by Aaron Saylor
By the time Rogers looked up again, Elmer was already walking down the hill, towards the Orchid Festival.
The deputy’s heart quickened underneath his police fatigues. “Where do you think you’re going?” he called out.
Elmer didn’t even turn around. “I’m gonna go look for Walt. I’ve had it with this bullshit.”
“You’re what?”
“You heard me. I’m gonna go find Walt Slone.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“Well you’re not me. And I’m doin’ it.”
Rogers took off down the hill. “Bull shit you are,” he said as he worked his way in front of Elmer. “Whatever you’re smokin’, it’s givin’ you some seriously bad ideas. You’re liable to get Walt on to both of us.”
“So?” Elmer sidestepped the deputy and kept going. “He’s gonna get on to us sooner or later, anyway.”
Again, Rogers worked his way around front. This time, he put his hands into Elmer’s chest and stopped his forward momentum. Knocked backwards a step, Elmer’s druggy eyes went huge wild; for one instant the deputy thought he had a fight on his hands.
It quickly passed. Elmer just kept going towards the festival. Rogers moved to follow him but soon realized that would lead to a fight, which would just call attention to them. And since attention was the last thing Rogers wanted right now, he let Elmer go, and decided it would be best to just watch him from a distance and then step in if anything started to get out of hand.
When he got past J.T. Rogers, Elmer scanned the Orchid Festival crowd for Walt or Sheriff Slone – either of which would do – but saw neither of them. So, he made a straight line for the vendor booths that were lined up beyond the food stands of the park entrance, on into the Festival itself.
The vendor booths were varied and popular, more varied and more popular even than the food booths that offered corn dogs, or funnel cakes, or pork chop sandwiches, or gyros. Folks didn’t just attend the annual Sewardville Orchid Festival for the beautiful Mountain orchids or the chance to eat the bountiful and comforting food, although every year there was plenty of both. They also came to spend their money on the offerings of area artisans and sellers of sundry goods.
There was plenty of shit for sale, no doubt about it. Gingham children’s dresses, dolls with corn–husk heads, sock monkeys, scented candles, hand–carved wooden walking sticks, quilts, knitted caps, watercolor portraits of hummingbirds and cardinals and killdeer and baby raccoons, photographs of dewy spider webs. These were but a few of the hundreds – hundreds! – of items available to each and every person that walked through the Festival entrance. And if human artistry was not what caught one’s fancy, then there were other booths, too. The Orchid Festival provided plenty of opportunities for spending hard–earned or not–so–hard–earned cash money on items more useful than mere sock monkeys or corn husk dolls.
For those with more discerning tastes, a number of dealers aimed to please. Behind their counters could be found a wide array of knives, guns, and other assorted weaponry. Switchblades and knuckledusters, ninja throwing stars, nunchukas, knives for hunting, machetes, knives for filleting, knives for just about any purpose real or imagined. Nine millimeter Berettas, .38s, .44 Magnums. They were all there, like some Reagan–era wet dream straight out of the pages of Soldier of Fortune magazine. And along with all those charming toys gleamed weapons of a more modern lineage, too – fifty caliber Desert Eagle handguns, Jerichos, Glocks, sundry shotguns and assault rifles, and all the necessary ammunition to go around.
Indeed, the Orchid Festival served as a Wild West market, a full arsenal at the right price, far away from any sort of Federal regulations or prying eyes.
Elmer saw one of the gun dealers in the middle of the row, a short, round guy with a thick black beard a matching denim shirt and pants. He knew the guy a little bit – Hank Deniston was his name – and saw him at the festival every year. He’d even considered that maybe they could start doing business together.
As Elmer approached his booth, Hank the gun dealer grinned. But rather than offering any verbal greeting, he just reached back behind him, grabbed a Winchester Model 70 rifle with a scope, and held it out for Elmer to see.
“What’s that?” Elmer asked.
“Something I thought you might want to see,” said Hank.
Elmer took the rifle, looked it up and down. “Nice,” he said. “Looks real nice. How many of these you got?”
“Just one.”
“How much you want for it?”
Deniston stroked his beard. “Eight–fifty for most people, but I’d let you have it for seven hundred.”
Elmer lifted the rifle to his shoulder and put his right eye against the scope. “Seven hundred. Not bad,” he said, then swung the gun around, sweeping the barrel quick across the crowd.
“Careful there, friend,” said Hank. Instinctively, the dealer reached to take the gun back, but Elmer stepped away just enough so he couldn’t get it.
“Nothin’ to be worried about, Hank,” Elmer laughed. “It ain’t like this thing’s loaded, right?” Again, he swept the rifle across the crowd.
The dealer didn’t answer.
“It ain’t loaded, right?” Elmer asked again.
The dealer didn’t answer. Elmer kept the rifle at his shoulder and scanned the festival attendees through the scope’s magnification. Soon enough, one person caught his attention: Walt Slone.
TARGETS
Walt wandered away from the park entrance and made his way into the festival grounds, figuring he could shake a few hands and kiss a few babies there, like any good politician.
He greeted most everyone that walked by, handing out four–inch plastic buttons that featured his name in the center of a white star. When the button supply was exhausted – and they did not last long – he handed out embossed business cards. Nobody really needed a trinket to remember him, but for Walt these were the proper hallmarks of any good political season. Signs, buttons, baseball caps, business cards. Perhaps they meant nothing to his constituents, but they meant everything to him.
Each person who passed in his vicinity received the same folksy charm.
“My name’s Walt Slone. How ya doin’? I’d appreciate your vote for mayor of our fine little town.”
“Hi. Appreciate your vote.”
“Hello there, young lady. What about it?”
“Young man, I’d really appreciate your vote.”
“What about it? Appreciate your vote.”
“You likin’ the festival this year? It’s great every year, ain’t it?”
“Appreciate your vote.”
“Heck of a nice day, we got here, ain’t it?”
“That’s a cute kid you got there. Appreciate your vote. Maybe if I’m still here when he grows up he can vote for me, too, what about it?”
The people rolled through and Walt introduced himself to every single one that came within reach. He hugged old ladies, kissed babies, and shook hands until he couldn’t stand up anymore. He handed out buttons and cards, and when those ran out he went to the car and got a box of baseball caps with his name on the front. When he ran out of caps, he gave away pieces of candy. When he ran out of candy, he told folks he was sorry, he’d bring more tomorrow, and could they come see him again?
Eventually he got tired. He was an old man and he just got tired. Truth be told, the electioneering would never be done, not until the fall when the election was over, anyway, but even Walt Slone needed a break from time to time to rest his body and his heart and his mind. He sat down at a picnic table in the shade of a thirty–foot oak tree, close enough to the festival’s main walkway that he could see who came and went, but far enough away that he wasn’t compelled to speak to everyone who passed.
Soon after he sat down, his granddaughter wandered over, alone. She stood just a foot away, looking up at him with a little squint in the sunlight.
“Where’s your mommy?” he asked Samantha.
“I do
n’t know,” she said.
“What about your Daddy?”
“I don’t know.”
“All right then,” smiled Walt. He picked her up, sat her on his lap. “Get up here before they come looking for you.” The child laughed. He rubbed her hair and laughed with her.
He had absolutely no idea they were being watched, from several yards away, through the crosshairs of a rifle scope.
Over at the gun dealer’s booth, Elmer stared through the scope at Walt’s magnified face, centered perfectly in the black crosshairs. He imagined it exploding like a ripe watermelon in a gruesome shower of blood, flesh, and skull fragments.
Then he saw the top of little Samantha’s head bob up into his field of view. That sapped some of his violent energy. He could fantasize about killing Walt Slone and somehow that seemed okay. But he couldn’t fantasize about a child caught in the bullet’s path.
He lowered the Winchester rifle, popped out the clip. “He’s got a fuckin’ kid,” he said.
“What?” asked the gun dealer.
“A kid,” Elmer snorted. He sounded disappointed. “He’s got a kid now. I think it’s that granddaughter. Boone’s daughter.” He offered the empty clip. “There’s nothing in here.”
“No shit.” Hank, the owner of the booth, laughed nervously. “You don’t really think I’d be sitting here with a bunch of loaded weapons, wide open for all the world, do you?”
“Hell no,” said Elmer. “But I figured I could at least buy buy some from you.”
Hank looked at him, wiped sweat from his neck. “Sure you can. You got one of those Winchesters at home?” he asked.
“No, I got one right here. In my hands,” said Elmer, holding up the rifle with both hands, mocking the dealer.
Hank shook his head. The last thing he needed was a ruckus raised in his gun booth. Elmer was acting unhinged, though; a ruckus could be coming. Hank looked around, wondering if anyone was watching them, but in the busy festival afternoon, it looked like nobody was paying them much attention.
He peered across the crowd, trying to see just whom Elmer had in his sights, but he couldn’t make out any clear sight lines.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Hank said.
“I didn’t ask you what you thought.”
“I’m just sayin’.”
Elmer smiled. He removed one hand from the rifle, lifted up his shirt and revealed a filet knife hanging on his belt. “Give me some goddamn ammo,” he sneered. “Give me some goddamn ammo for this rifle, or I’ll split you open like a twelve–point buck right here in front of God and everybody.”
Hank straightened up. A wave of nervousness slammed into his gut. “What’s wrong with you, Elmer?”
“No problem. Just give me the ammo.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Give me the fucking ammo, Hank.”
Elmer was one hundred percent serious, no doubt about it. Hank felt a thin bead of sweat forming at the edge of his brow, and it wasn’t from the hot sun. He pondered whether or not Elmer had gone total ape shit crazy. Sure, Elmer Canifax had always seemed to Hank like a guy who drove around with his lugnuts a little loose. But was he really so far out of his mind that he’d take a shot at somebody in broad daylight, right smack in the midst of a couple thousand men, women, and children?
Surely not.
Likely not.
Well, he didn’t really know him that well –
Hank decided it wasn’t worth chancing. Best to just let Elmer have what he wanted, and keep a tight eye on him. If the situation went too far south, he could grab the pistol under the counter before Elmer did any real damage.
“Okay. You got it,” Hank said. He found a box of bullets for the rifle and handed them over. “Just don’t get too froggy with that gun. You point it at the wrong person and they’re liable to come over and shove it up your ass.”
“Don’t worry,” Elmer said. “I aim only where I mean to.” Then he opened the ammo.
Boone took a look around the festival, mostly out of boredom. His mind drifted. He thought about the telephone conversation he had with Elmer a few minutes ago. It seemed unlikely that Elmer would actually go after Walt – and even less likely that he would do it here, in the daylight of the Orchid Festival – but still, it seemed wise to take a look around just in case. You never knew.
Less than a minute later, he spotted Elmer over at Hank Deniston’s gun booth.
He had a rifle in his hand.
Probably just fucking around.
But you never knew.
You never knew –
Boone traced the sight line, across the park… to Walt. From Boone’s angle it sure looked like Elmer had that gun pointed at Walt.
And Samantha was in Walt’s lap. Which meant the gun was pointed at her, too.
BULLETS
At the other end of the park, Karen looked through one of the festival’s prodigious orchid display. The display in front of Karen stood almost twelve feet tall and was twice that wide, a solid wall of blues, reds, yellows, and whites, of course whites, the whites of the Mountain Orchid, which grew nowhere else but in the hills of Seward County, whose long white petals drooped downward and came together at the ends like tiny hands clasped in prayer.
“I like these,” said Karen, pointing at some daises and purple crocuses that were bundled together with long grass. “How much?”
“Fifteen dollars,” said the girl. She wore a bright Crayola–green tee shirt and denim skirt that barely went to the knee. Karen didn’t recognize her at all, but assumed she must be the proprietor.
Karen reached for her purse. “I’ll take it.”
As she took out her wallet, she looked over the crowd and saw her father, sitting at the picnic table with Samantha on his lap.
They sat together, the grandfather and the granddaughter. Walt felt that they didn’t get enough moments like this, just the two of them. He smiled, tapped Samantha on the chin. She tapped him back and her face lit up with perfect innocence.
“I want a Coke,” she said.
“Tell your Daddy to buy you one,” he chuckled.
“I want you to buy me one,” she said.
“I don’t have any money,” he said, and turned his pants pocket inside out. “See?”
She smacked him on the chest and grinned just as wide as the day was hot. “You always have money, Grandpa!”
Walt smiled, but didn’t say anything.
Into the empty clip, Elmer slid the first bullet, then the second, then the third. With each cartridge that fell into place, the knot in Hank Deniston’s throat got a little tighter. He glanced more than once at his loaded pistol that rested underneath the makeshift counter, just in case.
As Elmer grasped the fourth bullet, an unexpected visitor joined them. Boone Sumner.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were loading that clip,” said Boone.
“Very observant,” said Elmer.
“Where I come from, you don’t load a gun unless you plan to use it.”
“That’s right,” said Elmer.
“What are you shooting at?”
“Not what. Who.”
Boone laughed a nervous laugh. “Okay, who are you shooting at?”
“You know who.”
Boone came around, to Elmer’s front side.
“All right. Shit,” Boone said. “Put the gun down, Elmer. Put it down dammit, before someone sees you.”
“So what if they do?” Elmer kept the gun raised at his shoulder, sighting through the scope.
Boone followed Elmer’s line of sight from the end of the gun barrel out towards the crowd. All he saw was a shapeless mass of people, making their way through the arts and crafts and flowers and sundries of the Orchid Festival. Boone couldn’t tell for certain what Elmer was thinking – the gun was pointed at all of them, or none of them – but worse, he couldn’t tell for sure that it wasn’t Samantha and Walt on the other end of that rifle barrel.
&n
bsp; One more time, Boone peered out across the festival, in a straight line away from Elmer’s barrel. Like before, he could not make out the person in Elmer’s sights. Then, as if parted by divine hands, the crowd opened up and Boone’s heart sank. He saw the target, sitting at a picnic table: it was Walt, after all. And Samantha was right there.
“Goddammit!” Boone spat. He smacked the rifle downward, knocking Elmer out of place. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Elmer staggered but regained himself. “Don’t touch me,” he said.
Boone steeled himself, thought Elmer might take a swing at him. But instead, Elmer jerked the rifle upward, pointed straight at Boone’s chest.
Hank took a step back, visibly nervous. He stammered, “Whoa now, let’s not get out of hand here,” and made a slight move towards the counter, trying to reach his pistol that lay underneath.
“Hank, you go for that pistol and I’ll blow your face out the back of your head,” said Elmer calmly, without moving the rifle from Boone.
“Put the gun down, Elmer,” said Boone, calm.
“Why should I?”
“Put it down.”
“What’s it like, Boone, lookin’ down that end of the barrel?” said Elmer.
“Put the gun down,” said Boone.
Nobody moved. The Orchid Festival bustled around them. Occasionally a clueless passer–by would glance over with a mix of curiosity and amusement, but for the most part none of the festival attendees seemed to notice what was happening in Hank Deniston’s gun booth.
Boone raised his hands, cautious, not wanting to make any sudden movements that might cause Elmer to get trigger–happy. Public place or not, the guy was holding a loaded weapon and Boone had no wish to set him off. He looked over Elmer’s shoulder, seventy yards across the park, and again saw Samantha on Walt’s knee.
Elmer smiled. “Whatcha see over there?”