"Miss Yoder! This is no longer a game! How did you get out of the cellar?"
Aha! So he
was
in on it. Indeed, just like Melvin said, they all were.
I pointed to the upper branches of the tree behind him. "Is that an owl up there? They usually come out about this time of day."
Surely a question, no matter how misleading, cannot be a lie. And even though I didn't see an owl, there might have been one up there somewhere, hidden by the foliage, and it was true that they did come out about that time, which was about an hour before sunset.
"Where?" he asked, and foolishly turned.
That was when I grabbed the old wooden swing and swung it practically as high as it could go. Yes, it was a dangerous weapon in my hands, and it was a violent act that I performed, but I have since repented of this. In my defense--Well, I really have none, do I? My ancestors submitted to being scalped, rather than killing the Delaware with their muskets when they had the chance.
To sum it up, I may have been a poor pacifist, but I was an excellent markswoman. The wooden seat caught George just above the nape of the neck and gave him a nasty concussion. He survived, but for a long time--something like six months--he thought Peewee was his mother and Barbie was his sister. Frankly, it was just as well.
With four down, there were still two more to go, and that didn't include the mysterious Surimanda Baikal. One can imagine my astonishment, followed by enormous relief, when I beheld one of the rental cars from New Jersey idling empty in the parking area in front of the barn. It was if the Lord had sent an angel down to start it for me. After all, my car keys were in my purse, which was still in the house, and the Good Lord only knew who was still in there.
I gaped at the idling vehicle for a few precious seconds. It should not have amazed me, and in that regard I was a faithless woman. After all, I was on side of Good, battling Evil in the guise of a spindly man with an ill- fitting head and bulging eyes that could rotate 360 degrees. Since Heaven had sent me a chariot--a horseless carriage, if you will--I should have immediately credited it to the Man Upstairs and given thanks.
But give thanks I eventually did, and then as the Good Lord expected of me, I took action. However, as I tried to climb into the driver's seat of the monstrous black SUV, I was met with a great deal of unexpected resistance.
33
"Put your hands up, Yoder, and get in the back."
"Mantis--I mean Chameleon--I mean Melvin! Where did you come from?"
"I've been sitting here the whole time, Yoder--slouched, of course."
"And you didn't see me either," the craggy Carl Zambezi said, "although I was barely slumped."
"Right. Well shame on me for not seeing either of you!"
"What's the matter, Yoder? You going blind in your old age?"
"Au contraire, I have fifty-fifty vision. I see the half of the world that is good and kind and nourishes my soul, and the scum-sucking evil elements--like you--I just naturally overlook."
"Now that was hurtful, Yoder," Melvin said.
"Yeah, we watched you kill George Nyle," Carl Zambezi said.
My heart leapt into my throat. As hard and small as my heart is, there's always the danger that I'll accidentally disgorge it, perhaps during a phlegm-producing cough. I shudder to think of the consequences. Besides the obvious physical difficulties this would present, what about the emotional and theological ramifications? For instance, it would put a whole new spin on Valentine's Day--
"Yoder, are you in even in there?" Melvin barked.
"Of course, I am; and shame on you, because you should know by now that I engage in rather lengthy inner dialogues. That's what makes me so interesting--at least to myself. And I didn't kill George Nyle. I mean that if I did, it certainly wasn't intentional. Shall I go back and see?" For the record, I still hadn't as much as stuck one foot up into the SUV.
"George can take care of himself. Now get in before I blow your copulating head off!" Melvin actually used a far more vulgar term to express his anger, one that has never passed these lips.
"Double shame on you, Melvin," I said, as I grudgingly climbed in. "Are those the same mandibles with which you kiss your mother?"
"Oy, such a smart mouth on you. You'll get us both moidered yet."
I jerked my head around to look at the seat beside me and then did a double take. "
Ida
?"
"No, it's da Queen of Sheba."
As my eyes and brain adjusted to my new surroundings, I could see that it was indeed my scrappy little mother-in-law, and that her hands were bound behind her, as if she were a hostage or a prisoner of war. Ida was a survivor of the Holocaust, and to be restrained like that had to be torture for her. Whilst she is not my favorite person--she is perhaps number twenty-six down the list--I cannot stand to see someone truly suffer. To say that my hackles were hiked is like saying that Hitler was a bad boy.
"Melvin Lucretius Stolzfus III! What have you done to this poor woman?"
"She tried to scratch me," he whined.
"Untie her!"
"You can't tell me what to do! You're
my
prisoner."
"Then I'll untie her," I said. Which I did.
Melvin's response was to press the pedal to the metal and peel out of my long driveway amid curtains of gravel. Thank Heavens he wasn't driving my car.
"Are you going to let her get away with talking to you like that?" Carl snarled, once we were on Hertzler Road and headed for the bridge over Slave Creek.
By the way, this is the only route out of Hernia, unless one has the patience to meander all the way over to Somerset past myriad Amish farms. Passing buggies might be fun for tourists, but believe me, it gets old--as do some of the buggy drivers, and as a consequence, they don't hear one coming up behind them and so don't move away from the center of the road.
"Heck no," Melvin said. Again, he used extremely foul language. "Yoder, don't you ever talk to me like that again."
"Yes, sir," I said. Melvin was immune to sarcasm. (Try it on either a praying mantis or a chameleon sometime, and you'll see what I mean.)
"T'anks," Ida whispered when I released her bonds.
"What happened?" I whispered back. "What did you do?"
"Don't whisper," came the command from the driver's seat. "Speak so that we can all hear."
"I vas doing nutting vrong. I vas only coming to see eef my Gabeleh vas home. Your phone eez not vorking, Magdalena, und az you know, I dun't haf a cell."
"The woman is a menace," Carl said.
"No comments from Olivia's erstwhile spouse, dear," I said.
Melvin laughed long and hard. That is to say that for at least a minute, it sounded like there was a cicada loose somewhere in the car.
Most folks respond better to pleasant speech than they do to inflammatory words, so for once I decided to give that tact a try. Besides which, I had both the "brother" and the "local" cards going for me. After all, most folks root for the home team, don't they?
"Where are we going,
brother
dear?" I asked sweetly.
"Shut up, Yoder," Melvin snapped.
It was Carl's turn to laugh long and hard; he sounded like the Bontragers' male donkey come the first warm days of spring. He can be glad that Melvin was driving with one hand and holding a gun with the other, and that I was a good Christian woman. Honestly, I was tempted to lunge over the seat and smack the hee-haw right out of him.
But Carl answered my most burning question for me as soon as we turned right on Route 96, going away from Bedford. "Melvin says he knows this cool place that has lots of sinkholes where someone almost died last year. We're going to throw you guys down one of those holes, but not before we torture you first to find out where that brat of yours is hidden."
Ida jumped to her feet, her head still not touching the roof of the SUV. "You vant my
grandchild
? For vhat?"
"Because he witnessed the--"
"Sinking of the
Titanic
," I said loudly.
"No, Yoder," Melvin said, disdain dripping from all three syllables, "the
Titanic
sank in the nineteen fifties--your kid isn't that old."
"My kid is your nephew," I said. "Remember?"
"Yeah, yeah," Melvin said, waving the gun impatiently. "Anyway, the little brat was there when we--"
"Ate all the chocolate brownies," I said.
"What?" Melvin barked. "Yoder, you're nuts."
Ida clapped her wee spotted hands to her weathered cheeks. Not to be judgmental, but the woman really ought to consider wearing sunscreen, given the amount of time she spends gallivanting outside.
"You ate all zee brunies und he had
nahsing
?" she said.
I could have called Melvin a ding-a-ling, but I prayed for patience--yet again. I pity the Lord on account of He's had to listen to this prayer a billion times; it's no wonder that He so often chooses not to answer it. However, this time, a sweet peace seeped into my pores as an idea formed in my weary brain.
"Ee-shay oesn't-day oh-nay at-thay ou're-yay obber-rays."
"Darn it, Yoder, we've had this conversation in the past. How many times do I have to remind you that I don't speak Pennsylvania Dutch?"
"It isn't Pennsylvania Dutch, you ding-a-ling. Think again."
"Oh, I get it now--you're talking Jewish to your mother- in-law."
"And it isn't
Yiddish
, you numbskull!" You see what I mean about my prayer for patience going unanswered?
"You're really trying to tick me off, aren't you?" Melvin said. He was actually exhibiting more of the P word than was I at the moment.
"It's Pig Latin," Carl growled impatiently. "I can speak it."
"Then you whisper in his ear," I said.
Much to my surprise, he did as I directed. He may have said a few other things--things that Melvin vehemently disapproved of--because the car weaved back and forth across the road several times, throwing me up against poor little Ida, and almost provoking me to throw up
on
her as well.
Finally Melvin turned his attention to me. "Yoder, are you speaking from the perspective of an ex-law enforcement officer?"
As thrilling as it was to hear him say those words, they weren't true. I acted--and still do--as a liaison between the community and the Hernia Police Department. The unofficial post was created back when Chris Ackerman was chief. Young Chris hailed from California--the land of fruits and nuts--and he had no idea how life in a barrel of sour Krauts was lived. (During Melvin's administration, I was the brains.) But it behooved me naught to set him straight. In fact, it could be the difference between life and death.
"Yes. As far as I know, I'm the only one who knows the whole story: I've connected all the dots, and I know who all the players are. Little Jacob doesn't know that--he doesn't even remember your name."
"He
doesn't
?" Heavens to Betsy, I almost felt sorry for the Murdering Mantis; that was how sad this bit of misinformation seemed to make him.
"Of course, he doesn't. Why should he? You've been on the lam his entire life. And you've been staying at the inn; did you see any pictures of you around?"
Would that the little munchkin had never seen a likeness of his evil uncle, but, alas and alack, he had a Granny Stoltzfus who insisted on showing him snapshots of his "flesh and blood." Truthfully, I've considered raiding her assisted- living apartment and confiscating this album in the name of human decency, but two things hold me back: the love of my son (prison would keep us apart) and the fact that I look hideous in stripes.
"Shoot, Yoder," Melvin said, a tremble in his voice, "it isn't right; a boy growing up and not knowing about his uncle."
"That's why you don't want to compound any possible charges. Look, I've got an idea."
34
"Yeah?"
"Don't listen to her," Carl said.
I clenched my teeth but, other than a short-lived growl of my own, said nothing offensive. "Melvin, what you do is release Ida--just dump her along the road, anywhere here is fine--and the three of us immediately head for the West Virginia border. You know I've got enough money to qualify for a government bailout. You get me to a bank in West Virginia, and I'll make a series of withdrawals that will set you up for life."
"Yeah? And then what?"
"Then you kill me, of course," I said. "Two's company. Three's a crowd--isn't that what they say? Of course this is all predicated on you swearing--on your mama's life--that you'll leave Little Jacob out of this."
"Why West Virginia?" Carl said. "You have to get provisions if you're going there, and all we have is half a roll of tropical-flavored Life Savers and a warm can of Diet Coke."