Holiday Short Stories

by Jayne Amanda Maynes

I blew it I had my chance and I blew it. I knew he was different, but I just...

  “Hey out there? You in the blind. Any birds today?”

  Dam fool if there were they were surely gone now with all that noise. I shook my head and went back to scanning the skies hoping without conviction just maybe something would change and the birds would be back. The fourth day in a row and not one bird other than these gulls. The idiot on the shore started hollering something else and with how things were going I just packed everything and headed toward him to thank him for making sure nothing would come in. I got about half way back and stepped in the same hole I had going out to the blind, only this time I dropped the shotgun and started cussing. I searched for the gun and came up with nothing but mud. Great now what? I just bought that gun this year, and hoped to christen it the same way I had ever gun I'd bought previously. I looked to the shore and thought my tormentor had decided to leave before I got there. I started searching again and bumped something. I started running my hand along it to try finding some way of pulling it free enough to see just what it was. I found an edge I could get my hand on and gave a tug. It came free without much trouble and I started panicking. I gave another tug and it came farther out of the mud, enough I knew what it was now for sure, and yes my fear was confirmed, I pulled the body up so I could try making out the features and started crying. The clothes were right, the... no it couldn't be that was four years ago and he was in good health when he left. I picked up the body and carried it to where the car was parked and reached for the keys so I could get my phone out and call the police.

  I checked all my pockets again and again knowing I had to have the keys but couldn't find them. The pocket with the zipper did I check that pocket? Surely I put it in that pocket, it only made sense I would...

  “Looking for these?” the man who had been there by the car hollering at the top of his lungs.

  I thanked him for the keys and opened the car reaching inside.

  “What you got there buddy? Mind if I have a look, seems you worked hard getting it here what ever it is.”

  I dialed emergence and heard the familiar peep saying I didn't have a signal and hit redial.

  “It doesn't work out here I already tried it. I saw the keys in the trunk, so thought I might see if maybe you had a phone so I could get some help only to find yours doesn't have any better signal out here then mine,” he held up another phone showing he did have one. “So is this a boy or girl?” he asked as though I had taken the time to find out.

  I leaned over the body and started cleaning the mud off trying to see if I could figure out who it was and how they died. It was definitely a child the size alone said that much, but who and how long had they been buried out there?

  “Dad you don't understand, that isn't me it never was. I tried to be what you wanted but I...”

  There was a bracelet on the right arm, maybe it would give a clue. I wiped the mud off and started looking for some water to wash it in so I could read it. A med alert bracelet, probably diabetes, but if I couldn't get more of the mud off I wouldn't know for sure. Why didn't the phone work up here? It always worked before, didn't it? Yes it had so why not this time? External antenna I had an external antenna on my car before and this time I didn't, that had to be the answer, didn't it?

  “Jake that isn't a toy. When you get a little older I'll teach you how to use it, but for now I just want you to leave it alone. Someone could get hurt if you play with it.”

  “Ok dad!” he set the gun back on the table and it went off.

  I looked at the couch next to me and there was a hole big enough for me to put both fists through. I looked back at him and bowed my head. He hadn't meant to pull the trigger he probably hadn't even realized he had when he set it down. I picked it up and checked it, I had been sure it was empty. I never put a gun away dirty and I hadn't used this gun in I couldn't remember when, and it had two more rounds in the magazine, and one in the chamber. I took the rounds out and checked all the other guns in the house.

  I tried to scrape the mud off the med-alert bracelet and soon found it wasn't diabetes that it indicated, but epilepsy. Who was this kid? Why were they out here buried in the mud? So many questions and no answers.

  “Jake how about I help you learning about taking care of this.” I held up a .22, his first gun, but if he took good care of it not his last.

  I went back out where I dropped my shotgun and there it lay not a foot from where I found the body of the child. I picked it up and headed back to the car figuring on laying the child on the back seat and driving into town.

  As I reached the car Sam pulled up asking how the hunting was going. I let him know this was looking like the first year in twenty years we weren't going to have a goose for our Christmas dinner, then asked if he could run into town and get the sheriff. He wanted to know why I needed the sheriff. I gave him a look letting him know he didn't really want to know.

  I started looking more closely at the body after he left trying to figure out just who this kid had been, hoping it might give me a clue of why they had been out here. I searched all the pockets finding nothing that would indicate anything about who this kid was. I found a hole in the shirt that could have been made by a knife so started looking for punctures in the torso finding nothing.

  “Dad do I have to have a gun?”

  “It's a rite of passage in this family Jake. I was your age when I got my first gun and now it's time for you to be a man.”

  I didn't want to violate the body anymore then I needed to, to find out who the kid was, but nothing was telling me anything about who they had been, or why they had been out here. I stopped searching and took the emergency blanket from the trunk of the car and covered the body. I started the car to let the heater run so I could get warm, and sat there waiting for Pete to get there so I could go home.

  “Liz I... Jake left and I don't know why.”

  “Daddy I miss Jackie. Why can't she come home?”

  Jackie, is that the name she used? Who was Jackie? It didn't make any sense to me. I wasn't sure I heard her right, so I didn't say anything.

  Could it be Liz could accept Jake as a girl even though he wasn't? I wanted to know just why it was my son hated everything I tried to help him learn, he loved helping his mother in the house, but when it came to helping me he hated it. He didn't mind fishing as long as he didn't have to put a worm on the hook, or take the fish off when he caught one. When he shied away from guns I accredited it to the time the shot gun had gone off destroying the couch we had. But he never liked anything to do with sports like football, baseball, basketball, or any of the other sports men and boys generally liked. In little league his coach told me more then once he didn't think Jake would ever be any good since he threw and ran more like a girl than anything. The last time his coach said that I pulled Jake out of little league and tried working with him.

  I bowed my head while waiting for the sheriff asking God to please let my boy come back. I didn't care that he couldn't throw a baseball, that he hated football. I didn't care that he didn't want to go hunting, or fishing, I just wanted him to come home. There was a tap on the window bringing me back from the dream and prayer.

  I rolled the window down a little and the guy I met asked if he could get in out of the cold. I unlocked the passenger door and let him get in, I didn't see what harm it would do, and he did look like he was freezing.

  “That wind is something ain't it? So any idea who the kid is? Is it a boy or girl?”

  I looked over at the guy and asked him who he was. I didn't remember ever seeing him before and I knew most everyone in town and this guy I didn't know.

  “The name is Hank. I was just passing through and blew a tire just down the road a ways. Found out I don't have a spare and remembered seeing your car here.”

  Ok that explained the noise I heard earlier that sounded like someone shooting, but it sounded like it came from the other side of the marsh, where the highway was. His being able to see m
y car from there was none, so his explanation of why he was here still didn't make any sense, but I didn't press.

  I closed my eyes again and started asking God to please let this be the year things worked out for my family. Ever since Jake left it seemed this time of year got worse, and now this. I just wanted to go home and find the last four years were just a dream, a dream that I would wake up from and find everything back the way it should be. My wife preparing the goose with Jake and Liz getting in the way as much as helping.

  “Jake could you get that big bowl down so we can make the dressing?”

  “Sure mom. Can I make the dressing this year?”

  “Only if you wash your hands and put on an apron.”

  He headed for the bathroom and washed his hands making sure they were clean, not that they ever got all that dirty. He got a chair and got the big bowl down, then dumped the bread crumbs in making sure they all went in the bowl. He was so coordinated in the kitchen, yet helping me in the garage it seemed he couldn't even stand up half the time. I watched him make that stuffing and remembered watching Gwen the first year we were married. Every move the same, everything the same, the way Jake held his head. The look of concentration as he measured out the spices he added. It was the same as it had been with Gwen.

  “That's not fair Jackie I want to be the