The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs

by Michael Ciardi

The crow atop the chimney of Cora Hart’s home still perched forebodingly in place, emitting its grating caw into a sky layered with clouds as silver as the loonie in my pocket. For the most part, my concentration remained adhered to Rachel. Her warmth soothed the chill from my bones, permitting me to rejoice in the rapture of our reestablished bond. Too often in life I’ve shunned the people closest to me. This sort of self-righteousness caused a darkness to shroud my judgment, and eventually spawned a sense of futility. Until now, the recovery of my misspent moments didn’t seem feasible. But with the tangible evidence of unguarded emotion set against my skin in the form of my wife’s touch, I began the process of exorcizing myself of past burdens.

  Men who walked without malice should’ve been afforded with such instances of gratitude everyday. I had earned the privilege to savor whatever time I had left on this particular outing. Nothing satisfied me more fully than the sound of Rachel’s rapid heartbeat striking against my chest. The cruelty pervading in the crevices of this town certainly replicated like an untreated cancer for most of today, but a curative air of bliss set all the malignant cells of deceit into remission. I was now ready to move forward with my beloved wife to confront the challenges of the next sunrise.

  The crow’s repetitious cawing distracted me again, but it was another sound of unwelcome origin that summoned my attention to the corner of the yard. At first, I discerned a shadow of a man that I assumed must’ve been the custodian. Rachel saw him, too, and she flinched as this figure started across the lawn directly toward us. She instinctively pulled away from me, so that we both had an opportunity to assess the intruder. The perplexity deepening in Rachel’s eyes verified that she didn’t recognize the man. As I glanced across the twenty paces separating us, I couldn’t claim the same degree of ignorance. It was not, as I initially surmised, the custodian. Immediately upon identifying this visitor, I knew that something was afoul.

  “Shawn Winger,” I announced nearly under my breath, but my wife heard me clearly.

  “Who is Shawn Winger?” she asked cautiously, mimicking the pitch of my voice.

  Perhaps I neglected to mention Ravendale High School’s hotshot educator, whom everyone (until this afternoon) worshipped like a messiah. I figured he must’ve come up in conversation between us at least once before now, but Rachel probably wasn’t listening. Of course, now wasn’t an appropriate moment to recite the disgruntled teacher’s resume with her. Shawn Winger appeared visibly inebriated. His eyes looked as vacant as pale marbles, and his boyish sheen appeared tarnished by wicked contemplations.

  As Shawn lurched toward us, it was as though his pockets and shoes were weighted with stones. He nearly dragged his feet through the wet grass. Rachel seemed especially unnerved by his mannerisms. “Who is this guy?” Rachel asked anxiously. “He looks drunk.”

  Shawn was close enough to hear Rachel and he grinned disingenuously at her observation. “Why don’t you tell your wife who I am, Corbin? Or is it that you don’t want her to know about the people you’ve screwed over?”

  “I didn’t do anything to you, Shawn. Whatever has gone wrong in your life is your own fault, not mine. I’d like for you get off my property now.” My insistence didn’t sway Shawn to budge a centimeter from his defiant stance. If anything, he looked as though he had braced himself for a confrontation that he had no intention of retreating from. Rachel sensed his aggressiveness, but I didn’t want to explain the source of it to her now.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your wife?” Shawn chuckled.

  “This isn’t a good time for us to talk,” I told him. “You’ve been drinking, and you need to go home and get sober.”

  “Home?” he cackled like a deviant clown. “Do you really think I still have a place to call home after what you did to me? Do you know where Desiree Meadows is at this very second? The police are parked in front of her house. Before too long, I expect them to be paying me a visit. So now you know why I can’t just go home and hug my wife in the middle of the yard. Besides, I’m guessing that Jill isn’t exactly in a touchy-feely mood right now, wouldn’t you say?”

  If Shawn aimed to earn any sympathy from me, he obviously picked a bad day to target my direction. Despite the legal consequences that awaited him, I harbored no guilt for undermining his predatory behavior with a minor. Of course, I couldn’t dismiss the current situation’s precariousness either. The alcohol Shawn consumed had altered his behavior considerably, and I barely even recognized him as the archetype for pedagogical elegance. If I planned to do anything in order to diffuse his animosity, it had to be approached deftly.

  “Whatever happens next for you,” I said passively, “I’m sure it’ll be for the best later on.”

  “Shut up, Corbin,” he hissed. “Do you really think it’s going to be that easy?”

  “No, I don’t. In fact, I know you’ll have a struggle ahead of you.” Rachel must’ve been confused by this exchange between Shawn and I. Since I had no way of gauging what Shawn might’ve done next, I resorted to a defensive measure in order to protect my wife. “Rach, why don’t you go inside now?” I urged her. “I need to speak to Shawn alone.”

  “Hold on, Corb,” she resisted. “I want to know what this guy is talking about.”

  “Go on and tell her,” Shawn interjected with a mocking grin. “Explain to your wife what you’ve done to destroy another man’s family.”

  “What is he talking about?” Rachel questioned. By now it was clear that she didn’t intend on following my orders unless I provided some clarification.

  “I work with him,” I revealed to her. “He’s an English teacher at the high school.” Rachel scanned the man with a stunned expression; the crazed glare plastered on Shawn’s face didn’t suggest he ever held a job remotely connected to education.

  “Do you know what he’s talking about?” Rachel asked me.

  “I know why he’s here,” I replied, sedately. My attention hadn’t shifted away from Shawn since he first entered my front yard. When he wobbled a few steps closer to the walkway, I stepped in front of Rachel and assumed a posture intended to intimidate him. Of course, the likelihood that my weakened stature served as a deterrent to someone who displayed muscles as most flaunted flab seemed implausible. Despite my obvious disadvantage, I now presumed that Shawn didn’t plan on departing voluntarily. After I demanded that Rachel go inside our house for a second time, my focus bent toward him again.

  “I don’t know what you expected me to do,” I said to him. “As a friend, I gave you advice, but you ignored me.”

  “A friend? Is that how you define friendship? I trusted you to keep your mouth shut, but you must’ve been salivating all day over my juicy tale. After all, this was your big opportunity to knock Ravendale’s best teacher off his pedestal. I was stupid for confiding in you, but you were all I had at the moment.”

  It was still puzzling to think that Shawn Winger selected me as a mediator to his conscience. By his own word, few teachers had merited more respect than him over the course of their careers. Surely, he must’ve known someone trust worthier than me to confide in. But I had little hope to debate logic with him now. The longer he remained fixated in my company, the more of a threat he became to everyone around him.

  “You still have a chance to fix this situation,” I reminded him, although I was not truly convinced this was still possible.

  “Stop patronizing me,” he seethed. He then narrowed his eyes and slurred, “My life is over. You’ve cost me my career, my wife, my family, and a spotless reputation. How could you just stand there glibly and say that I can repair what you’ve so thoroughly dismantled? Do you even care about what you’ve done?”

  At the moment, all I really cared about was getting Rachel away from this man. But she was adamantly standing next to me, and showed no reluctance in expressing her feelings. “Look, Mr. Winger,” she challenged him. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but my husband politely asked you to leave. I’d like for you to listen to him, otherw
ise I’m going to call the police.”

  Shawn didn’t feel obligated to restrain his amusement at the sound of such an admonition. He chortled openly in Rachel’s face, and then his feigned mirth transformed into something frighteningly savage. This action caused both Rachel and I to freeze in our places. From an interior pocket of his suit coat, he unveiled a small caliber handgun that looked remarkably similar to the one I tossed beside the walkway a few minutes earlier. It, of course, was a different weapon in his clutches, but I imagined no less lethal. I almost dropped my journal while he aimed it directly at my chest.

  “What’s the matter, Corbin?” he asked whimsically. “You look like you’ve never seen a man holding a gun before.”

  After observing the wielded gun, Rachel forwarded a screech that might’ve been heard by the neighbors two blocks away. I kept my body in front of her, while simultaneously maintaining my composure. “Shawn,” I uttered soothingly. “I know you’re upset right now, but think about what you’re doing.”

  “You’re not calling the shots anymore!” he bellowed. “The way I see it, I’ll be the one doing the shooting from here on out.”

  “No one else needs to get hurt today,” I pleaded. “Just don’t do anything rash. A gun won’t solve this problem for us. Just put the weapon down and let’s talk things over.”

  “Shut up! I didn’t come here to negotiate with you. We’re already way beyond that point,” said Shawn, scornfully.

  “What do you want to do, Shawn?” I asked.

  He waved the revolver in front of himself like a kid manipulating a toy, but there was nothing childlike about the abhorrence undulating in his eyes like a black wave. “I’m going to do what’s fair,” he fumed. “As I see it, you’ve turned me into a walking dead man. It’s time that I repay you for that deed.”

  Until a few minutes ago, I never pictured Shawn as a violent man, but my assessment of his true motivations was replete with contradictions since this morning. I even thought about lunging toward the ground to retrieve the weapon I foolishly deposited in the grass, but by doing so I’d leave Rachel susceptible to an impulsive assault. My primary objective was to look out for her welfare. Therefore, I was forced to hold my position. If Shawn planned to shoot me, then any abrupt movement on my behalf would’ve certainly hastened his decision.

  “I know you think I’ve intentionally hurt you, Shawn,” I proceeded, “but if you let my wife go inside, I think we can handle this situation ourselves.”

  “She’s not going anywhere,” he gritted rebelliously. “I really want her to watch you die, Corbin, just as my wife will watch me do so later on.”

  “Please don’t kill my husband,” Rachel sobbed. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Begging won’t help his case,” Shawn assured my wife. “A long time ago, my father taught me how to deal with cowards like Corbin Cobbs. People like him don’t stop gossiping until a shovel of dirt gets tossed over their coffins.”

  “I just wanted to help you,” I said, but Shawn had ceased to listen to anyone other than a sinister voice in his mind that demanded retribution. In an instant that played out in slow motion within my mind, Shawn’s hand stopped shaking as he aimed his weapon at me again. Not more than six feet separated me from the gun’s barrel. I instinctively closed my eyes, knowing what awaited me. The caw of the crow reverberated alongside an alarming BANG that crackled the air. I braced for the bullet’s hot puncture, but as my eyes reopened, I felt no trace of pain. A second or two passed, and then before I realized what had occurred, I noticed my wife standing in front of me, her eyes glazed with confusion as she leaned against my torso.

  “Rachel?” My frantic question was simply a reflex. I grabbed her waist with my hand, but her legs already grew as limp as wilted grass. In a single moment of selflessness, she had apparently swung her body around mine to shield me from the oncoming bullet. A warm fluid gushed over my fingers, and the light of her beautiful eyes dimmed like the sky in twilight’s last minutes. This couldn’t be happening. But the flow of life’s fluid pouring from the center of my wife’s back told of the bleak reality.

  “C…Corb,” she gasped. “I’m…shot.” My eyes rounded with fear as I watched a trickle of blood spurt from the corner of her lips. It oozed beyond her jaw line to form a creek of gore across her collarbone that eventually spilled through the cleavage of her chest. I held her closely against me, as if to reverse the bullet’s deadly trajectory, but it was too late. Her blood rained beneath our entangled feet, splattering over her bare toes and filling the voids in the walkway’s splintered joints. I cried her name aloud again, but she couldn’t respond. Her lips remained parted, and a combined look of agony and disbelief welded into her expression.

  What have I done? Why did I permit her to jump in front of me? As my mind fluttered with unknowable scenarios, I tried desperately to save Rachel. I pressed on her wound, trying to stop the surge of blood, but it was to no avail. Her body grew heavier in my arms as we collapsed together like a house of broken twigs onto the bluestone. “Please don’t die,” I implored her, but my words were matched by the crow’s unremitting call. Rachel exhaled choppy breaths, each one shorter than the previous, and yet she still gazed at me with an expectation of forgiveness.

  “Oh, god,” my voice trembled. By now, I tilted my head toward the gray heavens, and as I did so, a band of sunlight skimmed through the clouds’ silver creases. “Don’t let her die…please!” If anyone listened to my frantic prayer other than the assailant, I didn’t seem to know. It was all I could do to assist the woman I loved, but it wasn’t enough. My only response came in the form of a corvine bird perched atop Cora Hart’s chimney. Caw. Caw. Caw.

  I glanced down at Rachel’s quivering, wan face. Sweat and blood replaced the makeup that once painted a flawless complexion. My journal was still pressed between us, its pages now soaked in the ink of Rachel’s ebbing life. As she became less stable, I cushioned her head on my lap, and entwined her fingers with my own. In the meantime, as my awareness of this horror delivered me back into the crisis at hand, I realized that I hadn’t heard a second shot. Why hadn’t Shawn fired another round and fulfilled his misguided mission? I fully expected, and perhaps even wanted him to do it, but he simply stood motionless with the smoking sidearm lowered next to his hip.

  “Damn you,” I screamed. “You shot my wife! Why did you have to do it?”

  For a moment, Shawn offered no audible response. His expression seemed as petrified as Rachel’s, albeit it for conflicting reasons. Then, in a pensive voice that sounded more like the young, outstanding man I mentored during his first year of teaching, he sputtered, “S…she jumped in the w…way. I didn’t mean to shoot her.”

  I raised both of my saturated hands to show him that no portion of untainted flesh remained. Rachel still convulsed on my knees, fighting against an opponent that had no compassion. My eyes returned to hers for a second, and then she used whatever remained of her retreating strength to tell me what I already knew a long time ago. “I…I wanted to save you, C…Corbin.”

  Beyond the utterance of those words, Rachel said nothing else. Her grip loosened, and those girlish eyes that I adored from the first moment we exchanged glances soon faded into the quietness of eternal darkness. Before I fully contemplated the finality of her life, my venomous glare returned to Shawn Winger.

  “Now you must finish what you came here to do,” I instructed him tonelessly. “It doesn’t matter to me anymore.” As I directed those words toward him, the filtered sunlight reflected off the other gun still lying in the grass beside the walkway. It was three feet away from where I knelt in a puddle of blood on the bluestone.

  “That bullet was meant for you, Corbin,” Shawn grimaced. “But it’s your wife’s own fault. She shouldn’t have loved you so much. Don’t worry, though, you’ll be joining her very soon.” He then raised the weapon again, this time pointing it more deliberately at my head. His finger squeezed the gun’s trigger and a subsequent blast sent the cr
ow fluttering from the chimney top. I didn’t expect to feel any pain at first, as my adrenaline would’ve surely prevented it. But, strangely, the bullet made no impact at all with my flesh. There was no time for me to wonder if Shawn’s gun had misfired. Instead of waiting for my execution, I reacted instinctively.

  I leapfrogged across the bluestone, and in the process separated myself from Rachel’s lifeless body. In one fluid movement, my hand reached into the tall fescue beside the walkway and clutched the discarded handgun. Shawn squeezed his gun’s trigger three times, but his futile effort to kill me only produced a hollow series of clicks from his weapon’s empty chamber. I didn’t know if there was another bullet in his gun or not, but there was no time for me to ponder such a possibility. Instead, I rolled onto my backside and swung the firearm in Shawn’s direction.

  Although I had never fired a revolver at a living target before, much less another human being, my marksmanship under pressure proved amazingly precise. A spontaneous twitch in my finger released a single shot from the weapon, and the bullet meant for Drew Mincer found another mark in the throat of the man who killed my wife. A gash opened just beneath Shawn’s windpipe, and it was more than enough to shred his tissue and send him reeling backwards onto the lawn. He didn’t speak a word; his face was etched in shock and panic. Blood as ripe as crushed wild berries spewed from his wound like an open hydrant; it bubbled under his collar as he labored to inhale a breath of air that would not come again.

  Before he even stopped twitching on the grass, my attention returned to Rachel. I pressed my ear against her chest, trying frantically to listen for a heartbeat that was no longer present. I pushed on her torso repeatedly, but produced nothing but the last traces of air expelling from her lungs. A numb sensation suddenly overwhelmed me. Not surprisingly, I was too weak to lift my head off Rachel’s breast. As my eyes blurred with tears and dizziness, I watched the same crow return to the chimney of Cora Hart’s house. This ominous bird seemed to wait for me to fade into another spell. It felt like my final retreat from reality.

  Chapter 71

  5:59 P.M.