by TJ Vargo
He opened his eyes and pulled Tina tight against him, suddenly very happy to have her next to him. A little surprised grunt came out of her as he squeezed her. She whispered in his ear.
"You were just thinking about her, that girl in your dreams, weren't you?"
"Just for a second." He turned to gaze at Tina's face. "I'd forgotten about her. It was nice to remember." He moved in closer, touching his nose to hers, and said, "You're what I'm thinking about now." He kissed her. Reached around her back. Under her shirt.
"Your hands are cold."
He laughed. Her hands grabbed his and guided them down to the front of her jeans. He began to unbutton them. It wasn't easy. His hands shook and his face felt hot with blood pounding under his skin, making his cheeks flush red. She finally helped him, her voice in his ear. "It's all right. Let me help." The only thing he could think to say was, "I've never done this before." He was embarrassed, but her giggle cured that. Like a magician showing sleight of hand tricks she pulled him free from his jeans. He wrestled to undress her, trying to pull her sweater off from where it was knotted around her head. He sighed in relief as she gently pushed his hands away and slipped the sweater from her head. She said, "Take it easy, I'm not going anywhere."
He nodded. She wasn't going anywhere. Calm down. He relaxed and stared at her face, laying on the pillow, her beautiful smile directed back at him. She wasn't going anywhere. But he was, he was going somewhere. He inhaled with a gasp.
Through it all, Tina barely made a sound. He didn't care if he did. Afterwards he lay on his side, watching her chest rise and fall in exhaustion. He kissed the top of her head and she smiled, her eyes closed.
He sat up and grabbed a dusty wool blanket at the foot of the bed, unfolding it and pulling it over them, then settled in next to her and held her, staring at the rafters, listening to her breathe until his eyes became heavy and sleep overtook him.
He opened his eyes. The lantern was still burning. The sound of Tina’s breathing next to him made him want to snuggle next to her and get back to sleep, but something pricked at him. Something had changed. He swallowed. Someone was watching.
Keeping still, he looked around the loft and listened. The light from the lantern had begun to flare in and out slightly. It was almost out of fuel. Shadows in the loft rose and fell with the throbbing light, making the room seem to breathe along with the naked form of Tina next to him. He slipped his arm from under her head. Disturbed by the movement, she raised her head slightly, then dropped it back to the pillow. Reaching out of the bed, he grabbed his jeans from the floor.
He sat up with his jeans in hand and slipped his feet off the edge of the bed, his eyes searching the loft. Someone was here. He only had time to pull on his jeans and push his feet into his boots before he stopped, straining his ears. It was a small, insignificant sound in a barn that held so many vermin, field cats and God knew what else. He dropped his flannel shirt to the floor and stood up, looking around the loft. It was nothing more than a soft grunt. Like the sound his father made when he was trying to clear his throat without drawing attention.
"What have you done Jackson?"
The lantern light was now pulsating strongly as it sucked the last of its kerosene. In that slow strobe, Jackson's eyes were drawn to a dark corner of the loft. His father, all six feet three inches of old rawboned leather, hitched himself up to his feet from out of the shadows. The old man held a rifle, one hand on the trigger, the other pointing the barrel toward the ceiling. The muscles on Jackson's naked back bunched as a draft of night air blew against him from behind.
"You've had relations with her haven't you Jackson?"
Jackson stared at his father. "What are you doing here Dad?" He said it in a whisper, not wanting to wake her, but his tone was a raw growl. The cot was between him and his father and he watched the old man move closer to Tina. Damn if the old man was going to get one step closer to her. Jackson vaulted over the cot to put himself between Tina and his father. He had been beaten for being on the wrong side of his father's morality for things much less than this before, but Tina was nice. She was worth any beating the old man could try to give.
"Move away from her Jackson, she's no good anymore. She's got the devil in her now."
Jackson glared as the old man tried to wave him away from the cot, his eyes focused on the end of the rifle. Only a big step and a quick yank away. Sweat flushed over his face. His father's breath hung and swirled in the cold air. The light from the lantern flared bright then dimmed.
"You're drunk and talking crazy. Put the gun down, go back to the house and sleep it off," said Jackson, raising his voice.
"I told you to move away from her!" his father barked.
The sound of Tina awakening behind Jackson made him turn his head. She was half in and half out of sleep, squinting at him.
He turned to his father. Took a step toward him. "C'mon dad give me the rifle." The old man set his jaw, laying his cheek against the butt of the rifle, aiming down the barrel.
"You know what I have to do son. I tried my best, but now you're spreading your evil. This can't be helped."
In the pulsing light of the lantern, he saw his father's eyes gleam. His stomach churned. It took all the concentration he could muster to put one foot in front of the other and step toward his father.
"Put that gun down. What are you going to do, shoot me for making love to a woman?"
Before Jackson could finish the question, the lantern found its last bit of fuel and flared, filling the room with brilliant white light. The rifle jerked from its aim on his chest to Tina behind him. He turned, following the aim of the rifle barrel. Everything was moving so fast. No time to act, only to watch, like it was all happening to someone else. He moved with slow, underwater reflexes, watching as Tina suddenly sat up, her eyes wide open and terrified.
The crack of the rifle. He lunged to grab it. In the sudden eruption of light from the lantern he thought for a moment that he saw the silhouette of a wide-brimmed hat in a shadowed corner of the loft. He tore his eyes away from it, grabbing at the rifle. Everything went black as the lantern light died. His hand gripped the barrel of the rifle. It kicked like a live thing, another bullet hurtling past him toward Tina. The sound of her pained grunt hit him like a punch in the gut.
He twisted the rifle from his father's grip and swung it over his shoulder, holding the barrel like the handle of a baseball bat. He was very strong, twenty-one years of manual farm labor with his father's belt to look forward to every night guaranteed that, and he uncoiled every bit of himself as he swung. He screamed. His back wrenched from the effort, the torque of his muscles exploding from his hips up through his spine like a batter swinging for the fence. With his voice shattering through his throat, his arms wrenched violently as the rifle's stock slammed and splintered against some part of his father. His father fell against him and then slid away, falling to the floor. The rifle clattered to the floor. And he stood in the dark, trying to catch his breath, wondering what had just happened.
There was no way to be sure of how long he stood there, his breathing going from ragged to normal. He only knew it was long enough to become aware of the cold. The sound of his chattering teeth rattled in his head. One good thing - his eyes had adjusted to the dark. He could see the entire loft, all the way into the deepest, darkest corner. He looked down in front of him, where a twisted body lay. Toeing his boot into it, it rolled over. There was his father's face. Blood, dark and shiny, covered one side of the old man's face. Part of the scalp was torn away and matted down in the blood. The blow from the rifle had definitely done the job. It was a job Jackson wished he'd done on more than a hundred occasions, but now, with it completed, no emotion surfaced in him. No joy. Not even satisfaction. Nothing. Tina, a girl he'd just met, meant more to him now.
Turning, his boots scraping on the wooden slats of the loft's floor, he looked back toward the bed. His strength left him and he slowly went to his knees. She was dead, a dark blot on th
e cot under her head. His lips moved. Oh God.
He crawled toward the cot where Tina lay, groping a hand up onto it while at the same time looking away to avoid seeing her lifeless naked form. Pulling his coat off the bed, he put it on and crawled back to where his father lay. He sat on the floor and shivered. Thoughts of what to do swirled in his mind. No rhyme or reason to what happened could be determined by him. Everything was in complete and utter shambles. And then his father sat up.
Jackson cried out and skidded back on the seat of his pants. The blow from the rifle had been devastating. His father's torn scalp flopped over his face. Jackson licked his dry lips. He moved on his hands and knees toward his father, whose head lolled and rolled like a rag doll's. He stretched a hand toward his father's shoulder. At his touch, his father stopped moving. Jackson jerked his hand back. All injury and pain seemed to disappear from his father in an eyeblink. Snapping his head around to stare at Jackson, the old man brushed absently at the piece of scalp that dangled in one eye. It flopped back on his head and held in place. Before Jackson could react, his father's hand shot out, snapping around his wrist, holding him with iron strength. Jackson shrank back as his father's chest convulsed; vomit splashing to the floor between them. His voice was slowed down, low and rumbling.
"What have you done to me Jackson."
A clicking sound, like a piece of broken jawbone or misplaced tendon, punctuated his father's speech. Jackson's breath came in jerks. He tried to pull away but his father's grip on his wrist tightened with impossible strength.
"You're not getting away from me boy."
The bloody mess of his father's face darted in, eyeball to eyeball with him. The old man brought his voice down to a whisper. The only sound Jackson could hear was that awful clicking of his father's jaw.
"You're evil boy. I knew it from the first night I found you. That awful night when Martha died with my child inside her. That's when the Devil dropped you on my porch. He's the great tempter, he is. He knew my moment of weakness and he struck while the iron was hot. Put you in front of me when I had nothing else to hang on to. And now," Sam Lewis's eyes blazed, "now I've got a final bit of business with you before I'm done. I've got something to tell you. Come closer Jackson. I've got something to tell you son, something you'll need."
Jackson began to pull away furiously. Shock and fear had been balled up in his gut too long and under the intense pressure of the moment, they exploded through him. He drew back a fist, preparing to lash out with all the strength in him, and then stopped. The grip his father held on his wrist slowly relaxed, finally releasing him. There was something there; in the old man's eyes. A softening of compassion Jackson had never seen before.
"Come here Jackson. Out of your own free will, come here close and let me tell you what you need to know."
Jackson watched his father bow his head and fold his hands in his lap. Old, deep-creased hands that Jackson had seen work through every type of God-forsaken weather, beat the shit out of man and beast alike, and lift a bottle every day until his brain was pickled.
The old man hiccupped a bright handful of blood into his lap. Jackson could tell he was fighting death with a brand of stubborn strength that was nonexistent in today's world. Whether it was the Almighty or Old Lucifer waiting on him, neither one was taking Sam Lewis before he said his piece.
"Just lay down Dad, I'll call someone to help you. Just relax," said Jackson.
Sam Lewis spoke slowly. "Nothing can help me now. Just come here son."
Jackson took a deep breath and scooted in next to his father, bending his head down next to his father's face. He watched the old man unfold his hands and wipe the blood from them onto his pants. His father took a deep, rattling breath.
"There's a man I met recently," Jackson's father said haltingly, still wiping his hands on his pants.
Jackson moved in as close as he could, his ear almost touching his father's mouth, trying to hear his fading voice.
"He asked me a lot of questions about you. I answered his questions, even though I didn't like him. That was the funny thing about it. I talked to him even though I didn't want to. Didn't want to, but I did."
Jackson placed a hand on his father's shoulder. The old guy was just about gone, rambling like this. Even a mean son of a bitch like him should get some comfort while dying.
"In any case, I told him about you Jackson. And then, well, he thanked me."
Sam Lewis moved a hand shakily to his head, grabbing a make believe hat and tipping it. "He tipped his hat, easy as you please, and said something like, 'Thank you Mr. Freed. You've done me a great service, which is quite a feat for a man who took to screwing his horse and his sheep after his wife died.'"
A shiver ran through Jackson. What was he talking about?
"Couple of funny things about that," Sam Lewis rattled on. "He knew my name and I never told it to him. And the part about the livestock, well that's just something I did when I was drunk. Never felt good about it. Worst of all though, was when he took that hat off. I'll tell you son, there wasn't no face under it. Just blackness. It matched his clothes and his hat - all black."
Stunned, Jackson froze. His father's hands jumped to his throat. Air whistled from Jackson's lips. He broke out of his shock and grabbed at his father's hands, trying vainly to pull them from his throat.
"He told me he's coming for you Jackson, but I'd rather bring you with me. Just let me do this and we'll teach him a lesson he'll never forget, getting into my business like that," cackled Sam Lewis.
No man on earth had hands as strong as the dying Sam Lewis, Jackson was sure of it. He punched and tore at those hands, trying to suck a mouthful of air into his tortured lungs. His consciousness began to fade, his eyesight becoming vivid and bright for a brief second before going fuzzy. His last clear sight was of the old man's eyes, brightly focused on him. Then everything became nothing. His struggles became less frantic as his strength slipped away; the tightness in his chest reaching an unbelievable pitch before going numb. He relaxed and felt the sudden peace of unconsciousness drawing over him. Senses relaxed, his being floated, and then, unmercilessly, he was yanked back to the wretchedness of pain and the heavy physical weight of his body was a part of him again. He was alive, rolling on his side, coughing in fits, and he didn't know what could ever feel worse.
"The Lord will forgive me for this, for I am a servant of the Lord."
Jackson looked toward the sound of his father's voice. The old man had somehow gotten to his feet and found the rifle. Moonlight shined dully off the metal barrel as it swung toward Jackson. Jackson's eyes narrowed and he strained to speak, his voice ragged and wheezing.
"You're going straight to hell, you son of a bitch."
"It's time for both of us to leave this world son."
The rifle in the old man's hands began to shake; slightly at first, and then with a wild tremor. A deafening roar and a blast of fire came from the end of the rifle. Jackson could feel the heat from the blast. The bullet sang past the top of his head. Blood drummed in his temples, mixing with the ringing in his ears from the rifle's blast. He tensed to jump toward his father and then held himself in check. The old man collapsed, dead with the rifle still smoking in his hands.
Getting to his feet, shaking all over, Jackson took a step toward the crumpled figure. Had to run. Had to get out of here. Going to the state prison for murder, manslaughter, or whatever else the state would pin on him wasn't an option he was even willing to contemplate. He'd seen what a supposedly God-fearing man like his father could do. He wasn't about to see what the run-of-the-mill prison rabble were capable of.
Gravel crunched under his feet as he ran out of the barn. He stopped and saw the silhouette of his motorcycle, parked far down the driveway in the grass behind the mailbox. He lowered his head and ran in a dead sprint toward it, an image of himself and Tina on the bike invading his thoughts. God, had it been only hours ago that she'd been sitting behind him as they coasted silently behind the mail
box? He remembered not wanting to ride into the driveway and risk waking his father. Damn lot of good that did. An aching hole opened up around his heart. He stumbled and caught himself as he ran, holding back a sob. Fucking crazy father. God damned lunatic. Why had he done this? And who was this man all dressed in black that was supposed to be coming for him? He bit his lip. Ahh hell, tell the truth - who was this man in black that was coming for him. What had he done to deserve this?
He ran into the circle of light cast out on the driveway from the porch. He tried to stop running, gravel sliding under one of his bootheels, and caught himself on one hand to keep from falling. He'd almost forgotten. There was something inside the house he needed. Something in there he never wanted to forget.
He pounded up the wooden stairs to his bedroom, face hot from running, the sweat stinging his eyes and making it hard to see in the dark. He wiped the back of his hand over his eyes as he reached the top of the steps and moved down the hall, turning into his room. Still dark as hell, but he knew where to look.
Pulling open the top drawer of his dresser, he reached in under the socks and fished his hand around. There it was. Cold and hard. He held it in his hand and pressed it into his flesh, his grip whitening his knuckles. It was a beautiful thing, a bighorn ram's head etched onto weathered brass - his father's favorite belt buckle made special by a metalsmith in town. It broke off the old man's belt (that wicked slap across the back of the legs, that's when it happened) during a beating the old man tried to hand out to him a couple years back. That was the last time his father had tried getting physical with him before tonight, and the most memorable for the sheer violence of it. He stood frozen in the dark, remembering how he'd bloodied the old man's face and beat him down after the first couple licks from this belt buckle had caught him by surprise and sent bullets of pain through is back. How he'd picked this buckle up from where it had slid under his bed after the old man ran out of this very room. His chest was tight and he realized he hadn't been breathing. He exhaled hard, catching his breath. He relaxed his grip on the buckle and began walking out of the room. Kids that were beaten and abused were supposed to never be able to trust anyone. They were supposed to become abusers themselves.