cause her any further pain. In the end a man is bound by his fears, and each man’s toleration is entirely his own.

John gently cupped her soft warm cheek. Their eyes held for a moment. She kissed his hand then carried the bowl down to the kitchen. John waited until she was gone before going to Louis.

Louis was already asleep again. John sat in the chair beside the bed and leaned back, draping an arm across the back of the chair. He sat there long after Anna had gone to bed. The room was dark, lit only by the pale blue-white light of a crescent moon. The most magnificent breeze came through the open window. The world felt at peace, and John basked fully in that sublime moment.

He breathed deeply and studied Louis’ face carefully. Stanton had drifted off to deep, deep sleep. His face was to the window. His breaths were slow and rhythmic. John folded his arms and felt his tired eyes brow heavy. He fought it as best he could, and kept telling himself he should get down to bed. Sleep won the argument a moment later.

John awakened with a jolt believing for an instant that he was tipping from the chair. He grabbed for the seat with both hands, the bisected halves of his injured palm tearing against the stitches. He groaned in pain. The groan was abruptly cut short when he noticed Louis. Startled, he retreated from the bed, tipping over the chair and stumbling backwards before catching himself against the book shelf.

“Jesus!” he laughed, chagrined. “Frightened me, Louis.”

But Louis’ gaze was far away. His eyes were wild staring past John. He was holding tightly to the edges of the bed, his body and head rising off the bed, hinting at an unnatural strength John felt utterly impossible to believe.

“Louis?” said John, inching forward when there was no reply. He’d seen men at the end of their lives refusing to concede to that dark and mysterious destination. He’d seen them do impossible things, seen them display amazing feats of strength in those final defiant moments, but nothing like this. John reached to him, stopping short of the bed.

“World is bigger than us, John,” said Louis with the same strange voice from the night before. John started for the bed, his face twisted as he struggled to understand Louis’ meaning.

Louis continued. “Day is fast approaching, John Perkins, you'll meet your maker.”

The words washed over John like an icy cold shower. He'd heard them, there could be no doubt. Louis suddenly threw his arms towards the ceiling, his fingers outstretched and rigid. He raised himself higher into a semi-sitting position, seeming to degy gravity. Tremors shook him, as if energy flowed through his whole body.

“Ain't the end of the world,” said Louis. “Anna will get by. All for the good, John, all for the good.”

It took a moment before John could collect himself. It all seemed like something from a nightmare, yet John felt sure he was very much awake.

“What about Anna?' John demanded. “Tell me waht's going to happen to Anna!”

Louis' eyes remained wide and unblinking, staring far off into another dimension where time and another world overlapped with this one.

“Sun rises and it’s a new day,” said Louis, “and all those who went before are dead and forgotten.”

John'd had enough and grabbed Louis by the collar, pulling him closer. Anger crumbled before rage until john was almost blind and capable of anything. He shook Louis hard, if though it might rattle him from this trance. He looked to the window and thought he might finish things for good. It would easy enough to explain. John could tell how Louis went mad from his injury and threw himself out the window.

“Enough of your damned riddles!”

“Be all right, John Perkins. Its all for the good.”

“What good?” John shook him once more. He growled through gritted teeth. “What the hell are you saying!”

“You got to die, John. Its the only way.”

“Only way?”

“You die to save Bert Himmel's boy,” said Louis. “Anna be all right. Find herself a good man and give him a son. Life goes on, John. Sun rises, it’s a new day.”

John let go of Louis and backed away from the bed. He rubbed the tension and confusion from the forehead, pacing the room a moment. He stopped and turned to Louis again, taking a moment to find words.

“How do you...I don't understand.”

“Ain’t for you to understand, John. For you to go to your fate…”

“My death,” John interrupted.

“Your fate knowing it’ll all work out just fine.”