Bleeding Kansas (28 page)

She didn't answer it. “He wants to know where I am—he's afraid I'm breaking into the old Fremantle house.”

The phone call silenced them both. Robbie started to wonder what he could say to Nanny—why hadn't he picked up Amber Ruesselmann? why hadn't he been to Teen Witness? why were his clothes dirty?

“You're supposed to be going out with Amber?” Lara giggled again.

“Nanny thinks she's a good Christian girl for me, that if I start praying with her I won't go to hell,” Robbie said gloomily. “If she knew about you—I mean, about how I feel about you—she'd be furious, because you're a Grellier. And, anyway, she'd never believe someone as pretty as you could ever like me.”

Lara didn't say anything. As pretty as she? As pretty as someone with tiny breasts and a pimple on her chin, with mousy hair, covered in dirt? Susan thought worrying about appearance was a ridiculous waste of time, maybe because Susan's mom spent all her spare time, and money, on skin treatment and makeup; she'd even had eyeliner tattooed on her eyelids. If Lara worried about her mousy hair or her pimpled skin, Mom would say, or at least she used to say, “It's the content of your character that counts, Lara, as Dr. King said, not your hair or your skin.”

“Why not tell your gram you got a flat tire?” Lara suggested.

Robbie was appalled at the thought of out-and-out making up a story, but when Lara reminded him of all the lies his grandmother had told him—about his mom, about him, about the Grelliers—he felt a thrill almost as pleasurable as the excitement of being with Lara herself.

It was completely dark when they finally got to their feet. “I—when can I see you again, Lulu?”

“In biology, tomorrow,” she teased.

“No, I mean, well—”

“After school,” she suggested. “We could go to that park in town down by the river. No one we know ever goes there.”

He started to agree, eagerly, then remembered that tomorrow was when the Jews were coming to look at the calf.

“You mean there really is a magic calf on your place?” she demanded. “I thought it was just the way people talk around here.”

“It's not magic,” Robbie said. “It's just special. It's all red, see, and the Jews need a perfect red heifer if they're ever going to build the Temple again in Jerusalem. And Jesus can't come again unless the Temple is standing, and—”

“Robbie, you can't make Jesus come by doing stuff!” Lara cried.

“No, of course not. But God won't rebuild the Temple, the Jews have to do it themselves. And if we can help them do it, then the end of days will be that much closer.”

Lara shivered and pulled away from Robbie. Pastor Albright at Riverside United Church of Christ didn't preach about the end of days. Vague images of devastation flitted through her head. The X-Farm, its sad rows of sunflowers, would look like the photographs of Iraq she studied on her computer where the bombs had torn big holes in everything. “Serves you right,” she would whisper through the screen to the Iraqis, “serves you right for blowing up my brother.”

In the cold gray light of the new moon, the field already looked desolate. Did God really want that, to destroy the whole farm, just so people like Robbie's grandmother could be in heaven?

“I don't want the end of days,” she said.

“Not want the end of days? But—don't you want to be with Jesus in glory?”

“Oh, Robbie, it's—it's—” She spread her arms so that the dirty sheet billowed around her like the feathers of a bedraggled peacock. “I'm living in the end of days right now. I want the farm alive, I want my mom out of the hospital, I want my brother alive, I don't want any more people dead and the farm burned down.”

Her phone rang again: still her father trying to track her down. She again stuck it back in her jeans without answering it.

“But don't you want to be with Jesus?” Was Nanny right, were the Grelliers already damned? How could you not long for the end of days?

“Maybe you should have gone to Teen Witness with Amber,” Lara said, trying her best to be hurtful. “I don't want a sermon from you or anyone in your family, telling me how my brother and my mother are damned. You and Amber can pray over me to your heart's content.”

“Lara, no!” Thoughts of the end of days, the building of the Temple so Jesus could come in glory and kill all the Jews, along with people who pretended to be Christians, people who worshipped with their lips but not their hearts, vanished. Instead, he thought of Amber's pasty, acne-scarred face and the soft skin of Lara's back underneath her sweatshirt. He grabbed her and pulled her to him, but she pushed him away.

“I have to go home,” she said. “My dad is freaking. The next thing you know, he and Blitz will be out looking for me, and then they'll see your truck.”

As if to prove her point, her phone rang again. This time, she answered it. “I'm in the X-Farm…Yeah, I heard it ring, but I was trying to stop the birds from eating all the seeds…Yeah, I'm on my way…No, don't. I'll walk.”

She headed toward the road, wrapping the sheet tightly about herself. Robbie jogged after her.

“But Lara—Lulu—I want to see you again.”

“I'll be in biology tomorrow.”

“But I want to see you alone, be with you alone. Would you come to my youth group tomorrow night? We could go out for a Coke or something after.”

“After you've finished worshipping your cow?” Her words were still mean, but her tone was softer, more provocative.

“Well, after these Jews from Kansas City leave we have supper and then I go back to town for youth night.”

“Let me come and see the golden calf with you, and I'll ride along to your youth group,” she said.

“No, you can't, the Jews say not to let any women near it, not even Nanny is allowed.”

“Robbie! What is with you and all this stuff? If you think women are so evil they'll destroy your stupid calf, then I'm so evil you can't be alone with me.”

“Oh, Lara, I don't think that, please. I don't even want them to use the calf, and she's so lonely, shut up all by herself, it's cruel. But even if I said you could come, my dad would be there, he wouldn't let you anywhere near the calf, and if I tried to show her to you by myself my nanny is always checking on me. It just isn't possible.”

They had reached the train tracks. Just over the ridge, Robbie could see the lights of the Grellier house. Even though he knew Lara's mother was ill and her father upset with her, the house still looked warm and cozy to him. Arnie and Myra did nothing to fix up the Schapen house, except keep the roof shingled and the gutters cleaned, but they never even painted it, while, inside, they still used the old lights and furniture Robbie's grandfather had grown up with in the 1930s.

Even from the outside, you could see that the Grelliers cared about making the house look inviting. It was painted a soft cream—although, of course, you couldn't tell that in the moonlight—and the shutters were a dark, rich green, and when he'd sneaked into the yard in the dark early one morning after milking, trying to guess which room was Lara's, he'd seen the modern lamps in the family room, and the kitchen, with its bright-painted cupboards. Jim Grellier had come to the window that morning, coffee cup in hand, staring at the sky as he tried to guess the weather, but Robbie had felt sure Jim had seen him. He'd backed away, run home, and never tried spying on Lara again.

Robbie ached with so many desires he didn't know which was uppermost in his mind—to be part of Lara's family, to be inside the Grellier house, to kiss Lara, to touch her again, to make her respect him and his music. If Lara walked across the tracks without kissing him, she would disappear from his life forever. He put a tentative hand on her sheet-draped arm.

She stood rigid for a heartbeat, then turned to look at him. “What time do the Jews come?”

“They get there around four-thirty and stay for about an hour. Does this mean—”

“I'll be here by the tracks at six-thirty.” She brushed his cheek with her lips and darted into the yard around her house.

C
ARS BEGAN ARRIVING
around four while Robbie and Dale were starting the afternoon milking: first Pastor Nabo with three of the elders, then some dedicated, avid church members, all male. They went into the house through the front door, not the kitchen.

From her perch in the crotch of the oak tree, Lara could see Myra Schapen through the kitchen window. Arms folded across her chest, she was walking back and forth, her jaw snapping up and down, as if she were biting holes in the air. Lara pulled her legs up underneath her. Myra's wild face was frightening. If she went to the window, if she saw Lara dangling there—Lara pictured Myra with a pitchfork, a shotgun, a backhoe, knocking Lara out of the tree, mutilating Lara, Myra snapping her jaw all the while.

As soon as she got home from school, Lara had run into Chip's room to rummage through his box of effects. When the Army sent them back, Susan had taken Chip's sweats, and Jim his iPod. He liked listening to his son's music while he was alone on the tractor. Songs he'd hated when Chip was alive now made him feel close to his dead son. Jim had let Curly help himself to whatever he wanted, even though it meant he took the fielder's glove Chip had carried with him to Iraq. Lara hadn't even wanted to go near the box before, but this afternoon she rummaged through it until she found Chip's desert fatigues.

The uniform was miles too big on her. Just as she had her fabric shears poised over the pant legs, ready to slash four inches off the bottoms, she realized it would be a desecration to cut them. Instead, she made a deep hem, and basted a series of tucks into the waistband. Even so, she had to cinch a belt pretty tightly to keep the pants from sliding down her hips. The shirt was also big on her, but that meant she could wear a sweatshirt underneath to keep warm. She pulled her hair back on her head with a clip, then tucked it inside Chip's camouflage cap.

The clothes still smelled of Chip, his sweat, the aftershave Janice Everleigh had put into the first and only care package the family had sent. Lara paused at the top of the stairs, suddenly feeling queer, putting on her brother's clothes to sneak up on Robbie's house. Then she thought of the night three years ago when Chip had slithered through the ditch and into Arnie's barn, draping all the cows in toilet paper because of some fight he'd had with Junior.

Lara giggled, remembering Myra's fury. She'd been sure it was Chip who did it. She'd come to the Grelliers' kitchen, screaming bloody murder at Jim and Susan, who only stared at her in bewilderment. Susan had even said, “Myra, you'll damage your heart if you keep getting this exercised.” Lara and Chip had had to run to the barn before they exploded with laughter and gave away the whole story. Chip would approve of her mission; he would send her luck. “From up in
heaven,
you snot-filled Schapens,” Lara hissed.

Jim had started bringing in the corn, which meant he was with Blitz and Curly in the field closest to the house. Lara watched them from the window on the landing. It was almost four. The light would hold for two more hours, so they weren't likely to take a break anytime soon. Even so, she crouched low to the ground as she left the house, sticking up an arm to open the door to her pickup, then sliding into the driver's seat—she didn't care if they saw her leave, but there'd be buckets of questions if they saw her in Chip's uniform.

She parked her truck on the service track that ran between the X-Farm and the Ropeses' sorghum field, out of sight of the road and her own house. Mr. Ropes had cut his sorghum. He might see her truck from his back window, but he would just think she was working the X-Farm.

The October sky was a dull gray, an iron sky pressing down on the earth. It didn't hold rain, just a chilly dreariness. The blackbirds and meadowlarks were still working furiously at the sunflowers. As Lara walked along, she swung Chip's cap at them. The sight broke her heart, all that hard work disappearing into their greedy little bellies, but she didn't take extra time to try to chase the birds away.

“An exercise in futility, anyway,” she said under her breath, repeating the phrase she'd heard Gina use last summer.

Thinking of Gina made her wonder how she'd get back into the Fremantle house now that Jim and Blitz had nailed shut the door between basement and kitchen. “Where there's a will, there's a way,” she whistled. “Tomorrow the sun may be shining, although it is cloudy today.”

Her mission this afternoon was easier, since she only had to sneak onto the Schapen land, not break into the house. It was also riskier. If Gina found her at Fremantles', she would be cold and nasty but not frightening. If Myra or Arnie Schapen found her on their land, they'd hurt her. Physically, probably, while grinning and saying they were beating the devil out of her. They'd go after Jim, too, maybe sue him for trespassing or some shit.

“So be careful,” she admonished herself when she reached the county road.

She knelt in the ditch until she was sure no one was around in the fields or on the road, then crossed the road and dropped down into the ditch on the far side. She'd worried that Chip's light fatigues would stand out against the dark autumn landscape, but, once in the ditch, she saw that they blended perfectly with the dead grasses and leaves around her. When she reached the Schapen buildings, she stuck her head up cautiously. She saw Robbie in the distance, calling up the cows from the south pasture.

She poked a hole in the ground with her finger. Her feelings about yesterday were too complicated for her to understand. The pleasure of having someone care about what she was thinking and feeling, that had been a balm to her sore spirits. The physical thrill of being touched in that way, that was new to her. Oh, yes, her own hands on her own body. But not a boy's hands. Huddled in the ditch, watching Robbie, she ran her fingers lightly over her arms and shivered from the memory of his touch.

But he was a Schapen. Even if he was obviously different from Junior and Arnie and Myra, he still was one of them, went to that bizarro church where they thought they could make Jesus come again by breeding a red calf. And because he was a Schapen, did she want to spend more time with him really? Was that why she was sneaking over here really? To spy on his golden calf just because he'd said she couldn't, was that a way of saying she didn't care what he thought or said?

Robbie disappeared from her field of vision, but he'd be back soon with the cows. She'd have to move now. She picked out a big bur oak near the driveway as her spy's perch, double-checked the outbuildings for any sign of Arnie or Myra, then crawled across the rough-cut grass to the tree. Arnie came out of the house, and she froze against the ground, but he was heading for the new enclosure, the little round house he'd built for his golden calf. Lara couldn't actually see the special pen from here, but she'd watched Arnie building it last winter, before the corn and sorghum grew high enough to block the view across his fields from Highway 10.

Lara jumped up, grabbed a big overhanging branch, and hoisted herself up, quickly, smoothly, no mistakes allowed here. A second later, she was in the tree crotch, shielded by the branch from house, barn, and road.

Pocahontas Grellier, champion tracker. Too bad 4-H didn't have a category in that at the county fair; she'd take the grand prize every year.

She'd gotten to her roost in the nick of time: Robbie's pastor drove up seconds after she'd found a place flat enough that she could sit. After him and the four cars with other church members—or so she guessed the men to be; except for Chris Greynard's dad, they were strangers to her—there wasn't any action on the road. She watched Robbie and the Schapens' hired hand working the cows in and out of the milk barn; she saw Arnie leave the circular enclosure and go back into the house.

She could see the details of the kitchen, the industrial clock on one wall, the corner of the old-fashioned range, its enamel chipped, and then Arnie and Myra talking. Arnie disappeared and Myra turned to the window, but only to fill a teakettle, Lara realized after a nervous moment: the sink was probably under the window where Lara couldn't see it.

She began to understand how isolated Robbie's life was. The county road running past her own house carried traffic all day long. She could see the Ropeses' from her bedroom, and even bits of the Fremantle place. But the side road dead-ended here at the Schapen farm. People only drove up this way if they were going to Schapens', and Arnie and Myra were so mean no one ever just dropped in on them the way they did Jim and Susan.

Poor Robbie! How could he stand it, cows for friends, a witch and a warlock running his house, a bully for a big brother? Maybe in the hospital the nurses had made a mistake, given his mother an Indian woman's baby. Maybe over on the reservation, there was some big blond lunk who thought he was a Pottawatomie. Lara almost giggled out loud at the image.

Another car was coming up the road now. A dusty Dodge van turned in to the Schapen yard. Lara stretched out along the branch to get a better look as three men climbed stiffly down. These must be the Jews. There were Jewish teachers at Lara's high school and a number of Jewish kids in her class, but they were all like Lara's friends, worrying about how they looked, what people thought of them, who was going out with who, how they were doing in their classes. These three men were exotic, not just foreign in space but in time as well. Like Robbie, when he first saw them last winter, she recognized the strange clothes from pictures in her history book. They were wearing the round, hard black hats, the long black frock coats, the corkscrew curls—like the men from the Lodz Ghetto who were killed in the Holocaust.

Arnie came out from the front of the house with the pastor from Salvation Bible Church. Lara couldn't hear any of the conversation, but she could see Arnie strutting, as if he were trying to prove that he, not these strange, bearded men, was in charge. After another minute, the other men joined them, and they headed toward the special calf's round enclosure.

The Schapens' hand emerged from the milk barn and got into his beat-up Chevy. A few minutes later, Robbie came out and headed to the house. He passed through the kitchen, where Myra snapped her jaw at him. He seemed to be ignoring her—he passed on through a swinging door without stopping to look at her.

A light came on upstairs. After a time, Robbie reappeared in the kitchen, his hair wet, wearing his sports jacket. At this distance, Lara couldn't tell if he'd been able to get yesterday's dirt out of it.

When he opened the back door, Lara heard Myra screeching, “Did you hear me, young man? I told you to fetch the coffee cups from the parlor. You're not a man or a church elder, you don't belong out there in Junior's place. I'm not here to wait on you hand and foot. You do as I say.”

In the dull twilight, Lara could see Robbie slump over, as if Myra's words were rocks hitting his shoulders. She stifled an impulse to jump down from the tree and race over to him, to put her arms around him and console him.

Robbie slouched his way across the yard, passed the milking shed and other outbuildings, and disappeared from Lara's view. Myra stood in the back door, hands on hips. Probably her jaw was still snapping even now that she'd shut up. She finally returned to the house, pausing at the window that overlooked Lara's tree, but, after a time, she went through the swinging door into the room beyond.

Lara took a breath, tightened her stomach muscles, swung over the branch, and dropped into the yard. Keeping low to the ground, she moved around behind the milking shed, hopping around the cow patties that were splattered everywhere. In the gray half-light, she couldn't avoid them all. “Sorry, Chip,” she muttered to her brother, “I got your brand-new fatigues all stinko.”

On the far side of the milking shed stood equipment sheds. Beyond them, the lagoon for collecting wastewater glimmered purply black in the fading light. She paused at the main barn, where Arnie kept his combine and his tractor. The golden calf's special pen lay another hundred yards beyond it. The troop of visitors was so big they couldn't all fit into the enclosure; a half-dozen men shoved for position in the open doorway, craning to see what was going on inside. Lara could hear their voices, raised in excitement, but could not make out the words.

The ground between the main barn and new pen was rough, open terrain. The only possible cover was a set of small sheds, about eight in all, where new calves were tied up. She didn't know anything about dairy farming, and couldn't understand what the calves and sheds were doing there, but they were her only way of getting close to the golden calf's enclosure.

It wouldn't be dark for another hour, so she had to hold her breath and get close to the ground, inevitably putting hands and knees both smack into cow shit. She swallowed a gag and got behind the nearest of the little sheds. The calf bawled in misery when it saw her. Its hair was wet and tufted, like a newborn kitten's; it couldn't be very old. Lara wiped one filthy hand in the dirt and petted the calf.

“You poor little thing, where's your mom? She take an overdose of drugs and end up in the ER, that you have to be tied up like this all alone, crying?” she murmured, stroking it.

The calf tried to suck on her fingers, and she saw there was a bucket of milk at its feet. She dipped her fingers into it, momentarily forgetting her main goal, and let the calf suck the milk from her fingers. A louder cry from the men startled her. Lara glanced over at them, but they were still looking into the enclosure; they hadn't seen her. Still, she was pretty exposed out here. She patted the calf's rump and darted behind the next shed, working her way toward the golden calf.