Читать книгу Murder In The Heartland - M. William Phelps - Страница 11

It was five days before the winter solstice. December 16, 2004, started off a bit abnormal—although, upon waking up to what was a magnificent sunrise, few would have guessed. The wind was blowing in across the Nebraska plains from the west at a steady pace of twelve miles per hour, which, by itself, was not so unusual. Yet the temperature capped out at around fifty degrees by midday, making it feel like a chilly evening in late September, or maybe a pleasant early-October morning: brusque, cool, effervescent.

In town, many of the women took advantage of the un-seasonable weather. Wearing red-and-white aprons, some felt inspired to take out muddy throw rugs and floormats, hang them from clotheslines, and beat the dirt out of them with brooms. Others opened windows and aired things out a bit—the cool, fresh air casting a sparkle on everything it touched. Some men, unimpressed by such a scant spike in the mercury, donned customary black-and-red plaid flannel shirts, coveralls, leather gloves, and winter caps with earflaps. They were seen making repairs to property-line fences and timber corral posts, while others stood sipping coffee and “shootin’ the breeze” near the center of town, framed by the cottonwoods, oaks, and maples, leafless and brittle, that stood in perfect rows along the gullies of Highway 113.

Before that Thursday afternoon, the town of Skidmore was but a black dot on the map of America’s heartland. To say it was a small farming parish would understate how rural the countryside actually was. Skidmore, according to the green-and-white “city limit” sign on the edge of town, is home to a mere 342—“give’r take a few,” noted one native—nestled in the northwestern corner of Missouri, a state named after a Siouan Native American tribe, which, translated, means “canoe.”

To an outsider, the town resembles an eighteenth-century landscape painting hanging on a velvet saloon wall somewhere farther west, dusty and ignored, a bucolic setting, innocent of technology, infrastructure, big-city bureaucrats, and mundane problems.

But to townsfolk, Skidmore is Eden, a comfortable, intimate place to live and die. “Everybody knows everybody” is a reliable cliché there, evident in the way people greet each other with a nod and wave. In Missouri, where the state license plates proclaim “Show Me State,” red, white, and blue are more than simply colors; and rolls of hay, coiled up like massive cinnamon buns as tall as street signs, dot the thousands of acres of gently sloping farmland.

In many ways, time has stood still in Skidmore. An old railroad line that carried cattle and grain a century ago marks a decomposing path through the countryside, subtly reminding folks that nothing ever truly goes away. All over town are remnants of another day and age: memories verifying how life, regardless of how it is elsewhere, moves at a slower pace, and how people still take the time to stop and shake hands, pat one another on the shoulder, ask about the kids, quote a passage from the Bible, or maybe just share a bottle of “pop” while sitting on a porch swing.

In their hearts, any one of them will gladly admit, with a snap of their suspenders, Skidmorians care about the place where they live and the people who make up their community. They don’t bother anyone, and, in return, expect the same treatment from others.

“People there, well, it’s a different sorta place,” said one outsider. To which an acquaintance added, “If you don’t belong in Skidmore, ya betta jus stay the hell outta there.”