Prairie Gothic

by J. M. Hayes

  “Only I don’t care anymore,” Two countered. “So it’s an obvious place for them to look. I’m fresh out of alternatives and I can’t go much farther anyway.”

  They headed for the barn. The girls knew they were being hunted. The effort was seriously disorganized, though, with armed Hornbakers poking here and there according to no apparent plan. That made it less likely anyone would recognize their tracks, since others were being randomly laid down and then blurred by the wind. But it made it more likely they’d eventually be spotted. Actually, they’d been seen once, but the ill-defined figure just waved, and then plodded on toward a building the Heathers immediately scratched from their next-to-visit list.

  One pushed the barn door open just long enough for them to slip through. She pointed at the stairs. “Hayloft. We go up there and snuggle under some hay. If we burrow deep enough, maybe they won’t find us.”

  Two was shivering too violently to answer, but she managed to start up the stairs.

  Heather English realized she should go back and look out, assure herself they hadn’t been followed. She couldn’t find the energy. It didn’t matter. If they didn’t warm up soon, they might as well lie down in the snow and wait for the inevitable.

  ***

  “Look out!” Judy screamed. She never would have seen it if she hadn’t been staring mindlessly out the window. Her Heathers had been at that cemetery, or near it, and near the time on the note. On purpose?

  Facing into the storm was like looking at that computer screensaver where you were flying in space and stars came hurtling out of the dark at you. Only there wasn’t any dark out her window. She was in the heart of the galaxy and the stars were everywhere and, all of them, coming right at her. It made her feel queasy, like riding a roller coaster. She would have looked away, but mindless and queasy were better than thinking about Harriet and her daughters.

  And then there was something else out there, materializing, becoming solid, like a Romulan Bird of Prey lowering its cloaking device. She’d been watching too many reruns with her Trekkie daughters. Only this was no TV starship. It was a truck painted garish yellow, the Benteen County snow plow, hurtling along with its blade raised and headed straight for where Chairman Wynn was piloting the Cadillac.

  The chairman’s head swiveled toward her scream. She saw him react, throw the steering wheel all the way to the right. She felt the big V8 lunge, heard wheels spin. The blade was coming and she knew they were dead.

  The Caddy grabbed macadam, dug through snow, clenched frozen soil, and propelled itself into the ditch. They were going to make it.

  She felt the impact. Felt herself thrown across the seat. Heard something pop and watched the world spin. And then they were still, facing into the ditch, the plow gone, rolling south, not even delayed by the contact.

  Judy picked herself up off the floor. There was moisture in her eyes. Blood. She’d banged her forehead.

  The chairman had a hand to his nose, testing it like it hurt. His air bag was draped over the steering wheel. Maybe that was what had hit his nose.

  Englishman was holding his head, pushing his own airbag out of the way, fumbling for the radio that was somewhere on the floor now because it was crackling something at them—Mrs. Kraus’s voice.

  “I hate to bother you with anything else, only Supervisor Bontrager just came in. Says the county snowplow has been stolen. You may want to keep an eye out. Never know where you might run into it.”

  ***

  Mad Dog bought Dorothy a cup of coffee. She chose the Sinnamon, which didn’t surprise him. He got her a package of cheese-flavored chips, too, which she shared with Hailey while he went out and put the chains on the Blazer.

  “We’re ready to go,” Dorothy said. They were waiting by the door as he came back in.

  “Go where?” Mad Dog couldn’t imagine where Dorothy expected to be taken.

  “You’re going to Tommie’s place, aren’t you.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Take me along and I’ll tell you.”

  Mad Dog had no intention of dragging a little old lady with him as he went into danger. “Tell me first,” he said.

  “We don’t have time.” She pointed out the window. A white Dodge Ram spun to a stop against the far curb.

  She pushed the door open and ducked inside the Blazer right behind Hailey. A shadowy figure climbed out of the Dodge, reaching back for something on the gun rack. Mad Dog was convinced. Drive now. Argue later.

  The chains gave the Blazer the kind of purchase he hadn’t had all morning. He left sparks as he roared away from the Texaco. The man with the Dodge fired one round, then Mad Dog was too busy steering to pay attention.

  “Simon musta been standing on ice,” Dorothy said. “Recoil knocked him over.”

  Mad Dog checked his rearview mirror. Nothing back there but packed snow and the Blazer’s fresh tracks. That, and the frozen miasma that already hid landmarks like the Buffalo Burger Drive Inn from view. He eased off the accelerator.

  “I’d move right along if I was you,” Dorothy recommended. “Simon’s got the big V-10 in that Dodge and a lead foot to go with it. He’ll be along in a minute.”

  “Then we’re in trouble.”

  “You been in trouble since you took Tommie this morning. This is just a new phase.”

  “What, the phase where he catches us and shoots us dead?”

  “Oh, he won’t kill me. You could be another matter. That’s why I’m gonna suggest we turn off up here and take a back way.”

  Mad Dog shook his head. “I don’t know if we can make it. Some of those drifts are pretty deep.”

  “You got chains,” she argued. “He’s got you out-powered and out-gunned, but he doesn’t have chains. Don’t seem to me like you’ve got much choice. Whatever, this’d be a good time to decide. Here he comes.”

  She was right. The Dodge was back in view, racing the snow and beating it.

  Mad Dog allowed himself one heartfelt curse. He moved his foot to the brake, swung the wheel, and skidded into the first side road headed west. The biggest snow drift he’d seen since his childhood waited, not fifty feet from the intersection. Mad Dog would have cursed again, only the Blazer was demanding all his attention. It plunged in, bucking and plowing. He didn’t think they were going to make it until they broke free on the other side.

  An even bigger drift loomed just beyond.

  ***

  It was cold in the loft. The barn’s roof needed repairs. There were shingles missing, and little piles of snow spotted the wooden floor. Worse, there was hardly any hay. Just one stack of moldy old bales over in the far corner, maybe ten feet high and a little longer. Still, it was insulation.

  Heather English scrambled up the stack, surveying its construction and deciding how to modify it. The bales were ancient and rotten. The first one she tried to shift broke apart, the twine that bound it snapping the moment she began to tug.

  She felt like sitting down and crying. She was sixteen. Her whole life was supposed to be ahead of her—fouled up and messy, maybe, but there. Why was some ditzy old lady keeping a prisoner inside her farmhouse? Why had she rescued them, only to turn them back out into the storm? None of it made sense, and it wasn’t fair. She was supposed to go to college, have a career, find the man of her dreams.

  Ice princess. That was what some of the guys at school called her. They might turn out to be right. Literally.

  Heather Lane joined her on the stack. “What do we do?”

  One of Two wasn’t sure anymore. “Burrow in, I guess.” She kicked at the broken bale. Two tried to move another. She had more success. It shifted, gained momentum, and toppled to the floor, carrying the girls along in an avalanche of moldering hay.

  “That what you had in mind?” Two asked.

  Heather didn’t answer. She was staring at the square metal box that had tumbled out of the pile with them. It wasn’t the sort of thing you normally found in a stack of hay in the loft of a barn in the middle of
Kansas, though it fit right in with all the other weird stuff stored here and there on this farm.

  Its black enameled surface dully reflected the dim light. A chrome handle and hinges shone brighter. It was a curious find. But even odder was the shape of its keyhole. Heather had seen lots of war movies. She recognized a swastika when she saw one.

  ***

  “I don’t suppose this thing’s got a winch on it?” The sheriff’s skull felt like it was about to split. He’d banged it against the headrest when the air bag went off.

  “This is a Cadillac, not a Humvee,” the chairman replied.

  “You got a shovel? Maybe we can dig our way out.” The pain was receding. It was merely intolerable now. If he sat quietly for a few hours before he got out and started pushing or shoveling, he might get back to just feeling awful.

  “No shovel. Maybe we can collect some brush to stuff under the wheels.”

  “I’m all right. Thanks for asking,” Judy said, loud and close to his ear. It caused a brief relapse.

  “Good,” the sheriff said when he could form words again. “We may need you to help push.” He cracked his door. The sooner they started, the sooner he’d know how bad off they were. And maybe the cold would ease the pain in his head, or offer a different pain bad enough to make him forget.

  “Hang on.” Judy caught his arm.

  “What for?” The closest farm was a mile away. He didn’t think they could make it half that far in these conditions. But somehow, they had to get to Tommie’s place, find out if his death was related to what had happened at Mad Dog’s and the empty Benteen County patrol car, see if the kids were there. Since walking wasn’t an option, they had to get the Caddy out of this ditch and back on the road.

  “Well, hell,” Judy said, “just try it first.”

  “Try what?”

  “Try driving out. There isn’t much of a ditch here. We aren’t in much snow. Maybe we can just back out.”

  Chairman Wynn shrugged his shoulders. “Why not?” He reached down and put it in reverse. He touched his foot to the accelerator.

  Judy was right.

  ***

  “Pull over here.”

  Mad Dog gave Dorothy one of those looks she was accustomed to, an eloquent way of asking the delicate question, “Are you insane?”

  “Simon’s probably still fighting through that first drift. He’s stubborn and determined enough, he’ll get through, but it’ll take awhile. There’ve been at least a dozen more that’ll cause him trouble. We got the time.”

  After a careful survey of his rearview mirror, Mad Dog obeyed. Dorothy surprised him by hopping out into the teeth of the storm. She looked frail enough that he expected it to blow her to Central Texas. He started to go after her but she waved him back as she skated across the road and onto a drive he hadn’t noticed. There was a gate there. She opened it and gestured for him to pull through. There was nothing around for the snow to hide behind so it wasn’t deep here. The spot she wanted him to go was at least as accessible as the road. He considered getting out and going over and carrying her back to the Blazer, but he didn’t. He aimed it where she wanted and she closed the gate behind them before rejoining him in the cab.

  “Like my shortcut?” she asked.

  “You expect me to drive across this field? I guess we must be north of Tommie’s place, but driving cross country won’t make it a short cut, not when we get stuck in some gully or run up on a stand of trees.”

  “You’re not on pasture. Don’t you remember that pipeline they put in last fall? There was a frost just after they finished. Nothing’s had time to grow on it. It cuts right back over to the highway, maybe half a mile south of where we left it.”

  Mad Dog did remember. It was just that he normally tried not to. The pipeline was a fresh scar on the landscape. A few feet under the frozen ground beside them, natural gas flowed to underground storage caverns a few sections southeast of here. He’d hated the idea of it when they put it in, worried over the possibility of a blowout for a few months after. Now, he hardly noticed it anymore. Once in awhile he’d seen gas company trucks near it, making inspections. Sometimes he’d glance at the scar while he was jogging, this surgical incision across the belly of his beloved Plains. It was a symbol of the awful things man did to his environment for the sake of comfort. But it had never been a way to get some place, not in his head.

  “This route’s probably in better shape than most roads. It runs straight as an arrow without a tree line or a fold in the earth where snow could build up to slow us. Nothing between here and the highway but one more gate we’ll have to open. And, best of all, Simon won’t think of it if he gets this far.”

  Mad Dog shook his head, put the Blazer in gear, and took advantage of some of the best driving conditions he’d encountered all day. “How’d you know about this?”

  “There’s no place like home.” She favored him with a smile. “I come back to visit sometimes, only then I have to deal with the wicked witch.”

  “Witch?” Mad Dog liked Dorothy. Considering how odd most people found his own world view, he tended to be tolerant of others. He’d never argued with her claim to be that Dorothy. She couldn’t be, of course. That Dorothy was the product of L. Frank Baum’s imagination, a fairy tale that had been embarrassing Kansans for over a century.

  Patience wasn’t normally a problem for Mad Dog, but this was an unusual day. Someone had tried to shoot him. He’d found a cache of old bones on the Irons/Hornbaker property, the burial place of an unborn Cheyenne baby, and other folk. Another baby had died because someone had been molesting a little girl. All that, and the Heathers were missing.

  “Don’t be silly, Dorothy. You’re not in Oz. There are no witches.”

  She sniffed and stiffened her spine. “I expected better from you, Mr. Wizard. Surely our county’s resident Cheyenne shaman, of all people, isn’t going to tell me he doesn’t believe in witches?”

  She had him there.

  ***

  “I want you should show me.”

  Judah had caught them by surprise. He could tell from their expressions. More than that, they didn’t understand what he wanted. He could tell that too.

  There was a strange iron box lying in the collapsed haystack along with the Heathers. If his mind hadn’t been so thoroughly on something else, he would have gone over and joined their investigation of the thing.

  They were sure pretty. He’d noticed that at school. But they never had anything to do with him. Hardly anyone did, even his teammates on the Buffalo Springs Bisons. He was the strongest football player in the league, stronger even than Levi. Girls were supposed to like football players, only he didn’t think they cared much for linemen. If Coach would let him play quarterback maybe girls would like him better. Pretty girls, like the Heathers.

  They looked a lot alike. He couldn’t tell them apart, but he didn’t care.

  “Come on,” he urged. “Show me.”

  All that accomplished was to get them back on their feet. One of them raised a sharp hoe and pointed it at him. The other one looked around desperately for a minute, maybe for the scythe that was mostly hidden under a broken bale of hay. Neither offered to show him anything, or seemed to know what he meant.

  He had a secret stash up here, stuffed behind a cross brace that supported the arching beams above. He kept the girls covered with his rifle as he went to it. They watched him, wide eyed. They really were scared. That excited him even more.

  He was having a little trouble controlling his breathing when he reached in and got his bundle. He couldn’t really cover them with the gun while he did it because he had to pull himself up with one hand and then reach behind the board with the other. It was awkward, but he managed to get back down without dropping anything and they hadn’t taken advantage of him and made a break for it.

  He took the rubber band off and thumbed through the stack until he found the example he wanted. It was an ad for a perfume that couldn’t be bought in Benteen County
. He knew, because he’d looked on the shelves over at the Dillon’s one time.

  A young woman stood between the pillars of an arch. Stone steps ascended in an intricate pattern of light and shadows behind her. Her hands were balled into fists that rested on her hips and there was an aggressive look in her eyes that reminded him of Gran. He didn’t let himself think about that part. Instead, he concentrated on the fact that she wasn’t wearing anything but the perfume.

  He straightened it out and held it so the girls could see. He pointed toward the appropriate places. “Show me,” he repeated. He had to stop and catch his breath. “Show me your naughty parts.”

  ***

  On the bright side, Wynn Some wasn’t cold anymore. Of course there was a lead lining to his silver cloud. Black Death was still on his trail.

  In retrospect, he knew he shouldn’t have stopped after he vaulted that fence to taunt the Brahma from hell. He should have been satisfied at being alive, not so pumped by his success that he had to strut around like some whacked-out football player doing a post-touchdown end-zone dance. It should have occurred to him that if he could clear the fence that easily, the bull could do the same.

  Since then, he’d learned a lot about what bulls were capable of. They weren’t sure footed on ice. Of course, he wasn’t either. One of his worst moments had been lying face-to-face with a ton of thrashing muscle that wanted to kill him. He got lucky when the bull twisted, bumping him to a spot where he found traction.

  He’d also learned that massive weight and sharp hooves were a disadvantage when climbing snowdrifts. As a result, that was where Wynn had been spending most of his time. There was a row of evergreens on the south side of the road across from the Irons place. Their downwind side had accumulated quite a range of drifts, all the way from waist to head high. They were tough enough for him to climb, and impossible for Black Death. Unfortunately, Brahma bulls were accustomed to dealing with problems of that nature by ignoring them. Through, instead of over, seemed to be this fellow’s motto. Luckily for Wynn, through took longer.