Blood Feud

by David Robbins

  “He just holds more of it in than I do. Maybe one day he’ll let it out and then you’ll see.”

  Scarlet turned in her chair. “Ma, do you have any idea what she is talking about?”

  “I think I do,” Erna said thoughtfully. “Twins are special. Your father and I were so happy when—” She stopped and grew downcast. “God, I wish he was here now. I wish he never went to see Ezriah Harkey.”

  The door opened with a crash and all three of them jumped. Jed walked in and snorted in amusement.“Sorry, ladies. I reckon I don’t know my own strength.” He carefully closed it and came over to the table, moving as if he were on the pitching deck of a storm-tossed ship. Pulling out a chair, he sank down and placed his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. “Miss me?”

  “My God, no,” Erna said.

  “Excuse me?” Jed replied.

  “You’re drunk.”

  “I am not.”

  “Don’t sit there and lie to my face. I know drunk when I see it and you have been hitting a bottle.”

  Jed straightened and squared his shoulders. “It was only half a bottle, I’ll have you know, by way of a flask.”

  “You admit it?”

  “I’m not ashamed of a nip now and then. They lighten my day, and Lord knows, some days need lightening.”

  Erna placed her knitting in her lap and frowned severely. “Jedediah Shannon, you ought to know better. I won’t have this, not under my roof. You want to drink, you can just go home and guzzle.”

  “I can’t leave even if I wanted to, which I don’t.” Jed reached across and patted Cassie’s hand. “I have my granddaughters to think of.”

  “It’s them I’m concerned about,” Erna said. “I won’t have them see you like this.”

  “Like what? You make it sound as if I am falling-down drunk. I’ll have you know my head is clear as can be.” Jed held up several fingers. “How many do you see?”

  “Three.”

  “There. See?” Jed chuckled and put his chin back in his hands. “So, what’s for supper?”

  Cassie laughed. He was a hoot. Her mother, though, had that look she got when she was on the verge of throwing a fit.

  “Jedediah, I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. I don’t want you here in that condition. Go off somewhere until it wears off and then come back.”

  “Daughter-in-law, you’re casting me out?”

  “I am.”

  “Please, Ma,” Cassie intervened. “Don’t make him go. Can’t we get some coffee into him?” She recollected her pa saying once that coffee helped after a man had too much to drink.

  “I don’t hold with liquor, girl,” Erna said. “I don’t hold with it at all. It is one of mankind’s trials, a brain-child of the Tempter to lure us into wicked ways.”

  “Oh, brother,” Jed said.

  “It is,” Erna said. “And don’t you dare make light of heaven and hell. I don’t hold with skeptics, neither.”

  “Jesus drank wine,” Jed said.

  “That he did. But nowhere in the Bible does it say he drank so much he couldn’t walk straight or think straight. And he didn’t do it behind his family’s back.”

  “I was being considerate,” Jed said. “I didn’t do it in front of the girls for their sake.”

  “I thank you for that. But it doesn’t change the fact you are slurring your words. Go out to the barn and sleep it off. Come morning you should be yourself. I’ll fix you breakfast and we’ll forget this ever happened, provided you promise never to do it again.”

  Cassie said, “Why not make him sleep in the chicken coop? Punish him good.”

  “That’s enough out of you.”

  “It’s Grandpa,” Cassie said. “You can’t just throw him out.”

  “I can and I did.”

  Jed pushed back his chair and stood, unsteadily. “That’s all right, little one,” he said to Cassie. “I respect your ma even if she doesn’t respect me. I’ll go curl up with the cows. They won’t think ill of me for being human.”

  “Is that your excuse?” Erna asked.

  “I don’t need one,” Jed said. He swayed to the door and put his hand on the latch. “I’m truly sorry, Erna. It’s just that I miss my Mary so.”

  “I know,” Erna said.

  “There are days the hurt is more than I can bear.”

  “Get some sleep, Jedediah.”

  The door opened and closed, and Cassie said, “That was mean, Ma. I hope you’re happy.”

  “No, child, I’m not. I’m worried sick about your father and I’m worried sick about your brother and now I’m worried sick about your grandfather, too. God help us, but I think the Tempter is out to strike the men of our family down.”

  “Chace won’t let anything happen to him. He promised me.”

  “Let’s hope he keeps that promise, then.”

  12

  It was the afternoon of the third day.

  Chace was on the roof, flat on his belly. He had been there since dawn. A whinny alerted him that someone was coming and he raised his head high enough to see over.

  A heavyset man had drawn rein a ways out and was staring at the dead dog. Of a sudden the man yanked a shiny Henry from the saddle scabbard and smacked his pudgy legs against his sorrel. He came at a trot, staring at the cabin, and didn’t see the woman lying in the grass until he was almost on top of her. Hauling on the reins, he gaped in horror and bleated, “God in heaven, no.” He glanced all around, slid off his horse, and squatted next to the body. “Woman,” he said. “Who could have done this to you?”

  Chace rose onto his knees and shot the man where the right wrist rested on the right leg. As he expected, the slug cored the arm and the leg, both, and burst out the back, spraying the ground with blood and gore.

  The man cried out and fell back, clutching himself. The Henry fell in the grass. He was too hurt to think of grabbing for it and instead rolled back and forth in agony.

  Chace moved to the edge of the roof. He trained the Spencer on the man’s beet-red face. “When you’re done caterwauling we have to talk.”

  The man stopped rolling but it took an effort. His face was a study in concentration. Blood flowed from between the fingers he’d clamped on his wrist. The leg wound was bleeding, too, a lot worse. “Who . . . ?” he rasped, his teeth clenched against the pain.

  “The handle is Chace Shannon. I take it you’re Ezriah Harkey?”

  “It was you who killed my wife and my dog, wasn’t it, you little bastard?”

  “Don’t be casting stones,” Chace said. “Or have you so soon forgot my pa and my uncles?”

  Ezriah tried to sit up but fell back and groaned. “Goddamn you.” He uttered a string of swear words.

  “Shuck the knife on your hip,” Chace instructed.

  Ezriah Harkey glared.

  “Do it or I’ll shoot your other wrist.” Chace raised the Spencer. “Your other leg, too.”

  Reluctantly, Ezriah complied, tossing the knife well out of his reach. “Happy now?”

  “Not by a long shot.” Chace coiled and dropped. He landed lightly, the Spencer centered on the patriarch. As he unfurled, he said, “You and me have a lot to talk about, so we might as well get to it.”

  “Talk, hell. I’m bleeding to death. You need to fix me up before I’ll say a damn word.”

  “I should have thought you’d have gotten the point by now,” Chace said. He rammed the Spencer’s stock against the man’s forehead.

  Ezriah fell back and howled like a kicked hound. His curses blistered the air. When he subsided he lay panting and glaring. “If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’ll see you dead.”

  “You don’t catch on quick to things at all.” Chace picked up the Henry and leaned it against the cabin. “I’ll give you a minute to collect your wits.”

  “You damned kid,” Ezriah growled. “You think this is some game but it’s not.”

  Unruffled, Chace responded, “Where’s the game in your kinfolk raping my sister? Wher
e’s the game in you and your wife killing my pa and Uncle Granger and Uncle Fox? Where’s the game in me killing your missus? Where’s the game in the other Harkeys I’m fixing to kill?”

  “You have killing on the brain, boy,” Ezriah said. “You were lucky with me and probably lucky with Woman, but you won’t stand a prayer against the whole Harkey clan.”

  “How will they know it was me? You won’t be around to tell them.”

  “Do it and get it over with, then,” Ezriah said defiantly. “I’m not afraid to die.”

  “Because you expect it will be quick. But it won’t. Not unless you tell me what I need to find out.”

  “I won’t tell you a thing.”

  “The names of those as raped Scarlet. Their names, and where I can find them.”

  “Not on your life,” Ezriah said. “Not now, not ever.”

  “You are a puzzlement,” Chace said. “Or do you naturally bluster a lot? Try to get this through your head: You don’t have a say in anything anymore. You gave up that say when you took my pa from me. You hadn’t done that, I might have let you live.”

  “Listen to you. Talking like some big he-bear when you ain’t nothing but a cub.”

  Chace reached behind him and drew the Arkansas toothpick. He let the sun play over the blade. “I reckon there’s only one way.” Lunging, he slashed the tip across the old man’s left eye.

  Roaring and swearing, Ezriah thrashed back and forth, one hand over the socket. “What have you done, damn you?” he howled. “What in God’s name have you done?”

  Chace wiped the toothpick on the grass and slid it into his sheath. He leaned against the wall and gazed at a pair of buzzards circling high over the dead dog and the dead woman. Raising the Spencer, he sighted on the biggest, then grinned and lowered the rifle. He watched a black ant crawl out of the cabin with a piece of bread in its pinchers. He turned and looked inside at the stove and then at Ezriah Harkey, who was still tossing about and had smeared red over much of his face and clothes. “Are you about done?”

  Presently Ezriah stopped thrashing and lay still save for the twitching of his skin and jaw muscles. When he spoke his voice sounded far away. “What kind of monster are you, boy?”

  “Says the man who killed my pa.”

  “I did that to protect my clan.”

  “If that’s your excuse it’s good enough for me. You’re the head of the Harkeys. I do you in, I’m doing my own clan a favor.”

  Ezriah focused his remaining eye on Chace. “This doesn’t affect you at all, does it?”

  Chace was watching the ant. It had come to a hole and was about to go down. Another ant came out, they touched antennae, and the second ant started toward the cabin.

  “Didn’t you hear me, boy?”

  “Are you ready to tell me who jumped my sister in Harkey Hollow?”

  “Go to hell.”

  Chace took the Henry and the Spencer and went inside. He placed the Henry on the table. He poured the water from the pitchers into a pot and set the pot on the stove and kindled a flame. When he came back out, Ezriah Harkey was shakily crawling toward the discarded knife. Chace walked around him and picked it up and threw it so far it would take a month of Sundays to get to.

  “I hate you,” Ezriah said.

  “You’ll hate me a lot more before too long,” Chace predicted. He hunkered, the Spencer across his legs. “Who’s next in line to lead the Harkeys if something happens to you?”

  “Ask my wife, you son of a bitch. Oh. That’s right. You can’t since you killed her.”

  Chace shrugged. “It’s your last day of breathing. Whether you do it with dignity is up to you.”

  “What the hell do you know about dignity?” Ezriah raged. “You’re wet behind the ears yet.”

  “I know I don’t want to die like you’re going to die.”

  Ezriah had nothing to say to that.

  Chace scratched his chin and asked, “What was it like in the old days? Before the truce was agreed to?”

  “Why ask me?”

  “Because you were there. Because my grandpa won’t talk about it unless I beg, and that gets tiresome.”

  Ezriah settled back. Great weariness marked his face and his posture. “I reckon I might as well. I have nothing to lose, as short as my stay in this world is.” He put a hand over his ravaged eye and groaned. “It wasn’t nice like it has been while you were growing up. It was ugly. Harkeys killing Shannons and Shannons killing Harkeys. It got so I couldn’t turn around without hearing that someone or other had died. I got sick of it. So sick, I was happy to agree to a truce.” He stopped and groaned louder. “Talking takes a lot out of me.”

  “We’re not going anywhere.”

  “You’re a caution, boy. But as for the truce, I’d been feuding all my life, so it was hard at first not to shoot a Shannon on sight. Then I realized that if I couldn’t control my urges, how could I expect other Harkeys to?”

  “With me it’s not an urge so much as a means to an end,” Chace said. “The end is to spare the Shannons more grief, and the only way I can see is to wipe you Harkeys off the face of the earth.”

  “You alone?” Ezriah said, and uttered a mocking squeal. “That’s a tall order for someone barely old enough to shave.” He grimaced and lowered his hands. “I hope you rot in hell for this.” The eyeball was slit crosswise and a pale fluid was leaking out. When he blinked the whole eye trembled.

  “All you had to do was answer.” Chace paused. “I’ll be fair and warn you: You’re going to have more choices to make pretty soon.”

  Ezriah closed both eyes and rested his cheek on the ground. He said something.

  “I didn’t quite catch that.”

  “Do you have a shred of mercy in your soul?”

  “Not a lick,” Chace said.

  “Buck told me he was Jed’s boy. That makes you Jed’s grandson. He’s a kind man, your grandfather. He always puts others before himself. That’s why he wanted the truce, to spare his clan.” Ezriah looked up. “How come you’re not more like him?”

  “I’m not like anyone,” Chace answered. “I’m me.” He saw more ants file out of the hole and march toward the cabin “I take that back. My sister might be, although I hope not, for her sake. It would be a shame for her to end up with the law after her like they will be after me.”

  “For killing us Harkeys.”

  “A whole bunch of you,” Chace said.

  Ezriah swallowed and raised his good arm to his forehead. “What have I set loose on us?”

  “I’m just a person, like everybody.”

  “Not from where I lie.”

  Chace grinned. “I like your sense of humor. It’s as grim as my own.”

  “You’re too young to be grim,” Ezriah said.

  “It’s not the age. It’s what we do and how we think. And I’m a thinker. I may not look it or show it, but I think about everything. I spent days thinking about how I was going to do you in.”

  “You aren’t right in the head.”

  “I’ve wondered. But I see it the opposite. I see people who pretend the world is wonderful and warm. Take my ma, for instance. I love her dearly but she wears blinders. Her daughter, raped, and she thinks the good Lord is watching over us and wants me to give thanks at the supper table.” Chace pointed. “People are like these ants. They dig holes for themselves and think the hole is the whole of creation.”

  “You’re confusing the hell out of me.”

  “I doubt that. You’re a crafty devil. You must have known about your kin and my sis but you didn’t come to my grandpa and ask his pardon. No, you stayed put, knowing full well someone would come, and when my pa and his brothers showed up, you killed them so they wouldn’t go after those who are to blame.”

  Grunting and wincing, Ezriah said, “Has anyone ever told you that you are old for your years?”

  “How many Shannons have you turned into maggot bait, not counting my pa and my uncles?”

  “Two others,” Ezriah an
swered without hesitation, “back during the feuding days.”

  “How did you feel after?”

  “Twinges of guilt. It had to be done but I can still see their faces. Sometimes I wake up at night in a cold sweat over it.”

  “I hear that’s how most folks are,” Chace said. “Not me. I pushed a drunk out of a hayloft a few years back and never felt a thing. That’s when I had a decision to make.”

  “I feel so weak,” Ezriah said. He closed the cut eye and rubbed his cheek. “What decision?”

  “Whether to put on blinders like everyone else or go through life without them.”

  “No need to ask what you decided.”

  Chace stood and looked inside. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

  “I wish I were dead,” Ezriah said.

  Chace went to the stove. The water was bubbling. He took a towel and gripped the handle and carried the steaming water outside. He stood over Ezriah and tilted the pot but not quite enough that the water would spill out. “You know what I want.”

  “I would if I could.”

  “The names of them who raped Scarlet, and where they can be found. The name of whoever will be head of your clan with you gone. Tell me and I give you my word: one shot to the brain. No pain. No suffering. Don’t tell me and this water is only the start. I’ve got my knife and I saw an ax and if I have to I’ll even use the ants.”

  Ezriah Harkey trembled. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not that you can’t. It’s that you won’t,” Chace corrected him. “Last chance. Now, or an hour from now, it’s all the same to me.”

  His good eye misting over, Ezriah said, “God in heaven, help me. Don’t let him do this.”

  “You and my ma,” Chace said, and upended the pot.

  13

  The water hole was a favorite haunt of the Harkey boys on hot summer days.

  Only the boys went there. Girls weren’t allowed. The boys liked to swim with little or nothing on, and girls weren’t to see boys naked.

  Rabon and Woot showed up about one in the afternoon. By then nearly a dozen other Harkeys were already there, swimming and diving from a high bank, and joking and laughing. Half were bare-assed. The rest wore pants.