Authors: Harry N. MacLean
Farmers with livestock mucked about in ice-slickened barnyards, hauling feed, giving shots, cleaning pens, and going through the twice-daily round of chores. In the evening, they went over their books, making calculations about acreage and loans and costs for the past year and thinking about how to present their requests to the bankers and the FHA for another year's financing.
After the second continuance, fear about what McElroy might do next grew and began, in one way or another, to affect the lives of nearly everyone. People started closing up shop early to avoid trouble, whether he was in town or not, and people became more careful of what they said and how they said it. Something could get twisted and get back to him.
In the past, one of the bank tellers had gone home around three o'clock each afternoon, leaving her fourteen-year-old daughter, who worked after school in the B & B Grocery store, to walk the few blocks home alone when the store closed. Now, the woman walked back up the hill to the grocery, went inside, took her daughter by the hand, and walked her home. Often, the big Silverado would be parked directly in front of the store, and McElroy would sit silently and stare at them as they passed.
Another woman, a God-fearing Methodist born and raised in Skidmore, had heard stories about McElroy all her life. Although she knew Ken by sight, she had never met him. When the woman went to the grocery store to buy bread and she saw his truck parked in front of it, she thought about whether she really needed the bread or not. She worked evenings as a janitor in the bank, and was scared to go to work when she saw his pickup around. It was a horrible nightmare. Like everyone else, she just wanted to stay out of his way.
For years, the senior citizens had met every third Wednesday night at the Legion Hall to eat supper, play games, and socialize. But in 1981, the dinners were canceled, because the older people didn't want to leave their homes after dark.
One elderly couple had moved to town in the mid-1970s after a lifetime of farming. The wife became upset soon after the Romaine Henry shooting and, when the rumors and threats started flying around after Bo was shot, she became so fearful that she locked all the doors whenever her husband was away, even during the day. Her fear of Ken McElroy, whom she had never met, became all she could talk about to her friends.
Cheryl Brown had begun working regularly in the store to keep an eye on her dad. Certain that something further was going to happen, she worried about him constantly. She would wake up two or three times each night, check her kids, and phone her parents to see who was with her dad. She felt helpless sitting and waiting for McElroy to make his next move, but she also felt guilty. She wanted her dad to come to her house, but she was afraid that McElroy would find out he was there. Birthdays usually appeared in the Skidmore News, a monthly paper, and she didn't want her children's names published next to the Bowenkamp name because she was afraid that McElroy might see them. She also felt guilty about carrying the shotgun in the car with her kids. Once, when she forgot the gun, one of her daughters asked, "Mommy, how come you aren't taking the gun with us today?" And the mere sight of McElroy had come to terrify her. One time she missed the Silverado when she drove into town, and walked nonchalantly into the tavern. McElroy was sitting at the bar and turned to stare at her. She began shaking, and her legs nearly gave way beneath her.
Former mayor Larry Rowlett, who had talked his friend Dunbar into running for marshal, encountered McElroy in the tavern one night. McElroy walked up to Rowlett and asked if he knew where to get any copperhead snakes.
"I'll pay $50 apiece for some copperheads," said McElroy, "if you know where any are."
"Sorry," Rowlett said. "I don't know how to get any. What do you want them for?"
"If I can get two or three snakes," McElroy said, "I'm going to put them in the old man's car and let them crawl around inside and bite him."
Another night, McElroy walked in and emptied a sack of money onto the counter. Rowlett guessed there must have been between $2,000 and $3,000 lying there in a heap.
"How would you like some of this money?" McElroy asked him.
"Hell, yes," Rowlett responded. "Everybody can use money."
"I'll give it to you," said McElroy, "if you'll do something for me."
McElroy nodded toward Trena, and she left the tavern. She returned in a few seconds carrying a long, sharp corn knife.
"You just take this corn knife up there to the store and run it through the old man," said McElroy, "and you can have all this money."
"No way," Rowlett replied, "I don't want to go to jail."
"You can make it look like an accident," McElroy insisted. "Just carry it in, stumble around, and accidentally run it through him."
McElroy kept insisting that the killing could be made to look like an accident, and Rowlett kept refusing, although saying no made him nervous as hell every time.
"He's the only goddamn witness against me," McElroy would say, "and I ain't going to jail. It's going to be done right this time."
Spring appeared in late March. The music of the songbirds after a warm morning rain signaled the end of winter and the emergence of the new season. As the moisture in the top foot of the frozen ground began to thaw, the earth turned to mush. The fields became impassable, and many cars traveling the dirt roads in the hilly areas ended up in the ditches, leaving behind deep ruts like the paths of huge earthworms.
March was shakeout time for the farmers. Those who fared well last year had money for planting, but others were still hustling for financing, trying to convince the lenders to carry them for another year. This was also the time of year for foreclosure sales, and many farmers attended them religiously to get a sense of the value of land, equipment, livestock, and grain. Standing in small groups, the farmers discussed their neighbors' fates, crying on each other's shoulders and wondering out loud who would take over the farm now, and what the displaced neighbors would do for a living. All the while, they were eyeing the machinery, thinking about whether they might get a good deal on the big green and yellow John Deere combine sitting in the shed, or whether they could use that twelve-row planter in the middle of the yard.
The Great Planting Debate began in March and was in full swing by early April. The discussions went on continuously in the cafe, at the gas station, in the tavern, in the grocery store, on the sidewalk outside of the post office, over the dinner table, inside the farmers' heads. An early spring intensified the debate, because the farmers could start planting earlier, and the earlier they planted, the more time the corn would have for growing, and the bigger the yield would be.
A week of 70-degree weather usually warmed the soil to the necessary 58 degrees, but that alone didn't mean the time was right for planting. If you planted too early, the ground might not be ready, or the kernels might mature during the hot, rainless month of August, or you might lose your crop to a killing frost in May. If you planted too late, you might miss the early spring moisture. Then the seed would sprout, but the roots wouldn't go deep enough to find the water, and the ears would be stunted.
The older farmers tended to be conservative, and some followed hard and fast rules passed down by their fathers and grandfathers. The younger farmers pushed to get the seed in the ground early, worried that the warm days, would give way to steady rain that could keep them out of the fields for days. If the ground was too wet, the earth would clump and clod when turned, providing a poor bed for the seeds. The tractor would compact the dirt, the roots would be unable to spread wide and deep enough, and the resulting stalks might be too short and weak to hold the ears of corn. The views of successful farmers like Q Goslee and Pete Ward, who consistently got good yields, were listened to with respect. The older farmers backed their arguments with stories of years past, and the younger farmers argued that, nothing stayed the same and that recent advances in seed quality or equipment had to be taken into account.
One story was always repeated. Two bulls, one old and one young, came to the top of the hill at the beginning of mating season. They spied a herd of cows in the valley, and the young bull said, "Let's run down there and screw one of those cows." "Why don't we walk down there," said the older one, "and screw them all."
Before the great day arrived, the farmers had to loosen and turn the earth, preparing the soil for the planter. Some farmers plowed in the fall, after the harvest but before the ground froze. They chopped up the stalks and perhaps spread a layer of fertilizer at the same time. This allowed them to make one less pass over the earth in the spring, resulting in less compaction of the soil; but the plowing in the fall could work against the delicate soil by exposing it to wind and water erosion after a thaw.
So, a few days before planting, most farmers hooked up the discs or chisel plows behind their tractors. The newer models had two rows of twelve discs, one behind the other. These steel saucers sliced into the ground at angles, picked the dirt up, and turned it over. The discs on either end were attached to arms that folded up for road travel.
In the mornings the highways were clogged with tractors pulling the discs to different fields. Wings folded, lights blinking, the machines looked like huge insects seeking a place to light. Cars lined up behind them and darted past in the stretches. Once in the fields, they moved steadily across the earth, crawling up and down the hills, leaving trails of dust floating in the afternoon light. The tractors chugged on into the night, weaving back and forth across the fields and streaking the darkness.
The town came alive and bustled with energy. Machines and people were everywhere and in constant motion. The cafe was noisy by 6:30. Voices mixed and competed with backfiring trucks and chugging tractors. The farmers ate quickly, then hurried off. The seed dealers sat with their order books open, touting the excellent match of soil and weather conditions with their brands of seed. Now that the machines were running, opinions about planting were voiced with more conviction. The soil was about right, the consensus seemed to be, and if the sky held, planting could begin in a day or two.
As winter yielded to spring in 1981, Tim Warren stayed in touch with the Bowenkamps. One day in March, he was parked in front of Maurer's hardware store, a half block south of the grocery store, when McElroy pulled up beside him in the Silverado and leaned over toward him. "You fat son of a bitch," McElroy said. "You're going to be sorry!" "Why?" Warren asked.
"Because you ain't been minding your own goddamn business," said McElroy. "I am."
"You are not, you lying cocksucker!" McElroy leaned forward as if to retrieve something from under the seat, and Warren was sure it was a gun. Warren had forgotten his .38 that day, so he figured his only chance was to bluff.
"You better not do that," he said, "because I've got a gun, too, and I'll use it."
McElroy stopped short and looked back at Warren. "You're going to pay for this," McElroy said in a low, mean voice. "This whole fuckin' town's going to be sorry!" He backed the Silverado into the street and drove off.
Warren was not so foolish as to leave home without his pistol again. In late April, he noticed a caravan of four McElroy trucks rumbling down the main street, just a few yards apart. McElroy took the lead in the Silverado, and women followed in the other vehicles, which had rifles in the rear windows. Seeing them turn north at the top of the hill, in the direction of the church and his house, Warren took off. He went the back way and parked behind the church, which was north of his house. The Silverado was parked in front of his house, another truck was in the driveway, the third was in front of the church, and the fourth was across the street.
McElroy got out of the truck, holding a Thompson .45-caliber submachine gun in one hand and a 21-bullet clip in the other.
Beside the house, Warren checked his pistol to make absolutely sure it was loaded. He cocked it and climbed up on his porch. Holding the pistol at waist level, he pointed it at McElroy. The machine gun still in one hand and the clip in the other, McElroy stood and glared at Warren for a minute or two. Finally, McElroy turned back to his truck and put the machine gun in the rack. The four trucks sat there for a while and then pulled away, single file, like ducks in a row. To see whether they left town, Warren got into his car and followed at a distance, until they pulled into Birt Johnson's gas station.
Physically, Ken McElroy was sliding downhill. At forty-seven, the weight he had put on was there to stay. His face was flabby, and his gut hung out over his belt like a fifteen-pound ham. In the door pocket of the Silverado he carried a bottle of pills for high blood pressure, which was worsening, and cough drops for his throat, which was sore from smoking two or three packs of Pall Malls a day. The doctor had told him to wear tennis shoes rather than cowboy boots, because his feet were swollen. He chewed Rolaids constantly for the pain in his stomach. Sometimes he coughed and coughed until he spat out chunks of blood and mucus. His old neck injury periodically flared up in the middle of the night, and at times the pain was so severe that he could barely get out of bed to call the doctor. Despite his ailments, his drinking never subsided. In fact, he probably drank more than ever. Each day, he replaced the bottle of Jack Daniel's under the seat of the Silverado, and whenever he stopped in a tavern, he had at least five or six bottles of beer.