Papa had an uncanny ability to communicate with his cows. Most of this communication was unspoken, although he used a few grunts and hand signals. Occasionally, he had to deal with a wayward calf by throwing it to the ground and dragging it to where he wanted it-all by just using his bare hands. (Papa eschewed ropes.) I, on the other hand, had to get a headlock on my charges just to turn them around in their stalls so that they faced the feed bucket.
But Papa never had to manhandle a bank robberess from New Jersey. Particularly one like Tiny.
“If you’ve broken my implants, I’ll sue,” she screamed from beneath me.
I could see the gun glinting in the grass about a dozen feet away, so I was no longer in any physical danger, but I still gave her tit for tat. “Well, I can sue you; I expected a softer landing.”
“Get off me, you big oaf! You Mennonite country bumpkin.”
I sat up on her sternum, just south of the Rockies, with my legs splayed outward to hold her arms down. “Why, Tiny Timms, how you talk! And I always thought you were the sweetest of the bunch.”
“You were a fool! Melvin said that you once married a bigamist, and I read in the National Revealer that you had a love affair with a real-life Bigfoot.”
“It was inadvertent adultery,” I wailed, and this was my very last wail-I promise! “And as for Bigfoot, what they say about men with big feet is absolutely true, so how could I resist?”
“Huh? You don’t deny it?”
“ ‘If you read it in black- and-white, it must be right.’ Stories written in colored ink are not to be trusted.”
“Yeah, I guess. Hey, what you doing?”
I’d done a complete about-face so that I could hold both her tiny hands in one of mine, while the other performed a necessary function. “I’m removing my over-the-shoulder boulder holder,” I said, exhibiting far more patience than she would have, had the tables been turned.
“What? You’re taking off your bra?”
“Don’t worry; I’m just going to tie you up with it.”
“But you can’t! I’ll absolutely freak out. In fact, I’m freaking out now with you holding my hands.”
“Well, dear, you should have thought about that before you embarked on a life of crime.” I emitted a long, drawn-out sigh. “And if I can’t even hold your hand, what chance do we have?”
“What? Miss Yoder, are you-”
“I suppose we could move to Iowa; gay marriage is legal there now. Plus which, I hear that folks are more taciturn there-especially out on the farms. We could get ourselves a nineteenth-century farmhouse with a working windmill-I’ve always wanted one of those-and raise pigs and corn. Do you know how to call pigs, Tiny?”
“Miss Yoder, you’re crazy! I mean like really crazy-over-the-top nuts. Are you supposed to be on some kind of medication?”
“Oh phooey on pills. All I need is clean Midwestern air and-ding, dang, St. Louis International Airport, Concourse A!”
I wasn’t getting very far in removing my flopper stopper. Not without letting go of Tiny’s hands for a second or two. Not all of the petroleum by- products Tiny owned had been affixed internally. Attached to her tiny fingers were the longest fake nails I’d ever seen in all my born days. Ruby red garden rakes-that was what they were! If I let go of Tiny’s hands, those claws could grate my flesh like a head of cabbage.
“Miss Yoder, you just swore!”
“Indeed, I did. Please remind me later to apologize.”
“But you have such a foul mouth! I’ve been to Terminal A. On a Sunday evening. I had three hours to wait before my next flight. I’m not religious, but I prayed that God would take me-that’s how boring I found the place.”
“You too?”
She nodded vigorously. “So maybe we can make a truce?”
“A truce?” I said. “Like what?”
“I’ll promise not to struggle, and you can take me somewhere and lock me up-but just don’t tie me up, because that will really freak me out.”
Sometimes one has to go with one’s gut. (Judging by what I saw at the shore last summer, there sure are a lot of people going very far in life.) Call me silly and ship me off to boarding school, but I had a feeling-in my large intestine-that Tiny was so terrified of bondage that she would indeed cooperate. Of course I would have to hold the gun on her. However, she did not have to know that, as a practicing Mennonite, I would never, ever use it.
I got a death grip on one of her frail wrists and we both stood up. After a couple of steps, and a quick bob to get the gun, I dragged her straight into my laundry. I swung her up in front of the dryer and pried open the door with the end of the gun barrel.
“Climb in, dear,” I whispered. The laundry room is an add-on behind the kitchen and has its own rear door so that one can head directly out to the clothesline if a genuinely fresh scent is desired. (I particularly love the faint smell of nearby cow patties.) You can be sure that I immediately shoved a chair under the doorknob that led to the kitchen.
“What?”
“It’s a jumbo-size, commercial machine; there’s plenty of room.”
“But I’ll suffocate!”
“No, you won’t. I just cleaned the lint trap; stick your nose up against it. By the way, I clean all my lint traps before and after using my dryers, don’t you? A lot of people are lazy about cleaning them, which is a good way to get your house burned down.”
“I don’t do laundry,” Tiny said. “I get Peewee to do it.”
“Well, I’ll be dippety-doodled! How on earth do you get a man into the laundry room?”
“Look at me, Miss Yoder; I could have any man I want. Why would I be with someone like Peewee unless there were some perks-you know, special services?”
“Hop in,” I said, “and start praying that I don’t send you for a short spin.”
The Good Lord knows that I was sorely tempted to do just that. But I behaved. I merely shoved the folding table up against the dryer, jamming it against the lid in such a way that Tiny would be unable to open it by herself.
Then I did exactly what I’d begged Melvin and Tiny not to do to me. I made myself go down into the cellar.
32
I wasn’t lying about the spiders. They’re everywhere in the cellar. Fortunately most of them are fairly benign, and since I would walk through fire-slowly-if it meant putting Melvin behind bars forever, so what if they weren’t?
By the way, I feel compelled to distinguish fire walking from mere coal walking. The latter, in my not so humble opinion, is a gimmick. I shall herewith attempt to elucidate. Hot coals (aka embers), are by their nature covered in a layer of ash. A person walking quickly across a bed of coals is protected by that ash, and will not get his feet burned. To perform this feat, one does not need to be in a trance or be the object of a miracle. One need only walk quickly.
Contact with actual flames, on the other hand, will certainly result in injury. Although it may appear that I have digressed, I assure you that this is not the case. I am stating, unequivocally, that I would endure great pain, if it meant that the Murdering Mantis, that the Conniving Chameleon, was no longer a threat to humanity and to my family in particular.
If this were not the case, if my resolve had not been so strong, believe me, I would never have dared tug open the little round metal door on the north side of the cellar and squeezed blindly into it, like a bottlebrush into an opaque rose vase. Once I was fully inside, there was barely enough room for me to wiggle my way forward, with my arms stretched out in front of me. I felt like a giant earthworm-Well, I don’t mean that literally, having seldom, if ever, been a giant earthworm.
This tunnel, incidentally, was constructed at the height of the French and Indian War, shortly after my Hochstetler ancestors were taken captive by the Delaware Indians in eastern Pennsylvania. It was intended solely as an escape route that led from a log cabin on this site to the nearby woods. Comfort of the escapees was not taken into consideration.