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Amends

Walker Eugene Dollahon

I first met Cap Pressler while I was busing tables at Mack 'N Jacks.

It was my first paying job even though it wasn’t entirely legal - a old time moonshine parlor, a slipshod ramble of what used to be a feed store nestled deep and hidden in the surrounding woods well outside the city limits of Nacogdoches, Texas. No neon sign or shiny awning made its presence known. Only what we called “knowledgeable” men knew how to get there, a motley brotherhood who had been entrusted with the secret of how to find it, who intimately knew the winding dirt roads that led there, the precise turns and switchbacks through dark and brooding woods that led seemingly to nowhere but that would eventually deliver them to the only place within one hundred miles where a man could find a stout drink.

We weren’t working the farm much at that time - not since my two older brothers, Pete and Ray Ray went off to join the Marines, not since Ray Ray got shot on some godforsaken beach out in the South Pacific, not since Pa died. My momma and I were living calloused and hardscrabble during those days of far-flung war, idle mostly in a big, ramshackle house surrounded knee high with johnson grass.

Pa had died the summer before. He was barely fifty-five when he passed - died while sleeping in the barn one day. He escaped the heat of the morning with a bottle of whiskey and had crawled between two bales of hay to take a nap. Died drunk and covered in straw. I found him there myself. Saddest sight in the world. Had to pick the straw off his face and kick the empty bottle of High Times under an unused tractor before I went back inside to find momma. I remember her fat, bare legs in worn out brogans planted solid and sure upon the boot-beaten red clay floor - resolute before a decrepit body lodged deep between the hay bales. A white face tinged with blue veins looking straight up and gap mouthed.

Many things had killed Pa - years of high living, whiskey, hard work under a hot sun all his damned life for starters - but the one thing that killed him most of all was heartbreak over Ray Ray. He never got over that. None of us really did, to be honest.

Each day I would leave momma at the farm in the tiny town of Blair and drive dad's old dark blue Studebaker Champion to Mack N' Jacks. I would speed down the dirt roads and side streets really making that engine purr. Pa bought the car on a lark in late '42 even though he couldn't afford it. He had always wanted one. All my life my Pa’s workshop had been adorned floor to ceiling with brightly colored glossies of Studebakers, Fords, Buicks and Corsairs.  Shiny marvels of modern science rolling down sunny highways. Machines meant to be worshiped and coveted. Maybe he knew he didn't have long on the earth and this was his last reward - one final indulgence.

Momma hated the car but I loved it and drove it every damned chance I got.

*** 

Cap Pressler showed up one day at Mack ‘N Jacks dressed like he had just stepped out of a Hollywood gangster flick, a real Cagney or dime store Bogart. He kicked in the door with a pair of pale green alligator wingtips and stomped in, all the while smoking a thin, red Cuban cigarillo. He strode over to an empty table and plopped his lean frame over a chair. No one had every seen this flashy kid before and the regulars, the old salty dog timber workers leaning and sipping at the bar all turned around and stared at him with hot eyes.

       The stranger wagged his head around the bar and grinned like he was hiding the biggest secret in the world. He finally looked over at me, a thin kid in white coveralls. I was wiping down a table with a dirty dishrag. 

"Hey boy!" the kid yelled at me.

I turned around and gazed at the stranger. “You must not be talking to me.”

"What does a fella have to do to get some service around here? Gimme a whiskey! And if ya get it for me in less than ten seconds I’ll drop two bits into your palm.”

The stranger’s accent was thick, rich caramel. New Orleans all the way.

“You must not be talking to me,” I repeated walking over to him. I started to wrap the dirty dish rag around my fist as I approached.

The stranger smiled broadly, dug into his slacks, and pulled out a shiny quarter. He rolled it through his fingers. The other patrons stood silent, old gray gargoyles looking down from ancient perches along the bar to appraise the movements of younger men.

“Who do you think I was talking to, old Saint Nick?”

I stepped closer puling the rag ever tighter over my knuckles.

The stranger’s eyes then flickered like a dying flash bulb and then the world spun wild and strange. Colors flashed before my ears – shapes danced crazy before me. Next thing I remember my face was pressed hard under the bar and my earlobe was pinched tight between the stranger’s fingers. He was pulling up hard on them, pulling them up as if he wanted to rub the underside of the ceiling with them.

I screamed until my voice ended in nothing. I could hear my earlobe cracking like kindling, the tender skin pulling up. Hooting and hollering the stranger then stomped his alligator wingtips atop my own feet like an overheated piston over and over. My toes were crushed under his heel. I could feel a thick river of vomit welling up inside my throat there was so much pain roaring through me.

“Who was I talking to?” the stranger hissed.

“Please!” I screamed.

“Who was I talking to?”

“I…you….you was talking to me,” I finally gasped.

“Who was it?” he asked again. My mind rolled in on itself. The man had now released my earlobe and had commenced to slice my forehead with the edge of the quarter he had been holding earlier’, rolling’ it hard back and forth over my brow till the skin started to give way.

“You was talking to me,” I screamed. “You was talking to me!”

The stranger released me and pushed hard so that I stumbled onto the floor. “So now that I know who I was talking to, where’s that whiskey?” He was now sauntering back towards his chair while straightening out his tie and adjusting his fedora. He looked at each frozen face before him, challenging them, mocking them one at a time.

I pushed myself up off the floor and wiped my mouth. I could feel the eyes of that dark room around me. The stranger smiled at me and started rolling the two bits around his long fingers again. I tumbled over to the bar and asked B.J. the bartender for the stranger’s drink. The room was a tomb. B.J. set the drink in front of me and I walked over to the stranger and placed it in front of him. The stranger picked it up and sipped at it like a girl, all dainty like with his little finger held high in the air.

“Evenly split,” he cooed. “Well evenly split.” I guess that was a complement because he flicked the quarter up at me. Catching it I walked away rubbing my forehead with my rag.

For awhile the stranger sat and drank alone. Every half hour or so he would yell out for me and I would fetch him another whiskey like a damned dog. An hour or so later the door swung open and two young thugs shuffled in. The newcomers walked over to the stranger and sat down. I recognized one of them. It was Charlie Jones, a cousin of mine, a real no good hot head. Last I heard he was making a living cracking open hot cars for parts down in Houston town.

I walked over to their table and Charlie looking up bellowed, “Well, lookie here – another Clardy boy standing before me in the flesh.”

The stranger cocked his eyebrow. “This one here’s your relations, Charlie?”

“I’m afraid so,” said my cousin. “Uncle Coop’s little boy.”

“Hellfire, I should have been a tad bit sweeter to him,” smirked the stranger.

“What do ya’ll want?” I asked.

The stranger shook his head. “We got off to a rocky start and I can’t abide any hard feelings so please except my sincerest apologies. A friend of Charlie is a friend of mine.”

 “That’s alright,” I mumbled.

The stranger slapped a dry buck on the table. “Dandy fine - now we is friends! Name is Casper T. Pressler. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” He was holding out his hand to me. I could see that a gold watch swaddled his wrist. Hesitant a second I reached out and shook it.

“Now why don’t you get us a round of three and keep the rest for yourself?”

The rest of the night I parlayed drinks for the three of them, earning high dollar every time Cap called me over. When I approached them they would hush up. All night they ignored the room - conspiring low and tight over their table, talking things close like they were sharing state secrets. At close to midnight, when we was closing up shop, the three of them finally stumbled out into the street.

The next night they came back and then again the following evening. They picked the same table each time and Cap always ordered the same drink – whiskeys - one after another – for him and his companions.

Late on the third evenin’ I noticed my cousin Charlie cock his thumb over at me while he was talking to Cap. Cap looked at me and said something and the three of them then burst out in laughter like I was the butt of some nasty joke. I ignored them best I could. For about an hour I could sense the three of them still talking about me. I tried to act like I wasn’t noticing but I was. Each time I pushed away from the bar with a drink or walked by their table I could feel Cap’s eyes over me, sizing me up like a piece of cattle at auction. He had a sharp eye, he did. They were like two chunks of black coal rolling around under a pair of bushy, black caterpillars.

Right at close the three of them stood up woozy and Cap called me over.

“Son, could we have a chat with you out back?” he said. I noticed he had put his arm around my shoulders. “We got a business opportunity we wanna let you in on.”

“Alright,” I said. “Alright, but let me close up first.” I could feel myself shrinking under the weight of his arms.

I folded up my apron, tossed a few dirty mugs into a soapy sink, said goodbye to B.J. then walked out the back door where I found Cap, Charlie, and the third fella - a ghoulish, pock-faced kid from Abilene named Harper - all standing around my Studebaker smoking Lucky Strikes. Cap was kicking her wheels as I approached them.

“She ain’t for sale,” I said.

“Not interested in the car,” Cap said turning around. “But what about you? Are you for sale?”

“What’ya mean?”

Cap turned to my cousin. “Is he ready for this?” he asked.

“He’s ready,” said Charlie fixing me with a cool gaze.

Cap stomped out his cigarette and flashed a gaze over my shoulder. Seemed like he wanted some privacy. A knot curled ‘round my stomach. I thought quickly about making a mad dash through the woods but wondered what would happen to the Studebaker and how I would get home.

“Charlie tells me you about to be foreclosed on,” said Cap.

“Charlie sure likes to talk.”

“Is that fair? You about to be foreclosed on, about to be kicked off your farm because some bank says you got to all the while your own brothers are fighting and dying overseas? Now is that fair?” Cap asked.

“Fairness got nothing to do with it,” I said. “Bank is doing what the bank is doing regardless.”

“Is that right?” said Cap.

“That’s right,” I said.

“Well, that doesn’t seem right to me. Does that seem right to you, Charlie?”

“Sure don’t,” said my cousin.

“How about you, Harpo, does that seem right to you?”

“No way, it don’t,” he said.

“We almost have a quorum here,” said Cap. “Near universal agreement, I would say. You just might be having what I call a legitimate grievance here.”

“Just what are you driving at?” I asked.

“What if I told you that I could make that foreclosure go away?”

“I ain’t taking no money from you,” I said.

“I ain’t giving you nothing,” he sneered. “I’m talking about taking it from those who shouldn’t have it to begin with, those damned banks.”

I stared at the three pale faces floating headless in the darkness to gauge if they was trying to pull one over on me. “Are you talking about robbing a bank?” I said.

Cap nodded. “What gives some bank the right to take your farm? We know you’ve been wronged, hell, your whole family’s been wronged. What gives them that right? Hasn’t your family given enough? Hellfire, you know they’d take the shirt off your back if they could?”

“Listen to me. I got a failsafe plan,” Cap continued. “Easy money, no risk, no one gets hurt. No one gets hurt. No one would ever know we did it. I already got a bank picked out in Carthage, ripe as a big, juicy tomato ready for the plucking. Banks all have it comin’ to them, doncha see?”

“You get fifteen percent cut for just drivin’ your car a few blocks. That’s it! Easiest money you ever gonna see. We just need a fourth man to carry it all through and Charlie here says you is bonafide.”

“Bank is gonna take what the bank is gonna take,” remarked Harper flicking a butt to the ground. “I say, to hell with that - we gonna take what we wanna take.”

“Think about the family,” said Charlie. “Don’t you want Pete to come home to the farm? You don’t want him to come home to nothing, do ya? And your poor momma, what about her well-being? Listen, it’s in your hands to do something about this. You the man in the house now. It’s not like we’re gonna hurt anybody now. As Cap says, this is more of a Robin Hood like venture.”

It felt like they was closing in on me in the blackness. Cap took out a silver cigarette case and pulled out a fresh stick - tap, tap, taping on his case all the while never taking his eyes off me.

“This is a real opportunity,” said Harper. “But we need to know now.”

I thought back to momma. She just sitting there on the porch saying nothing each day looking out at nothing. I thought of the stack of yellow mail unopened on the dresser in her room.

“Alright, so how the hell is this gonna work?” I asked.                   

 *** 

At dawn I left Blair in the Studebaker and headed towards Nacogdoches. It was the plan to pick up Charlie, Cap, and Harper where they were staying, then drive over to Carthage, commit our crime, then head on back to Nacogdoches, hopefully with thick, fat bags of bills stuffed in them. Already the day promised to be blistering. Despite the fact that the windows were rolled down and I was hurtling down Highway 59 at breakneck speed I already had dark stains under my pits and a fresh line of sweat across my brow.

I was crazed sitting there driving, gripping the steering wheel till my knuckles rolled around taut and bone white under my skin. The previous evening I had not slept a wink, tossing in my bed, sneaking out to the porch at all hours to smoke, even taking three long baths to help whittle back the long hours of endless waiting ‘till sun break.

Around eight o’clock I swung the car onto Main Street and eased her into a discrete alleyway between the Hotel Gallivant and a woman’s clothing store. Immediately, Cap, Charlie, and Harper stepped out from under a dilapidated awning and into the car. Cap was dressed in the dirt-kneed dungarees of a timber cutter, Charlie as a loose-tied back roads salesman, and Harper as a white-clad janitor. Cap carried a toolbox and a tin can. It was Cap’s idea that each of them should dress in ways apart from their usual attire. It was a way to ‘throw off our scent’, he said. I was the only one allowed to dress as I usually did, in a plain white t-shirt and dirty blue jeans.

No one spoke until we were well outside the city limits. Then, Cap slapped his knees and called the meeting to order.

“Alright now, each of you,” he said. “Spit out what you are going to do here today.”

Harper spoke first. “My job is to lollygag around the street and wait till Cap has been in the bank five minutes with Charlie right behind. Then I’m gonna waltz right in and raise some holy hell with my shotgun.”

“I am going in right after you, Cap,” said Charlie. “Going in and standing in a separate line to wait for Harper.” Charlie wasn’t himself that morning. He looked pale and blighted sitting there - like at any minute he was going keel over and throw up his eggs and bacon. Couldn’t blame him, though, I was scared shitless too.

“How ‘bout you?” asked Cap as he poked my rib with something hard. I looked down and saw that it was a gun. Cap was smiling big and stupid next to me. I wasn’t amused. “I’m gonna drop ya’ll off at different places. Make sure no one sees us. Then I’m gonna take the car and coast her up and down College and Market streets doing my best to be discrete. Then, at precisely 11:10 a.m. I’m gonna swing behind the back on Sycamore Street and pick you all up next to the old Brill Crème sign along the back. Put that away.”

Cap winked, removed the gun from my side, then held it up for all to see. It was a fine, short nub beaut with pearl inlays. “Nice little one, ain’t she?” he said. “Alright, show of arms. Let me see them.”

Harper proudly held up an old, nasty lookin’ shotgun with the barrel sawed down all haphazard like, as if some beast had gripped the barrel between its teeth and chewed and yanked on it until it had the barrel and gun divorced.

“Just look at her! This little piece can sure scream! I call her Lila Rae,” Harper hooted as he held up the stock. Sure enough LILA RAE was burnt into the handle all ugly and sloppy like, each letter different sized and mismatched.

Charlie meekly held up a well shined US Army issue Colt 45. He didn’t even look at us. All the while he was displaying his sidearm he was looking out the window.

“Alright, put them away.”

We entered Carthage at the exact time Cap planned. At 10:50 a.m. I rolled down Market Street and for the first time we saw the stout, redbrick building that was the First Farmers Savings & Loan. There were people coming’ in and out of the bank, regular folk minding their own business - momma with babies in tow, office workers making deposits, nothing out of the familiar.  As we rolled past the bank I looked and saw silhouettes behind the front glass windows, ghostly shapes in all shapes and sizes behind the opaque glass. I felt it then. Really felt it. Like every eye in the world was boring into me. Of course, no one was really looking at me but it sure as hell felt that way. It felt like the very grip on my own mind was slipping away from me as I sat there behind the wheel. The wetness had left my mouth and my ears rang with an odd pinging sound.

I went about a half mile down Market Street and let off the first person at the curb, Harper. He jumped out of the Studebaker with the sawed-off shotgun tucked under his janitor’s blouse, the butt of the weapon lodged in his drawers.

“See ya’ll inside in a few!” he cackled as he backed away from the Studebaker.

I turned the car around and drove back towards the bank. About five blocks from First Farmer’s I dropped off Charlie. His face was ghost white as I saw him disappear into a throng of folk assembled outside a department store. His lips were pursed tight and constricted like a taut wire had been pulled across his face. It was the last I ever saw him.

Two blocks after that I pulled over to the curb to drop off Cap. Before he slid out the passenger seat he leaned over and gripped my shoulder. “Listen to me,” Cap hissed. “If you don’t do what you is supposed to do, I kill you, I kill your momma, I kill your family, you got that? You better be at that sign.” He released his hand from me, spun around and jumped out of the vehicle. As I took off down the street I saw him in my rearview, young, good looking and clever enough, a fella in the prime of his life.

I took off in the Studebaker. I rolled up Market Street, careful-like, not to attract too much attention one way or another, driving not too fast, not too slow. My wheels rolled around and around. I went down about a half a mile then turned around again heading back. As I started back towards the bank I looked back and saw it – a wide hooded police cruiser directly behind me. I actually screamed something indistinct at the sight of him. Startled, my foot hammered down on the gas. Then I took my foot off immediately. The Studebaker rocked forward them coasted idle for a second. I looked up through to the rearview and saw the officer look up from the road and appraise me. The sunlight enlivened his profile. I could see the sunglasses locked on me tight.

I thought of turning a hard right, making a crazed run for the woods, the hell with it all. Right before I was going to swerve away the officer rolled over to the left lane, speeded up, pulling up besides me then away from me, evidently provoked by something else entire. My neck was pulled tight with fear. My eardrums pounded with the sound of hot blood rolling around my skull, blood sloshing through my panic-stricken brain. As I saw him cruise away from my I relaxed.

I continued along the cross streets of Carthage until precisely 11:02 when I idled to a stop behind the bank. I lodged the vehicle right behind the dumpster, hidden like. I checked my watch - 11:04AM. Any minute now. I made a quick survey of the environs. No one seemed to be was paying me any mind. Like a drooling goober I checked my watch again - 11:06. Hellfire, that was it? I felt as if time had decided to stop around me.

I looked over at the bank and imagined that I could gaze through the red bricks and mortar and see Cap, Charlie, and Harper inside there, efficient and full of purpose, actually joking with the captives to ease their fear, stuffing big bags full of luscious green by the fistful. I imagined I could see behind the wall a well-oiled machine of larceny. The watch - 11:08. I fiddled with my belt buckle, kept shifting in my seat, pulling up my socks, tying and retying my shoes. I couldn't get comfortable. I glanced at the watch - 11:09. I could barely stand sitting there prone and stupid behind the bank in my pa’s prized automobile, the most beautiful and expensive thing he ever owned in his short, sad life. And here I was besmearing his memory using the car for illicit purposes. I turned on the engine. 11:10. That was the time - any second now the blue door at the back of the savings and loan would pop open and my three associates would come tumbling out gripping at least two bags apiece of luscious currency. 11:11. Now they were late. Where the hell were they? The bank remained silent. An eternity resided within a second.

11:12. Certainly late. Come on, come on. At 11:13 I heard three dull pops ring out from within the bank. It sounded like someone was thumping an empty plastic suitcase with a wooden spoon. Gunshots? There shouldn't be gunshots. Boom. Boom. Two more thumps. What the hell was going on in there? The door stood shut. Another flurry of gunshots. Some of them from different guns because they sounded foreign to each other, different sized bullets exploding from different sized apertures. I looked around my Studebaker. Were other people hearing the thumps from the bank? Those folks just milling about? How could they not? Any second I would be engulfed with law.

To hell with all this. I popped the Studebaker in reverse and started to back away. Then I heard the sound of metal slamming together and looked up and saw the bank's door flew open. It was Cap, alone, by himself. He was wild-eyed, crazed; a lone black canvas bag was swung over his shoulder. His right arm was blood spackled and blackened with gun powder. His sidearm was jammed into his dungarees.

"Go!" Cap screamed, pulling the back door open. "Get the hell out of here now!”

"Where's the others?" I screamed. "Where are they?"

“They're dead! Go! Just get!"

"What?! Dead?! Where's Charlie?"

Like a spoiled brat in the backseat of his momma's car angry that she just reached over and took away his lollipop Cap repeatedly kicked the soft leather upholstery behind me with his knees. He was grimacing mightily and holding his shot arm and flopping all around behind me like a freshly caught fish on the bottom of a boat. "Get now!" he spat. "They is all dead! Get! Get! Get on!"

I popped the clutch and backed out. I went too fast and almost knocked over a pile of trashcans. Cap wheezed forward and grabbed the back of my head with a claw and pulled the hair savagely backwards. My head rolled back towards him over the back bench. He cursed at me, bitter words, bringing his lips up close to my ear. I could feel his hot air roll over my neck. "Careful," he hissed letting go of his hair. "Drive her careful. Nice and easy."

Shaking within my skin, wet with sweat, I rolled the Studebaker out into the street. Again I looked around. The boulevard looked strangely quiet - a few cars rolling by, a few people ambling along the boardwalk, not a care in the world. Our car joined some light traffic leaving the main square. No sirens. We rolled along silent and steady. I could hear Cap behind me panting like a beat dog but I said nothing to him, my eyes on the road. The streets rolled by getting emptier as we departed Carthage. Pavement made way to dirt. We rolled ever along.

Eventually we were clear outside the city, on some ill-used country road, nothing around us for miles it seemed. I scarcely could remember the steps I took to get us there. We was just there and no one had been any wiser.

"There," said Cap. "Over there behind the knoll. Behind it. Pull over there. I got to get cleaned up."

I did just that and pulled the Studebaker off the road and behind the rise.

***

Cap was standing next to a puddle stripped to the waist. His arm had been grazed with a bullet and a swollen welt stood out from his bicep like an angry volcano. He was dabbing it with his work shirt at the tail seams careful not to befoul any more of the garment. He had removed the bag from the bank and it lay fat and full next to the puddle. His pistol had been removed from his slacks and now lay atop the bag.

"It was going perfect," Cap said as he nursed his wound. "We had the clientele face down and scared shitless. The one guard had been disarmed and was squatting in the corner. I tell you we had the keys to the kingdom. It was all ours for the taking. I was in the safe with the secretary. Charlie and that damned Harpo were out front taking care of the crowd, watching the door. I was reaching down grabbing a bag and then I hear this gunshot and a bunch of screaming and hollering out front. I get one bag and run out front and what do I see? The guard slumping against the wall, his head blown off, Harpo there laughing like a madman, Charlie screaming back at him, Harpo saying that the guard had made a move on him, Charlie saying that he didn't, Harpo pointing his gun at Charlie, I yelling at them both to cool it. Someone then jumped up from the floor - a thin, wiry kid in a long raincoat too long for him... Hey, what you doing?"

I had walked over to the bag and had picked up the gun. I then examined the weapon, rolling the cartridge around and around.

"What's your real name?" I asked him. I flipped the cartridge back in place and now the gun was leveled on Cap.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Throw me your wallet?"

"What?"

I pulled the trigger and a loud echo rolled through the trees. Cap almost fell over. Now he had begun slapping at his pants all scared and helpless like. He found his wallet and threw it at my feet and I picked it up and flipped threw it. All the while the gun, Cap's gun, never left his chest.

"When were you going to kill me?" I asked. "Out here some where’s or were you gonna wait till we was closer to town?"

Cap's face grew impossibly long. "You got this all wrong. Listen to - "

"You so full of bullshit it's coming out your ears."

"Put that thing down now, friend. I - "

"You ain't no friend of mine," I hissed. "Shut your hole an' answer my questions."

Cap flapped his mouth closed like a big old river trout and stared at me with round eyes. "Right partner," he said all nice like he was trying to sell me insurance or encyclopedias or something. “You bet! Yes, yes, what do you want to know? I'm with you. I'm with you." He had left the puddle and was now on the grass in front of me bent over like a scared crab or something, shuffling up close to me. I took a step back from him.

"You planned to kill us all, didn't you? From the very beginning?"

Cap shook his head slowly back and forth. "No, please understand me. I didn't shoot Charlie, I didn't shoot Harpo. They shot each other. Listen, I with you on this. Have been from the very beginning."

"Who shot who now? You said Charlie shot Harper?"

"No, Harpo shot Charlie. He was crazed in there. Out of his damned mind."

"Well, who shot Harper then?"

Cap blinked again. "I did," he said. I shot Harper."

"You shot Harper?"

“That’s right.”

“Then who the hell shot you?"

Cap blinked once more. "Harpo shot me. Right before I shot him. Listen, I is telling the truth on this. I didn't kill nobody."

“Dammit, Cap, you just told me you shot Harper. Now you telling me you ain't killed nobody. I don't know what to believe."

“You know what I mean. I said I never made out to kill Charlie and Harpo. I only shot Harpo in sell defense after he had already shot Charlie. I shot him before he shot me, don't you see?"

I had already lost interest in the whole conversation and was now flipping through Cap's wallet again. Cap was right in front of me now. His head was blocking the sun.

“Like a ghost, were you? Appearing and disappearing like a ghost? No one would ever be able to track you down. We was the possums."

“What?”

“Shut up. You killed my cousin. You killed Harpo. Who else did you kill in there?"

“Listen! he pleaded. "We need each other now! We can - "

My finger felt the cold steel guard on the other side of the beautiful pearl-inlaid handgun as it slipped off the pulled trigger. Another crack rolled through the trees. A body fell back into a puddle. The acrid scent of gun powder rolled up from the gun to my nostrils and I took great delight in it, breathing deeply, filling my lungs with it. I walked over to the bag and picked it up. I looked down at the body one last time. It was twitching spastic. Two sets of manic eyes looking at me, pleading. I checked the cartridge again, wiped down the stock on my jeans, threw it down next to the body, then left alone.

 ***

I rode off. When I got home I stashed the bag out in the barn, between two bales of hay - two rotten, stinking loafs, the very same bales I had found my father between just a year before. My momma never even knew I was gone. The whole morning and day she never left her room. Every once in awhile I would hear a phonograph record playing upstairs, some scratchy record full of woe and despair, a forlorn fiddle or banjo, a voice distant and pained crying against the world.

For a good while I laid low. The only times I ever left the farm was when I went to Mack 'N Jacks. It would have been too strange for me not to still go, at least in the short run. The gray vultures talked about the stranger who had graced their abode those very recent days and about the shooting up in Carthage and the missing bag of money, and how the stranger was found face down and shot through miles away off the road. The vultures never even eyeballed me as they jaw-boned. I was never even questioned by the police even though Charlie was relations. The papers reported the incident heatedly for weeks, the more they reported the more questions came up. Eventually, before the end of the summer, the incident at First Farmers rolled off the front pages and onto the middle pages, then eventually not on any pages at all. The vultures stopped talking and went back to drinking.

Like the papers , I don't really know one way or another what really happened at the bank, whether Cap killed Charlie and Harper outright or whether it played out like he said it did before I shot him cold, and truth be told, I really don't care.

Sure the money was nice. It sure as hell went along way to making life a little more bearable after Pa and Ray Ray passed. No one was ever going to try and take away the family farm after that. I even went out and bought Ma a nice new phonograph player and a pearly white icebox for the kitchen with my earnings.

But that was never why I did it.

No sir, it wasn’t.

No one was ever going to try and push around Jimmy Taylor Cooper again.

Copyright(c) 2005 by Walker Dollahon

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