Down the Hole

by Sally Six

  He turned and got up on his knees and looked around the back of the truck at the house. Everything seemed quiet. Everything seemed to be the same.

  WAIT, it wasn’t the same. The bikes were no longer on the porch. He jumped to his feet or at least tried to, but fell over tangled in the sleeping bag.

  Barb was standing beside her living room window watching, always watching. She would glance down the road the other way into Horseshoe Bend once in a great while, but mostly she watched up the grade. All of a sudden she saw movement by the old truck up the road. Whoever it was scrambled back behind the truck as fast as he could. She was sure it was a man.

  This was not good. Someone was hiding and watching. “I wonder how long they have been there. If it’s me they have been watching or if they followed Beulah and Brian? Best of all, what can I do about it? I don’t even have a dog for crying out loud. How I wish William would come home. Okay don’t panic. What’s first? Lock up the house? No wait, check the rifle and take it with me. Then lock up the house.” After she had locked up all the windows and the dead bolt on the front door, she thought she best get this place ready in case someone tried to break in.

  Barb headed outside to the shed at the back of the house. She found plywood, nails, saw and a hammer. She started to haul the plywood into the house one sheet at a time. The plywood was heavier than she thought it would be. Barb was 5 foot 3 inches tall and weighed 130 pounds. She was not skinny but not big either. It was hard for her to get a handle on the stuff. It took her a bit, but she finally got 10 sheets into the house. She wondered what William was going to do with all this plywood. There was still more in the shed. Last but not least was the 10-penny nails and the hammer.

  She exclaimed to herself.” “Oh man, I forgot the rifle outside leaning against the shed.”

  She ran back out and there was the rifle. She let out a breath of relief as she had scared herself. What if whoever that was out there had come upon her while she was bringing in the plywood? What would she have done? She shivered to think of it. How was she going to do this alone? Stay on guard, have time to sleep and everything else she needed to do.

  She decided that she best come to that decision soon, but for now she had work to do. She got to work. Barb decided that she would need to leave two sheets of the plywood whole for the large living room windows, but the others she could cut in half. She glanced out the window to see if the man had moved any. Every once in a while she could see a head bob up from the truck. At least, it was a relief that he hadn’t moved any closer. What in the world was he there for? All of a sudden Barb straightened up like a light bulb had finally been turned on in her brain. She realized that he must be waiting for someone or several someone’s.

  “Oh no, now what do I do? Well, one thing is dummy that you need to get this done first.” She continued to cut and nail boards up over the windows while she talked to herself.

  That was the same thing that was running through Scat’s head. “Oh no, now what do I do?”

  I’m in deep crap. He started to worry and grab his hair in his fists. Trying to think. “Big Jim’s gonna skin me alive. What can I do? What can I do?” That kept running over and over in his brain.

  He finally thought to himself. “I have to get closer and see if they are in that house. That they just took their bikes into the back yard or something. Yeah that’s it. They just put them away. That has to be it.”

  He took a longer look around the back of the faded blue truck. Nothing seemed to be moving anywhere. Scat kept low as he scuttled to the next hiding place. This one was so good, a big old tree. He stayed behind the tree for about 10 minutes. He looked around the tree in all directions and found there wasn’t much next to hide behind that was close. “Now what,” he thought. “There isn’t much choice, just keep low and go.” There not far from the house, he spotted a few bushes which would have to be good enough for some concealment. He again ran low and bent over while running in that fashion as fast as he could. He slid on some leaves as he entered the bushes and went down on his knees.

  “Crap that hurt.” He said. He sat for a few minutes and saw a few lines of blood coming from his skin where the holes were in his jeans. Talking out load but softly he said. “I’m gonna get these people good. That I am. Making me get hurt. We’ll see about that.”

  He looked though the bushes still not catching sight of anyone in the windows or by the house. The next house was a long ways off from this one, maybe 1000 feet.

  “Boy these slaves are stupid,” he thought. “Not posting any lookouts or anything.” He was hearing banging going on in the house and wondered what in the world that was all about.

  What Scat didn’t know was that he had been spotted. With working a while and keeping an eye on the truck Barb had seen Scat make his move. She saw him work his way closer to the house. “Well,” Barb thought. “I know it is this house he is watching 100 percent now, no if ands or buts about it.” She had already finished covering the living room windows. She had left a small square at her normal height to look out of about 2 by 4 inches that she could close with a hinge with a couple of tiny holes along the edges that she could squint through. Further down where she could kneel, she had cut out a 7 by 9 inch rectangle that she had hinged on top like the one above with a screw in it as knob and a hook and eye to hold it open. This bigger one was her shooting hole. She kept working. She only had two more windows to do, the ones in her bedroom. It was harder to keep an eye on the man who was slowly making his way closer to the house, but she would break off from what she was doing to make sure that she knew where he was before she continued.

  As Scat got closer, he could hear more hammering from the inside of the house. He giggled to himself because he thought they were so busy with some kind of building project that they were like lambs for the slaughter. They would never know he was here.

  As Scat sat there in the bushes, he got antsy and started to get colder. He felt around in his right pocket. He needed a fix. It was getting colder out here and he thought that would help him feel better about being here by himself. He popped 4 or 5 pills into his mouth. In a few minutes, he would feel much better. Then he would sneak right up to the house which was only about 60 feet away from the bushes. Then he would try to get close enough to look in the windows and afterward the back yard.

  By the time Scat got to the house to look around, Barb had finished nailing all her boards up and making her peep holes and gun slots. Scat’s pills were working now. He thought he was being quick as lightening, but in reality he was moving as slow as molasses. Scat thought he was easing his way up onto the front porch to look into one of the windows. His mind said he was as good as Daniel Boone. He was making enough noise to wake the dead. Even if Barb hadn’t seen him earlier, she sure would have heard him now. She kept on eye on him through her peepholes. There was no way Scat could see inside the house now. Not in the shape he was inanyway. He wouldn’t even be able to tell there was something over the windows.

  “I can’t see anything,” he said to himself out loud. “Where did they all go?”

  He worked his way around the outside of the house. Barb worked herself around the house on the inside keeping as good an eye on this filthy creature as she could. Barb thought that he was headed for the back yard. She saw he was acting funny and moving really slow and another idea dawned on her. She ran for the hallway closet and found her husband’s softball bat. Rifle in one hand and bat in the other she quietly unlocked the kitchen door at the back of the house. She leaned the rifle against the inside of the doorframe and slipped outside. She slid along the outside wall of the house and waited at the corner, bat held high.

  Her nose wrinkled in disgust. She smelled him before she saw the first hint of him coming along the house. He walked out from beside the house and “WHUMP”. Scat didn’t know what hit him. The world just went dark on him.

  Barb looked over the man she had hit with the bat. Man alive he stunk to high heaven. There was no way she would
take this stinky man into her house.

  She smiled and thought of the shed. She would pull him into the shed as it was only about 25 feet away and then tie him up. She needed information and he was going to give it to her one way or the other. Gads she hated leaning down here close to him. How in the world could a human being smell this bad? She didn’t think it was because of the no hot water right out of the tap right now either. He looked and smelled liked he hadn’t bathed in a very long time. Thankfully, he wasn’t real heavy. She managed to drag him into the shed by his arms.

  After she dragged him into the shed and had him all hog-tied, she decided to go through his pockets. It was a disgusting thing to do, but she needed any extra information she could glean. She came out with drugs. At least that’s what she guessed they were pills of all kinds, a switchblade, matches and a wallet. She turned the wallet over and on the front of the wallet were the initials W.Y. She sat down hard on the shed floor hoping she was wrong.

  “It couldn’t be? It just had to be a coincidence.” But it wasn’t. As she opened the wallet, there was a copy of her and Will’s wedding picture with all of his credit cards and other information that he carried in it. She just sat there stunned. After a few minutes, she ran gagging all the way into the house. After throwing up and washing her face, a new determination seemed to catch hold of her. Tears were still flowing freely as she headed back out to the shed.

  Scat came to an hour later with a gasp. Someone had thrown cold water on him.

  “Ack sputter, water, I hate water.” Scat was saying.

  That made him move his head a bit. “Ouuuuuu, my head hurts,” he whined.

  He lay on the ground moaning and groaning. His drug high was just beginning to wear off and that made things that much worse.

  Scat slowly turned his head when he saw legs. He looked up to see that women from the house standing over him with a bucket. She had a handkerchief over her face.

  “Good, now you’re awake. To tell you the truth throwing that water on you didn’t help you smell any better. Now I am going to ask you a few questions and I want the truth. If I don’t think it is, you’re not going to like the consequences.”

  “You better let me go lady.” Scat started to yell and his face turned even whiter through the dirt and filth.

  “Oh my head, what did ya hit me with anyway? My head is splitting.”

  Barb picked up the bat that she had leaning on the shed wall next to her rifle that was very close to her.

  “Why with my little faithful bat, that’s what with,” she told him as she slapped the bat back and forth in her left hand. This bat is going to help me get my answers if you know what I mean. I found a wallet in your pocket that doesn’t belong to you. Where did you get it?”

  Scat watched and listened to the bat slapping into her hand.

  Slap, slap, slap. As he watched the bat, he began to try and think what he should tell her. “Should he tell the truth or try to snow ball her. Try to wait things out until the guys came and rescued him and took care of her. He was going to teach her a thing or two when he got his hands on her.”

  Barb watched his eyes and she didn’t like what she saw. Wham went the bat into the dirt balls stomach.

  “Ugh, oaf,” went Scat. When he got his breath back he said. “Why did you do that? I hadn’t said a thing.”

  Barb looked at him. “That’s the problem. You were doing too much thinking and not enough talking. Now I will ask you again. Where did you get this wallet?”

  Scat looked up. “I, I found it. Yeah I found it.”

  “That doesn’t sound very convincing. Sounds like something you just thought up.” Wham, she hit him on his right shin as hard as she could.

  When Scat was done screaming and crying, she again asked him the question.

  “You have to know dirt ball that I am getting very impatient,” she said as she again began slapping the bat into her other hand.

  He watched the bat. His shin was really hurting and he watched her raise the bat. He began to whine. He couldn’t think fast enough. Wham she hit his left shin. Scat screamed and yelled for about 10 minutes.

  “You know the question? I want to know now.”

  She raised the bat to strike him again.

  “NO don’t. I’ll tell, I’ll tell. I took it off a dead man,” he whined.

  There it was. Now she knew for sure. Barb sat down on the floor and just stared at nothing as Scat whined and cried about needing a doctor. After a few minutes, Barb shook her head and got up and began to question him again. At first it was hard for her to say anything. She stuttered a few times then berated herself for being weak and started over.

  “Next question. Where was this man and did you kill him?”

  Scat continued to whine. She raised the bat.

  “No not again. He was trying to help I guess. We had just taken over a housing tract the second to the last before you leave Boise. This girl was screaming cause we just offed her parents who were fighting back. Big Jim didn’t go for that. So he shot them both right there in their front yard. Well, this guy comes running through the entrance and starts to run up to Big Jim to slam him I guess and he did. One of the gang sees this and offs the guy.”

  Barb stood and thought for a moment trying to keep herself together.

  “Okay if someone else shot him, how come you ended up with his wallet? Tell me that one? I thought the spoils went to the one who took someone out?”

  Scat started to look around and whine. He didn’t want to answer that question and he started to yell.

  “Help, help me someone. There’s a crazy lady in here, help.”

  Barb whacked him again but this time in the right forearm. She thought she heard a crack and grinned.

  “Who killed him?” She yelled as Scat yelled and screamed in pain. “I said who killed him? It was you wasn’t it scum? You killed him. That’s why you have his wallet, isn’t it?”

  She yelled and yelled this same thing over and over while he screamed. Barb raised the bat.

  Before she could hit him again, he yelled. “Yes, I did it. I killed him. I killed him. I took the spoils,” he sobbed.

  Before the terror and grief could hit her she needed to know something else.

  “Why were you watching my house? Don’t make me ask you twice.”

  As drool and snot ran down his face, he said. “We followed those people on the bikes here. Big Jim told us too.”

  “We,” she said. “Where’s the other person or people that was with you?”

  Now she was scared because she hadn’t been watching out for anyone else.

  The scum was still whining as he talked and he seemed about out of breath at the moment.

  “It was Weasel. He went back to tell Big Jim that the people on the bikes lived here. That’s what we thought at the time. That you were welcoming them home or something. Either Weasel will come back and get me or they all will come here to gut the place and take slaves. I don’t know why he wanted to know about them. It doesn’t make any sense to me when he has all of Boise to loot. But when Big Jim gets a bug about something, there’s no stopping him until he gets what he wants.”

  Barb bent over and grabbed him by his slimy hair and pulled his head up. “When do you think they will be here?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, Big Jim was having motorcycles and some vans worked on to use. The guys had most of them working when Weasel and me left.”

  Barb dropped the bat without saying anything and picked up an old gas rag and gagged the scum ball with it. She picked up her rifle and then walked out of the shed and went into the house. Scat just laid there. He thought that he was a dead man for sure, but the mad woman didn’t beat him to death with her bat. She just gagged him with a stinky rag and walked out. He lay on the floor of the shed and cried. He hurt so bad he couldn’t get up.

  Barb could hardly see by the time she got into the house. She was overcome with grief. She slid down the wall by the kitchen door sobbing. She could hardly br
eathe.

  It was dark by the time she came around. She got up and went to rinse off her face. She looked at herself in the mirror standing in front of the sink. The water was no longer running through the pipes, but she had several five gallon jugs in the house thanks to Will.

  “Oh Will, no more to hold you and see your smile.” That brought on more tears. “I have to stop,” she thought. “I have to. Will would want me to go on.” She had an ideal that should keep her alive awhile longer. Barb didn’t have to worry about parents. Hers had been killed in a house fire four years ago and she didn’t have any siblings.

  Barb grabbed a coat and went outside. This time she took her rifle with her. She ran down to the next house and banged on the door. She saw the curtains move in the living room window a few feet from the door she was banging on. No one opened the door.

  She yelled. “Fine, don’t open, but I have to tell you that a gang of murderers and worse are coming here tomorrow. Do what you have to, but you best think about getting out of here at least until they are gone. Pass this on to other’s if you can.” She did that for another 30 minutes and then headed home. No one had opened their doors not even to ask how she knew a gang was coming. “So be it, I have done what I could.” She walked back to her home.

  After she got back home, she headed straight for her bedroom closet and pulled out the 72 hour backpack or B.O. B bag that William had helped her pack. She added heavier clothes and more food to it. She tied a sleeping bag to it that was wrapped in a tarp. She found the canteens in the closet, filled them and tied these to the sides of the pack and grabbed two more to tie to her bike. She gathered other things that she would need and went out to the garage to pack the saddlebags over the rear of the bike. Her and Will had loved to bike on the weekends so the bikes were in good shape and always ready to go. The rifle was slung over her left shoulder and extra bullets would go in her heavy cargo pants that had tons of pockets. The rest of the ammunition was in the saddlebags.

  Then she lay down on her bed for the last time for a couple of hours of sleep. The clock went off at midnight. She could hardly pull herself awake enough to turn off the alarm. The tick, tick of the old fashion wind up clock had never even disturbed her. She grabbed that too after she took the picture of her and Will out of the frame and shoved it into one of her pockets after she dressed. The clock went into the side pocket of her pack. Her money and the little jewelry that she had she put in different pockets and zipped them up. She couldn’t believe this was all true. She would never see Will again. She was leaving their home that they had worked so hard for.