As the World Churns (33 page)
“I am supposed to do
vhat
?”
“We have to distract them,” I said, “and the best way to do that is to get them to chase their prize-winning cow through the woods.”
That was the essence of my plan. While the Pearlmutters beat the bushes for their buxom bovine, Agnes and Wanda would untie Alison and Gabe. If the situation called for it, both women were more than willing to physically engage the pair of kidnappers (alas, my strict Mennonite upbringing still held sway, and I was pretty much limited to pelting giantesses with pebbles). Wanda, on the other hand, wanted to extinguish the campfire by dragging Jane through it by her hair (although a liberal Mennonite, Wanda has a bit of Baptist blood coursing through her veins). Not to be outdone, Presbyterian Agnes expressed an eagerness to sit on Dick Pearl-mutter while she pummeled him with her relatively tiny fists.
Ida had initially been enthusiastic about my plan, until she learned what her role was to be. Although my warriors had long since crept into place, Ida was still staring up at the cow. To be fair, it towered above her.
“You vant me to ride dis beast?”
“She’s a cow. Just think of her as a well-endowed horse.”
“I dunt ride horses neither.”
“Then what are you waiting for? They say that senior citizens who try new things live sixty-point-three percent longer.”
“Longer den vhat?” Despite her thick accent, my mother-in-law had not fallen off the turnip truck-at least not in recent times.
“Longer than fruit flies, dear.”
“Den
get
da flies to ride da cow.”
“Ida, dearest mother-in-law, we have to do this in order to rescue your son. This cow is worth a lot of money to the Pearlmutters. If it’s lost, that’s all they’ll think about for the moment. You saw me try to push the cow off the trailer; she wouldn’t budge. But if someone is sitting on her back, that might do the trick.”
“Den vhy dunt you climb on?”
“Because I’m too heavy, and could damage her spine. Cows aren’t meant to be ridden like horses. But a pint-size thing like you-that’s a compliment, dear-well, she’d barely know you were there.”
“Den vhat difference vould it
make
?”
“Trust
me,
you’d be just enough of an irritant to get her going.”
“Oy, da tings I must do in dis life.”
“So you’ll do it? Please, pretty please?
With sugar on top?”
She sighed deeply. “Vell, maybe, eef-” There was no time for eefs, ands, and buts. Can I be blamed, then, for taking this as tacit agreement? I think not. After all, a mind half made up is like a cake half eaten: if one’s come that far, one might as well commit to the rest. So, to save her the trouble of committing further, I scooped up the scrappy little New Yorker, and plopped her on the cow’s broad back. Unfortunately-for Ida, that is, not the cow-I’d set her down facing the animal’s patooty. I grabbed the startled cow’s tail and thrust it at Ida.
“Hold tight to this with both hands.”
“Help!” she yelped.
“I vant off da cow now.”
“This is no time to be rhyming, dear.” I gave the animal a good swat on the rump, causing her to bolt from the trailer like Mrs. O’Leary’s cow from a barn on fire. Within seconds, human and Holstein were crashing through the woods like some prehistoric creature (not that there ever really was such a thing, mind you).
I cupped my hands to my mouth. “There’s a cow loose! Help, somebody! Help me catch this cow before she gets hit by a car- or eaten by a bear.”
For the record, the sound made by two greedy people crashing
through a woods
is almost equal to that made by a prize-win-ning cow. I listened happily to the noise, secure in the knowledge that my SWAT team-Scrawny Wanda and Agnes the Tremen-dous-were loosing my loved ones. Stupidly, I neglected to get my own keester out of harm’s way while I had the chance.
37
“Well, well, look what we have here,” Jane said. Dick was less happy to see me. “Forget about her right now. We can’t let the cow get away.”
“We can’t let her get away either,” Jane snarled. Fortunately for her, she had a revolver to back up her attitude.
Unfortunately for me, I had only my mouth. “Oh, look, see spotted cow run. See Dick run. See Jane run. See Dick and Jane run after cow.”
“Shut up!”
“Oh, oh, oh.
See, see,
see
. See Jane get mad. See Jane puff.”
“I said shut up. If you don’t, I’ll shoot.”
“Darn it, Jane,” Dick said (although to be sure, his language was a mite rougher than that), “we’ve got to catch that darn cow, or else we’re really up stick creek without a paddle.”
“Look, look, look. See Dick get mad at Jane. See Dick and Jane get mad at each other. See spotted cow run very, very far. Run, spotted cow, run, run. See Dick and Jane in jail for kidnapping.”
Perhaps I’d gone too far, because by now Jane really was puffing. Even worse, she was holding her revolver at eye level. “You think you’re being funny, Miss Yoder, don’t you?”
“Perhaps a wee bit.”
“It’s not funny,” she grunted through clenched teeth.
“Come on, you must admit that the thought of you two serving twenty years in prison, thanks to my mother-in-law riding bareback on a cow, is worthy of a chuckle or two.” I tried to illustrate my point by chuckling, but instead produced several cackles that would be the envy of hens everywhere. “But seriously, folks, I can already picture you two in your prison duds. You, Jane, should opt for orange instead of stripes-if you get the chance. I mean, with your somewhat dumpy figure and all-well, enough said. Unless, of course, you’d like a boyfriend named Baby Sally. You, Dick, on the other hand, are a very handsome man, and are sure to draw admirers no matter what your choice of prison clothes. How would you feel about a girlfriend named Thumper Bob? He has a six-inch scar across his face and only two fingers on his right hand, thanks to a game called chicken.”
Jane’s plain little eyes narrowed to slits, and her revolver began to shake. “I
will
shoot. Don’t tempt me.”
“Oh, oh, oh, see Jane shoot. Shoot, Jane, shoot.
See Jane go to prison for the rest of her life.”
“She’s right,” Dick said. “If we kill her, we don’t stand a chance of seeing daylight for the rest of our lives.”
“That’s not true at all,” I heard myself say. “I heard that they have a little courtyard that they let you wander around in for an hour a day. You have to share it with the other convicted killers, but that goes without saying. I mean, count your blessings, right?
Because the rest of the time, you’ll be working in a hot, steamy laundry room, or stamping out license plates.
My point, dears, is that it won’t be all drudgery-just mostly. Of course, to be fair, I must point out that Baby Sally and Thumper Bob will undoubtedly both be eager to offer you emotional, as well as physical, comfort.”
Even though it was a moonless night, I could see Dick’s fist resting on his hips. “It’s Jane’s fault,” he said, spitting out the words like they were bits of rhubarb.
The gun swayed widely while Jane struggled to keep her focus.
“Oh yeah?
You begged me to operate on that darn cow. It was your chance to make a name for yourself, you said. Failed stockbroker who can’t make it in the big city finally becomes somebody.”
Dick turned to me. “Don’t listen to her. I was a big name on Wall Street. I had Fortune 500 clients.”
“Had,” Jane said, doing some spitting of her own. “That’s the operative word-
had
.”
“Pun intended, dear?”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Then shut up!”
Dick was still looking at me. “It really was Jane’s idea.”
Jane snorted. “At
first
it was my idea, but I was just joking. We could take a moderately good cow and turn her into a cham-pion-that’s all I said. Then he took the ball and ran with it.
Got obsessed with it.”
“Well, you’re both nuttier than a bag of PayDay bars,” I said. “Plastic surgery on cow udders is nothing new. That’s one of the things judges are instructed to look for.”
“Yes, but Jane is perhaps the most skilled plastic surgeon there is, aren’t you, honey?”
“I was,” she said matter-of-factly. “Then Dick insisted that I give up my practice and move out of the city. He said he’d always wanted to live on a farm-like Eddie Albert on
Green Acres
.”
“
Green Acres
?
I loved that show! It is the only thing that was ever worth watching on TV, as far as I’m concerned.”
“It was hideous. And anyway, the show had nothing to do with Dick’s reason for wanting to leave
“You can be so cruel, Jane.” Dick’s voice quavered, almost spanning the range of two octaves.
By then I’d lost all my patience. “And
you’re
not cruel? What do you call kidnapping a child?”
“Child?”
they cried in unison. “That’s no child,” Dick said quickly. “That girl is a holy terror on two tiny feet-uh, you must admit, Miss Yoder, that they are considerably smaller than yours.”
“A monster,” Jane agreed. “She called us naive and stupid. Said we were a pair of bumbling amateurs.
Offered to teach us the proper way to kidnap someone-if we paid her a thousand dollars.
It was like a page out of ‘The Ransom of Red Chief.’ “
“That’s my girl,” I said proudly.
“I can’t believe my ears,” Dick said. “You approve of her behavior?”
“Absolutely not!”
I said. “But as long as she was going to charge you anyway, at least her fee structure was reasonable. I’d have been downright ashamed had she asked for any less. Tell me, did she offer an option package?”
“Come again?”
“You know, like RABBLE. Surely you’ve heard of Rob A Big Bank Lessons.”
“Ha!” Jane barked. “You’re not so smart after all. You forgot the E.”
“I did not; I’m saving it for last.”
“Then what does it stand for?”
“Eternity.
That’s what you’ll spend in Hell if you shoot me.”
I heard the safety click off as she stepped forward. She was so
close,
I could smell sausage on her breath. The gun was now aimed at my belly. Apparently, instant death was too good for me. Instead I would die from blood loss, my innards having been blasted to kingdom come.
Although my faith prevents me from acts of violence-a few of my ancestors have actually died on that account-it also requires that I be a loving parent and a faithful wife. How could I do either if I was pushing up daisies in Settlers’ Cemetery up on Stucky Ridge? Clearly, then, I had no choice but to follow my God-given instincts.
In one seamless move-no pun intended-I whipped my generous skirt over the vicious woman and clamped her in a headlock. Taken off guard, she dropped the gun, but then immediately began pummeling me about the shoulders and across my back with her fists.
“Duck, duck,” she squawked, her mouth filling with gabardine each time it opened.
“Hup me, duck.”
I was kind enough to translate for Dick. “She’s talking to you, dear.”
“Uh-”
“So what will it be, Duck? Are you going to add attempted murder to your rap sheet?”
“I haven’t touched you.” Indeed, he hadn’t moved.
“But you did bludgeon an eighty-year-old man. Either you help me restrain your psychotic wife, or you’re about to become an expert on laundry.”
“Miss Yoder, I swear, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Au contraire.
You were there when dear, sweet Dr. Shafor crawled to the front door of the inn, leaving a trail of blood that led to the barn. Did you know that he wrote a message with his blood?”
“Honestly, I swear on a stack of Bibles, I didn’t do it.”