by N. C. Reed
“No, but he did pay far more attention than was called for to two of the older girls,” he nodded to a pair of girls in the group by the trailer. “Look, I don’t want to do or say anything that would get us kicked out of here, but I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Period.”
“Just keep this between us,” Pete nodded. “I think we’ll just encourage Mister Murphy to find his way somewhere else.”
“Just be careful,” Fred warned. “He’s a snake.”
“No problem.”
*****
“Feel better now that you’re all cleaned up and fed?” Billy asked, as Murphy walked toward his truck.
“I admit I do,” the other man nodded. “Where’s your friend?” he asked, looking around.
“May have changed his mind,” Billy shrugged, hoping that Pete had done just that. “I don’t aim to wait for him, either, you don’t mind. We’ll get you set up, and then it’s been a long day. I’d like to get back, and cleaned up.” He waved at Rhonda as she went to the Ford to get ready to carry everyone to the Clifton Home. Murphy turned to look, and Billy noticed how the man’s eyes devoured Rhonda’s petite form as she walked. He was smiling when he turned around, and Billy’s face was bland as ever.
“Right nice little gal you got there,” Murphy smiled, but the look didn’t reach his eyes.
“Yeah, she is,” Billy smiled. “Thanks.”
“We ready to go?” Pete walked up. Billy didn’t curse, but he wanted to.
“Reckon so,” he said instead. “Climb in Mister Murphy. Let’s get you put in the right spot. You got to be tired.”
“I sure am,” Murphy nodded, looking nervously from one man to the other. He seemed reluctant to climb into the truck, but could see no way to avoid it. He eased into the cab, and found the other two men on either side of him.
“Here we go.”
*****
The man called Murphy rode uncomfortably between the Idiot and the Indian, as he’d taken to calling them. They couldn’t have three brain cells to rub together between the two of them. As he rode, he thought about his good fortune.
He’d been careful to keep his distance from Todd and his cohort, just in case something like this happened. He didn’t want to be seen as too friendly to them, so that if something like what happened today came along, he’d be able to ride into a new place, just like this.
And what a place! Food, water, women, everything a man could want, right here. He cursed his luck again at the Idiot having stuck him so far away from the others, especially those Beal twins, and the little blond they were so fond of. But, if he worked it just right, this might be better. They’d be hard pressed to prove he’d done anything, and him so far away.
And that little redhead! True, she was a little older than he liked’em, but man, what a morsel. He’d definitely enjoy time spent with her. Served the Idiot right, too. Sticking him way over in the woods like this.
“How much further?” he asked, trying to keep his voice interested and hopeful.
“We’re here,” Billy told him, turning into a dark drive. It was past dusk, by now. The head lights showed a small, rundown house with a wildly overgrown yard.
“I know it don’t look like much in the dark, but it’s a pretty nice place,” Billy promised. “And she’s in real good shape, too.” The three men got out of the truck, and Billy picked up a battery lantern, switching it on. He handed it to Pete, and took out the roll of blankets.
“Long way from everybody else,” Murphy lamented. “But it’s sure nice. Reckon I’ll need that horse if I aim to visit any.” He was about to say something else when he felt an arm snake around his neck. Before he could react, a sharp pain hit him beneath his shoulder blades. He felt weak, suddenly.
“You didn’t really think we’d turn you loose around our women and children, did you?” he heard Billy Todd’s soft voice in his ear. Murphy tried to speak, but no words would come. His last thought was ironic.
But he’s just an idiot.
*****
“Well, that’s that,” Billy said evenly as he put the last shovel of dirt over the late Mister Murphy. “And good riddance to bad rubbish, as my Pa used to say.”
“You were right,” Pete nodded. “Fred had nothing but bad things to say about him.”
“Well, let’s get the hell outta here,” Billy stated. They had put Murphy across the old road from the house.
No sense messin’ up a good house place with a good well, Billy had shrugged, when Pete had asked him why. Pete had seen a new side of Billy tonight. He wasn’t sure what to make of it yet.
“How do you feel, Billy?” he asked cautiously.
“Better,” Billy said firmly. “He looked at Rhonda like a wolf looks at sheep. That was enough for me to kill’im right there. But the way he looked at those girls. . . .” Billy shook his head, as if to clear his anger away. “He had to go.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier to do,” Pete said softly.
“I told you ya didn’t have to come,” Billy reminded him.
“That’s not what I meant,” Pete shot back. “I’ve killed many a man, Billy, but in combat. Self-defense. This was. . .different.”
“You’re right,” Billy nodded. “He wasn’t no soldier. He was vermin. You don’t give a wolf that’s chasin’ your stock a chance to bite you. You kill it, and be done with it. I ain’t by nature a violent man, but I reckon I know what’s got to be done, and do it. This here? This had to be done.”
“I couldn’t live with myself if he stayed here, and hurt somebody. And I couldn’t live with turnin’im loose, neither. He mighta brought somebody else down on us, or hurt someone else down the road. This here was for the best, no matter how bad it seems tonight.”
“You’re right,” Pete nodded firmly. “Just seems. . .wrong, somehow, killin’ a man without even a trial. I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight.”
“I will,” was all Billy said. The rest of the trip was made in silence.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
It was three days before anyone asked after Murphy. Billy kept it simple.
“He didn’t like it,” he shrugged. “Said he’d take his chances somewhere else. We got him up an outfit, and he was gonna head out the next day.”
“Funny. He seemed like he liked it here,” Jerry observed, rubbing his chin. “Well, no accountin’ for folks, I guess.” Terry Blaine said nothing until they were alone, then eased up to Billy.
“We need to talk,” he said quietly. Billy nodded, and the two of them walked out to Billy’s barn.
“Where’s Murphy?” Blaine asked, his voice edgy.
“Don’t rightly know,” Billy shrugged. “Ain’t seen him since he settled in over yonder. Thought he’d stay. Seemed to like the place, ‘cept for it bein’ so far from the rest of us.”
“And you don’t have any idea where he went?” Blaine’s face was red. Angry.
“Ain’t none o’ my business, I reckon.”
“Dammit, Billy, if he lit out, he might lead a bunch right back down on us!” Terry exclaimed. “We’ll have to set extra posts now, and be on the lookout!”
Billy looked at the older man, and weighed his options. He couldn’t allow extra people to be out all the time. Everyone would be tired, and work would stretch them thin. Plus, he didn’t want Terry to be worried about Murphy coming to call with bandits.
“He won’t be doin’ that, Terry,” Billy said softly, cutting into Blaine’s worried mutters.
“What?”
“I said Murphy won’t be bringin’ nobody back. He won’t be comin’ back neither.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Blaine demanded. “If he decides to. . . .” he trailed off. “Oh,” he said finally. He looked at Billy for a minute, then sat down on the bench outside Billy’s barn.
“Care to tell me what happened?” he asked.
“He didn’t belong here,” Billy shrugged. “He was a bad man. He was lookin’ at them girls all wrong. He ha
d to go.” Billy’s statement was simple. Factual.
“And you just decided all on your own to get rid of him?” Terry asked.
“Yep,” Billy nodded. “Like I said, he was a dangerous and low down feller. He ain’t got no business ‘round these women and kids. Period.”
“Billy, don’t you think that’s something we should all have a say in?”
“Say anything you like,” Billy shrugged. “You want to be around somebody like that, have them around your wife and young’uns, go right ahead. Only it won’t be here, on account o’ ain’t nobody like that ever gonna live in this valley. Ever.”
“You know Billy, the rest of us deserve a say in things like that.”
“So have your say,” Billy shrugged again. “I ain’t stoppin’ ya. Wouldn’t if I could. But rest of ya or not, ain’t no animal like that gonna be ‘round Rhonda and the girl. And I don’t care who says otherwise.”
“Billy, you just can’t do things like that,” Terry’s voice was an urgent hiss. “What if people find out?”
“They won’t less you or Pete tell’em, so that’s up to you.” Billy looked the older man in the eye. “But I’m tellin’ you, one more time. Any predator like that comes into this valley won’t be leavin’. You can all take a vote, draw numbers, throw chicken bones for all I care. But in the end, I’ll still make sure that nobody like that ever gets near the women and kids in this valley. No matter what.”
Terry studied Billy for a long time, during which he didn’t see Billy blink even once. Or ever even offer to look away. He simply looked back. Waiting.
Where does he get that patience? Terry wondered. Anyone else would have looked away by now, but not him. He studied the young man in front of him again. Cold, calm, reasoning.
“Billy, I don’t know what to say,” Blaine finally admitted.
“Then don’t say nothin’,” Billy told him flatly. “‘Cept just what I said. Murphy decided to move on. And he ain’t comin’ back.”
“Others might ask questions.”
“Might,” Billy nodded. “Don’t mean we’ll have answers. Can’t be making excuses for someone we don’t know that well. He decided to see what was over the next hill. Leave it at that.”
Finally, Terry nodded. There really wasn’t much else to do. Or say.
“So where you headed?” Terry asked, nodding to where Rommel waited by the Ford. The truck door was open, and he could see Billy’s rifle inside.
“Takin’ a ride,” Billy shrugged. “We got to do somethin’ ‘bout how easy it is to find us. I ain’t sure what, just yet. Gotta get out’n take a look. See under the hood.”
“What do you mean?” Terry asked.
“We got to hide,” Billy stressed. “We hadn’t been watchin’, Howie hadn’t warned us, that whole bunch would o’ been in our lap ‘fore we knowed what was happenin’. We can’t take that chance, not no more. We got ta hide. Anybody left from ‘round these parts might know this place is here, but not many more do. We got to keep it that way.”
“What do you figure to do about it?”
“Don’t rightly know, yet,” Billy admitted. “Why I’m goin’ to look.” Terry studied Billy a minute longer, then nodded.
“Mind if I ride with you?”
*****
“Where are you going?” Rhonda asked, seeing Billy fixing a lunch.
“Think to Cedar Bend today,” he answered. “We got to find a way to hide our road. Something that’ll keep people from just walkin’ right up on us. I can’t figure that out until I go and look.”
“You’ve seen it a million times,” Rhonda told him.
“I ain’t never looked at it like I was aimin’ to hide it,” he shook his head. “I’m gonna have to study on this. Don’t do it right, it’ll look wrong. Won’t fool nobody.”
“Can I come?” Rhonda asked.
“Terry’s goin’,” Billy told her.
“So?”
“Just wanted you to know. You wanna come with, you’re welcome to. You know that.” He punctuated that with a kiss. Rhonda smiled at him when they broke apart.
“I’ll just get ready then.”
“Okay.”
*****
They sat at the intersection where the road to the Farms hit the street into town. Billy was squatting on the ground, as he had been the last fifteen minutes, looking back up the road the way they had come, his face a mask of concentration. He had picked up two rocks, and was tumbling them together in his hand as he studied the road in front of them. Occasionally he would move a short distance, look around, then squat again, tumbling the rocks once more.
Terry and Rhonda stood a short distance away, keeping lookout. Rhonda sighed heavily for at least the fifth time in the last five minutes, but she said nothing. She knew that look. Billy would be done when he was done, and not until.
“You think highly of him don’t you,” Terry broke their silence.
“I love him,” Rhonda said simply, shrugging.
“It shows,” Terry smiled. “He’s an unusual sort of man.”
“One of a kind,” Rhonda nodded firmly.
“He has a very direct way of looking at things,” he added. Rhonda looked at him, then.
“Yes, he does.”
“Is that always a good thing?” he asked. “For the two of you, I mean?”
“What are you really asking, Mister Blaine?” Rhonda demanded, her voice a bit sharper than she’d actually intended.
“Just making conversation,” he held up his hands. “I know what it’s like, being with someone who’s so different from you. Maria and I grew up in totally different cultures. When we first got together, we struggled a lot, trying to be considerate of the others feelings. You two seem to be doing just fine, to me.”
“We aren’t as different as you think,” Rhonda told him. “True, Billy has some learning issues, but his mind is sharper than most. Nothing gets by him, and I mean nothing. It’s almost scary, sometimes, how much he sees. How often he’s just instinctively right about something, or someone.”
“I think part of that is the work his parent’s put in raising him. He was never allowed to think of himself as helpless or disabled. They would explain to him how he could solve a problem, but they would never solve it for him. He had to do that on his own.”
“He’s a first rate problem solver, that’s for sure,” Terry agreed, scanning the area around them again with binoculars.
The pair grew silent again, though Rhonda couldn’t help but wonder what it was that Blaine was getting at. Her almost automatic defensiveness of Billy threatened to make her demand an answer, but after a moment, she decided that Blaine was just making conversation. Still, she decided to watch him a little closer for a while. Some instincts couldn’t be repressed.
Suddenly Billy stood up, tossing the rocks back to the roadway.
“I’ve got it,” he announced. “We can do this pretty easy,” he added, walking toward them.
“What you got in mind?” Terry asked, eager to hear what Billy had come up with. All Terry had been able to think of was tearing out the road. And that wouldn’t hide the fact that a road had once been there.
“We’re gonna cover the road, from here to that hill,” he pointed. “Then, we’ll plant grass, and lay down just a little gravel, here and there. Then, we add a gate, a cattle gate, ‘bout halfway up. Once we take down all the road signs, it oughta look like it’s just another pasture road. One we can still use,” he added.
“If that don’t look real enough, we’ll get a house trailer, and pull in here. Make it look like it was a house place, sitting near the gate. That should do the trick.”
Both Rhonda and Terry studied the layout trying to put Billy’s idea into their thoughts. They looked each others way the same time, then back at Billy.
“That’s a great idea,” Terry nodded. “All I could think of was to tear out the road.”
“Don’t wanna do that,” Billy shook his head. “Might need it.”
&
nbsp; Terry shook his head at Billy’s long sighted solution. He hadn’t considered that at all.
“Sometimes you amaze me, Billy,” was all he said. Billy blushed a little, but just shrugged.
“Well, now we got a plan, we can see about gettin’ it done,” he announced. “Ya’ll ready to head back?”
*****
“So there it is,” Billy told the men who had assembled at his place to hear the plan. “We can do the same thing at the other end, ‘cept that’ll be easier. Road down toward the highway’s got a field either side of it, so we just bury the road, and make it look like one big ole field.”
“That sounds like quite a job,” George noted. “Reckon how long it’ll take?”
“Three, maybe four days on the road in town,” Billy shrugged. “‘Bout the same on the other end, although that’ll be easier done.”
“Any idea where we’ll get the mobile home?” Ben asked.
“Used to be a dealer in Columbia. Reckon might be some still there,” Jerry noted.
“You think?” This from Howie.
“Should be,” Jerry nodded. “Ain’t no idea what shape they’ll be in nowdays.”
“Well, so long as they’re still sound, that’s all we need,” he shrugged.
“What you got in mind, Howie?” Pete asked.
“Well, for one thing, we could find a small one to use as our security shack. The one we’re usin’ now was just knocked together. And in the winter, it’s cold. Plus, it would be nice to have a bedroom to sleep in, stead o’ that cot.”
“Makes sense,” Jon agreed. “And I can get one in there, if we find one small enough.”
“You know, what if we could find more than one?” Jerry mused. They all looked at him.
“Look, we can’t keep spreadin’ out like we have been,” he pointed out. “If we grow much more, we’re gonna need houses. We got couples already formin’, and we got teenagers that ain’t gonna stay teenagers for much longer. We’re gonna have to have a place to put’em.”
