by J. M. Hayes
She was brunette and pretty, but with a thin, sallow face. Young, too, in her teens, he guessed. Young enough to be clutching a diaper-clad plastic doll. Mad Dog wondered if that made it even worse.
“Hi,” she said. “Who’re you?”
Mad Dog felt like asking the same question. He pretty much knew everybody in Benteen County, though he had trouble keeping up with the kids. They looked different from one day to the next, or whenever he saw them.
“I’m Mad Dog.” He wondered if he should be using his real name, but he couldn’t imagine her being unable to identify him. There weren’t many adult men who shaved their heads in this county, fewer still who’d just been shot in the left ear.
One of the first things Mad Dog had done when he got in the Blazer was pull back the hood on his parka and examine his ear in the mirror. He couldn’t get the best of angles on it, of course, but from what he could tell, most of his ear was still there. Bloody, but intact.
“I’m Mary. Are you the Mad Dog who’s an Indian?” Her eyes were big with wonder. “Are you gonna scalp me?”
“No.” He ran a hand over his bald head. “I have enough trouble scalping myself, and your hair looks pretty right where it’s at.”
When he didn’t recognize kids, he could sometimes figure out who they were by who they looked like, especially since he could remember the faces of so many parents when they would have been about the same age. This one seemed familiar, but not familiar enough.
“I should know who you are,” he said, “but I can’t place you. Who’re your folks?”
“I don’t have folks. Just Gran.” She smiled, like it had been a trick question and she’d been too clever for him to catch her. The way she spoke, her attitude, even her voice, was too childlike, far younger than she looked. Of course, it was hard to tell much because of her heavy jacket and all the thick blankets she’d wrapped herself in.
“What were you doing in the barn in the back seat of this truck on such a rotten day?”
The smile went away. “I have to go to the barn when I’m bad. Gran leaves me blankets and puts the keys in the ignition so I can run the heater when it’s real cold, like today. You don’t think I’ll get in trouble for leaving the barn, do you? I couldn’t help it if a wild Indian came and stole me away. You’ll explain that, won’t you?”
Mad Dog ran his hands through nonexistent hair. She was acting like a little girl. Considering where he’d found her, and the fact that she seemed to suffer the malady that occurred too frequently among them, he figured she might be a Hornbaker. Only there weren’t any Hornbaker females he knew of except Becky.
“Oh, look. There’s Uncle Simon,” the girl in the back seat said. “You can explain it to him.”
Mad Dog followed her finger. A white pickup was coming down the blacktop from Buffalo Springs.
Uncle Simon was a Hornbaker. He was a bad-tempered oaf about Englishman’s age who helped on the farm with his twin boys. Mad Dog couldn’t remember his wife. She must have left him years ago.
Mad Dog knew Simon always carried a couple of rifles with scopes in the gun rack against the back window of his Dodge Ram. Mad Dog didn’t want to explain the Blazer and the girl to such a heavily armed uncle.
The driver of the Dodge had spotted them. He was slowing, acting like he planned to pull in alongside for a friendly chat.
“Boy, is Uncle Simon gonna be surprised to see you,” the girl said. Mad Dog thought that was an understatement.
***
“Lord Almighty!” Becky Hornbaker exclaimed. “What’re you and these children doing out here in the middle of this blizzard, Deputy Wynn? You all climb inside this cab with me right now.”
Becky loomed behind the wheel of an elderly Dodge Power Wagon. Its white paint was camouflaged with rusty dents and patches of mud from seasons past. Her grandson occupied the seat next to her. They both wore heavy jackets that were unbuttoned—evidence that the truck’s heater was fully functional.
“Judah,” she told the boy. “You take a blanket out from behind the seat and get back there in the bed. Gonna be hard enough crowding all these poor frozen souls inside here with me.”
“What’re you doing out here?” Heather English asked, wondering if she knew. Probably not. None of her plans for this day were working out the way she’d expected.
Wynn cut off a response. “You’re just in time, Ms. Hornbaker,” he said. Heather English knew Wynn didn’t use the term Ms. to be politically correct. That just happened to be the way most Kansans pronounced either Miss or Mrs. It was a regionalism that had briefly put them ahead of the curve, regardless of personal inclination.
“I wasn’t sure we were gonna make it.” The deputy was already trading places with Judah and crowding the heater. One of Two had been in a couple of classes with Judah and his twin brother Levi. She’d known them nearly all of her life. But not well. They were older, still in high school because they’d been held back. Levi and Judah Hornbaker were big and dull and sullen, and had never shown any interest in her sister or her, other than an obsessive tendency to stare at their tits.
One of Two looked around for alternatives. She didn’t see any. “We just want to get to Uncle Mad Dog’s,” she explained. “Judah can stay up front with you. Heather and I’ll be fine in the back. It’s only a quarter mile.”
“No, child. We can’t take you there. Your Uncle’s not home. We were in there looking for him only minutes ago. Besides, somebody vandalized his place. Lord, would you believe it? The times we live in. His windows are all busted out, doors kicked in. You’d freeze in there.”
“You girls climb in here with the Deputy and me and we’ll run on down to the home place. You can call your folks from there, or we can get warmed up a bit and then one of the boys or I can run you back home.”
That was odd. One knew Becky never welcomed company to her farm. The Heathers remained beside Becky’s door. “Somebody knocked out Uncle Mad Dog’s windows?” One asked. “Why would anyone do that?”
The question was echoed by her look-alike. “What about his wolves? What about Buffalo Bob? Are they all right?”
“You two look enough alike to be twins,” Becky said. “And sound alike too. Climb on in. Let me close this window and keep some heat in here. I don’t know much, but I’ll tell you what I do along the way.”
One was reluctant to obey. She didn’t want to go to Becky’s place, but she could appreciate the impracticality of going to Mad Dog’s if he wasn’t there and the house couldn’t be sealed and heated. She’d be happier if Becky would just point the Dodge toward town, but Judah was going to be pretty uncomfortable in the bed of the pickup and she and Heather weren’t dressed warmly enough for that long a ride.
“Come on now, before you catch your deaths.”
They obeyed hesitantly, one Heather sitting on the lap of the other as the truck lurched through the intersection and headed toward the blacktop. Heather English turned and looked back toward her uncle’s place. Her imagination was running wild about what might have happened there. Judah had hunkered down near the rear window, in front of which hung a pair of rifles.
There was a second figure wrapped in blankets back beside Judah. It was long and slender and Judah didn’t seem to want to get too near it. A deer, Heather thought, taken out of season.
“You been hunting, Mrs. Hornbaker?” Heather asked.
“In a manner of speaking, child,” Becky replied.
Something about the answer troubled the sheriff’s daughter, but then Wynn launched into his version of how the girls had put the patrol car in the ditch and she felt compelled to join her sister’s defense.
Neither Heather noticed when Judah leaned over and readjusted the blankets around the bundle beside him to hide the naked toes the wind had briefly uncovered.
***
Doc put a hand to his chin and massaged it, as if that would somehow cancel out the sheriff’s question and the sheriff would then leave while Doc got on with his day.
“Doc, you told me Alice Burton’s faculties weren’t that far gone. You were right. Turns out she remembered where she found the baby. What was it doing here?”
Doc leaned his head around the door into the hall to reassure himself that it was vacant, then went back and sat behind his desk.
“She found it just outside the back door?” Doc asked.
“That where you found her doll?”
“Yeah. That’s where it was.”
“Talk to me, Doc. I’ve got more headaches than the one I got from being popped on the noggin. Mad Dog’s made off with Tommie Irons’ body. Some valuable heirloom Tommie owned has disappeared, along with him, and that’s turned the Hornbakers into crazed vigilantes. You’ve got a dead baby in the freezer next door and I’ve got no idea where it came from. There may be more dead bodies in this county. My daughters are missing. And, on top of all that, I can’t find a deputy to help out. I don’t have time to run back and forth between the Sunshine Towers and here, Doc. You need to be straight with me. Where’d that baby come from? Who’s the mother?”
Doc appeared to shrink in on himself. He looked older and smaller than he had in his role of medical authority.
“We already had part of this conversation, Sheriff. No matter what good friends we are or how completely I trust you, there are still things I can’t tell you.”
The sheriff opened his mouth to protest but Doc waved him off. “Hear me out, now. Let me see what I can tell you.”
Doc pulled one of the ballpoints out of his pocket and stuck it in the corner of his mouth while he stared at the ceiling and considered what he was going to say.
“Like I said,” Doc began, “I don’t do abortions. Not even sometimes, when I think they should be done. That’s what this was. One of those times when it would have been better for that baby never to be born. ”
“I can’t tell you who the mother is, but maybe I can relieve you a little. Your Heathers aren’t involved. Wherever they are, it’s got nothing to do with the baby next door.”
The sheriff felt a wave of relief buoy him. He trusted his girls, but it was amazing how much that trust had eroded under even the slightest doubt. Of course, they were still missing in the middle of a classic Plains blizzard. His relief washed back out on the same wave.
“The mother in this case shouldn’t have a baby. She’s got genetic problems of her own. On top of that, she’s too immature to have given informed consent. In essence, she was raped. By a relative. ”
“I’ve been aware of this pregnancy from early on. Though I didn’t offer to abort the foetus, this time I suggested the family take her someplace where that could be done. They chose not to. Even when I could pretty much guarantee this baby wasn’t going to be healthy.”
Doc paused to suck on the ballpoint. He didn’t smoke, but he must have once. The sheriff recognized the signs. Doc was stressed and in need of something to occupy his hands, something to put in his mouth. Freud would have had some interesting things to say about that. Wrong, maybe, but interesting.
“The family didn’t want anyone to know about the pregnancy. They hid it. They wouldn’t take her to a hospital for the delivery. They intended to handle it themselves, only there were complications. They called me early this morning. It sounded like a breech birth. I told them to meet me at the clinic, only they wouldn’t because the community might notice. They wanted to come to my house, but that would have taken too long. We compromised. They were supposed to meet me here. ”
“When I arrived, I found bloodstains and a plastic doll on the back porch. No sign of anybody. I brought the doll inside and tried calling them. No answer. I almost called you. Then one of them came and knocked on the door. Said the baby was born dead. They were afraid they would be discovered because people were wandering around near here. Some teenagers and some old folks. They got nervous. They left the baby by the back door, knowing I’d be here soon, and drove off until things settled down. I persuaded them to let me check the mother. She was in remarkably good shape for what she’d been through.
“That’s it, Sheriff. I don’t think I can tell you more.”
“You’ve just added rape and incest to the list of things I should be looking into and you can’t tell me more? Doc, what’s to keep it from happening again?”
The ballpoint snapped between Doc’s fingers. “Don’t appoint yourself my conscience, and don’t think that doesn’t worry me. But I took a vow, and I renewed it quite specifically to these people so I could treat that girl. Besides, I don’t know for sure who the father is, and I’m not sure she could tell you.”
The sheriff shook his head. “I don’t know if that’s enough. Can you guarantee the girl is safe? Not just from whoever did this to her, but from the crazies in this community who will want to punish her for intentionally disposing of her baby?”
“I don’t guarantee sunrises, let alone human behavior. But I doubt they’ll find her. I can’t tell you why, because that would help you figure out who she is.”
“Well, I’ve got plenty to occupy myself, but you and I have more to talk about. This isn’t over, Doc.”
“Yes it is,” Doc said.
The argument ended there. The back door to Klausen’s flew opened on howling winds, then crashed shut. Both men turned in its direction.
“Englishman!” Judy shouted. “Where are my daughters?”
***
Mad Dog decided not to wait for Uncle Simon’s Dodge Ram. He put the Blazer back in gear and floored it. Even with four-wheel drive it went all squirrely getting back onto the blacktop, extensive patches of which were now frosted and white.
Mad Dog flashed his headlights and made all sorts of waving motions, like he was indicating something important somewhere behind him as he went past the Dodge. Simon wasn’t behind the wheel. It was one of his boys—Levi, Mad Dog thought. It looked like a hand and a foot were sticking up out of the back seat of the crew cab, just in front of the gun rack in the back window. The guns persuaded Mad Dog to keep his foot on the Blazer’s accelerator in spite of the windshield wipers’ inability to clear the front glass of snow and his capacity to be sure where the edges of the highway had gone.
The Dodge pulled over at the intersection where Mad Dog had been parked and a puzzled face turned to watch them fly into the teeth of the storm. It didn’t take long for swirling snow to swallow the glow of the Dodge’s brake lights.
Mad Dog didn’t think they were following him. He let the speedometer drop back to something that was merely irrational instead of insane.
About two miles south of Buffalo Springs, the highway and Adams forked, each jogging away from the other to become two avenues into town. Mad Dog took Adams, but just far enough to realize how hard it was going to be to follow the street. He felt less likely to run into another Hornbaker this way, but it also looked like it might be tricky to navigate, even in a four-wheel drive.
Mad Dog stopped to consider his options while Hailey fogged the passenger’s window and the girl in the back seat leaned forward and peered over his shoulder.
“Where we going, Mr. Mad Dog?”
And that, Mad Dog realized, was exactly the question. Where did you go in a stolen car with a kidnapped child? To jail, his conscience answered, and most likely for a very long time.
The Dodge Ram streaked through his rearview mirrors and passed the intersection with Adams going even faster than Mad Dog had been willing to risk. Too fast to stop when the driver saw the Blazer. The Ram’s brake lights came on as it disappeared behind a stand of evergreens that separated the roads.
Where no longer mattered so much as going. If the Dodge didn’t end up in a ditch it would be back, bringing an armed and angry Hornbaker, with maybe a rope necktie to offer him a similar fate to Uncle Tommie. The Blazer went, and, to his surprise, Mad Dog decided he finally knew where.
***
But for the sound of the wind ripping at shutters, testing windows, and banging on doors, the big house was silent.
>
“Hello?” Becky called again, and again her echo was the only response.
Judah, Deputy Wynn, and the Heathers crowded the dim kitchen. It had a simple, functional look to it. A man’s kitchen, Heather English thought. A stack of dirty dishes in the sink indicated heavy use.
“That’s peculiar,” Becky said. “I thought Simon and Levi would be here. Judah, didn’t I tell them to hurry on home?”
Judah wasn’t chatty. He just blinked piggy little eyes and nodded.
“Deputy, you take these children into the living room. We left a fire in the hearth. Even if it’s gone out, you can toss some fresh logs on the coals and warm yourselves. I’ll heat up a pot of coffee, and make some hot chocolate for the girls. Judah, you go check the barn and the garage. See if someone’s out there.”
Heather English was tired of being called a child. She and Heather were both sixteen. Two of Two was only three months shy of her seventeenth birthday, though One would have to wait till fall. Still, they were both too old to be referred to as children. She looked over her shoulder at Mrs. Hornbaker as they paraded through a swinging door and into the living room. Judah shuffled back outside with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.
Heather wasn’t good at estimating the ages of old people. Once they got gray and their skin began to crinkle, they were just old. Becky Hornbaker qualified, though she didn’t look nearly as ancient as her brother, Tommie Irons, had the last time Heather saw him. In spite of gray hair and weathered skin that had faced into lots of years of Kansas wind, the woman was handsome in a rugged kind of way. She was tall and the lean-hard cut of her was especially noticeable as she shed her coat and reached up into a cupboard for cups and saucers. She couldn’t compete with the Heathers for perky, but she sure didn’t have the traditional old lady figure.
The living room was a mess. Someone had taken books off of shelves and stacked them at random on the floor. Cushions were tossed helter-skelter from the sofa and the easy chair. Only the TV and the recliner—remote control sitting on its arm—looked to be where they belonged. The fireplace held nothing but coals. Heather thought that was just as well since an occasional gust whistled down the chimney and might have scattered sparks onto the worn carpet or the combustible piles of books and cushions lying too near a screen that looked anything but effective. Wynn selected some logs from a pile that had been stacked right on the carpet, without even putting down something to catch the bark and sawdust. A man, she figured again, though probably not Mr. Irons. He’d been in the nursing home for months.
