We all think that nothing of serious importance happens in life’s daily drudge…but merely going for a stroll can lead to quite the unexpected!

 

“I’m Watching You!”

By Stephen James

 

For anyone entering Heaven for the first time, the gates are always open. For anyone trying to leave hell at any time, they are always locked. Our eyes see plenty but our mouths stay shut. Our ears hear the wickedness of the world but our tongues prefer to taste the sugars of success. Our noses sniff out trouble but we feel the touch of a stranger to be a step closer to a friend. Oh, yes… Our alert senses feed us greedily with so much information, choices simply have to be made.

                This unfortunate observer had to make some ugly decisions…

 

The wooded surrounds which blanket the many-hectare state-owned forest outside Crossbow Falls was teaming with wildlife. Here, at this fishing village, on the Texas shoreline rim bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, life is peaceful. Well, it was back in April last year after a good season’s catch had repeatedly filled the bellies of the fishing boats. The men all drank heartily at the Crossbow Inn and the women-folk tolerated their boisterous mischief. It was set up in a Davy Crockett-meets-William Tell styled motif. The centuries-old village had a Cajun atmosphere about it, not violent, just very, very, old-fashioned. Lessons were taught an eye for an eye. You took your punishment when you were wrong. What happened in the bedroom – stayed in the bedroom. A few hundred miles around, is where the incomparable Rio Grande empties its daily unwanted burden into the gulf.

I had wandered off course accidentally. Crossbow Falls, or even its surrounding forests, was not my usual neck of the woods. I am an out-of-towner from upstate Texas; more a mountain-lover than the water’s edge, who just so happened to be visiting. Just out of town about two miles past Hogey Johnson’s farm, there is a winding track leading Creekside to a broken-down hardwood pier. Nobody goes there anymore because rogue alligators from the nearby Florida wetlands are fairly common. Here, the trees meet the water. I had decided to wander the Creekside gravel road and see where it took me. Diving seabirds hauled-off their prey, each catch swinging like a helpless prisoner in their powerful clutches. As each struggled for freedom, the morning sun’s glint lit up the creature’s scales with a silvery reflection. Mangroves reached out on their tiptoes as far as they dared. Trickling water lapped the shoreline. The view across the gulf was breathtaking. Silence filled the air. Aside from several dilapidated timber structures, there was no sign of mankind. I found a beautiful spot to take a short nap. Dappled in semi-shade beneath a glorious fat-trunked evergreen, with one of its branch-tip’s touching the water, a lush covering of grass had my name on it. My makeshift mattress curved its way up a grassy knoll comprising of two tiers. Later on, I had my choice of either one to sit on and watch the water. Asleep in moments…

A man’s voice woke me up. It’s macabre timbre, a tad shy of the clattering-sound made by a cargo ship’s anchor chain being hauled up, broke the silence. A woman’s voice soon accompanied it but hers was suffering. My ears pricked to feel the wind brush my face. Good, whoever this pair is, I am out of earshot for them. I kept still. The hillbilly-drawl, not clear, continued on like a stick in a bucket. Do I eavesdrop?

Her cries grew louder…

I moved slowly in the grass to keep quiet. Step by step, crawling up the slope, to where a scruffy shrub blocked the view suffice to see closer, without being seen. An old beaten-up truck sat in a clearing. I’d not noticed it arrive when asleep. I settled in to listen. A woman of good health was sprawled out on a large boulder, on her back. Her wrists were tied with old-school rope to four posts hammered into the ground. She could just move. Her clothes had been removed and she was crying.

“Your answer?” He asked, inches from her face, coiled-up whip in his hand. A rifle sat leaning up against the boulder. A sledgehammer cast aside was crawling with ants.

“You know I can’t tell you the answer to that horrible question, Vernon,” she screamed.

“You cheap bitch!” he cracked the whip next to her face, the tip split her cheek. “You make me look a dog-gone fool in my own town, Sarah-Jessica. That, I cannot forgive!” Again with the whip… but this time, he launched it across her body. Her scream so loud it startled the nesting sea eagles, but nobody else could hear. This place was completely deserted, except for us. He whipped her six more times, then kissed her. “Goodbye, Sarah-Jessica!”

I had woken up at a bad time, in a bad place. My nerves started to tingle. This situation did not look good. In front of me, almost as far as you could spit, this bearded hayseed — as big as a house, was about to terminate his woman. She, it would seem, has been accused of being unfaithful. Is this really how these people carry on? I was totally powerless to prevent it, and any attempt to run away would disclose my presence. KEEP STILL.

Vernon picked up a leather medical-style bag and ripped it open. He seized hold of four knives in his huge hand and tossed the bag to the ground. He circled her punished physique three times. The whole time his mumbling jargon waffled-on about how hard done by he was now. And, how is he supposed to live without her now? He placed the eight-inch-bladed daggers across her belly and held them in place with one hand. He smiled like a hangman.

I watched in total disbelief, as Vernon took the first knife and thrust it into her but not into a vital organ area. She had been squealing so much that it seemed impossible to exceed the previous ones but this brought it out. “You deserve it! You filthy whore. Cry in hell!” Her cringe spilled the other three knives to the ground.

I checked left, then right, then left again. Not a soul in sight. It was still just us. In the process, my nose filled with the indisputable coppery smell of freshly-drawn blood. Quite sickening. I watched on, as he drank from a large glass container and wiped his chequered flannelette sleeve against his chin. This man looked and smelt so dirty, it was as if water was illegal or something. Did he sleep with fish? He seemed in no hurry. I, on the other hand, was contemplating the best and fastest escape route possible. Either way, I had to return via the gravelly road, which went right past in full view of this creature from the netherworld. The hottest burning question was… when to go?

Vernon selected his second blade. He flipped it in his right hand, always catching the handle, regardless of its rotations. He forced it slowly into her side. “I’ve always liked to have a drink with you, Sarah-Jessica. Pity it’s our last!” He swigged on his glass container. “And, of course, it doesn’t really matter how long we spend here together. It’s not as if you’ve got any place to go, afterwards.”

I yawned, more out of fear than anything else, I guess. A sea otter let out a shrilling call from the undergrowth on the riverbank behind me, my heartbeat fluttered. This was not my brain’s idea of A1-time-passing. Although, what was happening in front of me was mildly intriguing, possibly only because of the fact of my complete stealth — uncertainty became my ever-present companion.  Decision time fell upon me, in guillotine-like fashion! The risky gravel road stood beckoning… or was descending away, and slipping into the gulf and perhaps off to the patches of beach, which I had noted a bit further around upon arrival, a good one? Now that’s my last option. I could smell the alligators from here. Like it or not, I had to see it out and wait for him to leave…

The local-yokel stared up at the sun, shielding his dirty face from its powerful rays. He staggered several alcohol-effected rotations on the spot. He picked up his third tool-of-chastisement for Sarah-Jessica and began banging its blade against his trouser leg. Vernon sneered at her flagging expression, his eyes reflected the soul of a deep-seated lie. But they were the black hollow eyes of a shark. One of these people was evil. If it was the woman, then the man is vengeful. If it is the man, then he is evil and vengeful, and she is an innocent victim. Needless to say, he would get his way. He circled the boulder with stiff strides. The strides of an unhappy man. He began talking to a person who no longer was hearing. She was dying.

“Of course, I would have taken it all back, if?” Vernon placed the third dagger nearer her heart but still not fatal. He leaned on it. “…If you had told me what his name was… and why you killed him!”

I could see her pain, though now, she had lost the ability to feel the physical trauma or at least it appeared that way ─ because no words or screams were forthcoming. The sounds of the forest, to my ears at least, had fallen silent, almost with her. She now had over twenty-inches of steel in her, the wounds all bleeding and I had witnessed the entire process! I had been here every inch of the way. Locked away inside my mind was this wicked sacrifice. I knew that I could never share it. I hunkered down to watch the fourth knife finish her off. Vernon went to where Sarah-Jessica’s staked-out naked body could still be seen breathing. Her eyes were still open, alas, they would be seeing very little, right now. The shattered-mess-of-a-man sat next to her on the boulder. He took another big guzzle from the container, popped the cork back in, and dropped it to the floor.  In a deliberate trait to stall the entire process, he began to shave his beard with dagger four. Vernon tilted his head up, maintaining his; now you’re sorry, eye contact with her; just get it over and done with, idol stare. He stroked the clumsy blade down the side of his face again and again. His hand always stopping the blade when it neared the necklace, crudely made from reptilian teeth, which surely looked stuck to his skin in a balm of sweat. It took an eternity. When you have cheated death yourself, as indeed, I have on a number of occasions, you can sense when it is nearby. My keen sharp eyes and live-by-your-wits nature have come to the rescue a few too many times for me to deny what a fine tightrope we all walk. The seconds ticked agonisingly by. They became minutes. He kept shaving. Her eyes were closing. My breathing slowed. The wind changed direction. I felt suddenly vulnerable and shifted my weight. I was terrified. What would he do next? A nearby twig snapped under my foot. Did he hear that?

“Who’s there? Come out and show yourself. If you’re game.” The hillbilly stood up, knife still in his hand. His eyes were affixed right at mine, my only screen was the scruffy shrub. I remained statue-still. “This is a family argument going on, fair and square. Now, show yourself, or take yourself elsewhere.” He scanned the vicinity, coming closer and closer to my hideout. Vernon stopped suddenly, he heard Sarah-Jessica speak:

“Jarryd Walhavern, it was,” she coughed. “Because, he told a lie about you. That’s why I killed him. Sorry if I let you down.” Her head was raised from the boulder. It wobbled with her words. I could now see how pretty she actually was. And how broken she now appeared. Eyes like frozen flames. The last thing I heard her say was, “Yes, your own brother-in-law. There was no affair…”

He turned back to watch the last few moments of his wife’s innocent life trickle out the door. It was nothing to do with how she’d answered his stupid questions. He had already made up his mind long ago. The control lever inside his head had swung across to the premeditated mark. He thrust the knife into her heart and held it there. “Liar!” he shouted at her corpse. Like all killers think: He was right and she was a liar, of course.

In the strangest of circumstances, with discreet secrecy, I had watched the entire diabolical episode pan out, in complete disbelief. Was this fiendish creature of the same breed or race? I felt confused not understanding anything about the what, or the why.

Suddenly, in the remoteness could be heard the wailing sounds of the law. Within seconds, distinct human voices yapped like distant foxhounds. My cue had been sounded. The protective surrounds of my vantage point were no longer required and I was not going to speak of this to any soul. This much I promise you. My long pointed nose shan’t be sticking itself anywhere that it shouldn’t. Well, not in the near future, anyway. I scurried away towards the water to dance with the ‘gators. It was the risky route but…

This immediate vicinity was definitely no place for a timber-wolf like me to be loitering. I had seen enough!