The People in the Lake

by E Randall Floyd

  The People in the Lake

  E. Randall Floyd

  BatWing Press

  A u g u s t a G e o r g i a

  The People in the Lake

  a novel

  E. Randall Floyd

  A BatWing Press Book/June 2018

  Augusta, Georgia

  Copyright © E. Randall Floyd 2018

  .

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the author or publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information address:

  BatWing Press

  629 Stevens Crossing

  Augusta, Georgia 30907

  Tel: 706-955-5557

  Email: randallfloyd47@gmail.com

  Website: www.erandallfloyd.com

  For Mary and George

  You and your beautiful home in the “high country” helped inspire this book

  PROLOGUE

  North Georgia Mountains, October 1935

  THE BOY LOPED THROUGH the dark, raw instincts guiding him down the slanted mountain trail.

  Lightning clawed across the rain-blackened sky, tossing fingers of fire at him as he scrabbled along, mindful of the perilous drop-offs on either side of the twisting path.

  The rocky terrain tore at his bare feet, but he kept up an even pace until the narrow path finally leveled off and he came to the edge of a forest.

  Behind him, less than a mile away, came the Terrill brothers and their pack of hounds. The sound of the dogs barking and baying under the frosty October moon chilled him to the bone. He shuddered to think what might happen if those mangy beasts caught up with him.

  He had to hurry, get to the house and warn Pa.

  He darted into the woods, his feet cushioned by the carpet of rain-soaked moss and spindly ferns. The ragged pair of overalls draped over his lanky frame shielded him from the autumn chill but did little to protect him from the stinging brambles that raked his bare flesh.

  When he reached the creek, swollen and sluggish by recent rains, he slowed long enough to find the old foot-log. He paused to catch his breath, then leapt onto the log and hurried across.

  At last he saw the ramshackle cabin, leaning hard against the trees in the wispy moonlight. A single yellow light burned low in the front window, and a ghostly plume of thin bluish smoke rose from the crumbling stone chimney. He bolted straight across the yard, bounded up the flight of rickety steps and banged on the door.

  The door cracked open to reveal a big, bearded man filling the shadows. Behind him, huddled around a crackling stone fireplace, cowered a frail, stoop-shouldered woman and three young children. One of them, a shriveled little girl with stringy red hair, lay on a quilt pallet in the far corner, quietly sobbing.

  “They’re coming, Pa,” the boy gasped in a voice low and squeaky.

  His name was Luke. He was only three months shy of his thirteenth birthday, but he stood tall and strong for his age and had the lean, bone-hard frame of a mountain boy.

  The old man waved him inside, slammed the door shut and dropped the latch in place. In a voice that trembled like the rush of a high mountain stream, he growled, “How far back?”

  “Two, three miles on the other side of the creek, coming fast.”

  The big man made a grunting sound. “The creek’ll slow’em up some, give us time to git ready.” He lowered his head and fastened his eyes on the boy. “Did you take care of that other stuff like I told you to?”

  “You mean the coins? Yessir," the boy replied proudly. "I buried ‘m down there by the creek, right where you told me to. Marked the spot with a big ol’ rock."

  The old man dropped a hairy hand on top of his son's narrow shoulder. "You done good." He straightened, turned to the others. "We ain’t got much time. Them Terrill boys are a’ comin.” He Ya'll know what to do."

  The boy named Luke tensed. "But, Pa," he protested, still shivering in his wet clothes. "What about me? Ain’t you gonna let me stay out here and help you fight ‘em?"

  The old man gave him a hard stare. "We done been over all this, boy.” He saw the disappointment in his son’s eyes, watched it fester into an angry cloud “Now, help yore ma git them little ones in the back room. Bolt that door tight and stay in there til I tell you to come out."

  Behind them, shrouded in the grainy darkness of the two-room cabin, the others waited silent and still as scarecrows. A single kerosene lantern burned low on the mantel, casting an eerie yellow glow across the crude log walls. Coal-black shadows flickered along the low pine ceiling, danced across the crooked plank flooring.

  The only sound in the room was the slow, metallic ticking of an old Regulator clock.

  ⸙

  THERE WERE SIX OF THEM in all—Caleb Bullard and his wife, Loretta, their two little girls, Abigail and Ruth Ann, Luke and his younger brother, Mason. Like her husband, the woman was only in her early forties but years of hard mountain life made her look many years older. Her hair was white and wild as the wind, and it tumbled loose like braided wiregrass around her bone-thin shoulders. She wore a tattered cotton dress, the only one in her wardrobe, and it closed around her sagging shoulders like a potato sack. The look in the woman’s eyes was that of a frightened, half-starved animal.

  A blinding flash of lightning lit up the tiny room, followed by a bone-jarring crack of thunder that shook the little cabin like a toy. Soon solid sheets of rain pelted the windows and hammered the sloped tin roof.

  Loretta Bullard looked up at her husband, raw fear etched in her hollow eyes. In a voice devoid of hope and quaking with pain, she said, “Maybe they won't be a'comin' tonight, on account of the storm."

  Her husband stiffened. “You know they will, woman,” he grumbled. “They always do.”

  Loretta shrank back, a prayerful moan escaping her thin lips. She glanced across at the toddler swaddled still and quiet on the pallet by the fire. "What about the little one? She needs a doctor mighty bad."

  Caleb Bullard turned to his older son. "Did you find that city doctor?"

  Luke nodded. "Yessir. He told me he'd be out first thing in the morning."

  The old man tugged at his whiskers. "That might be too late. I don’t think yore baby sister’s gonna last through the night."

  “Then why don’t we all just git in the wagon and make a run for it, Pa?" In the fading light, Luke's flaming red hair bristled and puffed like a wild mountain mushroom about to pop. "We could be clear across the creek and halfway to Greeley a'fore they knew we was even gone.”

  Caleb Bullard's muscles tightened. The sigh that escaped his lips might as well have come from a man on his way to the gallows. “No use running," he said plaintively. “Not with a sick baby. Besides, them Terrill boys have got dogs and guns and would track us down a’fore we got halfway to town.”

  The old man suddenly stopped, raised a hand and motioned for silence. He pressed his ear against the stout wooden door and listened. “Ten, twelve of 'em, best I can tell, headin' through the woods this way,” He lumbered over to the corner and snatched up an old single-barrel shotgun. He split it open and rammed in a load of double-ought buckshot. To his family, he barked, “All of you, git into the back room, now!"

  But Luke stood his ground. He had fetched the other long gun, a double-barreled twelve-gauge, and was dropping in shells. There was no way he was going to leave his pa out here to face the Terrill brothers alone.

  “You, too, Luke,” Caleb ordered. He saw the shotgun. "Take that scattergun with you. If they git past me, use it." He cocked his shotgun a
nd strutted toward the door.

  The woman came over and tugged frantically at her husband’s arm. “Caleb Bullard, you can't fight them by yourself. If we die tonight, we die as a blood family.”

  A flood of hot tears rushed into the big man’s red-streaked eyes. He touched his wife’s pale cheek, let his finger linger tenderly a moment before brushing her aside. “Don't you fret none, woman, ain't none of mine a'gonna be a'dyin' tonight."

  Abigail, at six the second-youngest child in the Bullard clan, rushed over to her father and wrapped her arms around his big leg. “Papa, I’m scared,” she wailed. In the crackling firelight, the girl’s tiny face looked pale and waxy.

  Caleb dropped to one knee and drew his daughter’s wispy frame against him. “Now don't you be afraid, punkin," he said. "Yore daddy ain't a'gonna let nothing happen to you, I promise." He kissed the top of her head. “Now you just run along there and help yore mammy take Ruth Anne to the back. In the morning, when the sun is up high over them hills, I'll take you both out blackberry pickin'.”

  The girl brightened at her father's words.

  Before parting, the family gathered on their knees around the dying toddler's pallet and lowered their heads. As the rain howled wild in the night and their enemies approached in the wet-dripping darkness, they held hands and prayed. "May this circle of blood thou hast joined together on this terrible night never be broken asunder," the old man intoned.

  "Amen," the others replied in unison.

  Dutifully, Loretta Bullard picked up the baby and led the other children to the backroom. Before shutting the door, she glanced back at her husband one last time. "My breast beats hard for you, Caleb Bullard," she whispered, tears rolling down her narrow cheeks.

  The big man said nothing until he heard the door shut and the bolt fall into place. Then he slowly lifted his hollow eyes and prayed.

  On the mantel, the tin clock chimed—so loud the old man flinched.

  Midnight.

  “So it shall be,” Caleb Bullard muttered to himself.

  ⸙

  THE RAINS CAME DOWN in great silvery sheets, tearing cracks in the forest canopy of firs and pines, thudding, pounding against the cabin's rusting tin roof with apocalyptic fury. The flooded yards and fields surrounding the sagging homeplace were soon transformed into an unending sea of clotted mud and oozing clay.

  The intruders moved silently through the shadowed forest in three columns, their black ponchos flapping around their shoulders like the wings of great bats. Heavy boots clomped and thumped through the mud, splashed across the frothy shallow stream separating the Bullard place from the woods.

  ⸙

  INSIDE THE CABIN, Caleb Bullard leaned hard against the door, the shotgun drawn tight across his broad chest. He wedged his big shoulder against the door of the cabin, guarding against those who would soon be coming.

  He listened, gritting his teeth and alert for the slightest echo of voices on the wind, the first thud of boots on the front porch.

  He waited.

  His big hands, cracked and tar-stained from a lifetime of pushing plows and digging stumps, wrapped solidly around the shotgun, his thumb resting on the hammer, his right index finger curled around the trigger.

  He craned his head toward the backroom where his family waited quietly in the dark. They were his lambs, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood. It was his sacred duty to protect them. That’s what the Good Book said. Regardless of what hellish demons came down from the hills for them that night, he was resolved to do just that.

  He snapped forward when he detected faint voices out in the yard.

  He listened, waited until he heard the first set of boots crunch slowly up onto the porch. “I pray thee give me strength, O'Lord," he said aloud.

  ⸙

  “WE KNOW YOU’RE all in there, Caleb Bullard,” a husky voice roared from the front yard. Caleb recognized it at once: Wilbur Terrill, leader of the Terrill clan. “Come on out and let’s talk. No need for anybody to die here tonight!”

  ⸙

  IN ONE SWIFT MOTION, Caleb Bullard threw back the door, burst outside and fired at the first blurry form that caught his eye.

  The blast of buckshot caught the first intruder completely by surprise, slamming point-blank into his face and tearing away his throat and half his face. The man fell like a sack of potatoes, gasping and gurgling, already dead by the time his mangled body flopped backwards to the ground.

  Stunned, the others fell back from the porch into the shadows. That gave Caleb all the time he needed to re-load and get off another round.

  The second volley exploded against a hooded figure crawling up the far end of the porch. The lethal spray of buckshot caught the second intruder square in the chest. Screaming, he twisted like a corkscrew before tumbling face down into the mud.

  The remaining intruders waited until Caleb’s smoking shotgun fell silent for a second time then sprang from the gloom like caped phantoms. Raising their long guns simultaneously, they opened fire and cut Caleb Bullard down where he stood.

  As the old man's body slumped against the wall, twitching and flopping like a gutted ragdoll, the invaders continued to pump round after round into him until, finally, Caleb's lead-riddled body collapsed to the floor with a thud.

  ⸙

  “THAT’S ENOUGH!” Wilbur Terrill snarled.

  The oldest—and meanest—of the Terrill brothers, Wilbur was a big, hulking man with slab shoulders and thighs the size of tree trunks. His narrow, pig-like eyes and the scraggily black beard hanging down across his broad chest like moss gave him a brooding, ogre-like appearance.

  Instead of a shotgun, Wilbur Terrill wore a pistol tucked inside a thick leather belt and carried a big, broad axe slung across his shoulder.

  He pushed back the brim of his cap and strode onto the creaking porch. He poked at Caleb’s lifeless body with the blade of his axe. “Can’t you fools see the bastard's already dead?"

  “What about them others?” one of the men asked, nodding toward the house.

  Wilbur Terrill drew a long, heavy sigh. "We ain’t got no choice. This ends here tonight.”

  “And the money?” another flared.

  “One thing at a time,” Wilber Terrill fired back. “First we finish what we came here to do. Then we worry about the money.”

  Pete Terrill, the youngest of the clan, shimmied up next to his brother. “I saw the boy talkin’ to that doctor feller in town earlier. He as good as likely told him everything.”

  “You worry too much, Pete,” the big man replied. A big grin spread across Wilbur Terrill’s bearded face. “I’ve got plans for the doc. Right now, let’s go inside and take care of business.”

  He led the way, kicking open the door and stomping across the threshold.

  The last thing Wilbur Terrill saw before a blast of double-ought buckshot blew apart his thick face was a skinny, red-haired boy glaring back at him from across the room, a smoking, double-barreled shotgun braced hard against his shoulder.

  Chapter One

  Atlanta, Georgia, Present Day

  LAURA DRAKE LAY ON her back, legs spread wide, calmly waiting for her husband to finish.

  “Hurry,” she pleaded, raking his sweat-drenched back with her nails.

  Brad gave one final thrust, urgent and desperate as always, then pulled out and relaxed.

  He continued to lay on top of his wife, drained, panting like a panther. His lean, muscular shoulders drooped low around her breasts, and his legs lay heavy and sweaty between her long, slender thighs.

  By any measure, Brad was an ideal lover. He was gentle and passionate, never too rough, always considerate, but the older he got, the more insatiable he became. That was the problem, at least from Laura’s point of view. He never wanted to quit.

  “Thanks, angel face,” Brad said, rolling over and reaching for his customary cigarette. “Best ever.”

  Laura watched him light up, take a long drag. “Do you always have to do that?” she grumbled.


  Brad lay on his back, one arm crooked behind his head, blowing smoke rings toward the ceiling. “Do what?”

  “That,” she griped, swatting at the smoke. "It always makes me feel dirty after we make love."

  Brad waited for the wisp of smoke to dissipate. “Sorry,” he apologized, reaching over and crushing out the cigarette in an ashtray on the bedside table. “Old habits die hard.”

  Laura frowned. “So will you if you keep that up.”

  Brad flipped over on his side and faced his wife. His handsome, square jaw and steel blue eyes looked lazy and sexy in the early morning light streaming through the slatted blinds. “What else can I do to make my sweet little angel feel dirty?" he joked, stroking her smooth cheeks with the back of his hand.

  Laura turned away. “No more, Brad," she pleaded. "Besides, you've got a plane to catch, remember?”

  Brad ran a finger across Laura’s exquisite forehead, followed the line of her sharp, up-turned nose. “My plane doesn't leave until noon." His finger slid slowly down the nape of her neck, tap-danced across the smooth swelling of her breast. "That leaves us a couple more hours to get good and dirty one more tim.”

  Laura brushed his hand away and sat up. "No," she insisted, pulling the sheet up over her breasts. Her long, blonde hair spread in gleaming tangles around the slopes of her smooth, perfectly-formed shoulders. “You haven't even finished packing."

  "You worry too much," Brad teased. He flicked back a wisp of her hair and planted a trail of kisses along her bare shoulder. One hand slipped around her waist and drew her close. The other caressed the smooth curve of her bare hip.