“This is a perfect place for morels to grow—fallen oak trees, moisture. I’ll have to remember this area during morel season,” she told herself as she hopped over dead tree trunks and small shrubs. All of a sudden, in the middle of the trees, there were signs of civilization, of cultivated plant life. There was a definite path made of wood chips that weren’t just part of the forest floor. They were the kind of wood chips that you bought at a garden supply store to make a path through your yard. Ahead she saw plants that were surrounded with chain link fencing, the kind you put around baby trees or plants so dogs wouldn’t piss on them. Heaven took a deep breath. The air was filled with an unmistakable, pungent aroma.
“Want a toke?” a voice asked. It was Walter Jinks, sitting on the ground, leaning up against a tree, smoking a joint. Heaven recognized the protected plants as some of the most beautiful marihuana she had seen in years. They were tall, well over six feet, with big opulent buds with long red hairs full of resin.
“Walter, what in the hell is going on here? Are you OK?”
Walter shook his head. He looked bad, his skin had a greenish cast, and his eyes were glazed over. Heaven’s heart sank. If Walter had eaten enough bread to be this sick, could he be behind this whole ergot business? If he were responsible he would know how dangerous and unpredictable the fungus was. Could he be on a suicide mission? No need for that. Dieter and the general were already dead. Remorse? A gun would be easier. Heaven walked over to the tree that was holding the slumped Walter up. She sat down beside him and took the joint out of his hand, took a big pull off it and handed it back.
“Walter, anybody ever tell you this stuff is illegal. I used to be a lawyer. I know.”
Walter tried a smile. “How do you think I financed my research all these years?”
“Well, take it from me, illegal activities can reach out and bite you in the ass when you least suspect it. But we have some serious problems without the feds, Walter. The general and I’ll bet Dieter Bishop and all the bread bakers at the ARTOS convention have been eating bread that was contaminated with ergot. You do know about ergot, eh Walter?”
Walter looked down at his body as if he had just discovered it again. “Is that what this is?”
“Yes, Walter, ergot turns into LSD when the bad bread bakes. It made the general think he could fly and Dieter think he could embrace the dough, become one with it. And the whole baking conference including my only daughter is now in the hospital in Kansas City. One man is paralyzed. I am pissed, Walter. Did you do this?”
Walter was hugging himself, laughing maniacally. “I knew I’d felt like this before, but I couldn’t remember when or why. That’s how I knew I wasn’t dying, because I’d felt like this before. Was it always this bad?”
Heaven stood up and pulled Walter to his feet. “No, as it happens this ergot trip is much stronger than the stuff we took back in the sixties. A whole village in France went down for days in the 1950s. People thought they could fly just like the good general. You and my daughter have a long, bad day ahead, baby. Now, pretend I’m the avenging angel sent from above. If you lie to me you will never get out of the terror you experienced out here by yourself in the woods last night. Or if you had a good time out here by yourself in the woods last light, then if you lie to me, you will have the worst rest of your life you can ever dream. Did you plant ergot in the flour?”
Walter tried to focus, his eyes filled with tears. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to save life, create a better life. I did not do this.”
Heaven slung one of Walter’s arms around her neck and started pulling him toward the path. “I don’t know why, I guess you could still be scamming in your condition, but I believe you. I’m giving you the benefit of the truth serum coursing through your veins. We need to get you to the hospital. I know what they can do to make it better. Try to walk, damn it.”
Oatmeal Cookies
The idea here is very practical and Midwestern. You make up a big batch of the cookie mix that will keep for a long time in the refrigerator, then add the eggs, the perishable ingredient, and the extras to the mix as you want to bake off cookies.
To make 2 gallons cookie mix:
3 cups white sugar
3 cups brown sugar
6 cups sifted all-purpose flour
4 tsp. kosher salt
4 tsp. baking soda
4 cups solid shortening, such as Crisco. You can use butter, but it’s not the Kansas way.
12 cups rolled oats
Combine everything but the oats until thoroughly mixed. Then add the oats and mix in. This is the base that can be chilled and kept for a month.
2 eggs, beaten
2 T. vanilla
4 cups cookie mix
¾ cup of any of the following: raisins, pecans, walnuts, coconut, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips.
Combine all these ingredients, form into balls, flatten and bake. Depending on the size, it usually takes 10 minutes at 350 degrees for a medium-sized cookie.
Fifteen
Heaven put down the telephone and looked over at her brother. “I talked to her. She’s feeling better, not so sick to her stomach.”
Del picked up their lunch plates and shook his head. “This is some story, sis. I think that whole ARTOS bunch is lucky you’d already asked Hank about this ergot stuff.”
“I didn’t actually ask him about ergot. I asked him what caused necrosis, cells to die. He was the one who found out about ergot.” Heaven had followed Del into the kitchen and was taking the lid off the cookie jar. Oatmeal raisin. She took two and munched into one. “Good. Are these your famous oatmeal cookies, Del?”
“Yeah,” Del answered distractedly. “Hank found the ergot because you asked him. And then he and you put two and two together. If you hadn’t known what’s what, some of those bakers could have ended up like General Mills.” Del rinsed their plates and stuck them in the dish machine. “Iris too.”
“Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think that’s why I drove out here like a bat outta hell this morning? I was sure Walter was the bad guy and I ended up taking him to the hospital in Manhattan, calling Hank so he could tell the doctor what to do. I saved the life of the person I drove out here to beat the hell out of.”
Del grabbed a cookie and took a bite, looking thoughtfully at Heaven. “How in the heck could you prove it?”
“Prove what?”
“Prove any of it. How could a jury convict anyone of a crime on this deal? Could you honestly say for 100 percent certain that this ergot is what made the general fly off that building, or the German fella dive into that bread dough?”
“We know the general had LSD in his system and when the tests come back, Dieter will have it too,” Heaven said defensively.
“And did anyone see Walter or anyone else for that matter, putting the ergot in flour that was baked into bread that those two fellas ate? The evidence is all eaten up, little sister, just like that Alfred Hitchcock show with the leg of lamb.”
“I don’t give a fig about proving something to a jury. I just wanted to beat the truth out of Walter, before I changed my mind and decided to save his life instead. Now, I’m just exhausted. I didn’t sleep a wink and my adrenalin is gone.” Heaven put her arms around her brother’s neck and leaned on him.
Del patted Heaven’s head. “Two things. Let this ergot thing go. You can’t prove anything, and there is a chance it was just an accident of nature, like you said happened in the Middle Ages. Let the bakers get out of the hospital and go back to wherever they came from. Be thankful your daughter is going to be OK. Now, number two. Don’t you dare start back to Kansas City until you rest for a couple of hours. You need to close your eyes, honey. No one wants you to have an accident on the way home.”
Heaven gave her brother a big kiss. “I will, I promise. Thanks for caring.”
Del looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go. There’s a problem with the livestock. Ernest Powell has lost two of his dairy cows in the last coupl
e of days and so have the Akers. I’m going to meet the vet over at the feed lot. I sure don’t want sick cattle over there.”
Heaven felt the light bulb go on but she wasn’t sure why. “Thanks again, bro. By the way, where’s Debbie?”
“In Salina at an estate auction,” Del said as he walked out the kitchen door. “Heaven, take a nap and call me when you get to Kansas City. You don’t, I’ll worry.”
Heaven tried to lie down on the couch and rest, but her mind was racing. She remembered. “The cows,” Heaven yelped. Ernest’s cows. Cattle are affected by ergot. They die. Ernest’s neighbors’ cows died too. The neighbors’ son runs into a train. Bingo. Heaven grabbed her keys and ran out the door.
* * *
Heaven kicked up gravel as she wheeled into the driveway at Ernest Powell’s farm. She saw Mrs. Powell, attractive in that modest Mennonite wife way, come out of the chicken coop with a basket of eggs and give Heaven and her cloud of dust a stare.
Heaven jumped out of the van. For ten miles, she had been going over the evidence against Ernest in her mind. He had been around for all the major events. He could loosely be construed a bread fanatic. He was religious, and his religion was historically connected to ‘Red Turkey’ wheat. So far, so good. Religious folks down through the ages had proven to have some pretty bloody ideas that they were sure came from God.
“I need to speak to Ernest,” she demanded without any explanation. She could always apologize for her rudeness later if it turned out she was wrong. She was pretty sure she wasn’t.
“Aren’t you Del’s sister,” the wife asked, putting down the egg basket and holding out her hand.
Very nice, Heaven thought as she walked toward that outstretched hand and shook it. She put me in my place for rushing in here without any manners. “Yes, we met last week at the bread lunch. Do you know where Ernest is?”
“Why he took a truckload of wheat over to the big co-op, by Alma. He hasn’t been gone more than fifteen minutes. Would you like a…”
Heaven hopped back in the van. “Thanks. I’ll just go by there on my way home.” She quickly backed out of the Powell’s yard, leaving the wife watching her drive away with her hand up shading her eyes.
The sixteen miles to Alma were pure torture. Just as she had been so sure about Walter’s guilt, now she was positive Ernest was the ergot killer.
The grain elevators at Alma were not like the little silo that stood behind the research lab in Manhattan where the general died. They were massive, at least forty silo stacks marking the skyline of Kansas. The silos were much taller as well, reaching almost a hundred feet in the air. Their profile was visible many miles away. Heaven gulped as she drew near. Although she had grown up practically in the shadow of these towering storage elevators, they had never seemed ominous before this week. Now she imagined the general flying off the top of this big puppy.
Just as Heaven was entering the ramshackle addendum marked with the sign ELEVATOR OFFICE, two older men dressed in faded overalls came out. “Have you seen Ernest Powell,” Heaven asked, blocking the way to their pickups with arms outstretched.
The two men didn’t even hesitate. They ambled around Heaven with a chuckle and a gesture upward. “He’s up there, putting his last batch of wheat in storage.”
“Wait! Thanks. Two questions. How do I get up there? And wasn’t the harvest over months ago?”
The two stopped at the front of their truck. “Right over there,” the talkative one said, pointing to a door attached to the main body of the elevators. “The elevator is to the right there. And you’re right about the harvest. Aren’t you the O’Malley girl?”
Heaven blushed to be found out as a Kansas girl asking a dumb question about the wheat harvest. “Yes. Del’s my brother.”
“Well, little lady, the harvests have been so big the last two years that the elevators haven’t had room for all the grain. There’s wheat sitting on the ground all over the state. Enough moved out this month, Ernest got room for the last of his. Us too. Be careful up there now.” The two grizzled men got in their truck and pulled away. It never occurred to them that they shouldn’t leave the O’Malley girl alone with Ernest Powell, or vice versa for that matter.
Heaven stepped into the room built around the base of the silos. On one wall was a big chalkboard with various colors of chalk, pink for hard winter wheat, blue for soybeans, white for soft spring wheat, and so on. Forty round rings were drawn on the board and in each ring, writing in the appropriate color chalk indicated what was stored inside. Heaven stopped to see if they happened to put the name of the co-op member who had stored the grain in each tank, but no such luck. There were signs everywhere stating “GRAIN DUST IS LIKE EXPLOSIVES. NO SMOKING” and boxes of poison sitting stacked around. Heaven picked one up. “Weevil-cide” it said. Hydrogen phosphide. She dropped it quickly. It didn’t sound good.
She walked over to the elevator, her footsteps ringing hollow in the high empty interior. She pressed the button and an ancient creak started a pulley up at the top of the building. The elevator was one technological step above the general’s outside lift. It resembled the open ironwork elevators in Art Nouveau apartment buildings except, instead of scrolling ironwork, this elevator was a rusted metal cage. Heaven stepped in and pressed the top button. Except for the elevator mechanism, it was quiet. Heaven looked up. It was a long way up there. Why hadn’t she asked the farmers to come up with her or at least stay around? Why hadn’t she asked Ernest to come down to ground zero? She remembered no one knew where she was.
The elevator stopped with a jolt. Heaven swung the door open and stepped out, into a big, long room that ran across the top of all the silos. Every so often in the floor, there was an oversized manhole cover with the words DO NOT STEP stenciled on the top of them. Heaven assumed they were the covers to the silos themselves. She walked gingerly around each one.
In the middle of the room a door stood open. A “balcony” ran across the outside of the building. Heaven had looked up there when she arrived. It had seemed so high up in the air. Now she peeked her head out the door.
Ernest Powell was standing there, as if he were on the Riviera or something, leaning against the metal railing, pulling a loaf of bread apart and throwing bread in the wind. He turned and smiled at Heaven. “There is an ancient ceremony called the Tashlich. It’s the casting of bread upon the waters of a lake or a stream to symbolically cast off our sins. Here in the earthbound Midwest, it seems right to cast the bread to the wind instead.”
“Casting off your sins, eh Ernest? Could you be doing this little ceremony with ergot bread?”
Ernest took a bite of what was left of the loaf in his hand, then he handed a chunk of it to Heaven. “Honey whole wheat, straight from the bread machine.” Heaven pitched hers off into space immediately.
“Ernest, what in the hell is going on in your mind? I know you’re the damned maniac that planted bad flour all over, around, and through this bread conference.”
“Please Heaven. No profanity.”
“Fuck you, Ernest. My daughter was part of the crowd of people that I nursed through the night and took to the hospital this morning. A man is paralyzed. Two men are dead, and I have a sneaking suspicion that your neighbor should be added to the list. That’s profanity as far as I’m concerned.”
“Heaven, have you ever heard of an Examen of Conscience?”
“No, but I guess I’m about to,” Heaven sighed. This wasn’t going like she had hoped. Where are all those criminals who crack the minute Matlock or Perry Mason put a little pressure on them? Those two never had enough evidence for a conviction either.
“St. Ignatius, not that I believe in saints but I do admire the Jesuits,” Ernest confessed as if he had confessed a taste for pornography. “St. Ignatius prescribed a daily discernment of spirits, an ongoing self-examination called the Examen of Conscience. I do that every time I make bread. I think about the last twenty-four hours and thank God for all the good that has come into my life
. I know that I am in God’s presence because God is most manifest in our most fundamental food, bread.”
“And so I suppose God told you to do it?” Heaven asked.
“As I make bread, as the divine spirit guides me, I think about how I can be a better father, a better neighbor, a better man. When I discovered this blessed seed that creates bread that brings God right into a person, I knew I had to share it with those who really cared.”
Heaven was encouraged. Ernest could be talking about ergot.
“And when the smell of fresh-baked bread fills every house in America, then the gift of life will belong to everyone. That’s what I’m offering, the gift of life, Heaven.” Ernest was surveying his universe, the Kansas farmland, with the bemused look of George Burns playing God.
“I have a feeling the general, and Dieter, and your neighbor, what was his name—Ben Akers—I have a feeling they wouldn’t call it the gift of life,” Heaven said.
“They have been joined with God,” Ernest said serenely. “I’m sure they are divinely happy, Heaven. It’s what we live for, isn’t it, to be rejoined with the Creator?” Then he turned and went toward the door. “Have you ever seen how these elevators physically store the grain, Heaven? It’s fascinating.”
“So, Ernest. All that talk about the gift of life. That has a real Jim Jones ring about it. Are you planning to give away ergot flour with every free bread machine? Wipe out the nation’s poor?” Heaven followed Ernest, glad to get off the balcony.
Ernest didn’t seem to be playing question and answer anymore. He had his own agenda and any information Heaven acquired would be from the bits and pieces of his bread manifesto. He picked up a brass pole that looked like a curtain rod and had been propping the door open. “This is called a probe. When you bring a load of grain to any storage facility, they stick this probe down into the load. Then when they weigh your grain, they get a moisture content from the top and the bottom of your train car or truck load.” Ernest demonstrated that by sliding the top of the probe around. Slits up and down the length of the brass rod were exposed and grain ran out on the floor.
Bread on Arrival Page 19