The Turtle Catcher: A Novel

PART I

1

New Germany, Minnesota, 1920

IN THE TIME just after the big war, when banks weren’t to be trusted and when snapper turtle stew, a cheap meal for the big families common in those days, bubbled on stovetops in farm kitchens, the three Richter brothers led Lester Sutter to the edge of Spider Lake to watch him drown through the sights of their rifles. They drove him in with the barrels of their guns and stood guard among the cattails as the water filled his boots and soaked his overalls. The rocks they’d stuffed and then stitched into his pockets sank him. Lester Sutter had earned this. Even if he wasn’t quite right in the mind, thought the brothers, he should have known better than to violate their sister.

Only an hour before, Herman Richter, the middle brother, had ordered Liesel, the Richters’ only sister, to stay in the house. He directed his other brothers to hide in the grove and wait for Lester Sutter to come. He always came, Herman knew. Lester would linger at the edge of the grove until Liesel came out with the supper slops. He would slink around the oak trees. Sometimes he sat at the foot of a tree trunk and watched Liesel from afar. Sometimes he trailed back and forth, just a few feet behind her, as she bustled about the yard. When shed whip around to face him and plant her hands on her hips, he’d turn around too, show her his back, and pretend to be studying some far-off cloud or tree. She usually smiled and returned to her work without scolding him. Liesel had always been far too permissive. Sometimes Lester approached her, and they talked. Of what, Herman had no idea. Lester Sutter was dense as pipe smoke. At times, Liesel put Lester to work hoeing in her garden or carrying heavy water pails from the well to the house. Though Liesel had insisted she didn’t mind Lester’s company, Herman did. He told her to stay away from Lester. But she hadn’t listened. And Lester got too close.

Now here he was, splashing at the water’s edge, taking a few steps forward and then backing toward the shore, croaking like some amphibious animal and making this deed harder than it needed to be.

Get in the water, Lester, Herman Richter yelled. His eyes were pale blue and his ears bright red. He spoke in English but with a slight German accent. The Richters’ papa, a German immigrant, spoke German but had learned English well and had insisted his children do the same.

Lester Sutter turned to face the brothers on the shore. He worked out the meaning of the words and mouthed them with his thin and cracked lips. Then he imitated Herman Richter: Get in ta water.

Herman fumed. He directed the tip of his gun back and forth between Lester’s chest and the middle of the lake. Get in, he said.

Get in, repeated Lester. He giggled and glanced from one brother’s face to the next.

I will shoot you! screamed Herman. His brothers looked at him. One told him to take it easy. I have shot better men than this, Herman yelled. I will not hesitate to shoot this dog too. But really, Herman hoped he wouldn’t have to. He hated guns and killing and blood. Why couldn’t Lester see that Herman was giving him a chance to do the dignified thing and die on his own terms?

Sweat ran from Lester’s head into his eyes. As a boy, he had pulled out all of his eyelashes, and now none grew. The rims were perpetually red and irritated, but the whites of his eyes were always clear and not a red vein crossed them, not even when the sweat nipped at his eyeballs like the bites of hay mites. Lester knew what a gun could do. His own pa hunted with one, and Lester didn’t want to risk the blast of smoke and bullet by disobeying the men. He didn’t want to feel that blow of hot metal invade his head or heart or anywhere. The day was cloudy. Heat a man could reach out and hold was trapped between the earth and sky. The sun throbbed against the backs of the clouds, waiting for its chance to press through and ignite the day.

Lester Sutter, standing now knee-deep in Spider Lake and wringing his hands, wasn’t an educated man. He suffered from the sort of weakness that came from years of hard blows from his pa’s fists. He didn’t understand why he was here, why these brothers, his neighbors, whom he’d always thought were friendly, were pointing guns at him. At first, he’d thought maybe they were playing a game. But now he was scared and wanted to see Liesel.

The youngest gun-toter, Otto Richter, no more than a boy really, a boy who had fished and hunted turtles with Lester Sutter many a time, saw that he was confused. So Otto looked up from his rifle, unsquinted his aiming eyes, and yelled over the long steel barrel to his old friend, He said to get in the water, Lester.

Lester waved to Otto, then pointed to himself and said, It’s me. Lester.

I know, said Otto.

The boy was shushed by Herman and told to get his gun back up. Otto rested the thick wood of it against his bony shoulder. His long bangs hung nearly into his eyes.

Do not talk to him, said Herman. He took short steps on the shoreline toward Lester, closing the distance between them to fewer than a few steps. He pointed the gun from Lester to the middle of the lake again. Get in, Lester, he said. We don’t have all day.

Lester understood finally and backed up. Dark fingers of lake water curled around his thighs and bade them come in.

In this place and just after the war, punishment of criminals was mostly left to individuals. The German immigrants here no longer trusted the government. The people here had learned to keep matters among themselves and to keep the law and lawmakers out of their business. The people here had learned their lesson. Last time they had invited politics, politicians, laws, and lawmakers into their town, good farmers had lost their land, the doors of schools and businesses had been chained and locked, a town had been divided as definitively as if some grand hand had broken it like bread; neighbors had destroyed neighbors, boys had defied fathers, and a European war had found a battlefield right here in their little town of New Germany.

No, Herman Richter decided, he would not turn the power of judgment over to strangers with titles and suits again. And so this is how Lester Sutter found himself in the waiting waters of Spider Lake. The brothers had decided he had committed a crime against one of theirs, and they intended to right it as well as it could be righted.

Lester moved to run only once. He pumped his legs high, in and out of the lake, and darted to the side. Herman Richter thought to let Lester wear himself out, as water is an unforgiving place to run and soon does a body in. But Lester kept up a good lick for quite a while, splashing to the right and then off to the left again, and then, almost before Herman had registered it, Lester got near shore. He fell for it. He placed his hand on the sandy ground to steady himself. Herman muttered, Damn, and sprang toward Lester. And though it probably wasn’t necessary, he swung the butt of his gun against Lester’s temple and opened up a long red wound. Lester raised his hand to it. The blood came from between his fingers. Herman looked away. Lester, heaving and wet, cowered and sat there in the shallows where a little batch of minnows braved the rippling water rings to swim up to Lester and see what was what. He dipped his blooded hand into the water, and the little fish scatted. Herman saw them too. He thought a second about getting them for fish bait. He was glad for the minnows, a normal thing. He composed himself, told Lester to stand up and raise his arms into the air. Lester did and backed farther into the water.

Otto wanted to yell Stop but didn’t want to disappoint his brothers or appear a coward. Instead he held tight to his gun and swallowed what felt like fire in his throat. He swatted a bug trilling near his ear. A company of cicadas had gathered in the sky and hovered like vapor. When one or another flew too close to the lake and weighted its legs on the tiniest fleck of water, the minnows nosed up and pecked the insect to pieces. The minnow schools fared well this time of year, lucky as they were about the carelessness of cicadas.

Lester backed farther and farther until the rim of the water reached his thighs. He kept his arms raised, lost his footing, tripped, and fell backward. He struggled and stood, only to be shooed deeper into the depths. His pockets, weighted with rocks, pulled him into the heavy embrace of the lake weeds. When the rim reached his lips, he let go a couple whimpers. He begged the brothers with bulging eyes.

Herman stepped to the water’s edge and shouted, Don’t make me shoot you, Lester. Damn it. All the way. A shot in the head will hurt more.

Just do it, Lester, said Otto. It’s a peaceful way.

Though Lester had never learned to swim, he had always been comfortable in the water. He had been coming to this very lake for all the years of his life. He’d pulled snakes and crawfish and snappers from her shallows and lugged them home to his sister for cooking. He’d many times waded into Spider Lake to his waist or chest when hunting dinner or requiring a cooling from the summer sun. Sometimes after seeing Liesel, he’d come to this lake for a different sort of cooling. Today, though, was the first time he’d been pushed out so far into the deep. He had never even considered that the lake dropped deeper than his own chest. How deep did it go? Did it go down far as the blackness of a well? If he yelled his own name, would it echo on and finally be lost somewhere far away?

That first watery step beyond the height of his heart set his lungs to cawing for air in a way they’d never had to before. Even as his head still bobbed above the water, leaving his nose and mouth free to breathe, Lester Sutter couldn’t seem to suck air fast enough. He gasped and wheezed, but the effort didn’t satisfy his urge for oxygen. The brothers on the shore yelled at him. Deeper. Get deeper. And he did. With each step, the cool lake pressed harder and harder against Lester’s trunk. Like twine, the water wrapped around his chest and forced air out of his lungs. He gasped again to refill the empty space. But no matter how quickly or deeply he panted, his lungs would not fill up, would not be satisfied.

Keep going, Lester. Get all the way in, you sick bastard. Get the hell in or I will blow off your damn head.

The lakebed loved Lester’s boots and tugged at their rubber. He wrestled his feet out and gave the boots up to the muddy suck. His bare feet tiptoed as long as they could. Spiky tendrils of coontail weeds yanked at his overalls, and broad green palms of pondweed slapped at his arms, his neck, and then his face. He fluttered his arms through the water and was raised high enough to take a breath. He submerged again, flapped his arms, surfaced, and gasped another mouthful of water and air.

Lester’s body felt heavy to him. When had his arms petrified and his legs stiffened to lead? When had his head become weighty as iron? He understood then why the brothers had filled his pockets with stones of different shapes and sizes, why one brother had held his hands behind his back and why another had stitched shut his pockets with needle and twine used for burlap. Now the weight of those rocks drew him down into the lake. He tried to reach into his pockets to lessen the load and keep his nose and mouth above water at the same time. He tugged at the crude seams but couldn’t force them to separate. And though Lester wasn’t right in the human mind, he had enough animal survival in him to reach for his overall clasps and yank at their metal to relieve himself of the denim. But the clasps had always been complicated. And this final struggle was the one to do him in. In the throes of his battle, he sank to the bottom of Spider Lake. The lake opened up her arms and welcomed the new inhabitant.

2

LESTER SUTTER DIDN’T require a bullet. Herman Richter felt relief. The brothers leaned the rifles against their legs and waited for Lester’s head to stop breaking the surface and gasping for air. The heat closed around Herman like praying hands. He took off his shirt.

Herman, who stood more than six feet tall and was lanky and skittish as a horse, paced the shore looking wide and near for signs that the deed was being witnessed. Once, he thought he saw someone move among the cattails, but it was only the daylight playing tricks with the reflecting water, making roving eyes where there were none. Herman was jumpy since he’d returned from the war against Germany, less his left arm, which he’d lost in a muddy crater of No Man’s Land. He’d lain there bleeding to death under gunfire and explosions. An American medic crawled to him, used his thumbs to lift Herman’s lids, and considered his chances. The medic said, Sorry, and moved on. Herman had wandered between consciousness and unconsciousness for hours until the battle ended and a pair of German soldiers picked him up. Their surgeon amputated his arm and picked out most of the metal from his body. But gray shrapnel still poked up in jagged pocks just beneath the skin on his buttocks and legs, and he was still plagued half to death by the walking, talking, and accusing ghosts of all the American boys who’d died because Herman had made a mistake and all the German boys he’d shot or bayoneted. The guilt of killing his own kind haunted him. The Richter boys’ papa, who’d told Herman not to come home unless he switched sides and came home wearing a German uniform, died of influenza while Herman fought in Europe. This haunted him too. Now he wanted to live a life that would’ve made his papa proud, a life in which he’d finally marry Betty, the good German girl his papa had so approved of; nurture the Richter farm back to health and prosperity; father a whole passel of children; and resurrect the pride of the family. He’d resolved to farm for the rest of his life, the way his papa had wanted.

Since Herman had returned from Europe, rectitude bit at him like the peskiest swarm of midges, another type of insect that proliferated in the standing water of Minnesota and bore down upon its people in coming and going waves. His brothers and Liesel couldn’t understand how important it was to do what was right, every day, every moment. They had no idea how not doing the right thing would come back and get a man. They didn’t know how a tactical error or moment of weakness or sympathy could kill good men. Herman had seen it. He saw it still. When his lids fell over his eyes, explosions lit up, wounded men screamed, blood ran black and congealed into jelly, flies swarmed, rats scratched, fires scorched skin and hair, and his heart thumped until he opened his eyes again. Herman’s family didn’t know that a man could not hesitate to rid the world of evil. This purging had to be done swiftly and with a courageous heart.

When, at last, Spider Lake stopped frothing and the insect rumpus quieted, Benjamin, the oldest Richter brother, sat down among the lake reeds and cattails and whittled a crude turtle toy out of a cottonwood stick for Otto. Benjamin was somewhat shorter than Herman but more muscular by a sight. He had a terrible time with his hair, caught all species of insects in it, and was watching the cicadas closely to keep them from landing in there. Some were big as baby bats. When he caught himself worrying about his hair rather than about the man dying in the lake or his sister suffering at home, Benjamin felt ashamed. He closed his eyes. Benjamin had big, brown, kind eyes, the color and shine of a bronze penny. Right now, he was fighting to keep them dry. What the hell am I doing here? he wondered.

Though Benjamin might have been the oldest of this bunch, he wasn’t the bravest. He couldn’t look long at the scene in the lake and tried not to picture the man choking on mud at the bottom of it. Drowning was peaceful, he’d been told. Perhaps Lester Sutter was simply falling asleep. Benjamin turned toward Otto. It’s just like going to sleep, he assured his little brother.

Benjamin knew better, though. Benjamin’s capacity for feeling was more stout than most, and it was true that at this very moment, his own lungs would not fill. Try as he might, he could not get a full breath. He sneezed. Otto pulled out a handkerchief and placed it on Benjamin’s knee. Benjamin took it and sneezed into it. He blew his nose. Benjamin had thought maybe a scare or warning would be enough for the Sutter boy, but there was no convincing his younger but more stubborn brother Herman, and frankly, Benjamin didn’t have the gumption to challenge him anyway. There was no winning an argument against Herman, even when you were in the right and Herman was in the wrong. Herman had a quick and forceful way. Benjamin felt that there had been some sort of misunderstanding between Lester and Liesel. He was sure of it. He thought that if they could just give Liesel a while to calm down, maybe they could talk to her and find out what happened. But Herman could not be deterred. At the very least, Benjamin would have liked to keep Otto at home in the care of Liesel while grown men took care of Lester, but Liesel wasn’t talking and had seemed to need some time alone. Benjamin tried to concentrate on getting this deed done and getting back to the regular ways. He thought about Sonnen, his wife, his dear and good wife. He thought about how she deserved her own home, away from his family. He could give her that. But he couldn’t abandon his brothers and sister. They all needed him. Oh God, how he wished he could lay his head on Sonnen’s lap right now. She would rub his head and kiss his ear. She would smell like bread, as always. She would have dough under her nails. She would have flour across her cheek, and her red, untamed hair would hang down her breasts.

Benjamin sighed. It was so hot. He carved plates into the turtle toy’s back. He tried to remember lighter times, when the universe didn’t seem so complicated. He felt like crying. He handed the toy to Otto.

Otto Richter sat next to Benjamin on the bank. He preferred Benjamin to Herman. Herman had come home from the war crazy, as far as Otto could tell. Otto was afraid of him. Otto’s favorite brother, Luther, was dead. His mother was dead. His papa was dead. He placed his rifle across his knees, picked slivers from the turtle toy’s shell, and rubbed his yellow eyes. Otto had been born on a full-moon night, and the whites of his eyes seemed to be marked with its glow. He tried to keep his mind off Lester Sutter, the man who had been a friend to him and to his sister. In his head, he practiced spelling the words Liesel had given him to memorize. She presented Otto and Lester with ten new words every week and tested them on Sunday nights. Otto wondered how she seemed to know everything when she’d hardly stepped off the farm place. He didn’t understand why exactly he was at the lake, but he knew that Lester Sutter had done something bad to Liesel and that his older brothers had decided that the punishment for the crime was to do away with him. Otto couldn’t stand the thought of anyone hurting his sister, the one who had fed him, cuddled him, bathed him, protected him, taught him, and raised him from the hour he had entered the world until this very moment. Otto loved her more than anyone else. He would do anything for her. But hurting Lester didn’t seem altogether right.

3

A WHITE FIRE BURST behind Lester’s eyes. Water, water, black, dirty water rushed into his mouth, down his neck, and into his chest. His arms and hands gave up swimming and worked instead to claw at his face and ribs, as if some sort of outside protest could convince the lungs to work, to breathe underwater, to strain pure air from liquid. The muscles of his throat trembled and jerked until the menace went down, sending his stomach into spasms. His arms and legs seized. The water came back up, and Lester purged, but inevitably gulped again. In, out, in, out. Soon he fell into a regular rhythm of sucking in and expelling water. His fingers and toes curled into small stubs. His arms and legs stiffened and fattened hard as wood. He curled his head toward his legs. He made up his mind to give his body over to the new existence and waited for the blackness to devour him.

The man at the bottom of Spider Lake, below the weeds and black bullheads, breathed water and sludge into his chest and opened his eyes wide to a shard of sunlight breaking through the clouds and through the murky water. Lester Sutter leaned back, listened to the light, and let his lungs fill.

To Lester, the sunlight seemed clean as the chalk the schoolteacher had given him many years ago when she’d come to the farm, walked right up to the pigsty, and asked his pa why he didn’t send the children to school. Lester’s pa looked up to answer as he held steady a sow between his powerful thighs and cut the curling tail from the pig’s behind. He said for the teacher to mind her own business and mind her place among men. When the sow quit screaming, he added, Children of mine earn their keep.

A full school is a benefit to the entire township, Mr. Sutter, the teacher said. Surely you could spare this little one a few hours a day for reading and writing at the New Germany Turner school. You want your son to know how to read, correct?

She nodded toward Lester, who stood in the shadow of his pa. Lester’s hands were full of the sow tails his pa had sliced and tossed into the manure. Lester used them for bullhead bait.

Seems you don’t know too much for being an educated woman, Lester’s pa said. That one’s not right in the head. He tapped Lester’s head with the trimming knife. He’s best left diggin’ in the shit and catchin’ fish. That’s thinkin’ enough for his kind.

All children can learn, Mr. Sutter, said the teacher.

No child of mine will be sittin’ in a German school learnin’ to be a German. Lester’s pa put the knife in his overalls pocket. He loosened his grip on the sow, slapped its thigh. Now, git, he said to the teacher.

Lester wiped a loose spittle of drool from the corner of his mouth with the back of his tail-stuffed hand.

The schoolteacher thanked Lester’s pa for his time, nodded her head, and turned to leave. But before she did, she pulled a stick of chalk from her apron pocket and held it out toward Lester. He wouldn’t drop the pig tails.

Here then, she said, open up.

She slipped a stick of chalk into his mouth.

This isn’t for eating, dear, she said. It’s for writing. She walked away.

Lester had scratched the chalk with his teeth and tasted how easily it flaked away. He dropped the tails into his pocket and handled the stick of chalk. He never used it but kept the chalk all his life under a hollowed-out turtle shell in the corner of the granary, where he slept in the warm months.

The odd metamorphosis that links life to death was just beginning. Pleasant things came to him in random series. The flaky chalk, hollowed turtle shells for hiding treasures, the big orange sun on late fall days, clean straw for sleeping in, a flannel shirt in winter, fresh bread every Sunday, his little sister’s yellow hair, Liesel Richter’s voice. The tang of her lemonade on hot days. The curl of her thin but strong arm through his. Her wide, tanned face. Her loamy brown eyes. Her mouth. Her hand.

The blood in his vessels raced from the heart