I’m never too far away from the thing that breaks my heart. In my day to day job I come across items that trigger the deep hurt I thought was dammed up for a few hours at least. One of the chapters I’m working on for a new book loosed a flood of emotions yesterday. Anne Cook was a homesteader in Lincoln County, Nebraska in the late 1800s and early 1900s. She was also a prostitute, bootlegger, embezzler and murderer. She was truly a disturbed character obsessed with amassing a fortune. She abused her children, particularly her adoptive son. When a mob boss moved into Lincoln County threating to claim a portion of the bootlegging and prostitution market for himself, Anne’s reaction was one of outrage. She quickly put into play an evil plan she had for getting rid of her competition. The plan involved her adoptive son. The nine year old boy was to volunteer his services to the mobster (make money runs for the man, deliver a gun or two) for a couple of days and then report back home. At that time Anne would take the boy to the sheriff’s department where he would lie and tell law enforcement that the man he was helping out molested him. Anne promised the fellow outlaw that she would make the boy testify to the act in court. Realizing he would never be able to escape the backlash from such a claim the bad guy left town. All the guns and muscle the outlaw had wouldn’t stand a chance against such a hideous allegation. I marvel at the power that false allegation has and believe with all I am it is more powerful than any man-made weapon. The mind that decides to tell this kind of lie is particularly twisted and devious. John Steinbeck once wrote “I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. . . . The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?” If after all the years of fighting against such a soul ends in victory for her I don’t think I’ll be able to go on. When my brother goes so will I. There’s no way to live here if the heart of the innocent can be so easily snuffed out and such horror is applauded.
