Authors: Sara Paretsky
Bleeding Kansas (50 page)
“Take them up to the house. Susan's in the kitchen. She and Lara, they're cleaning out the cupboards.”
He felt her lips brush his cheeksâsoft, full lips, like a butterflyâand then she was gone. He found the push broom and began shoving metal shavings across the floor as if it were essential for saving the farm.
TIDYING UP
From: [email protected]
Date: November 17
To: [email protected]
Jimboâ
When I fled Kansas for Chicago, I didn't expect the valley to catch up with me here! I've talked to Mimi about letting young Schapen stay with us. I agree, he sounds very different from Arnie and Myra, but I don't know how well a Full Bible fundamentalist will cope with our secular world. I haven't been in a church for thirty years, except for Gram's and Chip's funerals, and even though Mimi is Jewish she's not like those red heifer loonies. Also, Nate's only eight, and Mimi doesn't want him getting weird ideas from Robbie. Still, she's willing for him to come for a trial visit to see how it goes. I can understand why it would be a disaster to have him live with you. Aside from Lara, it would be hard for Robbie to have his father and Myra across the road.
Did you know Clem Burton called me? You know he shot Junior Schapen at the football game last week, right? You do hear some local news, don't you, O see no evil? He says it was because the DA was going to put Eddie in a group home in exchange for Eddie pleading guilty to setting the fire at Fremantles'. Clem was furious that Junior got off the hook by framing Eddie when Eddie was just infatuated and willing to do whatever his hero wanted. I'll be coming down next week for the initial arraignment, so I'll take a look at Robbie then and maybe bring him home for a few weeks.
Cheers,
Doug
From: [email protected]
Date: December 11
To: [email protected]
Jimbo,
Yes, Clem has retained me to defend him on assault and attempted murder charges, so I guess I'll be spending a fair amount of time back in Kansas. Any chance you could put up my associate when she comes down to take depositions next month?
Having Robbie Schapen here is working out pretty well so far. We've persuaded University High to let him take their entrance exams to see where he places. I think it helped him coming to someone who knows the land and the people, even though Chicago is quite a big jump for a country boy. He's taking guitar lessons at the Old Town School of Folk Music. His music seems to keep him grounded. He misses his cows, but he doesn't miss the four-thirty rise and shine, that's for sure.
Mimi being Jewish is another hurdle for him, although after everything he went through last fall he's kind of shying away from religion these days. Mimi was afraid he might want to convert her or Nate, but that never comes up.
I've hired a detective to try to track down his mother. If we find her, and her life is in the right place, that might be the best solution for him in the long run. But, for the time being, he's welcome with us.
Right now he's playing “Noah Built Himself an Ark” on his guitar for Nateâseems nonsectarian enough. He also writes reams of C & W love songs to Lulu. I'm starting to get gripes from Mimi about why don't I ever write love songs for her!
Doug
http://www.schapenfarm.com/newsandnotes.html
Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. The inerrant Word of God teaches us that, but some of our neighbors have a long way to go before they learn it. They thought they could bring us low. They thought they could break our spirit when they stole our miracle calf. They thought they could destroy us when they shot the apple of our eye, our beloved Junior.
Well, we just got word that our milk is considered blessed by the Lord for its extra rich creaminess, and that we are the supplier of choice for Christian Cream and Ice Cream. The miracle heifer may not have fulfilled her destiny in bringing us the Lord of Hosts in glory, but she guided the Schapen family to a better place.
And Junior's injury brought him the national attention his play has always deserved. The Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles are both scouting him. His coach says his recovery is astounding. He should be back to his full strength by summer.
Pride, pride the sin by which the angels fell. When will our neighbors finally find themselves cured of this heinous sin? They are trying to lead our younger boy, Robbie, out of the path of righteousness, but the Lord loveth whom He chasteneth.
From: [email protected]
Date: January 23
To: [email protected]
Dear Jimbo,
Yep, I got Clem released on an I bond. I don't know if that's good or bad as far as Ardis is concerned, having him home again. Although Clem is mighty peeved at the news about Junior, it will help our defense in the long run.
Robbie did get into U High, although they're making him go back to ninth grade to catch up on his math and science. Still no word on his mother.
I guess it's true that only the good die young. I saw the story in the Douglas County Herald, about Nabo holding an Advent Revival at Salvation Bible and bringing in five thousand people over the seven days of the meeting! And then Arnie gets to capitalize on his heifer and Clem shooting Junior by becoming the martyr of the Christian farm movement. His milk is commanding a premium, I read in the Wall Street Journal. Oy veh, as we say up here in the big bad city.
Love to Susan and Lara. I know Robbie wants to see Lara, but I think you're right to let that particular fire cool down. I'm glad Susan's better. Lulu wrote Robbie that's she's taken up tile making, trying to replicate the Venetian tiles from the old Fremantle house. Sounds promising.
Peace,
Doug
SPRING
T
HE WINTER WHEAT
had broken dormancy and was starting to grow. All week, a pale green had shimmered under the brown tufts, barely visible, like a shy girl at a school dance: don't look at me, I'm here. This morning, though, the whole field was suddenly alive.
The sky was still dark, barely paler than the land beneath it, but Jim could smell the greenness of the plants, a fresh tang like lime rising from the land. When he bent to feel the stalks, they were supple and soft as bird down between his fingers.
He heard footsteps whickering through the grass, and then Susan knelt beside him. Like him, she bent to feel soil and roots.
“Mmm. It smells like spring.”
They squatted for a time without speaking. All the poetry about spring that Lara was studying for her English classâ
April is the cruelest monthâ¦Blossom by blossom the spring beginsâ¦Now that April with his showers sweet
âand Lara's own earnest, clumsy lines that celebrated the coming blue skies, pink roses, nestlings, why did no one write a poem about the winter wheat coming to life?
Susan seemed to read his thoughts. “At group therapy, they say to be grateful for small things, but I'm grateful for this big thingâspring again, the wheat again. Perhaps this is the only vision I'm allowed, seeing the wheat come to life. I have to keep reminding myself that it isn't small just because it isn't the Mother of God in chains.”
He squeezed her hand.
She took a deep breath. “Jim, I'm sorry about the farm. Thank you for protecting the X-Farm for Lara, but you had to sell the river section, and you had to sell it to Arnie. I'm sorry forâfor letting you down, for being the reason you had to do it.”
He put his finger over her lips. “Listen.”
The bobolinks were calling to each other, their long line of song drowning out the meadowlarks. The bobolinks had come back from South America a week ago, as they had each spring for twenty thousand years, and were working in earnest on their nests. They sailed around Jim and Susan in the dark, paying no more attention to the humans than to the silos across the field. In the east, a faint stain of pink heralded the rising sun.