The Big Blue Sky: Seventy

“Get up,” Waverly ordered.

“You might as well pull the trigger,” Doug said. He felt sure Molly was dying, and was helpless to do anything for her. He was exhausted and beaten and couldn’t find the strength to give a damn any longer.

“You’re my ticket out of here, right now.”

Waverly shoved Doug through the classroom, and past the body of the young contractor, a bullet hole through his forehead, a surprised expression frozen upon his pale face. The hallway was quiet and deserted. There was more gunfire, far off across the campus. It began with a brief exchange, building quickly to a blistering and sustained fusillade before ending abruptly.

“Sounds like it’s about finished for your men,” said Doug. He groaned in pain as Waverly jammed the barrel of the Bushmaster into his back, forcing him into a stairwell.

The fire exit at the bottom of the stairs was unguarded. Down on the street a young rookie cop stood behind the door of a white and blue Evanston police cruiser. His attention was off in another direction. Doug nearly cried out, but Waverly had a clear shot and could have taken the boy down easily. There was a parking lot close by. They used the cars for cover and were across the grassy lawn quickly. Crossing the road the pair cut across tennis courts and commandeered a little white Honda. Waverly forced Doug behind the wheel and climbed in beside him. They headed south into the city, passed by a steady stream of emergency and police vehicles headed towards the university. The shooting was over now. All the contractors and one campus cop lay dead.

The Big Blue Sky: Sixty-nine

“What are we doing here?” Molly asked. She held the pistol at her leg. Her heart thundered madly. Every errant sound in the big empty hallways made her jumpy and anxious.

“Looking for someone.”

“Care to share a little?” Molly complained.

Doug stopped before a large directory. White plastic letters were pressed into a black board set into the wall and covered by glass. Doug touched the glass, running his finger down until he came to a name.

“Louis Purvich, Professor.” He said.

“Who?”

“When I called my old editor he said we should talk to his son-in-law.”

“And this is important at this moment?”

“I need some information or I’ll look like a fool at that Press conference. I have one shot. I have to put all the pieces in place.”

Molly nodded. “We better hurry then.”

They ran down the hall and up two flights of stairs, finding a small office at the back of lab. They lab itself was like something from a tinkerers dream. The machines seemed haphazard and strange. Doug was by no means an uneducated man, but he could not make sense of any of them.

“Looks like a hi-tech junk shop,” Molly remarked for the both of them.

There was a small wood-cut sign on the door. It was simple, like a child had created it. A crudely etched tin-can robot frowned while sniffing a daisy. There was a question mark over the robot's square head. The sign read:

DEPARTMENT OF CYBER-ETHICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY

Doug didn’t bother knocking. There was no time. He reached for the doorknob. It turned easily. He pushed it open, startling the professor inside. Molly pushed past Doug and went to the phone on the Professor’s desk, lifted the receiver and dialed the emergency operator.

“This is Agent Karaman again. I phoned in the emergency. I am located on the third floor of the Technological Institute, North End in one of the labs. I have a Federal witness with me and will need security immediately to protect him.” She hung up the phone, took the badge from her pocket and hung it around her neck where it would be seen plainly. “No need to get shot by friendlies.”

Doug looked to the astonished young man. He couldn’t have been older that thirty, though a deeply receding hairline made him look a bit older at a glance. It was offset by long straight blond hair. He was skinny and t all, and a awkward, with bright blue eyes and a two day growth of beard. The office was a mess, dominated by a chaotic bookshelf filled with reports, hastily stuffed files and an eclectic mix of philosophy and computer books.

“Professor Purvich?” asked Doug.

“Doug Springer? Arnie said…”

“Is there another way out of here?” asked Molly, returning to the door, now holding the pistol in both hands.

“If you can fly or bounce!” the Professor replied, sarcastically, but quickly thinking better of it when she glared at him. “What’s going on?”

“We don’t have much time,” Doug began. Molly moved across the lab to the door. “I’m trying to put together the pieces of a weird puzzle…”

“Nano-weapons.” Purvich said abruptly, taking Doug a little aback.

Doug looked curiously at the sign on the door. “Cyber-ethics?’

“The digital revolution is overwhelming us,” said Purvich. “It’s evolving faster than humanity’s ability to understand it. Some would call it a new life form, maybe the replacement form for humanity. Twenty years from now machines will be autonomous, self replicating and doing things we cannot even conceive of. Question is, will they perceive us as their Adam and Eve, as nuisances or enemies? Will we perceive them as enemies, God’s or both? The ethics of all this is that we need to find a way to program basic ethics and morality into our machines, or they will fashion their own, and we must come to some understanding and perspective in machines of our creation which, one day, will likely not need us to exist.”

“How does that work for nano-weapons?”

“It doesn’t,” Purvich said simple.

“I don’t get it.”

“You’re not asking the right question,” said Purvich. “What happened in Iran two days ago has all the hallmarks of a Nanobot attack. No ethics, just machines programmed to function on its designer’s shifting sense of ethics. Nanobots are simple, dumb things.”

“Nano-what? You have to forgive my ignorance.”

“Not your fault,” he said. “Nobody knows about this stuff. Nobody in the government and nobody in military, that for sure. Nano-technology is not on anyone’s radar yet, but it is definitely the future. If we’re smart it will change humanity forever. If we ain’t it’ll hit us like a bullet between the eyes.”

“Fallahi said it was like the discovery of fire; a Frankenstein monster.”

“Purvich nodded. “Not far off the mark. What we’re talking here is infinitesimally small, on the scale of millionths of an inch. By contrast, the diameter of a human hair is colossal by comparison. But the applications are infinite; phenomenally better processors, incredibly efficient fuel cells, revolutionary medical applications, like little robots that would hunt down and eradicate tumors before you knew you had them, un-dreamed of textiles and fabrics and warfare.”

“And how would those applications work for weaponry?”

Purvich chuckled. “How good is your imagination? Right now we’re sort of theoretical with carbon silicon Nano-tubes a thousandth the width of a human hair, with a sort of tube and soccer ball configuration, but from that we can build and program and amazing array of nano-machines.”

“How difficult are these to produce?’ asked Doug. Molly was listening from the door, while keeping a wary eye on the hall. Outside the sirens had risen to a racket. There was gunfire in the distance. Purvich led Doug across the room to an odd looking machine. It was hardly bigger that a small chest of drawers.

“A couple of geeks, a million and a half dollars and an internet account to buy a thimble full nano-tubes and you, my friend, could bring the world to its knees.”

“And where does one logon to but nano-tubes?”

Purvich went to a blackboard and quickly scribbled out a formula:

It’s simple, anyone can create so-called forests on nano-tubes in a substrate growth rate in a really simple formula, H(t)=βTo(1-e-t/To), where β is the initial growth rate and T sub zero is the catalyst’s lifetime.” He could see that he was losing Doug a bit in the techno stuff. “It’s simple. Very simple.”

“Anyway to detect one of these nano-weapons?”

“Honestly? Depends on the technical expertise of the designer. They could disappear, breakdown on command, dissolve, or burn up.”

Molly looked away from the door. “Burn up?”

“Sure,” said Purvich. “You could actually generate a substantial amount of heat.”

“Enough to say, burn through human tissue?” Molly pressed.

“Absolutely,” he replied.

“And how would you deliver these?” asked Doug, with a knowing look to Molly.

“God, the possibilities boggle the mind.”

“In a glass of water?” asked Molly.

“I suppose,” the Professor replied.

There was a sound at the door. Molly wheeled around, bringing the pistol up as Waverly and the other man stormed inside, unleashing a hail of bullets. Molly returned fire, dropping Waverly’s partner. Doug fell on Purvich, shoving him back into the office just as two bullets slammed into Molly. She grunted and tumbled to the floor, her pistol skidding away across the floor.

“Molly!” Doug cried, scrambling over to her. Dark red blood spread beneath her body. Molly’s head was turned to the side, and covered by her long dark hair. Just as he reached for her Doug felt the press of a cold hard gun barrel at the back of his head.

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-six

The order had already gone out to Allied forces throughout the Gulf. The order to attack Iran would come in less than seven hours, just before the President addressed the nation. The British and French protested vociferously, but had been appeased with economic concessions over the post-war Iranian State. There was no interest on the American side in occupying the country. This was punishment pure and simple. The Iranian state would be hammered with a ferocity that would have stunned Saddam in the last days of his reign. The pieces would be left for others to squabble over.

Twelve thousand Marines were moving from Kuwait and would strike over land to cut off Iran from her fuel supplies. Another five thousand would secure Gulf Islands to prevent the Iranians from using them as bases to attack the American fleet now largely trapped in the Gulf. Using the cover of an anti-Taliban built up two armored divisions would drive south out of Helmand Province in Southern Afghanistan, where they would support the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions in seizing Iran’s Ports on the Gulf of Oman.

A massive cyber attack would shutdown the country hours before the attack commenced, sowing chaos and terror. From bases in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and from three different carrier groups, the country would be steadily dismantled from the air. Secondary strikes would degrade communications, support and supply efforts by the Iranians. Cities would be isolated quickly by severing power lines, targeting roads and bridges and disrupting cell phone communications. The Islamic Republic of Iran had precious little time left, if the attack went forward. Iran would continue, as Iraq had after Saddam, but what that would be was impossible to know for sure.

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.

Big Blue Sky: Five

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Don’t like that look,” she said.

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

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

“Is there a case here, Caspar?”

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

“What does that leave?”

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

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

“Looks like a burn,” she remarked.

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

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

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

“So it was a hemorrhage?’

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

“There, you see?” he said.

“What is that?”

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

“That would be…”

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

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

“From inside.”

“I believe so,” he said.

“Is that possible?”

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

“These are also his?”

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

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

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

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: 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: 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-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-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: Twenty-seven

John knew the spot. It was small place at the back of the cemetery set off quite obviously from the other graves. There all the stillborn and infant children were buried. It was as if they bore a separate caste from those who had lived and loved and dreamed. Their tiny plots and inconsequential gravestones were quietly succumbing to encroaching grass. A few had been recently adorned with toys and trinkets and candles. There were dried flowers on another. The rest were forgotten.

John didn't pull in all the way. It seemed more appropriate to get out and walk the rest of the way rather than to disturb the peace and quite of this place, as though there was a necessary reflection awaiting. As though there was something whose value was measured in unhurried steps and silence.

There are moments beyond word and description. Moments that pull the body to earth with an undeniable weight, like the roots of a great oak holding it firmly to earth. What words, after all, could appropriately describe the loss of child. When at last they came to that place, the inscription on the flat limestone marker was all that needed to be said.

DANIEL PATRICK PERKINS
born JUNE 11, 1929
died JUNE 12, 1929


John looked skyward and felt the fullness of the emotion, like a stone in his chest. Little Daniel had been born breach, strangled by the umbilical cord. He'd lived through the night, his final breaths fading like echoes across the sea.

How does a soul live only for one day, thought John? What god could conceive of so fundamental an injustice? Could not the universe exist and allow for the life of a child? It all called to mind for John the purpose and the very existence of the soul. It seemed to him that the very purpose of the soul was to live, and if nature eschewed waste, at least in theory, wasn’t the waste of a child’s soul the greatest of god’s hypocrisies? He looked to Anna for some explanation, but her expression was as heavy and distant as he had ever know.

She could feel his expectant gaze, but Anna was somewhere a man could never go. She felt herself pulled into the grave, filtered thru the grass and poured down to soak through the soil until she filled the small casket beside her child. And he was there, sleeping deeply as Anna pulled the boy to her breast. And there in that quiet place she cried out loud, her voice absorbed by the heavy earth so that not another soul in the world would hear.

John stood for longer than he thought he could bear. He stood for Anna, but remained unsure when she turned and quietly walked back up to the road. He followed, keeping a step or two behind her. Her gate was smooth and measured. She looked skyward and all around, as though contemplating the moment. She was so strong, he thought, but then it all fell to pieces.

Anna stopped without turning back. Her mouth fell open in a silent lament, and Anna gave a shuddering breath but held back tears. With that she thrust out an arm, grasping for some anchor, as though grief might sweep her from the earth and fling her out into space and freeze her in that moment forever. John rushed to her. He took her by the arm and led her up to the truck.

Emmetsburg: Twenty-six

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

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

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

“Don't know.” he said simply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EMMETSBURG: Twenty-five

Lavender. John awoke morning with a start, as if sleep had been a hypnotist's trick broken with a snap of the fingers or a secret word. It was as if no time passed at all. As if he simply closed his eyes, and when he opened them again it was morning. For a moment his injured hand was numb, laying beside him as though it was made of lead.

He languished in that odd moment before the pain returned as an avalanche. It came like a shock, as though powerful hands dug into the healthy flesh of his palm and was now tearing his hand in two. John nearly shouted, but feared waking Anna, still sleeping soundly beside him. He twisted and strained until the muscles in his shoulders cramped, until the pain drove him from bed onto the hard floor.

His mind spun from pain such as he had never known before, thoughts muddled as an opal. Then, just as sudden and terrible as it came, the pain abated. John knelt and let his head fall back. He gave a long heavy sigh and felt fully spent for the pain. There were tears in his eyes and upon his cheeks.

He grabbed a pair of brown slacks from the basket near the door and staggered out into the dining room. There was a sound from the bedroom. John turned as Anna mumbled something in her sleep and turned away to the window. Morning light filtered through the lace curtains, painting Anna and the room in quiet lavender hues. John lay the trousers on the floor and stepped into them. He pulled them up careful not to use his injured hand.

John went quietly up the stairs. A swift breeze rushed through the window beside the stranger, lifting the curtains and holding them in a bowl above the bed. The air tasted of dust and morning dew and carried the layer scents of hay and wood smoke. John sat in the chair beside the bed and studied the man for a time, as if he was some interesting and mysterious new species.

The stranger was on his back, turned slightly from the window. His brow was furled, but more as if he was suffering a terrible nightmare or burdened by something than from physical pain. One arm was hidden beneath the blanket. The other was across his chest, gripping the blanket tightly.

The stranger stirred slightly, then threw his head back in a silent moan. It caught John by surprise, but he reached out and laid a hand on the man’s arm and chest. He turned his face to John. His eyes opened grudgingly, straining to focus.

“Relax,” said John, affirming a hold on the stranger’s arm, fearing a repeat of the night before. “Can you hear me?”

The man nodded slightly. His eyes darted around a room that was still only vague and indiscernible shapes.

“Everything’s fine. Had a bad accident.”

“Don’t recall,” said the man, staring at the ceiling as though struggling to comprehend.

“Took a bad hit to the head and ended up in a creek. Took three of us to pull you free.”

“My automobile?”

“Wrecked. Afraid she’s gone.”

“She?” He looked at John’s hand upon his chest.

”Smashed up.” John let go of the man’s arm and patted it reassuringly. “Main thing is getting you on your feet again.”

“Can’t pay you.”

“Don’t recall asking.” John held his injured hand as he moved a bit on the chair. “Name’s John Perkins.”

“Louis,” the man replied, as if it had just occurred to him. “Louis Stanton.”

“Where you from, Louis?”

He was clearly perplexed by the question, and troubled at not remembering. Louis looked to the window and then back to John. “Can’t say for sure.”

“It’ll come you,” John rubbed the man’s shoulder and stood. “The wife and I have to run an errand. You best stay in bed. Misses Perkins will cook you something when we get back.

“Could use a bite.”

John started to ask him something, but didn’t know quite how to frame the question, or whether he should ask it at all. He started for the stairs then turned.

“You, uh, you said something last night.”

“Did I?” Stanton replied. John wasn’t sure he was telling the truth. “Can’t recall.”

“Nothing?” asked John, almost accusingly.

“Last I recall I was making my way through the storm next thing I know I wake up just now.”

John wasn’t convinced. “Ever met a fella named Bert Himmel.”

“Never heard that name before.”

“John nodded and decided not to press the issue further, at least not for now. “Well, get some rest. We won’t be gone long.”

John began down the stairs. He paused to study a step that seemed to give a tad too much. Louis spoke once more, but it sounded different somehow, as though his voice was far away and more a quality of the wind through the window.

“You’re a good soul, John Perkins.”

When John turned back Stanton was sound asleep, leaving John to wonder if this wasn’t some sort of trick. He had a mind to shake the man, if only there was something to accuse him of. He was lost in the many permutations of that thought when Anna appeared at the bottom of the steps, startling him.

EMMETSBURG: Twenty-four

Silver. John didn't mention any of it. He didn't mention any of what had happened with the stranger, nor did he dismiss any of it. It was best not to concern her until he understood just what had happened. And something had happened, something more than he could simply dismiss as a product of a tired mind or his injury. John could still feel where the man had gripped his wrist. The red marks were still there.

He went out in the back yard for a breath of air before turning in. Brilliant silver stars dazzled across a midnight blue sky. The ghostly white plain of the milky way was splashed across that sky, running from near to far horizon. It was much cooler now. John tilted his head skyward and stretched with a yawn. His hand ached something awful. He took a deep breath and returned to the house. A good night's sleep, he figured with put things in their proper place.

Anna turned down the bed and helped John undress. A candle was burning on the night stand setting Anna smooth skin alight as she undressed. John studied her from the door, marveling at the sway of her breasts, the fleeting tightness of muscles in her back, the way a breath reveal and erased the rhythm of her ribs.

As she pulled the loose white nightgown over her head John was suddenly shaken at the commodity of such things. Those moments fell away like raindrops to the ocean, never to return again. This life was fleeing them both, the night’s spent in one another’s embrace far more valuable than any jewel. A part of him wished to tumble into that thoughts, as though it was a beautiful pool and dissolve himself. Yet another part was so terrified at all the paths that thought led him down that John wished to escape and forget her forever.

Laying in bed, his thoughts went to Bert Himmel and how rough he appeared slouched and spent in that chair at his shop. Didn't seem like a good sign the way he fought so hard for breath. John shook away the thought, and was sure old Bert was just fine. Just the same he'd run up to Mallard in the morning. Not that he put any faith in what the stranger had said, if in fact he said anything of the kind (more than likely it was gibberish John weary mind grew into something more). It would give him a chance to talk to Bert's boy, Myron, again about the roof. He'd need the boy's help more than ever now.

That was the last thought he'd recall. Sleep came quickly. Again it would feel like a little bit of death, like descending into a deep and dark and formless void, in which time and thought and dreams refused to venture.

EMMETSBURG: Twenty-three

John went lightly up the creaky old wood steps. They were narrow and angled sharply to the left. He paused a half dozen or so steps from the top, where he could just make out the stranger quiet and asleep on the small cot below the front window. Whatever Anna had heard earlier, the man was quiet now. John climbed to the top of the stairs and crossed the room, sort of making a long slow arc around to the end of the bed. As he did John watched the man's still face the whole time trying to glean some small clue to who he was and what he was doing in Emmetsburg.

“Are you an angel or a devil?” John said quietly, the words escaping him with him fully realizing. It was almost as if someone else spoke them.

John picked up a King James Bible Anna left on a small stool beside the bed. He sat and held the book to his chest as though it was a shield, as the prettiest breeze washed through Anna's hand-sewn lace curtains. A night chorus of crickets found him with the breeze. John lay the Bible in his lap and pulled it open, flipping expertly to a favored passage. He cleared his throat and began to read aloud in a quiet steady voice. He almost knew the words by heart.

“... And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? Then satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nounght? Hast thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the works of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land...”

The man stirred slightly. He grimaced, and for the first time John truly took note of the terrible nature of the man' injury. John recalled a stray dog he'd whacked in the head with a stick as a boy when it growled at him. The dog came up dead the next day, laying in the street near the place where John had encountered it. He'd always believed the poor creature had died from that hit to the head. Then there was a member of his platoon in France who was hit in the head by a sniper's bullet. He'd stood up to take a piss when the bullet banged off the man's helmet, knocking him cold for a spell. He waved off the medics and insisted everything was fine. That night on watch he dozed off and never woke.

John reached across to adjust the man's blanket. Suddenly he reached up and gripped John's arm. His eyes flashed open, but the gaze was distant, off in some other world. He looked quickly to John, but more through him than at him.

“In God's hands!” he exclaimed. “In God's hands now.”
John fought to pull away, startled as he was, but the man's grip was far too strong. Indeed, it was impossible strong. More than that, the man's eyes were wild and filled with fire. John tried to pull away gain, but the stranger held him fast, john looked back at the stairs wanting to cry out. He thought of the gun and felt curse for it. It took John a moment to collect himself.

“Gods hands,” said the stranger, quieter this time, turning his eyes to the ceiling. “He's gone with the Lord.”

It was obvious he wasn't going to break the man's hold on his wrist. The more he tried the tighter the grip, until his fingers were almost numb. With his full weight John laid his forearm and back of his injured hand on the man's chest and pushed him back onto the cot.

“Who's with the Lord?” John asked.

“Why, Bert Himmel that's who,” the man's crazy eyes found John's again.

“Bert Himmel?” John inquired. “How do you know Bert Himmel?”

But the man's hold on John suddenly relaxed and the hand fell away limply. He gave a sigh as his eyes closed, his head turning to the window and the breeze. John stood and backed away from the bed, not believing any of it had really happened. Loss of blood he figured, the pain of the product of a long and exhausting day.

EMMETSBURG: Twenty-two

John pulled the box from the shelf, panicking a fat brown wolf spider whose web collapsed as the box ripped it apart. John mused as it drew is body and legs tightly into the silky-white web cone between the shelf and the foundation wall. John momentarily weighed his own existence between the creatures before returning to the box. He set the box on the bench and carefully peeled open the old green rag covering it. The box was dusty and dulled from the years. John opened it with his finger tips, wincing slightly as that tiny bit of pressure tugged at his sutured flesh.

Inside the pistol appeared pristine and new, a testament to the meticulous and reverent care of the former owner. Within the box lay his grandfather's six shot forthy-four caliber 1847 Colt Walker pistol. The barrel was long, with a polished brass trigger guard and a deep brown walnut grip. The trigger guard bore a deep dent, the consequence of a rebel musket ball at the battle of Cold Harbor. John lifted the pistol gently and weighed its full four and a half pounds in his good hand.

There was a history to the Colt. His grandfather had carried it as a cavalryman with the Sixth Iowa in the War Between the States. He returned home to Emmetsburg the day Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. It was the elder Perkins who laid the pistol in that box, intending to put it away forever. It passed to John's father in Eighty-eight, and then to John when his father passed in twenty-two.

It was the first weapon John had ever fired, back when he was barely able to hold it steady with both hands. He could plainly recall his father behind him, helping to steady the pistol that threatened to tip a small and wiry boy onto his face. And he could plainly recall how frightened he became as the bullet exploded from the barrel.

John pushed out the cylinder and looked through the six empty chambers. He snapped it back into place and scooped out four heavy lead bullets from the box. Quickly, like a child downing some disagreeable medicine, John shoved the bullets into his pocket. He returned the pistol to the box and closed the lid.

Awful things, these, John thought. They were brutish and un-elegant, the same way a hammer served a function but held no true beauty. They were utilitarian, a kind word that described a tool invented for the singular function of killing. John said a silent prayer and crossed himself quickly before tucking the box under his wounded arm.

The evening air was noticeably cooler when John climbed from the cellar. It wasn't really colder. It was that he felt a bit colder for the gun and for the thoughts that accompanied the gun. A part of John felt stunted or dumbed simply for possessing the thing, as though any modicum of wisdom and wit had abandoned him for the implied power and ready violence. His faculties and wisdom seemed suddenly a burden, and flimsy. The gun allowed him the power to react without thought, and gave license to squander negotiation and reason for animal impulse.

John startled Anna at the bottom of the stairs, Just as she was coming down from seeing to the stranger. She slipped on the last step. As John reached to steady her the box crashed to the floor, and out tumbled the pistol. Anna's eyes widened, and she looked to John with alarm.

“Didn't mean to startled you,” he scooped the pistol back into the box as quickly as he could, feeling suddenly awkward and foolish.

“Oh, my god, John!” Anna gasped.

“Just for tonight.”

“Is that really necessary?”

“I'll put it someplace safe.”

She nodded reluctantly. John started for the bedroom. Anna caught his arm. She searched his Irish green eyes a moment.

“Are we terrible?” she asked, with fearful and anxious eyes begging to be rescued.

John's expression held the weight of a mathematical equation. “I'm bound to see him get better, but I have to think of you too.”

She nodded and stroked his arm. Anna understood well enough. Not happily, but she understood well enough.

“How is he?”Asked John.

“Goes in and out,” she replied. “Something, gibberish. Makes no sense.”

“Best I look in on him then,” said John.

EMMETSBURG: Twenty-one

“Heavens, John!” she gasped, at barely a whisper, so as not to wake Mrs. Conlon. She went to him and reached out for his hand without actually touching it.

“Been quite a day,” he said, looking past her to the bedroom door. “Maybe we should...”

“What happened?”

“Not as bad as it looks,” he couldn't quite look her in the face. John forced a smile through a surge of pain, not wishing to alarm her. He knew full well, however, that she could see through his pretend bravado and plastic male ego. “Some unlucky soul put his auto into the creek on the way to Mallard.”

“Dear!” she gasped. John waved his hand in the air between them.

“Took some to get him out,” he said.

“Oh. John,” she touched her breast, her face now as pale as fresh laundry, “you'll be the death of me.”

They went down to the kitchen where Anna still had a few chores to finish. John slid a small wooden stool over by the door with his foot and sat down. The light was fading quickly now. Anna was all but lost in shadow at the other end of the long and narrow kitchen. The back door was open. A heavenly breeze carried the sounds of the first crickets.

John reached up and turned the light switch by the door. It took a moment before the heavy copper filament in the clear bulb on the ceiling began to glow. Its feeble light painted the kitchen in bright and dark patches of Amaretto hues. The filament flickered gently, giving motion and life to the shadows. That flickering grew the pans and utensils hanging from the ceiling into strange and abstract shapes.

Anna ladled the last of some chicken soup she'd made for Misses Conlon into a small bowl. She scrubbed the cooking pot clean and set it aside to dry. That done she fished out a clean spoon from the cupboard in the corner and knelt on the floor in front of John. Anna rested the soup bowl upon John's knee.

“You'll tell me everything,” she said, turning the spoon in lazy circles through the clear golden soup. It was more stock than soup. Bits of pale white chicken, orange carrot, together with green pieces of parsley and rosemary floated in the translucent golden mixture. Flat oblong drops of clear chicken fat lay upon the surface, supporting touches of white salt and black pepper.

Anna could see that the whole thing had shaken John terribly. She always knew, despite his best and bravest efforts to conceal any evidence of weakness of misgiving. With a sigh she brushed the bottom of the soup against the rim of the white ceramic bowl and waited for a drop of soup to fall. She lifted it carefully to his lips. John slurped up the mixture, fresh with the perfumed chill of rosemary.

“Now don't you worry,” she reassured. Anna knew he was already worrying over money and bills.

“Reckon we'll get by,” he conceded.

“We'll do fine.” She fed him another spoonful of soup. “Most important thing is to get you healthy.”

“Looks worse than it actually is,” he lifted the hand. As it was, that simple act brought a sickly sour pain, as though if not for the bandages one side of his hand might simply fall away.

“What'd the doctor say?”

“Said I was luck I didn't lose it altogether.”

She shook her head scoldingly. “I figured as much.”

“Anyway,” he downed another spoonful, “seems some boys got hurt last night at the mill.”

“Jesse and Mabel Soper's oldest, I hear.”

“Sister Dougherty said they came up short for beds and asked if we could look after this fella for a couple days, till he's back on his feet.”

“I trust your decision.”

“I'm glad,” he replied. “They brought him to the house already.”

“He's there now?” There was a hint of alarm in her voice.

“He took a bad whack to the head,” said John. “He'll be out for a while. Don't worry. It'll all work out just fine.”

They took forever walking home. The sun had already set behind the homes and trees to the west. The crickets came out in full chorus, filling the evening with their song. Anna was holding tight to his good arm, holding it as though it was the only thing tethering her to the earth.

A shooting star spanned the darkening sky to the east. Anna missed it. John didn't say word, instead he made a wish that all of these hard times were merely a dream, as if that could save him, as though he might learn something of all this after awakening. He wished all that had happened with Anna, all the pain and mourning, the ultimate disappointment might never have happened, and that they would go on about there lives happily. He wished, he wished, and then went inside to get cleaned up.

.

EMMETSBURG: Twenty

John stood in the rutted dirt street in front of the house. He was still in his dirty and blood-stained clothes. He’d washed a bit, but still looked a sight. His hair was wild and askew, and John felt about as tired as he could recall. There wasn’t a bone in his body that didn’t ache, either from the battle at the creek or from utter and complete exhaustion.

The late afternoon sun silhouetted his little wood frame house against a darkening eastern sky so that the place shone like polished ivory. Indeed, the house seemed almost comically small before the big old Willow in the back yard. A fat brown rooster sat on the sun-warmed sidewalk beside the house, keeping a watchful eye over several snow-white hens pecking at the grass nearby.

The front door was open so that it was possible to look directly through to the back door and out into the yard. To the left of the door was the small window of the bedroom where John and Anna had made love the night before. Sheer lace curtains that Anna had sewn by hand hung over the window. To the right was the sitting room window, which was half obscured by a small green bush. John had neglected it a bit and the bush had grown wild. Above the sitting room, the second floor window was covered by more of those same drapes Anna had made.

John stared into the window of that upstairs room for the longest time. A thousand thoughts seemed to flow from that window, finding him alone and terribly conflicted. Amid that forest of thoughts logic and morality tested one another, teased and hunted by John’s latent fears. Everything had transpired so quickly, giving him little opportunity for bearings. He was reacting, moving blindly in a moment that seemed fraught with uncertainty and perhaps danger.

A fresh wave of thick liquid pain tore his attention from the window. John closed his eyes and pursed his lips impotently against the worst of it. He extended the arm in a pale attempt to mitigate that pain. But it was a force, like some new element, like the boiling sea pouring in to fill the halves of a continent suddenly ripped in two. John dropped his head and cradled his arm tightly until the worst had passed.

Anna was up the street, where she helped most days to care for the Widow Conlon, who'd lost her husband a few winters back to the influenza. The Conlon place was at the end of the street, and was far bigger than John and Anna's place, by comparison. The house was long and painted a fading pale yellow, that paint now peeling in places. With a row of windows along one side the place always reminded John of a boat, like vagabond version of Noah’s great ship. Widow Conlon’s roses were in full bloom along the side of the house as splashes of fiery red amid wild tentacles of deep green.

The Widow and the late Mr. Conlon had been blessed with a large family, but they had all moved off to lives and families of their own. Not that they neglected Mrs. Conlon, by any means, but they certainly appreciated Anna's help, paying her decently for her blessing, at least in regards to what they could afford these days.

The pain had subsided a bit by the time he reached the house. John went quietly up the old wooden steps and paused at the warped screen door. He reached up and glided his fingers through his hair, sweeping it to one side. John patted down the back and sides, as though that might make him appear less shocking and pitiful when Anna saw him.

He opened the door to the enclosed front porch. It was cooler inside. Not by much, but enough to notice. It was dark and quiet, the air filled with scent of decay and neglect, of old wood and dust, and of stale air that seemed to have been trapped in that house for many years. Strongest of all was the peppery warm scent of Anna's homemade chicken soup, still warm on the stove. Layered and infused upon those smells were decades of meals prepared in the kitchen, of children and the sweat Mr. Conlon earned each day from more than forty years at the mill.

He could hear Anna's muffled voice upstairs in Mrs. Conlon's room. His footsteps creaked upon the uneven wood floor. He paused at the stairs and listened for a moment. The sound of her voice seemed as powerful as any medicine he might have taken to quell the pain in his hand. She was reading a Bible passage. He might have believed it was being spoken by an angel.

“… came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and… “

He went quietly up the long straight stairs to Mrs. Conlon's room. The room was at the back of the house. The light through yellow flowered curtains at either end of the long hall was shallow and pale. He stopped short of the door and listened as she finished the passage. By the way her words trailed and softened he guessed the widow was asleep. With that Anna blew out the candle beside her bed, placed the Bible on the nightstand and went quietly into the hall. Simply the sight of his bandaged hand sucked the air quickly from her lungs