David Ohle - The Devil in Kansas

“What’s the matter, the wind blowed out yer flame?”

“See that little house way over there? That’s where that dead man lives, I wager. We oughta go tell his family.”

Peppard squints to see the house. “Reckon it’d be the neighborly thing to do, let ‘em know where the body’s at ‘case they want to come on out ‘n git it. And if they’re sick, why we can just make ‘em a note, tie it on a rock, and throw it to ‘em. Draw a little map, showin’ where the body is.”

“No, Luther, there’s nothing neighborly about that.”

“Well, my love, tell me, what would be the most neighborly thing to do?”

“We can’t leave human remains out in the middle of a wallow to get eaten up and dragged all over creation.”

“Yes, my love. You know, it gives me a very special pleasure when you talk to me hard like that and stern, like my mother used to.”

“Let’s go, now.”

“Pinch me.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere where it hurts.”

Katie stands on tiptoe, kisses him, then grabs him by the ear and leads him down the hill. He squeals with pleasure all the way. At the bottom they watch Ratoncito, on Jonah’s horse, tow the body out of the muck at the end of a long rope.

Later that day, yet another summer storm thunders in from the west. Near the house, Dewey finishes digging a shallow grave. James lies in a crudely-made coffin on the ground beside him. Nelly looks on, thin and pale. “Want me to say some words, ma’am? I know the Bible.”

“I guess so. Nothin’ was his fault.”

“Jesus loves little children. This here innocent boy, he will rise again. Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Them who believe in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.’ John Eleven.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dewey.” She helps Dewey pick up the ropes that will lower the coffin.

Sails in the far distance catch their attention. The wagon is out of control in a fierce wind. Ratoncito struggles with the sails and leans on the brake, while Peppard, at the helm, tries to steer. Katie cowers in the bed, screaming. Jonah’s horse, tied to the wagon’s stern, drags the body on the travois.

“Drop anchor, Ratoncito! Drop anchor!”

Ratoncito lifts the heavy anchor and throws it over the stern, where it plows into the earth and cuts a swath through the sod. Dewey and Nelly drop the rope and the coffin falls into the hole. They run for the house, but the wagon overtakes them. Their bodies, caught up in and tumbling with the wheel spokes, cause the wagon to tip over and roll, crushing Peppard, Katie and Ratoncito in the process. Jonah’s body is thrown from the travois. His horse is the only survivor.

A few days later, Six Toes and Bow String walk their horses past the wreck as vultures and the little dog feed on the corpses. They observe the scene without expression. Bow String says, “When the white man is gone, the Great Spirit will be satisfied.” He strips off the buffalo hide jacket from Dewey’s corpse and tries it on. It fits him well. He and Six Toes ride off, passing through a prairie dog town near the collapsed barn. They fail to notice that one of the prairie dog mounds is studded with gold nuggets, and that other nuggets lie strewn among other mounds.

Shrublands near Trinidad, Colorado, late afternoon.

A U.S. Post Office step-van is parked in the dirt driveway of a shabby adobe bungalow. In the front yard, smoke rises from a trash fire in a rusty metal drum. Dry weeds roll past a satellite dish. Two buzzards feed on a dead rattlesnake. Grasshoppers mate on the door of a small metal garage.

In a bedroom of the bungalow, Sherry lies in a queen-size waterbed, sheet pulled to her shoulders. After fiddling with her silver eyebrow ring, she fires up a joint and has a pull of schnapps from the bottle. A bruise on her cheek and a healing shiner suggest a recent beating.

As she steps into tight jeans and puts on her bra, she looks toward a fastidious mail carrier, who stands before a dresser mirror combing his hair and working wax from his ear with a Q-tip. She says, “You better get down the road. Happy Hour’s over. The old man’ll be here pretty soon.”

When the mail carrier’s obsessive primping is finished, he slips into his comfortable orthopedic shoes, drops Sherry’s mail on her dresser, along with a hundred dollar bill, and leaves without a word.

Sherry pockets the hundred, tosses on a T-shirt and checks her mail. “Junk. Junk. Junk.” She drops the envelopes unopened into a trash can. “And more junk.” She fans through an issue of Dirt Rider Magazine , stops at a photo of a flame-red-clad dirt bike competitor flying through the air upside-down. The caption reads: Colorado Record Holder Moe Cross — To his fans, he’s ‘The Devil from Kansas.’

Sherry stares hard at the photo and then flings the magazine across the room.

Someone is playing a saw.

In another bedroom, a bamboo-framed print of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane hangs above a thirty-six inch TV. Books and magazines are scattered here and there, mostly about the occult, alien invasions, science fiction and space exploration.

The Sci-Fi Channel airs the ‘Nick of Time’ episode of The Twilight Zone . In it, William Shatner slides coin after coin into a Devil-headed future-forecasting machine in a small town café. He and his wife become increasingly anxious as the machine forecasts ominous future events.

Sherry’s seventeen-year-old son, Joe, sits on the edge of the bed playing a saw and watching the show. There’s something odd about his expression and demeanor. He’s distant, in his own world. Perhaps he’s autistic, perhaps just weird.

He hears something and looks out the window. A black four-wheel drive pickup with two dirt bikes in its bed passes the postal van going in the opposite direction. Overcome with anxiety at the sight, Joe’s salivary glands cut loose and he drools. To soak it up, he sticks the knotted end of a handkerchief into his mouth and sits anxiously on the edge of the bed.

Sherry enters, smoking a joint and sipping from a bottle of peppermint schnapps. She reclines on an elbow beside Joe and looks out the window. “He’s heeeere.”

“He scares me, Mom.”

“Me, too, Joey. Me too…. Play something nice.”

Joe plays a mournful tune with mastery. He has a faraway, detached look as he becomes one with the saw. This is a prodigy at work.

A small tear leaks from one eye and rolls down Sherry’s cheek.

The black pickup slides into the driveway in a cloud of dust. When the engine is turned off, Procul Harum comes on the truck’s radio doing “The Devil Came from Kansas” at full volume.

Decked out in flaming red motocross regalia, complete with advertising logos, a drunk Moe Cross stumbles out of the pickup with a shotgun, his face unseen behind the tinted visor of his helmet. Short and wiry, he walks with a slight limp. When he spots the buzzards, he fires both barrels at them, missing. They fly off. He opens the garage door, backs his bikes down from the truck and rolls one in. To make room for the second bike, he kicks a few lawn chairs and a small Weber grill out of the way, then closes the door and sticks a wooden clothespin through the hasp to keep it closed. Before turning toward the house, he smashes the mating grasshoppers against the door with his hand.

Joe continues playing his saw, though his drooling is copious and the handkerchief is soaked. Sherry has a slug from a bottle of schnapps. “If he hurts either you or me, I’m gonna kill him. He’s evil.”