Flying Crows (11 page)

“You remember what Dad said, Aunt Mary?”

“I know, I know. ‘Curiosity may kill the cat but it makes the cop.' ”

They had one last laugh together before saying good-bye.

Randy barely took a breath before getting on the phone to an old contact—a sergeant named Rob Simmons—at the state police records division in Jefferson City. He asked for a criminal record check on a Joshua Alan Lancaster of Boone County.

Within minutes, Simmons was back with the word that there was only one entry for a Joshua Alan Lancaster. It was not from Boone County but from Baxter County, down in the southwest corner of the state, near Joplin.

“Whatever he did, it was over seventy years ago,” Simmons said.

“Whatever he did? Doesn't his rap sheet state the offense?” said Randy.

“Nope. He was a juvenile. The file was sealed by some judge, and I'd guess that it remains sealed to this day in a courthouse basement.”

Randy tried to think if he knew anybody in Baxter County or somewhere close by who might be prevailed upon to rustle through some old records. . . .

“The sheriff down there owes me one,” Simmons said. “I'll see what I can shake loose. If something turns up, I'll have it sent to you.”

Randy heaped thanks on Simmons, realizing that he now really owed Rob one.

This kind of thing was the subject of another of his dad's police truisms. “The only debts an honest cop should owe are to another honest cop.”

X

JOSH AND
BIRDIE

SOMERSET

1933

That smack of the bat from Roger of Holden was the only one Josh received. He was taken back to the ward, where he finally woke up. He managed to get through the rest of that day and the next without receiving any further punishment for his role in what happened in the library.

The punished ones—the victims—were Birdie and Sister Hilda.

Josh ached with guilt to the point of nausea and often felt like crying real tears for Hilda Owens. He, Josh, had ruined her life. His enticing this wonderful woman into doing something sexual as “therapy” was an outrageous assault on her giving nature. He could only imagine what her husband was doing to her. Do bankers just divorce wives who are unfaithful? Do they hit them with baseball bats? Or shoot them? Does it make any difference if the unfaithfulness was with a teenage lunatic who witnessed something terrible? Does that make it better or worse?

All Josh knew for sure about Sister Hilda was that Roger of Holden gleefully reported her to his relative, the superintendent, who immediately and publicly—at the asylum and around town—banished Hilda Owens for cause from the Somerset Sisters. Josh was told by another bushwhacker that nobody had seen Hilda Owens since she ran out of Old Main in tears. “Maybe her husband'll grab her by the hair and drag her back out here and lock her up in Beech,” said the bushwhacker, and he laughed and laughed.

Josh knew he couldn't help Hilda Owens. She was condemned to whatever fate his own stupidity and thoughtlessness and her husband's anger generated.

But he could try to save Birdie.

Birdie's mind, if not his life, was in serious danger. Josh was sure of that. Nobody's head, not even that of a kid, could survive long under the kind of constant battering it was now going to get from Somerset Sluggers. Josh could remember over the years at least four patients who died after a few weeks of it. Several others were rendered permanently senseless and then taken behind the locked doors of Beech, never to be seen again. Josh had been friendly with one of them, a former high school teacher and football coach who, like Josh, loved to read and talk about early Missouri history. His certified proof of lunacy on the outside was that he preferred men—most specifically boys on his football team, unfortunately—to women. His punishable sin inside the asylum had been to expose himself in a gross way to one of the bushwhackers, whom he mistakenly believed shared his sexual preference.

Josh concluded there was only one thing he could do to protect Birdie: get the kid away from here. Maybe back to Kansas City, where he said he came from. Wherever, Birdie had to leave the Sunset in Somerset.

The way to do it came to Josh that evening after the violence in the library.

Three bushwhackers brought Birdie back to his bed minutes before lights-out, carrying him like a limp sack of something from a feed store. Birdie's head was drooping, his eyes were half-closed, his arms and legs dangled. There was no telling how many times he had been hit. Josh had not seen him at all, not even during the two periods of rocking time or pushing a broom in the hallway or in the dining hall.

After Birdie was strapped down in his bed and the lights went out, Josh went over to him.

“Can you hear me, Birdie? Can you talk? How are you?”

As if in a trance, Birdie shook his head but said nothing.

“Do you want me to get you out of here?” Josh whispered.

Birdie nodded.

At that moment, Josh heard Streamliner doing his quiet nightly call. “May I have your attention, please. This is your last call for The Flying Crow. All aboard for going straight as the crow flies to Hummer, Kansas City, and points north. Have your tickets ready, and watch your step while boarding the train.”

With Lawrence's help, Josh slipped Birdie out of the ward, down a dark hallway, and out a side door that led to some gardens and the softball field outside. All Birdie took with him was a light-blue knit cap he had picked up somewhere.

The door to their ward was always unlocked just before six every morning, in case there were patients who needed to go the bathroom before official wake-up time came at six-thirty. Josh knew the bushwhackers, who worked twelve-hour shifts, were occupied with changing the night shift to the day shift. That happened every day at 6 A.M., no matter what.

At precisely 6:17, as on every Thursday morning, the outside door opened again and out walked Streamliner, carrying a wooden kitchen chair. His special privilege had become so accepted he was allowed to go alone through this door, across the ball field, and down Confederate Hill through the high-wire fence via a gate that he was given a key to unlock. Josh knew the procedure because he had helped work it out with the bushwhackers years ago and, in the beginning, even accompanied Streamliner several times on his rendezvous with The Flying Crow.

This morning, Josh, Birdie, and Lawrence were waiting in the darkness at the edge of the ball field. Birdie was still fairly weak from the beatings, but a night of sleep had renewed some strength. He could walk steadily and talk coherently, but maybe not think too clearly, it seemed to Josh, because the kid stopped cold when Josh said they were going to Kansas City on the train.

“Union Station? I can't go to Union Station,” said Birdie. “They'll be looking for me. Everybody's been looking for me.”

Looking for him for what? Josh was sympathetic. Maybe the poor head-whacked kid wouldn't go any farther. What could possibly be the harm in going to a train station?

But in a few seconds Birdie mumbled something about having no choice. He pulled the cap from a pocket, crammed it down on his head, and started walking again.

Josh was glad he had convinced Lawrence to help him this morning. It was only after Josh promised to fake laryngitis to avoid doing his Centralia massacre act for a while that Lawrence agreed to participate. Everybody has his price—even in lunatic asylums.

As he walked across the ball field, Streamliner was announcing to imaginary passengers that Somerset was the next stop. Josh, Birdie, and Lawrence fell in behind him on the path down the hill, staying out of sight. Once Streamliner had unlocked the gate, they followed and watched him place his chair down by the track.

Then, in accordance with Josh's motions, they moved to the left, to the south, away from Streamliner to where the end of the train was likely to be when it slowed down.

Just a few minutes later, they heard the roar of an approaching train. The Flying Crow was right on time at 6:43.

Several seconds passed before she actually appeared, her huge engine's headlight swinging back and forth across the track, her bells and whistles sounding, steam pouring up from under the wheels. Trains, particularly their locomotives, always struck Josh as being almost human. They seemed to have smiles or frowns on their faces, depending on their moods. The Flying Crow seemed happy this morning.

With Birdie and Lawrence, Josh moved down to the track. There were five, six, seven cars behind the engine.

The train was barely moving.

“Union Station, Union Station, I love Union Station,” said Birdie, his voice high, full of fear. “But they might catch me if I don't watch out.”

Josh felt sorry for the kid. He had seen a lot of patients at Somerset who kept thinking there were people or bugs or animals everywhere trying to get them. There was clearly more wrong with Birdie than he had realized.

Somerset was a flag stop, meaning The Flying Crow, after its almost twenty-four-hour trip up from Texas, only came to a full stop here if there were passengers known to be getting on or off. But on Thursday mornings, even if it didn't stop, it always slowed to a crawl, as it was doing now. One of the Somerset Sisters had managed to arrange that through somebody in town who knew an executive of the Kansas City Southern. It became KCS management policy to pay their respects to the man on the hill who was made a lunatic by The Flying Crow eighteen years ago.

“Slow to five miles an hour at the Big F Crossing at Hummer!” Josh heard Streamliner yell at the engineer and the firemen in the engine, which was just now arriving in front of him.

Streamliner's warning, Josh knew, was about the location, only twenty-one miles up the track from Somerset, where his sister was killed.

There was an answer from the train: two blasts of the whistle.

Josh, Birdie, and Lawrence were huddled opposite the end of the train, near the rear of the observation club car, which had an outside platform covered with an ornate canopy and a lighted electric foot-and-half-wide round red, yellow, and black sign. There was a black crow in flight painted in the center of the sign with the words THE FLYING CROW in a circle around it.

Josh and Lawrence helped Birdie climb up and over onto the platform. Birdie didn't need much help. He was able to pull himself up and swing his legs over. And then, with the train still moving slowly, he reached back and down toward Josh.

“Come with me, Josh,” Birdie pleaded. “You're saner than anybody here—me included.”

“I can't. I have to stay . . . I have no choice.”

“Well, just ride with me to Union Station this morning. I'll tell you the story of the massacre I saw. I'll go through it, act it out. You have to help me. I won't know what to do without you.”

Josh heard the whistle blow. The train was beginning to pick up speed. And in a flash of real lunacy, he let Birdie pull him partway onto the train platform—and then Lawrence gave a final push from behind.

Only Birdie was supposed to go. Only Birdie was to head straight as an arrow to Union Station at Kansas City.

Josh couldn't do this. Josh couldn't run away from Somerset. There were
real
people who would try to catch him.

I just stood there and watched the bushwhackers, Bloody Bill Anderson's men going crazy taking everything they wanted from
people and from stores, the depot, and the saloons. If they
wanted it, they grabbed it and cussed when they did.

“What they didn't steal they destroyed, cracking glassware and plates and
cups by throwing them at walls and fences. They swaggered and staggered
around and up and to and away from a barrel of whiskey someone had
rolled out into the middle of the street. They helped themselves to the
whiskey with tin cups. I saw one bushwhacker take a boot from a pair he had
just stolen from someplace and force a man, a citizen of our town, to drink
whiskey from it. I knew him to be a man who normally didn't drink whiskey
because he thought it was the Devil's juice.

“Our town had become the Devil's town. I thought that my grandmama
would be mad as the Devil himself if she'd seen what I now saw, which was
one of those awful men as he unrolled a bolt of bright red-and-white checkered cloth while racing his horse down the street. Other horses came behind
on top of that cloth and stomped into the dusty street it and all kinds of ribbons and other things that had been rifled and tossed out from stores like it
was trash.