by Sharon Sala
Jud turned on him. “Mind your own damned business,” he shrieked and began hammering the door again, cursing and raging, promising all the ugly things he was going to do if she didn’t obey.
All of a sudden, he began hearing sirens. Dammit! She called the cops. Jud jumped off the porch, ran back to his car, and sped out of the neighborhood.
Cora heard him leaving and rushed to the door in time to see the car take a quick right toward the school and disappear.
Her heart was racing and she felt like she was going to be sick. She was reaching for something to hold onto when the world began to spin, and then everything went black.
The next-door neighbor was still on his porch when he saw Cora look out, but she was only there a few seconds before she suddenly dropped. He knew by the way she went down that she was unconscious. He went down his front steps and was racing across his yard when the police arrived.
Chief Pittman saw the neighbor running and pointing, and then saw Cora was down. He got out on the run, calling dispatch to send an ambulance.
“Did you see what happened?” the chief asked as the neighbor ran up the steps behind him.
“I heard Jud carrying on and came outside. I yelled at him to leave her alone, and he pretty much told me to mind my own business. I guess Jud heard your sirens because he left in a rush. Then I saw Cora come to the door, probably to make sure he was gone. That’s when I saw her drop.”
“Did he touch her in any way?” Pittman asked as he felt for a pulse.
“No, sir. Just yelling and kicking on the door.”
She was still breathing, which was a relief, but when the chief checked her pulse, it seemed irregular. Even if they found Jud Boone, unless Cora wanted to press charges for harassment they didn’t have much of anything to arrest him for except disturbing the peace again. Family squabbles were the worst, and the chief needed to talk to Cora.
“Would you mind going into Cora’s kitchen and bringing me a cold, wet cloth?” the chief asked.
The neighbor scooted past where Cora was lying, then raced toward the kitchen. He was back moments later with a dish towel that he’d gotten wet then wrung out.
Deputy Ralph pulled up on the scene as the chief carefully wiped down Cora’s face and neck, then folded up the cloth and laid it across her forehead.
“What do you need me to do, Chief?”
“Make a quick patrol through town, and if you see Judson Boone anywhere, pick him up for questioning. I don’t know the make and model of his car. You’ll have to check the DMV.”
“I know it,” the neighbor said. “He drives a 2012 black Chevrolet Impala.” And then he went home, as Ralph took off in a rush.
To Lon’s relief, Cora began waking up.
“Lie still, Miss Cora,” he said.
Cora recognized the chief, then felt something cold and wet on her head and reached up to feel it.
“It’s just a wet cloth,” Lon said, still worried. Her eyes were red and tear-filled, and she was far too pale for his liking. “What happened to you?” he asked.
“I just got dizzy. I think because I was so scared. I don’t need an ambulance. I’ll just sit here a bit and rest. I’ll be all right,” she said.
“No, ma’am. I can’t do that. I need to make sure you’re okay before I leave. The EMTs will check you out.”
She didn’t argue.
Lon kept watching her closely, and the moment he heard the ambulance coming, he began breathing a little easier.
“Is that them?” Cora asked.
Lon frowned. Her voice was weak and shaky.
“Yes, ma’am, that’s them.”
“Tell them if my heart stops, I refuse CPR.”
Lon was stunned. “Cora! You don’t want to think like that! What about your family? Your grandson! He got a job with Bowie so he could help work off some of the debt he owes, and he did it all on his own.”
Cora was still for a moment. “He did? And Bowie hired him?”
“Yes, ma’am. And just between you and me, because nobody else knows this yet, Bowie already dropped all the charges against him. He just wants Junior to get to finish what he set out to do.”
“He did all that? After what happened to him?” Cora asked.
Lon nodded. “But you can’t tell. I already broke my word to Bowie by telling you, but you need something positive to get you through all this. And…I think the ambulance is just pulling up. You’re gonna be fine. Just have a little faith.”
Moments later, the EMTs came up on the run and began checking Cora’s vitals. A few minutes later, when they told her they needed to transport her to the ER, she didn’t argue.
Inside the house, the chief picked up Cora’s phone from where she’d dropped it, scrolled through her contact list until he found Emmitt’s name, and called him.
* * *
Emmitt was in the shower when his phone began to ring. Tiny rolled over in bed to see who was calling, and when she saw it was the Blessings PD, she answered.
“Hello?”
“Tiny, this is Chief Pittman. Is Emmitt there?”
“Yes, Chief, but he’s in the shower. What’s wrong?”
“We’re transporting Cora to the ER. I need you to let Emmitt know.”
“Oh my God! What happened?” Tiny cried.
“Judson happened. I haven’t been able to interview her since my arrival, but when she called 911, she said he was pounding on the door and threatening to kick it in. He was gone by the time we arrived, and she appeared to have passed out on the threshold. I think it scared her pretty badly. I’ll leave it up to you to notify the rest of the family,” he said.
“Yes, yes, oh my God, thank you for calling,” Tiny said, and then jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom, shouting. “Emmitt! Get out of the shower. Chief Pittman just called. They just took your mama to the ER!”
Emmitt gasped, in a panic as he quickly shut off the water, grabbed a towel, and began to dry off.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Your daddy happened! He scared her so bad trying to get in the house that they had to take her to the hospital. I don’t know what all is wrong.”
“Oh, for the love of God,” Emmitt muttered. “I’ll call Mel. Mama may not want us there, but we’re gonna be there just the same.”
* * *
Mel drove to the ER in the clothes he’d slept in. He needed a shave, and his head was pounding from the hangover, but all he could think about was his mama. She might hate him, but he still loved her and was gutted that this had happened.
He pulled up and parked just as Emmitt and Tiny parked a few spaces down. Emmitt saw him and waited for him to catch up so they could go in together.
* * *
Jud was furious as he drove the alleys and back roads around Blessings. His head was pounding from the blood rush. His sons had turned against him. His wife had betrayed him, and all because that damn bastard came back to Blessings.
He kept ranting as he drove. “It’s Bowie James’s fault. I told him if he ever came back, I would kill him. My mistake was sending Mel and Emmitt to scare him away.”
When he got to a dead-end street, Jud stopped and reached beneath the seat, then pulled out his handgun. He sat long enough to make sure it was loaded, then laid it in the seat beside him and turned around. Bowie James had put an end to Jud’s world, so Jud was going to return the favor. And since Bowie was supposed to be renovating Pearl’s house, he guessed that was where he would find him.
Jud’s pulse was racing as he headed for the other side of town. He’d lost all sense of rational behavior, unconcerned with doing this in broad daylight and most likely in front of witnesses. But if he was going to spend the rest of his life alone, he’d gladly spend it in prison just to know he had fired the last shot in the feud.
He began to slow do
wn as he came up on the street. There were vehicles parked on both sides of the street, a big roll-off dumpster in the yard, and a van from Ken’s Electric parked beside it in the driveway. Jud had all the cover he needed and then some, so he slowed down even more, rolling past the house in near silence.
It appeared they were hanging new windows by the front door because there was a huge opening where a window had yet to be hung, and he could easily see men walking back and forth inside. He kept looking and waiting for sight of Bowie, and then it happened.
Bowie walked right into frame where the window would be and appeared to be looking at something on the wall above the opening. Then Jud saw him pointing up and heard him call out to someone behind him.
Jud reached for the handgun and then rolled down his window and took aim. Just as he was pulling the trigger, another man walked in between Bowie and the window. Jud watched him turn around and look up at where Bowie was pointing.
It was then he saw his grandson’s face.
“No!” he screamed, and got out of the car and started running toward the house, as if he could stop what was already happening.
Chapter 16
Bowie heard what sounded like a loud pop only a fraction of a second before Junior fell back against him. Still unaware the boy had been shot, Bowie grabbed him to keep him from falling and as he did, saw Jud Boone running toward the house with a gun in his hand and a look of horror on his face.
Then Bowie looked down and saw blood all over his hands, and that Junior was unconscious.
“Ray! Call the police and 911. The kid’s been shot.”
Men came running as Bowie laid Junior down.
“Put pressure on that entrance wound!” Bowie ordered, and bolted toward the door.
He arrived the same moment Jud crossed the threshold.
“I didn’t mean to—” Jud said, and then the gun went flying and his jaw cracked from the impact of Bowie’s fist.
Jud hit the floor like a felled ox.
Bowie rolled him over on his belly and yanked his arms behind his back.
“Someone bring me something to tie him up with!”
Presley and Joe came running. One held Jud’s hands while the other one tied them up.
Bowie ran back to Junior, yanking off his T-shirt as he went, and dropped down on his knees. All of a sudden he was eighteen again and back in the kitchen, kneeling in his mother’s blood. He was a breath away from a panic attack when Samuel, who was putting pressure on Junior’s wound, went into panic mode first.
“I can’t stop it, Bowie. He’s gonna bleed out in front of us!”
Bowie shifted into trauma mode without thought. “Let me,” he said as he shoved the wadded-up T-shirt against the wound and began applying all the pressure he dared.
* * *
The shriek of sirens was once again ripping through Blessings, and Deputy Ralph, who was on patrol, was the first cop on the scene. When he saw the car he’d been looking for, parked and still running with the door open in front of the address of the second 911 call, he quickly radioed in.
“This is Deputy Ralph. Advise the chief, man in question is on scene of current call.” And then he got out and ran inside.
When he saw Jud Boone on the floor, bloody and unconscious, with hands and feet tied up like a hog going to butcher, then saw Junior Boone unconscious and lying in a pool of blood, he radioed for a second ambulance, then bagged and tagged the gun.
* * *
Emmitt and Tiny were standing by Cora’s bed in the ER when Mel walked in. Cora’s eyes were closed, and Mel immediately feared the worst.
“Is it bad? Did she have a heart attack?” he asked.
Cora opened her eyes. “I’m not dead or dying.”
“Oh, thank God,” Mel said, and went to her side and patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry this happened, Mama. I never thought Daddy would treat us all so bad.”
Emmitt nodded. “I know! Right?”
Tiny sniffed. “He was always rough around the edges, but not cruel,” she added.
Cora slapped the bed with the flat of her hand. “Oh, please! Just stop talking. The three of you seem to have conveniently forgotten the cruelty a teenage Bowie James received from this family. It wasn’t just Judson who was mean to him. You all were. And you proved the mean streak ran deep and true when you tried the same old maneuvers on a full-grown man. I don’t know why you assumed it would be comforting and reassuring to me to see your faces again, but you were mistaken.”
“But Mama—”
It was as far as Mel got before all hell seemed to break loose out in the hall. They heard approaching sirens, then someone shouting orders as a woman called out, “They’re here.”
The open door in Cora’s room left them free to observe all that passed by in the hall beyond. Within moments, a flurry of EMTs and nurses ran past, holding onto both sides of a gurney as they raced to save the patient on it.
“Oh my!” Tiny muttered, and then moments later, a second gurney followed, with more medical personnel accompanying that patient as well.
Just when they thought it was over, Bowie James strode past, minus a shirt and covered in blood, with Chief Pittman and a couple of deputies beside him.
Tiny got up from her chair and ran to the door to look out. “Something must have happened at the jobsite!” she said.
“But why the cops?” Mel asked. “And what the hell happened to the James dude? He was covered in blood.”
Suddenly, Chief Pittman was in the doorway. The news he had to deliver might throw Cora back into another episode, and he had to be careful of how he said it as he entered the room.
“Cora, how are you doing?” he asked.
“I feel okay now, but they haven’t come back with any test results.”
He reached in his pocket. “I brought your phone and house keys and locked the house.”
“Thank you,” she said as he handed them to her.
“You’re welcome,” he said, then braced himself to deliver the news. “I have something to tell all of you that’s going to be hard to hear. Are you up to this, Miss Cora?”
“Yes. What’s wrong?”
“There’s no easy way to say this. Judson went to Pearl James’s house with the intention to shoot Bowie James and shot Junior instead.”
Tiny screamed and fell into Emmitt’s arms.
But it was Mel who asked the question they were all thinking.
“Is Junior alive?”
The chief nodded. “For now.”
“What happened to Daddy?” Mel asked.
“Bowie disarmed him as he was running inside the house and knocked him out.”
Emmitt reached toward his nose, feeling the brace and remembering the power of the blow that had broken it as the chief kept talking.
“And you have Mr. James to thank for the fact that Junior is still breathing,” he added.
“Can we see Junior? I need to see my boy,” Tiny begged.
“I don’t know, but you might if we get there before he’s taken to surgery. Come with me and we’ll see.”
Emmitt and Tiny followed the chief out of the room, holding on to each other for support, leaving Mel and Cora alone.
“Aren’t you going to go check on your father?” Cora asked.
“No, ma’am. Will you let me stay with you?”
Cora was in shock and sick to her stomach. Her voice was shaking and she couldn’t stop the tears.
“I don’t want to talk,” she said. “Go talk to your father. Ask him if he’s happy now. Ask him if all the grief you’ve all caused was worth it.”
Mel pulled a couple of tissues from a box on the counter and handed them to her.
“Look, Mama. I’m not asking you for forgiveness, and I understand how you must feel about us. But what you haven’t taken into consideration
is that we all still love you.”
Cora heard the little boy he’d been in his voice and knew in that moment that even though she’d been unaware of their deceit, she had also ignored a lot of Judson’s negativity in an effort just to get along. Acknowledging that, she could no longer claim total innocence. She wiped her eyes and pointed at an empty chair.
“Sit if you want.”
“Thank you,” Mel said.
* * *
Bowie was still in Junior’s room and wasn’t leaving until they either took him to surgery or family showed up. He wanted to be shocked or at least surprised this had happened, but he wasn’t. He was just sorry the kid had been an unwitting victim of Jud’s mania.
Two doctors and a roomful of nurses were trying to stabilize Junior enough to get him to surgery when Chief Pittman came back with Junior’s parents.
Bowie could tell by the expressions on their faces that they were in shock, and when they weren’t looking, he tried to slip out.
But Tiny Boone saw him and called out.
“Bowie James. How can we ever thank you?”
Bowie was having a hard time staying civil. He didn’t want their thanks or anything to do with them.
“By leaving me and mine alone, that’s how. Oh…and just so you know, I dropped the charges against Junior the day he came and asked me for a job. He has more strength of character than all of you put together, and I hope to God he survives this. I would hate to think the sole purpose of his life on this earth was to die for the karma you’ve all been collecting.”
Then he walked out.
He had to pass Jud’s exam room to get out of the ER and as he did, heard him wailing and moaning, claiming shooting his grandson was an accident and that he’d been aiming at Bowie James.
Bowie just kept walking. The man was certifiable. He’d just confessed to the attempted murder of one grandson in an effort to explain why he’d shot the other one.
He stopped in the public bathroom in the ER, grabbed a handful of paper towels, turned on the water at the sink, and began washing off the blood. He’d have to go home shirtless, and there was blood all over his jeans, but at least he no longer looked like a victim.