by Rawlin Cash
That night they sat on the porch and watched the fire.
“I only drink coffee but you can drink beer if you want,” the old man said. “No liquor.”
Hunter nodded. “Do you have any?” he said.
“Any what?”
“Beer.”
The old man looked at him. “I do not,” he said.
They sipped their coffee and didn’t talk and afterward the old man showed Hunter to the bunks. There were four beds in a row in a building next to the barn. Behind it was a courtyard with a shower and an outhouse.
“We used to have more hands,” the old man said.
Hunter nodded. He chose a lower bunk at the far end of the building and made up the bed. It was comfortable. There were plenty of blankets. They were old and dusty but that didn’t bother him. There was a radio and he turned it on to a local station. He fell asleep listening to country music and weather forecasts.
He slept well and in the morning he washed in the courtyard shower. The water was just a hair above freezing. Afterward, he joined the old man in the kitchen.
“You cook?” the old man said.
“Sure.”
Hunter cooked eggs and bacon and when they were done the old man said, “I’ll cook tomorrow.”
They worked together for about three months. The work wasn’t much different from what Hunter had done back at his grandfather’s farm and he was good at it. He more than earned his keep.
He and the old man got on. They were civil, they enjoyed the occasional joke, and they gave each other a world of privacy. They never talked about family, the past, or the old man’s financial woes.
They didn’t need to. The mail arrived and the old man would leave it on the side table in the hallway, neatly stacked, and there was enough red ink on the envelopes for Hunter to see the writing on the wall.
The man’s name was Sherman and he was named after the M4 Sherman tank his father drove in the War.
“My granddaddy had World War Two stuff in the barn,” Hunter said one day when they were out buying supplies.
Sherman looked at him, surprised he’d brought up something about home. “Oh yeah?” he said.
“Yeah.”
There was something in the road and Sherman brought the truck to a stop. It was a dead wolf that had been hit by a car.
“Don’t see them much anymore,” Sherman said.
“My granddaddy hunted them,” Hunter said.
Sherman opened the door of the truck and got out. Hunter followed him. There was a shovel in the back and Sherman handed it to him.
“Am I burying this thing?” Hunter said.
“Just move it to the grass.”
Hunter scraped the carcass off the asphalt and carried it on the end of the shovel to the side of the road.
Sherman lit a cigarette while he watched. “Deserves better than lying in the road he said.”
Hunter put the carcass in the grass. “Yes, sir.”
They got back in the truck and Sherman offered him a smoke. They both smoked and Sherman said, “Your granddaddy fight in the war?”
Hunter shook his head. “His father did.”
Sherman nodded.
They drove on and Hunter said, “He might have fought against your father.”
“German?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hunter looked at Sherman. Looked to see if that changed anything.
It didn’t seem it had.
They drove on and when Sherman spoke it was to say, “I thought Cash was an English name.”
Hunter nodded. “So did I.”
“A lot of people changed their names when they got off the boat,” Sherman said.
“Our name was Closs,” Hunter said.
Sherman nodded. “Ever think of changing it back?”
Hunter shook his head. “No, sir. Why would I?”
“I don’t know. Historical accuracy?”
Hunter shook his head again. “A name’s about all a guy like me has in the world,” Hunter said, “and Cash is the only one I ever knew.”
Sherman nodded. They drove on a while.
“I found some stuff in the barn before I left,” Hunter said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Flags and badges and stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Nazi stuff.”
Sherman nodded.
“You never knew before that?”
“I don’t know,” Hunter said. “Maybe I did.”
“And how’d it make you feel?”
“I guess it made me feel bad.”
“Because of what the Nazis did during the war?”
“Yes sir, because of what they did.”
“That was all long before you were born.”
Hunter nodded. They drove on a while longer and he finished his cigarette and threw the butt out the window. “In the blood,” he said.
“Bullshit,” Sherman said.
“Easy for you to say.”
“Come on,” Sherman said.
“You tell me if you found a Swastika flag in the barn it wouldn’t bother you.”
Sherman nodded. “I guess it would,” he said.
“Yes, sir, it would,” Hunter said.
They drove on and Sherman said, “That’s not why you left, is it?”
“I left when he killed my dog.”
They were getting into town and had to stop at some lights. It started raining and Sherman put on the wipers. Hunter watched the rain on the windshield.
“What am I going to do?” he said.
“You ain’t guilty for the sins of your father.”
“I feel guilty.”
“You didn’t kill all those people.”
“My people did though.”
“Any one of us goes back the family tree, all we’ll find is bloodshed.”
“War and what not?”
“Tribe killing tribe. Nation killing nation.”
“But not gas chambers.”
“Not gas chambers,” Sherman agreed.
“I always thought of myself as a good American,” Hunter said.
“I don’t see how your great grandfather’s past affects that.”
Hunter sighed. “I don’t know,” he said.
Sherman parked the truck. Before getting out he said, “If you feel bad about it, atone for it.”
“I don’t even know what that word means, Sherman.”
“Atone?”
“Yeah.”
“Make up for it.”
“How could I?”
“You feel your granddaddy did bad, you do good.”
“Simple as that?”
“Simple as that.”
“He fought against our country,” Hunter said.
“Then you fight for it.”
“Join the army?”
“Why not? If you feel that strongly about it.”
“Maybe,” Hunter said.
“Whatever he did, you do the exact opposite.”
Hunter didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure he knew what the opposite was.
They got their supplies and went home and that night Hunter said the Our Father for the first time in years. He hadn’t been brought up religious but he knew the words to the prayer so he said them.
He and Sherman were busy the next few months and spent all their time together working the farm.
Summer came and the weather got hot and Hunter took to sleeping on the roof of the bunkhouse. It was a tin roof and got hot as hell but it was better than being inside.
He was lying on the roof one night smoking a cigarette when a car pulled up to the house. It stopped and the bearded man from the gas station got out. There were two other men with him and they waited in the car.
“Hey,” the bearded man called out. “Get out here, you old son of a bitch.”
There was no answer and the two other men got out of the car. They were younger. Both wore faded jeans. One had on a leather jacket and white shirt, and the other was wearing a camel-c
olored turtleneck.
The one in the jacket shot a pistol in the air. The other was hooting and hollering. They’d been drinking.
The one in the turtleneck looked like a wild card. He leaned on the hood of the car and had a bottle in his hand. He walked toward the house and smashed the bottle on the porch.
“Come on out, you old coot,” he shouted.
The man in the jacket shot into the air.
“Come on, Sherman,” the bearded man called. “Time’s up.”
The man in the turtleneck got back in the car and revved the engine. The car lurched forward and burned around the driveway, raising a cloud of dust. The engine screamed.
The other two fired a few more times in the air but didn’t go up to the house. After a few minutes they got back in the car and drove off.
After they left, Hunter went down to the house and asked Sherman what they wanted.
“I honestly don’t know anymore.”
“That doesn’t look like it’s going to end well, Sherman.”
“It won’t.”
“Then why don’t you do something to stop it?”
“Stop it?”
“Before it gets worse.”
“No worse for it to get.”
“What do you owe them?”
“More than I can pay.”
“What if you sold this place?”
“This place has been sold ten times over, son.”
“You mean mortgages?”
“Yup.”
“How come you owe those guys?”
“I borrowed for my wife.”
“Oh.”
“She was sick.”
“Medical bills?”
“Yup.”
“Well,” Hunter said, “I think, if you know they’re going to keep coming back, might be smart to do something about it.”
“And what do you propose doing?”
“Get some guns. Get prepared. Protect ourselves.”
“I’ve got a gun.”
“That old thing?”
“It shoots.”
“I mean get some real guns. Some firepower.”
“Son, there comes a time when you realize there’s no more protecting yourself. If those men come back, I want you to stay out of it.”
“I ain’t staying out of nothing.”
“You stay out of it or you’ll get yourself killed.”
“And what about you?”
“I ain’t a young man. This farm’s all I’ve ever known. I can’t run. I can’t hide.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to let things play out.”
“You are kidding me,” Hunter said.
There was so much incredulity in his voice that Sherman let out a quick laugh. “What’s so hard to believe about that?”
“Those men were armed.”
“So what if they were?”
“They shot your horse.”
“Yes they did.”
“They’ll kill you, Sherman.”
Sherman looked at him but said nothing.
The encounter bothered Hunter but Sherman refused to talk about it. Hunter could see where it was going to lead, they both could, but Sherman was a stubborn son of a bitch and Hunter couldn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want to.
The next time the men came, when Sally came running out of the house barking, the man with the beard shot her dead. There was a single yelp as she dropped to the ground. She skidded in the dust and stopped at his feet.
He laughed.
He had the same two men with him as the time before and they were all outside hollering for Sherman and firing off pistols.
It seemed like this time they were intent on getting Sherman to come out. The man with the beard was smart enough not to walk right up to the door, he knew Sherman had a gun of some sort in the house, but from the way the other two were prancing around in front of the car, they didn’t think much of his shooting ability.
When Sherman didn’t come out, the bearded man emptied his pistol at the house. It took him four shots to hit a window and his friends gave him a cheer when he did it.
Hunter knew it wasn’t going to end well. They were there to collect a debt that everyone knew couldn’t be paid. Someone was going to get hurt, and if Hunter didn’t act, that someone would be Sherman.
He was on the roof of the bunkhouse and slipped down to get the Winchester from beneath his bed. He checked it was loaded and grabbed the box of extra cartridges. Then he climbed back up to the roof and watched.
Sherman still hadn’t come out of the house and Hunter was glad for that. If he came out, it would be the last thing he did. Hunter prayed he had the sense to know that.
“Get your ass out here, Sherman. Get out or we’ll come in after you.”
Hunter heard more glass shatter and knew it was Sherman at the upstairs window.
“Get off my property or I’ll shoot,” he called out.
The three men laughed and then Sherman surprised everyone by firing a shot. It hit the dirt about ten yards in front of the bearded man’s feet. They all laughed some more but backed toward the car.
The bearded guy popped the trunk and the other two helped themselves to some serious weaponry and then opened fire at the house. Sherman managed to get another shot off through the window but it didn’t hit anyone.
Hunter drew up a bead on the man standing closest to the house. He’d never shot a man before. He’d never even aimed at one. He’d shot animals, some of them as large as a man, but never a man.
The men emptied their weapons at the house and then stopped shooting. Every window was smashed. The swing bench on the porched creaked and then fell to the ground.
There was no return fire from Sherman and when the bearded man called out, there was no answer.
The bearded man told the others to go to the house. Hunter waited to see who moved first. It was the man he’d drawn the bead on. Hunter aimed at his leg, took a breath, and squeezed the trigger. The same instant, the man hit the ground, a bullet in his thigh.
“Where did that come from?” the other guy cried, ducking for cover.
The bearded man indicated toward the bunkhouse and then opened fire in Hunter’s direction. They hadn’t seen him but the tin the bunkhouse was made from offered about as good cover as a house made of paper.
Hunter stayed low and waited out the fire. Then Sherman got another shot off and they all turned in his direction. Hunter peered over the roof. He cranked the rifle and put a bullet in the windshield of the car.
The man who’d been shot was screaming on the ground. The other guy got to him and began dragging him to the car. Hunter had him in his sights. He could have killed him as easily as shooting a can off a wall. He thought about doing it. He wanted to do it. The bearded man was back in the car and this guy was dragging his friend, and Hunter knew the fight wasn’t over. There was plenty more to come.
But how could he kill a man?
He wasn’t even a grown man himself.
He thought about what Sherman had said about doing the opposite of his Nazi forebear. Nazis pulled triggers.
So he didn’t do it.
But even as he watched the car pick up speed and skid away down the driveway, he had doubts he’d made the right decision.
He climbed down from the roof and checked the dog.
The bullet had gone through her neck and left a clean exit wound.
Sherman hadn’t come down and Hunter went into the house to look for him.
“Sherman,” he called.
There was no answer.
As he climbed the stairs, a sense of foreboding filled him. He saw blood on the floor outside the bedroom door. He pushed it open and saw Sherman lying there by the window, holding his gut.
It was Hunter’s first time in the room. The bed was enormous. Bullets had smashed the lamp, the mirror, both windows.
Hunter bent down over Sherman.
“Where’d he get you?”
/> Sherman struggled to stand and Hunter helped him onto the bed.
“They got me good,” he said.
“You want me to call an ambulance?”
He shook his head. “If the bank doesn’t take the farm, the hospital surely will.”
Hunter nodded. He looked at the wound. It was on the left side of the abdomen.
“You’ve got an exit wound, Sherman.”
“Thank God for small mercies.”
“Armor piercing rounds.”
“This one got me through the wall.”
“You think it got you in an organ?”
Sherman laughed despite the pain. “Do I look like a doctor to you?”
Hunter went downstairs and got the iodine and bandages. He cleaned Sherman’s wound, stitched it up, and bandaged it.
“You feel like you’re going to die?” he said when he was done.
“I ain’t no judge of that.”
Hunter took the bloodied blankets off the bed but not the sheet. He got a fresh blanket from one of the other bedrooms and put it over Sherman.
“You dying, Sherman?”
“I told you I cain’t tell.”
“You want me to go buy some antibiotics from the town?”
“You won’t get any this time of night.”
“I’m sure they got a twenty-four hour place.”
“Don’t go giving them no ID or nothing.”
“I won’t.”
Sherman sighed. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Better safe than sorry,” Hunter said.
Hunter took the old man’s keys from the side table and said, “Any chance those fellas are coming back?”
“I don’t know,” Sherman said, “but you promise me one thing, son.”
“What?”
“Don’t go looking for them.”
“All right.”
“Promise me you won’t go looking for them.”
“I won’t,” Hunter said.
Five
Hunter sped down the dirt road at sixty. When he got to the asphalt he was up to eighty.
He’d only gone a mile when he saw the two red lights of a car pulled over up ahead. He knew it was them.
He had his rifle but he didn’t want a gunfight. He slowed right down. He could only think of two reasons they’d stopped. Either the man with the shot leg was causing trouble, or they were going to go back for Sherman.
He kept approaching them and as he drove by, he peered out and saw the shattered windshield. Then he saw the face of the bearded man. He saw the look on his face. They were going to go back.