SADDLEBAGS, Trunks, and Tombs

Chapter 18: In an Instant: Part 1

The Walker:

     My father, if I remember it correctly, was sitting at his desk when I walked in the door.  Martha had gone around back to the servant’s entrance, with the groceries, after having pleaded with me to wait just a little longer.  How could she possibly understand the burning in a man’s heart, the raw need?  She couldn’t.  Such a sweet, innocent little thing, but she was mine and I wanted her, all the time. 

     My father had been writing before I walked in and had put down his pen as soon as he saw me.  The look on his face was almost unexplainable, a look between triumph and anger.  I always wondered about that look.  

     “Father, I need to speak with you.”  “Jackson, sit down son, I just need a moment of your time and then you may tell me whatever you wish.”  I had seated myself in one of the hard chairs to await my turn to tell him of my marriage.  “Son, it looks as if the time has come to branch out.  I have been researching a little town out west that looks as if it could use a financial institution.  Kingman, Arizona has been showing promise and I have decided to start up a Winchester Savings and Loan there.”  

     I had shifted in my chair as my father raised his hand to stop me from speaking.  “Before you speak, let me tell you of the money that could be made along with the chance to see the country and set up something for yourself.  You know the business inside and out and as your brothers are married and settled, you are my best option for expanding the business out west.”

     Sad to say, but my father had called to the adventurer in me, and I had for the most part forgotten why I had come.  To be honest with you, I had forgotten.  The chance to see the country!!  The chance to go west!!  “Father, if you are asking me will I go, the answer is YES!!”  “Good, good my boy.  I will finish making the arrangements and off you’ll go.”  I stood up, “Was there something you had wanted to talk with me about, son?”  I was still for a moment.  It was then that my wanderlust abated and I remembered Martha.  “No father.”  My dad had nodded his head and I strolled out of the office. 

(Back to the Present)

     I had reached the next column of light.  As I looked down, my mind still on Martha, I noticed a picture at my feet.

 -In an Instant- 

     The leathered hand reached to the ground and fingered the photograph that had fallen there, before picking it up.  Having placed it in the saddlebag that rested on his shoulder as if he carried the weight of the world, he glanced behind himself one more time at the camera on the ground, then turned and walked away.

     This would be a Christmas to remember.  Billy Hays had gotten the one thing he had been asking for, forever.  His parents would disagree that he had just been asking for it.  He had been hounding them for it, relentlessly, and begging for it, but they could not remember a single time when their nine year old son had just “asked” for it.  It had been a joy to them that the gift, the thing he would eventually treasure most, was finally within the grasp of their wallets.

     This had been an extraordinary month for the Hays family.  They had five children, Billy being the second to the last.  They had always been rich in love but slim on money.  Lady Luck had decided to grace them with a grin and after a couple of back to back bingo hits, they had been able to catch up on all of their bills, start a little savings account and splurge on Christmas for their children, a splurge unlike the Hays family had ever seen nor would see again.

     Out of the five beautiful, healthy children, Billy was the only son to grace the Hays’ home.  He was definitely smaller than average for his age but he had a fighting spirit that was larger than life.  His mother could attest to that as she had cleaned up many a bloody nose, scraped knee, and had spent more than a few times in the emergency room at the local hospital, with her baby boy.  She hated seeing her son bullied, but he always fought back.  He never won, but he always fought and never dropped a tear, not that she had seen. 

     Billy ran out of the house into the vacant desert across the street, his new instant camera in his hand.  He had already used a pack of film taking pictures of his family and of all of the Christmas decorations his parents had filled the house with.  Though he had pretended to scoff, he had lovingly placed a couple of pictures of his four year old sister with her new baby doll sitting in her lap, in his scrapbook.  

     Now it was time to get out into the world and get some real pictures!!  He was hoping to get a few shots of a wild jack rabbit or two, not that he liked rabbits or anything.  He began shooting shots of plants, quail, debris, and in his excitement, he had forgotten to be careful. 

     Paul and Justin were passing a stolen cigarette between themselves when they noticed Billy out in the desert.  For some reason they had taken the job of harassing Billy as their own personal quest and they took pride in their work.  They passed a look between themselves as Justin tossed the still burning cigarette butt to the ground, both deciding it was time to clock in and get to work.  

     As the two teenagers neared him, the back of Billy’s neck began to prickle.  He had just spotted some fresh rabbit pellets and was quietly seeking a rabbit out when his body alarmed him that he was in trouble.  They were so close.  How had he not felt them so near?  

     As he slowly turned towards them, Paul and Justin noticed the camera in the smaller boy’s hands.  The smiles that had already been present on the older boy’s faces widened.  “Hey, Billy boy, whatcha got there?”  Billy began to grip his camera so hard that his knuckles had begun to turn white.  “Not today, he thought to himself in panic, Lord why today, why right now?”  

     His mental cry to God didn’t seem as if it were going to help him.  He clutched the camera to his chest, knowing that it was as good as gone.  Billy had never, ever run from a fight, from the attacks that always found him.  He had always stood and fought until he could stand no more.  Oh, how he wished his father would come outside or even look out of the kitchen window right now.  

     For the first time ever Billy decided to make a run for it.  They would not get his camera.  No sooner did he have the thought, his feet were moving.  He bolted around them, of course knowing they would take chase.  He could feel their breath upon his neck and he knew he was caught.

     Justin, surprised that the little snot faced jerk had tried to run, threw himself into smaller boys back, knocking him forward into the dirt and rocks.  Billy, though bruised and covered with the soft desert dirt, began to kick out wildly, his face firm, hoping to hit anyone or thing that would dare to separate him from his camera.  Paul climbed on top of him and held him down while Justin began to tug at the camera.  Billy could feel the desert gravel grinding pits into the back of his head.  

     The wrestling match for the camera continued until, finally, one of the older boys was tired of struggling with him and began to land blows in very center of his face.  Billy could feel his eyes beginning to swell and the excruciating pain that was his nose.  This time it would be broke, he knew that with a certainty.  He could feel the hot, thick, metallic tasting liquid pouring from his nose.  Hot tears began to fill Billy’s eyes and just as he was about to lose his grip on the camera, there was a flash and then he was alone.

     Billy’s eyes were all but swollen completely shut.  He jumped up from the ground and as he did, the camera toppled off of his heaving chest.  He ran home as the tears began to fall.  The pain drove him and the camera was forgotten.

     When Billy and his mother had returned home from the emergency room, Billy’s father carried him upstairs and laid him on his bed.  The ER nurse had given him a shot, telling his mother that it should take most of the pain away.  He couldn’t keep his swollen eyes open.  His father kissed him on the head, ruffled his dark brown hair and went back downstairs to the kitchen where his mother was waiting.  Just as he was about to drift off he noticed his camera sitting on his dresser.  He fell asleep with a smile on his face.  He would find out later that after he and his mother had left, his father had gone out into the desert where he had seen his son playing, before the attack, and found his camera.

     The old man stood over the photograph and looked down.  Had he not seen the unthinkable, numerous times, this might have horrified him.  At this point, he wasn’t sure if he could be horrified any more.  Looking at the picture, the faces of Paul and Justin stared back at him.  It appeared as if they were screaming, trying to escape.