The Hunters Series Box Set

by Glenn Trust

  “End?” He looked into her eyes.

  “End,” she said, nodding her head, biting her trembling lip. “We can’t go on like this, no matter how much we care for each other. It will end. I won’t have to walk out. It will just end, the way everything does when it’s used up.” She stood. “Don’t let us be used up by this.”

  She rose and walked from the kitchen. There was nothing more to say…nothing more she could do. Whatever else had to be done, George would have to do it…alone.

  He sat back in the old chair that had been Fel Tobin’s, wondering what Fel would be saying if he were there. Taking Sharon’s side most likely, he thought. He surely would not have not tolerated self-pity.

  He could hear the old man’s voice playing in his head as he had a thousand times in life. “Get it done, George.”

  He sighed. “All right old man.”

  17. The Dreams Came

  Outside, the decay and decomposition of the spotted dog’s carcass had begun. Bluebottle flies swarmed around it, working their way into the bullet wounds in the dog’s head and body orifices to lay their maggot eggs. The air around the trailer was tainted with the stench of putrefaction. It didn’t take long in the heat and humidity of a south Georgia summer.

  Inside, Carl Stinson sprawled on a threadbare sofa, stained with beer and the stale, moldy filth of three dirty men sharing close quarters. The air in the trailer was only marginally less putrid than that by the front porch. Sweat, rotting food, unwashed dishes, the yellow residue from decades of cigarette smoke added their odors. Scattered beer bottles, some empty some spilled, some still holding the warm remains of their contents evaporating slowly into the humid air, contributed to the stench, creating a cocktail of disagreeable smells.

  Carl turned restlessly in his sleep, pulling his shirt open, ripping off buttons in the process, desperately seeking relief from the heat. A fan placed on an old milk crate beside the sofa droned on high speed. He turned on his side towards it, letting the stale breeze dry the sweat on his face and chest.

  Once, he rose to relieve himself. Stumbling to the front door, he pulled it open and stepped onto the crumbling porch. Standing on the top step, he opened his fly and exposed himself, prepared to take a piss where he always did…on the spotted dog. He let loose his stream, holding himself with one hand, leaning back in relief.

  “Shit!” His nose wrinkled in disgust as the pee splashed onto the dog’s remains and the ground. The odor of decay mixed with urine was overpowering. Swarms of flies lifted, buzzing angrily around his head annoyed at the interruption to their feast and mating.

  “Goddamnit!”

  Holding himself, he stopped the flow, dripping piss over his hand, and walked back into the trailer, slamming the door behind him. His penis clenched in his hand to stem the flow, he went to the back door, dribbling pee as he shuffled through the trailer.

  There was no porch there. He let loose the urine stream from the doorway where it splashed to the ground five feet below, disappearing into the weeds and grass that grew almost to the doorsill. When his bladder had been drained, he stuffed his privates back in his pants and sniffed the air.

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “Fucking dog stinks like shit back here too.” He slammed the door shut. “Fuck the dog. Fuck Albert and that little pussy, Bain. Fuck ‘em all. It ain’t my dog. They can bury it…or not…when they get their asses back from their whorin’ trip to Savannah.”

  He shuffled barefoot back to the sofa, avoiding beer bottle caps scattered like a minefield across the floor. Lowering himself heavily to the couch, he wiped his hand still wet with piss, on his pants and lifted a half-empty bottle from the floor. He held it tentatively to his lips for a second, then took a sip, made a face and downed the remainder of the stale beer.

  He fell back on the dank sofa cushions. The fan droned inside. The flies buzzed outside.

  Carl drifted into an alcoholic torpor, sinking lower and deeper until eventually he slept. When he did, the dreams came.

  18. The Monsters He Created

  1974…A trip to the backcountry of South Georgia…

  “Don’t you try to run you bitch!”

  The screen door spring squealed and JoLyn Stinson almost made her escape, but not quite. The door slammed shut again. Clyde jerked her arm pulling her back into the house. The sound of fists striking flesh and bone was followed by shrieks of pain.

  “Daddy’s givin’ it to her good.” Albert sat on the bottom porch step.

  “Yeah.” Carl grinned. “You hear what he called her…bitch.”

  “Hell, he’s said worse than that.”

  “Still…bitch. That’s something.” Carl chuckled. “Mama’s a bitch. What you think about that, Bain?”

  The youngest brother sat cross-legged in the red dirt scratching designs in the clay with a rock. He shrugged. “I dunno. What’s it mean?” He looked up at his older brothers.

  “You don’t know what bitch means?” Albert laughed.

  “So?” Bain went back to scratching in the dirt.

  Footsteps reverberated through the floorboards out onto the porch and Carl laughed. “She’s tryin’ to get away. Goin’ out the back door this time.”

  “Yeah.” Albert nodded agreeing with his brother’s assessment.

  “You fuckin’ cunt. I’ll teach you a lesson you ain’t gonna forget!”

  Carl looked at Albert. “What’s that mean? Cunt?”

  “Damned if I know. That’s a new one I ain’t ever heard.” He shook his head and chuckled. “Pretty sure it ain’t good though.”

  Carl laughed more loudly and said it again. “Cunt! That’s what Daddy called Mama…cunt. Yeah, that can’t be good.”

  The sound of another bone-crushing blow was heard on the porch, followed by a thud as JoLyn hit the floor, unconscious. A minute later, the screen door opened and Clyde emerged dragging his wife by one arm.

  “Get in the truck,” he said to his sons as he dragged their mother, unconscious down the steps.

  The boys jumped up and piled into the bed of the old GMC pickup.

  “Where we goin’?” Albert asked as he climbed over the tailgate.

  “You’ll see. Gonna teach your Mama a lesson.” He turned to them as he stuffed JoLyn, limp-bodied, into the passenger seat. “Mind what I say tonight. You’re gonna get a lesson too.”

  “Yes sir.” The boys spoke in unison.

  The ride into the back woods took thirty minutes. As they jostled in the bed of the truck, the night came on under the tree canopy until they were surrounded by black. They stood, leaning their arms on the roof of the truck cab, peering into the cone of light thrown out by the headlights.

  Clyde stayed on dirt roads, turning down one after another until the road was no more than a trail in the woods and then no trail at all, just the woods. They were enclosed by trees and brush on all sides. Clyde slowed and inched forward. Finally, when the thickets and briars snagged at the fenders and tangled themselves in the wheels, the brakes squealed and he brought the truck to a stop.

  JoLyn turned her bruised face to her husband. One eye was swollen shut. Blood trickled from the side of her mouth and coated her teeth. A brown-red stain covered her face and blouse.

  “Where are we?” she whispered, barely able to speak.

  “You’ll see. Get your ass out.”

  Clyde opened his door, leaning against it pushing the brush away so that he could step out. He looked into the truck bed at the boys, standing, eyeing their father, curiosity on their young faces.

  The ability to read their father’s moods had been a matter of survival for them all the years of their short lives. Tonight, they sensed they were safe. Clyde’s anger was focused on their mother, although they weren’t sure why or what crime she had committed that required them to come out into the woods at night to witness her punishment.

  The passenger door opened and JoLyn fell out into a tangle of briars, whimpering in pain.

  “Get your mother on her feet and
follow me.”

  “Aw Daddy, there might be snakes in them briars.”

  Clyde reached over the side of the truck and grabbed Albert by the shirt, dragging him close until they were face to face. “You wanna argue with me boy?”

  “N-no sir.”

  Clyde threw him back into his brothers. “Do like I say. Get her and follow me.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The boys jumped down into the thicket and worked their way to the front where their mother lay in the briars, powerless to move.

  “Thought you was gonna piss your pants,” Carl said to his older brother, laughing.

  “Shut up or I’ll pound you one.”

  “Yeah, feelin’ all high and mighty, arguin’ with Daddy like that.” Carl laughed again. “He looked like he was gonna piss his pants, didn’t he Bain?”

  “Yeah…piss his pants,” Bain said following Carl’s lead. “Ow! What’d you do that for?” He rubbed his arm where Albert had landed a punch on his bicep.

  “Shut up or there’ll be more of those,” Albert snarled.

  Carl laughed. “He hit you ‘cause he’s mad at me, but he didn’t figure to hit me ‘cause I might hit back.”

  “Stop yappin’ or I’ll come over there and whip all your asses.” Clyde shined a flashlight on the boys and moved the glow so that it showed them where their mother lay in the briars. “Get a move on!”

  Albert and Carl supported JoLyn, each holding her under a shoulder. They moved her along as quickly as they could so as not to incur any further threats of ass whippings from their father.

  The boys were mostly indifferent to their mother’s injuries. It wasn’t the first time Daddy beat her and sure as hell wouldn’t be the last, if they knew Daddy. Besides, she must have deserved it. After all, he had called her a bitch and that other word…the new one…cunt.

  Shining the light into the brush, Clyde led them until they came to a small clearing. They stepped into it, pushing their way through the last of the thicket.

  Albert and Carl stopped in their tracks, letting go of their mother’s arms. Bain bumped into them from behind. JoLyn fell to the ground. When she looked up, her head moved slowly back and forth.

  “No,” she whispered, her voice almost drowned out by the crickets and frogs chirping in the night. “No…don’t.”

  Clyde stepped to a tree ten feet away on the other side of the clearing. The boys stepped closer, circling behind their father, trying to see what would happen. JoLyn’s face fell to the ground, her head moving side to side, as she continued her pleas.

  “No…Clyde…please…no.”

  “Shut up bitch.”

  Flashlight in one hand, he reached out and lifted the chin of a young man, bound by rope and a heavy chain to a pine. He didn’t appear to be more than twenty or so. Face bloodied, clothes torn, he looked as if he had been tied to the tree for days.

  “Who is that, Daddy?” Carl moved closer, venturing the question.

  “Just watch.” Clyde took the man by the hair and raised his face, shining the light into his eyes with the other hand. “You still alive, boy?”

  The young man nodded feebly. His name was Will Tandy. The boys recognized him from high school and from the market in Everett where he bagged groceries.

  “Good, good. Need you alive to teach a lesson here.”

  Tandy shook his head. “No…please…no. I didn’t…” The words came out a dry, rasping croak.

  “The fuck you didn’t! I seen you.” Clyde’s head snapped around, eyes glaring at JoLyn still prostrate on the other side of the clearing. “Seen you with her.”

  “Clyde, please!” JoLyn pushed herself up, pleading with her husband. “Please! He didn’t do anything. We didn’t do anything!”

  “Bullshit!” Clyde turned back to Will Tandy. “I seen you. Talkin’ to her…touching her hand, helpin’ her with the sacks of groceries.” He sneered. “I’ll bet that ain’t all you helped her with.”

  “You’re crazy,” Tandy whispered through swollen lips, shaking his head in protest.

  Clyde's fist flashed out catching the young man in the side of the face, snapping his head back against the tree.

  “Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that.” He leaned in close to his prisoner. “I seen her sittin’ with you at the lunch counter. Saw her in a car with you. You took her out somewhere. What was that all about? You tellin’ me that was nothin’?”

  Tandy shook his head feebly. “Nothing…it was nothing. We went for a ride. We talked.”

  “Clyde! We was just talkin’…just talkin’.” JoLyn lowered her head sobbing. “Just talkin’ is all. I ain’t got nobody to talk to. He bought me a Coke and we went off and talked…that’s all…just talked.”

  “Gonna teach you a lesson, boy. You mess with another man’s wife…you pay the price.”

  Will Tandy shook his head. “I swear. There wasn’t anything.”

  Riveted, the boys watched the spectacle. Albert’s eyes blazed with intensity. Carl’s were narrowed in deep concentration, observing everything, waiting for what his father would do next. Bain trembled, head lowered, sneaking a peek at the battered man from time to time, and then dropping his eyes again.

  Clyde turned to his sons.

  “A man cheats on you with a woman…your woman…he takes your manhood away. You don’t never let that happen. You understand?”

  The boys nodded.

  “Not ever.”

  It happened so fast, so simply, without further elaboration or comment, that the boys jumped, startled. Clyde turned back to the tree and Will Tandy, sliding the small .38 pistol from his pocket. From two feet away he pointed it at the young man’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

  When the crash of the shot had faded, Bain’s sobs could be heard along with his mother’s. He stood trembling behind his brothers.

  “Shit!” The exclamation was Albert’s only reaction.

  Carl stepped in closer, examining the round hole in the man’s forehead. “Son of a bitch.”

  Clyde returned the .38 to his pocket and pulled out a pocketknife. Without speaking, he cut the ropes and loosened the chains that bound Wills to the tree, letting the body fall to the ground.

  When he had finished, he turned and backhanded Bain, knocking him to the ground. “Shut up! Stop cryin’ like a little girl.” He reached down and jerked the boy up by the shirt, pulling him close to his face. “What you seen here, you remember.” He turned to the two older boys. “You hear me! You never talk about it, but goddamnit, you remember. No one takes anything from a Stinson. You don’t let nobody take your manhood. If they do, they pay the price. You understand?”

  “Yes sir.” Three heads bobbed up and down, emphasizing their comprehension of the lesson they had received.

  Clyde turned and walked to the edge of the clearing.

  “What about him?” Albert asked pointing at the body of young Will Tandy.

  “Leave him. Won’t nobody find him out here…food for the possums and gators. Won’t be nothin’ left in a week.”

  “What about Mama?”

  “Drag her.” With that, Clyde turned, leading the way into the dark.

  The older boys followed dragging their mother. Bain brought up the rear, stumbling and hurrying, afraid he would be left behind in the dark, with a dead man nearby. He worked hard at stifling the sobs that threatened to escape from his throat, choked shut by terror.

  A good bit of turmoil erupted in the county over the disappearance of Will Tandy. When he did not return home, his parents thought he was out, spending the night with his girlfriend. Belinda Souter. It was to be expected.

  Will had signed the enlistment papers to enter the Marine Corps. He and Belinda had been planning to be married anyway. If they wanted some time together before he went off to basic training and got shipped to Vietnam to fight for his country, then so be it. Bible belt or not, the Tandys were understanding parents. They were also somewhat more broad-minded in their thinking than some of their m
ore fundamentalist neighbors, who raised eyebrows at the idea of young Will and Belinda out together all night long.

  When he did not return home the following day or show up for work at the market, Mr. and Mrs. Tandy became concerned. The sheriff’s department began a countywide search for the young man. Belinda and the Tandys tramped through the woods in places they knew Will liked to hunt and fish. Deputies canvassed neighborhoods and outlying areas.

  Percy Swain, accompanied by another deputy, stopped by the Stinson place to see if anyone had seen Will Tandy. Clyde sat on the porch, shotgun in his lap, told them he hadn’t seen anyone and didn’t know Will Tandy, then told them to get the hell off his property. The boys looked on in silence, laughing about the way Daddy handled the deputies when they had departed.

  It turned out that Clyde had chosen the spot for his lesson on manhood well. Search parties never came close to the little clearing in the woods, near the swamp. Will Tandy disappeared utterly, his flesh devoured and his bones dragged off by gators and smaller scavengers.

  In time, even his clothing molded and deteriorated in the heat and humidity so that the odds of anyone ever finding a trace of his remains were reduced to zero. The place where he paid the price for talking to a lonely, abused woman and buying her a Coke would remain unknown.

  Each year Will’s parents and Belinda laid a wreath at a fishing hole that had been his favorite. It was the best they could do to remember him, and it was miles from the spot where Clyde had given Will his final lesson.

  From that day on, JoLyn Stinson was not seen around the county or anywhere else. She spent the next five years in the little shack in the country, a prisoner. When she caught the flu in the winter of 1979, brought home from school by one of the boys, she laid in bed for a week, while it turned into pneumonia. After another week, she was dead.

  The boys played out in the yard when the deputies and coroner came for the body. Clyde had gone into town and notified them only to make things legal. No one ever claimed JoLyn’s body and there was no funeral. After a period of time, the county buried her in a pauper’s grave marked by a number in the same part of the cemetery where they buried prisoners who died in jail. The boys never knew what number the grave was and never asked.