The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse Read Online Free PDF Page A

the floor Agnes had just that afternoon scrubbed and waxed. Now, as he listened at some distance to the music, he thought of returning. Imagined the meal of her white shoulders. Shut his eyes and entered the confounding depth between her legs.
     
    BLESSING
     
    Then followed their best times. Together, they constructed a good life in which the erotic merged into the daily so that every task and small kindness was charged with a sexual humor. Agnes DeWitt was perhaps too emotionally arrogant to understand what a precious gift she shared with Berndt. She possessed, and so easily, a love most humans never know, yet are quite willing to die or go mad for. And Agnes had done nothing but find her way into the barn of a good man who had a singular gift for everyday affection as well as the deepest tones of human love.
    Through fall and winter, Agnes DeWitt gave music lessons, and although the two weren’t married and Miss DeWitt, existing in a state of mortal sin, took no communion, even the Catholics and their children subscribed. This was because it was well-known that Miss DeWitt’s first commitment had been to Christ. It was understandable that she would have no other marriage, and also, although she did not take the Holy Eucharist upon her tongue she was there at church each morning, faithful and extremely devout. And, so, when the priest spoke from the pulpit, his reference was quite clear.
    “Jesus insisted that Mary Magdelene be incorporated into the holy body of his church and it is said by some that in her hands there was celestial music. Her heart clearly contained the divine flame—and she was loved and forgiven.”
    Therefore, every morning Miss DeWitt played the church organ. She of course played Bach with a purity of intent purged of any subterranean feeling, but strictly and for God.
     
    ARNOLD “THE ACTOR” ANDERSON
     
    Only a short time into their happiness, the countryside and the small towns were preyed upon by a ring of bank robbers with a fast Overland automobile. This was before small towns even had sheriffs, some of them, let alone a car held in common to chase the precursors of such criminals as Basil “the Owl” Banghart, Ma Barker’s Boys, Alvin Karpus, Henry LaFay. The first, and most insidious, of these men was Arnold “the Actor” Anderson.
    The Actor and his troupe of thugs plundered the countryside at will, appearing as though from nowhere and descending into the towns with pitiless ease. The car—the color of which was always reported differently: white one time, gray the next, even blue—always pulled idling into the street before the doors of the bank. The passenger who emerged was sometimes an old man, other times a pregnant woman, a crippled youth, someone who inspired others to acts of polite assistance. A Good Samaritan would open doors and even escort the Actor to the teller, at which point the object of good works would straighten, throw off his disguise, shout to his gang in a ringing voice, and proceed to rob the bank. It would all be over in a trice. Sometimes, of course, there was resistance from a bank official or an intrepid do-gooder, in which case a death or two might result—for the Actor, who took on the disguises and masterminded the activities of the gang, was entirely ruthless and cared nothing for human life. It was said that he could be quite charming as he shot people, even funny. Eight people in the past two years had perished laughing.
    One clear but muddy spring day Miss DeWitt removed her egg and butter money from the crevice between two stones in the root cellar. She told Berndt that she was walking to town to deposit the money against the mortgage payment. He agreed, absently. Touched her arm. They’d had a breathless week of sex. Some mornings the two staggered from the bedroom disoriented, still half drunk on the perfume and animal eagerness of the other’s body. These frenzied periods occurred to them, every so often, like spells in the weather. They