To Each His Own

It is easy to be hypnotized by fire....There is the smoldering of the dry grass beneath the sticks.....There is the big breath you take....A... deep... drawn... breath.....There is the careful pursing of the lips.....The calculated... blowing stream...of your own warm breath... into the smoke.....The red glow in the middle of the cold night....The flash of yellow....The flicker of blue....And then there is just the fire....And you.....

Jacob stared sleepy-eyed on a full belly, at the flickering fingers of the fire, and the glowing red embers beneath them that pulsed like a beating heart. He ran a small stick lazily around in the hot ashes, watching as a small plume of smoke drifted up from the stick's end, the bark blackening first, and then igniting. A fire stick. A torch. He held it up against the night. A magic wand to wave about, painting the black sky with streaking red comets, and lightening bolts, and little red sparks the night swallowed.

Jacob was a boy. An almost man. Trying to be more responsible. Trying to help his father. And yet, so much of him didn't want to grow up. But, his big brother was dead. Shot in the head. His brother's baby, too. Dead. And so, it was his time to get real.

"Pa, was down by the creek, I remember that much," Jacob wrote down in his diary. "I could hear the scraping of the pot we used for dinner, on the pebbles of the creek bed. And pa splashing up the water." And I remember thinking I should go down there and help him clean up. I started walking toward the creek, waving my flaming stick around, pretending to be holding the night at bay. I shouted to my pa that I was coming. And that was when I heard the shot. It was the sharp crisp blam of a 22 rifle. I knew right away, it was Ephriam."

Jacob fell to the ground, his heart pounding. The shot had come from behind the house. It echoed twice down the valley, and then there was only silence. "Pa? Pa?!" he called out. There was no answer. He crawled the first few yards, then stood, and ran toward the creek. Somehow, he already knew what he was going to find. His father, face down in the water. A ribbon of blood flowing downstream.

This had been going on for some time now. It started when Jacob's brother eloped with Ephriam 's daughter, Lilah. Ephriam couldn't cope with that idea. They had always kept to themselves back in Harris Hollow. His Lilah had been abducted by an outsider, Jacob's brother. And, when they had a baby together, Ephriam couldn't take it anymore. He snapped. He killed Jacob's brother in his sleep, and then he drowned Lilah's baby in the creek. And now, Jacob's father lay dead in the water, as well.

"So, I pulled pa up out of the creek," Jacob wrote, " And I don't know how long I was beating on his chest, and slapping him around. I tried to stop the blood coming from the hole in his head, but I couldn't help but know he was dead before he even heard that rifle crack. That was the sound of Ephriam's rifle. I heard it once before, and I will never forget it. It was in the middle of the night, when he shot my brother in the next room."

Jacob dragged his father's body up onto a gravel bar, and draped it in a horse blanket, and sat there for awhile beside him. He looked up into the mouth of the hollow, and the fireflies were going about their business. And there was a sound of two owls exchanging calls. Making plans. Something came over Jacob in that moment. Something big.

"I thought about taking my pa's rifle, and his revolver, too. But, for some reason, I just stood up and started walking up the hillside, and into the woods. I knew how to get to Harris Hollow. But, what would happen, when I got there, I wasn't sure. I just knew this had to stop."

Jacob stood in the clearing and took a deep breath, as he stared at Ephriam's shack. Morning was just breaking, and there was a low and heavy fog up and down the length of the hollow. And there was a thin curling smoke winding up from Ephriam's shack. He was up. He had a fire going already. Maybe anticipating already, what Jacob might do. Maybe loading two buckshot shells into his shotgun. Jacob walked steadily toward the shack. He could see Ephriam in the doorway. He could see the gun. "Get the hell off my property," Ephriam shouted. Jacob kept walking. "I'm gonna blow yer head off, boy." Jacob kept walking. He called to Ephriam.
"Ephriam, do you think I am afraid to die? Is that what you think Ephriam?" Jacob kept walking. Ephriam stepped down from the porch, lifting the 12 gauge to his shoulder.
"I ain't got no problem with you, Jacob. Go on home." Jacob kept walking. In a final lunge, he was on to Ephriam. He grabbed the barrel of the gun, and straight-armed Ephriam back. As Ephriam fell, he yanked the gun free.

"So, Ephriam was on his back. He was holding his hands out, like have mercy on my soul. I put my foot down on his chest, and broke his gun open. Two fat red buckshot shells ready to go. I slammed the gun shut, and aimed it at his head."

Jacob stood over Ephriam, and stared down at him. He lowered the barrel to Ephriam's mouth. "You ain't too good at killin' when somebody is looking at you, are you, Ephriam? My brother died in his sleep. That baby died, face down in the creek. And my pa died doing dishes.
"Oh, Jesus, help me," Ephriam sputtered, his eyes full of fear.
"Ain't no use in you tryin' to talk God out of this, Ephriam," Jacob answered calmly. "It was God that sent me here to kill you. Let me just ask you something, Ephriam. Are you afraid to die?" Ephriam squirmed in the dirt. His whole body frantically nodding yes. Jacob broke the 12 gauge down again, and pulled the two shells out of their chambers. He knelt down to Ephriam and pushed them into his mouth. "If you are still around here in the morning, I will blow your head off, do you get that?" Ephriam nodded frantically again, and Jacob turned to walk away. He paused, and looked back at Ephriam, still trembling on the ground. "I mean it Ephriam. If I ever catch sight of you again, it will be your last day on this earth. And your first day in hell." He turned away and disappeared into the woods.

"I don't know," Jacob wrote in his diary. "I coulda blown his head off then and there. And there'd be no one who'd blame me for it. For now, its enough to just run him out of that hollow. Back there in those woods, he could pretend to rule life and death. He could be the cruel emperor of Harris Hollow. Outside that world, he is less than nothing. A pathetic creature to be pitied only by the foolish, to be squashed by the others. I didn't kill him, but I ran him out into a living hell. He has it coming. Nevertheless, if I do see him again, I will be true to my promise, and do the deed myself. There is still a part of me that would like to see his head flying off and dropping to the ground."

Jacob buried his father in that patch out behind the house, next to his brother, and his brother's baby. Ephriam was never to be seen again. There was news a few days later that he was killed out walking along the highway. It was a hit and run.

" The truck that ran him down sounded a lot like the truck I saw Lilah in," Jacob wrote at the end of his tale. "A red truck, with a bashed in front grill. My brother's widow, Ephriam's daughter, Lilah, had decided to find her own peace, get her own closure, her own way. To each his own, I guess"

The last of the glowing embers fade....The air is cool, and moist....You breathe the night in....You let the night go....You breathe the night in....You let the night go....The air stirs softly....The air caresses your skin....The sky is turning pink.... A dusty beam of sunlight finds you....You awaken.....

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