Edward Lee - The Minotauress

Lass dangled limp. A moment before he died, he looked down and saw that the bull stood on two legs.

CHAPTER NINE

Harney Peak, the state's highest mountainous peak, drifted below the 737's oval window. Dean peered out in something like awe. Of course, he'd seen it before many times but somehow it felt different now. As he continued to gaze out the minuscule window, Dean felt home whispering to him, an eerie notion since home was the place he'd fled with the utmost determination not so many years ago.

Beside him sat Ajax, complaining about not being able to smoke. Given all that Dean had psychologically experienced over the last week, he needed Ajax' counsel for the trip; that's why Dean had sprung for the extra round-trip fare for his sullied friend.

"Don't you own any decent clothes?" Dean asked, smirking at Ajax' holey jeans, beat loafers, and the stained, Wermacht-gray jacket with rips down the inner sleeves,

"What's wrong with my clothes?" Ajax asked, truly dismayed.

"Never mind."

"But thanks for bringing me along. I need a vacation."

"This isn't a vacation, Ajax. My father might be dying. Something really strange is happening in town, and considering the really strange things that have been happening to me, lately, I need you."

"Consider me your personal psycho-therapist," Ajax assured. Then he rubbed his face in aggravation. "Since when can't you smoke on planes?"

"Since about fifteen years ago."

"Fascists. Some free country. I'll bet Bill Clinton smokes on Air Force One while some subjugated and thoroughly exploited female White House aide smokes his—"

"That's enough, Ajax."

The three-hour flight passed in what seemed minutes, along with the beautiful landscapes below. Dean's eyes kept dragging back to the window. It wasn't so much the landscapes he was seeing as much as it was his past. He wondered what else he'd be seeing once he got—

Home, he thought.

They landed in Sioux Falls, rented a 4x4, and several hours later were pulling into the visitor's lot at DeSmet General Hospital.

««—»»

The heart-monitor beeped all too slowly. When he stepped into the wanly lit room and parted the privacy curtain, Dean's heart slowed to a rate less than the monitor's when he looked down. The figure on the bed looked dead already.

"Dad?" he choked out the single, simple word. Indeed, Dean thought that his father must be dead, until he remembered the heart monitor. Gray whiskers speckled his father's chin; long grayer hair sprawled over the pillow. Long lines from dangling IV bags drooped to a variety of needles sunk into his bone-thin arm. The worst sight, though, were the great swathes of bandages plastered across the entirety of Jake Lohan's chest.

Dean stared for a long time.

Gored, he thought. That's what the ward nurse had told him. "They're saying it was a mad bull out in the woods," she'd clarified. "Your daddy was the only survivor of the entire shooting party. Combination of initial blood-loss and shock's what put him in the coma. God forbid, if your daddy dies... no one'll ever know what really happened out there."

The rest of the information was just as sketchy. His father and several other local men had gone out to the vicinity where over a dozen children's bodies had been found, around Stoddard's Mill. They'd gone out there with guns and were all crack shots. All their ammunition had been expended yet no "wild bull" had been recovered. Just a bunch of dead men and one man—Dean's father—clinging to life.

The whole thing was crazy. Dean couldn't imagine it. The nurse had also told him that his father had not yet surfaced from the coma, and that there was a fair chance he never would.

He's dying, Dean reasoned, a tear in his eye. He's as good as dead now.

Dean didn't know how long he stood there looking. "Dad? Dad?" he kept saying over and over again. "It's me, it's Dean. I'm home," but the only reply was the faltering beep of the monitor.

"I'm sorry but visiting hours are over," the nurse came in and said. "Try to wrap it up in a few minutes, okay, hon? You can come back tomorrow at eleven." Then she'd left as quickly as she'd arrived, kind enough to give him a few more minutes.

"It's me, Dad," he repeated to the still, sheeted figure. "I'm home."

Nothing. His last minutes ticked by, then Dean turned to leave.

"You're home," a voice rattled behind him.

"Dad!" Dean rushed to the bed, hovering, gripping his father's hand. "I'm here! Let me get the nurse! You're going to be all right!"

"No time." Jake Lohan's mouth barely moved as the words leaked out. "Something's here—"

"I know, they told me. Stoddard's Mill—"

"No!" the old man cracked in a gust. He winced in pain. " Behind Stoddard's Mill... "

Behind? Dean thought. "But, Dad, there's nothing behind the mill except—" Then he caught himself, remembering his childhood. Dean and his friends, as kids, had regularly escaped behind Stoddard's Mill to flip through their stash of Playboy's and chew tobacco and talk about girls. Yes, Dean and Kit and Darrell and Boner. And come to think of it—

The old gypsum mine, he remembered now. More memories flashed back. The old mine had been closed for longer than he could remember, but no one had ever boarded up the gaping entry to the main shaft.

The mouth of the old gypsum mine had been the secret place where they'd illegally dumped all of the ranch's rendering bilge. They'd even dumped whole dead cattle down there when they could get away with it.

"The mine," Dean said to his father.

Jake Lohan squeezed his son's hand in acknowledgment, nodding feebly. Then the parchment-dry voice creaked on: "My boy. My fine strong son finally come back to the roots of his blood."

"Never mind that, Dad," Dean whispered fiercely. "What happened? You've got to tell me what happened out there!"

"Evil," his father croaked like a frog. "That's what's happenin' out there, son. I've a mind to tell ya to catch the next plane and git your ass out'a here."

"I can't do that, Dad. Not while you're like this. And what did you say about—"

A pained cough ripped from Jake Lohan's bandaged chest. "It's blammed fuckin' evil is what' I'm sayin', son. I know it is... 'cos I saw it."

Dean leaned closer. " What , Dad? What did you see?"

But his father was already fading back out, his grip loosening. Then, in a course exhalation that was nearly inaudible, he said, "Only you can save us, son... "

Jake Lohan fell back into the smothering embrace of his coma, perhaps forever.

««—»»

"Sorry about your dad, man," Ajax said on the ride back.

Dean didn't reply, keeping his eye on the darkening road. He didn't want to talk, not now. He was too confused, and Ajax seemed to understand this. What Dean needed was distraction, not focus, and—like magic—Ajax provided it, when a souped ‘72 Chevelle soared by in the oncoming lane.

"Oh, man!" Ajax railed. "Did you see the blond hunk'a box in that Chevelle?"

"That was Judy Nesher," Dean remarked aside.

Ajax shot a funky glance. "You know her?"

"Know her? I fucked her in high school. Does the term ‘screamer' mean anything to you?"

"Shit, man! You fucked that piece of work? And you left this town?"

Dean shrugged. "She's a pig. I'd only fuck her when I didn't feel like jerking off."

"What a fuckin' stud!"

"Actually, her mother's a lot hotter."

"You fucked her mother? "

"Yeah," Dean admitted as though it were an inconsequential matter. "A threesome—fucked both their brains out on the kitchen table where Mrs. Nesher was making deviled eggs for the homecoming party. Shit, between the two of 'em, I don't know which was louder: Judy, her mom, or a rock in a gearbox."