Lauren scoffed. "I don't know, Max. Sounds to me that you're just doing what you can to make sure those folks have a little more to offer up to Roscoe's bones."
"You haven't been around long enough to see the full picture."
The visitors outside the cellar window shook their heads before returning to their vehicles. Many paused and looked back at Roscoe Turner's home, their eyes again floating upwards to stare at that private chamber, gazing one more time at that bed in case they might've overlooked the lumps of Mr. Turner's body sleeping beneath the blankets. But Roscoe remained gone to them on that morning, and so those residents felt very sad as they limped back into the cars that returned them to their own crumbling homes in Owensville.
Maximillian counted silently to measure that enough time passed before pushing open the cellar doors and climbing into the morning light, beckoning Lauren to follow him out of their subterranean concealment. Lauren scanned her surroundings. She felt nervous, and she felt as if she had played a cruel trick upon a rural community. She felt afraid her role would be discovered. Max was the calm grandchild as he strode to that picnic table crowded with a new round of offerings. He smiled as he opened an envelope and counted the crisp, green bills before stuffing the various denominations into the pockets of his shorts. A smile stretched across Max's face as he held up a pie tin.
"Ah, my prayers have been answered," Max peeked at the sky. "Margie Dempsey's Lupus isn't so bad as to prevent her from putting together another of her famous blueberry pies. Lauren, nothing tastes so good on a summer day. Help me get all this stuff into the basement freezer before we have to go into town."
"Where are we going?"
"We're going to Grandma's old beauty salon. Roscoe never sold the building, so I've got the keys to the place. I can't think of a better place to view all the anarchy that's about to explode in town."
Lauren felt reality slipping away from her. Her sanity seemed unmoored. Yet she grabbed a bowl of cheese dip and a package of oatmeal cookies before hurrying into her grandfather's basement. Her stomach growled, and she realized she hadn't eaten a thing since returning to Owensville. As she climbed up and down those basement steps to help Max bring so much food into the home, Lauren couldn't help but feel amazed at how Roscoe Turner still provided for his family.
* * * * *
Lauren had never been in Grandmother Claire's beauty salon. Grandmother Claire perished many years before Lauren's birth, killed as her car tumbled down the highway after Claire swerved to avoid striking a raccoon hissing in her headlights' bright beams. Grandpa Roscoe had always kept his wife's beauty salon as it was on the day of Claire's death. Long after his glass factory closed, Roscoe Turner daily drove his Cadillac into town to make sure that Claire's dryer chairs never gathered too much dust, that Claire's tools remained organized, that the color of Claire's salon walls never dulled. Roscoe Turner likely continued his pilgrimage to that salon long after his son-in-law and granddaughter left town, Jackson motivated by a grief for his dead wife very much like that which choked Roscoe's heart. Lauren thought it must've been a very long time since anyone cared for what had been her Grandfather's shrine. Dust covered the dryer chairs. Scissors and rollers were scattered across the floors. Paint peeled upon the walls where water penetrated from the roof.
Max stood at the window, peering through the blinds at the people who shambled down the street, apparently searching for whatever motivated them to leave the comfort of their home recliners.
"It's staring, Lauren."
"What's starting?"
"You'll see. You'll understand why I've kept Roscoe in the light. You'll see."
* * * * *
Sherilynn Baxter returned home from Roscoe Turner's estate that morning and promptly collapsed upon her couch to stare at the twenty-four-hour news cycle forever flickering on her cabinet television. Her eyes seldom drifted away from that crawl that scrolled at the bottom of her television's glass. Her mind digested every comment and insight offered by the angry and puffy heads of political pundits, who sold discount razor blades and pills for erectile dysfunction by pontificating about the infinite ways enemies of the nation were laying waste to the world.
Sherilynn Baxter could digest no more when the clock on her kitchen stove chimed at the time of six-thirty-one because of some electrical surge or blown circuit in its old construction. Her lost husband Newt hadn't perished at the age of sixty-three after three decades of employment in Roscoe Turner's glass factory so that Sherilynn could spend the retirement he had earned for her in a world ruined by fools. Sherilynn gathered the handgun Newt had kept in the nightstand beside his abandoned pillow, the handgun Newt maintained for the day when the hordes emptied from the city to ransack rural Owensville. The handgun remained loaded, so Sherilynn didn't need to force her tired mind to recall the lessons her husband had given her regarding the handgun's maintenance. She felt confident she could still pull the trigger. She felt just as confident that she could still operate the car kept in the garage.
Sherilynn ran over a grandchild's tricycle and her husband's golf bag as she reversed onto the road, but the car ran well enough. Sherilynn smiled as she manually cranked down the windows so she could point that handgun at the outside world to shoot at all the enemies she saw shambling along Owensville's streets.
She killed Nance Kolsen's Akita dog with three rounds placed into its whimpering head. She roared her car onward and planted another round into Jim Patton's artificial hip. She shot out the windows on the front of the empty grocery store that once sold her strawberries and pancake mix. Lori and Chad Albright dodged several bullets directed at them by jumping behind Chuck Robertson's broken tow truck.
Sherilynn sped her car a little faster around the few roads still asphalted in Owensville while her mind kept repainting the faces of her neighbors into the faces of so many enemies the television warned were ready to destroy her way life. The country had been as the good Lord wished it to be when Roscoe Turner's glass factory still glowed in Owensville. But Roscoe's absence that morning helped Sherilynn realize that Owensville's days of enterprise were likely never going to return. Owensville possessed no hope to find a new purpose unless someone took a stand against all those invading faces that made a mockery of the world Sherilynn had so loved.
Sherilynn lost control of the wheel after Hank Goode blasted out her left, front tire with the buckshot of his twelve-gauge shotgun. Yet Sherilynn's courage didn't falter as her end raced towards her. Her foot remained on the gas when she struck a thick, old oak doing almost fifty miles an hour. Sherilynn cherished her freedom, and so she never wore any kind of a seatbelt that might've prevented her from flying through the windshield.
She was dead before she hit the ground.
* * * * *
Toni Petra punched the numbers of his favorite song into the jukebox for one last time, and a feeling of elation washed over him as he watched the internal mechanisms grip and load another vinyl record onto the turntable. They didn't make jukeboxes like they used to, and the songs of those crooners with the gin-soaked voices long ago vanished from the air. Toni looked over his shoulder. The windows to his old drinking lounge located in downtown Owensville remained covered with boards, but Toni could still see the neon signs inviting men and women to a beer and whiskey as those workers ended their shifts at Roscoe Turner's glass factory. The stools remained stacked atop the bar and only a layer of dust occupied any of the booths, but Toni could see ghosts drifting into dance as a gin-soaked voice crooned from the jukebox.
"I'm too old. All I listen to are ghosts."
Toni opened a can of cheap beer and slumped into a booth. Owensville was too old for drinking. During those days when his bar was young, he thought the town would forever be thirsty. Owensville seemed to have such a future then. The glass factory had reason to burn and glow, and the thirst cultivated by that plant's workers made Toni's cash register chime. But Toni learned that even towns grew tired and old. He couldn't forget those last, sad day
s when patrons occupied his stools, sipping so slowly for comfort, afraid that what reserves remained to them following the closure of Roscoe Turner's factory would too quickly disappear if they helped themselves to one more martini or whiskey sour. Toni remained proud that he had outlasted the other salons once so common in Owensville. He believed that style and service helped his lounge serve conversation and song longer than any of its rivals. Yet the day arrived when he too was forced to close his doors, when his village simply no longer had the thirst needed to keep his liquor cabinet stocked.
Like many of his neighbors, Toni came to feel the arthritis settle in his joints. Age made his steps heavy. Yet he did what he could to maintain the pool table. He saved to pay the electrical bill. The pinball table would still chime if someone removed its cloth cover. The taps remained in good, working order if beer kegs were ever reconnected. Toni maintained his hope for years that the glass furnaces of Roscoe Turner's factory would soon reignite to make Owensville thirsty again for the comfort of Toni Petra's bar stools.
Finally, Toni swallowed the truth he had been denying for too long that day he visited the Turner estate and saw that Roscoe was no longer in his bed. The drinkers would never return to his lounge. His jukebox would never know a new song. He had denied that truth for as long as he could. He had fooled himself for too long into thinking that Roscoe Turner was only catching up on his sleep. He had fooled himself into thinking that Roscoe only needed to spend another day more in bed before rising to deliver Owensville a new wave of enterprise. He had not seen Roscoe that morning, and the absence of that man's sleeping head shattered the spell that had charmed Toni and made it impossible for his heart to see the truth of his world.
So Toni sloshed the last of the fluid held in his five-gallon container of gas across the bar of his beloved lounge and onto his shoulders. His hand didn't at all shake as he removed that lighter from his pocket. He didn't feel the least trace of fear. He didn't hesitate to summon a hungry flame.
* * * * *
The sound of activity echoed off of the brick buildings in Owensville's downtown. For the first time in years, the buzzing of a saw and the pounding of a hammer filled the air. An old carpenter worked to erect a special structure in the heart of his town. An old man worked to raise a construction that would show how much Owensville needed Roscoe Turner to return home.
"How are you doing with that rope, Mattie?"
"You asked me five minutes ago, Travis. Be patient. I'll have the nooses ready by the time you finish putting up that gallows."
"The rope's the most important thing."
"I never hurry you in your work, so don't hurry me in mine. My fingers just need to remember. It's been a long time since I thought I would have to do this."
"That's because we've put that rope away for too long. I just hope it's not too late for that rope to do us any good."
Travis Koehler reminded himself to be patient with his wife of fifty-four years before taking a breath and returning his attention to reading the bubble of his level, checking that the bubble rested perfectly between the hashes. He had always taken pride in his work. One project was never any less important than another - whether he was building kennels for Elliot Stan's dogs, or putting a new roof onto Leslie Thurston's home. Everyone in Owensville knew that Travis Koehler did good work. Travis might've done less and less work through the years, but no one in the community ever thought Travis invested anything less than his best effort.
He would not push Mattie too hard. He knew Mattie felt the years in her swollen fingers. He knew that Mattie's mind was not as agile as it once had been, and that preparing a noose demanded dexterity of movement and thought. Travis reminded himself that he needed to take his time if he wanted to construct a structure that would withstand the freezing of the ground each winter, and the gusting thunderstorms each summer delivered. He needed to build strong gallows that would stand through following generations, telling those who might later repopulate Owensville that no community could thrive without God, family, country and work ethic. He needed to build those gallows square and straight to proclaim how Owensville would never more allow the indolent, the promiscuous, the heathen and the traitorous to thrive upon the sacrifice made by the hearty and industrious. The wicked would no longer feed from what the good earned. Travis needed to make his gallows strong, so that the noose could for years to come thin the weeds that prevented the healthier crop from thriving.
Roscoe Turner had been among Owensville's righteous. Roscoe Turner had been a man Owensville could proudly call its own. Yet how had that community respected Mr. Turner? Owensville turned away while too many freeloaders profited on Roscoe's toil, so that Mr. Turner was forced to abandon the very town his industry created. The thought of finding Mr. Turner's bed empty that morning made Travis Koehler ill. Finding Mr. Turner's grand home empty made him feel ashamed.
Travis still believed that Roscoe Turner might return. If not Roscoe Turner, Travis still hoped that another leader would come to Owensville with the means to help that village's residents rebuild their community. He believed that bodies only needed to sway to send a clear message that Owensville would no longer tolerate men and women weak in body and mind. He thought a group of swaying bodies would show how Owensville would never again care for those who didn't earn their keep. What were a dozen bodies culled from a population nearing one-thousand? A dozen was a small number of necks to feel the burn of the tightening rope. A dozen would be enough to show Roscoe Turner, or men like him, that a factory could again burn bright and hot within Owensville. If Roscoe's glass factory did not rise from its ashes, then perhaps a shoe factory, or zinc smelter, might become the town's new industry. Travis Koehler was certain that Owensville would again fill with reliable fathers, dutiful mothers and obedient children once no more than a dozen bodies swayed to announce that Owensville again welcomed those who sacrificed and toiled.
"We should start with Nance McMullin, Mattie. Remember how he was the first to voice the word 'union' at Mr. Turner's factory?"
Mattie's hands paused as they worked at the noose. "Sure. But nothing came of it, and Roscoe's factory ran well enough for many years after Nance shouted that foul word from the factory's parking lot. Nance tossed that terrible word into the air because he was trying so hard to get a raise on account of how his wife surprised him with twins."
"Hell, Mattie, have I ever said that doing the right thing was easy? Nance did what he did. He shouted that word, and he should have to pay for it."
"Then who would you bring up to the scaffold next?"
"Beth Meehan," Travis didn't pause for a second. "She's filled the county newspaper with her bile for the last forty years. I don't understand why that newspaper keeps printing whatever she mails to their office."
"The paper probably doesn't get much local material for its editorial section anymore. I doubt anyone but Beth makes the effort."
"Well, Beth should hang for what she's hammered out of the typewriter all the same. She's constantly complaining that the rest of us should practice political correctness, no matter that all the people sneaking across our border are stealing our country away from us. She's always complaining that there should be some kind of a law against letting property fall into shambles within town limits, or she's always prattling about the need for some kind of tax to punish people who let their homes fall into decay. Another law and another tax are the things we don't need. Those are the very things that got us into this mess in the first place. Come to think of it, I think I would haul the newspaper's editor, Sam Evans, up to these gallows right after I hoist Beth into the breeze."
Mattie frowned. "I'm afraid Sam died twelve years ago."
"Then who the hell's running the paper now?"
"I think Sam's girl, Jo, is running the paper. You wouldn't hang a daughter on account of something her father did, would you?"
"Why not? That paper hasn't stopped printing any of Beth's letters."
Time marched quickly onward as
Travis returned to his work, his thoughts often drifting to consider all those he would pull atop that scaffold he built in the heart of downtown. It was not long until he built his gallows' railing, not long after that when he constructed the wooden steps rising to the platform. The country needed only a spark to bring Roscoe Turner back, and Travis believed it would take no more than a dozen, swaying bodies to ignite the revolution required before Owensville could rise from its ashes. It was not long until he raised that arm from which the gallows' noose would fall.
Mattie's hands suddenly stopped. "I've got it, Travis. I remember how to master that knot. It's not going to take me any time to finish tying all the other nooses."
Travis grinned. "That's my girl, Mattie. That's my girl."
* * * * *
Dread surged up Lauren's spine as she peered through the curtained windows of the beauty salon. Outside that window, an elderly man had been sawing and hammering at boards all afternoon. At his side, an older woman had been wrapping rope into nooses. Lauren shook her head as that man completed his gallows by fastening the rope and upon the gallows' wooden frame. She couldn't believe how quickly, and terribly, Owensville transformed. A sudden whistle cracked through the air, followed by a boom Lauren felt vibrate through the walls. Her eyes widened as trails of shimmering silver and pearl streaked through the young night and tossed shadows upon that gallows suddenly standing in the center Owensville's downtown.