Broken Heartland

by J. M. Hayes

  Well, hell. It was a beautiful day and the leaves were changing. Some of the weeds had died back after recent frosts. Maybe the chiggers and ticks had, too.

  It was dark and noisy once she penetrated the cottonwoods along the stream bank. Enough leaves up there, however golden, to cut the sun and rustle in the wind. Birds, too, complaining about her presence. She even scared up one of those deer that had come back to the Great Plains bringing the great ticks.

  The stream bank was steep, the water coffee dark and flowing with the rush of freshly opened catsup. The buildings and boxcars were where she’d expected them, though there looked to be more now. The rope bridge, on the other hand, didn’t look like it had received much attention recently. Not that any of the ropes were broken or badly frayed. The posts to which they were affixed were weathered, but solid. The structure just looked old and tired, and it drooped a lot closer to the muddy water than it had when she was ten. Or maybe the muddy water didn’t look as appealing as it had then. Jeez, they’d gone swimming in that stuff. And probably swallowed a gallon or so as they giggled and wrestled and swung out and let go, Tarzan-like, to plop into that deep hole under the ancient catalpa just upstream.

  She didn’t get her feet wet. Not quite, though it was closer than she liked since Uncle Mad Dog had told her water moccasins were making a comeback, too. Wild and woolly Kansas seemed to be returning to its natural state. Or a new natural state, as the population continued to drop, generation after generation, out here in the rural counties. Progress meant fewer people raised more crops. And only the monster corporate farmers could survive. You couldn’t support yourself on a quarter-section anymore. Nor a section, and so there were little wooded patches where homesteads used to be until the houses fell down or got moved. Or not even wooded patches where the ground could be forced to yield a few more bushels of grain. The deer didn’t mind. They liked grain fields better than endless acres of grass. The deer were thriving. So were the ticks.

  Things hardly seemed wild at all, on the far side of the creek. Someone had mowed around the buildings recently enough for a foursome to play through on their way to the nearest green. The boxcars were a series of freshly painted bright colors now, with names above the doors like SERAPHIM and CHERUBIM. But there was a silence to the place, in spite of the wind in the trees and the chatter of birdcalls. It felt empty of people. Doors were closed, drapes pulled. The camp looked just like it was supposed to—closed for the season.

  And then something chirped that wasn’t a bird. Heather went around a corner and found the cluster of parked cars. Someone was at the door to one of them—the one that had just chirped as the electronic key worked its locks.

  “Hold it right there,” Heather said, flipping open her jacket and showing her badge. Maybe it would get more respect this time.

  ***

  The Mini Cooper was fast, but with a hundred pounds of wolf and an extra passenger on board, not as fast as it could be. And Mad Dog was no lightweight. He’d been a big guy back in high school when he led the Buffalo Springs football team to the best record in school history. He was bigger now.

  Even so, the blob Pam Epperson had told him was Galen Siegrist’s truck was clearly recognizable by the time it turned north. After that, the truck’s dust was too thick for Mad Dog to close the gap. He hung back, in relatively clear air, and contented himself with knowing they only had to go five miles from the highway.

  The Siegrist place looked more like a rural corporate headquarters than a traditional farm. The house was low and modern and sprawling. Lots of reflective glass in a brick façade next to a four-car garage. Hardly any vegetation, just a row of neatly trimmed dwarf evergreens along the front and a perfectly manicured postage-stamp lawn with a couple of saplings that were either dead or had already lost their leaves. There wasn’t a mature tree within a quarter mile of the house. When young Galen took over, he’d bladed the old farmstead and started fresh. The result was cold and sterile, and Mad Dog didn’t blame Galen’s parents for moving to town.

  The outbuildings didn’t include the traditional barn or silo. Instead, there were pressed metal warehouses and immense circular-metal bins. Galen’s Dodge was parked beside the entrance to the nearest warehouse, still enveloped in a cloud of its own making as Mad Dog pulled into the driveway. But for the dust and the Dodge, there was no sign of life.

  Mad Dog parked upwind of Galen’s truck and he, Pam, and Hailey all got out.

  “Mark was always trying to get Galen to throw a party out here,” Pam said. “The house is huge, mostly unfurnished. Plenty of room for a band and dancers in the front room. But Galen’s pretty conservative about that stuff. Besides, he’s always got about three days’ work that needs doing in only one.”

  “Sounds like a fun guy to hang around with.” Mad Dog said.

  “That’s why he’ll talk to me. He’s hungry for the stuff he’s afraid to do. He’s always had a thing for me, but I have a life. That makes me too wild for him, except in his imagination. My cousin’s more his speed, but she mostly ignores him ’cause this isn’t the lifestyle she dreams of, except for his money. About the only adventures Galen has anymore come second-hand from Mark.”

  “In there?” Mad Dog asked, starting toward the nearest warehouse.

  “I think so, but hang on a minute.” Pam fumbled in her purse and pulled something out, then she was hiking up her dress and Mad Dog, embarrassed, found himself turning to study the pattern in the stamped metal wall. Dress back where it was supposed to be, she appeared beside him.

  What was that about?

  She smiled and said, “Galen’s been a little weird lately, so, just in case….”

  Mad Dog didn’t know what she was talking about and decided this was one of those times it might be better not to ask.

  “Okay,” she said, “let’s see if anyone’s home.”

  Mad Dog drew back a fist to rap on the door, but she just reached down and turned the knob. He raised an eyebrow.

  “If Galen didn’t want people to come in, he’d lock his door or put up a doorbell.”

  Mad Dog didn’t think that was necessarily so. This was central Kansas and hardly anybody locked their doors, or failed to keep a shotgun handy in case some stranger took advantage and walked in uninvited.

  “Anybody home?” Pam called. Her voice echoed back from the building’s shadowy depths. The place was filled with farm machinery—several four-wheel-drive tractors to begin with. At least $300,000 each. It reminded Mad Dog how different farming had become in his lifetime.

  A door opened and Mad Dog realized there was a small office back behind the nearest tractor. Galen stood in the entrance. “What are you doing here, Pam? And why’s he here with you?”

  That didn’t sound like a welcome.

  Mad Dog was ready to answer, but Pam had taken charge. She went toward the office and Mad Dog fell in behind her. “Hey, Galen. We’re looking for Mark. You seen him?”

  “Why? What do you want with him?” Galen didn’t step out of the entry to his office or invite them in. Nor did he seem inclined to offer any help. Mad Dog wondered if Pam would be as successful as she’d thought.

  “We can’t find him. He was going to call me this weekend and he hasn’t. That’s not like Mark.”

  “Well, you dumped him pretty hard, Pam. What did you expect?”

  “So you have seen him,” she countered. “Otherwise you couldn’t know that. Well, where is he?”

  “Uh….” Galen was the master of conversational repartee. “I don’t know.”

  “Then why’s his pickup parked over behind that tractor?”

  Mad Dog looked and, sure enough, there it was. When he looked back, Galen had a pistol in his hand and it was aimed at them. “Dang!” Galen said. “Now see what you’ve gone and made me do.”

  “You haven’t got the balls to shoot us,” Pam said. Mad Dog didn’t think this was the moment to question someone’s manhood. It was time for Mad Dog to step in and calm this down, only Pa
m and Galen were proceeding as if he weren’t present.

  “I will if I have to,” Galen said. “But that’s not my preference.”

  Pam tried to interrupt again but this time Galen managed to still her with what he had to say. “Mark’s fine and you can see him in a few hours. With any luck. But right now, I’m gonna have to put the two of you on ice until this thing’s over.”

  “Where is he?” Pam said, at the same moment Mad Dog was asking something else.

  “What thing?”

  “Can’t tell you.” There was no way to know which question Galen was answering, or whether he’d just answered both. Galen wagged the pistol to his left and pointed toward an opening in the wall of the warehouse. A corridor led, presumably, back toward the grain bins.

  “Both of you, down that way, now.” Galen pulled back the pistol’s hammer to show he meant business. Mad Dog tried to think of what his choices were. If Pam had it right, they could just refuse. And Mad Dog could go over and take Galen’s gun away. But if she were wrong….

  A bullet threw up sparks at their feet before whining over and crashing through the wall behind them. That convinced Mad Dog not to argue.

  “All right,” Pam said, “but my cousin’s never going to speak to you after I tell her about this.”

  “That’s not my main worry right now,” Galen said. “Down the hall.”

  They went. He told them to stop when he got to the third bin. It had a door that was open a few feet above the surface of the corridor, and metal steps so you could get to it easily enough.

  “In there,” Galen told them. “It’s empty. Roof door’s open so you’ve got ventilation.”

  Mad Dog stepped up and peered inside. It wasn’t completely empty. There were still clumps of grain on the floor. Some stuck, here and there, to the ribbed metal sides further up. And there were inner and outer doors. He was pretty sure the inner one wouldn’t have handles on the grain side, and he could see the heavy metal tabs the lever locks on the outside would grab. It was big for a prison cell, but it would make an effective one.

  “Not yet,” Galen said, stopping Mad Dog before he climbed through. “Empty your pockets.”

  Mad Dog did. Nothing much there—cell phone, billfold with a couple of hundred dollars in it, a little pocket change, and the keys to his Mini. Nothing more dangerous than his miniature Swiss Army knife. Galen made him set it all on the ground beside the steps.

  “It’ll be here when I let you out.”

  “When’s that?” Mad Dog asked.

  “Soon as I can.” It was more of an answer than he’d expected.

  “Now you, Pam.”

  She shrugged and twirled around to demonstrate. “No pockets, Galen, that’s why women carry purses.” She set hers on the ground beside Mad Dog’s stuff and the two of them crawled through the door into the cavernous bin. Mad Dog didn’t go far, hoping for a chance to grab Galen before the inner door closed. Galen was going to need both hands on those levers.

  “Both of you, over against the opposite wall.” It had to be thirty feet over there. So much for the grab. Considering how she’d behaved to begin with, Mad Dog was surprised at how compliant Pam had become. He followed her across the bin. They were almost there when the door started to close behind them. Of course, that was when the cell phone in Pam’s crotch began ringing.

  ***

  Chucky hadn’t made any demands. And the sheriff still didn’t have a plan. There were other ways into that basement, and not just through the locked door the principal’s keys hadn’t fit. But for now, until he had some help, he had to watch this exit, the most likely one. Chucky might not know about the others and might not have a key to that locked door. If the sheriff left, there was nothing to keep Chucky from coming out and going hunting.

  “Talk to me, Chucky,” the sheriff called.

  “Nothing to say.”

  Good. He was still there. Doc should have made it to the clinic by now. Mrs. Kraus would have called for backup from out of county. Surely he’d be getting help soon.

  “That’s okay. Just talk to me now and then. Let me know nothing’s changed down there.”

  “Maybe.”

  The sheriff would accept that for now. Chucky was there, not headed out another exit.

  Tires squealed on Main and the sheriff turned in time to watch a Corvette take the turn into the Buffalo Springs High parking lot in a controlled power slide. For half a heartbeat he found himself hoping. And then he knew whose car it was. The Vette blasted across the parking lot and came to a halt at the edge of the front curb. The doors flew open and two men jumped out. Newt Neuhauser was on the sheriff’s side. Soon-to-be Sheriff Greer was on the other. Both of them came out of the car with weapons—Neuhauser with some kind of Dirty-Harry-sized pistol in a shooter’s stance, Greer with a short-barreled shotgun high and tight on his shoulder, the way they did it in Iraq. The two of them performed a synchronized sweep, fields of fire never overlapping.

  “Clear,” Greer said.

  “Clear,” Neuhauser repeated.

  “What’s going on?” Chucky called from the basement. “I heard a car come in real fast.”

  “Ambulance,” the sheriff said, “for when you turn your hostages loose. You ready?”

  “Not hardly.”

  The sheriff looked at Greer and Neuhauser and raised a finger to his lips. He might not want these two, but he had them. Greer was probably competent, combat experienced at least. And from the way Neuhauser came out of the car with the lieutenant, he looked competent, too. The sheriff didn’t know much about Neuhauser’s background. The man was an outsider, a buddy of Greer’s who’d come to help him win the sheriff’s office. Greer and Neuhauser—well, maybe he could use them.

  The two joined the sheriff at the back corner of the building. Neither had uttered another word after the sheriff urged them to silence. Greer leaned down close. His voice was soft and eager.

  “We hear the Williams kid is pulling a Columbine.”

  The sheriff nodded, though what Chucky had done didn’t seem as carefully planned.

  “He alone?”

  “Except for hostages,” the sheriff said.

  “Where?”

  “Basement.”

  Greer had gone to school here, too. “Ah.” The lieutenant nodded. “So we’ve got to get through the fence and down the stairwell, then through the windows or doors to take him.”

  “That’s the problem,” the sheriff agreed.

  Greer smiled. “No problem.” Keeping one hand on the grip near the shotgun’s trigger, Greer used the other to open his jacket. He had a bandolier under there. An assortment of little metal globes hung from it.

  The sheriff’s eyebrows shot up violently enough to lap his head. “Are those grenades?”

  “You bet.” Greer sounded proud of himself. “Grenades, flash bangs, tear gas, the works.”

  “Where…? How…?” There weren’t enough questions. Greer wasn’t on active duty. He shouldn’t have access to armaments like these. In fact, it was a violation of the law.

  “After hunting insurgents, I feel naked without them.”

  As if that explained it. The sheriff’s mind was racing. He ought to arrest Greer right now, but those grenades opened all kinds of possibilities.

  “Let’s go get him,” the lieutenant said.

  “Whoa.” They needed a plan. They needed to know where Chucky was in relation to his hostages. They needed….

  “Whoa? No wonder it’s going to be so easy to replace you as sheriff. I’m going in. Come if you want.”

  “Look.” The sheriff tried to be reasonable. “What if he’s using his hostages as shields? It’s going to take a minute to get down there. What if he panics and starts shooting them?”

  Greer didn’t care, and his reply made a point. “What if he starts shooting them anyway?”

  Okay, the sheriff thought. But they still needed a plan. One of them should get around the building. One should probably blow that locked door
to the basement and go in that way with all of them entering together, making their assault as nearly as simultaneous as they could.

  “Hell with it,” Greer told Neuhauser. “Keep him out of my way.”

  The sheriff felt that massive pistol snuggle into the nape of his neck.

  “Put your gun down, Mr. English,” Neuhauser whispered as Greer slipped past, choosing a grenade and edging closer to the corner of the building.

  The sheriff obeyed. He’d been pointing his .38 at the sky. Now he lowered it until it was centered on Greer’s back.

  “Touch that trigger, Mr. Neuhauser,” English said, “and neither the lieutenant nor I will be available for the next term as sheriff of Benteen County.”

  ***

  Heather found herself staring at her mirror image as it straightened from behind the nearest car in the parking lot, the dustiest one of the half dozen there.

  “Heather,” she said. The other Heather, her adopted sister, wasn’t supposed to be here. She was a fifth-year senior finishing her degree in anthropology at the University of New Mexico. That was in Albuquerque, a six-hundred-mile drive away.

  One of Two looked at Two of Two and Two of Two looked back. “What are you doing here,” they chorused. “You’re supposed to be in school.”

  And then the absurdity of it hit them and they both grinned and went around the car and hugged each other. Heather number one said, “I’ve got the badge, so you have to answer me first.”