Prairie Gothic (11 page)

***

“Follow my finger, not the light.”

The sheriff was having trouble with complex instructions like that. Especially since Doc had him holding a cold pack against the sore spot on the back of his head at the same time.

“Umm hmm,” Doc said, switching off the pen light and stepping back to sit on the edge of his desk.

“You know I don't understand technical medical jargon like that, Doc. Just tell me if I'll live.”

“Not long, if you continue letting folks strike you on the head with blunt objects.”

“I wasn't planning on the first time.”

The sheriff experimentally pulled the cold pack away and explored the bump with his other hand. It didn't seem quite as big as a baseball anymore, but it still hurt like sin.

“Are you going to prescribe anything?”

Doc put the little flashlight back in his shirt pocket beside a collection of ballpoints. “Bed rest and observation. You should go spend a night in a hospital where someone who's qualified can keep an eye on you.”

“Nearest hospital's in the next county.”

“You didn't ask me what I expected you to do. That's just what you should do. You've got a mild concussion. The bump will go down. You aren't cut badly and the bleeding's pretty much stopped. People who've suffered a blow to the head shouldn't lie down and sleep it off unmonitored. Somebody should check on them regularly to be sure their cognitive functions are still within a normal range. You shouldn't drive, drink alcoholic beverages, or go chasing Hornbakers. I assume you're not going to take my advice about any of that, except maybe the booze, so I'll offer an alternative therapy. Take two aspirins and call me in the morning.”

The sheriff pushed himself up off the couch onto which Doc had helped him after coming to investigate the noise in his office. The effort made the sheriff's head pound, but the room stayed steady and the pain went back to bearable quick enough.

“You're a very funny man, Doc.”

“Actually, I'm serious. That's the best I can do for you, Sheriff. I'd offer you a stronger painkiller, but not if you're going to be out there driving in this storm. Your coordination is going to be off a little anyway. You'll get steadily better, unless you form a blood clot on the brain and collapse with a stroke. Or, if I give you too many blood thinners, maybe it could be an aneurysm instead.”

“But neither, I gather, is likely.”

“No, not likely. But don't get hit over the head anymore for a few days.”

“Thanks, Doc. I appreciate the advice. Now I've got to get back to work.”

Doc stepped over and opened the door for him. “Don't let me keep you.”

The sheriff approached Doc instead of the door. “OK, then. Tell me about the baby, Doc. Alice Burton got it from here.”

***

Mad Dog somehow managed to keep the Blazer out of a ditch. He was coming up on a mile line, so he pulled off at the crossroads to turn around and see who was in the back seat. This wasn't going the way he'd planned. Grand theft auto was one thing. Kidnapping, quite another.

She was brunette and pretty, but with a thin, sallow face. Young, too, in her teens, he guessed. Young enough to be clutching a diaper-clad plastic doll. Mad Dog wondered if that made it even worse.

“Hi,” she said. “Who're you?”

Mad Dog felt like asking the same question. He pretty much knew everybody in Benteen County, though he had trouble keeping up with the kids. They looked different from one day to the next, or whenever he saw them.

“I'm Mad Dog.” He wondered if he should be using his real name, but he couldn't imagine her being unable to identify him. There weren't many adult men who shaved their heads in this county, fewer still who'd just been shot in the left ear.

One of the first things Mad Dog had done when he got in the Blazer was pull back the hood on his parka and examine his ear in the mirror. He couldn't get the best of angles on it, of course, but from what he could tell, most of his ear was still there. Bloody, but intact.

“I'm Mary. Are you the Mad Dog who's an Indian?” Her eyes were big with wonder. “Are you gonna scalp me?”

“No.” He ran a hand over his bald head. “I have enough trouble scalping myself, and your hair looks pretty right where it's at.”

When he didn't recognize kids, he could sometimes figure out who they were by who they looked like, especially since he could remember the faces of so many parents when they would have been about the same age. This one seemed familiar, but not familiar enough.

“I should know who you are,” he said, “but I can't place you. Who're your folks?”

“I don't have folks. Just Gran.” She smiled, like it had been a trick question and she'd been too clever for him to catch her. The way she spoke, her attitude, even her voice, was too childlike, far younger than she looked. Of course, it was hard to tell much because of her heavy jacket and all the thick blankets she'd wrapped herself in.

“What were you doing in the barn in the back seat of this truck on such a rotten day?”

The smile went away. “I have to go to the barn when I'm bad. Gran leaves me blankets and puts the keys in the ignition so I can run the heater when it's real cold, like today. You don't think I'll get in trouble for leaving the barn, do you? I couldn't help it if a wild Indian came and stole me away. You'll explain that, won't you?”

Mad Dog ran his hands through nonexistent hair. She was acting like a little girl. Considering where he'd found her, and the fact that she seemed to suffer the malady that occurred too frequently among them, he figured she might be a Hornbaker. Only there weren't any Hornbaker females he knew of except Becky.

“Oh, look. There's Uncle Simon,” the girl in the back seat said. “You can explain it to him.”

Mad Dog followed her finger. A white pickup was coming down the blacktop from Buffalo Springs.

Uncle Simon was a Hornbaker. He was a bad-tempered oaf about Englishman's age who helped on the farm with his twin boys. Mad Dog couldn't remember his wife. She must have left him years ago.

Mad Dog knew Simon always carried a couple of rifles with scopes in the gun rack against the back window of his Dodge Ram. Mad Dog didn't want to explain the Blazer and the girl to such a heavily armed uncle.

The driver of the Dodge had spotted them. He was slowing, acting like he planned to pull in alongside for a friendly chat.

“Boy, is Uncle Simon gonna be surprised to see you,” the girl said. Mad Dog thought that was an understatement.

***

“Lord Almighty!” Becky Hornbaker exclaimed. “What're you and these children doing out here in the middle of this blizzard, Deputy Wynn? You all climb inside this cab with me right now.”

Becky loomed behind the wheel of an elderly Dodge Power Wagon. Its white paint was camouflaged with rusty dents and patches of mud from seasons past. Her grandson occupied the seat next to her. They both wore heavy jackets that were unbuttoned—evidence that the truck's heater was fully functional.

“Judah,” she told the boy. “You take a blanket out from behind the seat and get back there in the bed. Gonna be hard enough crowding all these poor frozen souls inside here with me.”

“What're you doing out here?” Heather English asked, wondering if she knew. Probably not. None of her plans for this day were working out the way she'd expected.

Wynn cut off a response. “You're just in time, Ms. Hornbaker,” he said. Heather English knew Wynn didn't use the term
Ms.
to be politically correct. That just happened to be the way most Kansans pronounced either Miss or Mrs. It was a regionalism that had briefly put them ahead of the curve, regardless of personal inclination.

“I wasn't sure we were gonna make it.” The deputy was already trading places with Judah and crowding the heater. One of Two had been in a couple of classes with Judah and his twin brother Levi. She'd known them nearly all of her life. But not well. They were older, still in high school because they'd been held back. Levi and Judah Hornbaker were big and dull and sullen, and had never shown any interest in her sister or her, other than an obsessive tendency to stare at their tits.

One of Two looked around for alternatives. She didn't see any. “We just want to get to Uncle Mad Dog's,” she explained. “Judah can stay up front with you. Heather and I'll be fine in the back. It's only a quarter mile.”

“No, child. We can't take you there. Your Uncle's not home. We were in there looking for him only minutes ago. Besides, somebody vandalized his place. Lord, would you believe it? The times we live in. His windows are all busted out, doors kicked in. You'd freeze in there.”

“You girls climb in here with the Deputy and me and we'll run on down to the home place. You can call your folks from there, or we can get warmed up a bit and then one of the boys or I can run you back home.”

That was odd. One knew Becky never welcomed company to her farm. The Heathers remained beside Becky's door. “Somebody knocked out Uncle Mad Dog's windows?” One asked. “Why would anyone do that?”

The question was echoed by her look-alike. “What about his wolves? What about Buffalo Bob? Are they all right?”

“You two look enough alike to be twins,” Becky said. “And sound alike too. Climb on in. Let me close this window and keep some heat in here. I don't know much, but I'll tell you what I do along the way.”

One was reluctant to obey. She didn't want to go to Becky's place, but she could appreciate the impracticality of going to Mad Dog's if he wasn't there and the house couldn't be sealed and heated. She'd be happier if Becky would just point the Dodge toward town, but Judah was going to be pretty uncomfortable in the bed of the pickup and she and Heather weren't dressed warmly enough for that long a ride.

“Come on now, before you catch your deaths.”

They obeyed hesitantly, one Heather sitting on the lap of the other as the truck lurched through the intersection and headed toward the blacktop. Heather English turned and looked back toward her uncle's place. Her imagination was running wild about what might have happened there. Judah had hunkered down near the rear window, in front of which hung a pair of rifles.

There was a second figure wrapped in blankets back beside Judah. It was long and slender and Judah didn't seem to want to get too near it. A deer, Heather thought, taken out of season.

“You been hunting, Mrs. Hornbaker?” Heather asked.

“In a manner of speaking, child,” Becky replied.

Something about the answer troubled the sheriff's daughter, but then Wynn launched into his version of how the girls had put the patrol car in the ditch and she felt compelled to join her sister's defense.

Neither Heather noticed when Judah leaned over and readjusted the blankets around the bundle beside him to hide the naked toes the wind had briefly uncovered.

***

Doc put a hand to his chin and massaged it, as if that would somehow cancel out the sheriff's question and the sheriff would then leave while Doc got on with his day.

“Doc, you told me Alice Burton's faculties weren't that far gone. You were right. Turns out she remembered where she found the baby. What was it doing here?”

Doc leaned his head around the door into the hall to reassure himself that it was vacant, then went back and sat behind his desk.

“She found it just outside the back door?” Doc asked.

“That where you found her doll?”

“Yeah. That's where it was.”

“Talk to me, Doc. I've got more headaches than the one I got from being popped on the noggin. Mad Dog's made off with Tommie Irons' body. Some valuable heirloom Tommie owned has disappeared, along with him, and that's turned the Hornbakers into crazed vigilantes. You've got a dead baby in the freezer next door and I've got no idea where it came from. There may be more dead bodies in this county. My daughters are missing. And, on top of all that, I can't find a deputy to help out. I don't have time to run back and forth between the Sunshine Towers and here, Doc. You need to be straight with me. Where'd that baby come from? Who's the mother?”

Doc appeared to shrink in on himself. He looked older and smaller than he had in his role of medical authority.

“We already had part of this conversation, Sheriff. No matter what good friends we are or how completely I trust you, there are still things I can't tell you.”

The sheriff opened his mouth to protest but Doc waved him off. “Hear me out, now. Let me see what I can tell you.”

Doc pulled one of the ballpoints out of his pocket and stuck it in the corner of his mouth while he stared at the ceiling and considered what he was going to say.

“Like I said,” Doc began, “I don't do abortions. Not even sometimes, when I think they should be done. That's what this was. One of those times when it would have been better for that baby never to be born. ”

“I can't tell you who the mother is, but maybe I can relieve you a little. Your Heathers aren't involved. Wherever they are, it's got nothing to do with the baby next door.”

The sheriff felt a wave of relief buoy him. He trusted his girls, but it was amazing how much that trust had eroded under even the slightest doubt. Of course, they were still missing in the middle of a classic Plains blizzard. His relief washed back out on the same wave.

“The mother in this case shouldn't have a baby. She's got genetic problems of her own. On top of that, she's too immature to have given informed consent. In essence, she was raped. By a relative. ”

“I've been aware of this pregnancy from early on. Though I didn't offer to abort the foetus, this time I suggested the family take her someplace where that could be done. They chose not to. Even when I could pretty much guarantee this baby wasn't going to be healthy.”