by April Smith
Haynes realized early on that the fight against Communism was a salable commodity. People—whom he saw as either “very good” or “the radical element”—fell for stories of the secret enemy within, and Haynes knew all about that. He had always been a watcher. He made his living by slipping through the cracks. He liked cameras. He liked the power of the hidden observer, which led to a lifelong practice of drilling holes in motel walls and public restrooms, allegedly to collect evidence of narcotics transactions and other indiscretions that he would share with the police, who came to value Haynes as an off-the-record source. He saw nothing wrong with dropping a wire to listen in on an attorney’s office. In his younger years he did these things even though he was not a cop—a great disappointment, but he’d failed the physical twice. He was nothing more than an amateur with a four-by-five Speed Graphic camera, which allowed him to pass himself off as a freelance journalist. He knew a guy who sold police equipment, which gave him the ability to spy on anyone, making him “a friend” of the Rapid City Vice Squad and the FBI, which in those days ran extremely loose operations when it came to acquiring evidence.
Haynes had an elevated opinion of himself, one that put him above the daily grind. He believed that by shortcutting the law, he was helping to improve the quality of police work. Because he had a special gift of “knowing” who was crooked and who was not, he quickly became frustrated with helping out on small-town capers. Wiring up pimps and whores, or bugging the faucet in a hotel sink to listen in on the Chinese opium trade coming down from Seattle, had become beneath his talents. He needed a bigger adversary, one that would put him in a good spot with newspaper editors and provide a steady income to support his wife and four children on the farm they’d bought along the Cheyenne River, God’s country.
Haynes was looking for the big story and found it in Detroit during the sit-down strikes against the automotive industry in the 1930s. For several years he traveled east, keeping his expenses down by selling cars that he drove back and forth between Chicago, Milwaukee, and Rapid City; using his “credentials” to get deals at motels; eating cafeteria food, sometimes only a baked apple for dinner. The decisive moment in Haynes’s career came when he was photographing an assembly line in the Chevrolet plant and union thugs broke in, shouting, “We’re on strike, stop working and sit down!” carrying sticks, beating anyone who refused. The attackers—working on behalf of the “liberal apparatus”—grabbed Haynes’s precious Speed Graphic camera, held him down, and, in front of scores of silent workers, smashed his one and only source of income to pieces.
He was nothing.
And any doubts he might have had that the infiltrators were from the Communist Party were put to rest that night as he lay awake in yet another sordid hotel room, agonized with humiliation, flicking bedbugs, and remembering the nights he’d stayed up listening to Father Coughlin on his transistor radio deliver sermons of hate with thrilling, mellifluous cadences that found their mark inside the empty ear canals of Thaddeus Haynes:
“Oh, how this Sacred Scripture has become perverted…My friends, the outworn creed of capitalism is done for. The clarion call of Communism has been sounded…They are both rotten! But it is not necessary to suffer any longer the slings and arrows of modern capitalism any more than it is to surrender our rights to life, to liberty, and to the cherished bonds of family to Communism…The apostles of Lenin and Trotsky bid us forsake all rights to private ownership and ask us to surrender our liberty for that mess of pottage labeled ‘prosperity,’ while it summons us to worship at the altar where a dictator of flesh and blood is enthroned as our god and the citizens are branded as his slaves…”
And: “Somebody must be blamed!”
Soothed by the memory of the amorphous, unfathomable jumble of words, helpless Haynes, the wounded warrior brought low, heard only one message: Father Coughlin had preached against Communism, and he had thirty million listeners every week.
The studio clock said 6:58 p.m. “Two minutes to air!” Thaddeus Haynes announced.
The studio audience came to attention. The Red Threat was still Haynes’s beat, the radio his bludgeon, although compared with the success of other demagogues, on a vastly smaller scale. It wasn’t a studio; it was an empty ballroom in the Hotel Alex Johnson, one wall covered by a Technicolor mural of the Badlands. It wasn’t an audio console; it was a card table with a standing microphone and a lavender chair with white enameled legs that had been carried in from the ladies’ lounge. It wasn’t a clock; it was a Timex watch worn by the host. And it wasn’t even a studio audience, but a collection of true believers from a “study group” led by Haynes at the American Legion post, thrilled to be part of a real live broadcast, waiting in respectful silence and trying not to squeak their folding chairs.
As his fingers hovered over the on switch, Haynes’s expression was as grave as if he were at the controls of a bomber cruising over a sleepy village, vested with avenging power in the name of democracy. He wore a dark pin-striped suit that contrasted with his youthful wavy blond hair. His eyes, deeply set beneath a protruding brow, were empty of emotion, and a cockeyed tilt to the head made you wonder if his mind was somewhere else entirely. But when he spoke, his voice was deeply resonant and supremely confident, and the fifteen or so assembled could be relied upon to applaud on cue. Over the radio it would all sound so much bigger.
“This is Thaddeus Haynes speaking. I am blessed to visit with you again, as I do each week at this time, from our modern studios in Rapid City.”
Applause.
“As a proud Republican, I get a lot of mail from patriots saying, ‘Keep up the fight!’ ”
Applause.
“But there was one letter in today’s mail that touched my heart. It’s from a young mother, Mrs. Eleanor McGreedy of Spearfish, South Dakota, who writes, ‘Recently you said on the radio that the Soviet Union is sowing the seeds of its own destruction. If that’s true, why do we have to fight Russia?’ This dear lady does not understand the nature of Communism, even though it’s right at her own front door.”
Thaddeus Haynes took a painful pause and shook his head. The studio audience clucked sympathetically.
“My friends, something very bad is going on. The Soviet Union is planning to invade the United States. They hate us and they want to destroy us. They believe that we are a divided and weakened nation, ripe for the picking. As you and I sit in our comfortable living rooms with our loved ones close, the Soviet army is building up forces to come across Siberia to Alaska and down through the Pacific Northwest. Something dangerous is taking place right under our noses!”
Outside the ballroom, Honeybee Jones was sauntering down the hallway on the lookout for ghosts. They said the Hotel Alex Johnson was haunted by the “Lady in White” who’d jumped out of an eighth-floor window. Honeybee had his fingers crossed just in case. He’d been angelic-looking as a seven-year-old filching pencils from the teacher’s desk, and a lumpy fourteen-year-old swiping car mirrors, but after adolescence his features settled into a permanent screw-you sneer, set off by a stiff mile-high pompadour of carrot-red hair.
In the deserted hotel corridor, he crouched down low and sprang up high just to see if he could knock a stuffed bison head off the wall. He clipped the thing, but it was mounted pretty solid, which went right along with the run of sore luck he was having. On his prowls through the hotel he could usually pinch a tourist or two. All the rooms he’d tried were locked, but just ahead of him a voice was coming from the ballroom. Something was going on.
Honeybee cracked the door. They were ladies, mostly, listening to a lecture by some big shot. He eased inside and sat down.
“Has mass ignorance invaded our town? We don’t really know what’s going on, do we?” Haynes intoned.
The people in the audience shook their heads obediently.
“They could be right here among us—those losers who joined the Communist Party because they’re afraid that democracy might win, and that’s the last thing these coward
ly Reds want. But fear makes people do stupid things,” Haynes was going on. “And I can tell you, all it takes is one whiff—one little seed carried by a member of the Communist Party—to s-p-r-e-a-d the poison,” he said, raising his arms like a preacher. “Sucking out all the Christian godliness that’s in you and replacing it with pinkeye. But we’re smarter than that, aren’t we?”
The audience murmured, “Yes,” and “Right you are!”
“Friends,” Haynes said, building steam, “you know what I’m talking about: a disease of mind control that threatens the very survival of the white race. It’s a fight to the death—us against them!”
When everyone stood to give a fevered ovation, Honeybee noticed that right in front of him was a row of ninnies dumb enough to put their pocketbooks on the floor. He ducked down and skillfully removed a wallet from a purse under the nearest seat. At the same moment, Haynes was coming down the aisle with a donation plate.
“My wallet!” screamed the lady in front of Honeybee. “Someone stole my wallet!”
She turned around, face-to-face with the grubby teenager.
“Tyler! I know it’s you. You did it! Give me back my money!”
All her friends started squawking and half the room was turning around to gape like monkeys.
“He’s a juvenile delinquent!” the woman declared.
“Shut up! What are you talking about?” said Honeybee, surreptitiously letting the wallet drop to the floor.
Haynes was there and he saw it.
“Look, madame!” Haynes said, pointing to the billfold. “There’s your property. It’s all a mistake.”
The woman turned scarlet with embarrassment. “I am so sorry. I thought this young man—”
Haynes patted her shoulder. “I understand,” he said magnanimously. “Even so, we must forgive one another, as God in Christ forgave us. Right, son?”
Honeybee stared at his benefactor and had a conversion experience. No one had ever let him off the hook for anything.
“Yes, sir,” he managed.
The woman put two dollars of guilt money on the plate, and Honeybee Jones silently pledged loyalty to Thaddeus Haynes for the rest of his life.
—
On a clear night, The Hour of Truth could be heard a hundred miles in each direction—by housewives and barkeeps, gas station attendants and traveling salesmen and grandpas in rocking chairs—but tonight, despite the cloudless sky deepening to a flawless violet over the Black Hills, the voice of Thaddeus Haynes did not break through the stunned silence that prevailed inside the cream leather interior of Verna Bismark’s white Cadillac heading north from the Lucky Clover Ranch.
“Doc Avery is dead?” Cal repeated, dumbfounded.
Verna lit another cigarette. “It happened today.”
Cal stared straight ahead. “Where are we?” he wondered vaguely.
“Iron Mountain Road.”
“Where was Avery?” Cal said, still trying to get his bearings at this shocking turn of events.
“He was home,” Verna answered.
“Was it a heart attack?”
Verna’s coral lips twitched up tight. Cal turned to her, demanding, “Verna? What happened?”
A little after eight that morning, Avery Saugstad, M.D., was found by his wife, Maryanne, lying in a doorway between the kitchen and the hall. He was dressed for a workday in a plaid shirt, brown pants, and brown shoes. His belt was buckled and shirt tucked in tight. He was lying on his side, half turned onto the right hip, so that his right arm was lying beneath him, bent at the elbow and reaching out, the hand facing upward, his sensitive doctor’s fingers languorously open in poetic surrender. The left arm had fallen across his torso, making the body look strangely relaxed, as if he were just turning over in bed. The black medical bag stood beside a metal lunch box near the wall, as if he’d been on his way out but changed his mind. A .36 Colt pistol had fallen on the floor beside him. Ever the scientist, he’d used a hand mirror from the bathroom to aim precisely through the mouth at the autonomic nervous center at the base of the head, which controls the heart and lungs. The skull was shattered, the avulsed brain preserved in a lake of blood.
“He shot himself,” Verna said.
They were ascending forests of ponderosa pine, riding the curves of a scenic byway that led through small square tunnels cut out of the granite to sharp curvy views of the mountains fading in the dusk. On a hairpin turn you could see Mount Rushmore and the bizarrely human faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln staring out of the green natural surroundings.
Cal felt numb, as if he’d left his real self back on the porch with Betsy, in the sunset light, when everything had been normal.
“I’ve already talked to the governor,” Verna said.
“Why?”
“He’s calling a special election to fill Avery’s seat.”
“I mean, what about Avery? What on earth made him do it?”
Verna’s eyes were fixed ahead and gleaming in the headlights of an oncoming car. “He had Parkinson’s disease. He was trying to hide it, but he was already having tremors and knew it would get so bad he couldn’t work. Maryanne said he hadn’t been sleeping lately and fell into a deep depression. My uncle had the same thing. I know you can live with it, but Avery couldn’t live without being able to practice medicine. If he couldn’t be a doctor…I guess,” she said, her voice cracking, “he just couldn’t be.”
Cal squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “He was a great doctor but also so much more than that.”
“He was too damn hard on himself. I spoke to Avery just yesterday,” she said, almost helplessly. “Everything was fine. We were planning to meet in Pierre next Wednesday for the Toastmasters Club dinner.” She swiped at angry tears.
Cal let out a long breath. “Where are we going?”
“We’re meeting Nelson Fletcher. He was seeing a client in Hill City so we thought this would be halfway.”
They pulled into the parking lot of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The long spring evening had not quite let go. A wide dappled fan of pink cloud still held in the western sky. A light blue Dodge sedan was coming their way. It parked and Fletch got out.
“What is this all about?” Cal wondered.
“It’s a powwow,” Verna answered grimly.
“Sad day,” Fletch said, joining them.
Verna lit a cigarette. “I’m so mad at Avery! What was he thinking, taking his life?”
They sat on a bench at the rim of the observation area where a few tourists were lingering in the dusk. There was no view. There was nothing to see. The giant faces of the presidents were shrouded in darkness. They watched the dim ghost of a mountain sheep climb the rocks and disappear into a crevasse.
“Cal, we felt it was urgent to have our ducks in order before this gets out,” Fletch began. His round glasses picked up a glint of light from the parking lot. “The governor is calling a special election and Bill O’Connor’s likely to run. He’s the guy who owns the Dodge dealership in Hot Springs.”
“I know who Bill O’Connor is,” Cal allowed.
“We have to act fast,” Fletch insisted. “The filing date is coming up in fifteen days. We want to get your name on the ballot.”
“Are you sure you’re talking to the right guy?” Cal asked with surprise.
“We can’t afford to lose a Democratic seat,” Fletch said. “Bill O’Connor’s weak.”
“No backbone,” Verna agreed. “No position. He inherited the dealership from his daddy, which alienates farmers who are fighting just to make ends meet. They need someone who speaks for them.”
“It’s what you and I have talked about,” Fletch said. “A chance to turn things around, energize the party.”
“I’m sorry, but this is still a complete shock.” Cal ran a hand through the lock of hair that fell boyishly over his forehead.
“It’s a shock to all of us,” Fletch demurred.
“I mean—Avery Saugstad, r
est in peace—but this is way too soon for me to jump in.”
“Won’t be easy. You have to start now and hit the road hard,” Verna said in that dusky voice.
“I’ve never run for office.”
Verna shrugged. “Doesn’t worry me.”
Cal was staggering under many emotions pulling on him at once. “First of all, it’s calving season,” he said. “I can’t just leave.”
Verna squinted at him in a very practical way. “How many of your girls have already calved?”
“Maybe half.”
“Wait as long as you can, let Betsy handle the rest. She can do it.”
“Yes, yes, of course she can, but I’m supposed to cover—how big is the district?”
“Five thousand eight hundred square miles,” Fletch said.
In the basement of the visitor center, switches were thrown. Those outside on the deck heard a deep scraping sound like the squeaky closing of metal doors. Electricity sizzled, small popping explosions echoed off the mountain, and then all at once, all four faces of the greatest American presidents came to life under glaring white floodlights.
The three stared in wonder.
Verna’s hand came to her chest. “Gets me every time,” she said emotionally.
What did the noble presidents see, gazing off in all directions? Did they comprehend their own mortality? Did they regret the world they’d left behind? Silence was all they gave you. Pure chalk-white silence.
Nelson Fletcher nudged his friend. “We want to put your face up there, Kusek,” he said, teasing.