Signs of Struggle (30 page)

“So how did the truth find its way?”

“Moon took a little trip to Baltimore, then he came back.”

“God bless Moon.”

“Amen.”

“I’m glad you told me, but you didn’t need to. Sometimes it hurts a lot and doesn’t solve anything to dig up old wounds,” I said.

“I just wanted you to know. It’s important. I care about you, Thomas. You are good and decent and brave, and most importantly, you know when you mix your metaphors.”

We both laughed. It felt good to have that in common after last night’s freak show. She went on, her voice even softer. “And last night, what I said after Harmon called you out to the church, please forgive me.”

“Of course. I just didn’t want you to see what I saw. Harmon didn’t, either, and it’s good that you stayed home.”

She looked at me. “You pissed me off.”

“I must have. You said, to me, ‘Up yours.’”

“But that was yesterday.”

“And yesterday’s gone.”

“So, good looking, do you have a date to the Pork Festival yet?” she asked.

“I do not.”

“By coincidence, neither do I. If you don’t mind me being a brazen hussy, would you like to go with me to the Sixty-Third Annual Rockbluff County Pork Festival next week?”

Under the circumstances that she did not understand, I did not. Stray bullets and all that. But to turn her down would start Liv asking questions again. So be it, I thought. Time to compromise the truth again to protect the innocent. That noble stuff can be tiring. “I’d love to go with you, but I think I’ll take a rain check. I have no interest in the Pork Festival. Seriously. I’m thinking about heading down to Iowa City for a few days, give Coach Ferentz some tips for the football team, visit some old neighborhoods. And then I’m thinking about heading out to West Des Moines to touch base with an old friend.”

Liv’s eyes went hard, suspicious. “You know that old saying about Hell hath no wrath like a woman scorned?”

“Yeah, my dad told me when I was twelve.”

“You didn’t listen.” She stood up abruptly, bumping the edge of the table with her hip. “Thomas, I cannot abide a liar.” And then she stalked out.

I knew that, with time, she would recover. Better to have her ticked off than wounded by a random bullet. I returned to the bar, ale still in hand. I sat down.

“So,” Moon said, “did you say the wrong thing again?”

“Yes. Now, how about one of those Specials of yours? And two more cold ones.”

“Coming up,” Moon said, and turned to prepare my order.

I laid low the next few days, sticking to my house, taking short walks with Gotcha and Chief Justice. Nothing suspicious popped up. I read a lot of newspaper accounts of what was going on here in Rockbluff. Nothing from Suzanne Highsmith; just straight news stories from several local and regional papers. I declined interviews with reporters. I ran some, watched a couple of movies, worked out at Mulehoff’s, shopped for groceries, took a couple of long drives farther northeast and back. Surfed the net. Waited.

The first day of the Pork Festival began with its beauty pageant, won by a breathless and beaming Tiffany Swartzendruber, a recent graduate of Rockbluff High School, who would reign over the festival for three days and retire, then present her crown to next year’s Miss Pork. But that wasn’t all that took place the first day. The “Farnsworth Brothers’ Carnival & Midway” at the Rockbluff County Fairgrounds, and the “Taste of Pork” exhibit under the big tent just inside the gate at the fairgrounds lured many a festival-goer into their domains.

The “Taste of Pork” provided over 150 recipes, many of which I tried in my ongoing attempt to be a good citizen. My favorite? A simple serving of roast pork. Worst recipe? Poached pork loaf with butterscotch glaze on a bed of pork rinds seemed the least appealing. The usual festival food enticed as well: funnel cakes, soft drinks, cotton candy, caramel corn, hotdogs, hamburgers, bratwurst, curly fries, and homemade ice cream. The “Suds Tent” turned into a gold mine in the high heat of the day. Prediction? According to the Weather Channel, it was going to hit 98. On July 29th, what did they expect?

I made a point to keep moving, never staying at one exhibit or another more than a few minutes, constantly watching, looking for unfamiliar faces. There were too many of those, so I tried to focus on anyone who seemed to be watching me too closely.

No face told me, “I am a hardened hit man and I am going to shoot you dead.”

The faces I did recognize I saw over and over. Everywhere I turned I saw, or bumped into, Mike Mulehoff, Horace Norris, Arvid Pendergast, Gunther Schmidt, Carl Heisler, or Moon, who rotated supervision of The Grain o’ Truth Bar & Grill with Rachel.

The shadows grew longer paired with a faint backing off from the heat and humidity as the first day of the festival wound down. I made a tour through the carnival rides, barely watching the activity in the Ferris Wheel or Tilt-a-Whirl, more interested in the people than the activity.

Lots of unfamiliar faces. None of them sinister or overly-interested in me. People whose faces I did vaguely recognize as citizens of Rockbluff seemed to notice me, say something under their breath to their companions, and kept moving. I did not see Liv Olson, and I rejoiced. Maybe she decided on her own to go visit her aunt in Oelwein.

Shortly after dark, I went back to the house and found a Red Sox game on the tube. I got out Gotcha’s beer bowl, poured her a cold Sam Adams Boston Lager, and started drinking one for myself.

I fell asleep in my recliner; Day One was in the books. One day closer to being a target.

T
he morning of the second day of the Pork Festival dawned, and I realized it was even more likely than the day before to be the last day of my life. That worked better than caffeine to get me started.

Sometime during the night, I had awakened in the recliner, noticed the game was over and
Baseball Tonight
was on, and went to bed. So this morning I just eased out of bed, took a shower and shaved, and dressed. I took Gotcha and Chief Justice and poked along down to the mailbox, retrieved the paper and returned to the house.

I debated having a roast pork sandwich for breakfast down at the festival, decided against it. I wanted to be alert, so I fetched a box of waffles from the freezer, nuked them, slathered butter on each waffle, stacked them, and drenched them with Aunt Jemima’s Maple Syrup. A good breakfast washed down with Diet Coke to keep me sharp. If I were going to be shot to death, I wanted to have my eyes wide open. Might as well experience fully the last occurrence on this earth, I thought. Such a philosopher, not going gentle into that good night.

I gave Gotcha a leftover waffle with a little raw hamburger and some grated cheese on top of all that before I left. After all, she saved my life, sort of. She was breathing in her breakfast when I left.

I drove into town and parked in the lot at Christ the King, then walked over the bridge and joined the crowd, finally deciding to hang out downtown with a multitude in front of Kathy’s Kuntry Krafts Korner. It was already hot.

I heard bands warming up nearby, and found myself waiting for the heavily-anticipated “Grand Parade.” Who could resist? I watched for the person who had been paid to kill me. The size of the crowds worked against me, and as I, through sheer willpower, forced myself to forget about Liv, and even Ruth, I began searching faces.

The parade started and the Rockbluff High School Marching band approached playing the mandatory-in-Iowa “76 Trombones.” I noticed Lansberger passing by. He wore street clothes, a loose shirt covering his weapon tucked into his waistband, barely bumping out the back of his shirt. We made fleeting eye contact and he moved on, watching the crowd. Five minutes later, the marching band passed by in front of me playing “Thriller.” Across the street, between passing rows of musicians, I saw Doltch, in uniform, chatting with a young lady, facing her, but with his eyes scanning the crowd.

I turned my attention back to the band. They looked sharp in their green-and-cream uniforms, their performance stellar. And while I was thinking about her and her love for everything connected to Rockbluff High School, Olivia appeared at my side, wearing white shorts and a pale pink, sleeveless blouse.

She said, “I thought you were headed for Iowa City and Des Moines, Thomas.”

“Change of plans. People I planned to see weren’t going to be home,” I lied. It was getting easier.

“Uh-huh,” she replied, skepticism oozing out of both syllables. Time to change the subject.

“I’ll bet you know every kid in the Rockbluff High School band.”

“Damn betchum,” she said.

“Probably every kid in the whole school, too.”

“Right again,” she said as the band passed, followed by several individual kids on bikes with red, white and blue crepe paper intertwined in the spokes and bright, Day-Glo orange streamers hanging from the grips on their handlebars. Several of the juvenile bikers wore cardboard tri-corner hats.

Three more bands passed by, followed slowly by five convertibles filled with various dignitaries, including the Grand Marshall, a corpulent local politician I had never seen before. Then a series of floats passed, including one with an enormous papier mache’ pink pig. Then another band from Strawberry Point High School. “Grand Parade” indeed.

I don’t know what it was that made me look back around to the people on the sidewalk. Maybe a boring float, maybe an unusual sound, maybe good instincts. Or God nudging me to wake up.

I did not notice anything unusual, but Liv, who turned back to the crowd at the same time, did. A girl in a Rockbluff High School Marching Band uniform and wearing wraparound blue mirror sunglasses was walking directly toward us.

At that same moment Horace rollerbladed by in the street, zipping toward the girl. Horace did not look at me or speak, instead, he fixated on the band girl. He jumped the curb, plowing into the pedestrians on the sidewalk, scattering them left and right, keeping between me and the girl.
What the…?

Then Arvid showed up and cut in front of the girl, a determined look on his face. At the same time Liv said, “She’s not one of ours. Why is she wearing that uniform?” even as Arvid clutched his chest and fell to the ground in front of bandgirl, even as she reached inside her tunic and withdrew a handgun, stepping over Arvid without looking down, continuing to stride toward me, the gun now down at her side. The crowd did not notice anything except Arvid on the ground and Horace on his rollerblades, quick-striding toward the girl.

In an instant she brought up the weapon, sunglassed eyes fixed on me, right arm extended, pointing, aiming. And ever since VanderKellen’s suicide note, I had been looking for a man.
Oh, God
, I thought,
how stupid!
Profiling gone bad, and now the real shooter closed in, stopping just a few yards away, bringing her left hand up to steady her aim, knees slightly flexed, arms extended in classic shooter’s stance, the pistol point blank at me.

Everything that happened right then on the hot sidewalk in front of Kathy’s Kuntry Krafts Korner took only a few seconds in real time. In my mind, it was all in slow motion, took minutes, and will never leave me.

I remember crouching and starting to surge toward the girl, my hands in front of me to deflect or accept slugs, determined to feint left and right. But action exploded around me, simultaneous decisions by several people that stunned me, marking me and the town and people of Rockbluff for the rest of our lives.

First, Liv, suddenly ferocious and strong, grabbed the front of my t-shirt with both hands, spinning me away from the woman, slipping between the shooter and me.

I heard pistol shots, felt a sharp slap at the side of my head and, at the same time, something mountainous and dark looming to my right and a deafening, thunderous explosion. Lunatic Mooning brought his backup Mossberg, pistol-grip shotgun into play as the shooter continued firing.

I began to totter, my legs curiously wobbly, my eyes still on bandgirl whose creamy-white tunic top was driven back into her chest from the shotgun blast. An enormous splash of blood burst through her torso as the impact of the shot lifted her up off her feet and onto her back on the sidewalk. I remember the acrid smell of cordite and the sound of her skull cracking like a brittle melon on the pavement.

In the background, far, far away, I could hear screams, lots of them. I saw Gunther, Mike, and Carl rushing up, and then Arvid’s face as I slipped down, too heavy for Liv to keep me from going down, dragging her with me as she held on to me, stretching my t-shirt. Then Liv was on top of me, spreading her body over mine; a blanket, a blessing, a shield. The crowd surged back, pressing in, staring, horror on their faces.

“I’m okay,” I said, not sure if I was telling the truth. “Help me up, someone.”

Then Gunther and Mike had me up and were propping me on a bench, and I was aware of a steady stream of warm stickiness on my face sliding down onto my chest and shoulder. And there was Liv’s white face, filled with fear. She said, “Oh, God, Thomas!” and sat down quickly next to me.

“Ain’t nothin’ but a scratch, ma’am.” Which I knew to be true. I’d been shot before. I forced a smile, then, “You stepped in front of the shooter.”

She nodded vigorously, tears in her eyes, forcing a quick smile.

Then there was Moon’s big face as he squatted down next to Liv, the man in black serious. “If you two palefaces, and your faces are really pale, can skip the John Wayne clichés for a minute, maybe we can get you over to the hospital and take care of that little scrape.”

Moon was still holding his shotgun in one hand, the short, lethal barrel pointing down at the sidewalk. I heard sirens. I heard Arvid say, “Hiding behind a woman. Sheesh. What a stud! I guess I couldn’t interest you in a whole life policy about now, could I?”

I said “No,” then, “that was a pretty convincing heart attack.”

“Pure inspiration. When the muse intervenes in the lives of mortals, one must obey. Thought it might throw her off a bit.”

Moon said, “That it did, but it was still close. She got off shots, but you’d be dead, Thomas, without Arvid’s collapse or what Liv did. Helped me, too. Extra second made a big difference. Got me closer, surer.”

I was feeling drifty, people appearing to be far away, then up close without their moving a muscle. I laughed at that. Carl Heisler’s face appeared. His hands and face were covered with blood. His eyes were tormented. “You okay, Thomas?”

I nodded, the movement of my head bringing on a fresh rush of dizziness. I heard an ambulance stop far away nearby. I was hoping it wasn’t for me. Rides in ambulances years ago didn’t leave a desire for more. I looked past my friends and saw Schumacher and Aldrich rushing to someone on the sidewalk.
Who? What?
“I’m fine,” I said to Carl, “but you got more blood on you than I do.”

“Not mine,” Carl said. He struggled, swallowed hard, started to speak, finally did. “Horace took a bullet, Thomas.”

Everything under my skin stopped, frozen. Horace had told me once that he had my back, that he could be counted on. Inwardly, I had scoffed, had humored him. Now he was shot. “Where?” I asked.

“Upper chest,” Carl said. He looked over his shoulder, then back at me. “You better get some help quickly. You’re bleeding a lot, Thomas.”

“The scalp is extremely vascular, Carl. It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said, my dizziness dissipating. “What about the shooter?”

“Dead,” Carl said. “I went to her, lifted away her sunglasses, looked into her eyes. She cursed me with her last breath. She was just a child.”

“That’s okay, man,” Moon said, setting his hand on Carl’s shoulder. “Let it go. Sometimes you just gotta flush the toilet.”

“Let’s get you to the hospital,” Liv said. “Enough talk.”

Gunther said, “I’ll drive you, buddy.”

“Actually,” Mike said, “I’ll take him. My car’s right here.”

“I was here first,” Gunther said.

“You forget I work out with weights,” Mike said.

“But I work with my hands, steroid breath.”

Another voice. “But it’s my job,” Harmon Payne said, pushing through the crowd. “And I’ve got the uniform to prove it. Now step back. Come on, Thomas,” the Sheriff said, offering a hand. I took it and came quickly to my feet and felt woozy again, tried to mask it, succeeded. To buy time, I said, “Come on, Liv.”

But Liv didn’t say anything. I turned around and looked for her, then saw her propped up there on that bench, slumped as if she didn’t have any strength, and I noticed blood on her pink blouse, and the perfect bullet hole between her right shoulder and her throat. Still bleeding.