English Lessons

by J. M. Hayes

  “What’s the problem at the courthouse?” someone asked.

  English decided to tell them. He still wasn’t sure how to deal with the men and the guns over there, but he had the makings of a pretty fair posse here. It seemed wise to find out if any of them were willing to help. Maybe he wasn’t facing a Gary Cooper moment after all.

  ***

  The Sewa patrol units, three more Toyota Land Cruisers, came up the road from the east. Maybe, Heather thought, Matus had considered the possibility of the psycho arranging some way to delay them if they followed the usual route.

  Captain Matus jumped out of the first Toyota. “You’re all okay?”

  Heather assured him they were, though she thought she’d be pretty sore later. None of the psycho’s strikes had been solid, but more than a few had connected.

  “They ran?”

  Mad Dog stepped forward. “There’s a big Santa Fe style house maybe half a mile west. That’s where they were holding Cassie Hyde and me. That’s probably where they’ve gone.”

  “The governor’s daughter. She’s here? She’s safe?”

  Cassie Hyde answered the question for herself by appearing on Mad Dog’s front porch.

  “Does she know?” Matus asked.

  “Know what?” Mad Dog looked puzzled.

  “Evidently not,” Heather said.

  “Shit!” Matus said. “Then I’ve got to tell her. We’ve kept it off the news so far, but that can’t last much longer. She’ll have to know before then.”

  Mad Dog scrunched up his forehead. “What are you two talking about?”

  While Captain Matus grabbed a pair of his officers and hurried to join Cassie on the porch, Heather explained how she’d spent the first part of her morning. Cassie’s quick flood of tears made it clear the Captain didn’t have the time to be gentle with her. He left the girl clinging to one of the tribal policemen he’d assigned to look after her.

  “Get your gun,” Matus told Heather as he hurried across the yard. “Put on your vest.” He turned to his other officers. “Pick up the weapons lying around this yard and get me a spare vest for this man. You’re coming with us, Mad Dog. I need you to show us the place and identify suspects.”

  Someone handed Mad Dog a bulletproof vest that proved too small for him to fasten. Matus led the way to Heather’s unit. “Heather, you know where we’re going?”

  She nodded.

  “You drive, then. Mad Dog, get in the back. Get down on the floor when I tell you and stay there until I say otherwise.” He turned to the officers with Cassie. “Take the last vehicle in our convoy. Get the girl out of here the back way. Take her straight to the county’s Three Points substation.

  “The rest of you, follow us. Weapons ready. We’re going in fast, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going in cautious.”

  And that’s what they did. They went, lights strobing, sirens howling. Heather led the column. She goosed the Land Cruiser down through the arroyo and up out of the trees that screened their view of the big house where Mad Dog said he and the girl had been held. She put her unit sideways, blocking a garage. She and Matus joined three officers on the front porch, one of them with a battering ram. It took him two tries to open the door, then they were inside, guns out, checking rooms, finding no one. Not even in the metal barn out back with the hole in a wall through which Mad Dog and the girl had escaped.

  “That’s the van they brought me here in,” Mad Dog said, pointing at the UPS truck. Matus hadn’t told Mad Dog he could leave Heather’s patrol unit yet, but the Captain didn’t seem surprised when Mad Dog joined them in the barn.

  “And there aren’t any other vehicles on the place,” Mad Dog said. “Well, that’s what I heard one of your people say.”

  A Sewa officer stuck his head in the barn. His normally swarthy complexion had turned unnaturally pale. “Basement in that house has a sound-proofed room,” he said.

  “What about it?” Matus said.

  “It’ll probably take DNA tests to prove it, sir, but I think we just found the rest of the governor.

  ***

  It didn’t take long for English’s posse idea to begin to pale.

  “Actually, you know,” one prospective member observed, “ammunition has been in mighty short supply since Obama got elected. That’s why I stocked up, got three cases of .44 mags just the other day.”

  “Me, too,” another agreed. “Been buying a box of ammo a week in case the federal government tries to disarm us that way instead of seizing our guns.”

  These men were creating their own shortages, the sheriff thought. And seemed quite likely to change their minds and support the bad guys in the courthouse when push came to shove.

  “I sure do wish the President would come clean about his birth certificate,” someone else said.

  “The more I think about it,” the sheriff said, “the more I think I should handle this alone. Too big a chance that some of you might get hurt.”

  “Don’t be silly, Sheriff.” The speaker was a Korean War vet. He carried an M1 Garand, the weapon he’d become familiar with sixty years ago. “We’re glad to help. Besides, they won’t shoot us. Most of us got invited to join them, I’ll wager. I know I did.”

  Several people agreed. The sheriff decided he should have called in state law enforcement earlier. He started to reach for his cell but events took over.

  “Why don’t we go straighten this out,” the old soldier said.

  Someone handed the sheriff Don Crabtree’s Uzi. “I stuck a fresh clip in. Safety’s off. Just squeeze the trigger and this baby’ll sweep a street clean of life, lickety split.”

  “Let’s bring Crabtree,” someone else suggested. “He can tell them what happened over here. Reassure them there ain’t no government plot against Buffalo Springs. ’Sides, Englishman, he’ll be right there when we take back the courthouse and you won’t have to come back to get Don to put him in jail.”

  “If you’re taking my Daddy,” Crabtree’s daughter said, “I’m coming too.” So, it seemed, was pretty much everyone who’d gathered in Conrad’s yard—about thirty people, maybe half of them armed.

  “Lead on, Englishman,” Roy Conrad said. “They take a shot at you, we’ll clean their plows for them.”

  Conrad had a 20-gauge pump. If the sheriff marched his little army over to the nearest corner of Veteran’s Memorial Park and began trying to shout out negotiations from there, Conrad’s weapon might have the range to sprinkle bits of bird shot on the courthouse lawn once the shooting started. Plow cleaning was more likely to be accomplished by the guys in the courthouse with the automatic weapons.

  “Hold on,” the sheriff said.

  No one did. Half a dozen people had already started walking toward the courthouse. The rest of the crowd followed, having given as much thought about what they were getting into as a herd of sheep following a Judas goat.

  The sheriff could fire off a burst from the Uzi to get everyone’s attention and then try to order them to stay here. Which, given the enthusiasm of those who’d taken up the point seemed unlikely to succeed. Or he could try and take the lead back. See if he could keep people from getting killed. Maybe even talk the band in the courthouse into surrendering. Or he could just resign, here and now, go pack his bags, and get in the car to spend a peaceful holiday season with his daughter and brother in Arizona. Even as he limped to the front of the crowd, he thought that last option had the most to be said for it.

  ***

  The militia at the courthouse had turned manic. They pushed around desks and chairs, building barricades across the front doors and behind windows.

  “Bring those file cabinets from the sheriff’s office,” Koestel ordered.

  “You will do no such thing,” Mrs. Kraus said, crossing the foyer to stop them from moving her files by throwing he
r body in their path. Someone had opened one of the drawers. Pulled it out to make the cabinet lighter, easier to move, Mrs. Kraus thought. But the man was thumbing through files, not pulling other drawers. And he wasn’t wearing a uniform or carrying a gun.

  “Eldridge Beaumont,” Mrs. Kraus said, “you know better than to get in our files.”

  Beaumont turned, looking suitably guilty. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Kraus. You were busy and the sheriff isn’t here and I thought, under the circumstances, my client’s files might be safer with me than….”

  “Balderdash,” Mrs. Kraus said. Eldridge Beaumont was one of two attorneys who actually lived in Buffalo Springs. And, it so happened, the man Englishman had told her would be suing the county on behalf of Mrs. Walker over the sheriff’s disabling of her car that morning. “You have no right to even see those files until the county attorney decides which of them are relevant and constitute evidence in his case against your client.”

  “Well, technically that’s true. But they’re not in the hands of the county at the moment, so I thought I’d just have a peek.”

  “I am the county, and I’m still here,” Mrs. Kraus said. “These bozos are trespassing, and we’ll be taking care of that little problem directly. Now put that file back and get yourself out of here and….” She paused. “Say, how did you know they were in control here and how’d you get in?”

  Beaumont’s eyes searched the room seeking suitable answers.

  “You in collusion with these terrorists?” Doc asked over Mrs. Kraus’ shoulder.

  “Something’s happening across the park,” someone shouted from the foyer.

  “Lord, there’s a bunch of them.” That muffled voice drifted down from the second floor. “And they’re armed.”

  Beaumont slipped past Doc and Mrs. Kraus and headed for the back door. He had the file with him.

  “Hey!” Mrs. Kraus shouted at his back.

  “I’ll just be on my way. Won’t trouble you anymore,” the attorney called over his shoulder.

  “Pick your targets,” Koestel shouted, “and begin firing on three.”

  “Now just you wait a minute,” Mrs. Kraus said.

  “One,” Koestel shouted. “Two,….”

  ***

  Captain Matus pulled Heather and Mad Dog aside. “That room in the basement is about to become the focus for the most intensive crime scene examination in Arizona history.”

  Heather didn’t doubt it. Further examination had turned up a second corpse hidden under a drop cloth. That body had been preliminarily identified as “Quetz,” the number two man to Rabioso, a drug lord murdered in central Tucson today. All by himself, and in light of what was going on, the one-handed Quetz was an important find. But since his remains had been only a few feet from a flayed corpse that was almost certainly the governor-elect of Arizona, you had to boost this from critical crime scene to one for the record books.

  “The feds are on the way,” Matus said. “So’s the Pima County Medical Examiner. And one of the top forensic anthropologists in the country, a professor emeritus at the University of Arizona. He’s coming out of retirement to join the investigation. Crime scene investigators from Arizona’s Department of Public Safety will join them, as will representatives from every law enforcement agency with the necessary expertise or jurisdictional right of access. Real quick, now, there won’t be room in that house for any Sewa participation. So I want you and Mad Dog to come with me to the Pima County substation in Three Points.”

  “Why?” Heather knew she had to straighten things out with the Pima County Sheriff’s Office, but she couldn’t imagine anyone she needed to talk to being available. Not now.

  “I think Mad Dog can help with Cassie Hyde. And you need him to confirm your version of events. I don’t think you realize how important the sheriff suddenly thinks you are. You found the governor’s skin. You….”

  Mad Dog’s eyes got wide. Heather hadn’t told him that part.

  Matus didn’t bother explaining. “The sheriff’s office had Mad Dog’s address flagged for false reporting. Then, the governor’s daughter and the killer turn up there. And the governor’s body, just down the road. Along with a corpse missing a hand.”

  “I don’t suppose it helped,” Heather said, “that I delivered his hand to the medical examiner’s office.

  “Caused quite a stir,” Matus said.

  “What should I have done?”

  “You should have let me know, at least,” Matus said. “By the way, did you know the guy you killed in that shootout in the junkyard was an expert taxidermist? A suddenly cash-rich taxidermist?”

  Heather’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding?”

  Mad Dog, wide-eyed, shifted his head to follow the conversation like someone watching a tennis match for the first time, eye following the ball as he tried to puzzle out the rules.

  “I’d need your gun and badge, because you should be off-duty pending an investigation into that shooting. But by the time the county responded, not only were you gone, so was Elvis. Lots of bullet holes. No corpse.”

  “What?” Heather said.

  “You may rightfully imagine the sheriff has become tired of hearing your name. Especially since he ignored it when he should have responded and only came to believe you were for real after our contingent of Sewa Police confirmed the presence of the governor’s daughter. At this point, the Pima County Sheriff isn’t the only law enforcement officer in Arizona wondering whether you’ve been too conveniently where so much is happening.

  “Today has gone completely off the map. You probably don’t know an all-out drug war has broken out from Tucson down to the border. Oh, yeah, the sheriff very much wants to fit you into his day, Heather. In fact, he wants to see you now. I can’t do anything else here because this place is being taken over by the big dogs, so I figure Mad Dog and I should come along and see if we can answer some questions. Maybe mitigate his response to you. Be there as witnesses if he wants to charge you as an accomplice.”

  “Oh,” was all Heather could manage. Mad Dog’s efforts to reassure her were interrupted when a marked Pima County Crown Vic entered the yard, tires throwing gravel, lights flashing star-spangled-banner colors. The Ford skidded to a stop beside the three of them and a pair of deputies scrambled out.

  “Captain Matus,” the one with the braid on his shoulders said. “We just found one of your Toyotas near the Three Points substation. It contained the two officers you sent to escort the governor’s daughter to us. They’re dead.”

  “Jesus!” Matus said. “What about the girl?”

  “No sign of her.” The man and his companion had their hands on the butts of their service weapons. “The sheriff said we should bring you and Officer English to him right now, sir. And not to take no for an answer.”

  ***

  “Thr…,” Koestel began. He didn’t manage to finish, because Mrs. Kraus caught him with a roundhouse swing of her purse. Her Glock was in it, as were a cluster of keys, an overflowing coin purse, and a variety of other heavy objects. Some of them—a tin soldier depicting a World War I doughboy, for instance—she would have had difficulty explaining.

  The militiaman in the adjacent foyer window looked at Mrs. Kraus in shock. Doc covered him with his shotgun, however, and the man dropped his weapon and put up his hands.

  “Thr…,” though it was unlikely to have been heard throughout the courthouse, had the assumptive effect of most rhythmic chants. A pair of automatic weapons began chattering. Short bursts. Soon, other guns lining the courthouse windows joined in.

  “Damn!” Mrs. Kraus said.

  Doc Jones might have added his own comment, but Ned Evans suddenly appeared in the door to the sheriff’s office. Doc swiveled his shotgun to cover Ned and said, “Drop it.”

  Ned continued across the foyer, not dropping it. Walking straight to
ward Doc. “You won’t shoot me, Doc,” Ned said, “so just hand it over.”

  Mrs. Kraus clawed through the contents of her handbag, so recently rearranged by the collision with Commandant Koestel’s cranium. She pulled out the Glock and aimed it at Ned. “Doc might not, but I will.”

  “No, you won’t,” Ned told her, “and since you’ve gone and assaulted our leader, I’m afraid I’m really going to have to take your gun away this time.”

  Mrs. Kraus noticed the man they’d just disarmed reaching for his own weapon. Apparently, he too had decided she and Doc weren’t really threats. So she shot Ned in the knee

  His weapon went off and stitched a series of holes in the foyer’s scarred tile. A line directly between Doc and herself and uncomfortably close to both. Ned screamed. But at least the guy by the window threw his hands back up.

  “You shot him.” Doc seemed more than a little surprised. He dropped his shotgun, grabbed his medical bag off the gurney, and went to Ned’s assistance. Mrs. Kraus was pleased to note that Doc proved wise enough to toss Ned’s gun to her and get it out of the reach of any nearby militiamen before taking a pair of scissors to Ned’s jeans. Mrs. Kraus didn’t know how to shoot the fool thing so she shoved it under Doc’s gurney. Out of sight, out of mind, she hoped.

  Ned rocked back and forth on the floor and made moaning sounds as Mrs. Kraus ran over and retrieved another weapon from the man by the window. She got Koestel’s as well, and put them under Doc’s gurney, too. There was another gunman in the sheriff’s office. One was in a nearby supervisor’s office, from the sound of things, and at least two upstairs. Now what?

  She didn’t have time to think about what she’d done to Ned. The guy who’d been in the sheriff’s office came around the door frame at floor level and threw a wild burst into the foyer. Mrs. Kraus sent three rounds back at him before she realized that fresh screaming sound in the foyer came from her own throat. The floor rose up fast. It was covered with blood. Her blood? No one else was near enough to….