by Alex Grecian
She waited until Maddy let go, then knelt in front of her and took her daughter by the shoulders.
“What did you and your dad talk about? Before I got here?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t want you to—”
“Bear’s so thirsty.”
Skottie took a breath. “Look at me. I want you to have fun this weekend, okay? But this is our home right now. You know that, right? Me and you.”
Maddy rolled her eyes. “I guess so.”
Skottie realized she had squandered her two days off. She might have taken Maddy to a park, or taken her shopping for new jeans at the outlet mall. Instead, she had put a couple hundred miles on the Subaru and gotten herself in trouble with Lieutenant Johnson. And she had given Brandon an opportunity to manipulate their daughter. “Okay, let’s get Bear some water.”
Maddy looked back at the counter. “You didn’t need to be worried. If I did fall, he would cushion me. Bear’s a big fluffy pillow.”
Skottie glanced at the dog and he closed his eyes, then opened them slowly as if mildly insulted. Skottie reached out and scratched him behind his ear. He wagged his tail and came closer, and Maddy sank her fingers into his mane.
“Can we take him for a walk?”
“Sure, we can do that. I need to make a quick phone call.”
“We need to get food for him,” Maddy said.
“We’ll go down to the Dollar General. Except, looking at this big boy, he probably eats steak all the time. Maybe we better go to the IGA.”
“Can I bring my phone?”
“No. You can play that game on your own time. I need you to pay attention and help me with Bear. I’ll make my call while we’re on our walk, okay?”
“Where does Grandma keep the big bowls?”
“Let’s find out. But this time, I’ll look high and you look low. And put that chair back where it belongs. We don’t want your grandma to yell at us.”
Maddy hopped to it and Skottie opened a cupboard over the stove, grateful, for the moment, that they had a project.
3
Travis’s phone vibrated on the console between the seats and he pulled over to the side of the road before picking it up. The sun had suddenly come out again and the snow was already melting, turning into sludge that spewed up from beneath the Jeep’s tires. He checked the caller ID and smiled.
“Skottie Foster, thank you for returning my call.”
“I take it you’re out of jail, Dr. Roan?” She sounded a little out of breath, and Travis could hear ambient traffic noise near her.
“I am free now, thank you. And the sun has decided to grace us with its presence. Surely a good sign. Where are you?”
“About a block from my house. It’s still overcast down here. Tell me, what does Bear eat?”
Travis leaned back against the seat and smiled up at the mottled sky beyond the Jeep’s roof. “I was quite worried, but I trusted that you would find Bear and take care of him. He will eat whatever you are eating. He likes people food.”
“So we shouldn’t get him dog food?”
“Oh, my lord, no. Would you eat dog food?”
“I don’t think so, but I’m not a dog.”
“No, you are most definitely not.”
“What?”
“You are not a dog.”
There was a long pause, and he wasn’t sure what to say to fill the silence. He reflected on his statement and couldn’t find anything wrong with it. He sat still and waited.
“I wasn’t getting dog food anyway,” she said at last. “I thought maybe he’d eat a steak.”
“Oh, yes. He likes steak very much.”
“That’s what you ordered for him the other night. At the Roundup.” He heard her breathing hard and he waited. Finally she spoke again. “He was hiding that whole time out at the lake. There were tons of people tramping all over there and nobody found him. But he came right out when I called him.”
“Yes, he is a good boy. Trusting when there is reason to trust.”
“Esperanto, right? I mean, the language you use with him. That did the trick.”
Travis heard another voice, high and excited. “I’m the one …” The voice trailed off and there was a rustling sound, followed by a muffled exchange. Then Skottie came back.
“My daughter did some research online and figured out a little more about that language. We’re trying it out on Bear. He knows a lot of words. Sidiĝu.”
It was Travis’s turn to be quiet. He closed his eyes and thought.
“Dr. Roan?”
Travis opened his eyes and smiled again. “Please, I asked you to call me Travis.”
“Is something wrong, Travis?”
“No. But that is my private language with Bear.”
“Why Esperanto?”
“My father taught me. It was my first language.”
“Like German shorthand.”
“No. Nothing like Ruth Elder and her daughter. My father was not encouraging some special bond with me; he was simply testing my ability to learn and adapt. My brother, Judah, was to follow in his footsteps while my … while I provided research, linguistics, and weapons. I hope you will not misunderstand. I am extremely grateful to you for rescuing Bear. I only—”
“No, no, I do understand, but we had to—”
“Yes, of course. Please, I should not have said anything. Skottie, I have a question that might be perceived as odd.”
“Ha! Sorry, I mean what is it?”
“Would you tell me, what color of fingernail polish do you use?”
“Fingernail polish? I don’t wear colors. I use a clear coat.”
“Really?”
“You sound surprised.”
“No, but that is a nice bit of synchronicity. I use a clear polish on my own nails. It strengthens them.”
“Um, yeah, it does. Why are you asking me about fingernails?”
“I promise to explain when I see you next.”
“When will that be? We’re on our way to the grocery store right now. For the steak. I think maybe we’ll all have steak tonight.”
Travis heard a happy squeal in the background.
“That’s Maddy again,” Skottie said. “My daughter.”
“Please tell her hello for me. And thank her for figuring out how to talk to Bear.” He looked around him at the bare trees and the mottled fields, brown stalks jutting pointlessly up through the thin layer of snow, waiting to be plowed under in the spring. “I am not entirely sure where I am, but I believe I can be in Hays within the next two or three hours.”
“Hays isn’t that far from you. Shouldn’t take that long.”
“I am running out of time to complete my mission here, so I decided to prioritize and make good use of the daylight I have left. I was on my way to the church.”
“What church? And why are you running out of time?” She sounded more engaged than she had been. She had a police officer’s curiosity about people’s movements and motives. He realized she might still be suspicious of him.
“The Foundation is going to send someone else soon. I have not made the progress that was expected of me. But I asked them to run a background check on our mutual friend the sheriff.”
“Goodman?”
“Of course. I believe Mr. Goodman became sheriff because his father arranged it.”
“Who’s his father?”
“A man named Rudy Goodman. In the 1970s, he founded something called the Purity First Church.”
“Oh, crap,” Skottie said. The background sounds had changed. There was a hollow echoing quality to her voice, and Travis guessed that she was now inside a building.
“Where is Bear? Is he still with you?”
“Yeah. I mean, sort of.”
“You have arrived at the grocery store?”
“Yup. Gotta hurry. Maddy’s waiting outside with the dog.”
“Bear would never let any harm come to her.”
“Which is why I left her out there,” Sk
ottie said. “But I still need to hurry.”
“Very well. A minute ago you cursed. Why?”
“That church you mentioned is weird and famous.”
“Famous?”
“At least locally. They travel around with some kind of recruitment drive inside a tent that they put up in parking lots. At the mall, at Walmart, sometimes out by the movie theater. They go all over the place. Did you see those signs coming in? On the highway? ‘Repent unless you’re a bad seed.’ Stuff like that.”
“ ‘Unless ye be of impure stock.’ ”
“Right.”
“One sign said ‘Their breed fears the storm.’ Another said ‘Lesser men are but cattle.’ That one included a citation that does not match anything I remember from the Bible.”
Skottie didn’t say anything, and Travis thought the call might have been dropped.
“Skottie? Are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“So those people put the signs up? The Purity First people?”
“They like to sit down in front of temples and synagogues, movies and concerts, too. Keep people from going in and out so they have to listen to their spiel. They show up anywhere there’s something they don’t like, and they don’t like much of anything. Or anyone.”
“It seems quite clear whom they dislike.”
“Yeah.”
“And our sheriff is one of them.”
“That explains a thing or two.”
“And creates another mystery or two.”
“It fits the Nazi profile, doesn’t it? Let me know what you find out. I plan to check on the body you found. Maybe forensics can tell us something useful.”
“Good. Skottie, is Bear doing well? Is he happy?”
“He seems okay. Can he eat cookies? I’m getting cookies.”
“Are they oatmeal?”
“Oreos.”
“Ah, he likes Oreos even more than oatmeal, but chocolate will make him sick.”
“They’re the vanilla kind.”
“Not as tasty, I think, but much better for him.” Travis thought about his dog sitting outside a grocery store in western Kansas, like some pet. At least he wasn’t chained to a signpost, and he had Skottie’s daughter for company. Travis shook his head, though he knew Skottie couldn’t see him. Bear was not used to being treated like a dog.
“I could come get him now if you like,” Travis said. “I can wait and visit the church tomorrow.” He hoped she would ask him to come right away, even though the roundtrip would take the rest of his afternoon. He missed his canine friend more than he missed his books and the silk sheets on his own bed.
“Hang on a second.” She apparently covered the phone with her hand, but he could hear her talking to someone. A moment later, the quality of the sound changed again. He heard wind and cars and he guessed she had rejoined her daughter in the parking lot.
The phone hissed and Skottie was back on the line. “We can keep him a little longer.”
Travis heard another squeal of delight in the background and assumed Skottie’s daughter was campaigning to keep Bear in their home.
“He’s pretty low-maintenance for a dog,” Skottie said. “But I really don’t want Maddy to get too attached. So if you can still pick him up tonight …”
“That should pose no problem for me.”
“It’s probably better if you get to the church today anyway. I’m guessing they’d be closed tomorrow for the holiday.”
“You think a church would be closed on a holiday?”
“That church might.”
“I see. All right. Expect me before eight o’clock.”
Skottie gave him her address and he memorized it. “I’ll leave a light on for you,” she said.
“Skottie?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for taking care of him.”
“My pleasure. Maddy’s really taken to him.”
“Of course. He is extremely personable.”
Travis ended the call and set the phone down with a sigh. People were messy and complicated, with needs and motivations Travis sometimes found confusing. Bear was easy to understand, easy to rely on. Still, he had confidence in Skottie, and his separation from Bear served a dual purpose. He needed an ally in Kansas, and looking after his dog would bind Skottie to him in subtle ways. It was a big step forward on the road toward mutual trust.
4
“It must be expensive to feed him if he eats steak all the time,” Maddy said. “We don’t even do that, and we’re people.” She was walking a little ahead of Skottie and her hood was up, her face hidden from view, but she sounded happy, swinging Bear’s makeshift rope leash back and forth.
“I think Bear gets treated differently than most dogs,” Skottie said. The plastic bag full of steak and Oreos and small golden potatoes smacked into her leg with every other step she took.
“Probably because he’s smarter and bigger and cuter.”
“He’s cute?”
“In a scary kind of way.”
“I think it’s probably because Travis doesn’t have anyone else,” Skottie said. “I guess I’d treat a pet differently if I didn’t have you to worry about.”
“You can always let me go live with Dad,” Maddy said. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about me at all.”
Skottie wasn’t sure whether she had walked into a trap or had accidentally taken the conversation in a bad direction. At some point, she had lost her sense of such things. Bear led the way, stopping at the occasional tree or fire hydrant or parked car to sniff around. Maddy kept her head down, and Skottie couldn’t tell what her daughter was thinking or how best to approach her, how to get her talking again. And they’d been having such a good afternoon.
“Is that where he is?” Maddy broke the silence, pointing up at an eight-story concrete building. Her voice was flat and emotionless now.
Skottie knew what she meant. “Yeah. That’s your dad’s hotel.”
“Will he be coming for Thanksgiving tomorrow?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So you’re making him stay at that place all alone on Thanksgiving?”
“That’s his choice. I didn’t ask him to come here.”
“Of course he came here. He loves me. You can’t just take his kid away and expect him not to care.”
Skottie felt her face flush and she clamped her mouth shut so she wouldn’t say the first thought that had popped into her head: If he really cared, why did he wait six months to come see you? Instead she stared at the blank outer wall of the hotel. They were behind it, cutting through the parking lot of a strip mall a quarter mile from Emmaline’s house, and the hotel’s architect hadn’t bothered to make the back of the building attractive. Skottie wondered whether Brandon was staying on the other side, the pretty side, or was somewhere up there watching them from the window of his room. What kind of view did he have? Was he lonely?
“He’s probably lonely,” Maddy said.
Startled, Skottie stumbled over a crack in the pavement, the grocery bag bouncing up high before slamming back into her thigh.
“I’m sorry,” Maddy said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
Bear had found something interesting under a twiggy hedge at the side of the parking lot, and they stood there for a long minute waiting for him to finish exploring.
“I understand,” Skottie said. “You miss your dad. Sometimes I miss him, too.”
“Then let’s invite him over tomorrow.”
“Um … I don’t …” Even if she wanted to ask Brandon to dinner, she knew Emmaline wouldn’t let him past the front door. But she didn’t want to remind Maddy how deep the division in their family had become.
“Just think about it? It might not be so bad, you know?”
“I’ll think about it, Maddy, but don’t—”
“That’s all I want, Mom. I’m just asking for a little reasonable discourse, is all.”
“Reasonable discourse? Is that something you heard
me or your dad say?”
“No,” Maddy said. “I can talk. I’m not a baby.”
“I know it,” Skottie said.
Maddy peeked at her from under her hood and then looked away. “Mom, don’t look at me like that, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“I know,” Skottie said. “I get it that you’re grown up now and all you want is a little reasonable discourse.”
She reached out and put her arm around Maddy’s shoulder and was grateful when Maddy let it stay there for the rest of their walk.
5
Driving through Paradise Flats, looking for the church, Travis noticed that many of the businesses in town and more than a few community landmarks were named for the Goodman family. A few others, including the 4-H community center, had been founded by people named Meyer. These two families appeared to be the big movers and shakers in the area. He wondered how easy it had been for Kurt Goodman to get himself elected sheriff in a county saturated with members of his own family.
Purity First was housed in a large stone edifice, one step removed from being a cathedral. By contrast, many of the other churches Travis had seen in the area looked like administration buildings or new brick schoolhouses, complete with American flags dangling over dead yellow lawns. Purity First’s campus gave it the air of something old and steeped in tradition.
Travis parked on the street and got out. The sun had disappeared again and ominous clouds had begun to roll in. Across from the church was a community garden with a hand-lettered sign that said Free! Take some vegetables! There was a box at the near side of the garden with a slot and another sign asking for donations. Travis took a five-dollar bill from his wallet and dropped it into the slot, then crossed the road and looked up at the church. It was surrounded by a high wooden privacy fence, stained a shade of cedar that matched the anachronistically modern steeple above. Travis was tall enough to see over the fence if he hopped, so he grabbed the top edge and pulled himself up. Inside the compound was a tennis court with lawn chairs set out beside it and a little table with an umbrella that had gathered a big pile of crispy leaves. The net had been taken down for the winter, and a basketball hoop was similarly net-less, waiting for the sun to bring the church youth back outside. Two flags hung limp from a pole outside the church building: an upside-down American flag, and beneath it a plain white field decorated with a stylized wolf’s head. Small prefabricated outbuildings lined the inside of the fence, each big enough to house three riding lawn mowers. Travis caught a whiff of chlorine and assumed there was a swimming pool nearby. He wondered why it hadn’t been drained and covered yet.
