Prairie Gothic (30 page)

Wynn was at his best when someone else took charge. He got his hands under Heather's knees and lifted her feet off the snow. He was just as glad to leave the delicate problem of supporting the injured end to Two.

“Where we taking her?”

“The house.”

That gave Wynn pause. That's where they'd gotten in trouble in the first place.

“Don't you think we ought to go somewhere else?”

“You got any suggestions?”

He thought about it and decided he didn't.

“Look,” she said. “From what Levi told us, the plan is for us to stay out here and freeze. I'm guessing they didn't want our bodies marked up. Well, too late. Heather's hurt bad. I'm covered with cuts and bruises. We freeze to death now, it's not going to look like it happened by accident.”

“So you're thinking they might let us in?”

“Maybe. I'm also thinking they could be out here looking for us. And the burning shed. That may draw their attention. The house could be abandoned. Whatever, we've got to get out of this and we've got to get Heather some help. The house seems like the place to start.”

Or finish, Wynn Some mused, but he didn't say it.

***

Judy followed the cocked Beretta down the hall to the kitchen. After what the gun had done to the chairman, she hated even touching it, but she wasn't going to take a chance on being surprised by dangerous intruders.

“It's just us, Hon,” the little lady in the red tennies reassured her.“You might want to keep that pointed at Levi here while I take our Wizard back where he's needed.”

It was the smaller of the Hornbaker twins, those dull holdbacks who made life difficult for their classmates and worse for their teachers. Only the football coach liked them because most of the rest of the boys in the conference were afraid to play against them. She did what Dorothy asked, but she had something else on her mind.

“Mad Dog, have you seen the Heathers?”

He smiled and tried to look reassuring. He looked patronizing instead. “Don't worry, Judy. I'm sure they're all right. I'd know if they weren't.”

Good old Mad Dog, living in a world no one else inhabited. “Great,” she told him, “then go with her. Work your miracles. I'll research the subject on my own.”

She could tell Mad Dog was hurt by her sarcasm. Just now, she didn't care, and she didn't have to deal with it because Dorothy was dragging him down the hall to where the chairman waited.

Levi looked scared, but not of her and the pistol.

“Where are my girls?”

“They shoulda left Judah alone,” he said.

She stepped a little closer and shoved the pistol under his nose. “You know where they are, don't you?” She wasn't sure of that, but she intended to find out.

“Yeah,” he said. “But I don't think I'll tell you. Ms. English, I want you should give me that gun.”

She was standing there with the thing practically stuffed up his nose and he expected her to give it up, and not have to tell her about her girls?

“Are you nuts?”

“Not me,” he said. He was slowly raising his hand to reach for the pistol. “That's why I need the gun. For when the one who is nuts gets here.”

She tightened her hold on the weapon. “No way,” she said. “I'm keeping the gun and you're going to tell me what happened to my daughters.”

He shrugged. “They hurt my brother,” he said. “So now they're burning in hell for it 'cause I sent them there.”

Judy felt like he'd punched her in the solar plexus. She couldn't breath. He gently began prying the gun from her fingers and she was paralyzed with the agony of what he'd said, unable to resist. He began to grin. The bastard who claimed to have killed her daughters was slipping the pistol out of her hand. Fuck you, she thought. She pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. Nothing except that he finished taking it away from her. “I didn't think you'd do that,” he said. He was turning the gun this way and that, trying to figure out why it hadn't fired. The hammer was cocked. That wasn't it. He peered down the barrel from the muzzle end. “Looks like it should work to me.”

Levi was right eye dominant. She could tell, because that was the one the 9 mm hollow point tore out on its way through his brain pan when he tried the trigger himself and this time it worked.

***

Simon stopped the Dodge near the inferno that had been a tool shed. He fumbled behind the seat and came out with a fire extinguisher. It was the kind they sold at the Texaco, not much bigger than a can of spray paint, and, Doc thought, for a fire so out of control, similarly effective.

Simon didn't ask Doc's opinion. He grabbed the can and hustled around the truck toward the blaze. Doc couldn't help noticing that the truck was still running and Simon had left his rifle behind. He'd been hoping opportunity might knock. He hadn't expected it to use a sledge hammer.

Doc clambered across Mary, slid behind the steering wheel, and put the gear selector into drive.

“What're we doing?” Mary asked. “Shouldn't we wait for Uncle Simon?”

“He might need help,” Doc explained. “Let's go see if we can find some.”

Simon made a misty silhouette against the flame's ruddy glow. It was too hot for him to get close. He extended one hand, pointing the extinguisher at the blaze. It didn't seem to make a difference.

Doc kept his foot off the accelerator. Wind and fire were making plenty of noise, but he didn't want a change in the truck's exhaust note to compete for Simon's attention. He might have left his rifle behind the seat. That didn't mean he wasn't carrying a pistol. Doc just wanted to creep away, not get into a shootout, not with Mary there.

The truck began to roll. Simon didn't notice. Like the rest of the world, his outline was soon absorbed by the blast of snow crystals smoothing Benteen County's already flat surface.

Doc was peering over his shoulder, taking one last look to reassure himself that Simon wasn't hot on their trail before he started speeding up. The metal hood of the truck rang as something slammed against it, nearly sending him through the roof. It was the fist of a snow-suited figure standing only inches from where he sat. Another was beside it, a box cradled in its arms. The one who hit the truck had a gun and was pointing it straight at Doc's window. It seemed to want Doc to stop. He thought that was a good idea. Only the other figure lunged at the one with the gun and the two of them fell out of sight. Doc rammed his foot down on the accelerator. The truck lurched forward.

It probably would have worked if the barn hadn't been in the way.

***

“Bastard!” Judy said.

She heard Mad Dog come running back down the hall. Bone and blood and hair and other pieces of Levi Hornbaker were leaving smears on the cabinets as they dripped on the counter. Levi's body was similarly spoiling the kitchen floor.

She felt like she'd had a dozen cups of coffee, totally buzzed. She hadn't killed him but she'd tried. And she wasn't sorry he was dead. In fact, Judy decided, unless Englishman appeared to take over and put the world back the way it belonged and Mad Dog started producing miracles, she was prepared to round up every single Hornbaker and blow each of them away. If her daughters were hurt, someone was going to pay.

“Judy, see, I told you,” Mad Dog said. An icy breath caressed her cheek and she realized the back door was opening again. She let her gaze shift, saw the door admit a swirl of snow, and Deputy Wynn's butt, backing in, awkwardly carrying something.

“Oh God!” Judy said, recognizing his burden. It was Heather.

***

The baddest shaman in all of Kansas was suffering a crisis of confidence. One look at the chairman had been enough to start his doubts. Judy had covered the holes in Supervisor Wynn's torso with compression bandages, but they were soaked. So was the floor of the den. Mad Dog couldn't imagine how to heal something like that.

“Aren't you going to do something?” Dorothy had urged.

He tried, but the magic had failed. How could he hurl thunderbolts and kill with his mind one moment, then fail utterly the next? Now Levi was dead in the kitchen. And Heather, his beloved niece, lay there unconscious. He didn't seem to be able to do a thing about that either.

“What's going on in there?” It was Becky. The doorway opened yet again. The kitchen was turning as popular as Bertha's on all-you-can-eat catfish days. She and Simon came in herding Doc and Mary and Englishman. Both Hornbakers had AK 47 assault rifles, and Simon was carrying a curious iron chest.

“Hard to see,” Simon said. It was getting dark fast. The sun must have set and the gloom under the clouds was finally holding sway. “Looks like all hell's broke loose. Somebody killed Levi.”

“Englishman! Heather's hurt. And Chairman Wynn's been shot.” Judy was on the floor hovering over one daughter while the other tried to help. Mad Dog couldn't get near. Filled with self-doubts, he hadn't tried very hard.

“How bad is it?” Englishman joined them.

“Let me see,” Doc said, plunging into the crowd.

“Where's Dad? Is he OK?” Wynn Some demanded.

Simon interrupted them with half a clip. That put everybody but the Hornbakers down onto the linoleum.

“You just shut up now,” Simon said. “We'll do the talking.”

Simon had aimed high. His bullets stitched a seam across the ceiling and caused a brief hail of plaster.

“How sweet,” Becky remarked. “A family reunited.” She turned her attention to the far side of the room. “Dorothy dear, what happened?”

“I'm afraid we've had some accidents, and the Wizard hasn't healed any of them yet.”

“No, dear. That's not what I mean. I put you in the home with Tommie. You failed me. Now I'm very cross with you.”

“Always liked him better than you,” Dorothy replied.

Becky curled her lip in a snarl, but her attention was already shifting to Mad Dog.

“You do have Tommie's ring, don't you Mad Dog?”

He nodded, reluctantly.

“Pull it out of your pocket,” Becky said, “slow, so I'm sure you aren't drawing a gun.”

“I don't use guns,” Mad Dog said.

“So I've heard. Slow all the same. This isn't the moment I want to find out different.”

Mad Dog climbed back to his feet and slowly dug it out. “Why all the fuss? This can't be worth much.”

“You don't know? What were you doing with his body then, hiding it up in a tree like that?”

“Tommie wanted a Choctaw burial.”

Becky smiled. “Mad Dog, you are a caution. He wasn't a Choctaw. Wasn't any kind of Indian. Hell, he wasn't even Tommie.”

“The Indian thing, that was how he planned to keep the ring from her, Mad Dog,” Dorothy said. “He was gonna swallow it and you'd hide it along with him, only then, at the end, he couldn't choke it down anymore.”

“I thought he might have swallowed it,” Becky said. Then, “What else did you find at the pond, Mad Dog?”

“Bones. And an ID card that looks like Zeke, only it isn't.”

“There are your Indians, Mad Dog,” Becky said. “Ezekiel's Cheyenne slut and their mongrel. A sinful pollution of the holy lineage. I was afraid they weren't buried deep enough. But that doesn't matter anymore. ”

“Feel the edges of the ring,” Becky told him. “There's a protrusion, just a tiny one. Can you find it?”

Mad Dog did. It gave when he pushed against it. As he watched, the metal lump blossomed. Wings unfolded, sprang from where they had hidden in the meaningless contours of the ring's surface. A reverse swastika!

“Give it to Simon so he can open the case,” Becky said.“Let's see if I have what I think I do.”

“What is this? Some Nazi trash?” But Mad Dog handed the key to Simon, who fumbled it into the lock. In spite of decades in a stack of hay, it turned easily. When Simon pulled on the handle, the hinges folded open without protest.

“What's in there?” Becky demanded. It was too dark to see more than outlines across the kitchen.

Simon reached inside. A pottery cup lay on a thick bed of velvet. He took it out and peered at it curiously.

“Dorothy, get it from Simon and bring it to me,” Becky said.

“She thinks it's the Holy Grail,” Englishman said.

Mad Dog thought that was idiotic. But then, maybe, so was trying to heal the chairman.

“Imagine,” Becky whispered. “What if Uncle Abel actually found it? What if it really is the holiest relic of all? They say the chalice is capable of miracles. That it can heal the sick and injured, feed the hungry, erase the weight of years.”

She reached out a hand and touched the cup. “Look! It made me younger, didn't it?”

It was very dark, but Mad Dog thought she might be right.

***

“Don't nobody move!” The voice blew through the open door at Becky's back. “Can't see who's who in there,” it rasped, “so if anybody starts something, I'm gonna open up with this here Glock and let God sort you out.”

“How'd you get here, Mrs. Kraus?” the sheriff called.

“Commandeered me a snowmobile,” she replied. Then, “Ah, ah, ah! Don't you move none, Becky Hornbaker. It's dark in there, but I see you turning that gun my way. Hold still now, or they'll be cleaning your brains off that ceiling.”

“Everybody accounted for in there?” Mrs. Kraus continued.

The sheriff responded. “All of our side. I think Zeke Hornbaker passed us in the snow plow on our way here. He must be around someplace.”

“There's a crazy old woman out there too,” Judy added. “Don't know who she is, but she's dangerous. Watch your back.”

“Sheriff, can you help me out here?” Mrs. Kraus wondered.

“I've got Judy's Beretta, Mrs. Kraus. Simon's covered. You concentrate on Becky.”