Blackburn Page 5

  “A bloodhound puppy,” Jimmy said. “It’s howling because it wants to track Doll-Baby, but I won’t let it out until you do what I say.”

  Jasmine scowled. “No fair.”

  Jimmy looked at the sky. “I guess you’re too little anyway.”

  “Am not!”

  Jimmy shifted his weight to quiet Baby Tina. It didn’t work this time. “Okay,” he said to Jasmine. “I’ll let you try. You know how to get to Chrissie’s house?”

  “I went there for birthday cake.”

  “Then you can go there again. But you have to promise to be careful crossing the streets.” He paused. “Mom might not want you to go by yourself.”

  “Would too!”

  “All right. Go to Chrissie’s house and put this on the doorstep.” He took a folded piece of paper from a pocket and handed it to her. He knew its words by heart:

  Todd Boyle look in Baby Tina’s room and be at field south of Clay Hill by Potwin Road at 1:45 P.M. to take her home or else we will kill her and your dad will kill you. Bring this to prove identity, signed, Some Friends. P.S. We are from Emporia so if you don’t show up or if you call fuzz we will take her to beef plant. Wantoda fuzz Johnston is drunk on Saturdays and won’t answer anyway and if you call sheriff they will take three hours and she will be hamburger.

  Jasmine unfolded the paper and stared at it. Jimmy had written the note in cursive, and Jasmine couldn’t read cursive yet.

  “After you put it on the step,” Jimmy said, “ring the doorbell and run away. This is a secret message, so you have to run before anyone sees you. If anyone does, say that you saw some men drop the paper. Can you do all that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Tell me what you’re going to do.”

  “Go to Chrissie’s. Put the paper on the porch and push the doorbell. Then run back here and you help me find Doll-Baby with the puppy.”

  “Right. Get going, Agent X-9.”

  Jasmine refolded the paper and left. Jimmy didn’t like sending her off alone, but it was the only way.

  When Jasmine was out of sight, Jimmy took off his backpack and brought Baby Tina out for some fresh air. She squalled worse than ever. She was moist and red.

  “It’s okay,” Jimmy said, jiggling her. “Hush, little baby, don’t you cry. James is gonna sing you a lullaby.…”

  After a few minutes Baby Tina calmed down. Jimmy replaced her in the pack.

  * * *

  The kite was flying at the full length of its line when Jasmine returned. Kyle Thornton was with her, and he was immediately interested in the rod and reel. Jimmy had stuck the handle into the ground and braced it with clods. The shaft was propped on a forked stick, and it quivered with the wind. The monofilament, barely visible, curved upward in a blue arc. It was as tight as a banjo string.

  “Neat!” Kyle exclaimed, reaching for the reel.

  Jimmy pushed Kyle away, knocking him down. Kyle blinked, about to cry. Jimmy had never been mean to him before.

  “Sorry,” Jimmy said. He held out his hand. “You can’t touch anything.”

  “I won’t,” Kyle said, pouting as Jimmy helped him up.

  Jasmine shielded her eyes with her hands and gazed up at the kite. “Hey, what’s that?” she asked. Her mouth opened wide.

  A hoarse cry came from the road. Jimmy turned and saw Todd Boyle charge into the field. Todd’s face was flushed, and his eyes were wild.

  “You kids stand back a ways,” Jimmy said. Staring at Todd, Jasmine and Kyle did as they were told.

  Jimmy stood still until Todd was almost on him. Then he dropped and rolled forward. Todd fell over him, just missing the rod and reel. The rod shimmied, and the kite dipped. Its tail swung heavily.

  “I’d be more careful,” Jimmy said, standing. “You might make it crash.”

  Todd leaped up. “What did you do to her?”

  “I didn’t do nothing.”

  Todd held out the note. “Then what’s this, you fucker?”

  Jimmy snatched it away and tore it up. He let the wind take the pieces. “Nothing,” he said.

  Todd grabbed Jimmy’s shirt. “Where’s my baby sister?”

  Jimmy pointed at the giant kite.

  A pink form was suspended from it. The kite was so high, and the day so bright, that no features could be seen. But the drawing on the kite was clear. The baby was in the grip of an eagle.

  Todd gaped.

  “There were two men,” Jimmy said. “I was across the road, and I saw them. I didn’t know it was a baby they had until it was in the air, and it wiggled and bawled. When they got it up where it is now, they left. I came over, but I’ve been scared to do anything.”

  Todd turned back to Jimmy and let go of his shirt. Then he punched him in the face.

  Jimmy didn’t flinch. The sudden pain in his nose shot into his eyes, but he forced them not to cry. He was used to sudden pain. He was getting better at not crying.

  He pointed again. “Is that your baby sister?”

  “I’m not stupid! A kite can’t hold a baby!”

  Jimmy looked up at the kite. “I dunno. It’s awful big.” He made his eyes widen. “Jeez, look! She just squirmed!”

  Kyle began crying. “She did! I saw her!”

  Jasmine stared up with an expression of horror.

  Todd looked at Kyle and Jasmine, then at the kite. The change in his face made Jimmy want to yell like Tarzan.

  “That ain’t my sister!” Todd said. His voice trembled. “She weighs too much! She weighs eight pounds!”

  “But, God, it’s a big kite,” Jimmy said.

  Jasmine began to cry with Kyle.

  “A baby weighs too much!” Todd said.

  The wail of an infant came down from the sky.

  Todd bumped against the rod and reel, and the baby flailed in the eagle’s claws.

  “She’s still squirming!” Kyle cried.

  The wail came again.

  Todd yanked the rod and reel from the ground. As the kite started to pull him forward, he cranked the reel frantically.

  Far up, the line snapped and floated toward earth in a squiggle. Kyle and Jasmine screamed. The kite shot northward, and the baby jerked.

  Todd made a noise that was part moan, part whimper. He dropped the rod and ran across the field.

  The wailing from above continued.

  Kyle and Jasmine started to run too, but Jimmy caught them each by an arm. “There’s nothing you can do,” he said.

  Todd reached the Potwin road and ran north down the middle of the pavement. Jimmy watched him shrink.

  The wailing became weaker, and weaker, and stopped.

  The kite vanished behind Clay Hill.

  * * *

  Jasmine kicked Jimmy in the leg. “I hate you,” she said. “You put Doll-Baby on your stupid kite.”

  “That was a real baby,” Kyle said, sobbing.

  “Doll-Baby’s a real baby,” Jasmine said indignantly.

  Jimmy released their arms and picked up his fishing rod. He brushed dirt from the reel. “I’ll find Doll-Baby for you now,” he said.

  “Liar.”

  He began to reel in the line. “I said I’ll find her. You don’t even have to help.” He looked at Kyle. “And you don’t have to feel bad. I’m sure that baby wasn’t real.”

  “It was crying.”

  “It was fake. I saw the men put a tape recorder in its stomach.”

  “Oh,” Kyle said.

  The broken end of the line reached the tip of the rod, and Jimmy stopped cranking. “Mom was going to make oatmeal cookies,” he said. “I bet if you guys went to our house, you could get some. I’ll stay here to look for Doll-Baby.”

  “I’m not supposed to go home by myself,” Jasmine said.

  “Kyle’ll go too.”

  Kyle tugged Jasmine’s arm. “Come on,” he said. “Cookies.”

  Jasmine allowed herself to be dragged along, but she glared back at Jimmy. “I still hate you.”

  “Big deal,” Jimm
y said.

  He watched to make sure they crossed the Potwin road safely, and then he looked north. Todd was climbing Clay Hill. As Jimmy watched, Todd fell twice.

  Jimmy let the pain of his hurt nose get through and make him cry.

  “Serves you right,” he said.

  * * *

  The south wind sang through the catwalk. The whole tower was vibrating with an intensity that Jimmy had never felt before. As he cut the fishing line that held the backpack against the boards, he said, “Worth the climb, wasn’t it?”

  He opened the flap. As the sun lit Baby Tina’s face, she opened her toothless mouth wide. Her eyes shone. She liked this vibration, this brilliance. She was smiling, maybe for the first time ever. And because no one was watching, and no one would know, Jimmy lifted her from the pack and hugged her. There was mealy yellow stuff on her legs.

  Jimmy looked north and saw that Todd had vanished over the crest of Clay Hill. When Todd found the kite, he would be in a big hurry to get home, so he would probably leave the wreck where it was. Jimmy could retrieve Doll-Baby later.

  The kite had crashed well beyond the hill, which meant there was no way that Todd could return home in less than thirty minutes. But Jimmy could be there in ten. If Mr. and Mrs. Boyle were back early, he would say that he’d found the baby in the field. And oh, by the way, he had seen Todd climbing Clay Hill.

  If the Boyles were on schedule, all the better. Long before Todd showed up, his parents would have found their soiled infant alone in the house. Todd’s troubles were just beginning. Jimmy took Baby Tina to the south side of the tank and showed her the place where the words JIMMY BLACKBURN IS A PUSSY had been written. There wasn’t even a smudge now.

  Baby Tina gurgled, and he decided to do one more thing.

  He put her into the backpack so that her head stuck out. He molded the canvas around her body and snugged it with the piece of monofilament that had held it to the catwalk. Then he took his rod and reel line, looped it through the shoulder straps, and tied it.

  He released the brake on the Zebco’s reverse. A firm grip on the crank would be important.

  He kissed Baby Tina’s ear and whispered, “You’re an eagle.”

  Then he stood and swung her into the sky. He braced the rod on the rail and let Baby Tina fly toward earth as fast as he dared. For this one moment of her life, she would know how it felt to be free.

  VICTIM NUMBER FIVE

  Blackburn walked into the U.S. Army recruiting office at the strip mall on East Kellogg and brought a blast of cold air with him. Papers on the Recruiter’s desk went flying. The Recruiter, a burr-headed man in an olive uniform, left his chair and started picking them up.

  “Sorry,” Blackburn said.

  The Recruiter grinned. “That’s okay, son. Have a seat and I’ll be right with you.”

  Blackburn sat in one of the two plastic chairs in front of the desk. His coat billowed and settled like a parachute. He picked up a model cannon from a stack of brochures and pointed it at the Recruiter.

  “Boom,” Blackburn said.

  The Recruiter settled into the swivel chair on the other side of the desk. He stacked the papers on the desktop and placed a model of a Sherman tank on top of them. He nodded at the cannon in Blackburn’s hand. “That’s an authentic reproduction of a Civil War field piece.”

  “Union or Rebel?” Blackburn asked.

  The Recruiter looked puzzled. “Either, I reckon.”

  Blackburn pointed it at him again. “Boom.”

  The Recruiter chuckled. “Are you interested in an Army career, son?”

  Blackburn replaced the cannon on the brochures. “A friend of mine joined.”

  “I see. And that’s inspired you, right?”

  “Yes,” Blackburn said. “That’s a good way to put it. I’m feeling inspired.”

  The Recruiter frowned for an instant, and then his expression was all grin again. He held out his big, red right hand. “Master Sergeant Don Riggle here, son.”

  Blackburn stared at the Recruiter’s hand. “You’re the one,” he said. He reached out and placed his hand in the Recruiter’s. The sergeant’s grip was like granite. Blackburn winced, and then was angry with himself. He pulled his hand back.

  “And what’s your name, son?” the Recruiter asked. His grin was still there, but suspicion crinkled the corners of his eyes. His eyes matched his uniform.

  “Ernest Tompkins,” Blackburn said.

  The Recruiter pulled a piece of paper from under the tank and began writing on it with a steel pen. “And how old are you, Ernest?”

  “I’m nineteen.”

  “High school graduate?”

  “Yes.” It was only a partial lie. Blackburn hadn’t even had a senior year, but Ernie had.

  “Which high school, son?”

  “Wantoda Unified. East of here, in Tuttle County.”

  The Recruiter wrote it down. Then he looked up at Blackburn, his whole face smiling. The suspicion lines were gone. “And what sort of career training do you think you’d be interested in, Ernest?”

  Blackburn considered. What would Ernie have said?

  “I’m not sure,” Blackburn said. “What have you got?”

  The Recruiter’s body made a gaseous noise. “You name it, son, and today’s Army has it.” His right forefinger, the size of a carrot, tapped the brochures under the cannon. “Communications technician. Air traffic controller. Smoke operations specialist. Automotive mechanic. Helicopter pilot. Chaplain’s assistant. Sanitation specialist. Electrician. There’s no end to the possibilities.” He spread out the brochures. One of them was entitled Field Artillery: The Career with a Future.

  “Lasers too?” Blackburn asked. Ernie had expressed an interest in lasers.

  “Absolutely,” the Recruiter said. “Laser technology out the wazoo.” He laughed. His body made another gaseous noise.

  Blackburn stared at the Recruiter. “Do you like the way I have my hair cut short, Sergeant?” he asked. His sandy hair was trimmed above his ears and collar. Ernie’s hair had always been trimmed like that. Blackburn had never seen Ernie look shaggy.

  The Recruiter frowned, then gave a chuckle. “Well, it’s better than most young men these days, Ernest. Of course, it’ll be cut shorter than that when you get to boot camp. More like mine.” He ran a hand over his stubble.

  Blackburn reached up and grasped the strands of hair hanging down on his forehead. He twisted them and looked past his hand at the Recruiter. “When I was thirteen I tried to grow it down to my waist,” he said. “That was 1971. The sixties had just come to Kansas. That was the year the Student Union up in Lawrence burned.”

  The Recruiter’s face turned stony. “I remember. I was at Fort Riley. Sure wanted to go over there and straighten things out. Looked for a while like we might get to.”

  Blackburn kept twisting his hair. “That was also the year Lieutenant Calley went to prison.”

  The Recruiter’s eyes narrowed. “Are you here to sign up, son?”

  Blackburn nodded. “Sure. Don’t you remember?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Blackburn yanked out the twisted hairs and began to braid them. “This is what I wanted to do that year,” he said. “I wanted to braid my hair and hide the braids in my coat. A long coat, like this one. This is Army surplus.” He looked up from his braid. “The Army makes good coats.”

  The Recruiter scratched his jaw. “Thanks,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.” Blackburn looked back at his braid. “See, I figured that if anybody gave me any shit, I’d whip out those braids and snap the son of a bitch in the face. Pop his eyes out.”

  The Recruiter opened a desk drawer and pulled out more brochures. “Now, just take a look at these opportunities,” he said.

  “Infantry,” Blackburn said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I want to be in the infantry,” Blackburn said. “That’s where the shooting is, right? I know how to shoot.”

  “Well, now, son
,” the Recruiter said, spreading the new brochures on the desk as if they were a deck of cards, “there isn’t much shooting these days. We’re at peace.”

  “I know. We lost the war two years ago.”

  The Recruiter’s nostrils flared. “We didn’t lose anything,” he said. His voice was low and hard.

  “The communists took over South Vietnam,” Blackburn said.

  “The United States Army has never lost a war,” the Recruiter said.

  Blackburn considered. “I can respect that,” he said. “If it’s true, I can respect that a lot.”

  The Recruiter’s eyes were steady. “It’s true. No matter what you read in the papers or see on TV, you remember that. The U.S. Army doesn’t lose. Ever.”

  “Would you stake your life on that?” Blackburn asked.

  The Recruiter nodded. “I already have, son.”

  “Then sign me up.”

  The Recruiter and Blackburn filled out the rest of the form. Blackburn lied where necessary. Then he signed at the bottom of the page. The name he signed was “Ernest T. Tompkins III.”

  The Recruiter looked at the signature. “Carrying on the family name, I see.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  The Recruiter raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

  “My name. ‘Ernest T. Tompkins III.’ You don’t remember it?”

  The Recruiter’s stomach made a grinding noise. “No, son, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Blackburn reached into his coat, into the pocket he had cut into the lining. “Then you lied. The Army has lost.”

  “I’m not following you, Ernest.”

  “The Army has lost its memory. It doesn’t remember Ernest T. Tompkins III.”

  The Recruiter pointed at Blackburn. “But you’re right here.”

  Blackburn shook his head. “You shouldn’t have forgotten that name. Not after what happened. He sent my mother a letter a year and a half ago after you went to Wantoda Unified and signed him up. He hoped I would call her sometime, and last month I finally did. She told me he’d joined the Army.”

  “Who?”

  “Ernest T. Tompkins III. Who wanted to serve his country after its ignominious defeat. Who was interested in lasers. Who had asthma, and told you so. And you said come on ahead.”