A Maidens Grave

girls,” she signed emphatically to the students. “I want to say something.”
    Bear’s head turned toward them. He noticed the signing. His smile vanished immediately and he climbed to his feet. He seemed to be shouting, “Stop that! Stop!”
    “He doesn’t like us to sign,” Melanie signed quickly. “Pretend we’re playing hand-shape game.”
    One thing Melanie liked about Deaf culture—the love of words. ASL was a language like any other. In fact it was the fifth most widely used language in America. ASL words and phrases could be broken down into smaller structural units (hand shape, motion, and relation of the hand to the body), just like spoken words could be broken down into syllables and phonemes. Those gestures lent themselves to word games, which nearly all Deaf people grew up playing.
    Bear stormed up to her. “What the fuck . . . with . . .”
    Melanie’s hands began to shake violently. She managed to write in the dust on the floor, Game. We’re playing game. See? We make shapes with our hands. Shapes of things.
    “What things?”
    This is animal game.
    She signed the word “Stupid.” With her index and middle fingers extended in a V, the shape vaguely resembled a rabbit.
    “What’s that . . . be?”
    A rabbit, she wrote.
    The twins ducked their heads, giggling.
    “Rabbit . . . Doesn’t . . . fucking rabbit to me,” he said.
    Please let us play. Can’t hurt.
    He glanced at Kielle, who signed, “You turd.” Smiling, she wrote in the dust, That was hippo.
    “ . . . out of your fucking minds.” Bear turned back to his fries and soda.
    The girls waited until he was out of sight then looked expectantly at Melanie. Kielle, no longer smiling, asked brusquely, “What do you have to say?”
    “I’m going to get us out of here,” Melanie signed. “That’s what.”
     
    Arthur Potter and Angie Scapello were preparing to debrief Jocylyn Weiderman, who was being examined by medics at that moment, when they heard the first shot.
    It was a faint crack and far less alarming than Dean Stillwell’s urgent voice breaking over the speaker above their heads. “Arthur, we’ve got a situation here! Handy’s shooting.”
    Hell.
    “There’s somebody in the field.”
    Before he even looked outside Potter pressed the button on the mike and ordered, “Tell everybody, no return fire.”
    “Yessir.”
    Potter joined Angie and Charlie Budd in the ocher window of the van.
    “That son of a bitch,” Budd whispered.
    Another shot rang out from the slaughterhouse and the bullet kicked up a cloud of splinters from the rotting stockade post next to the dark-suited man about sixty yards from the command van. A voluminous handkerchief, undoubtedly expensive, billowed around the raised right hand of the intruder.
    “Oh, no,” Angie whispered in dismay.
    Potter’s heart sank. “Henry, your profile of the assistant attorney general neglected to mention he’s out of his damn mind.”
    Handy fired again, hitting a rock just behind Roland Marks. The assistant AG stopped, cringing. He waved the handkerchief again. He continued slowly toward the slaughterhouse.
    Potter pressed speed dial. As the phone rang and rang he muttered, “Come on, Lou.”
    No answer.
    Dean Stillwell’s voice came over the speaker. “Arthur,I don’t know what to make of it. Somebody here thinks it’s—”
    “It’s Roland Marks, Dean. Is he saying anything to Handy?”
    “Looks like he’s shouting. We can’t hear.”
    “Tobe, you have those Big Ears in place still?”
    The young agent spoke into his stalk mike and punched buttons. In a few seconds, the mournful yet urgent sound of the wind filled the van. Then Marks’s voice.
    “Lou Handy! I’m Roland Marks, assistant attorney general of the state of Kansas.”
    A huge crack of a gunshot, overly amplified, burst into the van. Everyone cringed.
    Tobe whispered, “The other Big Ear’s trained on the slaughterhouse but we’re not getting anything.”
    Sure. Because Handy’s not saying anything. Why talk when you can make your point with bullets?
    “This is bad,” Angie muttered.
    The AG’s voice again: “Lou Handy, this isn’t a trick. I want you to give up the girls and take me in their place.”
    “Jesus,” Budd whispered. “He’s doing that?” He sounded half impressed and Potter had to restrain himself from scowling at the state police captain.
    Another shot, closer. Marks danced sideways.
    “For the love of God, Handy,” came the