Velvet Rain - A Dark Thriller (7 page)

“Family?”

Kain recalled those college kids who had picked him up on their way to Des Moines. They’d been searching for jobs and adventure; for now, he’d had enough of the latter.

“Work, I hope.”

Al Hembruff gave him a look that wasn’t quite suspicious, wasn’t quite trusting.

“Drifter, eh?”

“Guilty as charged.”

All the man offered was
Huh.

They drove for the flattest two miles before the farmer stopped at a crossroad. Not wanting to linger, Kain thanked him with a handshake and a simple
So long.
The flatbed threw up a blanket of dust as it carried on heading west. He started to cross, but then the vehicle slowed. It stopped a moment, and then, to his surprise, began to back up.

“Hired my summer hands a while back,” the big man told him. He lifted the brim of his cap just a bit, his seasoned eyes losing themselves over promising fields that could have sprawled to the ocean. “What the hell. I could use another set a hands. Lord knows my Georgia wants me out of the fields … ol’ ticker’s runnin’ a lot jumpier these days. I can’t pay much, and I work you hard, but it’s good work. Honest work.”

~

Kain put in a solid day, enjoying the sweet air and relishing the farm work. His heart and lungs pumped and breathed as if they were new. He felt alive. It was as if he were free of the cold shackles that bound him, free to work and to laugh out here in the sun, out here in these fields of Heaven. Joining five strapping young men, he helped repair a fence that had been damaged by heavy winds over the winter. Four of them were born and bred in town, and the other, the tall Sioux from the ball team, called home just this side of Spirit Lake. They poked fun at him, asked if they were working him too hard, had he seen action in the Great War or the Civil War, and he took the jibes in good humor. The sweat and the toil—even the jokes, especially the jokes—rejuvenated him, and by sundown that itch to move on seemed to settle at the back of his mind somewhere, the way bad ideas sometimes do.

“And this is Jimmy,” Big Al had said in the brisk introductions. Al Hembruff, it turned out, was big on people calling him Big. “Don’t turn your back on him, not to scratch your nuts. You’ll likely end up with your undershorts yanked right up your ass.”

The other boys laughed as a team. If there was one constant in the universe, it was the indisputable fact that boys (and most men) found an act of wedgie the most sublime form of humor. Of course, wedgies were like Christmas gifts—it was always better to give than to receive.

“Trust me on that,” Big Al added, and the group chuckled knowingly.

The Sioux offered a nod to the stranger that seemed to say something to the big farmer.

“You two know each other?”

“You got one helluva fastball,” Kain said. “Smoke.”

“Me smokum peace pipe,” the Sioux said in B-movie Injun, and just when Kain was sure he wasn’t joking, the kid burst out laughing. Jimmy Long was half Lakota, his mother a German immigrant who had skipped out a week after he was born. He was muscular, with deep, dark eyes that at once seemed open-bookish yet mysterious, with perhaps a hint of sadness buried there. He was the kid on your street who always made your mom give him extra candy on Halloween, just by batting his peepers like a lost puppy, and he was also the kid who would boast the next day that mom’s always fall for that shit, they really do.

“A comedian,” Big Al said. “A real Jerry Lewis.”

“Jerry
Sioux-
is,” Jimmy Long said, slipping into Injun again. “Me makum White Man laugh.” He started hopping up and down and patting his mouth, dancing and hollering like an idiot. The other boys joined in, and then there was a whole tribe dancing and hollering like idiots.

“Cripes, Jimmy—all of you—stop that shit before Georgia sees you.”

The group stopped what they were doing, half of them laughing full out. A few of them were holding their guts, doing their best to contain themselves.

“Georgia’s got no patience for jokes,” he said to Kain. “Never had much of a sense of humor, that woman.”

Kain offered a hand. “You looked sharp yesterday.”

Jimmy Long was still grinning when he shook. “Thanks.”

Big Al exchanged glances between them.

“You must have had ten strikeouts,” Kain said.

“I think Coach said twelve or thirteen. I was just happy to be out there.”

“I’ve seen him pitch,” Kain explained, to the clearly confused farmer.

Jimmy Long regarded the drifter. Then: “
Wanagi cikala kin.
”

“
‘Wana’
what?” It was Big Al.

“The Little Ghost,” Jimmy Long repeated, this time in English. “He comes out of the sun like a spirit. Over the rise behind the diamond.” He chuckled. “Ben Caldwell says he crawls out of the river.”

“Not the river,” Kain said. And then, in Injun: “Me fallum from big sky.”

“Cripes.” Al Hembruff said
cripes
like it was a bodily function. “Do me a favor, will ya? Get to work. And Jimmy, no more of that
woo woo
crap, you hear?” He was about to head off to his truck when he patted Kain on the arm. “And show the Little Ghost here the ropes.”

As if snared by the beat of a drum only he could hear, Jimmy Long started to dance and holler and pat his mouth again—
WOO woo woo woo, WOO woo woo woo
—and led the motley crew, the young men all
woo-wooing
like idiots now, into the cornfields. Kain, trying desperately to hide a growing grin from his new boss, followed quickly, stifling an adolescent urge to join in on the nonsense. It was complete silliness, yes, but it was one of those stupid things that struck you as hilarious, and he almost laughed out loud. Big Al just shook his head at the lot of them and started for his flatbed. He held a look of
Why me?
pasted across his face, but all in all, the big farmer with the good laugh and the ol’ ticker that was runnin’ a lot jumpier these days, seemed quite content.

~

Just as she had for the last thirty-seven years, as her immigrant mother and grandmother had before her, Georgia Hembruff served up one of her delicious meals for the hired hands, the men clustered round a long oak table in the ample Hembruff kitchen, feasting on stew and cornbread, muffins, and apple pies. Big Al supplied cold beer, which meant two apiece for the hired help,
no
exceptions, for Georgia held no party to providing more than that to those she (not to mention the law) considered children (even at this she extended the house limit to her own husband). Laughter and chatter filled the warm home, the evening taken up with talk of the day’s work and of tomorrow’s, of women, the heat, the dearth of rain, and of course, the Little Ghost. At one point, Jimmy Long offered odds on how long it would be before
wanagi cikala kin
keeled over in the hot sun, trying to keep up.

“The fields are for young bucks,” Georgia said above the laughter. For such a diminutive woman, she commanded a strong voice, and she directed her comment not at the newest hire, but at her husband, who was in mid-belch as he finished—house drinking rules be damned—his third brew. This brought more laughter from the gallery, and a chuckle from Kain as well.

“I’m young at heart, darlin’.” Big Al patted his good woman gently on the bum.

“You’re a horny old coot, that’s what you are.” She snatched the empty from his hand. “And I think you’ve had enough of
this
for tonight.”

An even bigger laugh from the farmhands.

“You’ve
all
had enough, by half. Bar’s closed, boys.”

More laughter. The farmhands finished their drinks, thanked their hosts, and headed out for the drive home. Kain had already accepted an offer from Big Al to stay the night, and they sat out on the deck enjoying the mild evening under the darkest skies of the Midwest. Georgia joined them for a spell, but when her arthritic elbow, her right, started to act up, she decided to turn in.

“You gotta see old Doc, darlin’.”

“I’ve
been.
How many times? Lord knows he can’t do anything. Besides, it’s not as bad as it used to be.”

“It’s
worse.
Stubborn woman.”

“Not as stubborn as some, I’d say.” She looked like she was going to head inside, but instead she lingered.

“Birthmarks,” Kain said, and she looked more than a little tongue-tied. “You looked like you wanted to ask.”

“Nobody’s business,” Big Al said. “She’s too damn nosey for her own good, is all. Women.”

“Allan Jefferson Hembruff!”

“Cripes. You’ve been starin’ at him all night like … well, like he is a little ghost.”

Her face went limp, an
Oh my Lord
kind of limp. She stammered a bit, and just when you thought she might say something rabid to Big Al, said goodnight to her guest, and then simply excused herself and went inside. The screen door clattered behind her.

“Guess I’ll be joinin’ you on the sofa,” Big Al chuckled. “It’s pretty well molded to this old body anyhow.”

The big farmer got up and stretched his legs. He checked the door and cocked an ear.

“Sometimes she listens,” he whispered. “Damn near forty years with someone … you learn a few things.”

He waited for it, and there it was; the slam of their bedroom door. He nodded impishly, and in that moment seemed neither sixty-five nor even fifty-five, but five. “Good. Good.” He moved quietly to the end of the veranda, knelt down, and set a tanned, leathery hand behind the barrel there. There was a wee
clank-clunk
sound, and a satisfied chuckle only old men and devils shared. The farmer returned to his chair with a mischievous grin, handing a cool one to his guest.

“She thinks I hide ’em inside that old drum,” Big Al said. “I move my spots around.” He winked, then snapped the tab off the Schlitz, careful not to make much of a sound. He sipped. “Cripes, that tastes a whole lot better when the house cops aren’t watchin’.”

Kain drew his open, equally careful so as not to give them away. They were breaking the “law” as it were, and he didn’t feel right about doing it behind Georgia’s back, but he had to admit, it
was
kind of fun. Like a couple of kids getting away with something. It made him feel young, at least in the moment.

“I get asked all the time,” he said lightly. “I’m used to it. Jimmy asked earlier.”

“Don’t mind him,” Big Al said. “I guess you figured I was lookin’, too, though. Can’t say I wasn’t …”

“I know,” Kain said, raising a brow as he shrugged. “They’re like twins.”

“They just don’t look like birthmarks, you know? Awww, cripes. Will you listen to me? I’m no better than my Georgia. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. People are curious by nature.”

“You mean
nosey.
”

“You say potato—”

“—You say po
tot
o,” the farmer finished, and after a knowing pause they both chuckled like schoolboys who had just skipped out on the day’s history test, enjoying the air and the stars and their illicit Schlitz, neither of them knowing, neither of them dreaming, that in two short months, Big Al Hembruff would be dead.

~ 6

Kain woke at dawn to the delicious scent of scrambled eggs, baked bread, and freshly brewed coffee. Bacon sizzled, teasing with its salty aroma. The rising globe in the window bathed the room in a lovely orange glow, and the morning air was heavy and unmoving, very thick, with a hint of wildflower. The day was new, and he felt the same.

Or so he thought. Dressed only in his undershorts, he sat up on the sofa, stretched, and felt his muscles asking him why he had worked them so hard. He decided immediately he wouldn’t dare show the other hands he was aching; no way in hell he was going to give
those
pups the satisfaction. Still, the discomfort felt good, didn’t it? He’d found work. Good work. And now he’d found a grin.

He got up to slip on his Levi’s, and just as he had them round one ankle, Georgia Hembruff emerged from the kitchen with a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast in hand.

“Oh, jeeze—jeeze, I’m sorry—” He nearly fell over trying to pull his right leg through. It wouldn’t take, his foot catching in the narrow leg of his jeans, and he had to scramble to take it out. He was hopping on one foot now. He started in again, then decided it best he just fall back on the sofa and draw his blanket over himself like the fool that he was. He had it up well over his waist, then decided to bring it up even further to cover most of his chest.

The good woman smiled as she set the plate on the table. She waited a drawn-out moment, then put her arms akimbo. “It’s not getting any warmer.”

And Big Al said she didn’t have a sense of humor.

Speaking of which, the farmer (whom Kain had not realized had been there the whole time and was now embarrassingly aware) gave a small chuckle as he stirred cream into his coffee. Kain turned redder than he already was, growing into the proverbial beet. Somehow, some of the glory of the morn had tarnished.

“Well, come on now,” Georgia said. She was sitting now, spooning some sugar into her coffee.

“Yes, ma’am.” Kain struggled with his pants beneath the blanket, looking like a crippled Houdini trying to escape a straitjacket. He put on his shirt (considering, for a split second, leaving it draped over his humble expression), and then excused himself to wash up. He returned as quickly as he was able, still flushed, if only a little.

“Sleep well?” the big man asked with a grin.

“Like a baby,” Kain said as he took his seat. “That sofa’s like a cloud.”

“It should be,” Georgia said, offering a subtle glance to her better half. “It’s been slept on as much as sat on.” She buttered a slice of toast, added a dollop of raspberry jam, took a bite, chewed and swallowed, and then turned to Kain. “I’m sorry about last night … you know.”

“Nosey—I told you,” Big Al said, taking a good deal of bacon.
Nosey
had come out
nodey;
told,
toad.

“I’m apologizing! You’re such a nuisance sometimes.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Kain said. “Like I told Big Al … people are always curious.”