by Steven Bird
Bending over and placing his face in his hands, he said, “I made her suffer, so I wouldn’t be alone. It’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever done. It’ll haunt me until the day I die. When I’m standing at the pearly gates, and Saint Peter asks me why I deserve to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, I’ll say—I don’t. Send me to Hell where I belong. As long as she found her way into Heaven, my old soul can burn in peace.”
Before Jessie could speak, Isaac stood, grabbed the plate, and stood there silently for a moment. Snapping back into the moment, he said sternly, “That’s enough of that. I’ve got work to do.” Storming out of the room, he slammed the door behind him.
Bewildered for a brief moment, Jessie looked down at his right arm and realized in Isaac’s haste to leave, he had forgotten to reattach his wrist restraint. Looking over to his left arm, he knew he could get himself free from his bonds, now that he had full use of his right hand. But should he? If he attempted to get away, he would certainly lose the trust of the man who had helped him, who he assumed would eventually let him be on his way.
Hell, he could have a heart attack for all I know, leaving me here, chained to the bed to starve, Jessie thought, deciding he had to take action to get away, good intentions or not. He understood Isaac’s concerns, but Jessie just couldn’t let the opportunity to free himself slip by without taking full advantage of it.
Chapter Four
After working himself free of his restraints, Jessie slipped silently out of bed and crept toward the wall where his clothes and boots were neatly stacked and folded. Removing the pajamas Isaac had dressed him in, during his period of unconsciousness, Jessie began slipping into his clothes, wincing in pain with each movement reminding him of his wound.
Tucking his shirt into his pants, he donned his jacket and walked over to the window, looking outside to see the fall leaves were beginning to free themselves from the trees as a gentle breeze blew through. Looking around, he could see he was in a rustic cabin deep in the woods and hills. Being on the downhill side of a slope, the room he was in seemed to be an addition to the home, supported by posts and beams on concrete piers about ten feet below.
From his perspective, Jessie couldn’t even see a road or driveway leading to the property. This place is perfectly in the middle of nowhere.
Paying careful attention to not make any unnecessary sounds, Jessie flipped the old homemade bent nail that served as a latch out of its loop, brushed some of the old, flaking paint away from the window ledge, and began to open it. Wiggling it slowly to work it loose, he managed to get the window open enough to slip out.
Jessie was pleased to see the branch from a tree very near the home was in desperate need of trimming, if one wanted to prevent it from interfering with the home’s roofing. Reaching out and taking a firm hold of the branch, Jessie climbed out onto the tree and shimmied his way to the trunk while the branch flexed and swayed, both by the gusty fall breeze and the bouncing action caused by his shifting weight.
Once he reached the trunk, Jessie climbed down the tree until he reached the steep slope of ground from which it sprouted. Checking his wound to ensure he didn’t tear it open during his climb, he was pleased to see Isaac’s patch job was holding up just fine. As he turned to look up at the house, Jessie gave a symbolic nod to Isaac, placed his hat on his head, and slipped off into the thick underbrush and out of sight.
~~~~
Closing an old photo album and placing it on the table next to his old, hand-made wooden rocking chair, Isaac wiped a tear from his eye and turned to gaze out the window while his chair rocked him gently fore and aft. Watching as the orange autumn leaves blew past the window, Isaac couldn’t help but think of his years on God’s green Earth, and how many seasons he had seen pass. He recalled his past as if it were a movie, reflecting on both the good times and the bad. Reminiscing was an emotional rollercoaster ride for Isaac. He had many wonderful memories, for which he was thankful, but the hole in his heart was impossible to repair. He would take the bad from his old life over his present any day, if given a chance.
Standing up from the chair, Isaac turned and placed his hand on the arm of the old rocker, stopping its motion and silencing the nearly inaudible creak it made as it moved with only the burden of its own weight and momentum.
With a deep breath, he walked across the old wooden floor as the planks nailed in place by his own father creaked beneath his feet. Reaching the room where he had left Jessie, he turned the knob and opened the door to see leaves on the floor, as well as the feeling of a breeze blowing in from the open window Jessie had used for his egress.
“Dammit!” he shouted, positioning his hand over his old Smith & Wesson while running to the window. Looking outside, he saw no sign of Jessie. Glancing at the floor, he saw the pajamas Jessie had worn, neatly folded and placed where his clothes had once laid.
Hearing commotion coming from the horse barn located just behind the cabin, Isaac said through his gritted teeth, “That sumbitch is stealing my horses.” With rage and the feeling of betrayal running through his body, he ran through the house and grabbed his Marlin .45-70 lever-action rifle on the way out the front door.
Cycling one of the big four-hundred-and-five grain ‘Marlin load’ rounds into the chamber, Isaac stomped his way toward the barn, grumbling under his breath the entire way. “That ungrateful bastard. I should have left him for dead.”
When he approached the barn, Isaac could hear the scuffle of feet and the apparent protests of his horses as they whinnied and snorted.
Slipping up alongside the barn to the left of the large, double-door sized opening, Isaac peeked through the gaps in the old, rough-cut lumber to see the silhouette of a man attempting to get a bit into Mack’s mouth against heavy protest. Grinning, Isaac thought to himself, Well, I guess Mack’s dental problems are finally coming in handy.
Stepping quietly into the barn, Isaac raised his rifle and said, “He’ll never take that bit. He only uses a hackamore these days.”
Startled by Isaac’s statement, the man quickly turned around to reveal that he was, in fact, not Jessie. A thin man with a scruffy brown beard stood before Isaac with a startled look that soon turned into an ominous smile.
“Bill McCullough,” Isaac said through gritted teeth and clenched jaw. “I see your filthy whore of a mother is still haunting me to this day with her wretched offspring. The only positive contribution that woman ever made to the world was the day she died, becoming food for the worms.”
With his smile turning into a cold, hard stare, Bill said, “You’d better watch your mouth, old man.”
“You’d better pray for forgiveness, Bill. I’ll not be bothered by you again,” Isaac muttered as he prepared himself to pull the trigger.
As Bill’s hardened stare transformed back into a smile, he said, “Another one of my fine momma’s progeny may have something to say about that, you old fool.”
Before Isaac could process what Bill had said, he felt the heavy thud of a shovel strike him in the back of the head before his world slipped into darkness.
~~~~
Hearing a gunshot ring out from the direction of Isaac’s home, Jessie stopped dead in his tracks and looked back while he listened. That was too far away to have been shooting at me, he thought.
Looking ahead on the game trail he was using to work his way through the thick woods, Jessie said, “Ah, hell,” as he turned around and headed back toward Isaac’s cabin to investigate.
Instinctively placing his hand where his Colt normally resided on his hip, Jessie realized he had left without it, not that it would have been any good to him in its mangled form.
Pressing on, he soon found himself nearing Isaac’s cabin, with it coming into view as he reached a rise in the terrain. Stopping to listen and observe, Jessie heard the faint sounds of voices coming from the barn. I don’t think he was expecting any visitors, Jessie thought, leaving the cover of the woods to shadow the base of the cabin around to the barn.
P
eeking around the corner from the downhill side of the home, Jessie saw a figure emerge from the doorway, only to disappear back inside. Hearing laughter, Jessie left his position of visual cover and carefully made his way to the barn.
~~~~
“Damn it, Bill,” said Bill’s older brother, Stan, the man who’d dealt Isaac’s blow. “We need to get going. We can’t wait around here all day.”
“If you wouldn’t have hit him so damn hard, we wouldn’t be waiting,” Bill said in protest. “I ain’t killin’ him while he’s out. This sumbitch is gonna feel what I do to him. Didn’t you hear what he said about our momma? Besides, he damn near shot me when he fell!”
“Havin’ your fun ain’t the priority here, Bill. We need to get back. Just cut the old bastard’s throat and let’s get movin’.”
Reluctantly, Bill drew his long, fixed-blade knife from its sheath and began walking toward Isaac where he lay still and silent on the barn’s filthy dirt floor. “You always take all the fun out of everything, Stan.”
Licking his lips and wiggling his fingers around the handle of the blade, Bill was filled with excitement and anticipation of the fun he was about to have slicing Isaac’s throat. Bill looked to his brother and began to speak when he saw what appeared to be a loop of barbed wire swoop over his brother’s head and around his neck, jerking him off his feet and tightening as he was pulled violently backward.
The instant Stan’s body hit the ground, with his hands reaching up in a panic to the barbed wire around his neck, an old rusty ax smashed into his forehead shattering his skull, and brains and blood splattered onto the dirt floor around him.
Diving quickly for Isaac’s rifle they had propped against the planks of one of the horse stalls, Bill grabbed the gun, inadvertently cycling a live round out of the chamber when he worked the lever out of sheer panic-stricken haste. Before he was able to bring the rifle to bear against his attacker, the same blood-covered ax that had just killed his brother crashed into his chest, piercing his heart and ending his struggles as his life left his wretched, unwashed body.
~~~~
Feeling a throbbing in his head and a stiff pain in his neck, Isaac opened his eyes to see he was in his own bed inside his cabin. Wincing in pain when he turned his neck, Isaac saw Jessie sitting in a chair across the room with his feet propped up on a stool.
“You!” Isaac said, turning back to stare at the ceiling.
“It’s good to see you finally coming around,” Jessie replied in a comforting tone. “I was beginning to get worried.”
Taking a deep breath, Isaac blinked his eyes in an attempt to focus and asked, “What the hell happened?”
“It appeared to me you had visitors.”
“That’s right,” Isaac recalled as the fog in his mind began to clear. “Bill McCullough was in the barn trying to steal Mack. I should have just let him try. Mack would have chucked him pretty quick. He’s a good horse, but he’s an ornery old cuss like me. We’re two peas in a pod.”
“Yes, he sounds just like his owner,” Jessie said with a chuckle.
“I reckon that tends to happen over time,” Isaac concurred. “What the hell happened, though? One moment I was standing there pointing my rifle at Bill, who I thought was you at first, only to wind up here with a headache from hell.”
“There was another man with him. He must’ve gotten the jump on you. Bill was about to have some fun with a big ol’ Bowie knife from the look of things,” Jessie said, as he stood to approach Isaac’s bedside.
Turning his head and fighting the pain, Isaac asked, “Must have been one of his brothers. Their momma didn’t know how to keep her legs shut. She kept poppin’ the bastards out, leavin’ everyone else around here to have to deal with them. What a wretched, filthy beast she was.”
Getting back to the point, Isaac asked, “Where are they now? Did they get away?”
“No, they didn’t get away,” Jessie stated matter-of-factly.
“Dead?”
“Yep.”
“Buried?”
“Nope. I figured they’d make a good meal for the coyotes. That’ll give the rabbits and fawns a break for the night while the song dogs fill their bellies without a chase.”
Replying with a nod of agreement, Isaac asked, “Where did you go? And why?”
“I’m not partial to being restrained,” Jessie said. “What if those bastards had come along, did you in, and then found me? That wouldn’t have left me in a very good position. I understand why you did it. Trust me, I do. You don’t know me from Adam and these days you can’t take any chances, but it just wasn’t something I could allow to continue. We’ve all got to do what’s right for us.”
Relaxing and resting his head against his pillow, Isaac murmured, “I reckon not. I suppose I’d have done the same. So, what now? Are you gonna rob me? Kill me? That’s all anyone does these days in this Godforsaken world.”
With a chuckle, Jessie responded, “Did God forsake the world, or did the world forsake God? My take on it is the latter occurred, leading to the former.”
With a pain-riddled smile, Isaac said, “I reckon you’re right about that.”
“You need to sleep this headache off,” Jessie said, patting Isaac on the shoulder. “Is there anything I can get you or do for you while you rest?”
Thinking for a minute, Isaac said, “You can feed the horses.”
“I’ve already done that,” Jessie replied. “I gave them each a few flakes of alfalfa and a cup of grain.”
“Water?”
“Yep, that, too.”
“I thank you for that, sir,” Isaac said as he closed his eyes in an attempt to mitigate the pain. “I reckon I need to cut those boys loose one of these days. If I were to die and they were locked away in their stalls, they’d starve to death. They don’t deserve that. My ol’ ticker could give up at any time. I need to face the reality of things.”
“You don’t need to worry about that right this moment,” Jessie said as he turned to leave the room. “Get some sleep, and we’ll talk more later. And don’t you worry. I’ll keep a good eye out.”
“There will be more,” Isaac said, turning to Jessie. “There will most certainly be more.”
“Huh?” Jessie queried, confused by the vagueness of Isaac’s statement.
“The McCullough boys. Like I said, their momma kept crankin’em out. They’ve got a lot of cousins, too. I reckon that’s one of the reasons the world went to hell in a handbasket. Survival of the fittest gave way to whoever the hell reproduced the most. I guess the greatest generation made things a little too easy for those who followed. That clan wouldn’t have made it back in my daddy’s day.
“Anyway,” he continued, getting back on topic. “If my hunch is correct, more of those inbred bastards will be showing up here lookin’ for their kin. They’re a tight group. I guess that came from those kids having to raise each other, since their folks were too damn sorry to take much of a hand in it.”
“Like I said, don’t worry about it for now. I’ll keep an eye out for them. You just rest up and get over that thump on the head, so both of us can deal with whoever they send looking for them,” Jessie assured him as he turned to leave the room.
Chapter Five
Early the next morning, Isaac awoke to the smell of freshly brewed coffee as Jessie placed a steaming cup on the nightstand beside the bed. “Good morning, sir,” Jessie said, taking a sip from a cup of his own.
With a grumble, Isaac yawned and muttered, “Good morning. Damn, that smells good.”
“Don’t worry,” Jessie added as he took a seat. “I didn’t snoop any further than your percolator and the coffee can sitting next to it, but if you don’t mind me asking, where are you acquiring coffee these days? I mean, it’s been a while since our supply chains went down and all.”
Taking a sip of the steaming hot cup of coffee while the aroma embraced him like a familiar hug, Isaac said, “Vacuum-sealed packages. I bought several hundred pounds of coffee and ke
pt it in its original vacuum-sealed containers. The way it was packaged, it’s supposed to have a twenty-five-year shelf life. You see, I was one of those crazy, old, paranoid people who stocked up for the end of the world. The way I saw it, coffee would be as good as money in some sort of world where paper money had no tangible meaning. Toward the end, when the collapse seemed inevitable, even to folks in suburbia, I started to seem pretty normal. The conspiracy-theory-minded ‘preppers’ didn’t seem so crazy after all. Anyway, I’ve got enough to last well beyond my lifetime. I sure don’t have twenty-five-years left in me.”
Taking another sip of coffee, he continued, “Coffee isn’t the only thing I stocked up on, though. I’ve got a healthy supply of cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and liquor as well. I was assuming we’d have set up some sort of local barter system by now. All of those things were supposed to be as good as gold after a collapse, according to all the internet experts and bloggers.
“Maybe it did, somewhere out there, but unfortunately around here, the barter system never materialized. The kill and take it system seemed to be a more natural fit for degenerates such as those two bastards you dispatched yesterday.
“More than likely, it was some of their kinfolk who killed your horse and tried to do you in as well. They’ve turned into nothing more than a bunch of thieving highwaymen. They’ve ruined this whole damn area. The good folks around here have mostly been killed off, or left before they got killed.”
“One family has done all that?” Jessie asked, confused at how one group could wield so much power.
“The McCulloughs joined up with the Watkins family. Or perhaps I should say, they absorbed the Watkins family, both of which have roots that run deep into every holler in these parts. They have blood ties through various marriages over the years. You could say they developed a fairly shallow gene pool amongst themselves. Some other folks joined up with them as well, seeing no other way to get by. Too many people saw the only options as either being a wolf or a sheep. What we really needed were more sheepdogs.”
