Broken Heartland

by J. M. Hayes

  Heather Lane said, “Okay, if you promise to explain about the badge.” She got a nodded acquiescence and went on. “I woke up about two in the morning in a panic. I felt sure something awful was going to happen to Englishman if I didn’t prevent it.”

  This sounded disturbingly familiar.

  “It was silly,” Two continued, “but I couldn’t shake it off. And I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I finally grabbed some clothes and got in the car and pointed it this way.” She looked sheepish, and tired, like someone who’d just driven hundreds of miles in a hell of a hurry on too little sleep. “Have you seen Dad? Is he all right?”

  “This is like so weird,” One said. “I woke up with the same premonition you did. But I saw Englishman over at the high school just a little while ago and he’s fine.”

  Some of the stress went out of the second Heather’s face. “That’s what Mrs. Kraus said. Englishman isn’t answering his cell. I started calling just before I hit the county line. When I couldn’t get him, I called the office. Mrs. Kraus said he was real busy, that Wynn ran into a school bus and Englishman was investigating that and it was Election Day and all and so I shouldn’t worry. She told me to just put in my normal school day.”

  “I’ll bet she was surprised to discover both of us had come home unexpectedly.”

  “Yeah,” Two said, “only that was kind of weird. She never mentioned that you were home or that you’d been worried about Dad, too. When I told her I’d be at the office in a few minutes, she said Englishman wasn’t there. And then she said something about the school bus Wynn hit having been stolen. It was supposed to be on its way to the Bible camp so Englishman was coming out to look into it. She said I’d probably find him here. And if I didn’t, I should wait. He’d be along shortly.”

  “That’s odd. What she told you about the bus is all true. But Dad told me there was no reason to check the Bible camp now. In fact, when I offered to look this place over, he gave me another errand.” That required further explanation about Wynn and the bus and the reason Heather English was carrying a Benteen County deputy’s badge, as well as what she’d found in the Dodge station wagon.

  “By the way,” One said, “how’d you drive in here?”

  “What do you mean? The gate was open. I just turned in and followed the road.”

  The gate hadn’t been open when Deputy Heather tried it a few minutes before. Someone had unlocked it. She felt a little of that creepy feeling slip back into her consciousness and raise hairs on the back of her neck. Had the gate been unlocked by someone going out, or coming in?

  “What’s the matter?” the second Heather asked.

  Benteen’s newest deputy eyed the parked cars, the cabins, and the dark shadows under the trees along the creek. “I’ve got a feeling,” she said, “we’re not alone here.”

  The sound of breaking glass from the cabins confirmed it.

  ***

  “What the…?” Galen pushed the door back open and stuck his head in the bin. “Pam, have you got a cell phone in your underwear?”

  She shrugged. “Latest technology.”

  “Gosh darn it to heck,” Galen swore. “Let’s have it.”

  Mad Dog started sidling, trying to put himself where Galen wouldn’t notice as he crept close enough to the door to make a try for the gun. Pam was holding Galen’s attention. She turned around and hiked up the front of her dress. Even from where Mad Dog stood, she revealed a lot of skin. Mad Dog tried to keep his mind on the gun. Side step, slide the other foot, repeat. It was a big bin.

  The cell phone rang again as Pam took it from its hiding place. From where Mad Dog stood, his view was even better than Galen’s. Gun, he told himself, but his eyes kept returning to a pair of legs even Charlize Theron would have envied.

  “Don’t answer it.”

  She glanced at the phone. “No one I care to talk to anyway.”

  “Throw it over here.”

  Step, slide, step, slide. Pam threw the phone so that it didn’t quite get to the door. Perfect, Mad Dog thought, stepping and sliding. Galen was going to have to lean way over to reach it and Mad Dog was going to get close enough to….

  “Get back against the far wall,” Galen said. He’d swiveled in the doorway and was pointing the gun at Mad Dog’s face. There went the step sliding. Mad Dog retreated.

  When Mad Dog was too far away to do anything, Galen bent and picked up the phone. He tossed it over his shoulder and wiped his hand against his shirt as if he feared contamination.

  “Don’t be more stupid than you already are,” Pam said. “I didn’t get any cooties on it.”

  Galen flushed and the phone rang one more time before giving up. “Unclean,” Galen hissed. He didn’t seem to realize that when you had the gun, you didn’t have to explain yourself. Kid’s got issues, Mad Dog thought, but he didn’t offer to help sort them out.

  “Cleaner than your mind, Galen Siegrist.” Again, Mad Dog thought she was picking a bad time to test the limits of Galen’s temper.

  “You are a slut, Pamela Epperson. I know. Mark told me.”

  “Told you what? Mark and I…hell, hardly anything happened between us.”

  “You and he…,” Galen sputtered. “The two of you were lovers.”

  “Just missionary position,” Pam said. “Well, all but that once.”

  Galen turned half a dozen shades brighter than red. “I’ve got no time for this,” he said. “And I can’t take any more chances. Out of those clothes.”

  Now it was Pam’s turn to sputter.

  “Hey, you can’t…,” Mad Dog protested. But of course, Galen could. He had the gun.

  “Way you’ve looked at me, I always thought you wanted to get me naked,” Pam said. “And behind a pointed gun is the only way it was ever going to happen.” She reached for her throat and started undoing buttons.

  “I don’t want to see you naked, you Jezebel. You can keep your underwear on, long as I can tell you don’t have anything hidden in it.”

  She stepped out of the dress. Her bra and panties were examples of minimalism. They weren’t hiding anything but the good stuff, and that, just barely. She removed her shoes and tossed them to the door. “What,” she said, “no body cavity search?”

  Galen’s color heightened still further. Mad Dog was pretty sure Galen would glow if only it were dark.

  The gun swiveled to point at Mad Dog. “You, too, old man.”

  “Can’t,” Mad Dog said.

  “Can’t?” Galen’s voice was getting high and a little hysterical. “Why’s that?”

  “I don’t wear underwear,” Mad Dog said. He blushed. Pam’s eyebrows went up and a little smile appeared on her lips.

  Mad Dog wasn’t entirely surprised when Galen laughed and told him to strip anyway. What Mad Dog chose to wear, or not, under his jeans made no difference to Galen.

  ***

  Lieutenant Greer looked down the muzzle of the sheriff’s .38 and shook his head.

  “Jeez,” Greer said to Neuhauser. “You don’t know our sheriff very well. He doesn’t shoot innocent people who aren’t a threat to his life. He may hate my guts, but he’s not going to pull that trigger, even when I reach out and take his gun away from him.”

  The sheriff wondered if Greer was trying to convince himself, but the man was right. For half a second, the sheriff considered just winging the bastard, but then the lieutenant gently pushed the sheriff’s gun so that it was aiming at the school wall. He didn’t take it, though.

  “In fact,” the lieutenant continued, “though he won’t like it, our sheriff will probably provide me with good backup.”

  What do you do when the options run out? The sheriff wasn’t willing to kill either of them, especially when Greer’s wild plan just might work. But he had no intention of letting them take over.

  “You’re both under arrest for interfering with an officer in the performance of his duty.”

  “Whatever,” Greer said. “As soon as this is finished, we’ll all go over t
o the courthouse and you can charge us and we’ll post bail.”

  “And, Mr. Neuhauser,” the sheriff continued, “if you don’t get that pistol out of the back of my neck, I’m going to charge you with pretty much everything in the book and see how you like our eight by eight iron cells.”

  “Sorry,” the man said. He stepped back, putting enough distance between himself and the sheriff so he wouldn’t be easy to disarm. The sheriff felt like continuing to read them the riot act, but Greer didn’t give him time.

  “Wait for me,” the lieutenant said. “Don’t follow until I give you the all clear.”

  “Right,” Neuhauser said. The sheriff didn’t say anything. He would go in right behind Greer, unless the lieutenant’s corpse was in the way.

  “Let’s boogie,” Greer said. He peeked around the building to remind himself where the stairwell and the fence were. He pulled the pin on a grenade, rolled it around the corner and ducked, clutching another grenade as he did so.

  Neuhauser and the sheriff grabbed wall just as the earth moved. Greer threw himself around the corner, behind the second grenade. Flash-bang, the sheriff guessed, because Greer wasn’t afraid to expose his body to it and because a deafening concussion further assaulted the sheriff’s ears.

  The sheriff left Neuhauser hugging the wall and followed Greer. He rounded the corner just in time to hear the lieutenant’s shotgun and Chucky’s automatic rifle open up simultaneously. There was so much dust in the air that the sheriff couldn’t tell what was going on for a moment. The first grenade had left a hole in the chain link surrounding the stairwell, just as Greer intended. But it wasn’t as big as it should be. And something was hanging in it, blocking the opening.

  Christ! It was Greer, hanging there, the light jacket he was wearing caught on strands of twisted wire. He was dangling in the stairwell. Not that deep, at least. His waist was roughly at ground level. But his feet, God, they’d be hanging down near the windows, down in Chucky’s field of fire.

  That’s when he realized Chucky wasn’t shooting anymore. Greer wasn’t doing any shooting, either. His shotgun was at the bottom of the steps, lying in a pile of shattered glass and pieces of window frame. Hell, even part of the door was down there with it.

  “You alive?” the sheriff asked directly in Greer’s ear. He didn’t get a response, though he could tell the man was breathing. And bleeding from the head. The sheriff put his arms under Greer’s and yanked. The lieutenant was heavy, but the sheriff was benefiting from as much adrenaline as his system could produce. Greer slowly emerged from the hole in the fence, and the sheriff dragged him back around the corner.

  “Is the lieutenant dead?” Neuhauser asked.

  “Not yet,” the sheriff said. “But we could still get lucky.”

  ***

  It was cool in the grain bin. Not cold, because it must be getting close to noon and the sun was beating down on the bare metal and conducting a little heat. It would probably be pretty comfortable by mid-afternoon. But tonight….

  “What are you doing?” Pam was standing against the wall on the sunny side, absorbing the warmth. Mad Dog was busy checking seams on the opposite wall, trying to do anything to keep his mind off the young woman in the minuscule underwear on the other side of the bin.

  Not that he was a prude. Back when he was part of that commune down in Oklahoma, he’d spent most of a summer running around bare-assed in the company of seriously attractive and equally unclothed young women. But he was older now. Old enough to know better. Old enough to be this girl’s father….

  Still, it wouldn’t have been a problem, but shortly after Galen took their clothes and left them alone together, Mad Dog noticed a certain part of his anatomy didn’t care whether Pam was too young. He felt preliminary stirrings that had been a lot more common back in the decades before Pam was even born.

  He told himself their situation was difficult enough without him parading around with an erection and started a detailed inspection of the bin’s construction. It occupied his mind and turned the offending member from her view. And his search even stood a chance in a billion of getting them out of here.

  “Looking for a weak point,” he said, recalling how wispy her underwear was. The memory diverted blood flow in an unfortunate direction.

  “Like this,” he said, forcing himself to focus on a flawed rivet he’d just discovered. If he only had a really good pry bar, he might be able to pop it, then start working on the seam. Given a few uninterrupted months to work on the spot, he might get them out of there.

  “Like what?” Her voice came from just over his shoulder and he was suddenly sure he could detect her body heat radiating along his right flank. Damned blood flow.

  “Uh, here,” he said, pointing out the rivet and trying to make sure she only noticed the cold metal instead of….

  “You really think you can do something with that?”

  She was right beside him, now. He couldn’t turn away. That would be too obvious. He let his right arm fall to his side in a masking position.

  She wasn’t just too young. He was Cheyenne. Cheyenne were not promiscuous. They didn’t have casual sexual relationships. Not that she would be interested in an old man like him, anyway. But if she noticed how interested part of him was… well, it would be humiliating. And that very thought should have been enough to reverse the blood flow process, but she was leaning in close to examine the rivet and something very soft and hardly contained by lace and gauze brushed his arm. More blood left his brain.

  She turned and looked at him. At least she was looking at his face. “Mad Dog, do you think you could do something with that?”

  He’d forgotten her question. He took a deep breath and tried to lock his eyes on hers, and not that cleavage only inches away. “Yeah.” His voice sounded husky even to him. He tried again. “If I had my knife or some piece of metal to work on it with.”

  “There’s a metal hook in my bra,” she said. She reached up and undid it and he lost control of his eyes. She handed the translucent garment to him and he took it. There wasn’t much more to the hook and eye arrangement than there was to the bra itself. Just some thin wire that would bend before it even scratched the rivet.

  “I don’t think this is hard enough,” he said, voice even huskier.

  “But that sure is,” she said. He managed to get his eyes back on her face and discovered her own had traveled elsewhere. When he’d taken her bra, he’d uncovered himself.

  She smiled. “Thanks,” she said. “I was beginning to think I wasn’t your type.”

  He dropped his hands and tried to hide himself.

  “Hey, don’t be embarrassed. I’m flattered.” She put her arms around his neck and slid up against him.

  In spite of all his will power, his arms reached out to welcome her. Her mouth opened and found his and then she stepped back a little and dropped her hands to her waist.

  “Let me get out of these,” she said. A last filmy cloth slid from her hips to her ankles. And then she was back in his arms and nothing separated them. There was only one way they could get closer and she rose up on her tiptoes as she nibbled at his mouth, hips doing a subtle bump and grind to guide him and make it happen.

  Mad Dog didn’t want it to happen. But his hands found her hips and pulled her to him and he knew there was no way to stop it. What his intellect wanted didn’t matter. Sometimes the body has a will of its own. Nothing on earth would keep them from….

  The door to the bin swung open on creaking hinges.

  ***

  “Heather,” Heather English said. “Would you move your car back over and block the road into the camp where it goes between those two trees? And then stay with it?”

  “What,” Heather Lane said, “you’re going in alone?”

  “I may flush somebody. If I do, you’ll have them trapped. I’ll call if I need help. Is your cell on and charged?” Her sister showed her that it was. “If I need you, I’ll call. If I’m not there when you answer, sneak in an
d maybe bring a tire iron, just in case.”

  “You’re scaring me,” Two said.

  “Nah, I’m being dramatic. Something weird is going on, and somebody died in that accident this morning, but it’s not like anything dangerous is happening. Not in Benteen County.”

  The other Heather smiled. “Well, be careful,” she said. She got in her car and backed toward the gap in the trees.

  Deputy Heather fumbled her cell phone and pepper spray out of her fanny pack, then slid between cars and melted into the grove that surrounded the camp. The deeper she went, the more the trees thinned and individual buildings became visible. She slipped from trunk to trunk, pausing at each to search for any sign of movement and to examine the cabins for broken windows.

  She would have missed it but for the breeze. A curtain fluttered in the window of a candy-cane striped cabin near the center of the camp.

  Heather hadn’t done much hunting growing up. Hunting wasn’t a girl thing in Benteen County, and after Vietnam her dad hadn’t been interested in killing for sport. But she’d played her share of cops and robbers and hide and seek and seen thousands of movies. She had a pretty good idea of how a cop should approach a probable breaking and entering. She continued slipping from cover to cover, even more carefully now, as if someone might stick a gun out that window and begin sniping at her at any moment. And she checked around her as she advanced, in case there were other people in here or whoever broke that window had moved somewhere else.

  When she got to the adjacent cabin, a robin’s egg blue SAMARITANS, the curtain that had caught her attention stirred in a way the wind couldn’t be responsible for. A foot stepped through, and then another. The body they were attached to twisted and a butt, a big one, followed slowly, feet reaching for a porch that was inconveniently low.

  Now, Heather thought. She pivoted once, reassuring herself that she and the burglar were alone, and then she sprinted toward the candy-cane cabin. The burglar’s feet found the porch and the rest of him came through the window, the curtain mussing his thick gray hair. The rest of him was as big as his tush, and she was disturbed to note that he had a pistol on his belt. At least it wasn’t in his hands. Those were holding a stack of notebooks.