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Chapter One
Summer in Benteen County, Kansas, is a season possessed of all the gentle subtlety of an act of war. Winter, of course, is no better, but the memory of frosts and blizzards and winds that begin to suck away your life before you walk a dozen steps had grown faint by the early hours of that Sunday morning in late June. A week ago, the thermometer had risen past the unbearable mark for the first time in the summer of 1997, and, in automatic response, the humidity rushed after it--to a level technically described as obscene.
The sheriff lay in the sultry darkness, wondering how to extricate his arm from under the woman sleeping soundly beside him. He wanted to leave, but he didn't want to wake her. The situation reminded him of the definition of "coyote ugly" someone had once told him. When you discover the woman you picked up the night before is so disgusting you're willing to chew your arm off rather than wake her to get free--that's coyote ugly. He wasn't that desperate, and Judy certainly didn't deserve the label. Judy was, in fact, a knockout.
He tried shifting a little to see if improved leverage might make the difference. It didn't. Judy was solidly atop his arm and it was numb and tingling for lack of circulation. Waking her would be easy, she'd probably just roll over and go back to sleep. But she might not. That possibility was enough to keep the sheriff from disturbing her with his efforts.
He had married and divorced Judy in July, the end coming a few days after the eighth anniversary of their beginning. About six months later, they'd started sleeping together again. Benteen County was the kind of place where everyone knew everybody else's business and, since TV reception without a satellite dish was erratic, gossip was still a favorite pastime. Neither the sheriff nor his ex-wife were the sort who would have cared, if their jobs hadn't depended on the community's perception of their morals. He was in his third term, and wanted to serve more. Judy taught at Buffalo Springs High School. For both jobs, an absence of obvious moral turpitude was required. Six months of enforced celibacy had proved to be all either of them could stand. Without the availability of acceptable outlets, they'd taken to filling each other's needs on an irregular basis. Plenty of people might suspect, but this man and his ex-wife did have a good excuse to see each other regularly, an excuse named Heather. She would turn thirteen over Labor Day weekend.
It was sex, and it was release, something both of them had found difficult to do without, but they weren't considering remarriage. The problems that led to their divorce hadn't dissipated. Their skill at the little gibes that hurt was now of Olympic caliber.
That was why the sheriff didn't want to awaken her. They'd sparred from the moment he came through the door last night. After Heather went to bed it got a little ugly. The sex had an angry tint to it as well. They were both so mad by the time they got around to it that it took on a sort of frenzied quality in which pleasure was something to be inflicted, not given, and a shared climax was both a victory and a defeat.
He tried a different approach. He snuggled closer to her, letting their combined body heat mount. Sweat begin to bead and drip, despite the efforts of the air conditioner in the window across the room, humming in frustration at the impossible task of keeping the night's heat and humidity at bay. After a few minutes, his strategy worked. Judy rolled away, searching for a cooler spot, and as she rolled he managed to draw his arm from under her nearly perfect form.
He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, letting the air conditioner dry him while he massaged feeling back into the limb. Then he gathered his clothes, separating them from hers, searching through the dark for where they'd been wildly tossed. He remembered, with an odd mix of lust and shame, how, earlier, they'd nearly torn them off each other. He shook his head at the absurdity of it, and, barefoot, padded softly out of her room and down the hall to the bathroom to dress.
It was a woman's bath now, complete with curling irons, hair dryers, dozens of mysterious oils, lotions, and scents. Even the toilet paper was floral. The sheriff found that a little silly.
He pulled on his jeans and ran the sink full of water, borrowing a washcloth, to sponge off his face and upper body, and some of Judy's least fragrant deodorant. He would have showered, but the noise might rouse her. He considered the brief loan of one of her razors but his beard grew slow and thin and he knew he could get by without it, especially as an alternative to the lecture he'd get if she suspected he'd used it.
He examined his face closely in the mirror to be sure and was surprised at the age of the visage that peered back. His short hair was still black, no grey anywhere, but his forehead was higher than he remembered and the lines around his eyes and mouth had turned from crinkles into crevices from too many years squinting into the Kansas sun, too much exposure to the wind that rushed up from the Gulf of Mexico in the summer, or plummeted from the pole in winter, with no more than a couple of trees in Nebraska or Oklahoma to slow its passage.
He had high cheekbones and a Roman nose. But for the surprise of the pale-blue eyes that peered out of his dark face, he looked more like a full-blooded Cheyenne than the quarter he was supposed to be. He wondered what genetic happenstance had left him with such an Indian face and such Anglo eyes, especially when his former mate's genealogical researches suggested that quarter Cheyenne actually subdivided into one part Cheyenne, one part Sans Arc, one part Buffalo Soldier, and one part Mexican.
He put on everything but his boots. In socks, then, instead of bare feet, he went to the bedroom at the other end of the hall to check on his daughter. It was amazing to think something so wonderful could have resulted from the disaster of his relationship with Judy. Her bed was empty. He turned and just kept from running down the steps to the first floor living room where lights still blazed and the TV made noises for the benefit of neighbors who might be able to imagine parents sitting up into the wee hours to discuss their daughter's future.
Heather was curled up on the couch where she'd fallen asleep in front of the TV. She was wearing one of the t-shirts he'd given her, an extra-large purple with a snarling Kansas State Wildcat. It was big enough to serve her as an oversize nightie, even though she was turning lanky and coltish in her adolescence. He had the urge to find a blanket to tuck her in, but it was, if anything, still uncomfortably warm in the living room. He satisfied himself with turning off the TV, slipping quietly into his boots, and tiptoeing to the door.
"Dad?" she said, sleepily, just as he put his hand on the knob.
He turned and watched her sit up and rub her eyes. "What time is it?" she asked around a yawn, stretching and shaking her tousled hair back into place.
"Four-twelve." Before digital watches he'd never cared, nor differentiated, beyond the nearest quarter, how many minutes before or after the hour it was. Times change, he thought, on the face of his watch and on the face in the mirror.
"You should be in bed," he scolded, mildly.
"Couldn't sleep, what with all the noise you guys were making, especially those sounds Mom makes right near the end."
If he'd had a lighter skin he would have blushed. Instead, he just stood there, unable to think of something appropriate to say.
"I don't understand," she continued. "You guys bicker and fight and then you fuck. Is that the way it's supposed to be? Is it good for either of you?"
He decided this was one of those times when you ignored the f-word. Though that was probably part of this particular testing of the available parent, it wasn't the critical part. "No," he said, honestly.
"No?"
"No, it's not the way it's supposed to be and no, it's probably not good for either of us. Obviously it's not good for you either."
"Then why?"
"Old habits, I suppose. It's hard to explain and you're still a little young to understand."
"That's bullshit, Dad! I started menstruating months ago. Did you know that? Did you ask? Did you care? I've seen animals do the deed. I've known about fucking for years. I've even had offers."
One thing she seemed to have inherited from her mother was an intuitive sense of what to say to really get to him. With every inner reserve stressed to the max, he refrained from asking who had made those offers. Maybe the appropriate thing would have been to turn on the outraged parent act and pack her off to bed and himself out the door. He didn't know. He was as lost at parenting as he had been at husbanding. Since an adult might understand, if not forgive, he gambled and decided to treat her as such.
"This is a small community, old-fashioned with old-fashioned values. People can have extramarital relationships or cheat on their spouses, but only if they're willing for everyone in the county to know about it and treat them accordingly. Your mother and I are public figures. We can't fool around and keep our jobs--unless, maybe, we fool around with each other. That doesn't make it right, especially since, sometimes, we don't seem to like each other very much. But sometimes we still care for each other a lot. And, we're human. Like everybody else we've got weaknesses. I guess we thought we were getting away with it, fooling the community and fooling you too, with nobody, except maybe the two of us, getting hurt. It looks like we were wrong and I'm sorry. I'm sorry, too, that I didn't know you'd started menstruating. You're growing up so fast ... and don't ever let your mother hear you say the f-word or mention the noises she makes or you're not likely to live long enough to grow up the rest of the way. OK?"
She sat with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands and he could see that there was, indeed, an incipient adult in that child/woman's body. That adult would be here, full-time, a lot sooner than he was ready for.
"I don't know, Dad," she admitted. "It's not that I want you to stop being with Mom. I just don't want to see you guys hurt each other. But thanks for trying to answer. I didn't think you'd bother."
He walked back over from the door and she rose from the couch and came into his arms. Her hug told him the world might be worth living in after all.
Boris, the German Shepherd, met him at the back door after he sent Heather to bed and let himself out. Boris wagged his tail and let the sheriff scratch his ears, but kept turning to look back toward downtown Buffalo Springs, whining in a way that sounded like an effort to communicate. He seemed a little more frustrated than usual at the sheriff's inability to decipher lingua canis . The dog stood on the porch as the sheriff went down the walk and out the gate to where his new Chevy truck had been pulled off the street and into the drive. He hadn't really been worried about traffic, but it was more than twenty years since his last, and only other, new vehicle. He had no intention of letting this one start to collect dents any sooner than necessary.
* * *
The Reverend Peter Simms was a Benteen County native. He knew better than to expect anything beyond an occasional, teasing respite from unbearable heat or humidity before September, if then. He also knew, since neither his home nor his church possessed air conditioning, that Job must temporarily stand aside to make room for Peter Simms.
For everything--turn, turn, turn--there is a season--toss, turn, squirm--and a cause for every insomniac under heaven. The cause for Reverend Simms' restless inability to sleep, despite the very early Sunday hour, was a combination of heat and humidity, both in the high eighties, and a fuse that, for some inexplicable reason, kept unscrewing itself just enough to shut down his ineffective evaporative cooler and the rotating fan he'd bought to assist it. Operating together, they made his bedroom almost bearable, but every time he started to get comfortable enough to drift off, they would drift off too and he would have to find his slippers and flashlight and go twist the infernal fuse back into contact.
After four trips, Peter Simms gave up the fight. He disentangled himself from his sweat-soaked sheets and sat miserably on the edge of his bed, staring at the digital alarm clock beside him. It was set for much later. Thy will, Oh Lord, he thought, but there was a hint of peevish self-pity in it as if he were affixing blame instead of shouldering a necessary burden.
He rolled out of bed and shut off the alarm, stuffed his toes into his slippers again, padded wearily down the hall to the back door, across the porch and into the yard. At the corner of the house, he opened the electrical box and screwed the offending fuse back into position. The motor in the evaporative cooler in his window immediately began to hum. The faint glow of a night light illuminated his way back to his bedroom. He turned the cooler and fan off in case they were the problem. He removed his slippers, shucked out of his striped pajamas, and waddled flatfooted into the bathroom to place his doughy body beneath a stream of cold water from the shower. It came out tepid and the power went off again while he was soaping himself. It didn't surprise him. He'd propped the flashlight in the sink just in case. When he emerged, he felt cleaner, and, if not eager to face the day, at least capable of it. With the good sense of a cautious man, he applied a double dose of antiperspirant before setting off to church to rewrite his morning's sermon. A bit of scripture praising air conditioning was what he had in mind, but anything that even hinted there was nothing immoral about keeping one's pastor comfortable would do.
The eastern horizon, flat and distant, flashed with hints of a storm--too far to hear it grumble, let alone feel its breath, cooling or otherwise. The lightning glowed the color of bruised, over-ripe fruit through an atmosphere burdened with dust, humidity and pollution. Sunrise would be spectacular. The Reverend Simms gave the storm a myopic glance as he stepped down from his back porch. He judged the flickerings along the horizon as among the Lord's less enthusiastic efforts, then ignored them. He made his way across the back yard, down the alley, and south toward the Buffalo Springs Non-Denominational Community Church. Despite his liberal use of antiperspirant, he was sweating before he got to his back gate. He didn't notice the shadow that detached itself from his lilac bushes and floated silently in his wake.
* * *
Buffalo Springs was the Benteen County seat. Veteran's Memorial Park adorned the square just east of the courthouse and north of Simms' church. The county had never been very populous and so had few veterans to memorialize. A generic hero in bronze stood atop a concrete pedestal from which the plaque listing names and conflicts had long since been stolen, probably a prank by kids from a neighboring town. Since it was no longer certain whom the place honored, and since the citizenry providing the tax base for projects like park maintenance and beautification had been steadily shrinking for decades, the park had been allowed to return to something approaching natural prairie. Of course it was home to too many trees. No matter how often the town was visited by Dutch Elm disease, a few always managed to survive, usually near where the park's fountain used to be. The valve to the fountain had been turned off long ago, shortly after the fountain, like the plaque, had vanished. Old valves have a way of seeping, and the lush state of the grasses, saplings, and weeds made that end of the park Eden-like in comparison to any part of Benteen County not adjacent to the North Fork of the Kansaw or one of its tributaries, or land which was regularly irrigated. And then there were the evergreens that must have been imported from some especially desolate climate, since they were surviving quite nicely in fitful clusters throughout the park, their spacing ideal as a windbreak for winter storms behind which massive drifts of snow could build to block the street at the south side of the square.
* * *
Peter Simms normally skirted the park and its hazards unless he was in a hurry. Fantasies of moving several large fans from the church auditorium back into his small office and testing their potential to turn the sweat that was already drenching him into the evaporative cooling system nature designed prompted him to the direct approach. Oblivious to the seeds and burrs that began attaching themselves to his pants legs, he entered the park on what had once been the north promenade. There was a path of sorts that led toward his church.
He heard the jogger before he'd gone more than a few steps. There weren't many joggers in Buffalo Springs, and fewer, to the best of his knowledge, who chose such an early hour to test the treacherous footing of Veteran's Memorial Park. Reverend Simms peered curiously behind him. The runner was following the same route he'd chosen so he stepped aside to avoid blocking the narrow track.
It was very dark among the saplings and evergreens. The moon did little more than turn some distant clouds opalescent around the edges and the heavy atmosphere blocked out all but the most determined starlight. Street lights didn't help much. The county had given up replacing the bulbs that were regularly shot out by customers leaving The Bisonte Bar or The Road House after exchanging bets about their respective marksmanship with the rifles that hung in the window racks of their pickups. County revenues were off--so were most of the lights.
The jogger was a trim figure moving with an easy rhythm that Simms envied. As the runner approached, the Reverend tried to guess who it could be.
"Good morning," he said. The jogger just reached out, slapped Simms lightly on the cheek, and disappeared into a thick copse of trees.
"One," a voice whispered from where the jogger had gone.
Peter Simms was taken aback. "Who is that?" he demanded of the darkness, ready to join the joke that was being played on him as soon as he understood it.
Just a little afraid, he stepped back out on the path and peeked around the trees. A hand flashed out of nowhere and slapped him lightly on the other cheek.
"Two," the soft voice said.
"Two what?" Simms inquired in a voice a couple of ranges higher and tighter than normal. No answer. No sound.
Peter Simms decided to leave the park, get back out in the open where his tormenter would be more visible, where it was just possible the sheriff or one of his deputies might drive by on some mysterious nightly errand. Back on the street, logic and reason might again prevail, and, if not, there were houses nearby where he could seek help.
He only managed a couple of steps before the night runner passed him again, this time swatting him hard on the seat of his trousers.
"That's three," the jogger said.
"What are you doing?" Simms asked, his voice leaking hysteria.
To his surprise, this time he got an answer. "Counting."
The sound seemed to come from somewhere behind Simms even though the darkly clad figure had just disappeared into the shadows ahead.
"Counting what?" Simms voice was a little more under control this time, now that the joke was apparently moving to its climax.
"Counting coup," came the reply, just over his shoulder. He turned and saw something flash out of the night and felt it flick the back of his left arm. It wasn't a hand this time. The touch was cool and almost unnoticeable, but Peter Simms felt a sudden flow of moisture. He reached with his other hand and touched the spot. It came away dark and damp and he realized he was bleeding.
"Oh my God," he whispered. Hejerked his head left and right, looking for the blade wielder, looking for a place to run or hide. Surely this was only a nightmare. At any moment he must wake up in his bed to the beep of his alarm. Something bit him on the other arm and he saw that his sleeve had been slashed and his shirt was acquiring a dark wet stripe that lengthened and widened as he watched.
"Oh Jesus!" he screamed. "Don't hurt me!" It was as fervent as any prayer he'd ever uttered.
* * *
A deputy sat behind a desk in the old county courthouse about a hundred yards away, reading a commentary from the preceding day's Wichita Eagle-Beacon that argued the Dow could never sustain its inflated value at seven thousand and listening to the static that occasionally crackled from his departmental radio. He was undisturbed by the Reverend's plea.
Boris, in his yard at the east edge of town, heard. He barked a couple of times, and, when the sound changed, tried to match the agony of that distant howl. A few canines responded, but no humans. They soon ceased, as had the voice they echoed. Boris silently patrolled his territory, troubled by the presence of a danger he sensed but was unable to challenge.
* * *
He looked more like Jason, or Freddy Krueger--or some other not-quite-human murderer in one of those dead-teenager movies--than a man. Since his hair had been way too short to braid in the foreseeable future, he'd shaved it off. He wore a thin strip of leather as a head band, one he'd dyed black with shoe polish, and, in the band at the back of his skull, a single raven feather--well, actually crow, but it would take an ornithologist to know. His body was clad only in a pair of black Speedo swim trunks, since he hadn't been able to come up with satisfactory makings for a breech cloth, and he'd covered himself from head to toe with black, licorice-flavored body paint he'd bought in a sex paraphernalia shop in Wichita. There were ragged white strokes of vanilla lightning artfully arcing down each arm and leg and across each of his cheeks. He'd managed to incorporate the Speedo logo into the stroke on his right leg. He was just setting out the leather bags of painted sand and the cow skull that would have to make do in place of a buffalo skull when a pickup came down the street on the south side of Veteran's Memorial Park and pulled up where the curb would have been if one of those bond elections had passed.
"What the hell are you doing, Mad Dog?" a familiar voice asked over the strains of a John Stewart CD turned up high enough to test the truck's sound system.
Mad Dog was disappointed. He hadn't thought anyone would recognize him in his elaborate costume, not even his half-brother, the sheriff.
"That your new truck?" He walked up to the window, careful not to touch anything in case his body paint might stain the Chevy. "See you got a good stereo with it. Nice."
Without the body paint, Mad Dog looked a lot more Anglo than his brother, even though they shared their equal but slim claim to Cheyenneness through their common mother. His hair wasn't a very dark brown and it tended to sun streak and curl as it lengthened, two of the reasons he hadn't managed to let it grow long enough for braids before getting disgusted and chopping it off.
Mad Dog was his real name. He'd been born Harvey Edward Maddox. His father ran off shortly after his conception, and, fueled by his long held disgust at distantly related Lester Maddox's unheroic rise to racist infamy, Harvey Edward had legally adopted the nickname he'd earned as a high school football star in Buffalo Springs. It had more to do with emerging ethnic pride than nostalgia for lost youth, though. Somewhere about the time he began to contemplate his own mortality, Harvey Edward Maddox became Harvey Edward Mad Dog, born-again Cheyenne.
"How'd you know it was me?" Mad Dog asked the shadow in the truck's cab.
"Who else would do something this silly? Besides, I recognized your Saab parked down at the corner. Which brings me back to my original question. What the hell are you doing?"
"Vision quest."
"Say what?"
"Vision quest. You got a problem with that? This is a public park and I'm a member of the public. You gonna tell me I need a permit to sit here and fast and pray for a vision?"
John Stewart finished explaining why you can't go back to Kansas and the sheriff thought he had a point as he reached over and turned the CD off. The only sounds that remained were the smooth idle of the pickup's 350 cubic inch V-8 and the stirring of gentler than usual morning breezes through the park's trees.
"No. Especially not until somebody complains, which they may well do when they start arriving for services at the church just across the street here. I'm not gonna give a damn what you do in this park. You know me, Mad Dog. I've got a strong commitment to individual liberties, so long as they don't interfere with anybody else's."
"Well then, Englishman, you'll excuse me if I get back to setting up my stuff. I want to get started long before sunrise."
The sheriff hated being called Englishman, which was one of the reasons Mad Dog so consistently used the nickname. Given his own name, English, and his relationship to Mad Dog, it was a natural. Folks all over Benteen County knew who you were talking about if you mentioned Englishman.
"Mad Dog, you are about the contrariest person I ever knew."
The sheriff didn't see the big smile that lit his older brother's face. The Cheyenne were known for their Contraries. They were the fiercest warriors, men who chose the difficult task of living their lives backwards, doing the opposite of what they were asked, always fighting alone on the flanks of battle and taking the biggest risks. Being a Contrary was an awesome responsibility and a tremendous honor. Mad Dog was delighted with his little brother's comment, regardless of how he'd meant it.
"Vision quest," the sheriff muttered as he reached over to punch John Stewart's Phoenix Concerts back into stereophonic life. He put the truck in gear and headed down the street toward the Benteen County Courthouse.
* * *
A magnificent sunrise was followed, shortly, by the arrival of a goodly portion of the citizens of greater Buffalo Springs. Parking was haphazard around the town square, there being no marked spaces. Some folks preferred parallel, others pulled in straight, but most favored an angle related to the direction from which they'd arrived or in which they intended to depart.
The area in front of the Buffalo Springs Non-Denominational Community Church, and, across the street, bordering the Veteran's Memorial Park in which Mad Dog was conducting his first annual summer vision quest, drew a heavy crowd--thanks to Mad Dog, one heavier than usual. At the opposite end of the square, the immediate vicinity of Bertha's Diner drew a slightly larger multitude, evidence that feeding the soul ranked behind feeding the body in Benteen County.
Mad Dog's modified lotus position behind the cow skull drew the curious, but he maintained his solemn and unresponsive vigil, despite a disconcerting tendency for residents to recognize him in what he had expected would be, if not a disguise, at least major camouflage. He drew a larger crowd than he might have since the Reverend Simms failed to show for services, but, as the sun began to beat the dusty square instead of merely illuminate it and the usual stiff breeze failed to materialize, the Reverend's contingent headed either for home or Bertha's. By late morning, Mad Dog was alone with the universal forces from whom he sought enlightenment.
Mad Dog had left his watch in the Saab, feeling that a digital Japanese time piece was out of place with the rest of his costume as well as with the timelessness of his intent. Still, from the shadows, the ever thickening crowds at the diner, and the way he was sweating, he guessed it must be after eleven. It might be a little early for him to expect a vision, especially since he'd cheated a bit on the fasting when he started out that morning, helping himself to a couple of cups of coffee and a pair of cream-filled cupcakes that proved almost as tasteless as they'd looked. Still, relatively fresh calories were being processed by his digestive system so he was surprised when he noticed a blurring of his vision and a humming in his ears. He'd been staring vacantly at the out-of-order Veteran's Memorial Park restroom. It was a small structure that, in its day, had discriminated against users neither for race, creed, nor even sex, since it contained plumbing to accommodate only one visitor at a time. The door, which should have been padlocked, seemed to be ajar. Just in front of it the air was filled with dancing spots, almost as if someone was about to beam down to the park from the Starship Enterprise . All this was accompanied by a faint buzzing in Mad Dog's ears. He sat there, patiently waiting for the vision to solidify into something recognizable or for the sound to take on meaning. Neither happened. Nothing, in fact happened, except the morning's coffee worked its way through Mad Dog's kidneys to his bladder, making concentrating on the impending vision increasingly difficult. This wasn't something he'd planned for. He'd expected the sun to sweat the coffee out of him--it was certainly sweating something out of him--but the coffee had taken its normal course and expected to exit by the usual route.
Mad Dog let himself glance around at the street. He was surprised that the blurring swirl of spots didn't remain in the center of his vision. When he looked away from the restroom his sight was clear. Whatever the phenomenon, it was located in space and time and not just in the inner workings of his mind behind his nearly coal black eyes.
The adjacent street was abandoned. There was a collection of cars down at Bertha's, but no faces peered his way through her front window. Mad Dog decided to examine the phenomenon more closely and perhaps relieve himself of the coffee behind the structure or in some of the park's thicker bushes.
The humming was louder as he approached the building. The spots grew clearer. A pungent odor became increasingly noticeable as he drew near. The spots, he was surprised to discover, were flies, a swarm of them so thick as to explain the hum and the apparent distortion of the atmosphere in the door to the restroom. He'd seen swarms like that around dead things, usually ones that were well past ripe, but the smell that steadily grew more offensive wasn't decay. There was a coppery tinge to it with fecal overtones. The door to the facility was still padlocked, but lock and chain hung from the hasp, dangling where they'd been pried free of their attachment to the wall. Fresh scars on the surface gave evidence of the force used to separate them.
(Continues...)
Copyright © 2000 J.M. Hayes. All rights reserved.
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