CONSIDER THE SUNFLOWERSby Elma Schemenauer

CONSIDER THE SUNFLOWERS

Copyright © by Elma Schemenauer

Chapter 1

Municipality of Coyote, Saskatchewan, March 1940

Tina felt like liverwurst in a sandwich, trapped in the stalled truck between her dad and the man he wanted her to marry. Rich, boring Roland Fast.

From the looks of things, she might not survive to marry anyone. Freezing to death seemed more likely. All she saw through the windshield was blowing snow. Occasionally she glimpsed the fence beside the ditch they were stuck in. Beyond the fence, only a wilderness of white glittering in the afternoon light: no Saskatchewan prairie, no horizon, not even a telephone pole.

She stamped her boots, trying to warm her icy feet. She should never have agreed to come along and sketch Roland's horses. She liked horses, but getting stranded in a blizzard wasn't supposed to be part of the deal.

To be fair, she couldn't blame Roland and her dad. They weren't expecting this storm. It had howled in from the northeast with hardly a whimper of warning.

Her nostrils tingled with cold and the green-banana stench of Roland's hair oil. She pulled the collar of her jacket higher, nudging him with her elbow. "How about trying the ignition again?" If they got the truck going, they'd at least have some heat.

Roland slumped over the steering wheel, his apple-cheeked profile making him look younger than his twenty-eight years. "It's no use. This stupid truck isn't going to start."

"Don't blame the truck, Roland," Tina's dad said. "There's probably snow in the engine."

Roland's sigh puffed out white in the frigid air.

Tina almost felt sorry for him. According to Roland, his 1940 Ford was the most modern half-ton on the road. No other new model had such a powerful engine. But all that horsepower under the hood was useless without a spark to get it going.

Something like her and Roland. There wasn't any spark between them.

Her dad shifted on the seat, jostling her onto Roland's wide shoulder.

She edged away. "Could we brush the snow out of the engine?" she asked, sounding more hopeful than she felt.

Roland gave her a bleak smile, his face too close to hers. "I doubt it in these conditions."

"Okay, I just thought I'd ask." She didn't know how Roland felt about her. Not knowing made her nervous. He was awkward with women, but she sometimes caught him watching her with a certain softness in his eyes.

Whether he was interested or not, she should quit letting her parents throw them together every time she came home from Vancouver. She should simply tell her folks, "Look, I don't want you interfering in my life. I'm a grown woman; I've got a job in the city. Anyway I'm in love with someone else."

She shuddered to think of the avalanche of questions her parents would ask. She wasn't ready to answer them, not yet.

The wind whooped around the truck, rattling the windows.

Roland reached behind the seat, grabbed his hat, and plunked it over his blond curls. "I think we should walk to Frank's house. It's the closest."

Tina's heart jumped at the mention of the man she loved, but she kept her expression blank. She didn't want her dad or Roland guessing how she felt about Frank. They'd be shocked. Her dad would scold and rage. He wanted her to marry a church-going Mennonite, preferably the owner of this impotent truck.

She jerked her chin toward the bottle of pills in Roland's pocket. "What about your mare? I thought she needed that medicine."

"We'll get it to her as soon as we can, but we'll want someplace to get warm along the way." His voice reminded her of a radio announcer booming out news of Hitler's war.

Her dad rummaged under the seat, crowding her against Roland.

She moved away.

Her dad sat up, his head bobbing. "Roland, do you have any blankets? I think we should stay here till the storm lets up. It's too dangerous to walk in weather like this."

Roland shot him a narrow-eyed look. "Obrom, we've got no heat in here. We could freeze to death, even with blankets. This storm could last for days."

"We could freeze outside, too." Tina's dad pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and gave his nose a honk. "The snow's blowing too thick. We might get lost and wander around like drunkards."

"Not if we follow the pasture fence," Roland said. "It'll lead us right to Frank's." He raised his eyebrows at Tina. "What do you think?"

She peered out into the arctic blankness. If they stayed here, they'd probably freeze unless someone came along and helped them—not likely. If they braved the blizzard, they'd either reach shelter or die trying. "We can't be far from Frank's," she said. She remembered passing his neighbour's granaries before the storm hit.

"It's about a quarter-mile," Roland said.

Tina sucked in a chilly breath. "We can make it." It was better to face danger head-on than wait around to see what would happen, wasn't it? She reached into her pocket for her fuzzy woollen cap and tugged it down over her ears.

Her dad's brow puckered like it did when he was deep in thought. With all her heart Tina hoped she and Roland were making the right decision.

Her father sighed, then glanced from her to Roland as if they were a couple. "I guess you young people are right." He put on his cap and lowered the earflaps. Tina helped him tie his scarf over his nose and mouth. Then he opened the passenger door and she plunged out after him.

The wind hit her hard, whistling through her cap and making her ears smart. She pulled her scarf from under her jacket. Fighting the wind, she tied it over her cap.

Her dad motioned for her to follow Roland, who was ploughing through the ditch toward the fence. She struggled along in his footsteps with her father close behind. Snow spilled into her boots, shocking her with coldness.

The drifts were shallower on the pasture side of the ditch. Strands of barbed wire appeared and disappeared between blasts of snow. God willing, that elusive fence would lead the three of them to her boyfriend's house. Tina dared to smile. The good Lord must have a sense of humour.

"We'll walk in the pasture, away from the ditch," Roland bellowed above the yowling wind. He set one boot on the lower wire of the fence, held it down, and lifted the upper one, creating a gap for Tina to climb through. She scrambled between the wires, careful not to catch her jacket on the barbs, then stepped aside as her dad and Roland ducked through.

"Come on," Roland called, heading along the fence. "Single file. Stay together."

Tina followed, admiring Roland's boldness in spite of herself. She knew why her parents wanted her to marry him. He was strong, worked hard, and came from a family who had owned an estate in the old country. Roland's ancestors had the same Dutch-German-Mennonite background as hers. According to her folks, that shared heritage would make a solid foundation for marriage and children.

But Roland was as boring as turnips compared with Frank. Her Frank was hot peppers, red cabbage, and wild mushrooms. He was adventure, music, and laughter. Some people said he didn't have the gumption to buckle down to farming, but they didn't know him like Tina did. He just needed a good woman to settle him down.

Her hands ached with cold, even in the coyote-skin mittens Frank had given her. She clenched and unclenched her fists, trying to get her circulation going, then peered over her shoulder to see how her dad was doing. His tall figure loomed through a whirling smoke of snow. The scarf over his nose and mouth was white with frost from his breath clouding into the air. She motioned for him to shift the icy patch away from his face and turned to follow Roland again.

She didn't see him. Where was Roland? She took a few steps forward, feeling like a ship without a rudder, and almost bumped into a lumpy snow-covered mound. It seemed big, wider than an outhouse though not as high.

"Tina!" Roland's shout came from ahead and to her right. "This way."

A bolt of relief shot through her as she spied Roland chugging along beyond the obstacle. She checked to make sure her father was still behind her, then followed Roland, grateful for the partial shelter offered by the mound of whatever it was.

A rock pile. Of course. Frank's father had picked tons of rocks off his land when he farmed here. This must be one of the places where he'd chosen to dump them. She fought the wind to the far side of the rocks. Once she was clear of them, she caught sight of the fence again and turned to wave to her dad.

He wasn't there.

Tina's heart fluttered like a bird caught in a fox's jaws. She drew a breath to call to Roland, then saw something long and dark slumped beside the rocks. "Roland," she shrieked, "something's wrong with Dad." She stumbled toward her father, fell, picked herself up, and hurtled forward.

 ______________________________________________________________

Robert L. Bacon

theperfectwrite.com

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I MARY by Mike Hartner

Chapter 1

            I looked upon the gray waters that surrounded me.  To the west it was dark and cloudy, the wind blustering.  But as I braced myself against the gale hitting full force against my peacoat, I smiled.

            It was fitting that I was here, and nothing could ever convince me otherwise.  I’d been birthed on land but it wasn’t long afterward that I was on the water—and acquiring my sea legs.  From the time I could walk, I learned to balance myself on the uneven deck. And later to climb the gnarly spars and ultimately the sayles.  My parents taught me my numbers and to read and write as well.  Numbers, well, was my best subject, and I was good at that.  But my time at sea was what I loved the most.  In truth, the only fun I remember in my childhood was when they took me on our merchant ship from our home in Portsmouth to London or to Bristol.  It wasn’t the location that I liked or the end of the journey; no, for me it was the sayling, standing on the deck, listening to the wind, watching the ocean and the clouds and . . .  late at night . . . the stars.  I wanted to be on the sea forever, and I knew this from my very first time aboard ship.

            I remember very well every one of those trips, because during each voyage I would close my eyes and concentrate, and it was as if I were talking to the water.  And through a combination of waves and the ship’s motion, it felt as if the sea was in turn communicating with me. 

            I recall all of the journeys with my father and his good friend, Captain Jose.  The saylors on those ships were always good to me, and I came to respect all of them.  They taught me sayling while they went about their own jobs.  Even as a little kid I  was taught how to tie knots.  And when I was eleven they instructed me on how to throw knives and swing a cutlass.  Soon afterward I was taught how to prime, load, and shoot a musket.  But I turned up my nose at the musket, even the smaller flintlock pistols.  To me, there was no honor in this sort of fight.  No great talent was needed to shoot somebody.  Any idiot could pull a trigger.  In my mind, it required real skill to defeat a man, or woman for that matter, with a cutlass.   And, yes, I will take up swords against a woman.  Because, you see, I am one also.

            Captain Jose had been a friend of the family since before I was born.  He’d sayled with my father, James, and my mother, Rosalind.  I heard the stories of the trip from Kilwa, where I was born, and then to Portsmouth, where we now live.  I don’t know how they originally met because I haven’t been told that yet, but Captain Jose is so close to the family that I’ve always called him Uncle Jose or Uncle for short.
            Currently, I am not quite twelve years old, thin as a rail, a little over eleven hands high, and maybe weighing four stone soaking wet.  My hair is long enough to wear tied behind so it looks like the tail on a pony, but many men wear their hair the same way, so no one would know I was a girl just by looking at me.

            I was in the office of Crofter Shipping Yards one day when Uncle Jose called me to him said, “Come over here and sit down.”  He was always so nice to me that I never hesitated at any request of his, so I took a seat next to him.  He gave me a funny look, kind of sly but not really since he smiled right away.  “I’ve already talked to your parents, and both James and Rosalind agree with me.”

            I looked at him and fidgeted, not having a clue what he was going to say next.

            “You’ve sayled with your father and me all your life.  We brought you to Portsmouth on a carrack many years ago.  You’ve been on the caravel we sayled to Le Havre and on a special boat too, a cog—the one with just one sayle—when we sayled to London.”

            I nodded at him, but I was confused.  Had I done something wrong?

            “Mary, there is a caravel that will be leaving these shipping yards in a little over a week.  It's headed to the north of Scotland.  Seldom do pirates sayle these waters, so other than weather it will be relatively safe and . . .”  My eyes widened.  Was I getting the right message?  Was he really doing this?  Was he really going to make my dream come true?  “If you should be interested, I can schedule you to take your sayling tests in the next few days so you can be on that caravel and start out as part of the crew on this trip.  This way, you can see if sayling is really what you want to do.”

            I threw myself at Uncle Jose. “Yes, yes.  Please, yes.”

            He laughed.  “Then let’s go get you some sayling clothes and set you up to crew on your very first ship.  Then I’ll introduce you to the captain.”  I jumped up from my chair but Uncle Jose pointed to me so I’d  retake my seat.  His face turned solemn, almost to a frown.  “There’s something we need to discuss, and this won’t be easy to talk about.  I brought this up this with your parents, and they told me to go ahead and tell you.”

            Uncle Jose’s change of attitude was so great that I was startled.  “I don’t understand.”

            “I’ve already spoken to the captain, since I assumed you’d say yes.  And he assured me that his main crew will respect you as a girl and also as a Crofter.  But there are always new men brought on board.  And even though the regular crew is honorable as far as this captain knows, they are still men of the sea.  Mary, do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

            “Your crew was always wonderful to me.”  As soon as I said this I started to think back to all the times the men had helped me.

            “You were a young girl who was the daughter of the owner of the ship, and I was the captain who knew each man well.  If anyone had stepped out of line, he would have been run through or thrown overboard.  This will be different, and you must understand that you are older now, almost a woman if you aren’t already.  I don’t know how else to put it, but to say you will have to be on your guard at all times.  The captain will have a couple of his most trusted men watching over you, but even a caravel is a big enough boat that . . . well, no person can be looked after day and night.”

            I hadn’t given what Uncle Jose was talking about a single thought, but I wasn’t scared.  “I’m not saying I can take down a saylor, but I know how to defend myself, and Mother has taught me how to hurt a man where it hurts the most.”

            Uncle Jose let out a muffled laugh that might’ve been a groan.  “Always know who’s around you, and be aware that you’re going to constantly have to prove yourself.”

            “Because I’m a girl?” I snapped, mad that I’d done so at Uncle Jose.

            “Yes,” he came back just as fast, but then he smiled and showed his big teeth.  “Just be aware that nothing I have said was with the intent of trying to talk you off the boat.  I just don’t want you—”

            “Uncle Jose, I’ve heard the men talk on the boats since I was first able to walk the decks.  Sometimes I’d hear things that I know I wasn’t supposed to, and as I got older many saylors didn’t even think I was not one of them, so I’m not unaware that men are going to be men at times.  I can handle myself, I promise.”

            “Let us hope you don’t have to.”  He stared hard at me.  “At least with the crew.”

Click the link to read more of I, MARY or to purchase this book on Amazon.

  _________________________________________________________________



Robert L. Bacon
theperfectwrite.com

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ANGRY ENOUGH TO KILL by Sheryl Dunn

CHAPTER ONE

HUNTING SEASON

_Loring Jeremias is tempted to turn back, but this decision is not reversible. No. She's come too far and given up too much. The time to reconsider is past. 

In the late fall chill, she quickens her pace along the forest trail, the ground hard and frozen beneath her moccasins. The winter snows have yet to fall in Jackson, Wyoming, and for this, she is grateful. The sawed-off shotgun digs through the backpack into her waist. She shrugs its weight to the side, rubs her hands over her arms to warm them, and forces her fingers deep into her gloves. Her mouth is so parched, her lips cling to her teeth.

     The fog forms and fades away, only to form again in different shapes, hunters...witnesses.

Don't think. Just get it done.

Beside the Snake River, trees pierce the haze. Tendrils of fog slither down the alder standing alone in the center of the clearing, and she imagines them creeping along the ground toward her. Magpies tch, tch, tch. An eagle screeches, wings flapping, and the river churns in the distance.

At the side of the clearing, she clambers over a fallen pine, and crawls under the boughs she arranged so meticulously the day before. The laces on one of her moccasins have come undone. She ties them, this time with a double knot, loads the tranquilizer pistol and settles down. It shouldn't be long now.

 Nothing obstructs her view of the pathway leading from the town to the river. She rests her arms on the log, and waits.

Something crawls up her neck. She swats at it; a spider lands on her arm. She coughs back a scream, and brushes it off. After a time, her knees ache and she shifts on the damp leaves, releasing a whiff of mold and decay.

A twig snaps.

Her hand tightens around the dart pistol.

Please let it be Devlin.

He's whistling, a tuneless wheeze she's heard before, and he carries a plastic bag. She knows what's inside: a Sears catalog with pictures of children in their back-to-school clothes.

 Will he take a leak as he did yesterday and the day before? She tries not to breathe.

He hangs the bag on a branch of the alder and unzips his fly. Urine steams against the tree. He grunts, zips up and paws for the bag.

The dart won't kill him, but if they find him before the Medetomidine-Ketamine dissipates...

Too many ifs.

 She fires.

 "What the fuck?" He grabs his rump, yanks out the dart, and frowns.

 She rises and shakes the branches from her shoulders.

 His hand grasps for the tree. He stumbles and drops to his knees, as though praying for forgiveness.

Damn, he's going to fall forward. She wants to rush to him, to prop him up, but she waits for the drug to take effect.

He rubs his eyes and squints. He's hallucinating. She can hear her own ragged breathing over his mumbled gibberish.

When he falls forward on his hands and knees, and leans to the side, she scrambles to him, props him up with her hip. She places the shotgun on the ground, picks up the dart and jams it into its case in the pocket of her vest. One piece of evidence out of the way.

His eyelids flutter, his jaw sags, and when his head nods, she rolls him onto his back the way she learned in First Aid. It's easier than she thought. Too much beer and age have thinned his bones, wasted his muscles.

With her arms under his armpits, she drags him and props his back against the tree. His body remains upright. No need for the rope in her backpack to keep him in place.

Fetid whiffs of sweat and mothballs rise from his wool jacket. She holds her breath, picks up the shotgun and confirms the chamber is empty.

To test the suicide position, she wedges the gun barrel into his chin with the butt on the ground between his legs, close to his groin.

His eyelashes . . . long and curled like a child's. He was someone's child once. But so was she.

She needs his prints. He's right-handed--for days she watched him open doors, drink beer, and scratch his nose, all with his right hand. But early in the morning, in the woods, and free from the vigilant eyes of the locals who tried unsuccessfully to run him out of town, he turns the pages of his scrapbook with his left hand. His special pictures. His special children.

She places his right hand around the trigger guard, shoves the thumb into the slot, presses hard, removes the hand and clamps the fingers and thumb around the stock and again on the action and barrel. Except for the area around the trigger guard, she repeats the process with his left hand, near the muzzle end, compressing thumb and fingers into the barrel, and steadies it under his stubbled chin.

Satisfied, she removes the box of shells from her pocket, keeps two, and scatters the rest on the ground. She presses his fingers onto the box and on the shells.

From the backpack, she pulls out the drop sheet, shrouds her body from head to toe. She finds the armholes and ensures the gun is in the proper position, but when she tries to chamber a shell, the grip won't move.

Damn.

She pumps.

Nothing.

She pumps again.

Thunk. The grip loads.

She drops to her haunches and rams the barrel under his chin. The world pauses, waiting for her to fall. She remembers to breathe.

Gritting her teeth, she thinks about the children and squeezes the trigger.

Sound waves blast through her and beyond. And blood, so much blood. Brain tissue gushes onto the drop sheet, splatters on the tree, startling her even though she memorized the after-effects of shotgun suicides.

Wave upon wave of nausea. Gagging sounds.

Hers.

Run.

Hide. Anywhere. Anywhere but the closet, that musty closet, behind Mommy's muskrat coat.

But she mustn't run. She cannot leave evidence. She has done what she had to do; now she must save herself and the others who depend on her to escape.

She sacrifices stealth for speed, rises and folds the sheet into itself and away from her. An alert forensic investigator might notice a gap in the splatter pattern where her body shielded the ground, but the investigators might be parents. A parent might choose to overlook many things.

Or might not.

Perhaps animals will disturb the site and cover her tracks.

Hurrying now, down the bank to the river, rinsing the drop sheet, folding it into itself, resisting the urge to plunge into the river until her soul runs clear, stuffing the drop sheet into a green garbage bag, cramming it into her backpack.

She's still alone. Still safe.

She hangs a camera around her neck, and pulls an orange vest over her camouflage jacket. If other hunters come, she'll say she was hiking, taking pictures, heard the shot, and found him.

She will cry. It won't be difficult to cry.

One last check of the site. Devlin's bag still hangs on the tree. Would he have brought it today? No, not if he intended suicide. She shoves it into the backpack. Are there furrows where she dragged him? A few. She scuffs the dirt with a fallen branch.

Where's the spent shell?

It should be on his left. No, his right.

Think!

She can't see it. She should be able to spot the red casing.

Did she trap it in the drop sheet and flush it into the river? What if she can't find it?

Tears push at her eyes. It must look like a suicide. She cannot fail now.

She steps back. "Calm down. Breathe." She's muttering, but can't stop.

With a stick, she checks up and down his clothes.

Nothing.

She pokes the leafy debris.

A glimpse. Red plastic and brass still in the chamber. How could she have forgotten? Pump-action shotguns don't eject the shell until the next round is chambered. She swallows to moisten her tongue and struggles to her feet. When she checks her clothes and her moccasins, she can't see any evidence. No obvious bloodstains, no brain tissue. She backs away from the body, shoulders the backpack and slides the straps over her jacket.

To survive now, she must leave unseen and she must forget, but forgetting is not one of her skills.

Along the trail, she prays they'll find his body soon, that she'll read about his suicide in the Jackson Hole News and Guide when she checks the Internet back in New York. A pointless prayer because what will be, will be, and that's okay.

The sun breaks through the sky's stinging haze. She feels exposed. Someone is shining a flashlight into her eyes, the closet door is open, and she can see Daddy's shoes, and Daddy, waiting.

At the edge of the forest, protected by the pines, she watches a Range Rover leave the Edelweiss Motel's parking lot and turn left onto Harbinger Road. When it chuffs out of sight, she slips out of the woods and into the end unit of the motel, changes her clothes, and cleans the room. She shuts the door behind her, throws the backpack into the trunk of her nondescript Ford and drives away.

For the first hundred miles, she fights back nausea, and grips the steering wheel with whitened knuckles until her hands cramp. Gunshot echoes rumble in her ears.

Will they ever disappear? She wants to forget them, but she won't. She knows she won't.

At the second hundred-mile interval, she buries her moccasins and the drop sheet in the woods. At the third, she rips the Sears catalog to shreds, imagining that same catalog sitting so openly, so innocently on the coffee tables of homes with children. She stuffs the pieces into the bag, buries it, and tries not to think about the picture of a little girl she knows, holding a Barbie doll, Gold Jubilee edition.

The dirt settles over the bag. She exhales and straightens her shoulders. 

Later, deep in the woods, she digs one last hole, burns her hunting clothes and gloves, and buries the ashes.

From time to time along the way home, she pulls over and tries to sleep in the back seat, a shallow sleep, floating on top of a pond roughed by the wind.

In Summit, New Jersey, she parks the car in a garage she rents under a false name, and changes into a navy business suit.

She will take the Transit to Hoboken and the P.A.T.H. train to the subway. She'll ride the elevator to her office. There, she'll search for hints of suspicion in her colleagues' voices, and pretend to be normal. She's had a lifetime of pretending to be normal.

Perhaps her next murder will be easier.

 


Robert L. Bacon
theperfectwrite.com

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