by Tamar Myers
After that, Arnold Ledbetter turned nasty. He whipped that little gun around like a flashlight in the hands of an overzealous parking-lot attendant. He called us names that made even Susannah blush and left Danny asking for explanations. Then he ordered us to pick up Stayrook and carry him outside.
“Hey, that’s my car,” I said. “That’s stealing, you know.”
He laughed cruelly. “As I recall, you abandoned it along the road last night. Finders keepers, Yoder. Anyway, your car has front-wheel drive, unlike mine. And now your car has some first-rate scratches and dings, unlike mine. This barn is not the most accessible spot, you know.” He had the nerve to laugh again.
“Well, never mind,” I said charitably. “Hop in and we’ll all go get some breakfast.”
“Excellent idea,” Arnold agreed. “About you three hopping in. Stayrook and I will stay right here.”
“You sure? Pauline makes a mean stack of pancakes, although you do have to ride her on the bacon. Tends to make it too crispy for my taste. Sausage is always good though.”
I’m not a total idiot. Of course I knew something was wrong with his offer—I was just stalling for time. There was always a chance—albeit a slim one—that my Pooky Bear would come riding up over the white horizon in a sleigh. There was even a slimmer chance that either Susannah or Danny would come up with a brighter idea of their own. They didn’t.
“Shut up, Yoder.” He jangled my keys wickedly and then flung them out over the snow. “Now the three of you push that car up against the barn.”
We did what we were told.
“Now hop in.”
“Knock the snow off your feet first,” I told the others sternly.
“Wait! What are you doing?”
It was Stayrook, come back to life. Apparently a dead faint is hard to feign when you’re lying face down in the snow.
“Well, well, well. Sleeping beauty finally wake up from her nap? Just in time, Stayrook, to watch these three take a final ride up to those pearly gates we were talking about.”
“Ach! You promised no more violence, Arnold, remember?”
“I promised not to shoot them, and I won’t. Not if they behave. But is it my fault the old one accidentally drove her car into the side of a barn and it caught on fire?”
“You can’t kill me,” Danny said, hiccupping between words.
“Says who?”
“She says so.”
All eyes turned to me. All except Danny’s were focused.
“Hey, it’s true,” I hastened to explain. “You can’t kill Danny Hem until he signs the deed handing over Daisybell Dairies. Right?”
“Wrong!” Arnold was as gleeful as Rudy Tramp was when he stole that shiny red apple out of my lunch box in the fourth grade. What Rudy didn’t know—until he took a big bite—was that the apple was wax.
“I’m not wrong. If you kill Danny now, you’ll be killing the goose that lays your golden eggs.”
“Not a goose,” Danny slurred.
“You were, but your laying days are over,” Arnold said cruelly. He turned to me. “Penmanship was always my best subject. All it took was a little practice, and now even Danny boy can’t tell mine from his. You care to see a sample?”
It was time to switch tactics. “No one is going to believe it was an accident if I’m found dead wearing Amish clothes.”
“That’s right,” Stayrook said. “We had them dress that way so we could drive them over to the border and dump them in the Ohio River. Next to where you had me hide that buggy.”
I shook a finger at the only real Amish there. “Why, Stayrook Gerber, I am ashamed of you. And you said no more violence.”
“Well, at least no more violence in Farmersburg County,” he said, with a whine in his voice. “I plan to keep living here, you know.”
“Shut up! All of you. No one’s going to tell what they’re wearing when I get through with them. They’ll be burned to a crisp, like Pauline’s bacon. Won’t be able to tell one from another.”
I took a deep breath and steadied myself against the car. “Well, so long, sis. It’s been an experience knowing you. And I do love you, I hope you know that. Even if I wasn’t always as patient as I might have been.”
Susannah had the decency to burst into tears. “You were right, Mags, there is a God after all. At least my little Shnookums doesn’t have to die.”
“Mind if I have just one more drink?” Danny asked politely. “There’s still a bottle of good scotch back there in the hay that I’d hate to see wasted.”
Arnold smiled broadly. “Damn good idea. Bring all the bottles. Wouldn’t hurt for them to find the car filled with the stuff.” He waved Danny into the barn.
“Must be a dozen bottles in there,” I said quickly. “I’ll give him a hand.”
I darted in after Danny before Arnold could fire a shot. I finally had a plan.
Chapter Thirty-three
I might have left my car keys behind when I fled, but I didn’t leave my purse. There isn’t an American woman over forty who can step outside without her purse. It is, of course, a political legacy that dates back to the beginning of our country. Whereas our founding fathers claimed the right to bear arms, our founding mothers claimed the right to bear purses. So entrenched did this idea become that at the height of McCarthyism, or so I’m told, a woman outdoors without a bag on her arm was immediately branded a Communist. Some intensely patriotic women, like Mama, go so far as to be buried with their purses.
This anti-Communist gesture has spread to other Western nations. Now even the Queen of England carries a purse, although what she puts in it is anybody’s guess. The British tabloids have told us everything there is to know about the insides of the royal bedrooms, but nothing about the insides of the royal pocket books. Susannah insists that the Queen carries a pooch in her purse. Who knows, she may be on to something. Some of the pocket books I’ve seen that grande dame toting lately could accommodate a small corgi. On the other hand, they might simply be filled with tissues, given the sad state of her family’s affairs.
At any rate, my purse was still in the banr, and in it was an extra set of car keys. Although I had my doubts that Arnold would let me back out of the barn toting my bag, there was no way he could stop me from smuggling out my keys. Thanks to Susannah, I knew that bras made excellent substitute purses (which leads me to conclude that some of the bra-burners back in the sixties might indeed have been Communists).
We emerged from the barn with our arms full of bottles and dumped them into the back of the car. Arnold had Stayrook frisk us both, which is kind of like what I would imagine sex was like between my parents. My bra went undisturbed.
“Now line up, folks,” Arnold said, pulling a syringe from his coat pocket and handing it to Stayrook. “Time for those flu shots.”
“I already had mine, dear.”
“Not one like this, you haven’t. Thanks to my comrade here, today’s selection includes the finest in cattle tranquilizers. We originally intended it to sedate you while you took the big swim. But as you see, I’m flexible.”
“I hate needles,” Susannah said. “I think I’ll pass.”
Arnold clicked the safety off. “Actually, the shots are not optional. How else am I going to keep you in a burning car? So it’s either a nice, relatively painless shot, or a bullet to the head. What will it be?”
Susannah calmly took off her bonnet and patted her hair. “I’ll take the bullet then. I told you I can’t stand needles.”
Stayrook was obviously distressed. “The injection will hardly hurt at all,” he said. “I give them all the time.”
Susannah held her head high. “Yes, to cows. But I’m not a cow. And anyway, I don’t know where that needle has been. What about AIDS? Go ahead and shoot, Arnie.”
I was horrified. My plan did not call for Susannah to throw in the towel so quickly.
“She doesn’t mean it, Arnold.” I winked at Susannah. “She would really rather have the shot.”
&nb
sp; “I would not!”
“You would so.”
“Would not, and what’s wrong with your eye, Mags?”
“Piece of hay, dear.” I moved closer to Susannah so I could whisper to her, if not kick her.
Arnold was no fool. “Get back, Yoder, or you buy the farm now. Kinda make your choice easy for you.”
I had been thinking the whole time, and now I started praying as well.
“I’ll take the first injection,” I said. “If it doesn’t hurt too bad, promise me you’ll take it, Susannah.”
My sister rolled her eyes, possibly for the last time. It was a strangely touching sight.
“All right. If you take the shot, I’ll take it. But I’m warning you, I might faint.”
“Good girl. All right, buster,” I said to Stayrook, “sock it to me.”
It was hard to tell that Stayrook had ever injected a cow by the way he handled that syringe. He was almost as incompetent as old Nurse Schrock, before Doc Gingerich made her retire. Of course, both nurse and doctor are dead now, but a generation of Hernians, Susannah included, have left arms that look like they have been pressed up against miniature waffle irons. Arnold had to do a lot of stabbing before he got the blunt needle to penetrate my clothes.
Of course the injection hurt. A cattle syringe is just barely smaller than a pastry funnel. At least it felt that way. But even though my teeth drew blood, I kept my mouth shut.
“Next!”
Dear Danny was obviously in his cups, and he responded as if Arnold were passing out free drinks. Fortunately for him, his inebriety was in his favor, because he seemed to feel nothing.
“Piece of cake,” he said, and wobbled aside. Susannah screamed. This was not one of her run-of- the-mill screams intended to attract attention or sympathy. This was a scream generated by pain and abject terror. My heart went out to her.
Even Stayrook, criminal that he was, appeared moved. He dropped the syringe like a hot potato and steadied Susannah with both hands.
Arnold, however, had the heart of Satan. “Now get in the car, suckers,” he said with a wave of the gun.
“Ach, Arnold, please. Two deaths are enough. At first you said nobody had to die.”
“Those two dying was their own fault. I never pushed Levi from his damned silo, and I sure as hell didn’t hold Yost under in his milk tank.”
“But the drugs—”
“The LSD was your idea, remember? Something you picked up from watching those hippies camped out on that farm next to yours.”
“Annie Stutzman’s place?” I asked. After all, why die ignorant?
Stayrook glanced at me and then down at his feet. “Yah. When they took that stuff they acted crazy. Like they were possessed. I wanted Yost and Levi to act like that, not to kill themselves.”
“Drugs kill, Stayrook. Or haven’t you seen those commercials on TV?” Arnold laughed wickedly.
“You bought the stuff,” Stayrook said, a catch in his voice. “I only saw to it that they took it.”
“So you’re blaming the apple on Eve, are you, Rev?”
“Ach, but Arnold—”
“Then get in the damned car with them, if that’s how you feel. What’s it going to be, Gerber? You want to live and own the largest dairy farm east of the Mississippi, or do you want to start your eternal roast a little bit early?”
“Come on, Arnold, I have a wife and kids. You know that.” Despite a temperature hovering around zero, Arnold’s face looked like Niagara Falls.
“I’m sure they’ll be very proud of you, whatever you choose,” I said meanly.
“Well, if we’re going to die, let’s get it over with,” Susannah said sensibly. “This cold air is chapping my face.”
We three pseudo-Amish climbed into the car. I, of course, climbed behind the wheel, since it would make more sense to find my remains there. Danny, of course, climbed into the backseat, where most of the bottles had been dumped. Susannah, as my sister, should have claimed her rightful place at my side, but I cannot fault her choosing to die in the backseat. People facing death often reach out for the familiar.
While Stayrook made one last pitiable plea for mercy, I fished out my car keys and slipped the appropriate one into the ignition. Not even Susannah, who was still conscious, saw what I had done.
My detractors would claim that I am far from being a saint. I would have you know, however, that I counted slowly to ten just before I pumped the gas and turned over the ignition. Just as the engine caught, the front door flew open and Stayrook jumped in.
I shifted into reverse and pressed the pedal to the metal.
Chapter Thirty-four
My vehicle might have front-wheel drive, but on the snowy lane that led from the barn to the highway, it performed with about as much accuracy as a carnival bumper car. But it was the very erraticism of my driving that made it impossible for Arnold Ledbetter to hit his mark. That and prayer.
Farmersburg County does not generally plow its minor roads, but Highway 5 had been cleared, and once on it we had smooth sailing. The only question was where.
“Keep going east,” Stayrook said. “We’re only eight miles from the county line. We can ask the sheriff there for help.”
I stifled nothing. “Ha! Right, like we should trust you? For all I know this is another trap.” I began looking for a spot to turn the car around.
“Yah, I don’t blame you for not trusting me. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“What? That’s it? No argument?”
“No argument.”
That did it. I stomped on the brakes, but even with the road cleared, we skidded fifty feet farther than I’d intended. Stayrook was playing mind games again. Undoubtedly Marvin, or some other criminal crony, was just down the road lying in wait. Stayrook wanted me to doubt him, and then feel guilty for it, and second-guess my better judgment. Of course, Stayrook knew I was smarter than that, and had gone one step further in his thinking. Being a stubborn Yoder, he reasoned, I would overcome my guilt and do the opposite of what he suggested anyway. Then he would have me in his trap. Boy, did he think wrong.
“Don’t you think you’ve fooled me for a minute,” I snapped. “We’re headed east, and that’s that. You don’t like it, you can jump out.”
“Yah, east is good.”
I covered my right ear with my right hand. “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!”
A mile or two down the road I glanced over at Stayrook. He was sitting silently, tears streaming down his cheeks.
I removed my hand from my ear. “Nice touch, dear, but I don’t believe it for a second. Save your tears for the next sucker.”
He said nothing, and his silence was deafening. “Susannah, dear,” I called, “how you doing back there?”
Neither my sister nor Danny had uttered as much as one word since our escape. In both their cases it was close to a record.
“I think they’re asleep,” Stayrook said quietly.
“Asleep?” I snarled. “You mean zonked out with the tranquilizer. Come to think of it, I’m starting to feel kind of funny too.”
“Magdalena, there’s something—”
“I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you!”
Stayrook covered his face with his hands. It was a shame well deserved.
I fought the tranquilizer as long as I could. Despite my rather large frame, and the quaint way I sometimes chew my food, I am not a cow. Undoubtedly the drug worked a lot faster on me than it did on its bovine victims. The numbness began in my feet and spread upward through my body, and I had trouble feeling both accelerator pedal and the steering wheel. My eyelids must have become numb too, because they kept drooping and obscuring my vision. Each time they drooped they became hard to open, and I was convinced that in a minute or two I would be out like a light. Still, I had to get across the county line.
I was weaving badly, fading off into the twilight zone, when I saw the store up ahead on the right. Tacked on a post just in front of t
he store was a new county sign. I breathed a prayer of thanks, took my foot off the pedal, and coasted into safety.
“Not here!” Stayrook said sharply. “It’s too close.”
“It’s here or nowhere,” I said. I unbuckled my seat belt, laid my seat as far back as it would go, and settled down for a long winter’s nap. At that point I was so far under that ten Arnolds and all the guns in the world wouldn’t have roused me from my slumber.
Stayrook certainly tried. “Wake up, Magdalena. Wake up!” He shook me, like I used to have to shake Susannah every school morning.
“Go away, Stay, and stay away.”
“Magdalena, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Tell me anything you want, dear, just let me go back to sleep.”
“Magdalena, that wasn’t tranquilizer in the syringe.”
I smiled. Intense drowsiness breeds benevolence. “Yes it was, dear. It was cow tranquilizer. You put it in there yourself, and then you gave it to me. Right here, in the arm. Moo.”
“It was water, Magdalena. I couldn’t go through with it.”
“What?”
“Arnold wanted you sedated before he threw you into the river—his original plan—but I couldn’t go through with it. You would have drowned. That was his point. And I would have been a part of it.”
I began to wake up. “Water? There was nothing but water in that syringe?”
“Yah. Clean water. I boiled it first.”
I was wide awake. “Then why am I asleep? I mean, was.”
“Ach, that must be just stress. I’m very sorry, Magdalena. I really am.”
I put my seat back into its upright position. “Well, I had you fooled now, Stayrook, didn’t I? I knew it was water the whole time.”
