by Steven Bird
“Paul,” Allison said, tugging on his arm.
“No, he’s right,” Jessie admitted. “But no one is right one hundred percent of the time. The big question is: do you stand back up after you’ve been knocked to the dirt? Do you learn from your mistakes, adapt to that changing environment and overcome? Losing a battle isn’t the same as losing the war. And remember, I warned you before this all went down, that choosing to stay and fight could result in losses you’d rather not have. I warned you. You chose to fight, and I merely stuck around to help you follow through with your decision as a favor to Isaac, our mutual friend.”
Looking away for a moment, Paul looked back at Jessie and said humbly, “You’re right, man. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Jessie said. “As long as we’re still on the same team, and as long as we still have our friends and family as a mutual goal, there will be no need for apologies.”
Chapter Eighteen
As the rays of the morning sun shone through the branches of the large oak tree to which Isaac was tied, a fly buzzed around his nose and woke him from a deep sleep, brought on by his weakened state.
“Good morning,” a man’s voice said.
Now blinded by the rays of light, Isaac squinted in an attempt to focus on the figure before him.
Stepping closer, the man knelt down before Isaac and came into focus. “Well, well, well. Isaac Clanton. I’d all but forgotten about you until a few of ours had a run-in with you at your place. You wouldn’t think we’d forgive and forget about that, now, would you?”
“I didn’t know the McCulloughs were your people, Jacob,” Isaac replied. “Besides, they were stealing my horses. They deserved what they got.”
Brushing Isaac’s rebuttal aside, Jacob Hofstadter smiled and continued, “And if those crimes you committed against us weren’t enough, you showed up on our property uninvited, and then tried to convince us to help you kill our friends.”
“I wasn’t trying to convince you to kill anyone. My friends needed help. I was just trying to get help. I had no idea you crossed that line.”
“Careful, old man. Those roots you’re sittin’ on are a bit thirsty. Nothing refreshes this tree like the blood of a sinner. Look around. This tree, of all the oak trees nearby, stands the straightest and the tallest, yet they’re all the same age. Do you know why that is?”
“I don’t really give a damn, but I bet you’re about to tell me,” Isaac spat defiantly.
With the smile extinguished from Jacob’s face, he said, “Many years ago, when my granddaddy hit my granny one too many times, my daddy put an end to it. He’d stood by and watched that man hit my granny all his life, and when he was finally big enough to do something about it, he did.”
Standing up and looking at the vast expanse of branches overhead, Jacob continued. “There had just been a big storm, ripping through our property and toppling many a tree. This oak was one of them. It had rained and rained, making the ground soft and allowing the roots to simply lose their grip when pushed to the limit by the extreme winds of the storm. When the storm passed, this entire tree, though much smaller at the time, laid on its side.
“Right after the storm, my granddaddy whipped my granny something fierce. It was more than my daddy could stand. He stood tall and left his mule team to confront my granddaddy. He took his driving whip and a long rope with him into the house. He beat my granddaddy down. He whipped him and whipped him, until not an inch of unmarked skin showed. Then, he tied the rope around his feet and left the house.
“He went back to the mule team, lashed the rope to the yoke, and drove them hard. The rope tied around my granddaddy’s feet pulled him out of the house, and straight through the door, tearing it off its hinges. The mules dragged him all the way back here. By the time they arrived this far back on the farm, granddaddy was still alive, but badly injured. Daddy dragged his body into the hole left behind by the root ball, then went about using the mule team to stand this very tree right back up and firmly in place.
“The roots retook and this tree, fertilized by that evil son of a bitch who was my granddaddy, grew stronger and faster than every other tree around, even the ones that were strong enough to weather the storm.
“Ever since that day, this tree has been a sacred place for my daddy. I’m not sure whether it was from the rage and hate he still carried in his heart for the man who rests beneath this tree, but Daddy saw this tree as a place for us all to be cleansed of our sins. He said this is where we were all to pay our penance to God, just like our granddaddy did.
“Over the years, we weren’t the only ones to pay our penance under the branches of this tree. Anyone who crossed Daddy found themselves being beaten here, or the ones who really deserved it, found themselves dangling from a rope from that branch right there,” he said, pointing to an old, frayed rope still hanging from a large branch.
“Their blood would be spilled onto the ground beneath you, soaking into the roots and continuing to feed this old tree.”
“We could have been friends, Isaac,” Jacob taunted, with his voice turning cold. “But you just had to go and cross us. And now, you’ll pay your penance here, like so many others before you.”
With no words to say, Isaac looked away, refusing to make eye contact with Jacob, not wanting to look into his evil eyes.
“You’ll be reunited with your little friend shortly,” Jacob said as he stood and began to walk away. “He’ll probably never play the piano again, though,” he said with a laugh before he disappeared into the woods.
Within an hour, Isaac opened his eyes when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. “Billy!” he cried, seeing Billy with a feed sack over his head. He could see Billy was being led by two men with a rope around his neck, and his hands were wrapped in bloody rags.
“Billy! Billy, are you okay?” Isaac asked.
The two men escorting him chuckled, as if Isaac was the only one not getting some sort of cruel, twisted joke.
“Oh, yeah, he’s just fine,” one of the men mocked. “He’ll be even better soon.”
“What the hell are you doing with him?” Isaac asked.
“You’d better calm your old ass down,” the same man snarled. “Or you could find yourself in the same mess he’s in. He earned what he got, and what he’s about to get.”
When the second man pulled the feed sack off Billy’s head, Isaac could see he had been beaten severely and seemed to be barely conscious.
Isaac was momentarily relieved when the men removed the rope from around Billy’s neck, only beginning to worry once again when they pulled his arms behind his back and tied his wrists together with the rope. With a few twirls of the rope, one of the men tossed it over the branch Jacob had recently pointed out to Isaac as the hanging branch above.
The two men both took hold of the rope and began pulling down on the slack end, winching Billy’s hands upward behind his back. Within a moment, Billy was standing on his tiptoes with his arms in a very unnatural state behind him.
Seeing Billy beginning to shake due to the extreme pain he was suffering, Isaac couldn’t believe he was remaining quiet and stoic through it all.
“I guess he wants a little more,” one of the men quipped and they pulled harder on the rope.
When Billy was momentarily lifted off his feet with his arms outstretched behind him, Isaac heard something snap as Billy’s arms rotated back and upward, dropping him to his feet and he released an agony-filled, primal scream. Billy’s screams were worse than anything Isaac had ever witnessed. His friend, the brave young man who had accompanied him here to help save his family, had reached his breaking point, and Isaac knew his body and mind would never be the same again.
“You bastards!” Isaac screamed with rage while he struggled with his ropes.
“You sound like you want to join him, old man,” warned the larger of the two men. “If I were you, I’d keep that mouth shut. Jacob wants to save you for himself, but I’m sure he’d understand if we h
ad a little fun ourselves. So just go ahead and give us a reason. I dare you.”
Knowing he would be of no use to Billy or anyone else if he got himself into such a situation, Isaac leaned back against the tree and fought back the tears welling up in his eyes. He didn’t want to give those two monsters the pleasure of seeing the hurt and pain he was feeling inside for his friend.
After a few moments, Billy dropped even further to the ground, with his arms now rotating all the way back and upward. It was clear to Isaac now, Billy’s shoulders were completely destroyed. Billy moaned and wailed in agony while his body shook and convulsed.
Isaac’s soul was flooded with emotion. He felt alternating waves of sadness and rage. A rage like he’d never felt before, and sadness he had only felt once, the day he had lost his beloved wife.
Watching as the two men walked away, joking to themselves as if the horror of what they had just done was routine, Isaac fantasized about killing both of them in a most horrific manner.
When several other men approached, Isaac saw one of the men was Jacob Hofstadter. The other two he hadn’t seen before, but to him, they looked like they were from the same inbred clan as Jacob.
“Well, well, well,” Jacob said, joking with the others while gesturing to Billy. “It looks like Pete and John had fun with this guy. Damn, that looks like it hurts.”
Walking up to inspect Billy’s arms more closely, one of the men said, “Damn, that ain’t right,” noting the backward over-rotation of Billy’s shoulders. “He won’t last long at this rate.”
When Jacob moved over to inspect more closely, he pulled his fixed blade knife from its sheath and cut the rope, allowing Billy to fall to the ground with a thud. Turning to the others, he said, “Tie that rope to his feet and around the tree. He won’t go far. Hell, he ain’t got no fingers to untie the rope and no arms to crawl with.”
“No fingers?” Isaac asked, shocked by Jacob’s statement.
With a grin, Jacob turned to Isaac and explained, “Yeah, he made the mistake of pointing a finger at me and making a threat, so I took his fingers—all of them. I thought about feeding them to him to drive the point home, but hell, I’m a reasonable man. At least until someone really pisses me off. You keep that in mind, Mr. Clanton.”
Looking at the blood-soaked rags wrapped and tied around Billy’s hands, Isaac’s heart sank even deeper into a pit of despair. The abuse they were inflicting on Billy was all permanent. It wasn’t abuse meant to drive a point home to influence his future actions or loyalties, it was a slow and methodical destruction of a man’s body, and it seemed to be merely for sport. The cruelty of it all was shocking. Isaac had himself taken lives before, but only to end a dangerous situation. He had never hurt another person for his own enjoyment. But this… this was an all-new level of evil he had never before seen.
Looking up at the brilliant blue sky of this new day, Isaac thought to himself, Lord, do You see this? Do You see the evil in these men? Give me the strength, Lord. Give me the strength to end this.
Chapter Nineteen
Back at the Williams farm, the survivors remained safe in Frank’s cellar, unknown to their intruders. The time seemed to tick by slowly for them while the nightmarish events of the recent past haunted them all. Looking at his watch, Jessie said, “It’s almost three o’clock. We haven’t heard anything since this morning.”
“It has been a while,” replied Frank.
Looking around the room for items that might be useful, Jessie spotted the compound bow on the shelf in the back of the room and asked, “Is that thing sighted in?”
“It was Daddy’s,” Frank replied. “He harvested a deer with it a few years ago, then put it away. There’s no reason to think it’s not in the same condition as it was then.”
“How many arrows do you have?”
“A quiver of seven. Mostly broadheads, but there are a few field points.”
Walking over to the bow and picking it up, Jessie looked it over and observed, “It’s an older Darton. I used to have one similar to this. It’s still a good bow, just a little big and heavy compared to the more recent designs.”
“Can you put it to good use?” Frank asked. “I’ve never been coordinated enough to shoot a bow very well.”
“I can definitely put it to good use,” Jessie assured him. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take it with me on my scouting run.”
“Please do,” Frank said.
“But that leaves you with nothing but that little .38 snubby you said wasn’t worth a damn.”
“They won’t find us in here,” replied Frank, and he began to rummage through his food stores for a snack. “We’ll be fine. Go do what you need to do.”
Taking a small camouflaged backpack from the supply shelf, Frank walked through the cellar like he was on a shopping trip. He selected several cans of sardines, a can of potted meat, and a jar of pickled eggs.
“Aren’t those my eggs?” Tina asked, noticing what Frank had pulled from his stockpile.
“They were,” Frank answered. “Just be glad I took them.”
“Oh, I am,” she said. “I’d have given you hell for it before. But now, I’m thankful I had a paranoid older brother to do all this.”
“I’m not paranoid,” he argued, confused by her statement.
“It was a joke,” she assured him. “Socially awkward, or whatever you are. I’m thankful for it.”
After several moments of nothing but a long blank stare, Frank went back to his business of packing for Jessie’s outing. In addition to food, he packed Jessie a Boy Scout canteen full of water, several candles, and a small blanket.
“How much ammunition do you have,” Frank asked Jessie.
“Six in the cylinder, and about fifteen extra.”
“Is that enough?”
“It’ll do. It’s enough to acquire more. Besides, a handgun isn’t a fighting weapon; it’s a self-defense weapon. I’ll need to acquire a long gun as soon as I can.”
Jessie watched while Frank walked over to a box of papers on a shelf before removing the lid and sifting around, like he was looking for something in particular.
“What do you have there?” Jessie asked.
“Here it is,” Frank said, removing one of the many pieces of paper contained in the box.
Unfolding it and spreading it out on the floor, Frank pointed and explained, “Here we are. This is the plot for our farm. You can see our boundaries and how we border the roads and rivers.” Sliding his hand across the page, he said, “This is the Hofstadter place.” Tracing the borders of the Hofstader’s property line, he said, “Here, take this with you,” before he folded the paper several times. Placing it in a Ziploc bag, he handed it to Jessie. “You’re not familiar enough with each of the properties around here to be able to find what you’re looking for without help.”
“You just happened to have plot maps printed off for the entire area?” Jessie marveled.
“I figured when it all started going down, we couldn’t trust the courthouse would be a viable place to maintain our records, so I downloaded and printed whatever I could.”
Nodding with approval, Jessie said, “I’m glad you’re on our side, Frank.”
Looking around the room, Jessie walked over to Paul and urged, “Rest up. We’ll need you before long.”
Reaching out to shake Jessie’s hand, Paul said, “And you be careful. We need you now. Don’t get yourself killed.”
“He’s right,” Tina agreed, walking over to Jessie. Looking him directly in the eye, she reached out and took one of his hands into hers and said, “We really need you. We can’t leave Shauna and the kids in the hands of those filthy bastards. We just can’t. We need you to be careful and make it back to us.”
Smiling, Jessie said, “Although I can’t give you my word I’ll make it back, I’ll give you my word that the only way I won’t come back is if I’m dead. I won’t leave you.”
After saying his goodbyes, Jessie slipped up the stairs and out the ste
el overhead door being held open by Frank.
Helping Frank quietly lower the door from the outside and pushing it firmly into place once seated, Jessie heard the bolt slide into the locked position from within.
Turning around to survey his surroundings, Jessie worked his way through the blackberry briars to the hidden entrance where Frank had shoved some loose brush to keep it concealed.
For the next half hour, Jessie patiently watched and listened. Taking cues from the birds and the squirrels, Jessie could tell they were not stressed or concerned, meaning there were no threats in the immediate area. Carefully working the brush loose at the entrance of the briars, Jessie slipped out, replaced the makeshift camouflage, and then worked his way toward the tree line while being careful not to make any unnecessary sounds.
Once he was in the trees, Jessie looked in the direction of the remains of the Williams home. He could see the black smoke of the smoldering ruins billowing up on the other side of the trees on the far side of the back pasture. Shaking his head in disgust, he turned and disappeared into the woods like a ghost. A ghost that the McCulloughs and now the Hofstadter clan hadn’t seen the last of.
~~~~
After traveling quietly on foot for several hours, Jessie could see the sunlight would soon fade, giving him the ability to pick up his pace without as much concern of being seen.
Stopping to rest in the final moments of the day, Jessie quietly sat down and leaned back against a tree. He saw a fat tree squirrel scurrying around a tree approximately twenty feet away. He was surprised the squirrel seemed to have not noticed his presence. He was being stealthy in his travel, but wildlife was usually a bit keener about such things than their human counterparts.
If I took that squirrel, I could eat well this evening and save what’s left in my pack for later, he thought. That, and I do need to try this bow. I can’t wait until it’s needed to find out if it’s sighted in or not.
