by J W Brazier
Clay looked up, tearful, but steady. “Dad, I’m okay.”
“Me, too, Dad,” Courtney answered.
And then Danielle said, “I’m okay, Dad.”
Joshua made a quick survey of the dismal scene. The children would have to crawl over a floor awash in broken glass and blood. His gun cabinet was off the kitchen behind the door in his office study. He could make it, and stay out of sight.
“Dean?” Joshua said.
“Yeah, Joshua?”
“I’ve got to get the children to a safer spot. Can you reach Glenn and move him away from the window? Try to stop the bleeding?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Dean, keep low!” Joshua said.
“No worries. I feel like I’m back in New York.”
Dean kissed Ann and moved toward Glenn. Pastor Steve was already in motion.
“We got this, Joshua,” said Pastor Steve.
Gus kissed Pearlette and crawled away toward Glenn.
“We got him, Joshua,” Gus said. “Go ahead. Do what you got to do!”
Joshua looked down at Meagan. “Magee, we’re going to Mama, but we’ve got to scoot across the floor. You ready?”
Meagan nodded.
He gathered his little girl, sheltering her from the broken glass, and crawled toward Brenda, who waited with arms ready to receive her baby. She swept Meagan into her arms and held her tight. Joshua planted quick kisses on Brenda and his children.
“Okay, kiddos, listen up. Follow me to the kitchen. Stay low and be mindful of the broken glass, okay?”
The children nodded.
“I’ll watch them, Dad,” Clay said.
“Good, son. Help your mom and sisters get next to the sink behind the island work area and stay low, okay?”
“Okay, Dad. Oh, wait. Can I have my rifle?”
Joshua studied his son’s eyes. “Yes, son. Yes, you can. I’ll get the guns and slide yours over to you. Remember what I taught you.”
“I will, Dad.”
Joshua saw by the look in Clay’s eyes that the boy had become a young man in the space of this tragedy. He’d taught him restraint and reinforced the safekeeping of such a dire obligation. He knew his son wouldn’t hesitate to use his rifle to protect their family.
“Brenda, stay close behind the kids with Meagan.”
She looked up at Joshua, her face and eyes red with tears, but focused and determined. “I’m ready, honey.”
Joshua kissed her, squeezed her hand, and then took off, half-crawling, half-crouching through the kitchen past the island toward his gun cabinet. Brenda and the children followed, then detoured and huddled on the floor between the island and sink.
Joshua called to Brenda from the hallway: “Brenda, can you reach the telephone?”
“Hold on. Yes, yes, I can.” She made a quick grab at the cordless telephone on the counter. “No dial tone, honey. The telephone is dead and our cell phones are charging in our bedroom.”
“Okay, baby. Keep down and stay with the children.” Joshua turned toward the living room and shouted, “Everyone check your cell phones for a signal and call 9-1-1, if you can!”
Dean and Gus checked.
“No signal, Joshua,” Dean said.
Gus responded, “Same thing, Joshua. Service here is worse than at my house.”
Steve, Sherry, Pearlette, and Ann all fumbled with their cell phones. Everyone responded with the same bad news. Help, then, wouldn’t be coming, Joshua knew.
“Alright, folks, were on our own,” Joshua said.
He’d reached his gun safe and strapped on his gun belt, holstering a single action .44 Magnum. A .40-caliber automatic went into his waistband at his back, three extra full clips into his pockets. Two other .30-30 rifles with scopes, he kept loaded at max capacity, but not Clay’s. He loaded Clay’s .30-30, but didn’t chamber a shell. He engaged the safety and hoped the boy would never have to use it. Weapons and shells bundled in his arms, he crawled back to the living room.
“Dean, Gus, catch!” Joshua said and tossed the weapons one after another and a box of shells.
Dean and Gus caught their rifles in midair. Gus chambered a shell, kissed Pearlette, and moved off to one side of the shattered living room window, staying low, to sneak a peek outside. Dean squatted low at the window, to Gus’s left.
“Clay, catch your rifle, son.” Joshua slid the gun to his son butt first.
Clay grabbed his gun and crouched beside his mother and sisters.
“It’s on safety, and the magazine’s full. You’ll have to lever it to load the chamber. Keep it that way, son, unless you have to use it, understood?”
“Yes, Dad, I understand.”
Joshua smiled, and then turned his attention to the living room. “Gus, Dean, any movement near the woods? I figure that’s where they’re hiding.”
“That’s where I’d be, but no, nothing yet,” Gus said.
“Nothing on my side, Joshua,” Dean said.
Gus adjust his scope. “Hold on! Here we go. Oh yeah, I got you in my sights now, sucker.”
“Talk to me, Gus,” Joshua said.
“A serious shooter some fifty yards out, over by your hay bales. He’s spread out like a sniper.”
“He’s all your, Gus. You can try firing a warning shot, but I doubt it will scare him off,” Joshua said, then dashed down his hallway to a back door that opened out onto their wraparound porch.
He stole a quick look through the door’s window. No visible targets, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. He replayed the shooting events in his mind to remember where the shots had originated from. The first shots came from the front of the house, but from different angles. Three odd shots came from around the barn. One or more shooters could still be in the woods behind the house.
Gus fired his warning shot. The blast sounded deafening inside the house. Dust puffed into the air around the hay bale. The shooter fired back. A chunk of the fireplace mantel shattered.
Making his way from the barn, Jamal heard the shot from inside the house, so he wheeled about and crouched down on one knee with his gun pointed.
Another volley of shots exploded from the woods behind the house, shattering windows and splintering the back door. Joshua hugged the wall and slid to the floor for cover. He had his answer. More shooters were in the woods.
Shattered glass and wood lay everywhere around him. A second volley of gunfire came in rapid succession. Parts of the back door and frame splintered over his head. He waited for the shooting to stop, jumped to his feet, and fired his .44 Magnum pistol through openings in the splintered back door. Firing blind, he spread all six shots at different areas of the wood line, dropped to the floor again, and reloaded.
Maybe hearing that cannon will flush out their positions, he thought.
Joshua reloaded and holstered his .44 Magnum single-action and pulled the .40-caliber semiautomatic out of his waistband. He repositioned to one knee and spread thirteen rapid-fire shots into the edge of the woods. Ejecting the empty clip, he shoved another one in and chambered a shell. He expected return fire, hoping they’d expose their positions, but none came.
After the shooting outside died down, Gus called out from the living room, “I have a good shot, Joshua. Sounds like someone out there is helping us.”
Joshua heard Gus’s muffled statement through the ringing in his ears, but understood what Gus meant. They’d hunted together many times. Gus was a crack shot.
“It’s your call, Gus!” he shouted.
The .30-30 fired, its echo amplified tenfold inside the house. Joe Bob screamed in agony when the high-powered shell hit its mark. The bullet’s velocity and impact flung him onto his back spread eagle arms wide. He never moved again.
*
“HELLO! In the house, hello!”
The voice coming from the front of the house sounded familiar to Joshua. He expected a follow-up gunshot. When none came, he made his way back to the kitchen and checked on Brenda and the kids. She h
eld the girls close. Meagan had stopped crying. He smiled at Clay, proud that his young son had shown such courage. In the midst of a terrible ordeal, the boy, now a young man, had protected his family. Joshua turned his attention on the others and moved off toward the living room.
“Is everyone okay in here?” Joshua asked.
Gus and Dean were hunkered down on opposite sides of what remained of the large picture-framed windows. Keen eyes watched the woods and pastures, cocked and ready.
Gus nodded. “We’re fine here, Joshua.”
“Gus and I have got this, Joshua, but …” Dean made a motion with his head toward Glenn.
Joshua saw the smeared blood trail to where Pearlette, Sherry, Ann, and Pastor Steve worked on Glenn’s wounds in a protected corner by the fireplace. Steve had used strips of his white shirt as bandages. Each one labored like a medic, their hands and clothing spattered with Glenn’s blood.
“Steve?” Joshua said.
Pastor Steve looked up, but didn’t speak. The sadness in his eyes conveyed the answer Joshua dreaded. Glenn was near the end. Joshua knelt beside Ian. His roguish, silly grin had followed him even into death. Joshua checked his pulse, but knew his newfound friend was gone. He reached up and closed Ian’s half-opened eyelids. Tears welled in his eyes. He saw Ian’s cross lying next to his body.
“I hope you won’t mind, Ian,” Joshua said, then picked up the cross and put it in his pocket.
“Hello in the house!”
Joshua swung around and made for a supporting wall, his pistol ready. The same familiar voice as before had called out again, but he couldn’t place the voice with a person.
“Who are you?”
“This is FBI Special Agent Jamal Rashid!”
Joshua leaned his head against the wall and exhaled. He remembered meeting the amiable but no-nonsense FBI agent in his office with Chief Jefferson. Jamal must have been the one outside unloading on the shooters. Joshua’s pent-up tension and adrenaline seemed to subside and drain away. The shooting appeared over, he hoped. His family and friends were safe, he prayed. Help had arrived.
“Thank you, Lord,” he whispered.
“Joshua, is anyone hurt?” Jamal asked.
“Yes, one man, Glenn Boyd, and …” Joshua choked up, paused, and wiped at his tears. “My friend Ian Taylor, he’s … he’s dead.”
“Okay, Joshua, paramedics are on the way. I’m going back out to circle around and confront the remaining shooters. Everyone stay down.”
Joshua looked at Brenda and the kids and then at the group. Everyone in the room was on the floor. He chuckled at Jamal’s statement.
“He says stay down.”
*
Halfway up the steep embankment, Ben slipped, fell, and tumbled back to the bottom. His bulbous frame and out-of-shape body proved his undoing in his race for freedom. The strain on his heart sapped every ounce of strength.
With each forced step, the pain in his chest had grown worse. He felt nauseous. Ben looked disheveled head to toe—his hair matted with dirt and leaves, his clothes torn. His heart began to throb with sharp, intense jolts that extended into each arm.
Branches and thorn scrapes imprinted his massive exposed belly with a multitude of red whelps. He slumped and wilted to the ground, his back braced against a tree, sweating profusely, gasping for air. He rubbed at his chest and arms, hoping it would ease the relentless agony, but the pain wouldn’t subside. He checked his cell phone. It was useless—no signal and no help.
He looked left, right, and behind, searching the woods for his pursuer, but heard nothing except his own labored breath.
Maybe it was the same person I heard speaking to me earlier.
He struggled to his feet, knowing that if he didn’t receive medical help soon, he’d die of a heart attack in the woods. One thought consumed him: get to his truck. He stumbled several times, but with hand-over-hand efforts, he clawed his way up an embankment. After what seemed an endless trek, the rutted forest road revealed itself—the same one he’d used. The tire ruts bowed left and then the trail opened up into a clearing. A hundred yards away, he saw his truck.
“Ben!” the unseen voice spoke again, but louder.
Archer froze. He couldn’t walk another step. Caught and exhausted, he raised his hands, as if relieved that help was near. He waited, hands still in the air, but nothing happened. He lowered his arms and turned around. No one was there.
“Ben.”
Again, someone was calling out his name.
The sound wasn’t in his head; that, he knew. But which direction was it coming from, he wondered. The clear husky voice was audible, and close. Frightened, Ben turned in a circle, looking in every direction, but he still saw no one. He gave up and walked toward his truck.
Fifty feet from his ride to safety, Ben clutched his breast, fell to his knees, and cried out in agony. Sharp, searing jolts of pain seized his entire upper body, from front to back, as if he’d received an electric shock. The torturous pains were the worst he’d ever felt.
Ben looked up, raised a trembling hand toward the heavens, and cried out for help. “Oh, God, have mercy on me! Help me, please!”
*
Jamal left the body of Junior Boggs where it lay, and circled through the woods toward the back of Joshua’s house. Cedar trees, sparse thickets, and big oaks provided cover while keeping the Austin home visible.
In using his planned approach, he hoped he’d stay hidden and surprise the other three shooters from behind. The rear of the Austin home came into view; he stopped and leaned against a big oak. What happened next took Jamal by complete surprise, as it almost seemed that by some noise he’d made, he’d flushed a covey of quail.
Jamal watched George Farnsworth and his two accomplices leap out of their hiding place and run like scared rabbits.
Maybe Sheriff Frazier or Chief Jefferson arrived? Jamal thought.
George Farnsworth was the first to break cover and run, as if his life depended on escape. Jamal thought the men’s terror-induced flight seemed odd. As all three men fled, Jamal decided to let them go. The Austin home was his first priority. Finding the shooters again wouldn’t be a problem.
Jamal made his way to the dead man in the pasture. The man’s skin was already cold and clammy. He knew there wouldn’t be a pulse, but he checked anyway. He rolled the man over and searched for an ID and read the man’s name from an OWN card. A big hole the size of his fist was plain to see.
There’s an expert marksman in that house. The bullet obliterated this Joe Bob’s chest. It tore out most of his heart on exit, he thought.
Satisfied that the scene was secured, Jamal left Joe Bob’s body in an all-out sprint toward the Austin home. From the front porch, he took quick steps until he stood beside the splintered front door frame.
“Joshua, this is Agent Jamal Rashid with the FBI. Hold your fire. I’m coming inside.”
“Come on in, Agent.”
With fluid motion, Jamal swung around and entered the front door, gun out in front and ready. He glanced around, examining the open-spaced living room. Joshua advanced from his left with his weapon raised. Jamal froze, afraid to move. Joshua lowered his gun when he confirmed the identity of the FBI agent. Dean and Gus also lowered their rifles. Jamal breathed a sigh of relief and holstered his gun.
As he turned to look around, Jamal saw the sad scene by the fireplace. Three women and a big man were kneeling beside Glenn Boyd, their clothing stained with blood. Another man lay dead by the coffee table. Joshua had put a covering over the man’s face and upper body. Jamal figured the dead man must be Ian Taylor, Joshua’s friend.
Jamal then turned to see Brenda come out of the kitchen, holding Meagan in her arms. He was startled to see the little girl drenched in blood. The other children looked scared, maybe in shock, but overall unharmed. The two girls and lone boy raced past him and their mother to Joshua. Jamal tilted his head toward the front door, hearing vehicles approach. He looked in that direction and saw two ambula
nces racing up the driveway.
“Joshua, is the little girl all right?” Jamal asked.
Joshua smiled as he looked at Meagan. “Yes, she’ll be fine. She wasn’t wounded.” Joshua pointed at Pastor Steve and the three ladies by the fireplace. “Glenn, though, is in serious condition, I’m afraid. He might not make it. And Mr. Taylor is dead.”
Ann looked up at hearing Joshua’s remarks. “My father’s going to make it, Joshua.” She sobbed.
Joshua’s heart ached for Ann. Glenn’s sacrifice had saved his life.
“I’m sorry, Ann. I didn’t mean to sound calloused. Look, the ambulances are here.”
Two paramedics ran in and saw Glenn. Without hesitating, they rushed to him, quickly laying out their equipment, and then they started administering care. Two more paramedics followed with a gurney. The female medic saw Meagan.
“Are there any other injuries, Mayor? What about the little girl?”
“This is my daughter Meagan, but she isn’t injured, just scared and in shock. The blood on her isn’t hers. No other injuries, but please check the others. We have one fatality, Mr. Ian Taylor, next to Mr. Boyd.”
The paramedic smiled at Meagan, seeing that her mama was all she needed.
Ann, Pearlette, Sherry, and Pastor Steve stood and moved out of the medics’ way. Glenn was barely coherent.
Pastor Steve looked over at Joshua. “I think it would be a good time to pray, Joshua.”
Jamal felt awkward in the moment, as he was Muslim, they were Christian. He watched, amazed that even the children prayed with confidence. No religious rituals, but speaking as if having a personal conviction for the man, Jesus, whose words he’d read earlier.
Jamal looked over at Glenn. Intravenous tubes of blood and medications dangled from his arms. The sounds from the paramedic’s machines echoed Glenn’s faint heartbeat. Tom Jefferson and Sheriff Frazier walked through the door.
Tom spoke first: “Joshua.”
“Hey, Tom.” Joshua shook the police chief’s hand.
“We believe we’ve got everyone in custody who took part in this,” Tom said. “I have officers fanned out around the property still checking the woods.”
“Thanks, Tom. You’ll find another dead man in the pasture by the hay bales.”