Read Online WIREMAN by Billie Sue Mosiman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Billie Sue Mosiman
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cemetery, the wind ruffling his blond hair. Beneath one of the many plain stone markers lay his mother, but he could not remember which marker sheltered her. He had not been in the cemetery in years. When she died, they had been too poor to afford an engraved granite stone. Feeling ashamed, he decided one day he would have a gravestone erected.
In the ledger for the cement markers was a list of the dead. Among them was the name Mary Stuart Ringer. Her plot was numbered and could be located with a map. Mary's son could not disturb the old gatekeeper for such useless information. Any marker would do. Any grave.
He stood before one. A daddy-long-legs spider crawled up a dried brown stalk and clung motionless at the top when a chilling breeze rattled the weeds.
"You didn't try to understand," the man whispered to the cold ground. "You left us behind. "
He waited for her reply but there was none. The blank, apathetic marker winked at him the second he turned his back and took his shadow away.
From the deserted cemetery he drove across Bloomington to the old house. He was surprised to find it still standing. The weathered, squat five-room house peered out from a tangle of creeping ivy that covered every crack. The windows were blank, lifeless. Splinters from the door hung from the wood like sharp tongues.
Home. Where was it? What did it mean?
He drove across a dead winter town that did not resemble the one he remembered and found the road leading to the ten acres Mary Ringer had bought in the early sixties. It had been paid for with blood money.
A year after her husband left she had been notified Armand Ringer was dead and his insurance policy with the oil rigger's company was still in her name. "I'll buy that piece off Doff Road and we'll build a house on it one day," she told the boys. Build a house with what? For whom? The land sat neglected, forgotten.
Until one of the boys thought of it. It was a game. Macabre and unholy, but nonetheless in the beginning it was a sort of game. Bury the killed animals on that lonely wilderness of ten acres. The animals would be missing, but there would be no evidence to prove they were dead--murdered.
The game included finding ways to dispose of the remains. They buried the first ones in the hard ground, digging until their young hands blistered and began to bleed on the pickax and the shovel. Then they buried them in the trees and called that an Indian burial ground. For a while they constructed mock ships, tiny, rough-planked contraptions with sails made from torn shirts. There was not enough water for a decent Viking burning at sea so they set them aflame in a rusty red ditch where a tiny stream of water flowed and had to turn away, holding their noses and breathing through their mouths when the stench was too bad.
Together they did it. Often it was done under the cover of night, the stars their only witnesses.
Ten scrubby, wooded acres of secrets. A place of death. He stood facing the past, trying to find the meaning of it, feeling the urge to kill again and to bring fresh blood to the earth. The wind blew up, slapping him in the face, stinging him with cold.
His eyes swept the boundaries of his land. On one side was a dilapidated wooden fence no one had bothered to repair. On the other was a wide empty ditch that rarely carried rainwater. And in the middle was a desolate parcel where no man walked save ghosts.
He turned away, shivering. He was not afraid. Whoever said he was afraid was a liar. He was determined to bring sacrifice to the land. To his home.
This time he would leave behind evidence of his great vengeance. His coming would create a storm of fear.
He smiled. Liberation, so sweet.
Half an hour later Houston's skyline emerged from a smog-shrouded distance. He took the South Loop and exited onto a feeder road. Random chance landed him in Willie DeShane's neighborhood. He cruised the streets familiarizing himself with them until twilight descended. As the sun sank
In the ledger for the cement markers was a list of the dead. Among them was the name Mary Stuart Ringer. Her plot was numbered and could be located with a map. Mary's son could not disturb the old gatekeeper for such useless information. Any marker would do. Any grave.
He stood before one. A daddy-long-legs spider crawled up a dried brown stalk and clung motionless at the top when a chilling breeze rattled the weeds.
"You didn't try to understand," the man whispered to the cold ground. "You left us behind. "
He waited for her reply but there was none. The blank, apathetic marker winked at him the second he turned his back and took his shadow away.
From the deserted cemetery he drove across Bloomington to the old house. He was surprised to find it still standing. The weathered, squat five-room house peered out from a tangle of creeping ivy that covered every crack. The windows were blank, lifeless. Splinters from the door hung from the wood like sharp tongues.
Home. Where was it? What did it mean?
He drove across a dead winter town that did not resemble the one he remembered and found the road leading to the ten acres Mary Ringer had bought in the early sixties. It had been paid for with blood money.
A year after her husband left she had been notified Armand Ringer was dead and his insurance policy with the oil rigger's company was still in her name. "I'll buy that piece off Doff Road and we'll build a house on it one day," she told the boys. Build a house with what? For whom? The land sat neglected, forgotten.
Until one of the boys thought of it. It was a game. Macabre and unholy, but nonetheless in the beginning it was a sort of game. Bury the killed animals on that lonely wilderness of ten acres. The animals would be missing, but there would be no evidence to prove they were dead--murdered.
The game included finding ways to dispose of the remains. They buried the first ones in the hard ground, digging until their young hands blistered and began to bleed on the pickax and the shovel. Then they buried them in the trees and called that an Indian burial ground. For a while they constructed mock ships, tiny, rough-planked contraptions with sails made from torn shirts. There was not enough water for a decent Viking burning at sea so they set them aflame in a rusty red ditch where a tiny stream of water flowed and had to turn away, holding their noses and breathing through their mouths when the stench was too bad.
Together they did it. Often it was done under the cover of night, the stars their only witnesses.
Ten scrubby, wooded acres of secrets. A place of death. He stood facing the past, trying to find the meaning of it, feeling the urge to kill again and to bring fresh blood to the earth. The wind blew up, slapping him in the face, stinging him with cold.
His eyes swept the boundaries of his land. On one side was a dilapidated wooden fence no one had bothered to repair. On the other was a wide empty ditch that rarely carried rainwater. And in the middle was a desolate parcel where no man walked save ghosts.
He turned away, shivering. He was not afraid. Whoever said he was afraid was a liar. He was determined to bring sacrifice to the land. To his home.
This time he would leave behind evidence of his great vengeance. His coming would create a storm of fear.
He smiled. Liberation, so sweet.
Half an hour later Houston's skyline emerged from a smog-shrouded distance. He took the South Loop and exited onto a feeder road. Random chance landed him in Willie DeShane's neighborhood. He cruised the streets familiarizing himself with them until twilight descended. As the sun sank
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