The Sangamon Man

I always liked the name Sangamon, the tone and strength of it when spoken. I felt it was one of those words that had real weight to it, real meaning. The Sangamon that I knew as a boy growing up, was a river in Central Illinois. It wound its way through the middle and southern part of the state and meandered past some of the richest black dirt farmland in the world. The Sangamon, created by an ancient glacier flow that had pushed it way south across the land and named by the Potowotamee Indian tribe.

The word Sangamon translates something close to ‘plenty to eat’ or ‘place of plenty’. It provided me with a tremendous amount of entertainment and adventure as a young boy. This was the land and place of settlers, log cabins, quiet woods, open prairies, arrowheads, Indians and ol’ Abe Lincoln. It was a region full of exotic sounding Amercian Native words and names for towns, rivers and lakes. A natural playground for a young boy who loved to explore and imagine things. A place where you not only created things but you witnessed them.

It was dry as an old bone sometimes and a muddy quagmire at other times. The river pace was normally slow, only occasionally running high and fast. As rivers go, it was unspectacular being neither small or large, but it was a river nonetheless and it was so many other things to me. Sights, sounds, smells, wildlife, adventure and mystery. It was the Sangamon.
***

I sat on its dry, dusty river bank back in the summer of 1964. It was hot, very hot. The heat and humidity was helped only a little by the shade of trees and woods that lined the bank along this part of the river. It was one of the countless weekend getaways that my dad and I used to go on during the summer. As I turned to look back up the incline of the steep bank, up to where our cabin was perched, I didn’t see my dad yet. He was probably still unloading some of our things and was not in eyesight from where I sat.

Whenever we came here I couldn’t wait to run down to the river, down the initial gradual slope to the river and then scrambling down a much steeper grade, using one of the countless rough little footpaths down to the waters edge. I was always in a hurry although I didn’t need to be. When I finally got down there to the water’s edge, it was right there where it always was, the old Sangamon. The river was almost caramel colored, rich with silt. The river glided most of the time, rather than running or flowing or splashing - it slid along leisurely. Took it’s time to circle lazily around big rocks either submerged or showing on the bank and out in the middle channel. It would eddy into some little cutbacks where trees and small boulders had created small outcroppings from the bank. It strolled under overhanging foliage, tree limbs and small bridges. In fact, until you saw a branch or leaves glide by, you sometimes forgot it was moving at all.

Something else I always noticed and loved about this river was it’s almost absolute religious silence. Farther downstream there was a little spot where the river gurgled and coughed its way through a sizeable section of rapids around some fairly substantial large boulder rocks, but here in our part of the river, it was largely silent. Birds chirping, cicadas buzzing during the day and early evening. Crickets and frogs at night was pretty much all you heard, except for the occasional baying of an old coonhound far off in the distance. No traffic and no people – and that, that was just the way my dad wanted it.

Our cabin, as we called it, was actually an old camping trailer that had long ago been firmly and permanently dropped here by some past owners. My dad had purchased it somewhere along the line and it became ours. The camper was small, hot, leaky and barely passable in terms of sleeping or eating in. Definitely rough around the edges. It was great we always said. Perfect, in fact.

Dad’s call startled me as I daydreamed on the bank, “Hey Jimmy! what’re you waiting for? Get a pole in the water.”

I looked up quickly to where he stood about twenty or so feet above and behind me.

“Hurry up pal, the catfish are hungry,” he said before taking a sip from his can of Schlitz.

We made good camping and fishing buddies, we talked when we wanted and didn’t when we didn’t want to. We came and went, where and when we pleased. Sometime I would walk a couple of hundred feet or so down the bank in one direction and he’d go the other, waving at each other from a distance every once in while. Other times we would be together almost all day.

After catching a medium sized channel cat, I loaded up my tackle box and took off upstream. I looked back once and saw dad quite aways downstream in the other direction. I waved and he returned the wave but looked quickly back to where his bobber was, probably seeing a bite. I was headed to my favorite spot.
***

Maybe, I’d see him again. The Sangamon Man that is. That’s what I had nicknamed him after the first time. That’s why this was my favorite spot along the river. It was almost mystical, almost had some bridge to the past – I was just sure of it. I was sitting on a fallen tree in the middle of a sandbar. Out in front of me was a big bulge in the river about 80 feet across, with each side to the right and left of me gradually tapering down to the normal width of the river. On the far bank was a single steep pathway through trees and dense foliage down to the waters edge. No real current on top of the water but plenty of it unseen below. Overhead was an almost complete canopy of trees connecting at the top from both sides of the river.

The effect was one of a natural amphitheater. The limited sunlight that was able to somehow filter down through the canopy created a dappled and muted surreal light. It was a hushed place too, even the birds seemed to fall silent. One would flutter in or past occasionally but
the only sound was their beating wings. I had thrown my line in, but my gaze was not intent on the bobber as usual. No, my stare was directed at the other bank, at the steep pathway leading down to the water.

It was always a little spooky for me to go around several bends in the river. Once I lost sight of the cabin up on top of the bank, our car, my dad downstream or just a familiar tree or boulder it got a little edgy. There was a sense of disconnect. I know now that’s why I liked it, it was an exciting thing to do for a ten year old boy.
***

Two weeks ago, I had been fishing in this exact spot and getting a good bite too. As the bobber thumped up and down the second time, then disappeared altogether, I sat up a little straighter and was prepared to give the pole a healthy jerk. As I sat up though, I peripherally caught movement over on the other bank and off to the left a little. Not ready to abandon my focus completely, I snuck a quick glance to the movement I thought I’d seen.

‘Nothing…no…wait…what the heck….’ I mumbled to myself as my thoughts were scrambled and I was frozen where I sat on that sand bar.

I was mesmerized, unable to do anything but stare and record the scene. What I was seeing made me forget all about fishing, or camping, or being hungry for lunch some lunch. He had glided, much like the river itself, right down to the waters edge. He had seemed to cut right through the foliage with hardly any leaves being shaken or stirred. There was no sound as he brushed through and came down the dirt pathway to the bank. He was as silent as snowfall.

The Indian had skin the color of dark mahogany, he was naked except for the buckskin hanging from his waist and the moccasins on his feet. His long jet black hair hung down to his waist in back but was cropped much shorter on the sides with several long braids hanging from the top. Tight around his head was a thin rawhide headband. He had a large, roughly honed knife and a bow made from a sapling was slung over his shoulder. A small trinket or stone was hanging on his chest from a rawhide string around his neck. His face had three horizontal black lines painted on each high cheekbone. Eyes that were dyed yellow above and black underneath.

He moved deliberately but carefully, every step seemed measured yet graceful. His build was medium but it was hardened and muscular. Pausing at the waters edge, he looked slowly downstream and held that look patiently. He was looking, listening and smelling. Sensing the area like a fox or bear might. For what seemed like a very long time, he had finally broke that gaze and looked upstream this time,
taking the same prolonged precaution. All of this time, I had hardly breathed it seemed and I was in some kind of mild shock I’m sure.

‘How could he not see me?’ I thought to myself, still not having moved an inch, my fishing pole still held in my right hand with the pole quiet now, the catfish gone.
***

After seemingly satisfying himself that he was alone, he quickly sat on his haunches and started to cup water to his mouth. As he brought his cupped hands up to his mouth, he slowly raised his chin and as he did, his eyes locked straight onto me. No surprise was reflected in his gaze, no sudden awareness on his part. He simply settled his look, darkly, directly and burning right through me.

He had seen me the entire time of course, he was just not overly concerned about any threat I might pose. One of his eyebrows was actually raised slightly as he stared at me with the eyes of a hunter, questioning the distance all with a slight sneer of malevolence. He had finally stopped drinking and a drop of water glistened on his stony chin. He continued to look at me with his lowered head and lidded eyes, a death stare. It was much the same look as a big cat has when stalking or sizing up a selected target. I returned his stare, not in a challenge certainly but in a frozen and
paralyzed trance. Slowly he dropped his cupped hands to his sides, one hand naturally settling on the bone handle of his knife which was tethered at his waist.

A horse muttering, possibly - I can’t be sure of that because I saw no horse, finally broke up the scene. The Indian stood up immediately after the sound of his horse, or whatever the sound had been, going up the embankment path like quicksilver. A moccasin disappearing into the tall reeds was the last thing I remembered as I jolted myself back into motion. As he had melted into the foliage, I had jerked up to my feet unsteadily. The entire episode had been dreamlike, a fantasy of some sort. How could it have been anything else? I had wondered.
***
That had been two weeks ago and in that time I had hardly thought about anything else. I had told no one and had patiently waited for this weekend campout. If it had been a dream and I was sure it was, then I wanted to dream it again.

As I waited on the fallen tree in the very spot I’d seen him, the afternoon wore on. It grew later and the sun sinking in the west was now just barely slanting through the canopy of trees above. I kept catching my chin from dropping to my chest. It was very comfortable, leaning against the tree now instead of sitting on it and using the cushion of the sandbar itself to half recline in. In and out I dozed, slowly losing the battle to keep my eyes open.

The soft murmur of a horse woke me with a start. This time I could smell the horse, rawhide, sweat, blood and a certain gamey smell. Looking out of the very corner of my eye and slightly behind me my heart skipped and then raced as I saw the front legs of a horse. The thick veins, horse hair and hooves so close, so clear, they had to be real. Looking up further I saw a dusty moccasin and muscled calf hanging down loose with no stirrup. Continuing my gaze upward, I was not surprised to finally be staring at the same face that had been burned into my memory two weeks ago.

Up this close the face was even more weathered, chiseled and hard. The long thin nose even more pronounced and the long black hair had a sheen, slightly greased with animal fat or oil of some kind. I stared at him with my eyes and mouth wide open, a reclining scared statue. He gazed down at me with a mixed look of curiosity and disdain. Sitting bareback and motionless, his hands rested leisurely on his thighs. He took his gaze slowly away from me and looked downstream in the direction of where my dad was.

All I could hear was the rough breath of the small sturdy Indian pony. I was cramping up a little, so I raised my knee only slightly to relieve some numbness. Instantly he


whirled around, hair flying out and around his head in a spray of black. Staring hard at me now with coal dark eyes as black as his hair. Like before, the eye lids on top painted a bright yellow, the bottom an almost glossy black. It almost seemed as if he was deciding whether to kill me now or kidnap me, selling me off later to another tribe.

The horse suddenly reared, snorted and whirled on a dime. Then they were off like a shot, up the riverbank and knifing into the trees behind me. He looked back at me over his shoulder one last time with those searing yellow and black eyes. I saw the speckled pony’s tail and the Sangamon Man's long black hair flowing behind them as they went. Then they gone.

I woke up with that pony's snort echoing in my head. I was breathing rapidly and dripping with sweat. I lay half leaning on the fallen tree and my leg was cramping a little. Slowly I regained my senses and sat up. My mind was still playing a few tricks on me though, as I could have sworn I smelled something a little gamey. I knew of course that it was only the river smell; a combination of fish and river water but still…

Getting up quickly and brushing off the sandbar grit, I stretched, grabbed my poles and started back towards our cabin. It was late, the last of the sun coming in from the western horizon, angling in horizontally through the tree trunks on the far side, not through the tree canopy overhead. Reviewing the dream I just had as I walked slowly back to the cabin along the riverbank, I tried to decide whether or not to tell my dad. I quickly came to the decision not to, grinning at the thought of trying to explain to him that I had seen an Indian brave twice now, on the banks of the Sangamon……in 1964. Whether I had really seen an Indian would forever be up to me to decide. Imagination and dreams, or had there somehow, in someway really been a Sangamon Man? There even today riding through the woods along the river. The only real evidence, pony tracks in the wet sandbar next to the fallen tree where I had been, would be gone with a good rain and rising river later that night.

I’m glad I never saw those tracks that day. It was better that way.

The Sangamon Man, I think of him and his river sometimes.

One of my Sangamon Catfish

and a cane pole, around 1963.

Moments in Time - photos

Another old favorite. My Father and his sister. A million things to look at in this picture, the reflection in the glass, the flowers fading fast, the dirt and hard scrabble, from the faces to the clothes to a child's strong spirit. No Caramel Frappacino's here. What a shot.

My Father, a lance corporal in the Marine Corps and my Mother, who put Hollywood starlets to shame in San Clemente CA. during World War 2. The next day he was boarding a troop ship and heading west, straight out into the Pacific. His destination was what would be called the island of death, Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands chain. Their faces are a study; a mix of love, fear, anger and a touch of despair. He would return highly decorated, without 3 close high school friends and weighing approximately 120 pounds.

My Father - prairie photo

My father during the Great Depression. The photo taken by a man who traveled around and offered to take pictures for people. People were so desperate to have something good come around for a change. Payment was in the form of money if there was any, or food, or something of value. The photographer got some eggs in this case. Circa 1930's, not quite sure of the year.

He's in front of the house his dad built out of scrap wood. 3 rooms. He shared a room with his sister. A big wood stove in the kitchen was their heat.....A winter memory of his; waking up one teeth chattering morning and looking down curiously at a thin little line of snow leading from the wall to about halfway across the bedroom floor. Probably my most treasured photograph. - Skee.

The Sculptor

It had happened before, but it was a work in progress and some adjustments would happen, many times over again. The sculpture was not nearly finished and the untrained artist would make many changes before he allowed it to dry and set. The work was still leaning, still shifting and was just not right yet. Finally though, at some point he would have to be done. He’d finally stand rubbing his hands on a wet towel, back up to look at his creation with a critical eye and announce to himself reluctantly that he was finished. He would always question his creation, thinking that there was more he could have done, more to smooth, more to massage into place. The stance would still be off a little, the head just not quite set at the right angle, but he would realize that at some point he would have to stop, that he would need to walk away……

****

I saw him coming around the corner and ran excitedly to meet him as he drove up to the house. My small group of rag tag friends took off after me like dogs after a fox. It seems like we ran to everything and everywhere back then. The old Ford Galaxy that rolled to a stop was dusty and hot. When I rested my hand on it without thinking, I got a quick burning sensation that I was fast to react to. The hood was like an oven partly because of the old engine and partly due to the late July weather we were having. It was sunny, cloudless and blistering hot with the temperature close to a hundred, even at this time in the afternoon.“You could fry an egg on there Jimmy” my Dad said with a tired smile as he slowly stuck his stiff legs out the door, grabbing his lunch pail on the way out.He shut the car door, and then like so many times before, opened it back up and then shut it again so it would catch this time. Exhausted, he stood there, still grinning at me.“Yes sir! I sure could!” I grinned back, rubbing my hand casually and acting like it didn’t hurt. “Dad, dad! Guess What?” I all but shouted to him, barely able to hold it in any longer. I was positively bursting at the seams with pride.

“Well, let’s see….I dunno….what?” he said while looking around at the sea of faces that had run panting up the driveway behind me. “Looks like something big though …… something exciting” he smiled.As he waited for my answer he sat his aluminum lunch pail down with a clank, leaned his hip against the car and crossed his arms. At 40 or so, my dad was still in great physical shape. He was a former Marine and was now a brick mason by trade. Big arms, wide shoulders, not an ounce of fat and just plain strong. He was damn impressive, especially so, for a boy who wanted more than anything in the world to impress him. Decades later, the knees would not work anymore and the back would betray him, but those days were a long ways off for the man who leaned against that car, on that day. Dressed in worn khaki pants with a threadbare work shirt and work boots, he was dusty, sweaty, bone tired and no doubt hungry as a horse.

“Yep, we’ve been racin’ all day and I won every race, everyone of ‘em! Long races and short races, all of us at once and head to head races. And I won every one of them! I beat everybody!” I blurted out without taking a breath.

While I was describing my glorious victories, several boys had looked down or sideways quickly. Something my dad saw without looking at them, something he saw while never breaking his eye contact with me, and his tired smile never changed or faltered.

“Well, sounds like you guys have been busy today,” he said still grinning and looking away from me finally to scan the crew cut boys gaggled around in a small scruffy bunch.We all looked stamped out of the same machine, white t-shirts, blue jeans and converse tennis shoes. The only difference being a few who always, always, had one of their shoestrings untied. Occasionally, on a particularly hot day, there might be a few of us who took their shirts off showing either the beginings of a washboard stomach or a few too many cookies and ice cream cones.It was true that some were a little older, some a little younger, some skinny as a rail and some starting to fill out but for the most part we were peas in a pod.

I was about 11 or 12 on that summer day and I had begun to exhibit some real strength and physical ability lately. I was also, literally, full of myself that late afternoon. This wasn’t about just being proud of winning and telling my Dad. No, I’m very sure that there was a glimmer of cockiness in my eye.

“Also sounds like we have an unbeatable champion here, huh?” he winked this at me and then glanced around at the boys gathered in a semicircle, his eyebrows raised dramatically for effect.My grin had to have faded, or at least frozen a little into a stiff smile, when my dad said that. I felt a little sting from his light hearted mocking and maybe the feeling of a little betrayal too.

Brad Deskins from over on Coronado Drive, the next street over, took a half step forward out of the crowd. Brad , who was a little overweight and constantly beet red in the face, snorted “He’s not that good Mr. Wilson!”

“Beat you didn’t I….Beat everybody” I asked and answered myself very matter of factly. My dad’s teasing remark was still burning me a little under the skin and it was me against the world now.

“Yeah well, you won, but our race was right down to the wire” Brett Parker announced. He was a small kid whose furry little burr haircut always had a little wax on it to make it stand straight up in front. “It was really close”, he reaffirmed, while looking up at my dad with his sincere and serious eyes.

“I won by at least 10 yards Brett.” I said with an almost bored confidence.

“Yeah, but you jumped the gun in our race…..” mumbled Dave, a quiet kid who never had much to say about anything. His voice started out excited but trailed off quickly and he quickly began studying his shoes like he had never seen anything quite so interesting.

“Ha! he did not Davey!” laughed my best friend Rick. “But, Mr. Wilson, he actually did cheat when he and I raced” he laughed good naturedly, poking me in the ribs.

“Aww heck, I beat all of you!” I said triumphantly. “Beat everybody here. Heck I even beat my dad a week ago, didn’t I dad?!” driving the point home that I was indeed the champion, but still wanting his testimony to the fact.

“Yeahhh…..yeah, you know now that I think about it, I guess you did” he thought out loud to himself, staring at me now and seemingly trying to remember.Although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, he understood human nature well and was sensitive to the need for subtlety at times. He was a complex man made of many different angles and textures, a man who defied any simple description. Many people had preconceived notions or perceptions of him and they could not have been more wrong. He was a prodigious reader of many kinds of books, a sketch artist, a painter, a sculptor and potter.On the other hand, he was macho way before that became a popular and overused word. He could be sensitive when the situation dictated and he could be damn near heartless when that was required. He had dexterity and presence, both physically and mentally.

In total, he was many things, some good and some bad, some constructive and some destructive. But above all, he had humility and he was genuine. Two things that he put a very high value on.The ongoing battle for him of course was controlling this little kid in front of him. This kid he had helped to create, this boy who wanted to please and impress him, and who so much resembled himself at that same age. These characteristics of his son would always be a double edged sword, making him both proud and scared at the same time. He would tell me years later that the never ending battle he had fought was when to let me run and when to reign me in. When to bolster my confidence and when to curb it or, when to feed the fire and when to let it burn down a little. It was a fine balancing act and one that demanded a deft touch.

“Well, listen here you little troublemakers, I have to get cleaned up……you too Jimmy……it’ll be suppertime soon” he said as he picked up his lunch pail. About four steps away though he stopped and looking back at me said, “Hey Jimmy….before we go in….how ‘bout a quick rematch? We’ll just go down to the corner, around the big tree, and back. Deal?”

I grinned back at him and said, “Sure! I’m ready if you are dad.

The small crowd of boys looked at each other wide eyed, then erupted with hoots and yells. It’s a scene that I’ll never forget really. Me, crouching on a chalk line we had drawn on the road earlier. My dad, who was hitching his dusty work pants up and toeing the line in his work boots. My best friend Rick, who would call the start, standing off to the side and looking very official. Mr. Simmons, who had just gotten home from work was next door, standing by his car watching it all unfold, mouth slightly open and looking very confused. My little group of friends who were all fidgety and waiting anxiously for the start, lined up like it was an event at the 1964 Summer Olympics.

'Down to the corner and back, down to the corner and back,' I chanted to myself. I’ve never wanted to win a race so badly in my life, before or since. One other thing I’ll never forget. I looked over at my dad and he wasn’t smiling anymore, he was just looking straight ahead with no expression. I distinctly remember the gravelly sound of me digging my back toe in to get a good start and seeing a drop of sweat running slowly down from dad’s sideburn to his cheek as I snuck another look. A dog barked from somewhere a long way off, stopped and barked once more. Then a tense silence.

One of the boys couldn’t help himself and said quietly, almost whispered it in fact, “Beat him, Mr. Wilson….beat him”. It seems like yesterday when I think about it now.

“On your Marrrrk……Get settttt…….GO!” Rick said loudly, delivering the start perfectly.As we both came blasting off the starting line, another wild cheer went up from the boys. Down the road we went, father and son, oblivious to everything and everyone but the hot road in front of us and each other. No Olympic event has ever had more effort put into it, or run with more desire to win. I remember listening to the sound our shoes made on the road as we went and the special exhilarating feeling that competition always gives you. In all terms but pure physical stature, we were almost identical.

I pulled ahead about two thirds of the way to the turn and I can remember my hand scraping around the bark of that big maple tree that represented halfway. I used the spin around the tree as a sort of slingshot motion and legs pumping, arms working like a machine, I was catapulted forward on my way back to the finish.I never heard him coming, didn’t know he was even that close actually.

He was just there suddenly, just off my right shoulder. As he pulled even with me, I looked over quickly, but he just kept looking straight ahead. Emotionless, relentless and driven, he pounded forward like a freight train at full throttle. As we got closer to the finish though we both had naturally started to tire and slow down from our blazing start. He was still stronger though and continued to inch ahead of me. With only forty yards or so left to the house and the ragged little crowd yelling us on back at the start line, he was at least 5 feet in front of me.I remember digging down and reaching inside myself, pushing hard to finish strong, but also knowing I couldn’t possibly run any faster.

Then like a switch had been thrown, by some miracle, I was now gaining on him and pulling up even with him. With twenty yards to go we were just for a split second shoulder to shoulder. Only then, did he look over at me. Only then, when I met his glance, did I know.

When it was all over there were claps on the back all around, while we caught our breaths and were bent over at the waist with hands on our knees. It had been a heck of a race, everybody agreed. Eventually, the boys had finally started to say the familiar summertime “see ya tomorrows” to each other as they slowly drifted away, one by one, heading for their own houses and suppers waiting.

It was just dad and I now, still sweating heavily but much more relaxed and once again we were leaning on the car. I was chewing on piece of grass and he was lost in some thought, watching the end of a beautiful plum and orange sunset.

“Dad?” I asked quietly, matching the peaceful dusk sounds around us. An early cricket or two, some cicadas in our backyard trees and a lonesome robin were about the only noises. It was very still, a summer evening of heavy air and warm quiet.

“Yes?” he answered, breaking away from the spell the sunset had held him in and cocking his head around to look over at me.”Why did you do that......let me win like that?” I asked in a deeper voice that I didn’t really even have yet.“Because I knew you’d get the message anyway, without me rubbing your nose in it” he said looking at me evenly. “Because I knew you could figure out who won, without having to prove it in front of your friends and then listen to me crowing about it afterward” he added with a certain hardness.He looked away again, this time only pretending to look back at the sky where the sun had been a moment ago.

Dark purple hues were deepening and turning to black with each passing moment now. A few early stars could be seen.I looked up at him, understanding both his meaning and message. I also scooted over a little closer to him, not feeling like I was twelve anymore. I didn’t want to be older or stronger or faster right then. I wanted him to pick me up and carry me around the yard on his shoulders, once more, like he used to……just once more.

“Well, c’mon boy, let’s go get washed up. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving” he smiled, loosening the reigns again. “You know, you are gettin' pretty fast, but still not faster than your old man” he grinned again, ruffled my hair and slung a strong arm over my shoulder. I put my arm around his waist and ended up hooking my thumb on one of his side belt loops, like I had so many times before. We walked like that to the house as that day was about to end and another one was just around the corner.

****

.......The sculptor still had a long way to go, but he had made some progress on the day that had just ended. The angle of the head was a little better now. The shoulders a bit more square. It would never be perfect, far from it, but he’d continue to shape and smooth, prod and pull, push and mold. Someday, he would stand back and look at me, this boy of his and he’d realize that he was done, or as done as he could be. A sculpture with many imperfections to be sure, but one that he’d helped to create and give meaning to.

Thin Shafts of Light

West Texas 1868


The little seven year old boy shook uncontrollably as he squatted in the dark space, on the cool earthen floor. Smelling the loam, the musty dampness of dirt that never sees the sun, he felt like this might be what a grave would feel like. This must be what it’s like to be buried, like his little sister Nattie was last spring he thought. She had come down with the fever and died after a few days. He had watched his Pa tight lipped and solemn, shovel the dirt onto the small wooden crate down below them where they all had stood.

On that day almost a year ago it had been still, with not a spot of wind. He remembered looking down and watching the dust as it hung in the air, then slowly settled back down into the rough grave. All the while his mother had moaned quietly and cried with her hands over her mouth. His older brother Seth, thirteen at the time, had stood bravely just behind her with a tear and dirt stained face. Hands jammed into old trousers held up by suspenders, he quickly wiped again at his face and looked off at the gradual hill that rose off to the west of their cabin. His brother’s lips had been trembling and his chest hitched a couple of times, signaling the battle within him to remain strong and steady. The small boy’s memory of that day suddenly faded away as quickly as it had come.

Heavy walking above him had brought him back from that memory and he stared at a wooden trapdoor above him with a look of true terror, faced upraised and eyes wide, looking straight up as he waited for the bad men to surely find his hiding place. He imagined them grinning and leering while slowly lifting the small wood hatch in the floor, which currently hid him from view. Saw them pulling him up by the hair, kicking and screaming, out of the hole.

The noises had been going on for awhile and they were terrible noises. There had been screams and scuffling, stomping feet, men growling and cursing, breaking glass and wood splintering. He heard his mother’s muffled cries and her pleading with somebody to stop doing something and his brother Seth sounding hurt and crying loudly. He didn’t hear his Pa anymore. Earlier though, he’d been yelling and scrapping with somebody, least that’s how it sounded anyway. There had been about 6 or 7 gunshots at the beginning he thought, but he didn’t really know how many, because he wasn’t thinking too straight. He was past being scared now, way past that, and it almost felt as if he was dreaming this whole thing. He had retreated to a place far away and only time would tell if he could find his way back. Something had broken inside him and he had snapped like a dry dead twig.

Pulling his wide eyes reluctantly away from the trapdoor, he looked slowly around the darkness, which luckily wasn’t entirely black. There were thin shafts of light coming through the wood plank floor above, some cracks were only paper thin, some a little wider and these gave him just enough light. There were dust particles floating around from all the commotion up above and as they swirled and floated in and out of the lines of light. After awhile the bad noises above turned into a muffled roar as the small boy faded in and out of consciousness.

7 year old Tyler Parker was crouched in a square shaped area that was about five deep and just big enough for his whole family to be in. His father, Jared, had dug the crawlspace under the cabin for his wife and children about 2 years ago. The Parkers had never had to use it but Tyler had played in it before with the trapdoor open and his mother or pa around. It was meant for shelter during a bad storm that might blow up, or as a hiding place from Indian raiding parties, or just plain bad men like the ones above him right now. It could hold everyone but he was alone. There just hadn’t been enough time earlier this morning…….

After they had their breakfast in the morning, his Pa and Seth had been working on their plow harness and his mother had been washing some clothes in the tub outside, while he had been sweeping the floor of the cabin.

“Mother, we got some visitors comin’ callin’ on us” Seth said loud enough for Tyler to hear him from inside. “Up on tha hill, see ‘em?” he said with a little excitement and was pointing at them now. In west Texas during the 1800’s a visitor was an exciting occasion, a break in the routine of everyday hard work and labor by the entire family.

Tyler kept sweeping but he moved to the small window that looked out the front of the cabin, due west. Up there on the hill, the same one Seth had been staring off at the day they had buried Nattie, he saw three men on horses. They had stopped, silhouetted against the sky, looking down at the small cabin and farmstead of the Parker family.

He looked at both his folks and they stared at the three horsemen. A small smile, which had started up on his mother’s face as she hoped for somebody they knew, quickly faded. His fathers arm dropped after his wave went unanswered by the three riders on top of the hill. His usual stern expression got even more serious as Tyler watched him closely. There was a tense minute or so when the riders and his family continued studying each other.

Finally, Seth broke the trance and silence, “Pa, what do you think they ar….“ but he didn’t finish when he saw one rider begin to make his way down the hill to them. The other two riders fell in right behind him.

“Seth, get inside with your little brother…….Ma you too…..” his father had said without taking his eyes off the three riders.

“But Pa, I - “Seth once again was cutoff by Jared.

“Git boy……go on Seth…..now” Tyler’s father had said tightlipped while he continued to tighten a strap on the plow harness.

His mother dropped the shirt she’d been washing back into the metal tub and walked steadily over to Seth, taking a handful of the boy’s shirt when she reached him.

“Seth, inside with your brother….. goan now” she almost whispered, tugging hard on his shirt. She walked with Seth a few steps and up onto the short porch, ushering him inside, then stopped at the cabin door and turned again to look.

The riders kept coming leisurely down the hill towards them, they were close enough now for the Parker’s to see how bedraggled and scruffy looking they were.

“Jared……?” Tyler’s mother said hesitantly to his father.

“Git inside Mary, take care of the boys…..I got this” he said quietly back to her, never taking his eyes off the advancing trio of horsemen. “Inside now, hurry”.

She did as he said and came into the cabin quickly. Tyler and Seth were over looking out the small dirty window and she went to an old standup cupboard in the corner. She grabbed something, turned and walked to the supper table carrying his pa’s pistol and bone handled, big blade hunting knife. She looked at Tyler and tried to give him a reassuring smile, but couldn’t deliver one, her gaze going back out the door to the approaching riders and to Jared.

The first rider, who looked to be only about 20 or so, had on an old cavalry hat and was wearing a pair of greasy buckskin pants. He was within about thirty feet of his father when he reached across his waist and pulled a revolver, all in one swift motion. Bringing it over and up quickly, he aimed and fired without warning or a word spoken. The rider’s horse reared up and the man briefly struggled to bring him steady or he would have taken another shot. His pa, reacting to the sudden movement, began to duck and run for the cabin before the shot had rang out. The bullet grazed his shoulder spraying a mist of blood up in the air that they all saw. The riders behind also fired and his pa was hit in the right arm too. Seth slammed the shutters closed on the window and Tyler simply stood there frozen and wide eyed, looking at his mother.

His father stumbled and half fell into the cabin and Mary slammed the door shut, swinging a heavy wood slat down to hold it shut. She then grabbed the big Colt pistol from his dad’s army days, and gave Seth the hunting knife. His father snatched his Winchester rifle hanging on the wall and chambered a bullet, backing up from the door until the far wall stopped him.

“Mary, take the boys down in the crawl space” his father said through gritted teeth. He was bleeding badly from the arm wound and the arm hung weakly at his side. He held the Winchester one handed, with his other good arm and stared at the closed door.

She quickly scooted the table and floor rug out of the way, opening the little hatch that was cut into the floor. She grabbed Tyler and pushed him halfway down through the hole, motioning for Seth to come as well.

Without warning, the door to the cabin buckled inward with a tremendous bang and the window shutters over where Seth stood, cracked almost in two.

“Rancher! We mean to have whatever we want in there and we will……You better git out here quick like and we’ll think about sparin’ you and yourn if you do” came a roaring voice from outside. There followed some murmured talk outside between the three riders.

“Get off my property now.……. and I won’t kill all three a you sons a’ bitches!” Tyler’s father yelled, then fired a round about waist high through the weathered cabin door. There was an immediate howl and blood curdling scream from outside.

“Gawwwd Dangggit…….Red! he caught me one a good one……damn……it hurts bad Redddd!” the screaming man wailed and then bellowed his pain angrily.

His Pa had gotten a lucky shot in and working the lever action swiftly despite his lame arm, he readied the Winchester again while painfully leaning against the wall.

Mary looked over and saw that Tyler was still only halfway down into the hole, watching the whole thing unfold. Rushing over she gave him a gentle shove down. She motioned at Seth again, but he had backed his way over to the far corner and shook his head violently. He meant to stay up here with them and his look told her as much. She turned her attention back to Tyler.

She somehow managed a grin this time “Stay down there now my sweet Ty, you stay down there quiet as a mouse and don’t you be coming up till we tell ya to okay? Goan now Ty” and she gently pushed his head down further, dropping the little door at the same time.

He couldn’t see it now, but above him she had just drawn the heavy rug back over the hatch and began scooting the table back when the front door was shattered inward all the way this time. Across the room, the window shutter was splintered at the same time. Seth slashed with the big knife mainly out of reflex, down on a hand that suddenly shoved through the small window with a pistol. But a split second before the knife sliced through clear to the wrist bone, the pistol had fired and Jared was hit again. More shots followed, Jared’s Remington cracked at one of the riders charging through the splintered front door and the stranger was firing as he came through. Then Tyler heard the Colt Peacemaker his mother had been holding with two hands. It boomed twice and then stopped. Then his mother had let out an angry and long shrill scream.

Tyler did as his mother had told him and there he sat, down in that dark dirt, silent as a mouse for almost two days. At first, there had been all the fighting, yelling and shooting, then some more fighting and scrappin’ without guns. He had heard his mother and big brother crying and fighting with the bad men. Then, there was more cussing and bad talk. Soon after, all he heard was heavy footsteps up there. Nobody was talking anymore. But he knew they were up there just waiting for him to come up, trying to trick him. Even when he heard no more footsteps he hadn’t come up. Finally though, after two days he was so thirsty he just had to get out of that hole. As he pushed up on the trapdoor, he hoped the bad men were gone and hoped his ma wouldn’t be too mad at him.

The scene that greeted him was so horrible that he couldn’t even cry. So unimaginable for him that his mind must have shut down and wouldn’t let him recognize things for what they were. He had sat by his broken and shattered mother for awhile, patiently holding her cold hand and hoping she might wake up or get better, but she never did. He ignored both his parents open but lifeless eyes and tried to keep them warm with blankets. His Pa’s bullet riddled body was leaning against the wall and he wouldn’t get up or talk to Tyler, which meant he was still tired or still mad at the bad men. He was hard headed that way, so Tyler left him alone. Brother Seth’s awful tortured body looked almost normal to him and he set a cup of cool well water next to him in case he got thirsty. The two other men, the bad men that were lying in the cabin, he didn’t even look at or acknowledge. They might as well have been piles of wood to Tyler.

Eventually after trying everything he could think of, he thought he better go get help, because his family was still sick and they weren’t getting any better. So, seven year old Tyler Parker had started off for ol’ Billy Pinkerton’s place, their closest neighbor who was probably about 11 miles or so, straight west. He knew the way, his family had visited them on many occasions. Tyler went right over the top of the hill where the riders had been and just kept on walking. He made the Pinkerton place that evening. It was an amazing feat that Billy and Sarah Pinkerton never could quite imagine being accomplished by such a young boy. Tyler hadn’t said a word when they opened their cabin door, but he did finally cry, a sad quiet cry.

In fact, Tyler Calhoun Parker would not say another single word for another eight years. Sarah had just hugged and hugged Tyler that first night, it was the only thing she could think of to do. Then she hugged him some more and softly cried with him, while singing him songs she used to sing to her own children. At sunrise the next morning, Billy Pinkerton had saddled up and rode over to the Parker’s ranch. Later in the day, he returned pale and shaken, talked to Sarah briefly and then walked to their small barn, shaking his head slowly as he went. He wouldn’t return to the house until late that night.

Tyler would spend the next eight years with the Pinkerton family and he would forever be in their debt. They were good, strong and solid people who had cared for and raised him like one of their own. Until they died, he would ride out their way whenever he was close enough to get there. He always made a point of bringing Sarah some perfume, a scarf or something store bought from Landry’s over in Springtown. Ol’ Billy even got a brand new pair a boots from Fort Worth on one visit, well stitched boots that Tyler had patiently scraped and saved for over time. He’d handed the old man this gift, as a son would giving something to his father. The same way he’d given Sarah hers in the past.

When he was almost 16, working on the old Brazos Trail Ranch, Tyler had chased, shot and killed a rustler who had taken an earlier shot at him while he was standing watch over the BTR herd. Still saddled and looking down at the dead rustler with no emotion, another ranch hand by the name of Amory Bean, had rode up and happened to hear Tyler say the first words he’d spoken after nearly 8 years of silence. He told others later that Tyler had simply said, “Off our property now, you sons a’ bitches.” Then he had spat on the dead rustler’s body, looked at Amory without any real expression and rode slowly off.



Amarillo, Texas 1888



In his mind, he had been staring in a daze at the thin shafts of sunlight again. It came over him every once in awhile and he still couldn’t explain it. He had no idea how long it had been since he had heard something, or even moved, but it had been awhile. He frowned slightly as he came back to the present, tipped his hat down further and gently knocked twice on the bar with the glass tumbler.

“Another Mr. Parker?” the portly bartender with heavy sideburns asked him politely and then quietly added “It’s on the house sir.”

The bartender knew exactly who he was dealing with here, he knew the life story of Ty Parker like almost everyone else, knew this famous Texas Ranger well and the living legend that he had become.

“Sure, Sammy...…another.” he said glancing around the saloon. “Sure” he repeated absently.

He flipped another coin on the bar for Sammy anyway, winked at him and then looked over his right shoulder, sideways down the bar. There were two men standing about halfway down and they hadn’t been there the last time he looked.

Turning his body casually he looked straight down the bar and stared at them openly. They glanced back over at him and then away, trying to act indifferent and casual too. That was his boys alright, two train robbers, from down around El Paso way. Tommy Conner and Jeb “Red” Tanner had robbed four trains already and killed five people in the process. He carried their wanted poster in his saddle bag and studied their likeness many times, so there was no mistake that this was the right two. He had been trailing them for a month now and just barely missed them a couple of times as they slipped in and out of small towns all over Texas. At other times, they had stayed out on the plain and he would find their old campsites a day or two later. He had never lost the track though and had stuck with it as the two bandits ranged far and wide, in and out of the state.

As a Texas Ranger, he had jurisdiction all over the entire state of Texas and around the borders of most other neighboring states as well. He basically answered to no other law enforcement body, or person in Texas, except the Governor himself or maybe a superior with the Rangers. So, one way or another, they were his.

He was either taking these two back to old San Antonio in shackles to stand trial and hang, or leaving them somewhere dead out in the prairie. He actually preferred to kill them right here and now, but might make for a messy scene and some innocent people might get killed. He had no interest in shooting up a saloon in Amarillo unless he had to. That left dragging them back through the middle of nowhere and if they made any kind of problem or mistake with him – anything at all, he’d shoot both of them. However, common decency, what there was left of it that hadn’t been ripped out of him during his brief violent life, would then require him to bury the damn bodies and he’d just as soon not do that either. He had a particular distaste for it. Not in killing bad men of course, Lord knows he’d done plenty of that, but in digging the holes for them and putting them in that dark ground.

Ty Parker didn’t think he’d have any trouble with the one closest to him. The other one though, the much older one on the far side that he couldn’t see as well, had looked at him only briefly but it was with dark dead eyes. Eyes that had betrayed not only guilt, but a certain measure of evil he’d seen a few times before.

He finally sat his drink down and walked towards the swinging doors, keeping them in the corner of his eye as he went. When he reached the two steps that lead up and out of the saloon he stopped and turned, gun already out and so quickly pulled that it seemed he’d had it drawn the whole time. It was his father’s old Colt from so long ago and he had always used it. He took several steps through some empty tables to within about 15 feet of the bar and the two men. Sammy the bartender stood down where Ty had been drinking and Ty saw him out of the corner of his eye reach under the bar. Another man, a ranch hand who’d been in there all afternoon, slid his way down to the other end of the bar, watching Ty and the two men at the same time.

Since Ty had stopped turned and walked towards them neither had turned around, but they had been watching him in the saloon mirror behind the bar. He could see their eyes now staring at him in surprise, fooled into thinking he had been leaving and then frozen in place as he had walked up behind them.

“Tyler Parker, Texas Rangers” he said to the backs of the two men almost as if he was in a quiet, private conversation. Adding casually, but with a deadly meaning, “Sammy if you mean to help me, it’s much appreciated, but drop what you have and walk out of here. Sammy quickly sat something down with a clunk and swung through the little half door at the end of the bar. Several other onlookers either backed their way to the door or froze at the tables where they were sitting.

The older man, Jeb Tanner who had been shielded from his view somewhat said, “Ranger, we mean no trouble, we’ve got no quarrel with you or you with us, now leave us be.”

He was staring at Ty in the mirror and the dusty old cavalry hat he was wearing made Ty pause, even that voice had sounded familiar but he couldn’t quite place it, like a bad dream he just couldn’t quite remember – in fact, hadn’t ever fully remembered.

“Both of you unbuckle your gun belts and drop your holsters, then raise your hands.” Both finally did so but the man on the right with the cavalry hat and lifeless eyes took longer, much longer. Both still stared at the mirror.

With the Colt held rock steady and a tense, hushed silence in the saloon, Ty continued “You with the bowler hat on, keep your hands up and turn around slowly…..Slow I said….and ’member boys, I’d just as soon shoot you than have to take you all the way back to San Antone’.

Tommy, wearing the bowler, had slowly turned as ordered and finally looked squarely at him. Ty could then see how young he really was, old enough, but young all the same. His face was drained of all color and he looked as if he was going to feint dead away. He started to say something to his partner but only got four words out “Red, I don’t think….

“Keep your yappin’ mouth shut Tommy” his older partner growled quietly.

“Okay Colonel you’re next, hands raised and a slow turn…..do it now”
Ty stated menacingly to the man known as Red.

The man didn’t move and his hands had come back down on the bar, resting in mid air just above the bar. Tommy stared wide eyed at Ty, even more nervous now.

“Now……..and get your hands back up in the air……I won’t ask again” Ty stated plainly.

Still the man didn’t move and Ty thought he saw just a slight twitch in the man’s slightly upraised right hand.

When the Colt went off inside the small saloon it sounded as if a small cannon had been fired. Ty had lowered the gun slightly and shot the uncooperative man in the calf of his left leg. A whelp and a hiss came from the man as he slumped.

“I said move damn it….” Ty said with no emotion. Gun smoke hung in the motionless air.

“Blue, you got ’ta turn around now” Tommy said quickly, nervous as a cat and clearly wanting this to just be over.

But just after Tommy spoke and as Ty watched Tanner struggling to turn, Tommy had rolled to his left suddenly.

A split second late Sammy had then called out from somewhere behind them, “Mr. Parker watch out for….” But Ty reacted quickly, firing his second shot at the diving Tommy, thinking that he might have actually hit him.

The boom echoed inside the saloon again. Bringing his gun back to the already wounded man slumped at the bar, he then fired a third shot because Jeb ‘Red’ Tanner had already whirled around while reaching for a small revolver tucked inside the waistband of his pants. The man was hit and flung violently back against the bar and then he crumpled to the floor, finally coming to rest facing Ty in an awkward sitting position. The gun he had gripped briefly had clattered to the floor.

Without pause, Ty glanced over and through the tables at Tommy who had indeed been hit and a large pool of blood was already forming around his fallen body. The man’s eyes were open but his face already had the frozen look of the dead on it.

Turning back to the man slumped on the floor against the bar he walked forward and looked down at Tanner.

“Damn you Ranger…….I’m gut shot…….” the man groaned and he had both bloody hands squeezing his stomach, his body slumping forward slightly. Kicking the small dropped revolver away in the direction of where the rancher was, Ty continued to stare at the wounded man.

“You want to die now, or just keep bleeding out? Might take a day, hell maybe two – I’ve seen it happen, and I’ll make damn sure no doc works on you, so it’ll be a hard go. Your dead either way…..slow or quick…..Which’ll it be? Ty asked, then added “I’ll let you choose.”
Ty looked quickly over to where Tommy was laying and like he thought, the man hadn’t moved. He was dead.

Ty swung his gaze back at Red, cocked his gun and leveled it at the man.

Silence followed in the smoky saloon. The wounded man hissed and sat up straighter. Ty waited with his gun pointed right at the man’s forehead.

“Shoot me Ranger” Tanner said, coughing out a small amount of bloody foam.

Ty kept the gun leveled and brought his thumb up, then released the hammer gently and holstered his revolver. “Sammy, can you get my horse and another one from over at the livery stable?” he questioned over his shoulder to the bartender he still couldn’t see. As Sammy headed out he yelled after him, “Tell ‘em I’ll pay good money but I don’t need no dang thoroughbred.”

“Yessir. Yessir I’ll have ‘em out front right away” came the hurried answer.

Red hissed with pain again and said “Ranger, you said you’d shoot me if I wanted….” yelping painfully on the last word. “Please put me down now…..I caint’ have no more of this fire in my belly. Please.

“Didn’t remember you at first” Ty said slowly and almost to himself.

“Don’t know you, never seen you ‘fore…..heard about you though” Blue hissed the words out through gritted teeth.

“Hat your wearin’ looked familiar and seemed like I’d heard your bellowin’ before, but I still couldn’t place you” Ty said solemnly as if he was remembering as he went. “When I shot you in the leg though I saw the knife tucked in your left boot though…..that’s what did it for me.”

“Crazy talk…….what the hell’r you talkin’ bout Ranger?” Tanner wheezed.

“I’m talkin’ about one day my mother brought out the gun I hold and the knife you have in your boot because there were three bad men bangin’ on the door of our little ranch years ago. There will be carved initials on the bone handle of that knife and they’ll be “JP”, for Jared Parker, my Pa. Ty stated with a growing anger.

Jeb ‘Red’ Tanner stared up at him, very afraid now, but still not understanding.
But Ty would explain it all to him on the ride back to San Antonio. A long, slow ride that would take days, and a ride that Jeb ‘Red’ Tanner would never complete. There would be plenty of time to talk, plenty of time to think and plenty of time to widen those thin shafts of light.

*************

Beginning The End

As Dr. Steven Middleton sipped his lemon tea and spread a little more butter on a croissant, he looked out over the mountains near his Chattanooga home. He was overcome by a sense of relief. It was late afternoon on a cloudless Saturday in September and his wife had just gotten up from her chair on the deck to go answer the phone. As he sat there, reflecting and remembering on a lifetime and career that left little to be desired, he was relieved. Yes, he told himself, that was definitely the feeling, relieved. Of course he was appreciative for the family he had, his achievements and accomplishments, the many friends and the associates he had been lucky enough to have gained. For the most part though, he was glad that his long career had finally come to an end. He was anxious to start this new chapter of his life, try to bury some nightmares and have a new beginning.

The view from his deck was expansive and beautiful, a vista that had held him in a trance of awe and inspiration since the first time they had looked at this property about twelve years ago. He could lose himself here and sometimes during his long career, most of the time in fact - he reminded himself, that was exactly what he had needed. He could hear his wife talking to his oldest daughter in the background but at the same time he didn't really hear anything. A little whiff of breeze blew up briefly and it seemed like it lifted him right up, his thoughts drifting away and back in time.....

He had grown up in a middle class family, his father a detective for the Atlanta Police Department and his mother, an elementary school teacher. His father had in fact worked on one of Atlanta’s most infamous murder cases. Wayne Williams had finally been caught and convicted of multiple child abductions and murders, something that Williams had always claimed his innocence of. In the end though, the evidence had been overwhelming and his father had played a big part in documenting the case, putting together many of the missing pieces that had stymied investigators so long.

Steven Middleton, had also been an only child and he was his parent’s entire world. He had excelled in sports, girls and academics - and not necessarily in that order, as he had made his way through his early years. Georgia Tech turned out to be where he had finally decided to attend college when that time had come and he had met Mary his wife there as well. Medical School followed, with a final career destination of someday being a Medical Examiner being his plan. As with almost everything Steven had ever set out to do, he had accomplished that as well.
The explosion though, of the Forensic Sciences field, had opened a world of opportunity that Steven hadn't seen coming. Spurred on from his Father's unofficial expertise and interest in the fledgling forensic crime units, Steven had added this area of studies to an already long list of academic achievements. He found also that it was an area that he had a natural expertise in. Back then it had been a sort of no man's land, combined crime investigation and medicine. The pinnacle of it all though, in his mind, was his sideline studies of serial murderers, more specifically an even newer art form that was being pioneered at the time. Profiling became more mainstream and he had personally helped to popularize that term as a crime fighting tool. It had also catapulted him to national prominence. He began being brought in on a consultative basis by Police Departments and Law Enforcement agencies across the country. After being called in on a national case, recommended by an FBI Section Chief who was an old college roommate of his from Georgia Tech, things just seemed to mushroom.

Probably the only big regret though, no he corrected himself, it was definitely his biggest regret, had been the case in North Carolina. There were times where either because of prior commitments or other ongoing cases, he would have to turn down requests for help. It was simply impossible to be everywhere at once. The Chapel Hill Killer case was one of those times. At the same time the CHK murders were going on, he had been working a case in Northern Virginia. A gruesome multiple homicide involving the murder and torture of an entire well to do family of six. When Police had arrived on the scene, they had found six severed heads on the fireplace mantle. Steven would have his hands full on this one, but he felt he’d be successful. The killer had made some mistakes.

A good friend and associate of his, Bill Markham, ‘The most talented Profiler there is today’ Steven always made a habit of publicly stating, would eventually get the "win" on the Chapel Hill Killer. The case was horrendous in nature, held the attention of the entire nation for long months and Steven had watched it closely. He called his friend who was working the case as much as he could, offering advice, opinions and support. His thoughts and vision into a case he wasn’t really involved in amazed Markham and the other profiler began to lean and rely heavily on Steven’s helpful phone calls.

The Chapel Hill Killer had been particularly sadistic and gruesome but almost fastidious in his method. He exhibited a certain macabre lunacy and a strange controlled butchery, coupled with an insane artist’s touch and signature afterward. The entire campus area and surrounding community had been held in an awful grip of terror for months. One by one, seven young and beautiful girls were meticulously and carefully cut, slashed and punctured with a variety of implements.

What the Chapel Hill Killer was horribly good at was prolonging agony and the ultimate death of his victims. That as well as not being caught of course was what placed him above so many others, in terms of achieving the dubious status of the worst of the worst. By abrasions and bruising on ankles and wrists, as well as bruising and tell tale marks on their backs and buttocks, it appeared they had all been handcuffed spread eagled on a flat hard surface of some kind. They all had been raped repeatedly by both the murderer and with various objects he used. It was estimated that the girls all lasted at least 2 days and one was estimated to have lived 4 days after being cut and raped the first time. As a finishing statement and personal signature, all the girls were found hanging upside down.

One was found in an auditorium supply closet, one in an abandoned warehouse, one strung from a footbridge over a small stream in a city park and so forth. Their heads shaved, breasts always removed, and the genital area just a mass of tissue. The girls many times were barely, if at all, visually recognizable to loved ones.

As it finally turned out, the murderer was one of the college professors at the school, teaching a class on forensic science of all things. Investigators first stumbled onto the fact that each of the girls had attended at least one of his classes, at one point in their time at the University of North Carolina. He had finally been considered ‘a person of interest’ though after it was found that he had secretly dated two of the victims, lied about it in fact during questioning. It was further discovered through phone records that he had called and asked out, three of the other murdered girls. The clincher was a knife and handcuffs found, during a court ordered search warrant, wrapped and hidden in the rafters of his garage. Blood and DNA on both of these pieces of evidence came back solid, matching one of the murdered coeds. Always maintaining his innocence, the convicted professor, The Chapel Hill Killer had ultimately committed suicide in prison and made the news again only a year ago.

Steven had always supposed that his luckiest trait or talent – if you can call it lucky, was the ability he had to step out of himself and become the monster. His father had some measure of that ability but admittedly nothing compared to Steven’s ability to mentally transform himself. In effect, he could become precisely who his quarry was. He could think like they thought, rationalize like they did, compartmentalize and plan like they did. He could predict where and when and who. He was them.

Now of course, the ability and talent that was his special weapon against serial murderers was also a double edged sword, it was a cancer. It took all his energy, drained him, dried him out and dulled him over the span of the case. Only until the investigation and chase came to conclusion, with the successful apprehension of the murderer, would his self inflicted cancer begin to abate. Down through the years he had needed increasingly more time to regain, restrengthen and compose himself between cases. He wondered from time to time if it wasn’t killing him, from the inside out.

The hook for him of course was successfully solving these hideous cases, there was such a final closure to it, such a sense of doing right for the grieving families and society, such a challenge that had to be met. There was something very cyclical about it all. He needed it, it made him sick, it cured him and he needed it again.

As always though there is an end, an end to a career and retirement. Retirement, 'Beginning the end' he used to jokingly call it when discussing it with Mary. He had actually come to the decision much easier than he would have thought. He felt relieved that he would finally have an opportunity to try and cleanse himself of all the accumulated awful sights, thoughts, smells and devious acts beyond belief. He wanted more than anything never having to put on that monster mask again, pretending to live and breathe in that evil world. Yes, he wanted it over.

"Are you done?".....the question hung in the air like the fog around these Tennessee mountains on some mornings.

He blinked several times and rose up in his chair a little.

"Steven, are you done or would you like some more?" Mary asked again patiently.

He had been so deep in thought and memories that he had not noticed Mary had come back out and sat down. He looked down absentmindedly at the empty tea glass in his right hand and the butter knife in his left hand. He had apparently finished the tea and croissant without even realizing it.

He smiled over to her, "Yes, uh yes, a little more tea would be great hon."

He cleared his throat and looked at her again, "Sorry Dear, I drifted off for a moment, been sitting here thinking about things, thinking about how lucky we've been, how lucky I've been." With that said, he took her hand and looked back out at the mountains.

Smiling gently back at him Mary said, "Chrissie called and said she was going to the game today, they're expecting a big win and she sure wished you could have come. She said the Tar Heels always seem to win in Chapel Hill."

“Yes, yes they do”, he said blinking twice more rapidly and suddenly remembered Chapel Hill very well….and a dimly lit basement.

Clearing his throat again and trying to erase that, he looked down at his wife’s slim arm and her hand entwined in his, but for just a horrifying split second he saw a handcuff on a slim young wrist instead of her diamond bracelet. He looked away quickly.

"Well, let me go get you a little more tea sweetheart" she said, getting up casually and started to step inside again.

Steven absently lost grip of the butter knife that he still held and it clattered on the stone balcony. Mary, just stepping through the large sliding door began to come back out and pick it up for him.

“I’ve got it babe, I seem to have butter fingers” Steven chuckled at both his clumsiness and the bad pun.

Mary rolled her eyes dramatically, grinned and walked inside.

As he bent over to pick the knife up though, it looked different and his hand froze just above it. Instead of a normal silverware butter knife it had a carved ivory handle, it was almost twice as long as it had been. Much thicker and it had a wicked, decadently tapered, razor sharp blade.

The doctor said nothing as he stared at the evil looking knife, he also couldn't get the quick vision of those handcuffs out of his mind for some reason, he had seen those exact pair somewhere before....... maybe they were from the Phoenix, Arizona case a couple of years ago.....the ones he had never returned. A sudden and horribly shrill girl's scream, full of agony and fear jolted him back to reality and promptly, thankfully, paused the nightmare movie that had just begun playing in his mind.

As quickly as that dark movie in his mind had stopped though, it began again and he immediately started to breath quicker in short little gasps. He became strangely aroused and his pulse pounded. He could have sworn he was back in beautiful Chapel Hill again, back in that rented house just off campus. It had been extremely pleasureable for him and the girls had been such spectacular specimens, so fresh and full of life, so challenging. In the end, it had been an absolute confirmation that he really was the best. Only the best in the business could have managed it. The poor UNC Professor had of course been telling the truth all along and Dr. Steven Middleton knew this better than anyone.

The hawk screeched loudly again, startling him less and not sounding so much like a girl’s scream this time, as it continued it’s swoop on some prey in a small valley clearing down below his balcony. He smiled woodenly at himself for thinking that it had been a woman's scream, but his eyes remained glazed and blank. He’d let Mary pick up the butter knife after all.

THE END

Heavy Burdens

He had finally come to his decision as he pulled into the driveway on a late Friday afternoon in August of 1998. He’d known for months what he had wanted to do and had planned carefully for it. He parked the car well off to the left making sure not to block Steph’s car. She’d be leaving with the kids in about an hour, so he hurried in to help her finish loading the Tahoe. He would have bet his life savings that the car was certainly not loaded yet, he smiled grimly to himself. They were off to see her folks and he was off on a weekend fishing trip to Florida. She’d be back in about four days with about a week to spare before school started again. As Will had walked into the kitchen from the back door the noise of a flustered wife, a loud confused son and a complaining daughter hit his ears, like cymbals crashing. The normal noisy storm before the late and hurried departure to anywhere, let alone a four day trip two states away.

The running argument and loud jumbled conversation on that August afternoon as it trailed out of the house and into the car would be the the last time he would heard their voices. It would be the last time he would ever see them again. He waved to them as they pulled out and as usual they had been too preoccupied with who got the I-Pod first, to really notice. A brief honk down at the end of the block was done from habit with maybe a small amount of guilt for forgetting to actually say goodbye, but mostly just an afterthought. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault he said to himself, it’s just the way it is now. He watched the car turn the corner and continued to stare for a minute or two, his eyes glazed over and dull. His mind was dull as well, muddied and sluggish. Hell, he still loved her and she still loved him and they both adored the kids. So much history together, so many memories but it didn’t matter, he had made his decision and he wasn’t going to change his mind at this point.

Will Garrison finally turned back up the driveway and walked back into the kitchen, now quiet as a cemetery. He looked stoically around the familiar scene, taking one last sad mental picture of refrigerator magnets, pictures and a small plate on the counter with half of a cookie still on it. Standing there he still couldn’t believe it. He also couldn’t believe that later that evening, he would be dead. He was just sure of it.

He would die tragically in a small plane crash around 9:30 p.m. or so tonight. He would be piloting his pride and joy, the Cessna Skylane that he had bought and learned to fly about five years earlier. Sitting next to him tonight would be his life-long best friend Brett Colson. Brett, the firmly committed bachelor, whom Will lived vicariously through. They had gone on this yearly trip religiously and enjoyed it immensely. After picking Brett up and driving to the small regional airport, they would load the plane with luggage and fishing gear. As Will had filed the flight plan already, his plane would be fueled in advance and all they would have to do would be go through the standard pre-flight preparations and wait for clearance to take-off. While Brett had no license to fly and didn’t really understand all of the instrumentation and procedures he had become a helpful unofficial copilot so they would be ready to go fairly quick.

It was nearly 9:00 and they had been in that air almost an hour, and according to his calculations, Will knew he was very close to where he wanted to be. He looked down and tapped the fuel gauge with his forefinger, seemingly puzzled he switched over to auxiliary fuel and continued to stare at the gauge. Brett picked up on this and looked over at him questioningly.

Will continued to stare at the instrumentation but now had slowly unbuckled his harness and told Brett calmly, “Hold her steady for a second okay?”

“Sure Will, no problem”, Brad replied, curious but certainly not concerned. Will was capable, solid and steady as they come in virtually everything he did, in work, at home, or in life for that matter. He was a hard man, uncompromising in general, but decent and extremely confident. Brad had no doubt he had control of the situation, whatever that was.

Will turned and half stretched, half crawled between and behind them, Brett simply taking the yoke and keeping her relatively steady as he had been instructed.

“Okay, I got it” Will said twisting back around and coming back through the narrow space between them, taking the yoke again.

Expressionless, Will looked straight ahead out into the darkness and he could feel Brett looking at him expectantly for some explanation or next step. For a brief second, Will thought to himself that maybe this all didn’t have to happen, that it wasn’t really necessary. But it had broken him and it was too late for any of that, much too late, he concluded silently.

“We’re going down Brett” Will had said it as calmly and as matter of fact as if he had been commenting on the sunset earlier that evening.

“We’re go.....wha…..What did you say?” Brett asked, as he noticed in the glow of the instruments that Will was sitting a little awkwardly now.

The only answer was the changing sound of the plane as it began to steadily gain altitude. The stronger drone continued and the Cessna’s altitude needle just kept going higher.

Will looking straight out into the night suddenly said, “Before this happens Brett, do you have anything to tell me? Anything, to say to me? Anything at all? You’re my best friend, you’re like my brother”, and adding almost as an aside he finished with, “we don’t have much time left together bud.”

He didn’t look over at Brett, he just kept flying the Cessna and staring straight ahead. There was a long silence, pregnant and tense.

“Look, Will…..I don’t know what this is all about….is there something wrong with the plane or you? Brett stammered

There was no answer from his old friend.

“Will, I …..I don’t know what you’re thinking or what you’re feeling right now, tell me whats wrong“ Brett was picking his words carefully, talking low and even.

Still no answer came from the stone faced pilot. As Brett stared over at him in the darkness of the small, instrument lit cockpit, he thought he could make out a small package in the lap of his friend. He peered at it trying to distinguish it and realized seconds later what it was. A parachute.

Brett was stammering now as he began to realize that something was seriously wrong “Will, for God’s sake what’s wrong?! Whats got you….so damn….upset….is it the job, the - ”

“DON’T do this to me”, Will said cutting in. “Don’t, on top of everything else…..don’t” he said once again with quiet force. Another silence followed and Brett slowly turned to look out the side window and into the never ending darkness. The plane droned on steadily, it had leveled out just seconds earlier, reaching the desired altitude for Will. There had been no talk for at least a minute. A very long minute.

Brett, while still looking out at nothing and his mind racing finally broke the silence, “It wasn’t her fault, not her fault at all Will”, he said abruptly, “Hell man she still loves you……Steph never really cared for me….we just….we….”

“You tore my heart out pardner, just as sure as shooting me, you killed me” Will said as his voice raised and leveled out again. He continued, “You’ve got a decision to make Brett”, handing the parachute across to his friend, “You or I will survive this - but both of us will die in our own way.”

“Will?!….Jesus…..Will, what the hell are you talking about?!” Brett asked sounding very close to panic now and still not entirely believing that this was really happening.

“One of us will go down with this plane, which is almost out of fuel. The other will use that parachute and probably live, but face the consequences; hiding out, running away from everything and everybody we ever knew or just turning themselves in. You Brett, yeah my old buddy Brett, You will decide who does what”, Will said as he slowed the airspeed of the plane and this time he was staring evenly back at his former friend.

He was sure he knew what the decision would be as Brett contemplated the small parachute that now lay in his lap. Sure he was going to die like he’d thought he would all day.

“And Brett” Will said as a side comment almost “we don’t have much time, we’re far too high to try to bring this thing in safely and she’s gonna start coughing with no fuel in a second.

Brett finally looked up at Will from the paracute on his lap with a mixed expression of grief and a deep sadness. Mingled in that look and that face though was also a touch of honor. Yes, there was definitely a look of honor. Honor once had, lost and now regained, decided Will to himself as he looked hard at the best friend he would ever have.


Epilogue

The headlines and stories in the local Georgia papers had been tragic and sudden as they always are in plane crashes;
“Two prominent business leaders from the small town of Shackley, Georgia were killed late Friday night when their Cessna went down in the Florida Everglades. One body has been found and positively identified in the wreckage of the plane and the other has still had not been recovered”.

That second body, most likely never would be found, due to the almost impossible terrain and swamp around the wreckage. Or another reason. Regardless, an extensive search had been conducted. After the search was finally called off with no results and several weeks had passed by it was time for other tragedies, mysteries and scandals in the news. There were always plenty of those other stories to go around. Week after week and month after month the story faded, until finally it was just a vague memory for most.

Steph Garrison was never the same although she finally had to just accept what had happened and come to terms with it in a way. But that never took away the guilt, knowing what she knew, feeling the shame she felt. She had no one to confide in and no one to go to, but she had accepted that as her fate and her just reward. There was something else though, something that ate at her day and night, sometimes it was right in her face and other times it was controlled and well under the surface. It was always there though, always with her. She had already decided that this was something that would be with her until the day she died. It whispered to her on a wrong number call at night, tapped her softly on the shoulder in the grocery store, stared at her from two rows back at the movie theatre. It was in her rearview mirror as she was backing out of a mall parking place, standing and staring in the parking lot. Always with her, right behind her or around the corner, or down the street standing and staring.

She didn’t know if it was just a guilty conscience or something entirely different. She shuddered at the second reason. The body that had never been found was that of her husband, Will. She was just sure of the terrible result of the accident. Just positive they had both perished. Sure of it. On the other hand she knew Will like no one else, knew his strength and perseverance, knew how strong he was physically and in his personality. Knew his feelings towards right and wrong….
On this sunny day in early June, she sat at her daughter’s college graduation ceremony with a sense of tremendous pride and love but sadness as well. Will Jr. sat next to her looking at his sister on stage with a solemn and sincere look of his own. They had all grown closer as a result of the terrible ordeal that occurred some 7 years ago now. That was the one good thing that had come out of this nightmare, she smiled to herself and wiped a slow tear away. Meghan was walking off the stage now. Graceful and beautiful in her dark blue and gold robe, she had accepted her diploma as Steph had watched with trembling lips and big slow tears. As she recovered, smiling back at her son who looked at her with some concern, she felt it again.

Felt the eyes. Somewhere behind her. Eyes burning into her. After several minutes and another twenty or so names had been called, she couldn’t stand it anymore, simply couldn’t. As nonchalantly as possible she turned innocently around with a staged expectant look, as if looking for a relative, scanning the crowd behind her, eyebrows raised and a false grin on her face.

It was like looking for something you really don’t want to find, sweeping back and forth half heartedly, hoping not to see anyone you know. She was just about to turn around with a great deal of relief, when she saw the man. Same square shoulders, same posture, maybe a little lighter in build. Maybe. He was sitting in the very back row and was partially blocked by the seated crowd. This was an informal outside ceremony so his baseball cap and sunglasses were not unusual attire and he blended in easily with the rest of the crowd. Even with the glasses though, she could feel those eyes on her, feel them burning right through her with a hot hate. She scanned away and then did her best to casually turn back around. Steph Garrison sat frozen with fear and rooted so badly, she could hardly twist around to move her arm back around her son. She did manage to decide something though, despite all of this fear and trepidation. Afterward, before she would greet her daughter, she would follow him, get a better look and if she could really steel herself, personally confirm who he was.

As the ceremony was just about to conclude she stole one more glance to get a better bearing on where he was sitting. Her face fell though as people behind her gradually shifted and moved, giving a clearer look back to where he was. An empty chair stared back at her. Looking through the crowd afterward she had not found him either. Little did she know she would never find him, despite seeing or feeling him many more times in the years to come. Little did she know that a never opened, rotted parachute on Will Garrison’s skeleton was back in that Everglade swamp somewhere, destined never to be found, destined to forever plague her.

The Justice Keeper

~Chapter 1~



It was times like these that he missed his other life, what he had been, who he had been and when things had been normal. The pleasant spring day was breezy, warm but not hot, fluffy white clouds were skidding across a perfect blue sky. He watched the young couple pushing the stroller around the town square at a leisurely pace. The man and woman walking with one arm loosely around each others waist. He couldn’t hear them from the park bench he sat at, but knew what they were probably talking about. Their baby, their careers, a new house someday, which elementary school, what was for dinner and I love you. They were talking of futures and kids going to college someday and even grand kids. Any of those things, and all of those things. He had been exactly in that position once and could remember it well.

But that was then and this was now, he frowned slightly and shook his head slowly, reluctantly turning his back to the young couple to concentrate on the subject at hand. He had been in town for a couple days now. Driving the streets, taking the interstate off and on ramps, getting a feel for the good and bad areas of town, looking at homes and neighborhoods like any good prospective homebuyer might. Not altogether a bad visit. He was working and concentrating on the job at hand, but he never rushed things and always made an effort to appreciate what ever town he was in, and its citizens for that matter. He would have made a terrific travel guide, he thought smiling ironically to himself.

William Lee Hinton had several different professional careers during a 25 year span starting back in 1975, the year he had graduated from Purdue University. He’d been an Advertising Exec, a Marketing Analyst and a VP for a major food manufacturer. Money had never been a problem. Friends had never been a problem. Finally finding a great wife and having 2 beautiful children had never been a problem. What had been a problem, for really his entire life, had been his unsuccessful search for excitement and even danger. He had acquired hobbies such as skydiving, flying his small Cessna, sheer rock and mountain climbing, scuba diving, even racing dirt track at County Fairs, and on and on. None of these had really punched his ticket or fed the hunger.

When their kids had been only 3 and 5 years old, his wife Caroline had suddenly passed away due to cancer, a cancer that had gone undetected for far too long. Four months later and she was gone from a related stroke. Ironically, the year she had died he had finally found that excitement and danger, but it was nothing like what he had been expecting or looking for.

Hinton, who had used at least ten different names in the past and was James Phillip Dixon currently, was a drifter of sorts. Constantly changing his identity and his location, he traveled the country and sometimes the world, like a modern day nomad. He was a contract killer of sorts. Completely efficient, very detached and a believer in that he was doing right, he was perfectly suited for his profession really. The people who would contract his services were usually business professionals, intellectuals, sport or entertainment celebrities, politicians and always - always from a certain level of income. He had made that a must from the beginning, not because he favored the well to do, but more from the standpoint of being able to continue this quest as long as possible. He wanted his potential 'employers' to have as much at stake as he did - as much 'skin in the game' as he did. He also demanded that they prove sincerity, a story of true personal hardship, real wrongdoing and absolute injustice. The people with money always seemed to be a little more manageable, controllable and confidential - not nearly as brazen or erratic as others who wanted people dead. He had come across this line of work unexpectedly, to say the least. Totally by accident, in fact, literally by way of an accident.

Years ago right after Caroline had died, a female department head from Marketing who reported directly to him at work, had been having marital problems. There was both physical abuse to her and to the children at home, as well as infidelity away from home. She was a very good friend of Bill’s, smart, attractive and cheerful. A woman that seemingly had everything going for her. A woman that didn’t have an enemy in the world. He had listened to the stories of deceit and viciousness being perpetrated on her family by the husband, a very prominent lawyer in town. Bill had also consoled and mentored her as best he could for at least six months. Finally, after exhausting legal wranglings had stalled, confrontations in and out of court had occured - including some hardball threats against her, taking property, seizing money and the children from her, the woman co-worker and friend of Bill’s had killed herself by jumping off a downtown luxury hotel balcony.

The news of this had saddened him greatly, along with a surprising amount of very dark anger. He felt as if he needed to do something, exact some sort of justice. What that was he wasn’t sure, but it had something to do with vengeance. At dinner several weeks later, in a local upscale steakhouse and completely by chance, he had been seated three booths away from the former husband of his coworker. Dining with a business consultant, he had hardly heard a word he’d said. Instead he listened to and watched the pompous, grinning, leering bastard with a blonde on his arm that was at least 30 years younger than him. He remembered feeling like he was 20 years old again, wanting to solve things or straighten out some jerk, the old fashioned way. He did not allow himself to be rational, to talk himself down, and the plan to seriously kick this guy’s ass was developed almost on the spot. He already knew their residence - he lived in the same lake community about two miles down the road and he felt reasonably sure he knew how and when would be a good time to meet with him and ‘discuss things’. He hadn’t been in a real fight for years but this guy needed it and Bill Hinton decided that he was the guy who was going to fill that need. It would not do her any good, it would almost definitely not stop the arrogant bastard in his ways - but it would send a message to the prick that might be hard to forget at least, and hell who knows, it might do himself a world of good.

For three early mornings and late nights he found himself down the street from this assholes house, watching the guy leave every morning and returning home at night, getting a feel for times, traffic and neighbors. He was timely if nothing else, leaving and coming home regularly, never bringing his women home for the neighbors to see. Always pulling in and evidently entering the house though the inside garage entryway door. The children were not living with him currently, custody had been contended in a civil suit by the wife’s parents. The guy had no pets, at least he had seen no sight of them.

The reason for his clandestine activity was simple, he needed to be careful of protecting and keeping his identity unknown in the situation that was about to occur. His marketing career, hell his life and kids, simply could not afford for his name to be splashed all over the newspapers by the lawyer. Bill would be painted as the guy who viciously attacked some poor husband – a poor guy whose wife had recently committed suicide.

He decided nighttime would be best. He also decided he’d keep the son of a bitch in the garage and bang him around in there. The neighborhood had huge lots, generally several acres, with generous space around all sides of the houses. Something would almost assuredly pop up unexpectedly, but he would handle that when the time came. On the night of the scheduled ‘meeting', which he had come to call it, he had gone for a jog, leaving his home dressed appropriately with head phones and sweats. Timing his run up the long driveway, to no passing cars and no one in sight at the neighboring houses, he turned in. He stood in a small shadowed alcove on the side of the garage, partially hidden by a waist high landscaped hedge and out of vision from the street, and simply waited. About ten minutes past when he should have arrived, the Mercedes’ lights swept across the front yard finally pulling into the driveway. Almost simultaneously the garage door slowly and quietly started to open. Taking the headphones slowly off his head and pulling a nylon to cover his face and golf gloves from his sweatpants pocket, he put them both on. He gripped his son’s pellet pistol in his other pocket and readied himself.

As the door completed its opening it stopped with a small clank. He heard the guy open his car door and the garage door also began its descent. As he crouched down and came around the corner of the garage , Bill quickly stepped up and over the door sensor mounted at the floor. On the passenger side now, Bill heard the guy’s door slam and he rose up at the same time.

“Hey,” Bill said almost casually just after the garage door clanked shut again.

The guy just kind of coughed and gasped. He stared at the guy and aimed the pellet gun at him, quickly, in a blur, coming around the car before the guy could catch his breath or realize it wasn’t a .45. The husband took one step back and dropped his briefcase with a thud, wide eyed, but still with a touch of belligerence in his look.

“What the Fuuuuck….. ….Hey…..Whaat the…..Get the Fuck out of my hou-” he never finished what would be several unfinished sentences in the next few minutes. As he was huffing and puffing, Bill had closed the gap between them, tucked the pellet gun quickly away and hit him square in the nose with a straight overhand right, followed by an uppercut on the chin that probably made the guy bite part of his own tongue off. Staggering back, with blood already all over him, the guy stared at him, clearly not believing that this was happening.

“YOU……Sonnofaaa….. BITCH!” Bill heard himself say through gritted teeth.

“Fuck y….” the guy started to say back and was immediately hit with a left jab that caught him flush on eyebrow.

Bill grabbed him by the collar and started dragging him away from the car so he had a little room. The guy suddenly twisted away though and made a break for the small door leading out to the backyard. Bill got a hold of him again but the guy had too much momentum and pulled them both out into the backyard. Twirling around again the husband caught him with something hard, although it was a galancing blow. He must have snatched something of the workbench on his lunge out of the garage Bill thought and then saw the wrench.

Swinging again and missing the man was off balance momentarily and Bill had grabbed him quickly ramming him into the side of the house head first. The guy dropped the wrench and went down to one knee, bleeding from everywhere now. Bill grabbed him and slung him around, letting go like it was a hammer throw sending him skidding into a patio deck chair.

“You’re gonna need more than a wrench you lousy bastard”, Bill said, spitting the words out but almost whispering to keep the sound and his voice concealed. “You might as well have killed her yourself too, you rotten Fuck”.

“Wha……is tha….is that what this is about?” the guy weezed and sputtered. He then let loose a blood gurgling laugh through several broken teeth, "This is about tha Bitc- "

His head sounded like a melon splitting open this time, as Bill hit him with a roundhouse right.

The guy’s jaw was slack now, probably broken, but he still sneered at Bill and coughed out, “Did you have her?”…..“Did you do her?”…… “If you did, you know she wasn’t any goo-”

Bill hit him so hard this time it drove him straight backwards, stumbling and falling against a retaining wall then hitting his head on the stone edge. Staggering up, he turned away from Bill and punch drunk, stepped off the edge of the pool. The same pool, which had been drained for repairs two days ago. His fall into the deep end of the pool was brief and he had heard a sickening sound, a splattering thud, the sound of death. Bill, initially was caught off gaurd but walked quickly over and saw in the muted backyard lights the rapid spread of a huge pool of blood.

The body was sprawled in an unnatural position, with the neck and head at an impossible angle. He stared at it for a good minute, breathing rapidly and thinking hard. Looking around the backyard that was lined with an 8 foot tall privacy fence and at the house which was lighted but only with a few inside lamps, he backed away slowly at first and then picked up his pace. Walking through a side fence gate he quickly removed the nylon from his head, put that and his gloves in his pocket checked for the pellet gun still in his other pocket and raised his earphones from his neck, up onto his ears.

After that he only remembered slowly jogging back up his own driveway. The kids were staying at his mom and dad’s for a couple of days and he slipped inside his empty house. In the weeks and months that followed, no one was ever charged with the murder. The case and story died out. The investigation hit an absolute dead end, with no suspects and no evidence. No one it seems, had heard or seen a thing that night. Bill went back to leading his normal life, keeping up with the story of course, but having no real interest in it. He didn’t lose one nights sleep, or have any regrets. And that did trouble him somewhat.

There had been a shift in him that night, a stopping and starting of himself. He would never be the same and he still can’t fully understand what had driven him to take such a personal revenge on the guy. True, he didn’t mean to kill the bastard, but still….what was it that had allowed him to take it to this level? With time, he found that he had the perfect personality for this kind of thing, the right demeanor and skill sets to excel at it. Where did that come from? He had always been a physical guy and used to enjoy mixing it up - but this, this, was something that went far deeper than a campus bar fight.

Was it just the excitement factor, the danger he had always chased and not found. No, that couldn't be the complete answer. This was not jumping great heights or risking everything on a challenge, this was killing people, taking lives. Whatever the reason or mental flaw, he had finally found it, found the rush, found the danger. It was wrong and he knew it, so he didn’t think he was textbook insane. Maybe it had to do with Caroline’s death, maybe it was all the wrongdoing and pure evil in the world, people hurting the innocent - whatever the reason – wrong or not, he somehow knew couldn’t and wouldn’t stop.



~Chapter 2~



An old college buddy that he had looked up about a year later, and some subsequent weekends spent with him in Vegas, had unintentionally lead him to his second killing. The old buddy was now the security chief for one of the major Vegas casinos and he was being blackmailed by a small time hood. His family was being threatened. His buddy was clean and Bill knew it, he’d never done an illegal act in his life. He was terrified that he was going to lose it all to some notorious, badass player who was going to do whatever he had to do to ruin him or get the payoff he wanted. Bill had set his friend down one night and made him an offer. His friend couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but he didn’t say no. A week later, while Bill’s friend was out of town, his house had been broken into the intruders had forced his wife to strip in front of them, but they didn’t touch her and din’t steal anything. His buddy called him that night and said yes.

About a week after returning from a Vegas stay, Bill’s friend had sent him an article clipped from a Vegas newspaper paper. The article was only a couple of paragraphs about the body of a reputed mob player who's body had been found out in the desert about 5 miles outside of town. No clues. No suspects and no leads. Executed in a very professional manner. Hardly a noteworthy or rare murder case in the dark seamy corners of Vegas, several months later it had all but been forgotten and filed away as an internal mob murder.

After that it just kept going, sometimes getting assistance or calls from his friend in Vegas, sometimes watching the newspapers and t.v. news. He would call or write anonymously and offer assistance, or ask for a phone interview and gradually or quickly, getting around to the question of unsettled justice. There was unfortunately no shortage of grieving families, with rock solid cases and almost sure guilt that had gone unfinished, or unsolved, or convictions overtuned on trivial technicalities. Some people just wanted it to be finally over - or as over as they could hope for, others wanted a vindictive revenge and others still just an eye for an eye, but to Bill it was all the same.

He was seldom seen in person and if so not without some sort of physical change, a beard, moustache, long hair, short hair, dyed hair, a fake limp or a cosmetic scar that had been added. He didn’t consider himself some bloodthirsty killer, or even a stone cold murderer. He was a killer though, there was no way to clean it up any further. He eradicated people who needed to be, disposed of people who absolutely deserved it. He did it quick and did not enjoy or celebrate his deeds. At least that was his answer, his reasoning and his explanation to himself. He had basically gotten to the point of having no conscience, no feelings of guilt and surely not pity for the victim. But the overriding fact of the matter was that he was hooked on it, like some drug addict with an empty syringe.

He’d continue these vigilante acts, these acts of righting wrongs until he was caught – of that he was sure. How he would ultimately be judged would almost certainly be similar to his victims. He would surely reside in hell, as he knew he probably should. Lately, he had considered that the reason he did this, killed people to put it bluntly, maybe was not so much him being some avenging doer of right or soldier of real justice, as much as it was him fulfilling his own needs. He almost got the feeling anymore that even if the need for his services to hand out deserved justice had stopped coming, he would keep going. And that was something he didn't like to think about or consider - but the thought was there and it wouldn't go away.

Until then though, it was back to work and he filed all of that away to consider later. The young couple had left the town square by now, seemingly taking all the pure decency and love left in the world with them as they left. An average looking middle aged man with glasses and thinning hair, by the name of Howard Crossman, was now two benches over from him and he was talking casually to a young boy of 7 or 8. Crossman who had just recently moved to this town from Ohio and he looked like any other guy having lunch in the town square, on a bright and sunny spring day.

What he didn't look like,was a guy who had fondled, abused and finally raped his own younger sister, something that no one knew and something she had never admitted. What he didn't look like, was a child rapist who had avoided convinction twice now in the past six years. He had been charged, but not convicted, both times due to a highly paid attorney, iron clad alibis and 'expert' psychologists who were called in. What he didn't look like, was a man who was capable of kidnapping and killing two young girls last year, two twins in fact. One block from home, it had been surmised, they had been abducted by grabbing one and then luring/baiting the other to obey her nature as a twin and to go with her sister. Whatever the ruse had been, or whatever the means to get both of them had been, it had unfortunately worked.

They were searched for, pleaded for and prayed for. The hunt had gone national and the fear of tragedy grew each day and each week they were not found. On a chilly grey fall day, they were found, in a very remote wooded ravine by two hunters. The hunters had noticed a purple piece of cloth sticking out of the leaves and as they got closer they realized it was an arm, a thin heavily bruised child's arm reaching up from the elbow as if waving. The girls had been hastily buried, then sometime later unearthed and partly scavenged by wild animals. Otherwise they probably would have never been found until years later, if ever. It almost would have been better for the parents of the twins if they hadn't been found because the resulting autopsy would reveal so many horrific details about their captivity, extended torture and ultimate deaths that they could not go on with their lives. They had committed suicide together on an overcast and chilly Sunday afternoon, not unlike the day their two girls had been found.

Unlike the child rape cases and charges that had been filed against Crossman, he had never been offically charged in these deaths because of lack of evidence and once again, a solid alibi. Crossman was a dentist by profession and all the victims had been patients or former patients. Crossman was single, but a department store witness swearing absolutely initially, but later wavering in another interview, that she had checked out a man who had purchased with cash, young girls clothing. Identical clothes, in sets of two. A month before the twins had disappeared. The D.A.'s office had nothing else and could do no more at this point. The case dragged and sputtered to a stop. No more killings or abductions and no more leads.

Crossman had dutifully notified the police of a new job opportunity he had, they had been powerless and grim faced watching him leave town several months later. Bill had seen the newspaper articles from the beginning and followed it as closely as possible. The grandparents had been adamant in their belief that Crossman had done it when Bill had contacted them by phone and later met with them posing as a freelance reporter. Diligent and detailed investigation on Crossman had turned up the rest for Bill and his partner in Vegas. It had taken him three weeks to hunt him down and another week to get organized, but now the job was nearing it's final phase.

This job was different in that his services had not been officially requested, at least not in the normal way. The request for justice had been in the crushed and grieving faces of the grandparents on T.V. and the silent screams he heard while reading the details of the case in newspaper articles. Was he absolutley sure of his targets guilt? No. Was he ever absolutely sure of guilt? No. But in his mind, he had never taken a job that he had one ounce of doubt in and not one case in which he had second guessed himself. What he was doing was wrong, but he was right.

As Bill watched over the top of a book he wasn’t reading, Crossman said something and the young boy giggled, looking around nervously. Crossman said something else and then laughed warmly. The mild mannered dentist never took his eyes off of the boy and Bill never took his eyes of Crossman. All of his earlier self examination and self analyzing questions of why he did this and what did it all mean had vanished. Yes, he thought to himself, Crossman would probably be legally caught and convicted someday. Probably. Someday. Maybe.

The young boy in a sweatshirt and jeans suddenly gave Crossman a high five about something who was now standing up and laughing again. They were both enjoying the discussion. Crossman was no doubt going to go get something to eat, some pizza maybe. Then again, he might be going to the arcade a block away, he still loved playing video games even at his age. He would go wherever the kid wanted to go, or do whatever the kid wanted to do. Bill had already suspected this is where it would lead and had been prepared to blunder into this scene and innocently spook Crossman off, so this is one kid who would make it back home today. In the case of Crossman though, he would not be going home tonight, or any night in the future. No, Howard Crossman was only going one place tonight, he had a one way ticket and Bill was going to deliver it to him.



~Chapter 3~



TO BE CONTINUED.........