Scarecrow

Chapter 2

Donnelly pulls out of his driveway after breakfast. Three separate bundles of corn and wheat rustle and bump loudly in the back of his battered pickup truck despite the bungee cords holding them down, the noise rivaled only by the hum of the engine and the merry little tune he whistles between his teeth. He flips on the radio and lets the soulful voice and twanging guitar of Toby Keith stream out the rolled-down windows like twin jet streams. The blue truck rumbles over a winding dirt path that soon enough gives way to a newer, paved-over road. It finally shoots past an ancient sign, half-felled in the tall yellow grass at the side of the road, that reads: Welcome to Beauty, Kansas– enjoy your stay!

The town appears just beyond the sign, a dusty oasis of crammed shops, inns, and public buildings shimmering in the morning heat. Beauty is a small enough town, possessing only two churches, the town hall, one schoolhouse, one drugstore, and one crumbling police station painted an ugly shade of yellow. These are the older buildings, the ones founded at the birth of the town. The newer establishments, such as the bank and the general store, are smaller, more compact in design, and they crowd around the older structures like remorah to a shark. The buildings thin out at their outskirts, giving way to a few newly-erected houses, ending entirely at the first acres of farmland. In fact, much of the land that the state of Kansas calls Beauty is farmland, owned and operated by local farmers like Donnelly. The town itself rests at the heart of the rolling fields of corn, sometimes vanishing entirely to the naked eye when the harvest is good enough and the stalks tower higher than a man's head.

The farmer's market is still being set up in the town square by the time Donnelly can secure a parking space. The men and women who till the land for harvest are so well respected in Beauty, and generate such a diverse cycle of trade, food, and income, that they are frequently referred to as the "corn barons" of Kansas. By the locals, at least. Today, however, they are nothing more than townsfolk in faded blue overalls and straw hats, vending the literal fruit of their labor behind their home-crafted stalls, and Donnelly soon joins their ranks with a tent of his own. He ties a sign advertising sweet corn and fresh wheat to an empty wooden crate, pulls up a chair from his trunk, and waits, along with his fellow farmers, for the rest of the town to wake up. He makes some small talk with the vendors on either side of him; Jeb Watkins with his rows of carrots and green beans, and Martha Simmons with her jars of home-cultivated honey piled high upon her crate like a mountain of liquid gold. It's customary conversation, and they all participate with folksy civility, but most of their thoughts are on their paying customers, due to arrive at any moment.

And arrive they do, their pockets lined with loose cash and forbidden secrets, the likes of which Donnelly couldn't even begin to guess at.

Miss Linda Sue Hansen is among the first to grace his kiosk. A retired schoolteacher of thirty-five years, she has been a Beauty native all her life. She has lived in the town long enough that the facade of a sweet old lady has fooled almost every resident of Beauty, Donnelly included. It helps that most from her generation are either dead or senile, that most everybody sees her as the sweet old lady who always asks you about your grades and is never without a sweet in her pocket for a lucky child. Nobody can remember the cruelty that same little woman had possessed so many years ago, except, perhaps, her alumni, who have all but buried those memories far, far down in their minds. Cruelty that, on occasion, bordered on the beginnings of true wickedness before age and retirement took their toll.

"Well, if it isn't Miss Linda Sue."

"Jimmy Donnelly! The harvest's been well to you, hasn't it?" Despite being a Kansas native, Linda still speaks with the soft, high-class accent she has acquired from her teaching years.

"That it has, ma'am." He leans over the crate for a quick hug of greeting. "How've you been?"

"Oh, you know me, just surviving with what I'm given." She picks up a yellow cob and studies it closely, turning it over in her old, leathery hands. "With what I can get, I mean. I'm doing quite well, if that answers your question."