by John Miller
given her on her eighteenth birthday.
He had found the rock when he was doing one of his handyman jobs for Miss Johnson. He had picked it up when he was cleaning up her yard. The rock was special to Lisa. It reminded her of how when they were kids they would go to the lake and skip rocks across it. This rock was special because Mark had sanded it down to a smooth finish. He had painted the rock a bright red. He had clear-coated it. In white letters he had painted an “I”, then a heart, then a "U", and clear-coated it again. It was Mark's way of saying he loved her.
She picked up the rock and held it. A good rock, she thought. I could get some distance with this one. It was special, so she had just kept it all these years. She placed the rock back on her desk.
Mark was making great time on his parts run. The speed limit on the highway was seventy and he was pushing that to its limit. He wanted to make sure that he was back in time to meet David. Mark got off at the airport exit and turned left, back over the freeway. He was hoping there wouldn’t be too much traffic going in and out of the airport. He didn’t mind the drive to get his parts, but he always wondered why they would never ship them to his house or to the bank in Englewood. He did have to custom-order these parts because the planes he owned were so old, but they were still in great working condition.
He pulled into the parking lot of the small aviation company and shut down the engine. As Mark walked along toward the hanger he looked over at the planes sitting on the tarmac, mostly Cessnas, a few piper cubs. He stopped to get a closer look at the plane of his dreams. It was a bright yellow crop duster. Mark just shook his head. Maybe someday. In the hanger at the counter he told the clerk he was there to pick up some parts. The clerk asked the name. Mark replied, “Marisa Aviation.” Mark had named the business using part of his name and part of Lisa’s name.
Lisa had always supported him in his decisions. He wanted her to be part of the business also. When he had told her the business name, Lisa had smiled and said, “Thank You.”
The clerk went back through a set of double doors and returned a few minutes later with a huge box on a two-wheel dolly.
Shit. Shoulda drove the pick up or Lisa’s Altima. He wrote the man a check for the parts and the clerk wheeled the box out with Mark. As Mark walked back he had to slow his pace and take one more look at the yellow crop duster sitting there. He again shook his head and smiled. Maybe someday. He popped the trunk on the Trans Am.
The clerk said, “You’re joking, right?”
Mark just smiled and said, “Nope.” The clerk dropped the box and headed back to the hangar. Mark opened one end of the box to look inside. Luckily it was just rudder control cables and they used a much bigger box than needed. He took out the cables, laid them in the trunk and folded up the box, seeing a dumpster close by to dispose of the box.
Mark sat back in the Trans Am and started the engine. He looked down at his watch. I’ve got plenty of time to make it back to see David. He put the Trans Am in reverse, backed out of the parking spot, and sat there for a second.
Hmm, Lisa’s not here. He put the car in first, revved it up to about 4,000 rpms, and dropped the clutch. The rear tires spun, blue smoke flowed out from under them, and when the positraction rear end caught, the Trans Am sped away. Mark had a smile on his face.
Lisa was ready for the day. She was excited that David was coming by to see her and Mark. He used to email them on a regular basis about the air shows with the Texan, but then he got busy down in Texas and they had lost touch. She thought it had been two years now since they had seen him in person.
The bank door opened and in came in Ms Miller, dragging Tommy behind her as usual. Lisa thought Tommy was around six or seven. Ms Miller called last week to say that she would be coming by today. Tommy wanted to start his own savings account.
Lisa smiled at Tommy. He kind of hid behind his mom. Being a Monday morning in the middle of the month and all she figured it would be a slow day. Most people came into the bank around the first of the month or the last of the month, not in the middle.
Lisa looked at her watch. It was around 11:30 am. She was looking forward to seeing David. She poured herself a cup of coffee, smiled at Tommy again, and walked back to her desk. When Lisa had taken over as bank manager, within six months she had remodeled to advertise an open-door policy with the community. She had her office door removed and the wall taken down. A four-foot partition ran the length of the lobby. She could have some privacy but get her "open door" point across. Lisa did some paper work but looked up when she heard the door open.
“Oh, my God! David!” She ran around the small partition and gave David a big hug.
"Whoa, little lady."
“My God, it’s so good to see you.”
David smiled. “Good to see you also. Where is Mark?”
“He is on his way back from a parts run and should be here shortly, I hope. I wouldn’t want to have to kill my husband for missing you.”
“I hope he didn’t take that old truck!"
“Please. You know what he is driving."
"Oh, yeah, the Trans Am."
"Please tell me what you’ve been up to." Lisa and David sat at her desk and talked for about twenty minutes until Mark came through the door.
David stood. “Speak of the devil.”
“How ya been, old man?” Mark smiled.
“Just fine.”
Mark gave David a bear hug. Mark and David headed back toward Lisa’s desk.
“Oh, no. You two stand over there and have your man talk." The two men just laughed.
While David and Mark chatted Lisa said to Janice and Amy," Do you two girls want to go to lunch together today?”
“Sure,” Janice and Amy agreed.
“It’s not busy here today and I got Mark here in case it gets to be."
“You buying today, boss?” Amy grinned.
Lisa laughed. “Yeah, put it on the bank's tab. I’m in a good mood today."
The two girls gathered their purses and headed out the door. Lisa headed back to her desk. She could see the front door from there. If a customer came in she could get up easily and go to the teller window.
David and Mark were talking and didn’t notice that Herman started to sit up. Lisa didn’t notice it either till she heard the low growl.
"What is it, honey?" Two men came in the front door. One headed toward the teller desk while the other man stopped only about five feet inside the doorway. Lisa stood up to see better. By this time Herman’s growl had gotten louder and the hair on the back of his neck stood straight up. She motioned to Mark.
“What’s wrong?” Mark asked. She nodded her head toward Herman. Mark could hardly believe what he saw. David stood still.
Lisa nodded in the direction of the man standing at the teller desk. If the feeling she had was wrong she would explain to the sheriff. Lisa leaned slowly over and hit the silent alarm button on her desk. She didn’t see that the light didn’t turned red, showing the alarm was inactive.
Herman began to move slowly toward the man at the teller window, then sprang. He covered the twenty feet in record time. The man saw the dog coming at him but didn’t think an old dog could move so fast. Herman caught him dead in the chest and knocked him down. Herman was a big dog, eighty-five pounds at least.
Mark yelled, “Herman, no!”
The man at the front door pulled a large revolver from the small of his back.
Lisa yelled, “No!” The man pointed the gun at Herman but appeared too afraid that he would miss and hit the man being attacked.
“Call him off. Call the damn dog off!"
“Herman, come here. Herman, please, baby, come here.” Herman ignored Lisa and kept up his attack. He had already chewed the man’s arm up as he tried to fight him off. Herman let go of the man’s arm and tried to catch the man in the throat as he screamed in pain.
The man at the front door fired his gun in the air. Startled, Herman stopped his attack. The man by the t
eller window was still screaming in pain and writhing on the floor, bleeding badly from Herman’s rage.
The gunman aimed at Mark. “Call the damn dog off.”
Mark yelled for Herman but instead of coming to Mark, Herman began to make a wide circle between Mark and the man with the gun. Herman didn’t take his eyes off the man with the gun as he tried to get between them. All the while Mark and Lisa could see the rage in him building. They had never seen him act like this before. As Herman made his circle he closed the gap between himself and the man with the gun and leaped. The man tried to aim at Herman.
Lisa screamed, “No!” She reached down, picked up the rock on her desk, flung it at the man with the gun, and caught him in the side of the head. It stunned the man. His shot went wild. Herman caught the man, knocked him down, and attacked. Mark tried to run over to Herman and help. Something tripped him up. David held his pant leg. Mark saw the red stain on David’s chest.
“Oh dear God,” he said. The wild shot had missed Herman but had caught David in the chest.
David said, "Don’t hurt them."
Confused, Mark hesitated until he heard another shot and Herman's yelp. The man had got a shot off that caught Herman in the hindquarters.
“You threw a rock at me,” the gunman snarled at Lisa.
“Please take the money and go. Please, you don’t want to be sorry for this.”
The man looked at Lisa in disgust and growled, “What did you say? You’ll be sorry?” The man leered at Lisa.
Wait, I know you! You’re that little bitch with the rocks!"
“Sam? Sam Jenkins? Oh my God!” David still lay motionless on the floor. Mark glanced back at him.
Sam looked past Mark. “Uncle David!”
David didn’t respond. Mark started to slowly stand up. Sam saw the blood on David’s shirt.
“You made me shoot my uncle because of your damn rock, bitch!"
Sam's next shot hit Lisa on the right side of her chest just below the shoulder.
“Noooo!” Lisa fell to the ground.
Mark stood. “You bastard, you!”
Sam laughed. "I just shot your little girlfriend. Now it’s your turn."
“She is not my girlfriend, she is my wife." Mark launched himself at Sam. Sam fired a shot at Mark that hit him in the arm but only grazed him.
He was just about to fire another shot when Herman leaned over and bit Sam on the Achilles tendon. The shot went wide left. Mark hit Sam with all his force and knocked him down, full of rage for Sam shooting Lisa, Mark was on top of Sam pounding his fist in his face, his head, wherever he could inflict any pain. Sam caught Mark with a right cross and knocked him off balance for a moment.
Sam grabbed a handful of Mark's hair and pulled him over, getting on top of Mark. He struck Mark in the face and just as Sam was about to hit Mark again Mark heard a shot. Sam’s head exploded and his body fell over to the side. David lay on the floor with a gun in his hands.
“Hang on, boy," Mark said to Herman, who lay nearby, whining softly.
He rushed over to Lisa, lying behind her desk. “Lisa! Lisa!”
“I’m okay,” she groaned.
“Why, David?" Mark asked his old friend.
“So you’re the two kids that got the better of my nephews all those years ago. I never would have guessed it was you two.”
”Why, David?” Mark asked again.
“Their mother was my sister. She left the boys before you two had the rock incident. I was in the Navy. I was always away. I felt responsible for not being there when they needed me. Their dad was a piece of shit. When word got out about the rock throwing, he beat those boys every day. He said, "No one gets over a Jenkins." Their dad found their mom and beat her up too. She killed herself shortly after. So I felt responsible. The boys found me in Texas at an air show. They said I owed them something.”
“We never told anyone about that day.”
“Bobby did. He always had a big mouth. They wanted money, so I thought they could rob the bank. I would be here so you two wouldn’t get hurt. I never dreamed it would happen like this.”
“How did you disable the alarm?”
“Remember how you fixed my plane?”
Mark thought a minute. “Yeah, a bad wire.”
“This bank is old and so is the wiring, so it was easy to bypass; a trick I learned from you.
"I’m sorry, son. I never meant any harm. I just thought it would be an easy robbery and the boys would leave." They heard the sirens approaching, getting louder as they got closer. "Mark, Lisa, please forgive me."
The sirens stopped. Mark heard the bank door open and footsteps approaching. The sheriff screamed, “Mark, Lisa, you all okay?”
“We need an ambulance here!” Mark looked down at David and realized he wasn’t breathing.
Mark started to cry. “Baby! Baby!” He said to Lisa.
“Yeah, I’m okay. It just hurts like hell.”
Mark smiled at her. Mark looked around the bank in disbelief. Sam lay dead by the door, shot by his uncle. David was dead beside Mark, shot by his nephew. Bobby rolled and screamed by the teller stand, in agony because of Herman's attack.
The gurney arrived for Lisa. Paramedics strapped an oxygen mask to her face and put an IV in. As they headed toward the door, Lisa pulled off the mask and said, “Wait, stop! Herman! You have to take Herman.”
“We can’t take a dog to the hospital.”
Mark agreed." No, Herman has to go also."
They started to protest.
Lisa said, "You ever want to borrow money from this bank again, Shawn Scott, you’ll take Herman."
They put Lisa in the ambulance and Mark set Herman inside the back door.
Mark sat by Lisa’s bedside for two straight days. Since the surgery for her gunshot wound she had been in and out of it. Luckily it was a through and through. A slight knock roused him and the sheriff entered. Mark walked over and shook hands.
“How is she?”
"She's in and out, but she will be okay.”
“That’s good.”
"Any word on Herman? I’ve been here for two days. I haven’t had time to check on him."
"Herman? He will be just fine," smiled the sheriff. "That is one tough dog you have there, and old. "
“What do you mean?”
"How long have you two had Herman?”
Mark took a moment to think. "Lisa and I got married when we were twenty. It was a few years after that, so I’m thinking maybe ten years now.”
“Oh, yeah. The vet thinks ol' Hermy may be close to twenty years old. Very rare for a dog his size." The sheriff held out an envelope.
“Is that something for me?” Mark asked.
“Yep. This is the reason I came out here. The vet thought you might find this interesting. Well, I’ve got to go."
Mark started to open the envelope as he walked back to Lisa’s bedside. He made it about five feet when he stopped in his tracks.
A note from the vet on the envelope said, Thought you might find this interesting. I had to shave the hair off Herman's leg for surgery and found this. Inside the envelope was a picture of Herman’s hind leg. Mark looked at the picture in awe. There on Herman’s leg were burned the words, "Property of Sam and Bobby Jenkins."
The vet's note continued. "Looks like they branded him with a soldering iron.”
“I’ll be damned,” Mark said. As he walked over to the bedside to watch over Lisa, he looked at the painting over the bed. He had never really paid attention to it ‘til now. It wasn’t a Norman Rockwell or any fancy painting, just something you might see in a hospital, motel, or a doctor's office. As Mark looked at it, He smiled at a little boy and a little girl about eight years old, down by the lake skipping rocks. What really surprised Mark was in the bottom right hand corner of the painting was one word:
"HERMAN"
Find John Miller’s other books linked from his blog
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thoughtsfromasaneman.wordpress.com/
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Author of:
You’ll Be Sorry
Friends and Strangers
Gladstone
Gladstone 2: Missing in Denver
Trail Dust (featuring Carl Saunders, great-grandfather of Jack Saunders from the Gladstone series)
Coming soon:
Gladstone 3: Witness Protected