Tamar Myers - Batter off Dead

“Easy there, Miss Yoder. Take a deep breath. Remember, I’ve got you. You’re not going to fall.”

“But I am going to hurl!”

“I thought as much.”

And retch I did. However, young Chris Ackerman is a gentleman and even offered me his shirt upon which to wipe my face when I was quite through. His mother should be very proud of him, even though he has stolen from her the “right to be a grandmother,” and she has had to change churches twice in order not to hear sermons preached against her son.

“That-that was Elias?” I finally was able to gasp.

“Yes. As you saw, he’s been squished flatter than a pancake. What’s left of him could fit in a pizza box-if you folded him several times.”

“So the steamroller responsible for this continued on over the side of the mountain?”

“Actually, no. Whoever lugged it up the mountain hauled it back down again.”

“Chief, how’d you find out about this?”

“Mitzi Kramer’s beagle wouldn’t shut up until she took him inside.”

Mitzi is even older than Doc Shafor and has kept a succession of outdoor dogs ever since 1963, when, she claims, she caught Sasquatch-or his Pennsylvania equivalent-peeping in her bedroom window. Unfortunately for Mitzi’s neighbors Hernia’s sound ordinances don’t apply to Buffalo Mountain. The old woman doesn’t know how lucky she is that we are basically good folk and would rather simmer with resentment than harm an animal just because it has an inconsiderate owner.

I stared openmouthed at Elias’s flattened remains long enough to catch a nightjar. “Good golly, Miss Molly,” I said.

“Forgive me, Miss Yoder, but you’re turning into a real potty mouth. You weren’t that way when I first moved here, and I kind of liked that better.”

“Maybe it’s been all of your negative California jives.”

“I think you mean vibes-then again, with you I’m never sure. Anyway, the sheriff’s bringing his own dogs. But unless whoever did this to poor Elias drove the steamroller back down the mountain, I don’t expect the dogs to contribute much except for more noise. Shoot, I can hear the sheriff’s siren now.”

“Talk about being a potty mouth; that’s merely vowel substitution.”

“Pardon me?”

“Never mind. Hand me your flashlight, please.”

The chief was loath to do so, but since loath is such an underused word these days, one couldn’t begrudge that emotion. At any rate, I took the torch-as they say across the pond-and quickly swept the edge of the clearing for clues. Forsooth, I stayed as far away as I could from the flattened remains of the young but no longer quite so handsome Elias Whitmore. In fact, I wasn’t even tempted to glance his way.

Okay, so maybe I was tempted a wee bit, but as we all know, it’s not the act of temptation that counts, but whether or not we succumb to it. The fallen angel on my left shoulder was making a good case for taking a quick second look. After all, she said, I was unlikely to get another opportunity such as this. How many people had ever seen a human pancake? she asked. And didn’t I realize that my observations might be of scientific interest?

Meanwhile, the good angel on my right shoulder was practically shouting in my ear words to the opposite effect. Elias deserved respect, whereas my desire to take a second gander was merely morbid curiosity. I am happy to say that in the end my good angel and my gag reflex won out, and I truthfully averted my eyes as much as possible.

Of course, the aforementioned is all metaphorical, except for the flatness of poor Elias, which cannot be exaggerated. Neither can my sense of vertigo when I looked down at the unbroken tree canopy far below. I staggered backward, nearly stepped on Elias, and then fled screaming to the far side of the turnaround where it abuts the road. In seconds Chris was at my side.

“You all right?”

“Of course not! I almost stepped-thank the Good Lord I didn’t. But it’s so awful.”

“Miss Yoder, I’ve never seen you like this. You’re known for your sharp wit. To be honest, this new side of you really freaks me out.”

“But I am freaked-out!”

“So am I. But don’t you think a little of your macabre humor might make this a bit more bearable for both of us? At the very least, give me a good dose of your famous sarcasm. And, if you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel, I’ll take just plain old-fashioned criticism.”

“Hmm. Was all right one word or two?”

“Beats me.”

“Purists and older grammarians would have your head on a paper platter if you made it one word, but common usage will eventually change that. I read recently that even some copy editors permit the use of alright these days. I made it two words in the first instance for old time’s sake, but one word just now.”

“You’re really weird, Miss Yoder. Are you sure you’re not a closet Californian?”

“Like I said before, anything’s possible. Besides, it worked. I’m feeling much calmer, and here’s the sheriff now.”

As much as I’d wanted to stay until someone from the sheriff’s team had rappelled down the slope and tramped around a bit, I had to get back to the children. Before leaving, I’d wheeled Little Jacob’s crib into Alison’s room and positioned it next to the head of her bed. Upon returning I found Alison sprawled out under the crib on the floor, with the baby asleep on her stomach. A sheet had been draped over the crib to form a tent.

I lifted my son back into his crib, and then shook my daughter gently. “Alison, I’m back.”

She opened one eye. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“Don’t you want to get back into bed, dear?”

“Nah, maybe later. I’m kinda comfortable right now. What gives, Mom? Where’d you go?”

Her eye closed, and, thinking she was asleep again, I started backing from the room. “Sweet dreams,” I mouthed, and blew them both air kisses.

“Ain’t’cha gonna answer?”

I sat on the bed and rested my chin in my cupped hands. “There was sort of an accident up on Buffalo Mountain; Elias Whitmore is dead.”

“Ya mean that really cute guy from your church?”

“Yes.”

“Who killed him, Mom? How?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ya said ‘sort of an accident.’ That’s Mom talk for it weren’t no accident, so I want the details.”

I swallowed hard. “I’m afraid that it’s privileged information, dear.”

“And that’s Mom talk for ‘you’re too young to hear all them gross details, yet you’re old enough to take care of your little brother while I traipse off and investigate me a murder.’ ”

“Traipse? Since when do fourteen-year-olds use that word? And if you don’t mind me saying so, Alison, your grammar is terrible.”

“When they have ya for a mom, and yes, I do mind; you’re trying to change the subject, and ya know it.”

My sigh of resignation blew candles out as far away as Susannah’s apathy vigil in Cleveland (I was informed later that the rally had been canceled for lack of interest). “Elias was flattened by a steamroller up on the second turnaround on Buffalo Mountain. It was not a pretty sight.”

“Cool.

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way, Mom. It’s just that if you’re gonna be dead-uh, I don’t know how I meant it, ’cause it ain’t gonna sound right, no matter what I say. But remember that I’m just a kid, and I seen a lot of them horror movies before I came here.”

“Saw.”

“I seen those too. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre-”

“Not that. You saw the movies. You didn’t seen them.”

“Of course I didn’t seen them. Who the heck talks like that?”

“Oy vey!”

“I was just trying to say that to a kid, being squished is way more cool than just dying of old age, or something boring like that.”