Bleeding Kansas

by Sara Paretsky

  “You’ve been giving houseroom to Elaine Logan. She stole this calf and tried to bring her to your bonfire. Don’t you pretend to me, you filthy dyke. Don’t tell me she wasn’t acting on your orders.”

  “Very well. I won’t tell you that, although I still know nothing about what Ms. Logan did tonight. The last I heard, she was in your custody, so anything she did must have been under your direct command. If I were you, I’d stop trying to spread blame around and spread a blanket over your unfortunate animal.”

  “You brought Satan into this valley!” Myra shrieked. “We were living in peace until you showed up with your hellfire and your devil worship.”

  “Ms. Schapen, you are definitely unwell,” Gina said. “Go home, take an aspirin, and don’t talk to me unless you can speak rationally.”

  Gina spoke with a cool contempt that awed Lara. She tried to memorize the words, the tone, the way Gina curled her mouth in distaste, as if Myra were a piece of rotten fruit she’d bitten into by mistake.

  The other Wiccans laughed. Pastor Nabo thundered threats of damnation, Arnie bellowed hysterically, but the Wiccans turned their backs. Someone started drumming, another began playing the flute, and in a minute the Wiccans were dancing around their fire again.

  Mrs. Ruesselmann screamed in fury. She darted around, collecting jeans and shirts and jackets and tossing them in the bonfire. “You wanted to flaunt yourselves before Satan, you keep on doing it. This is what it will be like in hell, the fires burning you but not keeping you warm! You witches destroyed our calf, but we are protected by the Lord of Hosts, His power is greater than your demons. In His Name, we will destroy you. We will wipe you from the face of the earth. Begone, Satan, begone!”

  The Wiccans saw what she was doing and made a mad scramble for their clothes.

  A movement at the corner of Lara’s eye made her turn her head in time to see Eddie Burton get to his feet behind her. His face glistened in the firelight, and he began cackling in excitement as the naked women ran after Mrs. Ruesselmann, trying to grab their clothes from her. He was rubbing himself through his jeans.

  Lara felt a wave of nausea rise up. She bent over and vomited. What was left of her supper came up, but even when her stomach was empty she couldn’t stop retching. She kept heaving and heaving, even though her chest and throat ached from it. Finally, she grabbed an apple from the ground near her and forced herself to bite into its sour, mealy flesh, to suck on it until her spasms subsided.

  She put the apple down and started into the orchard, away from the fire. Eddie looked around and spotted her.

  “Junior! Junior! Here she is. Here’s the girl I seen with Robbie, she’s right here. Lala Grellier!”

  For a moment, Lara was too frightened to move. Eddie yelped again for Junior, on the far side of the fire from him. Somehow, Junior heard him above all the other clangor from Wiccans and Christians. Lara saw his shadow, a distorted, distended monster, moving around the fire toward Eddie, toward her, before his actual body came into view. She tried to run on legs turned to rubber from fatigue and fear. “Call up your reserves, call up your reserves,” she cried to herself, but she had a stitch in her side, way worse than any she’d ever gotten in a game, and couldn’t make herself move any faster than a lumbering trot.

  She could hear Junior and Eddie crashing through the trees behind her, even thought she heard Robbie calling out for Junior to stop. She managed to keep moving and reached the kitchen door while they were still in the orchard.

  Elaine had locked the door behind her. Lara rattled the knob, banged on the panels, screamed to Elaine to open the door. There was no response. Elaine had gone to sleep, or passed out, or maybe was watching her with that horrible leer on her face: Get out of this one if you can, darling little girl.

  Lara staggered around to the front of the house and found the pillar she’d shinnied up before. Her knees were shaking. Stop that! she ordered her body. Pull yourself up.

  Chip, in basic training, had written that in an e-mail home:

  You can’t believe how much your body can do even when you think you’ve reached your limit. A hundred push-ups in the sun today before the obstacle course. My shoulders were wobbly before I started running, but Sarge reminded us we’ll have to keep going in the desert sun, get used to it now.

  Get used to it now, Lara admonished herself, and managed to pull herself onto the porch outside the bathroom window. She pushed the window open and slipped inside. She could hear Junior and Eddie banging on the doors and windows below. In another minute, Junior would start breaking the glass. Panic swept through her. She hobbled down the grand staircase, through the dining room and into the kitchen, and heaved open the great flour bins where Una Fremantle had hidden the Free Staters from Quantrill’s mob. She crouched down into the bin just as the first piece of glass splintered.

  Fifty-Four

  BURN, BABY, BURN

  AT THE BONFIRE, Robbie had sat on the ground next to the perfect red heifer. He was so tired he didn’t know if he would ever get to his feet again. His last act before collapsing was to take off his jacket and rub down Nassie with it.

  “You get that jacket filthy and you’re paying to clean it yourself, young man, out of that money your father gave you. You ruin it, don’t expect us to buy you a new one,” Nanny clacked at him.

  He stared at her, too dumbfounded to respond. The horrible scene in the church, the mad hunt across the Ropeses’ fields for the calf, and the calf herself, sides lathered in sweat, covered with mud, her red skin torn in a dozen places from tangling with barbed wire, all seemed to mean nothing to his grandmother. Her circle of hate was so tightly wrapped around her that she couldn’t see anything outside it.

  Finally, he sank to the ground. Robbie wrapped his arms around the calf’s flank; she was so exhausted, she was lying down. It wasn’t her fault everyone around her had gone insane. She was just a helpless calf who’d never been allowed to live in the sunshine.

  As they walked the heifer to the fire, Dad had said he was going to put her down. Dad said there was no way to keep the Jews from finding out that Elaine had touched her. “All my hopes went up through that damned bitch’s hole, her and Jim Grellier’s brat of a daughter,” he’d said to Nanny. “I bet Grellier set his girl on Robbie just to make a fool of me.”

  Robbie would stay here all night, until all the witches and all the Christians had left; then he’d take Nassie into the Fremantles’ barn. He’d get Chip’s sleeping bag down from the loft and spend the night next to the poor calf. Leaning against her side, he drifted into sleep.

  Eddie’s cry to Junior didn’t rouse him, but his brother’s bellowed response did. Robbie groaned—he didn’t want to watch Junior do one more horrible thing, but if his brother was going to shoot Nasya Robbie would have to try to protect her. He sat up. To his relief, he saw Junior moving away from him and the calf. He was about to lie down again when he caught sight of Lara through the apple trees. Junior and Eddie were heading after her.

  Robbie struggled to his feet. His legs were thick and heavy, as if they were logs from the bonfire. No one, none of the witches, not Nanny or his father, seemed to notice him. Only Amber Ruesselmann saw him plod dully along in Junior’s wake. She cried out to him to come back to Jesus, come back to her—to leave Lara Grellier to Satan, with the other witches.

  The words felt like something physical: wet saplings flaying his skin. He didn’t ever want to hear Amber’s voice again, or Pastor Nabo’s. Or his father’s or Nanny’s, and certainly not Junior’s, but he was doomed to live with them forever. Robbie didn’t turn around, didn’t see Amber run to her mother and gesture at him and the nightmarish parade he was following.

  Junior was moving much faster than Robbie could at this point. Robbie could hear him, yelling insults as if he were on the football field, but he lost sight of his brother in the trees. By the time he reached the incinerator in the back garden, where the Fremantles used to burn papers and other trash, he couldn’t see Junior o
r Lara. He hoped Lara had managed to get away from them; Junior and Eddie were so wound up with rage and desire, they might tear her apart. Lara the deer in the path of coyotes. That thought made him force his legs into a tottering run, but he could only move like Nanny, like an old person with swollen ankles.

  He made it to the front of the house in time to see Junior swing a branch and splinter the etched glass in the double doors. Junior stuck an arm through the shards, trying to open the lock. The door was barricaded, and he couldn’t budge it.

  Eddie was cackling with excitement. “Do you see her, Junior? Do you see her?”

  Junior didn’t answer, just moved to his left, to the windows that opened into the formal front parlor. He used his branch again. When he’d splintered the glass in one window, he stepped back and kicked it in all around the frame, then shoved his heavy body through. Once he was inside, he put out a hand to pull Eddie through after him.

  Robbie shambled behind them, up the stairs to the veranda. He swung one leaden leg over the windowsill and felt the glass slice into his pant leg. He managed to drag himself into the parlor. He could hear Junior and Eddie knocking over furniture and breaking china, but he couldn’t tell where they were.

  Robbie knocked his shin against the old piano, reeled away from it only to bang into the marble mantle over the fireplace, and finally found a light switch. It turned on a single bulb in an old chandelier, but it gave off enough light for him to find the door leading to the front hall.

  Above him, he heard Eddie cry, “She ain’t here, Junior. I don’t see the Grellier witch anywhere. But the big one, she’s in here. She’s asleep in here.”

  His brother’s heavy footsteps pounded down the hall over Robbie’s head. “Whoa, we caught ourselves the biggest witch of them all, the one Pastor says is totally under Beelzebub’s control. Come on, cunt, wakey, wakey. Time to face the court.”

  Junior grunted as he pounded on Elaine; Robbie could picture him trying to move her. “Ah, hell, Eddie, bitch is passed out cold on the floor. Here’s a quart of vodka, she must’a drained the whole bottle. We’ll have to smoke her out.”

  “Smoke her out?” Eddie’s voice went up a half register in excitement. “How we gonna do that?”

  “Set the place on fire. That’ll give her a foretaste of hell, should bring the old cow to her feet fast enough. I just need to find me some matches—there’s enough papers in here to burn down a town, if we can get them going.”

  Junior’s feet thundered along the floorboards again. Robbie heard him pounding down a far flight of stairs. There were three other doors into the front hall besides the one Robbie had used. He saw a sliver of light under the far door to his left. He pushed it open. He was in a room with a long table and a dozen chairs. Beyond it, he saw his brother in the kitchen.

  “Candles, matches, everything we need. Okay, boy.”

  “No, Junior, don’t!” Robbie managed to shout.

  Junior turned around. “Hey, shrimp, about time you showed up. You decide you’re on the side of the angels after all? Come and get a candle. Help Eddie and me smoke out the Wicked Witch of the West.”

  Robbie hobbled into the kitchen and knocked the candles out of his brother’s hand. “You—shit for brains! This is arson. This is a house, it’s where the Fremantles used to live. How could you do this? You can go to jail for this! Where’s Lara? Have you hurt her?”

  Junior hit him so hard that Robbie fell over. “Whose side are you on, brat boy? Ours or those devil worshippers who ruined our calf? You going to be in heaven when the Lord comes in glory or stuck in the mud with the mud people?”

  “Jesus hates people who kill other people,” Robbie shouted, getting up on his hands and knees.

  Junior kicked him in the testicles with the toe of his boot. Robbie collapsed, screaming in pain. Through his fog of agony, he heard Eddie Burton cry out, “Jesus loves Junior, He gave us the calf, she made a miracle for us, she gave us her blessing! She didn’t bless you, shrimp twerp, she sent you a witch, a Grellier girl witch.”

  “That’s right, boy, that’s right. Jesus loves us, but He can’t stand loser crybabies, that’s for sure.” Junior scooped up the candles. Putting an arm around Eddie, he led him up the back stairs.

  Robbie rolled over onto his side. The pain was so immense that everything else faded behind it. Find Lara, stop Junior, save Nassie—those were little pinpricks of thought that he couldn’t hold on to. When he heard Lara’s voice near him, calling his name in an urgent whisper, he thought at first he was dead and in heaven with her.

  “Robbie! I’m in the flour bin, but I can’t open it from the inside.”

  He finally pushed himself to his hands and knees and followed her voice to the bin. Clutching his sore scrotum with one hand, he pulled on the handle and the bin swung forward. Lara emerged, covered in spiderwebs and the white remains of a hundred years of flour.

  “Oh, Robbie, you poor thing, I could hear him. He really hurt you, didn’t he? I’m so sorry.” She put her ghostly arms around him and smoothed his dirty hair.

  They clutched each other, not speaking, until Lara said, “I heard him and Eddie, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Where did they go? Is it safe to leave?”

  “He went upstairs with Eddie,” Robbie said. “They found Elaine. She was passed out, I guess, and—Lara, Junior said he was going to set fire to the room. That’s when he hit me, when I tried to stop him. We’ve got to call Sheriff Drysdale.”

  “Maybe we should drive back to my place,” Lara said, unable to imagine how she and Robbie could stop Junior. “My truck’s out front. My dad should be home by now, he’ll know what to do.”

  She helped Robbie to his feet. The worst of the pain had passed. He hobbled with her to the side door. She opened the bolts, and they went out onto the small porch.

  “Oh, no,” Lara whispered.

  The crowd from around the bonfire was pouring through the orchard. The Ruesselmanns, Pastor Nabo, and a dozen others were already standing between Lara and Robbie and her truck. They backed into the kitchen again before anyone spotted them. They heard a loud shout from the people nearest the front of the house, and the whole group swarmed away from the kitchen toward the front. Lara and Robbie slipped out the door again, hoping to cross the yard and get to her truck before the mob turned back toward the kitchen.

  Lara had her keys out and was climbing into the truck when she saw flames leap up in the house’s corner window. Junior appeared at another window, waving a burning candle.

  He kicked out the glass and yelled to the people below, “We’re smoking out the biggest witch. We’ll see if the little one follows after her.”

  The crowd cheered, as if Junior had sacked an opposing quarterback. He did a victory dance and disappeared from view.

  Lara pushed her keys into Robbie’s hand. “Elaine, they’ll kill her. And Abigail’s diaries. My mom will never forgive me, she’ll go away forever—I have to rescue them.”

  Before Robbie could make sense of what she was saying, let alone realize what she was doing, Lara had run back across the yard and up the stairs to the kitchen door.

  Fifty-Five

  THE AWAKENING

  JIM AND SUSAN saw the glow of the fire as they drove up the county road but thought it was just the Samhain bonfire. When they came to the long line of abandoned vehicles, they were puzzled but not especially alarmed. Jim figured it was some nighttime vigil involving Arnie’s calf, which he was frankly sick of. At the turnoff to Arnie’s, they saw the squad car with its flashing lights.

  “Arnie is pulling out all the stops,” Jim said.

  Behind him, a truck was honking and flashing its brights in his rearview mirror. He stuck out an arm to wave it around, figuring it was some kid in a hurry. The driver pulled up next to him.

  “Jim.” It was Peter Ropes. “That bonfire over at Fremantles’ is way out of control. They managed to set the house on fire. I called the Eudora Fire Department, but I’m heading over to see if
I can help.”

  “The Fremantle house?” Susan spoke with the first real emotion Jim had heard from her in months. “Oh, no! Jim—we need to go over there!”

  “We’ll join you in a minute,” Jim called to Peter. “Let me just check on Lara—she’s been home alone all night. Although she may be over at the fire,” he added to Susan.

  He called the house on his cell phone, and then called Lara’s phone. When she didn’t answer either number, he turned around and followed Peter down the road to Fremantles’.

  At the entrance to the drive, they almost collided with Lara’s truck, which was heading for the road at high speed. Jim slammed on his breaks and honked, and his daughter came to a halt.

  He jumped down and ran to her window. And found himself looking at Robbie Schapen.

  “Mr. Grellier!”

  “Where’s Lara?” Jim demanded.

  “She went back to the house. She sent me to find you. How did you know—”

  “What’s going on here?” Jim saw the fire playing along the upper story and licking the eaves under the roof. He couldn’t understand the throng of people, milling around, even cheering when they blocked a woman with a bucket from getting close to the house.

  “It’s Junior, he went in there with Eddie. Elaine stole Nassie, and Junior wants to burn her to death and—”

  “But Lara, where is she?”

  “We were leaving, we were going to find you.” Robbie was breaking down. “Then she saw the fire. She said Mrs. Grellier would never forgive her if the diaries were destroyed.”

  Susan had climbed out of the truck and joined them. “Abigail’s diaries? She went back in there for Abigail’s diaries?”

  “I didn’t hear the name, I didn’t know what she was talking about, I didn’t know what to do. I can’t fight Junior, so I was coming to get you. But Junior, he’s in there with Eddie, they’re setting fire to everything and—”