Broken Heartland

by J. M. Hayes

  He landed and rolled and the glass gave without splintering—safety glass, no sharp edges—and he was free. Free, except that a large man with an automatic weapon was standing in the yard, undecided. His eyes were skipping from Heather, who was scrambling out of her Toyota where it had gone head first into the south-side ditch some fifty yards down the road, the corner of the building where Hailey must have disappeared (unless she’d simply vanished into thin air), and the fellow who’d just come out the window he’d perforated. That last was Mad Dog, who had no way to get to the gunman without giving him ample opportunities to empty his clip into Benteen County’s only Cheyenne shaman. Lacking options, Mad Dog just gave the man a thumbs up and then waded back, barefoot through glass and decorative vegetation, to see about Pam. She was on the far side of the room, against the door, trying to hold it closed. The guy who wanted it open was Mad Dog’s size, or bigger, so it opened.

  “Run!” Pam yelled as the guy grabbed her with one hand and leveled a pistol at Mad Dog with the other.

  “Hold it!” The guy offered contrary advice.

  Mad Dog took Pam’s suggestion and no one shot him. The man with Pam didn’t manage to get a shot off because she’d kneed him in a very tender place as Mad Dog bolted. The one in the yard had apparently accepted Mad Dog’s gesture at face value. He was sprinting toward Heather, or where Heather had been before she ducked into the milo field just east of the Siegrist house.

  The problem was where Mad Dog should run. He didn’t want to leave Pam behind and he needed to help Heather. He didn’t have shoes, or car keys, or even a sharp stick with which to take on all these armed men. Whatever, getting out of sight seemed to be his first order of business. Especially when the blond guy changed his mind and opened up with his machine gun again. At first, Mad Dog was afraid the guy was trying to gun down Heather. Then a row of explosions threw dust and broken masonry up from the driveway and wall of the house in front of him. Galen wasn’t going to like this. But that was nothing to how Mad Dog would feel about it when the guy fired a more accurate burst.

  That burst didn’t come. Mad Dog risked a glance over his shoulder. The blond was yanking a clip out of his weapon and reaching for a replacement. Mad Dog had a moment. Not long enough to get around the corner of the building, but just enough, if he and Pam had been right earlier.

  His hand found the front door, twisted the knob….

  No one locked their doors in Benteen County.

  ***

  It was Heather Lane’s second pass by the Siegrist place that got her in trouble. She’d known once might be risky and twice could be stupid. But she hadn’t seen anything on her first drive by. Not until she was looking in her rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of Hailey, sitting by the corner of the house.

  She’d turned around at the next mile and come back, slower this time. No Hailey. But there was a guy in a suit standing in the front yard, giving her the evil eye. Still, she’d tried to maximize her chance for a close-up look. With nothing to show for it, she played stupid, smiling at the man in the yard and waving as she began to accelerate away. And then, there was Hailey again, in her rearview mirror. Her uncle’s wolf was standing with her front feet on a window sill, her nose right to that damn reflective glass. Heather had a pretty good idea who was on the other side. Without a thought, she hit the brakes, planning to go back and demand an explanation. Only then the guy was shooting at her and she began madly trying to get away. The back end of the Toyota went all wobbly as she did so and the next thing she knew she was in the ditch.

  Heather threw her door open, grabbed her fanny pack, and scrambled out of the car. It was just registering on her that the man had shot at her. And with some kind of automatic weapon on top of that. She wanted to rush back and tell him he was going to pay for any damage he’d done to her beloved first car, but she was angry, not nuts. She used the front of the car for cover. The gun opened up again, but it wasn’t shooting at her this time. She risked a glance.

  Hailey. The bastard was shooting at Hailey. But missing, because the wolf disappeared around the far corner of the house while the gunman’s stream of bullets was still three feet behind.

  Heather took advantage of his diverted attention and ducked into the field of milo. Galen’s crop was late this year, but ripe. Rows of red-headed sorghum stretched for at least half a mile, easily thick enough to hide her from the house. But unlike corn, which milo resembles except for the distinctive red clump of grain at the top of each stem, the plants in this field were no more than four feet high. That meant she would have to keep down and move slower. The guy with the gun wouldn’t have that disadvantage if he came after her instead of Hailey.

  More shots. She didn’t hear them hit anywhere nearby, but they prompted her to move a lot faster than she’d thought she could.

  She dove a couple of dozen yards deeper into the field, then popped her head up, just high enough to check on him. The guy in the suit was trotting down the road, nearly to her car now. He’d find out she wasn’t there and would begin checking this field any minute. She had to get away, but there wasn’t really any good hiding place because Galen, damn him, had planted these rows arrow straight. The gunman would have to check every row, but when he looked down the one she was in, she wouldn’t stand a chance of losing him again.

  She could probably get to the corner before him. The north-south road at the next mile wasn’t far. Half a mile north on it and she’d be at the spot where she and Chairman Wynn had begun their surveillance. But she wouldn’t get across the east-west road without being seen. Not that there was anything to hide in if she did. Just a plowed field all the way to that distant windbreak. And nothing on the other side of the other road either. Those fields had also been recently tilled. There weren’t even clumps of weeds to hide behind. There would be weeds along the ditches, but not enough. And culverts under the road, but they were really just a good place to get caught in. All that was the direction he’d expect her to go. Away, just as her first panicky reaction had demanded.

  Toward the house, now that was something else. He wouldn’t go back and check the rows of grain for some ditzy spy stupid enough to drive by twice and wave. He’d follow the ditch her Toyota had ended up in and he’d check rows from there to the corner. He wouldn’t check the others until he didn’t find her where he expected.

  She wiggled through the first row, slithered though the second. Getting past him, getting past the car, that was the trick.

  The seventh row showed her the Toyota’s front bumper. She went slower now. And there he was, but he had his head down as he bent to look inside the car. She took a chance and popped up and sprinted half a dozen rows before diving back below the top of the copper berries.

  No rain of bullets followed, nor any shouts to halt and come out with her hands up. She thought that was a good sign.

  Just to be safe, she did the wiggle and slither number for a dozen more rows, doing her best not to jostle the plants. Thanks to the Kansas wind, he wasn’t likely to notice her move them. It wasn’t gusting, but it was steady, forceful enough to keep the sorghum waving in interesting patterns all its own.

  As she continued, she began putting more distance between herself and the road, as well. She wanted to get around behind the house and the outbuildings. Once she was there, she was going to be awfully hard to find.

  Crawling across a field, though, was taking too much time. If whoever was in that house was desperate enough to start shooting at curious drivers and nosey wolves, Uncle Mad Dog’s safety had to be at risk. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed her sister.

  “Yeah.” The other Heather didn’t usually answer that way. She must be busy.

  “They shot at me,” Heather Two said.

  “Hello,” the original Heather said.

  “I said they shot at me. Can you hear me? I need help.”

  One of Two evidently wasn’t getting her signal. “Anybody there?” One asked it another time and then hung up.

&
nbsp; Heather Lane pulled the cell away from her face and noticed the fresh scar across the front of the phone, right at the mouthpiece. At least one of those bullets had come a lot closer to her than she liked to think about. Maybe that was why her sister hadn’t been able to hear her.

  “Hola.” The voice came from immediately behind her and she dropped the phone and only just managed to stop herself from screaming. She turned, very slowly.

  He was short and dark and a little scruffy. But he wasn’t the man in the suit. He hadn’t been shooting at her.

  He had a heavy accent. “Jew wan’ help?” That’s what it sounded like he asked. Like he was starting a discussion on the troubles in the Middle East.

  “I help. Jew follow me. Vamanos, okay?”

  Jew. You. He might speak Spanish better than English, but he was offering assistance.

  “Okay,” she said. He began twisting through the rows of grain and she followed.

  ***

  No one locked their front doors in Benteen County. Or not until Mad Dog locked Galen’s behind him. Let blondie and his submachine gun waste a lot of bullets getting in, if he wanted.

  The living room was big, but traditional. It wasn’t an extended part of the kitchen. More important, the room was empty, unless you counted the sofa and pair of armchairs on that generic beige carpet, all facing a lonely fireplace from twenty feet away. Those three pieces of furniture, and the empty coffee table in front of them, were filler. It looked like Galen had bought them to take up space, not use them. All of which was fine by Mad Dog, especially at the moment. The only person he wanted to run into in here was the guy who’d grabbed Pam. And he wanted that to come as a complete surprise.

  He checked the mirrored windows on either side of the front door. The blond gunman had changed clips, but he wasn’t following Mad Dog. Instead, he was hoofing it down the road toward Heather’s Toyota. Of Heather, there was no longer any sign.

  Mad Dog couldn’t think of anything he could do for Heather right now, so he’d start with Pam. That meant he wanted to go east. That was where the hall to the garage was, and the room in which he and Pam had been held. But he thought it might be best to take a circuitous route. Scout out the rest of the house and determine where the big guys with the guns were so he could avoid them. Maybe put them out of commission along the way, if he was very lucky. When he got to Pam, if he got to Pam, he wanted to know exactly where to take her to keep her safe.

  Mad Dog zigged around the lonely furniture and zagged through the arched entry to a formal dining area. Big table, uncomfortable-looking chairs, all showroom new and as virginal in appearance as the stuff in the living room.

  There was a swinging door near the end of the dining room. Kitchen, he guessed. He slowed down for this one. Pam had said she and Mark came in the kitchen door when they visited Galen. Living room and formal dining area, those might not get used in a house that was way too big for the bachelor who lived here. Too big for his well-armed guests, as well. But the kitchen, that was another matter.

  Mad Dog put his ear to the door. He could hear voices, but they sounded far away. He edged it open with his shoulder, just enough to use one eye. There was no one in the part of the kitchen he could see. But this was a room that was being used. A pile of dirty dishes was stacked on a counter next to the sink and dishwasher. Mad Dog kept a steady pressure on the door and it gradually swung farther into the room. A breakfast bar and stools and more dirty dishes indicated still heavier use, and sloppy guests. So did the table near the back door and a set of windows that looked over the farm yard with its stunning array of metal warehouses and grain bins.

  The kitchen was empty. Mad Dog started to let himself in just as empty ceased to be the right word. Fortunately for him, Pam led the way, stumbling, pushed from behind by the big guy Mad Dog wanted to meet up with, but not while he had that heavy caliber pistol that followed Pam into the room.

  She saw him. Her eyes got big and her mouth told him to run again, though she never made a sound. Mad Dog managed to get the door back down to a crack just big enough for his eye as the gunman followed his weapon into the kitchen. The little guy with the bad comb-over brought up the tail end of the parade.

  “What do you mean you can’t find her?” the little man was saying. It didn’t make much sense until Mad Dog realized the man was speaking into the electronic device that extended in a thin tube to a microphone near his mouth. He must be talking to the blond guy who’d gone off chasing Heather.

  “Lord,” the little man said, confirming Mad Dog’s suspicions. “Bravo checked the registration and the car belongs to Heather Lane. That’s the sheriff’s adopted daughter. What’s she doing, snooping around here?”

  None of these armed men were going to have an answer for that, not if Mad Dog himself didn’t have a clue. Both the Heathers were supposed to be in school. Until moments ago, he’d been sure Heather Two was in Albuquerque.

  “Find her quick.” The little man turned to Pam’s escort. “Lock this one up and go help Bravo look for the girl from that car out front,” he said.

  The big guy nodded. “Where should I put her?”

  “Basement, I suppose. Just keep her out of the doctor’s way.”

  The big guy didn’t say anything, but he prodded Pam again, this time toward another opening off the kitchen. Mad Dog was getting damn tired of watching Pam being shoved around, but the room was too big and he wasn’t close enough to get to the guy before he could use the gun. And the little balding guy might be armed as well.

  The gunman went through the opening and he and Pam obviously began descending stairs. The little guy continued his conversation, this time with the gunman who had accompanied Galen. Apparently they hadn’t found Mark yet.

  This might be a good time to take out one of the opposition, Mad Dog thought. He felt a lot more confident of being able to overpower this dweeb, and, if so, he might arrange an ambush for Pam’s prodder when he came back up those stairs.

  Before he could do anything, though, the nurse appeared on the basement steps and began asking when the doctor could expect his “subjects.”

  In a house of this size, surely there was another entry to the basement. The kitchen seemed to have become a sort of headquarters for the army of occupation. Mad Dog decided to go exploring.

  There was another wing on the west side of the house. Mad Dog found the hall and, just inside, another set of stairs. Sounds rose from below—whispers that weren’t voices and some kind of chime. He went down, slow and quiet, emulating the select few of his ancestors who had been American Indians. There was a big, softly lit room down there. Something large, a pool table maybe, with a sheet over it, stood in the middle of the floor beneath faint blinking lights. It was surrounded by indistinct shadows. What were those lights? What were those noises?

  From the bottom of the steps, he peered to either side. One was a dark hall, the other, just more strange shapes he couldn’t recognize in the dim and flickering light. No people, though he thought he heard someone breathing.

  He took a couple of steps into the room. It wasn’t a pool table and there was something on it.

  A little closer. The something became a shape, a person. Someone hooked to wires and tubes and suddenly the things around it made sense. Monitors, drips, oxygen. Jesus, had he found the intended recipient of those organ donations the nurse had hinted at?

  He leaned in closer. There was a tube down the man’s throat. The breathing he’d heard was being done by a machine on the other side of the hospital bed Mad Dog had thought was a pool table. The man was covered to the waist by a light sheet. He was old, pigeon-chested, wrinkled, familiar somehow. And then Mad Dog had it. The face was softer in unconsciousness, but no less severe. What the hell was Reverend Aldus P. Goodfellow doing in a makeshift surgical ward in a basement in Benteen County, Kansas?

  Something stung Mad Dog on the shoulder. He started to swing around and defend himself but his muscles stopped working about halfway there. A pair of
hands grabbed him and eased him to the floor, face down. Mad Dog couldn’t see who it was. But he recognized the doctor’s voice.

  “Ah. I’m so glad you have reappeared. It seems you are nearly as perfect a match as the ones we’ve lost.”

  ***

  The Spanish-speaking man led Heather down into a low place, part of a drainage she hadn’t suspected but that must once have run across this field. There wasn’t much evidence of it anymore. Galen had done his best to fill it and make it match the rest of this half-mile long strip of grain. The remains of this streamlet, though, were lower than the surrounding field. Enough so the two of them could stand and proceed in a crouch and make some real progress. They could run, as the little guy demonstrated, if they stayed low. That was fine with Heather. The farther she got from the guy with the automatic weapon, the better she’d like it.

  “Aquí,” he told her. “Here.”

  Her Spanish wasn’t bad. She’d spent a lot of her youth in New Mexico, as well as several recent years of college. “I’m right behind you,” she said, using that Spanish.

  He glanced over his shoulder and smiled and said, “Bueno.”

  He led her toward the farm yard, but the back of it, away from the house, toward the third warehouse over. By the time they reached it, the other warehouses blocked her from being able to see her car or the corner of the milo field where the gunman had been searching for her.

  This man led her to a little building built against the side of the warehouse. A couple of fifty-five gallon drums stood near one wall. He slipped between them and pulled back a piece of siding and gestured for her to go in. It probably wasn’t the best thing to do with a strange man she’d met while sneaking across a milo field, but he’d helped her once and might again. She needed a safe place to consider her predicament and what to do about it and she needed allies. She went inside.