Big Wheat (11 page)

Chapter 17

Providence

If Sheriff Hollander found the Unitarian church by providence, he was not aware of it. But then, he didn’t usually think in those terms. He pulled into the graveled front drive and filled his canteen and the radiator of his official Model T pickup from the church pump and then went up to the big front door. Inside, the man who greeted him had dark hair, wide eyes, and a nose that looked as if it had been broken. His black minister’s suit was nicely tailored, but it hung on him like a sack.

“I’m Pastor Ned,” he said, extending his hand. “Ned Thorn. How can I help you, sir?”

“Amos Hollander, Pastor.” He shifted his leather satchel to his left hand. The pastor’s handshake was firm but brief, and Hollander noted that his eyes wandered. “I’m the Mercer County Sheriff.”

“Mercer? I’m not even sure I know where that is. You must have come a long way. Come in, please. I have coffee in the kitchen in the basement. I can reheat it in no time.”

“I could do with a cup of coffee, all right. Are you sure it’s no trouble?”

“On weekdays, I’m glad for the company.” He led the sheriff through a door in the side of the nave and down a narrow set of stairs that smelled of floor wax, snuffed candles, and the kind of rat poison that people with no pets or small children put in their pantries. “I live alone these days, you see. What about you? Are you traveling all by yourself?”

“Afraid so. I had a deputy with me, but I had to send him home.”

“Oh?”

“Couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”

“Ah. I’m sure that could be a problem in your line of work.”

The kitchen turned out to be small, but it had a full-sized wood stove with an enameled coffee pot on top of it. The pastor put four or five corncobs and some wood shavings into the firebox, added a splash of kerosene from a tin squirt can, and lit it with a Diamond safety match. Then he rummaged in a cupboard until he found a ceramic jar full of sugar cookies. He placed it on a small table, produced plates and cups, and gestured to the lawman to sit.

“So, Sheriff, if you are free to say it, what brings you half way across the state, to my humble church?”

“Half way? I thought you said you didn’t know where Mercer County was.”

“Um, I don’t. Well, not exactly. I was just using a figure of speech.”

“Hmm. I’m looking for a traveling machine shop that’s supposed to be about thirty miles east of here. But I stopped here because I was told you have a sort of public library.”

“More like a reading room, actually, but yes.”

“I was hoping I could leave some of these fliers in it. I realize it’s not what you would usually find in a church, but it’s important that as many people as possible see them.” He opened his bag and pulled out a stack of papers.

“May I see?” The pastor took one of the fliers, and his face momentarily froze. “And, ah, what is it you want with this person, exactly, this—let me see—Krueger?”

“He’s wanted for questioning in connection with the brutal murder of a young woman. I’d prefer it if you didn’t say that to your parishioners, though. I only told it to you because it’s important that you don’t get any misguided notions about sheltering this man.”

“No, no, of course not. Terrible things you deal with, Sheriff.”

“Sometimes, yes. You look a little pale, Pastor.”

“It will pass, it will pass. I don’t often think about murder, you know. Why did you say you’re looking for this machine shop, exactly? Does that have something to do with the murder?”

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you, as long as you understand it’s in strict confidence.”

“Yes. Surely.”

“The guy who runs it is named Avery. He sees a lot of vagrant harvest people, so I’m hoping he might have seen my man Krueger. It’s also possible that Krueger is traveling with him. I narrowly missed him in Minot yesterday. He had a motorcycle that had some kind of advertising painted on the gas tank.”

“Advertising for this machine shop?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t close enough to tell. But stranger coincidences have happened. Anyway, it’s the only lead I have right now.”

“The coffee should be hot by now, sheriff. Will you take a little something in it?” He moved the two cups to a sideboard, grabbed the pot handle with a heavy towel for protection, and poured. His back was to Hollander.

“I drink it black, thank you.”

“I meant a shot of brandy and a bit of sugar. You look like you could use a little bracer.”

“Technically, I’m on duty. But then, I’ve been on duty nonstop now for more days than I care to remember.”

“Do I take that as a yes?”

“All right. But just one.”

More cupboard doors opened and closed and finally the steaming cups were carried to the table. Hollander took a small sip to test the temperature, and then drained his cup in three long gulps, relishing the sudden jolt from the alcohol, even though he thought it tasted like a pretty poor brand of booze. The sugar helped a bit.

“Providence.”

“I beg your pardon, Pastor?”

“Absolutely, unmistakably, the hand of Providence, sheriff. The beauty of it is unbelievable.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You won’t need to find this machine shop, after all. The young man you want is in my reading room, upstairs.”

“You mean now?”

“Even as we speak.”

“Judas Priest, man, why didn’t you say so?” He stood up so fast that his chair went skidding across the stone floor behind him. “Show me the way,” he said, drawing his revolver. “But once we get there, you stay clear, understand? This is a very dangerous man.”

“Just as you say. It’s this way.”

He led Hollander up the stairs and across the nave to a side door, which was closed. Hollander stumbled on the top step, and when he came to the reading room door and made a shushing gesture with his finger, his movements seemed slow and exaggerated. It occurred to him that he shouldn’t have had the alcohol on an empty stomach.

As smoothly as he could, he motioned the pastor out of the way, threw open the door, and rushed inside. There he saw a table and two chairs and shelves with books and newspapers but no Charlie Krueger. Sunlight streamed in through a lace-curtained window and illuminated lazily floating dust motes. The air in the room smelled musty.

“Empty. How long ago did you say he was here?” He holstered his pistol, fumbling with it a little. Then he felt something smooth and cold at his throat. Had the Krueger kid somehow managed to sneak up behind him? He looked down and saw that his shirt was bathed in blood.

“Wha…?” When he tried to talk, he choked.

“Actually, I lied.”

Not Krueger, after all. The pastor. But why? Hollander clasped both hands to his neck, but he couldn’t stop the blood.

“I was telling the truth, though, when I said that you wouldn’t have to bother going to find the machine shop. I’ll take care of young Mister Krueger far better than you would have. And you’re right; he does have information about the murder of that young woman.”

“Y—?” He choked again.

“Me, yes. And he knows, I’m afraid.”

Hollander managed to turn around and gape at him.

“But what a wonderful fool you turned out to be. I put rat poison in your coffee, by the way.”

Hollander’s vision narrowed and everything turned gray. He began to feel very cold.

“It’s a little slower than I would have liked, though. I decided not to wait for it. I have a pressing appointment thirty miles east of here, you see. Be sure to say hello to Pastor Ned for me. You’ll be meeting him shortly.”

Hollander just had time to think
oh, shit
. Then his world went black.

Chapter 18

Pulling Up Stakes

“You’re pretty good at bashing people when they’re not looking,” Charlie said to Emily. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a professional killer.”

“If you didn’t know better? You don’t. For all you know, I have a bloodier past than Lizzie Borden.”

He shook his head. “I’ll never believe it. Even if it was true once, it’s not when you’re here.”

“What, do we have our own private Jesus on the crew, to wash away all my sins?”

“Maybe. Sometimes the only thing we can be is what the people around us are willing to believe in.”

“That’s a twist, coming from you. Where did you get that notion?”

“From Jim, maybe. Or maybe I just invented it; I don’t know.”

“Well you don’t know what other people believe about me, either,” she said.

“I know what I believe. That’s enough.”

“And what is that?”

“I believe you’re some kind of fine woman.”

For the first time since he met her, he saw her really smile. It was a smile that took up her whole face. He had never thought of that face as plain, exactly, but at that moment, it was positively radiant.

She sidled up to his shoulder, holding the skillet behind her back, as if to put all weaponry away. She was about to say something into his ear when they were interrupted by Avery.

“You two don’t have anything to do besides pat each other on the back? Pretty soon it won’t just be the back, either, by the look of it. We’ve got a caravan to get rolling here, and that’s not going to happen by itself.”

“Sorry, Boss.”

“Don’t be sorry, be busy. Emily, I need you in the cook shack, helping get it secured for travel. Charlie, you get the Peerless backed up to take the trailer tongue on the shop, and get the power-takeoff belt stowed. Move like you’ve got a purpose, people.”

Charlie couldn’t believe what he had just heard.
Get the Peerless backed up.
He would definitely do that as if he had a purpose, all right. It was the opportunity he’d been dreaming of.

If life around the camp sometimes seemed random and lackadaisical, now the entire group moved like a well-oiled machine, perhaps even thinking of that dreadful pun. Tent poles were pulled out and canvas dropped, hardly hitting the ground before well-practiced hands folded or rolled it up. One man went around pulling tent stakes with a long-handled shovel, a job he had obviously practiced many times. Charlie noted it approvingly as he made his way over to the Peerless engine. He was always interested in seeing new ways to use old tools. His own broken shovel wouldn’t have worked for the job, though.

He smiled, thinking of that. How long ago had he left his home of twenty-three years, carrying a broken shovel and an inadequate backpack? Not that long, by the calendar. A lifetime, in other ways. And for somebody who was homeless and orphaned by his own hand, he could be feeling pretty good about it, if it weren’t for a few nagging little questions like being wanted for murder.

The wagons and trailers were still in the line they had come to that place in. They had arrived from the west and would therefore leave going east. The caravan could be turned, of course, but it was not a trivial maneuver, and they would get the train cruising smooth and straight before they tried it. They would also cross the nearby county line before they changed direction.

Though the wagons and trailers were already in the proper line, they were not hooked up anymore. The wagon tongues had been disconnected and dropped, so nobody would trip over them, and now they had to be reconnected with great attention and care. Each one carried the load of the entire train behind it, and as they got closer to the traction engine, the strain on the connections was monumental.

Charlie climbed up on the operator’s platform on the Peerless and took a quick inventory. He blew the sight glass to be sure of its reading, noting that there was plenty of water over the boiler breaching. The reserve tank behind him could stand topping off, though, and he buttonholed a passing roustabout and asked him to see to it.

“You got it, Boss.”

Boss? Wow. What a day this was turning into. He shoveled a little more coal into the firebox, being careful not to add enough to bank the main fire, then cranked the big worm gear that moved the timing assembly from forward to reverse. Then he threw a big lever to disengage the main clutch. It had been driving the power takeoff pulleys on either side of him, mounted up at his shoulder height because the main propulsion gears were using up the space below the boiler, the mark of an “undermounted” machine. One pulley had been running the power shaft in the shop trailer, and when it coasted to a stop, he leaned over and dropped the heavy belt off the pulley, making sure it fell where it would clear the main wheels. Running over your own belt was a famous rookie mistake among engineers. That done, he took a very, very deep breath, engaged the main drive gear, engaged the clutch, and eased open the throttle valve. If the big engine failed to recognize the master’s hand, it gave no sign of it. It moved in reverse slowly and smoothly, with a grace that belied its huge size and mass.

The brakes on the Peerless were almost a joke, really only usable for parking, rather than maneuvering. Stopping was done by simply cutting off the power to the wheels. And since all the speeds involved were slow, it worked well enough. It took Charlie three tries to get the engine in just the right spot for hooking up the main hitch, which had a short-coupled chain winch for making the final adjustment. He did it without help or supervision. And just like that, he became a steam engineer.
Easier to learn than sex.
Well, easy anyway.

In an hour and a half, the whole complicated string of people and trailers was ready to roll. Jude the Mystic, the almost vet, usually plied his trade on the Indian bike, but he had it lashed to the side of the cook shack now, and he rode inside with all his medical implements and bottles of potions, making sure they didn’t get tossed around. Avery and Maggie Mae climbed up onto the engine platform, and she made a playful tough guy face as he put a striped railroad engineer’s cap on her head.

“You did all right, your first time as an engineer, Charlie.”

“Thanks. It was—”

“Even if it did take you three tries.”

“Um…”

“But now you’re demoted to fireman.”

“Sure.” He grabbed a shovel. “Seems to me everybody is going to an awful lot of trouble on my account.”

“Trust me, they like it. It reminds them of when we did it for them. My people are my people, and the Ark is the Ark, and nobody, lawman or anybody else, comes and snatches them. Lest you get to feeling too important, though, it was about time to move anyway.”

“Do we know where we’re going?”

“I go wherever Maggie Mae tells me.”

“And how does she know?”

“I have no idea.”

He eased the Peerless ahead slowly, taking up all the slack in the complicated tow. Behind him, wheels groaned, hitches clunked into new positions, and a few items that hadn’t been properly secured came crashing down inside trailers. Finally everything was moving at the same speed and in the same direction, and Avery eased open the main throttle.

“Tell me something about this woman who was murdered. Was she your girl?”

“I thought so for a while. Turns out somebody else thought so too, and I’m starting to see that it was maybe a good thing she dropped me when she did. But she’s a real charmer, let me tell you. Or was, I guess. She was a woman who was so special that I think even if you had cause to hate her, you’d still love her a little. I think she must have been killed by a total stranger. Nobody who knew her could do it.”

“A bindle, you think? A drifter?”

“Who knows?”

“Well, at least one person does. And if it wasn’t somebody who knew her, then it’s somebody who’s still out here, floating around just like we are. I’m thinking we ought to try to find him. Too bad we don’t know who to watch for.”

“I’d tell you if I knew.”

“Maybe you’ll think of something. For now, let’s settle for making some tracks.”

“Well put.”

“Shovel some coal, Longfellow.”

Avery leaned over the right-hand cleated wheel and looked back along the string of odd shapes lined up behind the engine. At the far end of the string, the woman named Nadine swung a lantern, exactly like the conductor on a train. Avery waved a kerchief in response, and as the Ark picked up speed, she climbed into one of the trailers. Charlie noticed that even though it was still broad daylight, lanterns had been attached to the roofs of all the trailers, as well. Not yet lit, but ready.

Avery checked the same gauges and valves that Charlie had, then opened the throttle still farther and took the train across the land, ignoring all roads. A mile later, he made a sweeping left turn and headed north.

“I notice Stump didn’t make it back from his errand with Stringbean yet. How will he know where to find us?”

“He’ll know. He always does.”

The Peerless could make as much as nine miles an hour, but with such a long string of unsprung carriages behind it, that wasn’t a very good idea. They dropped into a steady pace of just over four miles an hour, and they ran for over six hours at that rate. Then they stopped for a meal and a rest break, lit the lanterns, and set out again. This time, they only ran at about three miles an hour. Or so they thought. The Peerless was not designed for road travel and therefore had no speedometer.

Charlie and Maggie Mae led the way, walking out in front with lanterns, thirty yards ahead and on either side of the engine. They picked a route with subtle but important maneuvers around the few rare trees and the somewhat more common ravines, through the endless landscape of wheat stubble and shocked crop.

They had started out on government land, a place where the soil was so poor, nobody had ever applied to own it, even as free homestead property. But soon they were back in working farmland, and they were careful to respect the crops that were mowed and headered or shocked, waiting for the threshers. When they came to a barbed wire fence, they pulled the staples and laid the wire down, then put it back behind themselves. Their trail would still be easy enough to spot, but at least they weren’t leaving behind a string of angry farmers.

Sometime after midnight they intersected an east-west gravel road, and Maggie Mae signaled Avery to stop.

“What’s she telling you?” said Charlie, back at the engine.

“She’s thinking we should turn here, and so am I. The road already has plenty of tracks on it, so ours wouldn’t stand out. And the fields are hard packed here, too. If we make a really wide turn, we should be able to get up on the road without leaving much of a trace. As far as anybody can tell, we went north from our last camp and then we vanished. I like it.”

“So now we go east or west?”

“West. Toward the Indian nations.”

“And into them?”

“Maybe.”

“Is that legal?”

“Maybe.”

They took half a mile to make the turn onto the road, overshooting first, and then doubling back. On the high, hard surface, they expected few or no obstacles. Jude the Mystic untied the motorcycle and replaced Charlie and Maggie Mae as pathfinder, with an extra lantern strapped to his rear fender. Avery looked back at the trailers from time to time, and once they were tracking smoothly, he took the Peerless up to seven miles an hour. All through the night, the bizarre, oddly lit string of shapes rolled steadily across the black prairie. Charlie shoveled coal into the firebox and wondered if somewhere behind their own swaying lanterns was a pair of dim headlights attached to a brown Model T pickup.