A Cruel and Violent Storm

by Don M. Esquibel

  Hate. Fear. Mistrust. These and more shine in the eyes of the family: emotions that dwell deep within them, cancerous seeds that have been planted by pain and circumstance, watered by the likes of the Animas Animals, by the raiders who held us at gunpoint and blew off TJ’s ear. Now they grow like vines, spreading and twisting in their hearts and minds, razor-sharp thorns keeping the pain of what they suffered fresh in their memory. What room is there for empathy amid such an overwhelming presence?

  Ted snorts derisively. “Good story,” he says. “I’d imagine I would say the same if I were caught in your situation. The only problem is, how do we know it’s not a bunch of bull shit? How do we know you weren’t scoping the place out so you could come back later tonight with a posse and slit our throats while we slept?”

  His words resonate among the family. Even those few who may have sympathized with the man must be second-guessing themselves. He has a point after all. Memories of the night we met Eli and Jolene come back to me. How badly I felt for that squalid family as they stood by the fire, waiting for us to pass judgment. We fell for the trap they had set, one which might have come at the expense of our lives had we not wriggled out before it closed. They weren’t wicked, just desperate, doing what they believed they had to out of fear and the manipulation of the cruel men they served. That was months ago. The world has only grown more desperate and cruel in the days since.

  The man shakes his head vigorously. “Please, I’m telling the truth,” he pleads. “There’s no posse. There was never any plan except trying to smuggle away some food. You have to believe me!”

  The man looks around desperately, eyes frantically searching for an ally as a drowning man would look for a life preserver.

  “Perhaps it’s best if we discuss this in private?” Mrs. Taylor suggests. “Vince, Jerry, if you wouldn’t mind...” She gestures toward one of our barricades. However, it’s only after a nod from Richard that they move the captives away.

  “He could just be telling us what we want to hear,” Will warns, soon as they’re out of earshot. “How can we trust him?”

  “How do we know he’s not being honest?” asks Mrs. Taylor. The focus shifts to her as it often does when she speaks. “I mean two men, one hardly more than a child, and armed with a .22 and a handful of ammo? Not exactly a strike team. Seems to me that a desperate father and son looking to steal some food is the more likely scenario of the two.”

  Nods of agreement are had at that. Even the most distrusting of the family can see the sense in what she says. Richard, however, remains unimpressed with the argument, countering before anyone can have the chance to mull it over. “So what do you suggest?” he asks. “That we take their word for it? Just let them go, free and clear?” The heavy skepticism in his voice makes it obvious what he thinks of the idea.

  “I don’t see many alternatives,” she answers unflinchingly as she meets his harsh glare. “What would you suggest?”

  A small smirk crosses his lips, cruel and humorless. “I suggest we find the truth,” he says.

  “And how do we do that?” she challenges.

  “I have a few ideas,” he says. “Give me an hour in the barn with them, and we’ll find out just how honest he’s been.”

  Though his words are vague, none of us are lost on what they imply. Torture—that dark deed stained throughout human history—a tactical tool used and justified in times of dire circumstances. Have we really come to this? I study our two captives: the father who looks broken, watching us with pleading eyes; and the son, shaking and shivering out of fear, eyes so swelled with tears it’s a wonder he can see at all. I feel my stomach twist in disgust at the idea of him screaming in pain, suffering all to ascertain their honesty.

  I look to Morgan who looks as troubled as I feel. He opens his mouth as if to speak, only to immediately close it again. His eyes linger on the captives a moment, face creased uneasily. He wants to say something, I can tell. Yet he remains silent, averting his eyes and staring fixedly at the ground. He’s not the only one to do so. Despite the anger and mistrust, nearly everyone looks troubled at such an ugly prospect. But like Morgan, they do not speak up. They do not condemn the notion. His mother, however, has no qualms voicing her contempt.

  “You can’t be serious?” she says. “That’s your brilliant plan—to beat the truth out of them? And what happens if at the end they were telling the truth after all?”

  “Then we let them go,” Richard says. He turns, speaking now to the entire family. “I’m not suggesting we work them over with a screwdriver and a blowtorch, but we need to apply some kind of pressure. It’s the only way we’ll know for sure. It’s the only way we can let them walk out of here and know they aren’t a threat to us.” Though the unease remains, I can all but see the grim resignation dawn on them—accepting that this is the only way forward.

  “We’re better than this,” Mrs. Taylor says fiercely, eyes sweeping over her family. “There has to be another way.” Nobody seems prepared to offer an alternative. I don’t have one either, but I can sense the way things are breaking and I can’t remain silent. I have to at least say something.

  “She’s right!” I say. “We can’t do this. If we’re wrong, how will we be able to live with ourselves? Do you want to live with that guilt? We just...we have to find another way.”

  Silence ensues for a long minute, though I don’t need half that to realize my plea has done nothing to turn the tides. “Does anyone share their opinion?” Richard asks. Few do. Mr. Taylor and Virginia both try and appeal to them as well, but it quickly becomes clear we are in the minority.

  “Say something!” I hiss into Morgan’s ear, voice low so only he can hear me. If he speaks, people will listen. They always have. But when he turns to me, I’m reminded of how much he has changed. This is no longer the man who invited Eli and Jolene to camp beside us on the trail; who later gave them the chance at redemption by joining us after taking out Clint and the men who coerced them into doing their bidding. So when he shakes his head, eyes filled with guilt he must be drowning in, I know what will come to pass.

  “Who are you?” I ask. I see something ripple across his face as I ask this, but I’m too far gone to care at the moment. Without waiting for a reply, I turn from the sad scene and make for the house, unwilling to be party to what is about to occur.

  Chapter 15: (Morgan)

  The day is dismal, unforgiving winds coupled with intermittent showers of frozen rain assaulting the land, beating on the roof, its icy breath seeping through the tiniest cracks and fissures. From horizon to horizon the sky smolders a shade of thick smoke, depriving us of the sun for the past three days. For the most part, the family has stayed confined to the house, venturing outside only when necessary. Trails of churned mud mark our most frequented routes, the most trodden being that between the back porch and the greenhouses. Somehow they continue to hold strong, though I know I’m not alone in worrying they won’t make it to harvest. It’s a worst case scenario I don’t even want to consider. Each time I do, all I see are slow, painful deaths for me and my family.

  Dreary though the cold and rain may be, it’s nothing compared to the gloom that has settled over my family. Since greenlighting Richard to interrogate the father and son who were caught lurking on the outskirts of the farm, there’s been a dark energy among us. I feel it as I would a sickness—a disease slowly writhing through my veins, sapping my strength, leaving me to wallow my own moroseness. It’s a feeling shared throughout the household, and while some fair better than others, not a single one of us are untouched by its effects. Even Richard with all his cock-sureness and bravado has been dejected since that night.

  I was witness to what occurred in the barn, to the tactics Richard employed in his search for the truth. I always pictured torture as they showed in the movies: of hot knives slicing through flesh and cauterizing wounds, of pliers extracting molars and removing fingernails. Blowtorches, saws, hammers, all tools of the trade. But now I know such methods are
n’t a necessity. Sometimes all it takes is a bucket of water, a towel, and a few well-placed punches.

  “Who are you?”

  Lauren’s question stuck with me all throughout Richard’s interrogation. I replayed it over and over again: the bitter sadness in her voice, the disbelief in her eyes, the way she shook her head, face twisted, not in anger, but in disappointment. It was painful in a way I can’t put into words, not merely in seeing the girl I love look so crestfallen, but knowing I was responsible for it. As I watched water cascade over the bucket’s lip and soak the towel draped over the man’s face, his body bucking and heaving against his restraints—as I watched Richard paint the man with bruises, and saw tears fall freely from his son’s eyes—all I heard was Lauren’s voice: Who are you?

  The truth is, I don’t even know anymore. And that’s what hurts most of all.

  In the end, Richard concluded that the man was telling the truth. They were released, the man only able to walk with the aid of his son. I watched them limp their way off the farm and disappear into the dark, alive but forever maimed. Still, they have a chance. At least that’s what I tell myself. The truth is, we may as well have killed them. We may not have taken their lives, but we broke their spirit. And in this cold world, that in itself is a death sentence.

  Lauren has barely been able to look at me since that night, avoiding me whenever possible. Can’t say I blame her. I’ve avoided mirrors long before then. And though guilt remains on my part for condoning what occurred, I can’t suppress the feeling of resentment building inside me.

  Who am I? Who are you to ask such a thing?

  I love her, but she thinks too highly of me. Expects too much. How can she not see how flawed I am? How can she look past all the mistakes I’ve made and still think I know what’s best? She says I am the reason we made it home. She’s wrong. Luck got us home. Luck, and an old man who showed mercy when few would have. In the short time I knew him, Elroy earned my respect in a way few ever had. When I think of a leader, it’s men like him that come to mind—strong and wise and generous—the kind of man I once aspired to be, but whom I now feel as distant from as the old world is to this new one.

  I’m not the man Lauren believes me to be. I never was. I was only ever a boy faking his way forward—wearing the mask of a leader until I could no longer breathe under its smothering weight. That’s what scares me. I love Lauren more than anything, but I fear she has only fallen for my mask. What will happen when she finally realizes this? How can I hope for a girl as strong as her to accept that I am only a shade of the man she thought I was?

  I watch her now through the window. She sits alone, swinging gently on the back porch as the sky unleashes yet another torrent of frigid rain. Condensed breath billows from her mouth, quickly dispersed in the wind. She looks frozen. Not from cold, but in thought. Through glazed eyes, she stares across the barren pastures, face blank and unreadable. While most of the family vie for spots around the living room’s hearth, she endures the cold for a moment of quiet. Does she do so to escape the house, and the gloom within? Or is it merely to escape me?

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  I shake my head slowly, my gaze remaining on the swinging girl. “I’m not sure you’d want to hear them,” I say.

  He breathes a huff of laughter, the kind reserved for simple amusements. “That depressing, are they?” he asks.

  Finally, I tear my eyes away and turn around. My father looks at me with a tired smile, split, it seems, between concern and amusement. Then I see his eyes flicker past me and through the window. He nods in understanding before shifting his eyes back to me.

  “Ahh,” he says, exhaling slowly. “Should have known.”

  “It’s nothing,” I say, folding my arms across my chest.

  He huffs again, amused. “From my experience, it’s rarely ‘nothing’ when it comes to women,” he says. He takes a seat at the kitchen table and nods to the chair across from him. “Humor me.”

  I sit with a heavy sigh, mentally drained from the past few days. My father assesses me from across the table, and I have a hard time meeting his eyes, afraid of what mine will reveal. He must have questions, must have sensed the tension between Lauren and myself. Yet he remains quiet, giving me time to find my voice.

  “Do you ever feel...I don’t know...lost, I guess?” I ask.

  The question leaves my mouth before I can fully think it over, draped in the uncertainty I’ve carried for so long. I feel like I need to explain, but I find myself afraid to do so. For weeks I’ve struggled against these feelings, bottled them up, buried them. It’s not easy bringing them to the surface.

  “Of course,” he says. “We all do from time to time.”

  I shake my head. “No,” I say, positive he doesn’t understand. “I’m not talking about feeling lost like I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or next week. Or, I don’t know...that I’m not sure what the right thing to do is. I mean lost. Like you don’t even know who you are anymore—like you’ve gone your whole life as one thing, and then somewhere along the line, that person died without you even noticing. And now you’re this whole other person you don’t really know, don’t really understand, and you’re only just realizing it.”

  I let loose an exacerbated breath and run a hand through my hair. “I don’t even know if that makes sense,” I say. “That’s what makes this so damn frustrating. She looks at me and I can tell how disappointed she is; like I’m failing to live up to the expectations she has for me. She has these notions of who I am, who I am supposed to be, and it’s just not someone I can be right now. But she doesn’t get it. Nobody does. I wake up every day feeling like I’ve already failed her, failed everyone...I’m tired of failing.”

  Finished, I rest my forehead against my fists and close my eyes against the pressure building behind them. I thought admitting these things would make me feel better, but all I feel is exhaustion.

  “In what world have you failed us?” he asks softly.

  A short, bitter laugh escapes me. “Look around you,” I say. “Who dragged us out here? Who convinced everyone we could start over—that we would be safer away from town? I did. And you all took my word for gospel rather than the bullshit that it was. I didn’t know what was best. I still don’t. But for better or worse, we’re stuck here: freezing and starving, over a quarter of our greenhouses lost, waiting to see what becomes of us, scared to death that we’ll be attacked, that we’ll be killed. Hoping and praying. Hoping and praying. It’s like that’s all we have left to us: this naive notion that we can survive if we just wish hard enough. We’re all fools, and I’m the biggest fool of all. I promised us a new beginning...but I’m afraid all I’ve done is delay the end.”

  I can feel the tears building and I want to scream at myself for being so weak, for letting my emotions run away from me like a child. My father watches me now without a hint of the amusement he had when he first arrived, worry lines creasing his frowning face.

  “Morgan...” he says, the word dragging on and on as if suspended in time, voice filled with a concern so heavy I feel as if I’ll buckle beneath its weight. Suddenly I find myself on my feet, shaking my head. I know where this is headed. I know the platitudes and assurances he’ll tell me and I can’t stand to hear them. Not now.

  “It’s alright,” I say. “I just need some air.”

  I stumble toward the door and wrench it open, only remembering Lauren’s swinging form after I’ve shut it behind me. She turns at the sound, eyes scanning everything from my pale face to my balled up fists, letting her know the state I’m in. I can tell the moment it hits her, how her eyes round and features soften. But I’m too caught up in anger and bitterness to feel any of the warmth or comfort she has to offer.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “You’re talking to me now, are you?” I find myself lashing out. “Well, no need to worry. I’m just, what was it you said the other day? Wallowing! Yes, that’s right. Just feeling sorry for mys
elf, and wallowing in my own self-pity. So please, feel free to go back to giving me the cold shoulder like you’ve been doing for the past three days. Go back to blaming me for what happened to that father and son—to being angry for falling short of your expectations.”

  I see fire ignite in her eyes. “I don’t blame you for what happened to those two,” she says. “But you’re right, I am angry. Angry and frustrated that you’re so damn arrogant! You take in every failure, every mistake, every single bad thing that’s happened to us and swallow it as if you were the one responsible for it. Some assholes decide to attack the farm, it’s your fault you didn’t see it coming. A greenhouse freezes, it’s your fault you didn’t figure out a way to heat it. And it doesn’t matter what anybody says or does, there’s no convincing you differently because you alone control our fates, right? If we live, it will be because you saved us. If we die, it will be because you failed us. It’s all up to you: our last, great hope. Jesus, get over yourself!”

  Part of me, deep down, hears the truth behind her words. But the heat of the moment is too overpowering for me to accept it. I’m caught up in the riptide that is my anger, its current drawing me in with a force I can’t battle.

  “You just don’t get it, do you?” I ask, voice colder than the wind swirling around us. “Everything I’ve ever done is for my family. Every choice, every action, it was all for them. Only I’m just now realizing how little it all amounted to: how far we are from where I thought we would be. Do you have any idea how hard it is to look at my family and see how scared they are—to feel their fear claw at my heart so deeply it feels like it’s about to be torn to shreds?”

  I shake my head, and when I speak again my words come colder still, my tongue an icy whip that can only maim and injure.

  “Of course you don’t. How could you? They’re not your family!”