by MYERS, TAMAR
I slept fitfully until about two o’clock, when the need to micturate and some exceptionally bright moonlight rescued me from a string of mildly unpleasant dreams. In them Susannah, working in cahoots with Ida, had managed to physically restrain me—tying me up with old toaster cords—and forced me to convert to Apatheism. Needless to say, it was not a religion I embraced wholeheartedly. I was even ambivalent about my habit, which unlike those of the other sisters, was puke green. Strangely, Little Jacob was not in the dream, nor was the Babester. At any rate, I was just about to take my final vows of poverty, temperance, and irrelevancy, when the need to pee roused me—thank heaven.
Finally, at about ten o’clock, when both children appeared to be down for the count, I slipped outside into the cold night air. From my vantage point on the front porch, I could look through the still, leafless trees, across the road and Miller’s Pond, and see the distant lights of the farmhouse across the way. Somewhere in that house my beloved ached for me—or not.
Or not? How could such a thought even pop into my mind?
“Get behind me, Satan!” I said.
Immediately the phone rang.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I said. “You’re not fooling me; I know exactly who you are.”
But instead of switching over to message mode after five rings, that instrument of evil kept at it: over and over again. Unless I hustled my bustle back in and answered the ding-dong thing, the cherubic Little Jacob and annoyingly adolescent Alison were both going to be awakened, and then the rest of the night was for sure going to be ruined. I wouldn’t be able to get a single page of reading done, not even the charming southern mysteries of Carolyn Hart, the chocolate-coated tales of Joanna Carl, or the exotic world of Manhattan as delineated by Selma Eichler.
Seeing that I had no choice but to let Lucifer have it with both lungs, I virtually flew back into the house and snatched up the nearest phone. “It’s not funny, you idiot!”
“Uh—”
“By the way, is it hot enough for you?” I slammed the receiver down, shaking with anger and trepidation. After all, it’s not every day that one yells so directly at the Big S, and Heaven only knows what torments he’s capable of enacting as earthly revenge.
Within two seconds the horrible machine that Alexander Graham Bell invented rang again.
“Miss Yoder, don’t hang—”
The Devil sounded maddeningly familiar. But since deception is what he does best, that wasn’t too surprising.
“I’d tell you where to go, except you’re already there,” I cried. “So, with all due respect—oops, there isn’t any—get thee to the St. Louis Airport, Concourse A.” Again I slammed the receiver into its cradle.
They say that the third time is a charm. I won’t agree in this case, but at least by then I thought to turn off the ringer, if need be, rather than smash my phone or rip the cord from the wall. As for simply unplugging the jack, what kind of satisfaction would there be in that?
“Look, you asp,” I screeched into the receiver, “you two-headed son of a viper—”
“Elias Whitmore is dead.”
28
“You’re going to kill him just to get back at me? Well, I have news for you, buster; even if you do, the Lord will still claim his soul. Elias Whitmore is a bona fide born-again Christian.”
“No offense, Miss Yoder, but have you ever considered seeing a shrink? Sometimes you make less sense than a single copper penny.”
“Good one, Chief—Chief, is that you?”
“Of course. Who did you think it was?”
“Not the Devil—I mean, how silly do you think I am? Magdalena Cuckoo Yoder is not really my name, despite any rumors you may have heard.”
“Miss Yoder, please quit babbling, and just listen for a change.”
“Will do, buckaroo—er, Chief—not that anyone really says er, except in works of fiction.”
“Did you hear me say that Elias Whitmore is dead?”
That’s when his words first sank in. “Dead dead, as in really dead?”
“Totally dead. Can’t get any deader. As a matter of fact, I want you to come up here and take a look before the sheriff gets here.”
“Where are you?”
“Halfway up Buffalo Mountain, on Zigler Bend Road at the second turnaround.”
“I’ll be right there, dear.”
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t enjoy looking at dead bodies—or corpses, if you prefer—but I do find them rather interesting. What fascinates me is how unlifelike the empty human shell is, even just a second after death. There isn’t a mortuary beautician in the world capable of making human remains really appear as if the deceased is merely sleeping. The truth is, either we are corpses or we aren’t, and the transformation is instantaneous.
All of Hernia seemed to be asleep, making the swirling red light atop Chief Ackerman’s squad car all the more startling. I pulled over as soon as I found some shoulder and walked up the rest of the way. The last fifty yards I had a flashlight shining in my face.
“What are you trying to do, dear, blind me?”
“Why did you stop so far down the road?”
“I didn’t want to inadvertently drive over any evidence. Where is he?”
“You’re going to need to steel yourself, Miss Yoder. This isn’t pretty.”
“I’ve seen ugly before.”
“Not like this. You might even vomit—like I did.”
“Please be a mensch and don’t let me step in that.”
“What?”
“Just tell me where to walk.”
The chief took my elbow and gently led me toward the outer edge of the turnaround. The clearing is a semicircle carved into the woods and is meant not so much as a second chance for fearful or fickle drivers, as a place to pull over in emergencies, such as failing brakes. The surface of the turnaround is flat and smooth, chiseled out of solid bedrock, but it is surrounded by a low stone wall that defines its boundaries and gives at least the illusion of safety.
Halfway to the perimeter I stopped on my own. “Oh no, his car went through the wall and over the edge. How awful! What do you think happened? Did he fall asleep?”
“He didn’t go over,” the Chief said.
“Oh. But his car did, right?”
“No. His car is still up at his house.”
“Then I don’t get it.”
“That damage was most probably done by a steamroller.”
“Elias was driving a steamroller? But why? Aren’t they used to flatten things—like dirt and freshly laid asphalt?”
“Elias wasn’t driving it. Magdalena, look straight ahead and on the ground. Look carefully. And I’m here to brace you.”
“Okay, but all I see is black rock and some wet, dark mud, and some rags—oh, my Land o’ Goshen!” I started to sway like a young pine in a late March wind.
“Easy there, Miss Yoder. Take a deep breath. Remember, I’ve got you. You’re not going to fall.”
“But I am going to hurl!”
“I thought as much.”
And retch I did. However, young Chris Ackerman is a gentleman and even offered me his shirt upon which to wipe my face when I was quite through. His mother should be very proud of him, even though he has stolen from her the “right to be a grandmother,” and she has had to change churches twice in order not to hear sermons preached against her son.
“That—that was Elias?” I finally was able to gasp.
“Yes. As you saw, he’s been squished flatter than a pancake. What’s left of him could fit in a pizza box—if you folded him several times.”
“So the steamroller responsible for this continued on over the side of the mountain?”
“Actually, no. Whoever lugged it up the mountain hauled it back down again.”
“Chief, how’d you find out about this?”
“Mitzi Kramer’s beagle wouldn’t shut up until she took him inside.”
Mitzi is even older than Doc Shafor and has kept a succession o
f outdoor dogs ever since 1963, when, she claims, she caught Sasquatch—or his Pennsylvania equivalent—peeping in her bedroom window. Unfortunately for Mitzi’s neighbors Hernia’s sound ordinances don’t apply to Buffalo Mountain. The old woman doesn’t know how lucky she is that we are basically good folk and would rather simmer with resentment than harm an animal just because it has an inconsiderate owner.
I stared openmouthed at Elias’s flattened remains long enough to catch a nightjar. “Good golly, Miss Molly,” I said.
“Forgive me, Miss Yoder, but you’re turning into a real potty mouth. You weren’t that way when I first moved here, and I kind of liked that better.”
“Maybe it’s been all of your negative California jives.”
“I think you mean vibes—then again, with you I’m never sure. Anyway, the sheriff’s bringing his own dogs. But unless whoever did this to poor Elias drove the steamroller back down the mountain, I don’t expect the dogs to contribute much except for more noise. Shoot, I can hear the sheriff’s siren now.”
“Talk about being a potty mouth; that’s merely vowel substitution.”
“Pardon me?”
“Never mind. Hand me your flashlight, please.”
The chief was loath to do so, but since loath is such an underused word these days, one couldn’t begrudge that emotion. At any rate, I took the torch—as they say across the pond—and quickly swept the edge of the clearing for clues. Forsooth, I stayed as far away as I could from the flattened remains of the young but no longer quite so handsome Elias Whitmore. In fact, I wasn’t even tempted to glance his way.
Okay, so maybe I was tempted a wee bit, but as we all know, it’s not the act of temptation that counts, but whether or not we succumb to it. The fallen angel on my left shoulder was making a good case for taking a quick second look. After all, she said, I was unlikely to get another opportunity such as this. How many people had ever seen a human pancake? she asked. And didn’t I realize that my observations might be of scientific interest?
Meanwhile, the good angel on my right shoulder was practically shouting in my ear words to the opposite effect. Elias deserved respect, whereas my desire to take a second gander was merely morbid curiosity. I am happy to say that in the end my good angel and my gag reflex won out, and I truthfully averted my eyes as much as possible.
Of course, the aforementioned is all metaphorical, except for the flatness of poor Elias, which cannot be exaggerated. Neither can my sense of vertigo when I looked down at the unbroken tree canopy far below. I staggered backward, nearly stepped on Elias, and then fled screaming to the far side of the turnaround where it abuts the road. In seconds Chris was at my side.
“You all right?”
“Of course not! I almost stepped—thank the Good Lord I didn’t. But it’s so awful.”
“Miss Yoder, I’ve never seen you like this. You’re known for your sharp wit. To be honest, this new side of you really freaks me out.”
“But I am freaked-out!”
“So am I. But don’t you think a little of your macabre humor might make this a bit more bearable for both of us? At the very least, give me a good dose of your famous sarcasm. And, if you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel, I’ll take just plain old-fashioned criticism.”
“Hmm. Was all right one word or two?”
“Beats me.”
“Purists and older grammarians would have your head on a paper platter if you made it one word, but common usage will eventually change that. I read recently that even some copy editors permit the use of alright these days. I made it two words in the first instance for old time’s sake, but one word just now.”
“You’re really weird, Miss Yoder. Are you sure you’re not a closet Californian?”
“Like I said before, anything’s possible. Besides, it worked. I’m feeling much calmer, and here’s the sheriff now.”
As much as I’d wanted to stay until someone from the sheriff’s team had rappelled down the slope and tramped around a bit, I had to get back to the children. Before leaving, I’d wheeled Little Jacob’s crib into Alison’s room and positioned it next to the head of her bed. Upon returning I found Alison sprawled out under the crib on the floor, with the baby asleep on her stomach. A sheet had been draped over the crib to form a tent.
I lifted my son back into his crib, and then shook my daughter gently. “Alison, I’m back.”
She opened one eye. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“Don’t you want to get back into bed, dear?”
“Nah, maybe later. I’m kinda comfortable right now. What gives, Mom? Where’d you go?”
Her eye closed, and, thinking she was asleep again, I started backing from the room. “Sweet dreams,” I mouthed, and blew them both air kisses.
“Ain’t’cha gonna answer?”
I sat on the bed and rested my chin in my cupped hands. “There was sort of an accident up on Buffalo Mountain; Elias Whitmore is dead.”
“Ya mean that really cute guy from your church?”
“Yes.”
“Who killed him, Mom? How?”
“What do you mean?”
“Ya said ‘sort of an accident.’ That’s Mom talk for it weren’t no accident, so I want the details.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m afraid that it’s privileged information, dear.”
“And that’s Mom talk for ‘you’re too young to hear all them gross details, yet you’re old enough to take care of your little brother while I traipse off and investigate me a murder.’ ”
“Traipse? Since when do fourteen-year-olds use that word? And if you don’t mind me saying so, Alison, your grammar is terrible.”
“When they have ya for a mom, and yes, I do mind; you’re trying to change the subject, and ya know it.”
My sigh of resignation blew candles out as far away as Susannah’s apathy vigil in Cleveland (I was informed later that the rally had been canceled for lack of interest). “Elias was flattened by a steamroller up on the second turnaround on Buffalo Mountain. It was not a pretty sight.”
“Cool.
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way, Mom. It’s just that if you’re gonna be dead—uh, I don’t know how I meant it, ’cause it ain’t gonna sound right, no matter what I say. But remember that I’m just a kid, and I seen a lot of them horror movies before I came here.”
“Saw.”
“I seen those too. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre—”
“Not that. You saw the movies. You didn’t seen them.”
“Of course I didn’t seen them. Who the heck talks like that?”
“Oy vey!”
“I was just trying to say that to a kid, being squished is way more cool than just dying of old age, or something boring like that.”
“My parents were squished.”
“Cool—I mean, ouch! I’m sorry.”
“Alison, what are you doing under your brother ’s crib?”
“It’s comfortable down here.”
“It is? But you hate the floor; when you have sleepovers—”
“Okay, if I tell ya, will ya promise ya won’t get mad?”
“Did you wet your bed? That’s all right, dear—two words, of course—although you have been reminded a million times that the last thing you should do before retiring for the night is use the little girls’ room.”
“Ya see, Mom, you’re already mad, ain’t ya, and I ain’t even had a chance ta tell ya.”
I prayed silently for patience and understanding. This is my least answered prayer. Then again, it is, perhaps, the one into which I put the least amount of effort.
“I’m not mad, dear. Nor am I angry. I’m tired, and in the mood for an I told you so. But I’ll try to hold back now, I promise.”
Alison can tell when I’m calling on divine help, and sometimes she even tries to cooperate. “Ya know that picture ya have on your dresser of that mean old woman?”
“Grandma Yoder?”
“Yeah. Well, she w
as here.”
“A cold cliché just ran up my spine,” I said.
“What?”
“A chill. You saw a ghost.”
“What else is new?”
“You’ve seen her before?”
“Lots of times. That old lady—I mean Great-Granny Yoder—is all the time coming in here and checking on me. She gets really mad if I don’t put away my stuff. And sheesh, you should see how much she hangs around Little Jacob.” She rolled out from under the crib and sat facing me cross-legged. “Ain’t ya seen her, Mom?”
“I have, but not for a long time. Not since I discovered that the Yoders weren’t my birth parents.”
“Yeah, but aren’t your real parents the ones who raise ya?”
I smiled. “That’s right, they are. I’ve sort of been forgetting that in my case.”
“There ain’t such a thing as sorta, Mom; that’s what you’re always saying ta me. Either something is, or it ain’t.”
“From the mouths of babes, dear.”
“Hey! I ain’t no baby!”
“That’s for sure; you’re a very wise teenager—when you’re not trying to date. So anyway, do you find that hiding under a tent works?”
“Oh, it ain’t the tent so much; it’s that lavender bath junk I sprinkled on top. I read in some book that ghosts don’t like lavender, so they plant it around castles on that account.”
“I thought something smelled good.”
“Ya ain’t mad that I used it?”
“Alison, I don’t have mad cow disease—or rabies. Do I fly off the handle at everything?”
She shrugged. “Pretty much, but ya ain’t too bad, Mom. Ya ain’t never hit me like Lindsey Taylor’s mom. Lindsey’s always covering up for her, but I seen the bruises. Making excuses, ya know.”
I jumped to my feet. “That’s terrible! We have to do something about that.”
Alison jumped to her feet as well. “But Lindsey will get in a lot of trouble; her mom will just hit her harder. And Lindsey will hate me.”
“It sounds as if they both need help. If I notify the right people, Lindsey’s mother can get counseling—in fact, they can both get counseling—and in the meantime, Lindsey can be put in a protective environment where she won’t be abused.”
