Tempest of Tennessee (Episode 1): Tempest of Tennessee

by McDonald, Terry

  “No, she’s not on any daily meds, but I wish I could get her examined. She’s peaked looking and wore out. I’m worried about Bella. Preeja and I discussed it. For the next few days, we’re going to let her rest. That may be all she needs.”

  I said, “That’s a good idea. I sure am glad we brought them with us from Lexington. With Vikas and the children working with me, we’ll have their house up in another four or five days… well at least the outside walls and roof. They can finish the inside after they move in.”

  John said, “That’s good. Push comes to shove health wise, Bella and I may need to move in with them. We’ve talked enough. Get on to your ma before Sam comes back.”

  Mama saw me walking up the drive and ran halfway down it to grab me in a hug, actually kissed my cheek, which is something she’d never done in my memory.

  “Let’s go inside. Your Daddy’s not keeping a schedule lately. We need to talk.”

  I had to hurry to keep up with her. In the house, she pointed to the couch, “You can see the road from there. Watch for your daddy coming back.” Then she called for Grandma, “Sophia, Tempest is here.”

  I sat on the couch and Mama sat in Daddy’s easy chair. Grandma Sophia came to join us, sitting on the couch near me.

  Grandma said, “Thank god you came today. Your mama was about to sneak down to find you.”

  “Why? I asked Mama. Is something going on? John Causley said Daddy left with Ruby and Jean in the car with him.”

  Mama said, “He’s taking Ruby over to the Wilson’s. I honestly believe he traded her off earlier for the car they brought over.”

  “Why is Jean with them?”

  Mama said, “I don’t know. He ordered both of them to get dressed. That’s all I know.”

  Grandma pitched in. “Ten to one Sam traded her off to somebody. Betty, it’s time to tell Tempest.”

  Mama shook her head, “You do the telling.”

  “I’ll tell and gladly… glad it came to where it needs telling.”

  Grandma turned to face me. “There are two things and I’m saying em blunt. Sam’s not your Daddy. Tomorrow morning, he, Bud Wilson and some other boys are planning a raid down there. Sam says he’s taking what you cheated from him. He’s been sneaking around and knows about the foreigners you have with you back in the woods.”

  As Grandma continued talking, my mind was mostly what she said about daddy not being Daddy.

  “With the war going on, there isn’t law anymore. Sam doesn’t talk to us about his doings, but from what I’ve heard said between the men that come around, he’s in cahoots with a bunch that took over the city government. For a fact, I heard him say, “When Hoyt put a gun in his face, Boyd screamed like a girl.”

  “Who is Boyd, I asked.”

  “Lamar Boyd was the mayor of Henderson. I think they killed him. Don’t you want to know who your Daddy is?”

  “Yes I do.” I turned to face Mama, but she turned her face away.

  Grandma supplied the answer. “Allen Waters, the deacon at the church. You were conceived right there in the church.”

  Mama said, “It’s enough you told her, you don’t need to put in the details.”

  Grandma said, “If you don’t like the way I’m telling, you do it.”

  Mama did. “I fell in love with Allen. I never loved Sam, but he got me pregnant with Ruby and it was marry him or kicked to the road by my Daddy. Allen and Sam look enough alike that Sam never suspected you weren’t his.”

  Though I hadn’t gone to church since I was twelve, I remembered Allen Waters,’ remembered that he was handsome, and always had gum for the children. No matter, in place of a Daddy I couldn’t stand, he’d do.

  I said the same to Mama, “I’m glad you told me. I don’t know Mister Water’s all that much, but he seemed nicer than Daddy ever was.”

  Grandma said, “He’s a writer, writes books about economics. That’s where your smarts come from.”

  Mama turned to look out the front window. “Sam will be back anytime. He’s heard the tractor and four-wheeler moving around down there. There’s no telling how far he’ll go to get them. You and those foreigners need to hide when he comes with the gang tomorrow. Some of those good ole boys that’ll be with him don’t hanker to colored people.”

  My mind was in a whirl. Daddy wasn’t my daddy. My sisters like animals, given away. I’d shot two men. My ex-daddy was coming to rob me and none of it bothered my head. That worried me, the not caring part, but on the other hand, I cared about John and Bella. I was coming to like Vikas and his family. I had loved Billy like an older brother, a teacher. I didn’t know how I felt about Mama, only that I was thankful she hadn’t made Sam a part of me. Grandma I liked in a distant way. I could take or leave her.

  I asked, “What will you all do if Daddy kills me.”

  Grandma said, “Other than blowing his brains out with his own shotgun if we had the guts, nothing. What your Mama was coming to see you about was to warn you so you won’t be killed and to ask that you give us a ride to Allen Waters the next time Sam’s gone.”

  “What about Jean if she comes back with dad—, ugg, the bastard.”

  Mama said, “She can come with us if she wants.”

  I made a decision, a decision as much to piss off Sam, as it was to help them. “I’ll give you a ride, but not tomorrow. Tomorrow I have to worry about the gang.”

  ************

  Before going to the Causley’s, I made a trip to my cabin where Vikas and family were staying until their home was ready. I warned them about the planned raid and told them that tomorrow morning they should take my tent and supplies and go further into the woods and stay there until they heard me calling for them.

  “What will you do when they come?” Vikas asked. “You and John should not face them alone.”

  I heard the shock in Preeja’s voice when she said, “Don’t be the fool. You know not of guns and rifles. Your family is where you should think, not a cowboy gunfight.”

  I agreed with her about his unfamiliarity with weapons and about his duty to family.

  “She’s right; we haven’t had an opportunity to teach you about weapons. I appreciate you wanting to help, but tomorrow your family will need you.”

  I left them, carrying with me the memory of Preeja’s worried expression along with the terror written on their children’s faces. I thought how scary it must be for them in the middle of a disaster among people who might kill you. Then I thought; heck, they have as many friends as you do and tomorrow the man who used to be your daddy is coming to rob you.

  A mess all around, mess enough for everybody, and I still needed to think of a way to get more medicine for John.

  Again, John answered my knock at their door. I followed him into the dining room where he motioned me to sit at the breakfast table and then brought me a cup of coffee.

  “Is Bella still laid up?” I asked.

  “She’s not laid up, but she is abed, just tuckered. How’d it go over there with your mama?”

  It took a while to relate everything, long enough to finish my coffee and refuse a refill.

  “So how do we handle the gang,” John asked.

  From his expressions during the telling and the tone of his voice asking me, I knew he was worried, frightened.

  “What do you thing we should do.”

  “I don’t think they’ll be content with just the taking. They’ll kill Vikas and his family just because, and they’ll kill us so as not to leave witnesses. We should pack up and leave tonight.”

  John had voiced what I thought he would. I felt the weight of decision making fall on my shoulders. “Yes, we could do that, but the way I see it is we have two other options.

  “One is for all of us to gather here and try to fight them off. I don’t like that option because these walls won’t stop high powered bullets and because we won’t have an escape route.”

  Grim faced, John said. “I hope you have a better option.”

  “We sp
lit our forces. You here in the house, me in the barn, up in the loft at the hay door and Vikas and his family across the road hiding in the trees.

  “The way I see it going-down is the gang will come, first to your house, take care of you two. Next, they’d check the barn. If they didn’t find anyone there, then they’d go to the cabin in the forest.”

  Shaking his head, not in a negative, but in resignation, John said, “Okay, they come to my door… and then what?”

  “No John, we don’t wait for that. As soon as they show up and leave their vehicles, we open up and keep shooting until they’re all dead.”

  John shook his head in disbelief. “Are you really suggesting we preemptively shoot em before they’ve done anything to us? What if we’re wrong; what if they only want to… I don’t know, talk about civic duty.”

  “John, we can’t take that chance. If we delay and we’re wrong, we lose the element of surprise and we’ll die. I don’t want to die.”

  John said, “There is my option. We all get into my truck and drive away. Let em have what they want and everybody lives.”

  “John, we could do that, but go where, sleep where, eat what, keep warm how? If we leave, we’ll be homeless beggars riding in a vehicle worth its weight in gold. Within days, we’ll be walking… or worse, buzzard food beside the road.

  “John, I’m scared enough to wet myself. We may well die tomorrow, but I’m not leaving what’s mine… No, what’s ours. We’re family now, the Popat’s and us. What the gang wants to take from us is what we need to keep for our own survival.”

  John shuddered, but his words showed his mettle. “Then by god, I can only pray we’re making the right choice, but fight we will.”

  I left John and returned to the cabin. I told them about the change of plans. Told them I wanted them across the road at daybreak tomorrow morning. I wanted them all armed, Vikas with my Ak47, his wife and children with pistols.

  To his negativity about their shooting ability, I said, “All I want you to do is distract them, point as best you can and keep pulling your triggers.

  “I’m the one who’ll do the actual shooting. Maybe John will get lucky and hit a few with his shotgun, but it'll be me in the barn loft pumping bullets into them.”

  Preeja said, “Vikas, yes my husband, Tempest is correct. Better that we can fight here, fight for our lives with guns in our hands than back in Lexington with knives against the guns. This we must agree to.”

  “Yes, better. We will stand, fight as family.”

  Not in a joking manner, I said, “I’d rather you don’t stand unless you are standing behind something. A fat tree will do.”

  ************

  I tossed and turned, slept poorly, but at five a.m. I was on my feet to the jangle of one of the alarm clocks Vikas took from Amazon. Thirty minutes later, when Vikas and his family came into the barn I had their weapons ready for them. I took a minute or two to show them where the safety was located of the weapon assigned to each of them.

  “Leave the safety on until you hear me start shooting. There is already a round chambered and the weapon will fire after you release the safety and pull the trigger.”

  I spent another bit of time showing Preeja and the children how to take a two-hand stance with their pistols, the function of the open sights and the necessity of regaining a target before firing again. “Don’t just blast away. Take your time.”

  I didn’t bother with extra magazines for them. I didn’t feel I had time to teach them and decided it was best not to ask too much of their bare knowledge of what they were about to do. I wanted them in the trees across the road right then because I had no idea when the gang would show, only a fuzzy sometime this morning.

  I went with them, helped them pick trees to hide behind and fire from. Then I went to see John. The door opened as I approached, but I didn’t go in.

  “Vikas and his family are armed and in place.’

  “I saw you take them there, may the Lord help em.”

  Nodding to him, I said, “I hope so. I hope he helps us all. I’m going to the barn now. The signal to open fire is when I start shooting.”

  “I’ll do my part. I’ve learned something about women that I never knew. Women are dangerous. Bella agreed with everything you said. She’ll be shooting her pistol from the attic window.”

  “We’re ready then. I’ll get in the hay loft.” Turning to leave, I turned back to tell him the let Bella know to fire when I did.

  The evening before, I’d prepared my place in the loft. The loaded AR and three full magazines were beside a gun rest made from a stack of burlap bags.

  I lay prone, reached for the rifle and positioned myself ready to fire. I held myself like that until my arms tired. I realized that all I was doing was stressing; forced myself to lay aside the rifle and let my muscles relax.

  Waiting gave time to think. I wasn’t afraid of what was coming. I knew I would be shooting to kill the men coming with my stinking ex-father, to kill him too, but that didn’t bother me. What pissed me off was that I was in a situation I hadn’t chosen.

  All I wanted to do was build a house in the forest on land of my own and live in it. Without right, a gang of thugs wanted to stop me from doing that.

  I don’t know where those thoughts were leading me because the sound of an approaching vehicle grabbed my attention.

  A large blue van turned off the paved road onto our graveled one. It passed by the Causley’s and went on to where I used to live. I saw Sam leave the house and climb into the van which reversed and came back to pull into the Causley’s driveway.

  The van stopped about thirty feet from the house. The cab doors opened at the same time that the side door slid open. I don’t know why, but I’d envisioned a horde of men would be in the van, but it wasn’t a horde, only six, two from the cab and four from the passenger’s compartment. They all held rifles.

  They gathered near the front of the vehicle. From my observation point high in the loft I could see Sam was speaking to the men, probably giving last minute instruction. I held my fire. I wasn’t sure if there were more men in the vehicle, and I wanted them further from the van. I didn’t want any of them jumping back in and driving away.

  Sam finished speaking and the men took positions. Two men holding AR’s went to each side of the front of the van. The other four began to walk to the Causley’s porch. Sam and another man led side by side.

  Often on winter nights, sitting by Billy’s barrel stove in his shop, accompanying the sound of the logs he fed it, he would talk about his time in the military. I remember the many times he discussed tactical situations. I’d chosen the loft as a firing position based on one of his semi-drunken dialogues.

  “Sniper with the high-ground, that’s a shooter’s dream. If you’re targeting a group, analyze your kill pattern before you shoot. Who is your primary target? Who seems more prepared to return fire? Which targets are closest to escape routes?”

  Sam was my primary target because he was the one who was bringing the trouble, but he’d get his bullet in turn. I decided to target the man on the far side of the van because he could duck out of site. Next, I’d go for the two men following Sam and the other man approaching John’s door.

  I felt John would likely take on the two leaders. That left the man on the near side of the van for last. By that time, he should be returning fire, at me, John or Bella, or the family hiding in the woods. My job was to execute my pattern as fast as I could in order to get to him before he found a clear target.

  Those thoughts began forming the moment the men exited the van. Taking aim at the first target, the man on the far side of the van, the four approaching the house were only halfway to the porch.

  I drew a deep breath, began a slow exhale, steadied my aim and pulled the trigger. By his reaction, I knew I hit him, but didn’t linger with him. Still exhaling, I took the shots at the two gunners with Sam, saw them jerk with the impact of my rounds and then, adjusting back for the other man by the va
n, I heard, first the roar of John’s shotgun and then sound of small-arms fire as the Popat’s joined the fray.

  The last man did have his rifle up, but he was swinging it this and that way, seeking my firing point. I took my time lining the sights and put a round in his heart, dropping him to the ground.

  With him out, I retraced my targets. Each of them was down and the only one showing life was one of the two trailing Sam. He was on his belly trying to crawl. I finished him with a headshot.

  As for Sam and the man with him, even from far away I could see the mess of blood around their bodies. John’s shotgun and I’m sure Bella’s pistol had cut them down.

  It was over. “Everyone stay where you are!” I shouted as loudly as I could. Leaving the barn, rifle at ready I checked each of the men on the ground. All were dead.

  Turning to the forest across the street, shouting to the unseen family, I called out, “Vikas take Preeja and the children to the cabin and then come back.”

  I didn’t dally in the yard. I took the steps two at a time. John came onto the porch to greet me.

  His blanched face was startling. “I can’t believe what we’ve done. In my life I never thought to see dead men in my front yard.”

  He looked as though he were about to fall. I moved to support him, but he brushed past me on his way to the porch rail. There, he leaned over it and retched, sending a stream of vomit onto the plants below.

  That was all; a single spew that left him weak, his forearms resting on the rail with his head still drooped over it.

  Bella came onto the porch, saw that John was in distress and went to him. She must have noticed something because, with an urgent tone she said, “Find his inhaler. It’s either in the living room or—.”

  I saw John move an arm from the rail and slap his jacket. Interrupting Bella’s instruction, I said, “I think it’s in his coat pocket.

  She fished it from his pocket, removed the cap and put it to his mouth. “Inhale, Brother, you have to inhale.”

  He didn’t respond to her plea, but he responded to her other hand rapping the center of his chest just below his rib cage. He drew a deep rattling breath and then another.