by Alex Grecian
When I told him what I thought of his “studies,” he grew impatient with me.
He rang a bell and two other men in uniforms entered the room. They stood beside my chair, and Herr Bormann asked me again to assist him. When I again refused, he ordered me to remove my dress. And when I did not, the two men took my arms and raised me from my chair.
[At this point, Rachel Bloom stops reading and the recording ends.]
September 1961
1
It was not supposed to rain. The Old Farmer’s Almanac had predicted cloudy but clear conditions. And yet Rudy was awakened by a clap of thunder, his bedroom still lit up by a lingering flicker of lightning. He sat up and swung his legs around, found his slippers, and staggered into the kitchen. He brushed his teeth over the sink while the coffeepot chugged. He filled his portable mug to the brim and went out the back door in jeans and a rain slicker over his homemade pajama shirt with the snaps up the front. The horses were nervous, and he chose his favorite, an old swaybacked mare who had seen her share of storms. She was less likely to buck under him or suddenly take off. He saddled her and rode out, his coffee balanced behind the saddle horn, the reins wrapped in his right hand.
The goats were huddled in their shed, the walls open, raindrops pelting the tin roof. He could hear the new kids bleating as if from far away and underwater, the billy goats and nannies standing at the rails, watching the wet gray air.
He let the mare ride easy out to the fence, kicking up mud. Water streamed off the edge of Rudy’s hood, around and down the collar of his shirt. The fence was holding up well and he moved along it, watching for breaks or for calves that had been left behind if the herd had panicked. There was a big tree that grew along the western perimeter, and he thought the herd would have taken shelter beneath it. He urged the mare along, picking up speed as the rain grew heavier, not wanting to be out any longer than he had to.
Sure enough, he could spot the tree through the low-lying mist and there was an undulating earth-colored mass at its base. As he grew closer, he could hear them lowing.
2
Twenty miles away, lightning struck the church spire in Paradise Flats. It arced up and around and doubled over on itself, burning an eight-inch gash in the ceiling and a perfectly round hole in the floor below. The only person in the church at the time was a custodian, who took shelter between two pews at the back. But the fire burned itself out almost instantly, leaving the altar and the custodian untouched.
Back on the Third R Ranch, the cattle huddled closer together, raising their noses and lowing. A second later, the sky boomed and the rippling flood of beef moved away from the tree. Rudy unlimbered his shotgun from its holster and pointed it upward, firing into empty air, hoping to frighten the cows farther from the tree. But they didn’t hear the shot and they didn’t move. Rudy couldn’t hear it, either, over the sound of the next thunder clap.
He slowed the mare and rode directly into the herd, nudging them aside, putting himself between them and the tree. He raised his rifle to fire again and the world disappeared in a flash of white. There was a sound, too, that was unlike thunder and unlike a gunshot, and he tried to place it, tried to figure out what it might be as he fell from his horse.
He didn’t feel the ground as he hit it, but he felt the mud all around him, sucking at him, drawing him down.
He looked up when he heard a voice calling his name, and he peered into the blinding brightness all around him. He saw a pale horse galloping toward him, and a weight seemed to press down on him, as if he were sinking into a hot bath, a slight pressure on his skin and a comfortable warmth in his groin. He reached up, but he was moving too slowly and the horse was already passing him. He called to it, but it kept moving until he could no longer see it.
He lay in the mud and listened for the sound of returning hoofbeats.
3
When he woke in the hospital in Hays, Magda was there by the bed, her belly swollen, her eyes puffy. Jacob was there, too, with Gretel and their three boys. They did not realize he was awake until he spoke.
“How bad is it?”
Jacob sent the women and children out of the room. Magda touched Rudy’s hand before she left and she smiled at him. He knew they would be returning to the hospital soon to bear their child in comfort and safety.
When they were gone and the door was closed, Jacob sat on the edge of the bed. “You got yourself hit by some lightning,” he said.
“I figured that out,” Rudy said. His voice was a guttural whisper. “Looks like I still got my hands and feet, though. Not burned too bad.”
“They shaved your head. Most of the hair was already burned off.”
“I thought I was dead.”
“Almost, I guess. Pretty close to it.”
“I felt something,” Rudy said. “When I was dying, or when I thought I was. There was another presence.”
“A presence?”
“It was good. It made me feel good. I was at peace. I was welcomed. It told me …”
“It talked to you?”
“No, there were no words. But it felt like it was telling me that I was forgiven, that I would always be forgiven, that I’m safe in this world. Chosen.”
“Chosen for what?”
“Oh, hell, Jacob, I can’t describe it. Not really.”
“You feel okay now?”
“I can talk, I can see. But I can barely hear you, Jacob.”
“It’s good you can hear at all,” Jacob said. “Doctor said you might not. You ruptured your eardrums.”
“My chest hurts.”
“Take a look.”
He helped Rudy pull aside the thin hospital sheet. Rudy was not wearing a gown, and there was a thick bandage taped all the way down his chest. Rudy’s hands were numb, so Jacob peeled back the tape along one side of the gauze. Underneath, the skin of Rudy’s chest was decorated with ugly splotches, black and red, evenly spaced every two inches from his collar down to his groin.
“The damn Schlafanzug snaps,” Rudy said. “My pajamas.”
“Yup.” Jacob laid the bandage back over Rudy’s chest and smoothed the tape down. “That lightning jumped right down the length of you from snap to snap and burned most of your shirt off you. I think that plastic poncho protected you some or I guess it mighta been worse.”
“I’ll heal.”
“Yeah, you will.” Jacob looked away.
“The herd?”
“We lost near fifty beeves, Rudy. The next bolt hit that tree, that big one over by the fence, split it down the middle, and jumped away into the herd. Sizzled right on through ’em. Hell of a mess. Some of the guys are helping haul ’em off and get ’em buried. Started yesterday, but it’s a big job.”
“Scheisse.”
“Yup.”
“What about my horse?”
“That old girl? Found her back in the barn, pretty as a picture. Came back all by herself. It’s how we knew to go lookin’ for you.”
Rudy chuckled, but stopped when the pressure of his burns against the bandage sent pain lancing through him, like being hit by lightning all over again. “Can’t rattle that old girl,” he said.
“Lotta money down the drain, losing them cows, Rudy.”
“We’ll be all right. Got ’em insured, don’t we?”
Jacob smiled and stood. “You bet. Long term it’s gonna work out. Least you ain’t dead. Can’t come back from that. It’ll take us a while to recover, I guess, but we woulda lost them beeves whether you was out there in the rain or not. How ’bout next time you stay inside where it’s nice and dry and you just peek out the window and think about the beef, steada goin’ out in it.”
“Lesson learned.” Rudy reached up to scratch his head, but then remembered he had been shaved and pulled his hand away as if his bare scalp might burn him. “Listen, Jacob …”
“Don’t worry. I took care of the other thing. The Untermensch.” He glanced at the door, making sure they were alone. “The girl?”
“In the lake with the others?”
“No.” Jacob chuckled. “I couldn’t resist.”
“What?”
“The boys had that big ol’ hole dug and I thought, what could be better? She’s buried under a few tons of bad steak. They’re still out there pilin’ dead cows on top of her.”
Rudy was silent for a moment, thinking. “Did she …?”
“She was in a bad way. Took a while for me to get down there. Completely forgot about her for a while, I was so worried about you. Anyway, she was just about starved to death while you were in here.”
“Starved.”
“Nobody bringin’ her food. I went ahead on and finished her.”
“Good. Shame, though. Such a waste.”
“Get yourself strong and we’ll go huntin’ again.” Jacob winked. “Plenty more fish in the sea.”
“Fish in the sea.”
“Right. Well, I’ll send Magda back in here, if you think you’re up for it.”
“Magda. Jacob, I almost died. What would have happened to my wife?”
“I’d’a took care of her, Rudy.”
“I know that. I know you would have. But you have your own family. I have to provide, I have to do more. Jacob, we must make a great deal more money.”
“We’ll get more beeves. Maybe more goats, but they’re—”
“No, not that. Not any of that. Something different. I have an idea, maybe more of a feeling. Struck into me by the lightning.”
“Yeah?”
“Not yet. Let me think on it for a bit.”
“Okay.” Jacob patted Rudy’s arm. “I’ll go fetch Magda now.”
“Please. But, Jacob, give me a minute, would you?”
“You bet, partner.”
Jacob stepped out and closed the door behind him. Rudy looked around at the hospital room. There had been a time when he could envision himself working in a place like this, a time when becoming a doctor was the most important thing in his life. But that time had passed. The desire to help and heal people had changed during the war. He had become a more complicated creature.
He lay still and stared up at the ceiling, feeling his chest rise and fall with each breath he took. He was lucky to be alive. He knew that. But he also knew that there must be a reason he was alive, a reason he had escaped the mud and the endless bright void. He still had work to do in the world beyond raising cows and goats. Important work.
Magda would bear him a child, and he knew it would be a boy. That would be the first step. Raising a boy would be good. He knew he could teach a boy everything he would need to learn in order to grow up strong and right. Educating an entire community, shaping and nurturing Paradise Flats, would be the more difficult task, but it was the reason he had been spared while fifty head of cattle had been sacrificed.
He nodded at the ceiling, the vision he had experienced already changing in his mind, then reached down and covered himself again with the sheet, smoothed it across his body as well as he was able. He made himself presentable for Magda and waited for the door to open.
Chapter Four
1
There was a building just off the main road with glass doors that faced a gravel parking lot. The outer doors were unlocked and they opened onto a dim vestibule with a corkboard on one wall above a rack of pamphlets detailing the many features of the Kirwin National Wildlife Refuge. The inner door was locked, and a handwritten sign was posted: CLOSED UNTIL MONDAY. HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING.
Travis checked the calendar on his phone. There was still one day left before Thanksgiving.
“Inconvenient,” he said.
Bear wagged his tail in response.
Travis took a brochure that described the local wildlife and they went back outside, where the cool air tightened Travis’s chest. He lifted his gaze up past the tall brown grass to the distant sparkle of blue water.
“Kuru,” Travis said. “Go ahead.”
Bear bounded away, the grass silently closing in behind him. Travis smiled and strolled toward a covered lookout point at the far end of the parking lot. The sun was an inch above the horizon, and geese honked across the early morning sky. There was a rusty telescope bracketed to the railing, and Travis swiveled it around, squinted through it, and saw a blurry kaleidoscope of colors. He let the telescope swivel back to its original position and he leaned on the railing, looking out at the lake, the submerged trees, the white tips of their nude branches barely breaking the surface of the water.
According to the brochure, the refuge had once been home to bison and elk, who had grazed along the Solomon River. Two hundred years ago, prairie chickens and prairie dogs had shared the wooded streams and rivers of north-central Kansas with wolves and bears and mountain lions.
A clatter of claws across the wooden deck alerted him to Bear’s presence and Travis turned around, surprised that his companion had finished his morning run so soon. Bear padded up to him, circled twice, and ran a few feet away along the dirt trail that led from the observation post to the lake. He stopped and came back and sat, water dripping from his fur onto the dark wood of the deck.
“What did you find?”
Bear sprang back up, shook himself off and trotted away once more, stopped and looked back at Travis.
Travis held up a finger. “One minute.” He ran to the Jeep and fetched his Eclipse from the glove box, checked to be sure it was loaded, then followed after the dog as fast as he could.
It was hard going. Bear had ventured well off the trail into thick grass. It might have been a wheat field for all Travis knew. It scratched at his bare hands and was so tall that it occasionally brushed against his neck as he ran, raising red welts on his skin. Bear stopped every few yards and waited for his master to catch up, then sprinted ahead again.
The grass thinned as it neared the water, and Travis burst through a thicket to find Bear waiting for him on a broad muddy bank. Travis held his pistol down at his side and approached cautiously.
Bear stood over a wet mass of duckweed and hair, and Travis thought at first that the dog had injured a big animal. As Travis drew closer, Bear lay down next to the shape, rested his head on his paws, and turned his big brown eyes up to Travis. When Travis realized what he was looking at, he turned his head away for a minute. He had seen dead bodies before, but it was never an easy thing. He stuck the Eclipse in his coat pocket and knelt, put one hand on the dog’s head to reassure him.
“Where did you find her? In the water?”
Bear thumped his tail once and Travis gazed out at the lake. He could see a wide impression in the mud where the woman’s body had been dragged up the bank, and Bear’s paw prints weaved through the center of the swath. The dog had walked backward up the bank, pulling the dead weight behind him, before running to get help.
Travis looked all around them but saw no signs that they were being observed. He reached out with his free hand and wiped dirt and vegetation off the woman’s cheeks and out of her open eyes. Her body was bloated and bruised, pale white skin crisscrossed by thick blue veins, and she was nude except for a leather collar around her neck that had sunk itself deep into her swollen flesh. The hair on the left side of her head had been shaved, and there was a livid half-moon-shaped incision above her temple, laced together with crude stitches that looked like a parade of black ants. Travis guessed she might have been in her early sixties.
He stood again and took out his cell phone. He only had one bar, so he walked away along the bank, trying to find a decent signal.
“Middle of nowhere,” he said.
He dialed 911 and gave the dispatcher his location and a brief rundown of the situation, then hung up and dialed a second number. After it rang three times, a woman picked up.
“Noah Roan Foundation.”
“Arletta?”
“Tell me you found him.”
“Not yet,” Travis said. “I am afraid the situation has become complicated. More complicated, I should say. Bear has discovered a body.”
“Not Ransom?” Her voice quavered.
“No,” he said. “A woman.”
“Who?”
“I have an idea, but I cannot be sure yet. I am currently at the scene awaiting the authorities.”
“Natural causes?”
“I would guess not,” Travis said. “There is quite a bit of lividity, but some of the bruising might be older. It looks to me as if she was beaten to death. And more than that. I will have to wait until an autopsy is done to be sure, but she has untreated open wounds that look man-made. I think she was tortured.”
“Judah is free. I’ll send him out there today.”
“No, let me gather more information before we bring anyone else in. Something strange is going on here, and I want to tread lightly.”
“Well, obviously something strange is going on. You’ve found a body.”
“Bear found her.”
“It could be unrelated,” Arletta said. “It might have nothing to do with you at all.”
“Yesterday the local sheriff attempted to scare me away.”
“Ha!”
“Yes. It was amusing.”
“Are you armed?”
“My handgun,” he said.
“Get something heavier, just in case. And, Travis, I am going to send Judah.”
“Give me another day or two, would you? There is a state trooper here who seems honest. I do not think she trusts me yet, but I can work with her.”
“You have a very short leash here. And I want you to call in again tonight so I know you’re all right.”
“You need not worry about me.”
“I always worry. Worrying is my job.”
“I hear sirens. I should go.”
“Travis? Find Ransom. Find your father and come home.”
“I am working on that as we speak. Good-bye, Mother.”
He hung up and squinted over the tall grass. Red and blue lights washed over the horizon near the turnoff into the gravel parking lot. He had two or three minutes before company arrived. He pulled up Skottie Foster’s cell number and sent a quick text message.
