Horrible Harvest

Daddy whistled. “Heels to toes, boy. Quick feet.”

I turned with haste and give him a follow. He fired one shot and then two others, and when I come around the corner, I seen three dead and dying crackers.

 A horde of noise come next – Screams, mad grunts, yelling. Didn’t no shots come back our way. The major only allowed a few guns inside his slum. Outside, you can wave a pistol around like a drunk sailor. Inside his tumble-down walls, you can get your fill of drink and whatever gives you pleasure, but nothing more than a knife is allowed to settle disputes and misunderstandings, unless you pay the major’s weapons tax.

Daddy’s first Navy Colt was spent, so he drew his other. The spree was now at five dead. He’d get him five more in no more time than it takes a cracker to cork their bottle and decide which way to run. When the second pistol went dry, he turned to me. “Dynamite. Hand it over.”

‘Til that point in our rampage, I’d done forgot all about the dynamite. He didn’t have to ask twice. I give it over quick as I could. I was glad to be rid of it.

“Get to Charles. Help him gun down the runners.”

With that Daddy cut to the right and looked to find the nearest flame.

I turnt to the left for no other reason than it was the opposite direction of Daddy and the dynamite.

The dirt-poor folks of Galtville was running this way and that, out of their minds from fright and fog from drink and pipe. I got spun around by a fella dragging a goat by a rope. He was either saving his livestock or lover. I can’t say which. The goat run at me, and I give a leap to the left, losing my feet and falling face first into the sludge-packed ground. I run in a crawl until I could get back all they way up. I didn’t give a care about direction or destination. I just wanted clear of the chaos. That’s when I learned when you ain’t got no plan on where you’re going, you run the risk of finding yourself in the wrong place.

The demon hut was right there. Five-foot into my escape. It was guarding my exit like a dragon guarding its gold. I stopped. The panic swirled about behind me. I lost notice of it. All I could see was the hut’s slanted door swinging on its leather hinges. That’s when I felt something in my hands. I looked down. The pepperbox. ‘Fore I could give rise to another thought, my feet carried me to the door. The major still sat on his mattress throne, the two dead-eyed boys next to him.

“What the devil is going on out there, boy?”

I give a pause before saying, “Collateral damage.”

“There’s a whole-hell a lot of it.”

My feet kept thinking for me. I was deeper in when I said, “Yes, sir. Daddy says to make payment for it.”

“That why you’re here?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“What kind of payment you got in mind? Cause Ima need something special to get bought out of his mess. You hear me?”

My feet decided to stop a foot from him. “I got something special.” My hand took over my thinking, and I raised the pepperbox.

What my hands and feet didn’t expect was for the fat man to be swift and nimble. He swatted my hand away quicker than I could pull the trigger all the way back.

The gun fired.

The boy to the left took the slug square in the chest. He collapsed without letting loose of a cry. He was dead before his knees give out, before the gun was even fired now that I think on it.

I stepped back, took aim and pulled the trigger. The lead ball hit the major on the collarbone and then ricochetted up, glancing his ear. The third shot come before the second hit the ceiling of the demon hut. It went direct into his fat heart.  

I near heaved, not because I was sad about what I’d just done but because I didn’t have opportunity to do it sooner. Nothing I’d ever done in my life had ever made so much sense.