American Blackout (Book 2): Slaves Beneath The Stars

by Tribuzzo, Fred

  As the tears of both women slowed, Cricket saw more clearly.

  After the Brazilian’s murder of Grace and the attempt to have Sister Marie nailed to a life-size cross, Cricket had watched Sister retreat at times, while making dinner, helping the children with their chores, or pausing in her prayers before bed, when she made some wordless appeal, eyes upward, ashamed to utter the words aloud. Her right hand had had a nail driven into the palm by one blow of the hammer. No other blows had followed, and Sister and Cricket had been saved by Lawrence. But the worst blow of the day was Grace’s lifeless body dumped at their feet.

  “My restful times aren’t always restful,” Sister said, wiping her eyes with a hanky. Cricket rested a hand on Sister’s shoulder. “In the past, even when dealing with so much pain and disease and spiritual turmoil in people’s lives, by the end of the day, in my prayers, in the moments before I closed my eyes, I could rest, maybe think a bit and let that wonderful exhaustion carry me off into Christ’s arms to be recharged. But now, in my exhaustion, I’m often pained, not unlike what Caleb’s going through. His mother never said what they did with these boys or her for the months they were held hostage.” She paused and reached for her guitar, dragging her fingers lightly across the open strings. “But the worse thing about that day was the loss of Grace.”

  Caleb returned and handed Cricket her zip-up sweater and a blue ceramic Christmas mug with a decorated tree wrapped around one side. Cricket avoided the chipped portion and thanked Caleb before taking a sip. She looked over the western field, and it matched her wide-awake dream.

  “Cricket, do you believe in the devil?” Caleb asked, looking back at the house in case his parents decided to walk out.

  “Yes, I do.”

  Caleb’s expression didn’t change. The serious student of boyhood metaphysics was struggling with one of the world’s most basic discussions.

  “Does the devil make people do bad things?”

  “He helps, tempts. But ultimately, we make the choice, make the decision toward good or evil.”

  “You’ve killed people,” Caleb said, questioning Cricket’s choice.

  “Yes, I have.” Cricket saw Sister Marie’s distress, adding, “After really bad people had attacked us.”

  “But maybe… the bad people are just trying to stay alive, too. Doing what they have to do… to take care of their families.”

  Sister said, “Caleb, if you think about that, anything that becomes difficult, or even something we fail at, would be cause for us to hurt other people to rectify our situation. That still is not right. Now we do live in extreme times, and sometimes we have to act forcefully in order to protect ourselves, to survive. But we don’t give up seeing the sacredness in people, or excuse people from doing bad things because they deem it necessary to survive.”

  Caleb wouldn’t look either woman in the eye. He stared at the ground, saying, “Doctor Claubauf said that the devil is the name people give to things that they don’t understand. Things that scare them. Like the scarecrow man we found hunting. He said the devil is like that plastic man, just a scarecrow. It scares us for a while until we walk up to it and rip off a piece of its phony devil skin.”

  “I think Doctor Claubauf wants you to be strong,” Cricket said, “like I do.” She eyed the distance, troubled that this man would once again be undermining the faith of the children. “But even if I didn’t know what I was looking at, and even if I was very scared, I would never imagine that scarecrow to be the devil.”

  Sister said, “Neither would I. Have I ever pointed to an old dying tree or a person and said the devil was in that tree, in that person? The devil is a condition, something that seeps into your thoughts, occupies your dreams. We must constantly learn to pray and live our lives as best we can, thinking of others first, the way your parents do with you and Ethan.”

  “Can the devil ever win, beat God?”

  Sister leaned her guitar against the bench.

  “As much trouble and misery that the devil causes, he’s no match for God. We see that in all the good people do every day. The bad is there, but even bad people are trying for something good. What I mean is, a person is after the good. If you and your brother were to steal a bunch of apples from someone’s kitchen, some you’d even throw away, your first reason to steal was based on something good—”

  “Apples taste good.”

  “That’s right. That’s the good in apples, and we know there’s good in eating them. But if we get selfish and are thinking only of ourselves, we take apples that are not ours, apples we didn’t earn—”

  “So the devil takes something good and makes it bad?”

  “Yes!” Sister jumped up and gave Caleb a hug. The boy was pleased with the attention but quickly retreated, backing into gloom, eyes downward, listening to another voice.

  “Wow, you two,” Cricket mused. “I won’t need another cup of coffee. Your philosophy-slash-religion class has made it into my top-ten list of great courses.”

  Sister picked up the guitar, checked the tuning, and asked Caleb if he’d like to sing one of the songs she had been teaching him and Ethan that morning. Caleb’s parents looked out the window and smiled at the young cantor singing the wistful song “O God, You Search Me.” Cricket felt hopeful seeing the joy in Sister Marie’s eyes. Cricket’s moment of peace continued with the last line of a verse:

  There is nowhere on earth I can escape you: Even the darkness is radiant in your sight.

  As the last chord of the song faded, Lily and Lee Ann came across the pasture with Oakley, who safely handed off the children before heading to the bunkhouse. Both girls wore turtlenecks and approached Cricket with tears in their eyes. Diesel sat down on his haunches and waited as any well-trained service dog would for his master’s next move.

  “Girls, I understand why you’re crying.” Cricket hugged them both. “Let’s talk right now about last night.”

  Sister Marie placed the guitar on a small stand and rose to comfort the girls. Again, Caleb looked sad, withdrawn.

  “We heard the beautiful song walking with Mr. Oakley before we even saw you, and it made us think of our parents,” Lily said.

  “I sometimes hear my mom whispering to me,” Lee Ann said. “I can’t make out the words, but she’s trying to help us or something like that. Yesterday when those bad people took me, I heard her talking. She said she was close and that she’d keep me safe, and I’d see my sister soon, see everybody I love. I thought she was singing along with Caleb and Sister Marie.”

  “You’re blessed to have that connection to your parents,” Sister Marie said.

  “I’m not going to sing again,” Caleb announced, surprising everyone, especially the girls, who looked at him and instantly dropped their sadness for confusion.

  “Caleb, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Lee Ann said. She walked up to him and looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry if I made you sad, talking about my parents.”

  Head down, he wouldn’t look at either Sister or Cricket. “There’s too much sadness. Doctor Claubauf told me people don’t have to live with sadness. He says religion makes people’s sadness worse.”

  “You have your parents,” Lily said. “Why are you sad?”

  Caleb’s eyes fell on Cricket as though she knew the answer.

  “Caleb, there’s not only sadness,” Cricket said.

  “When the music touched Lily and Lee Ann,” Sister added, “they also felt their parents’ love—”

  “I’m done with all this crap—singing and praying. Doctor Claubauf was right.” Head down, Caleb walked away. His mom had heard the commotion and was waiting at the kitchen doorway.

  “Caleb, how is Doctor Claubauf right?” Cricket started to walk toward the house, actually ready to charge, following the boy. Sister stopped her with a touch. Ann Davies gave both women a hard look. Like her son, she too was fed up with the attempt to lasso her boys into the faith…

  Caleb never turned, yelling for the world to hear, “It’s dang
erous!”

  39

  Fiddles and Machine Guns

  The girls, Sister Marie, and Cricket aimed for the western meadow and the P-51. Lee Ann and Lily searched for an answer to Caleb’s troubles.

  “He’s just scared,” Lee Ann said, holding Lily’s hand and then leaning toward her sister, losing her footing, and bumping shoulders. “It’s like when you’re scared and no one can hear you. And you think even God can’t, but He does hear you, all the time—right, Sister?”

  “Absolutely,” Sister Marie said.

  Cricket looked to Sister, who acknowledged the girl’s intelligence with a loving smile.

  The two girls continued to bump into each other walking over the frosted, dead grass, which crunched beneath their feet. They had been holding each other up ever since the savage murder of their parents. Cricket was impressed with Lee Ann’s analysis—fear still cloaked Caleb, keeping him from God.

  “Caleb could wake up anytime and know that God is looking after him.” Lily turned her eyes to Sister Marie awaiting an answer.

  “That’s exactly right, Lily,” Sister Marie said.

  The bruised cloud deck now covered the sky, and they climbed the meadow and soon the boys and the P-51 came into view, parked outside the open hangar. Ethan waved and so did Predator Jones, who must have just quietly arrived. Cricket thought the World War Two fighter and the canary-yellow Piper Cub looked fabulous together.

  The two mechanics were busy: one on a short ladder filing the nick in the prop, and the other feeding .50-caliber rounds atop the left wing. Ethan shadowed Fritz, who continued to look for bullet holes.

  Lily walked over to Fritz, and Sister Marie happily took Lee Ann’s hand in hers.

  Behind the rear seat of the Cub, Predator Jones pulled out a violin case.

  “Even with your reputation, I’m expecting a fiddle, not a machine gun,” Sister Marie challenged.

  “I keep the guns and fiddle separate.” He lay the case on an old card table the mechanics were using for tools and smaller parts, such as DZUS fasteners and trays of screws, washers, and nuts.

  They had used the tractor to bring a pallet loaded with a long box of .50-caliber rounds that had been hidden in a stall inside the barn. Fritz had also asked the mechanics to harmonize all six guns to converge at three hundred yards instead of the 150-yard range he had used since picking the plane up from Wright Patterson.

  Predator tightened and rosined the bow and brought the instrument under his chin before launching into “I’ll Fly Away.”

  Lee Ann stared at the man swaying in time to the old gospel hymn. Ethan and Lily listened from the other side of the Mustang, and everyone either slowed his or her work or completely stopped and paid attention to the music. Cricket spotted a hawk circling the meadow and flinched, hearing the blast of a shotgun.

  “That’s Crazy Jack,” Predator Jones said, holding a note, lowering the volume as he drew the bow across two strings before regaining the tune’s momentum with a long arpeggio, still looking in the direction of the forest. Sister Marie smiled at the tall violinist, who smiled back.

  A few minutes passed before everyone looked to the forest, expecting Jones’ friend to emerge with a turkey or a couple of squirrels. But no one appeared, and the woods remained quiet.

  Cricket and her husband communicated, eye to eye, and Predator Jones concluded the gospel tune by retarding the last few bars, all the while watching the forest.

  “Time to switch instruments,” Predator said, holding the bow and violin with one hand and patting his sidearm. He loosened the bow and gently laid the violin back in its case.

  “Mr. Jones, would you stay here with the mechanics and look after the children?” Fritz asked. “Cricket and I know these woods well.”

  Predator acted surprised and then gave a short bow. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Cricket said, “Until we catch up with your friend Jack, I think it best for everyone to stay with the planes and not walk back to the farmhouse across the open pasture.”

  “I can see why Fritz married you, Miss Cricket.” Predator Jones smiled and so did Lee Ann.

  “When you have children, they’ll be as brave as you, Miss Cricket,” Lee Ann said, delighted to use the new name.

  “I’d like to go, too.” Ethan patted his holstered .22 pistol, imitating Predator Jones’ two light taps.

  “I need you here,” Cricket replied, “to protect our friends and family, guard these aircraft, and do whatever any of the adults ask.”

  Ethan didn’t complain and snapped a salute. Sister Marie wrapped an arm around the young boy, saying she was proud of every young person at the Holaday farm.

  As if punished by upper-level winds, the bruised cloud deck had further darkened, and they entered the woods at the same point Crazy Jack had, according to Predator Jones. As a kid, Cricket had felt that the darkness rose from the ground. She once told her father: “I think the sun does something to the earth when it falls away at the end of the day, tells it to get peaceful and dark. The dark hears that and then rises up from the ground, climbs the trees and bushes.”

  Her father had once told her she had the makings of a poet. Cricket had shrugged, saying that she liked journaling about hunting and flying much better. “I’m too young to be writing poetry. I think I need more experiences, more time to think about things,” to which her father had said, “Not only a poet but a philosopher. Your mother’s smiling right now up in heaven.”

  Cricket was thirteen but couldn’t see her mom smiling from any specific place, though she agreed with her father that her mom deserved only the best from God, like heaven. As an adult, Cricket saw her mom watching her from their own backyard or her favorite reading chair, not floating in some celestial sphere or otherworldly garden.

  They had walked for a few minutes in a northerly direction when Fritz raised his hand for them to stop alongside a stand of beech trees. Neither said anything. They were listening. A morning dove’s voice filled the forest, as if agreeing with their decision to now stop.

  They both saw Crazy Jack at the same time; actually it was the arrows they first saw. Lots of them, a wild bouquet of feathered shafts. After a few more quiet steps they stopped, guns drawn.

  Another part of Cricket rotated 180 degrees, the sensation of eyes in the back of her head, yet she still faced forward. No one was behind them, but what a strange skill had been dropped in her lap, leaving her momentarily dizzy, wobbly.

  Nonetheless, Cricket wanted to charge, and Fritz stopped her with his arm. Her charges had worked before: after Uncle Tommy was shot, and later when Anton kept eluding her in the backyard of the Holadays’ home in Little Falls. In each case she had kicked up the bad guys from the shadows, surprising them with furious, righteous anger worthy of Joan of Arc.

  She really liked Crazy Jack, maybe because she knew that Jack was also a charger, having received the “crazy” modifier when as a young police officer he went headlong at a guy wielding a machete. The story went that he body-slammed the perp, who had just finished a downstroke. The machete between them, each unable to cut the other, both using their legs in combat, Jack yelled for his partner to shoot the guy. His partner was Predator Jones, who later explained to Jack over a beer that he didn’t bother to shoot Jack’s assailant since it looked like Jack had the situation handled.

  “That was pure Jack, pure crazy,” Predator had ended the story at Fritz and Cricket’s first meeting with Jones and his men. Crazy Jack had thought the “crazy” tag was better for Jones, but no one else in the police department agreed.

  Face down, Crazy Jack Reynolds was pinned to Mother Earth, an embrace he had diligently avoided until now. His black vinyl windbreaker was wet with blood. Two arrows had found his right lung, and Jack had gone down in a heap. Then it appeared the savages had stood over a dying man and fired arrow after arrow. Jack had fired the one shotgun blast they heard at the plane. Odd, they didn’t take the shotgun?

  When Fritz and Cricket emerged from the fo
rest, they heard the “ten thousand years” verse of “Amazing Grace.” Played by Predator Jones and sung by Sister Marie, the song hugged the ground, sparkled the air. This wasn’t a soaring hymn. It was made for small churches and grassy fields, a view from just above the trees.

  The loss had found them in the minutes that Cricket and Fritz had been gone. Predator knew it in his bones, he’d later tell Cricket, and Sister would tell her that Death had brushed up against her skin like a sharp, cool breeze. No one was working on the planes, and Ethan looked worried, tense, and more grown up. Sister Marie had an arm around each girl, and the mechanics stood alongside the P-51 listening, heads down. Cricket sadly eyed Predator Jones, who swayed to wind and song.

  40

  Crusaders

  Before evening, the mechanics and Predator Jones retrieved Crazy Jack’s body, burying him with Hank’s permission at the edge of the meadow overlooking the grass airstrip. A priest from Marietta who had been making the rounds across the Hilltop presided over Jack’s funeral Mass and distributed Communion. The girls and Ethan had a dozen questions for Sister after the service.

  “Jack really loved the Catholic Mass, and he loved the outdoors, especially a place with a view, like this pretty hillside,” Predator had said. “I know he’s thankful for the sendoff.”

  Crazy Jack had gone into the woods to hunt for their dinner and had become the hunted. Like the death of Grace, her father, and Uncle Tommy, Jack’s death was swift and brutal. Even Cricket’s mom’s yearlong battle with cancer had been merciless and swift, with Death picking Time up by the short hairs and compressing the months into a two-hour made-for-TV special called The Horror of Time and Space.

  Three days later, the guests at the Holaday farm celebrated Thanksgiving with two turkeys shot by Cricket. It was a dry day, warming to sixty degrees and with leaves falling by the bushel, and the dressed birds came in at fifteen pounds each. She had gone out alone the previous day, surprising everyone with dinner. Caleb had questioned her use of weaponry during the cleaning of the birds on the back patio.