Prairie Gothic Read Online Free PDF

downstream of the dam that held Tommie Irons’ pond.
    Sometime over the years, the pond had filled to overflowing. Gradually, it must have built its own spillway. The soaked earth suffered years of freezing and baking. The spillway eroded its way toward the pond. Recently, a fresh chunk of earth had tumbled into the stream. That’s where the footprints led and, when Mad Dog clambered up onto the side of the dam to examine the icy avalanche from above, he saw more bones protruding, both from the wall of earth that remained and in the debris that had fallen.
    Tommie Irons’ dam really was a burial mound. Mad Dog suddenly remembered that Tommie had been specific about where he wanted his own bones placed—at the other end of the dam, about as far as you could get from where these were.
    Mad Dog dropped to his belly and leaned over the edge. Hailey sat by his side, proudly sharing her find. The bones had taken on the texture of the earth that held them. Mixed with bits of ice and snow, they were hard to make out. One thing was immediately clear, though. Most were far too large to go with the skull Hailey had brought him.
    There was something else down there among the earth and bones. It was a splash of color that didn’t belong in a January Kansas landscape. Mad Dog reached and brushed at it. It came loose and he snagged it with his gloved hand before it could fall into the breach.
    It was plastic, a battered ID card. Mad Dog could barely make it out without his reading glasses. There was a picture and part of the name that faded away toward the end. HORNB was all that remained.
    The picture was of a young man with dark hair and smiling lips. It could be an old shot of County Supervisor Ezekiel Hornbaker, only this face had a broad, flat nose that appeared to have encountered a determined fist. Mad Dog was sure Supervisor Hornbaker’s nose had never looked like this.
    ***
    Doc Jones arrived in his aging Buick station wagon that doubled as ambulance or hearse, depending on circumstances. It was beige, speckled with mud, not unlike the streaks of tired snow that remained between the elms on the lawn in front of the Sunshine Towers Retirement Home.
    The sheriff met his old friend on the sidewalk. The wind reminded him just how cold it was. Doc slumped into his heavy overcoat, his droopy, hound-dog face looking even sadder than usual.
    â€œMorning, Sheriff.” Doc extended his hand. “As coroner, I get to come over here all too often, but never after an infant before. What’s up?”
    The sheriff escorted him to the entry and through its first set of doors. In the space between inner and outer doors, the cold was only a threat, not an adversary.
    â€œI don’t know much yet, Doc. What I do is pretty bizarre.”
    â€œI assume you’re keeping me from getting somewhere warm for a reason.” Doc gestured to where a small crowd filled the lobby and stared at them with an intensity normally reserved by residents here for a few soap operas or the odd global tragedy.
    â€œEverybody in the county is going to know about this before dark. I’d just as soon not share more than I have to.”
    Doc nodded and snuggled a little deeper into his coat.
    â€œTommie Irons died last night,” the sheriff told him.
    â€œNot a surprise. The cancer was all through him. So you’ve got two bodies for me?”
    The sheriff sighed. “Tommie’s not here. Apparently Mad Dog’s been coming to see him. They’ve been sharing their indigenousness, or something. I guess Tommie decided he wanted a traditional Choctaw burial and persuaded Mad Dog to help. Some of the residents called Mad Dog and smuggled him in this morning. Damned if I know where my brother or the body have got to.”
    Doc’s droopy mouth straightened into a half smile. “Sorry, Sheriff, that’s partly my fault. I persuaded Mad Dog to come talk to Tommie about Native American religious notions. The