Milton's Way

CHAPTER 1

The bottom half of the Dutch door slowly opened on its rusty hinges, the squeaking sounds loud in the quiet of the morning. The golden retriever slowly pushed her nose through the opening, testing the cold air. She was reluctant to leave her warm bed of straw in the barn but knew it was time for the old man to be up. He would come looking for her soon, ready to go off across the fields in search of a bird to kill. She squeezed through between the door and the doorframe, the door banging shut as her tail cleared the opening.

She stepped gingerly over the frozen surface of the snow, heading for the back porch of the house where she would find her dish and her morning meal of hot porridge. She hooked the edge of the screen door with her nose and pulled it open far enough to slip through before the spring pulled the door shut. It was cold on the porch. She pushed herself up on her hind feet, her paws on the door, so she could see through the window. It was still dark inside. She dropped back on her feet then moved away from the door and flopped down on the old carpet to wait.

She was dozing, dreaming of lying in front of the big stone fireplace, when she heard the back door open. She came up onto her feet, her tail wagging when she saw her master.

Guten Morgen Hund, the old man said when he saw his dog. Ach, Nein Deutsch Sprechen.

I sometimes forget you don’t understand German. Now I’ll bet you want some of that mush you are so fond of. Well, come on in and warm yourself while I heat it up for you, he said, his English heavy with a German accent.

The dog needed no second invitation, moving quickly through the door as her master stepped out of the way. He followed her inside the warm kitchen where she stopped in front of the stove, sitting down on her haunches and starring up at the old man with anticipation. He took the box of gruel from the cupboard, poured a healthy portion in a pan, ran water over it and put it on the stove to cook.

You know it takes a few minutes Hund. You must be patient. What is it like outside today? Is it going to be another fine day? he said.

It didn’t take long for the porridge to come to a boil. He went to the porch, picked up the dog’s dish, dumped the mixture in and set it on the floor. He started fixing his breakfast as his dog rapidly lapped up the contents of the dish.

You should not eat that so fast. It is too soon gone then you always want more. Are you up to a trek over the farm today? Let me fill my empty stomach then we shall go find us a pheasant to cook for our dinner, he said.

Frederick Von Offenburg was a long way from his home in Germany. He had settled on these forty acres of flat farmland in Southwestern Kansas back in the late fifties. He bought the place for its isolation and sparse population of the surrounding land. He had fallen in love with the place at first sight, in contrast to his wife Frieda who hated it the first time she laid eyes on it. Frederick was born and raised in the city of Offenburg located in the Black Forrest in southern Germany. He was told as a child that the city was named after his ancestors who laid out the place hundreds of years before. He came into the world in 1914 during the terrible war to end all wars. His father was wealthy with his title and all his land and Fred-

erick grew up in a large stone mansion with many rooms and numerous servants.

The dog licked the bowl clean then left the small kitchen to lay down in front of the fire in the big stone fireplace in the largest room of the cabin. She had her stomach full and stretched out to enjoy the warmth of the fire. Her eyes were closed and she was almost asleep when she heard her master cross the room to stand over her. She raised her head, opened her eyes and was disappointed to see him wearing his heavy coat and carrying his old double barrel Mossberg twelve-gauge shotgun in his hand.

Come along now Hund. It will be day break in a few minutes and we must go find our dinner, he said.

The dog reluctantly left her place by the fire and followed him out the back door. Now that she knew they were going hunting she seemed to accept it and was now alert and trotted along beside the old man.

A wooden fence he had put up years ago surrounded the buildings on the small farm. Out beyond the fence, a parcel of land had always been pasture and beyond that on the other side of the barbed wife fence was twenty acres of winter wheat. He had never owned or kept livestock himself but rented the grassland to a neighbor who usually ran a large head of beef cattle on the place. The pasture was now vacant, the cattle having been sold off in the past month or so.

He opened the gate leading from the farmyard to the pasture and waited for his dog to come through then closed and latched it. He set off at a slow pace across the snow covered and dormant grass, heading for the far corner of his farm. The pasture was flat as far as he could see. The north fence line was grown up with Chinese elms, the barbed wire surrounded in places by the trunk of the trees as they wrapped themselves around the wire over the years. It had been a week since the last snow but the drifts stretched from the windbreak more than forty feet out onto the pasture.

He walked along the edge of the drifted snow, his spirits high in the crisp cool morning air. He carried the shotgun in the crook of his arm much the same as he had for years. He always enjoyed this early morning hunt with the familiar feel of the double barrel gun, a good bird dog by his side and the anticipation of scaring birds to flight then bringing the gun up to his shoulder and knocking them down.

The first pheasant startled him as it took flight from its nest in the tree line. He missed, leading the bird too far, and swore in his native tongue. He fumbled in his coat pocket, found a new shell, snapped open the breach and pulled out the spent shell, shoving in its replacement. He snapped the gun shut and started walking again.

He could see his shadow now and turned to look at the sun as it came up behind him. This seemed to renew his spirits and he started off again. He reached the far boundary of the pasture and came to the four strands of barbed wire fence, stretched tight over the evenly spaced fence posts. He remembered the safety rules he was taught when he was very young. When crossing a fence, a gun should be unloaded, or it should be handed to a companion who had crossed the fence first or the gun should be placed down the fence line a short distance to be retrieved after he had crossed the fence. He gave no thought to unloading the gun and chose the method of leaning it against a fence post then walking away from it to cross. He placed the stock on the ground, rested the barrels against the post and walked five paces away. He spread the third and fourth strands of wire apart and put one leg through the wires to climb to the other side. His dog was along the fence to his right, sniffing in the deep grass. He flushed out a pheasant that took to flight, which scared the dog, and he fell against the gun. The right barrel discharged, striking his master in the legs, just above his knees. The old man fell to the frozen ground in shock, not knowing what had happened. He was on his back, the cold wet snow around his neck. He was alert now as his mind accepted his bad luck. He struggled to sit up but couldn’t, he didn’t have the strength. He reached out for the wire of the fence and pulled himself up to where he could see. He was scared now, his trousers were covered with his blood and he could see it pumping out of his left leg each time his heartbeat. He knew an artery had been severed. He struggled to get his heavy coat open then loosened his belt. He pulled it through the loops until it was free. He wrapped it around his leg above the wound and pulled it tight. It was still bleeding terribly. He pulled the belt tighter and could see he was stopping the flow of blood.

I need help Hund! he calmly told his dog who was now on his side of the fence. You must go find me some help. I can’t get up to walk and I will bleed to death in just a few minutes. Go on Hund go find help. Go over to the Hansen place and get me help, the old man said.

The dog stood staring at him, cocking his head, his ears up as though he was listening and understood. The old man talked to him for several minutes and the dog suddenly turned and started running to the west across the open winter wheat field. He watched the dog until it was out of sight wondering if it was really smart enough to go summon help.

He was getting cold now. He had no idea how long he had been lying on the ground but he thought he should loosen the make shift tourniquet for a short time then tighten it again but he was afraid to do it. What if he didn’t have enough blood? He suddenly saw a shadow. Someone is here he thought. He pulled himself up to a sitting position and twisted around to see who it was. A figure dressed in hunting gear was standing on the other side of the fence. The sun surrounded whoever it was, blinding the old man and he couldn’t make out who was there.

Mein Gott I am happy to see you, come help me, I’ve been shot. Did the dog come find you, the old man said. He was elated that help was here but after a few moments and the figure didn’t move to help him he suddenly became alarmed. He turned to look again and saw the figure pointing a shotgun at him. He heard the blast and saw the fire explode from the end of the barrel then felt the enormous impact as the buckshot hit his chest then everything went black. He soon stopped breathing and his blood flowed out over the snow, turning it crimson red in a growing pool around his lifeless body.

His faithful golden retriever did in fact travel to the nearest neighbor, Elmer Hansen and after several minutes of barking, finally convinced the man to follow him. Hansen found his neighbor, Frederick Von Offenburg, lying beside the fencerow, an obvious victim of a terrible hunting accident.

CHAPTER 2

Eight miles north of Pratt, Kansas at the intersection of Highways 50 and 281, there is a small community of eight hundred called Newfurth. The town was laid out before the Civil War by a group of German immigrants from the town of Furth in the old country. The town had reached its peak number of inhabitants in the early 1920’s and the population never exceeded the 821 souls that now lived there.

In 1926 a country store was built on the southeast corner of the crossroads by the grandson of one of the first settlers of the town. This store soon became the focal point of the community where anything the citizens of Newfurth might need could be purchased. The store changed hands a few times over the years and today it is owned and operated by Milton Kaiser. Milton inherited it from his grandmother who worked there serving the good folk of Pratt County and the surrounding countryside for most of her life. Milton was just married when his grandmother passed on and left him the store. He and his new wife Helen Stroud soon had a baby girl, Ellen and two years later a boy they named Royce. Ellen was now six and Royce close to four.

Milton Kaiser was a quiet, mild mannered individual and everyone knew him to be honest and kind. This small town had little revenue to provide public services and for many years the only law in town was a marshal. The job had never paid more than a hundred dollars a year and was usually passed around to anyone who would take it. The marshal didn’t have much to do since the county sheriff down at Pratt handled most of the law enforcement. The current sheriff was Jeremy Logan, an overweight and not too bright twenty eight year old bully. The sheriff had a large enough budget and enough deputies to make him dangerous. He ran the office as though he was protecting a large metropolitan county, with all the latest technology, equipment and weapons he could buy. This wouldn’t have been a problem if Jeremy had been intelligent but his lack of smarts just contributed to the bully mentality he learned as an overweight child. Now that he was sheriff, it seemed natural to flaunt his authority and treat those down and out with contempt and brutality.

When Elmer Hansen found Frederick Von Offenburg’s body he ran all the way back home and called the country store for Milton. Milton put the phone down and told his wife Helen that old man Von Offenburg had gone and shot himself and that he was going out to the Offenburg place.

Milton bundled up in his heavy coat, pulled on his buckle overshoes and went out to his old Ford pickup. It didn’t take long to get to the small farm located at the edge of town and he found Hansen standing by the body when he walked across the pasture.

His dog came to my place barking his fool head off. It took me a few minutes to figure out the dog wanted me to follow him. He led me here and I went back home to call you. What do you think, an accidental discharge as he climbed through the wire fence?

Milton had thought to bring his camera as he left his old pickup back in the yard. He was snapping pictures of Frederick’s body and the surrounding snow covered ground. He would be pleased later that he had remembered to do this. He heard the roar of car engines and turned to look back toward the Von Offenburg buildings. He saw two sheriffs’ cruisers coming across the pasture at a high rate of speed. He could see that the first car had driven through the board fence. Both cars slid to a stop just a few feet from the fence and the site where Milton and Elmer Hansen stood by the body. The sheriff and three deputies came pouring out of the vehicles and soon surrounded Milton and Elmer.

Is that the old German? Sheriff Jeremy Logan asked them.

Yep, that’s him, Elmer responded.

Who called you Jeremy? Milton asked.

Your old lady, Helen, the sheriff said. Said you had no business coming over here to check on the old fool. Guess she’s right about that. You ain’t trained for this type of work Milton. Best let us professionals see to it.

Your deputies shouldn’t be tramping around in the snow so close to the body until it has been checked over, Milton said.

What’s to check? The old fart leaned his gun up on the fence, went to climb through and it fell, discharged by accident and killed him. I can already see it was an accident. You and Elmer can go on and leave this to us. One of you boys call on back down to Pratt and get the coroner up here. The sooner we pick up the old Kraut, the sooner we get back to the city, the sheriff yelled at his deputies.

Milton was about to argue with the sheriff then thought better of it. He turned and walked back across the pasture, not looking back. He climbed into his pickup and turned around in the yard. He