A Maidens Grave

dust and mud. Bear turned to Stoat and called out something.
    “Susan, don’t!” Melanie signed.
    The teenager was on her feet again. But Bear was prepared this time and turned to meet her. When he grabbed her his hand found her breasts and lingered there for a moment. Suddenly, he grew tired of the game. He hit her solidly in the stomach and she dropped to her knees, clutching herself and struggling for breath.
    “No!” Melanie signed to her. “Don’t fight.”
    Stoat called to Bear, “Where . . . he?”
    Bear motioned toward a wall of wheat. He had a curious expression on his face—as if he didn’t approve of something but was afraid to be too critical. “Don’t . . . time . . . this bullshit,” he muttered. Melanie followed his eyes and looked into the shafts of wheat. She couldn’t see clearly but from the shadows and dim outlines it appeared to be a man, bending down. He was small and wiry. It seemed that his arm was raised, like in one of those Nazi salutes. It remained poised there for a long moment. Beneath him, she thought, was the form of a person, dressed in dark green.
    The woman who owned the purse, Melanie understood in a terrible flash.
    No, please, no . . .
    The man’s arm descended leisurely. Through the undulating wheat she saw the dull glint of metal in his hand.
    Stoat’s head bent slightly; he’d heard a sudden noise. He winced. Bear’s face broke into a smile. Mrs. Harstrawn’s hands rose to her ears, covering them. Horrified. Mrs. Harstrawn could hear perfectly.
    Melanie stared into the wheat, crying. She saw: The shadowy figure crouching lower, over the woman. The elegant movement of the tall wheat, swaying in the intemperate July wind. The motion of the man’s arm rising and falling slowly, once, twice. His face studying the body lying in front of him.
    Mrs. Harstrawn fixed Stoat with a stoic gaze. “ . . . us go and . . . won’t bother you. We won’t . . .”
    Melanie was comforted to see the woman’s defiance, her anger. The sturdy set of her jaw.
    Stoat and Bear ignored her. They herded Susan, Mrs. Harstrawn, and Melanie toward the bus.
    Inside, the younger girls huddled in the back. Bear pushed Mrs. Harstrawn and Susan inside and gestured toward his belt, where his gun bulged. Melanie was the last person inside before Stoat, who shoved her into the back. She tripped and fell on top of the sobbing twins. She hugged them hard then gathered Emily and Shannon into her arms.
    The Outside . . . Caught in the terrible Outside.
    Melanie glanced at Stoat and saw him say, “Deaf as . . . all of them.” Bear squeezed his fat torso into the driver’s seat and started the bus. He looked in the rearview mirror and frowned then spun around.
    In the distance, at the end of the ribbon of asphalt, was a dot of flashing lights. Bear pressed the pad on the steering wheel and Melanie felt the vibrations of the horn in her chest.
    Bear said, “Man, what the fuck’s . . . think we . . .” Then he turned his head and the words were lost.
    Stoat shouted toward the wheat. He nodded when, apparently, the man answered. A moment later the gray Chevy sped out of the field. Badly damaged but still drivable, it rolled onto the shoulder, paused. Melanie tried to glance into the front seat for a glimpse of the man behind the wheat but there was too much glare. It appeared there was no driver at all.
    Then the car accelerated fast, fishtailing onto the asphalt. The bus followed, easing forward into the faint clouds of blue tire smoke. Bear slapped the steering wheel, turned for a moment and barked some words to Melanie—angry words, vicious words. But she had no idea what they might be.
     
    The brilliant flashing lights grew closer, red and blue and white. Like the Fourth of July fireworks over the park in Hebron two weeks ago, when she’d watched the streamersof color crisscross the sky, felt the explosions of the white-hot bangs against her skin.
    She looked back at the police car and knew what would happen. There’d be a hundred squad cars all converging up ahead. They’d pull the bus over and these men would get out. They’d put their hands up and be led off. The students and teachers would go down to a stationhouse somewhere and make statements. She’d miss the Theater of the Deaf performance in Topeka this time—even if they still had time to make it—but there was no way she’d get up on stage and recite poetry after all of this.
    And the other