The RECKONING: A Jess Williams Western (4 page)

             
“Howdy, Sheriff,” he said as he entered the jail.

             
The sheriff looked up and smiled at Jess. He had always liked him. He had always liked his mom, too. Everyone in town knew not to mess with Becky or they would have to answer to the sheriff.

             
“Well, how’s my favorite young fellow?” asked Sheriff Diggs.

             
“Just fine,” he replied “I heard you were having a bad day.”

             
“I was, until you came through that door.”

             
“How’s your pa, and how is my little Becky?”

             
“They’re both just dandy, Sheriff.”

             
“That’s good to hear, Jess.”

             
“Oh, I think I’m just gonna puke or something listening to you two carry on,” Red Carter said, while propping himself up on the bunk in the jail cell. “My head hurts like hell, Sheriff.”

             
“You’re lucky I didn’t take that empty head of yours clean off. I’ve about had it with you coming into town and always causing trouble,” barked Diggs angrily.

             
“I’m warning you Sheriff, if you ever hit me with that shotgun again, I swear I’ll kill you!” threatened Red.

             
“Shut your yap before it gets you into more trouble,” warned the sheriff. “As a matter of fact, you can stay in there for another day now just for getting smart with me.” Red grumbled something under his breath, but the sheriff wasn’t listening to him. He turned his attention back to Jess.

             
“Is your pa cutting up some more steaks soon?” he asked.

             
“Yes sir; he told me to ask you if you wanted some more.”

             
“Tell your pa to cut me up a few extra this time,” smiled the sheriff.

             
“Yes, sir, I sure will,” he agreed. “Sheriff, I ran into three men on the way into town this morning. I think they must have been the same men you chased out of town earlier.”

             
“How’d you hear about them?”

             
“Jim Smythe over at the general store told me about it.”

             
“Well, you stay away from them if you run into them again, they’re nothing but trouble, I’m sure of that,” claimed Diggs. “I’ve been looking through my wanted posters to see if I have anything on them.”

             
“Last I seen of them, they were headed down the road toward my pa’s ranch. I hope they don’t cause my pa any trouble,” he said with a worried look on his face.

             
“They’ll probably just keep riding, heading for the next town,” replied Diggs. “I’ll tell you what though. After I finish up a few more things around here, I’ll ride out to your pa’s ranch and make sure that things are okay.”

             
“Thanks Sheriff,” he replied gratefully.

             
Jess felt a little better as he left the sheriff’s office and walked back to the general store. Mr. Smythe had everything in one pile and Jess made quick work of loading up the wagon. He went back in to get the bill to take to his pa. Jim smiled at him and darted his eyes over to the candy counter as he handed Jess the bill.

             
“Well, are you going to pick out a few pieces of that candy?” asked Jim.

             
“Yes, sir,” he said smiling, as he looked over the candy counter. Jess picked out three different flavors of sugar sticks. Two sticks for him and one for his sister. Jess climbed up in the wagon and headed back to the ranch, his thoughts on the three men he met on the trail. He had a bad feeling and he just couldn’t shake it off.

CHAPTER THREE

              Jess rode back to the ranch and turned left onto the path going up to the house. The house sat about fifteen hundred feet back off the main trail. As he was riding up the path to the house, he looked over to the right to see if his pa was still plowing. He spotted the horse and plow sitting still in the middle of the field, but not his pa. He pulled the wagon up to the front of the house so he could unload the supplies. It seemed unusually quite around the house. He was hungry so he tied the paint to the front porch railing and quickly headed up the steps.

             
He swung the screen door open and just as he was about to say how hungry he was, he was frozen in a complete state of horror. He stood there motionless, his eyes fixed to the grizzly scene before him. He couldn’t speak even though his mouth was stuck open. Tears began to well up in his eyes. His knees almost buckled, but somehow he caught himself. His muscles began to tremble and shake. The carnage before him was almost unbearable to look at, but he couldn’t turn his gaze away.

             
His mother’s body was hanging in the doorway going to the sleeping quarters of the house. The ropes that were tied around her wrists were tied to nails at the top corners of the doorway. There was a huge pool of blood on the floor surrounding her feet. Within the pool of blood was her dress, which was torn and ripped. The dress was soaked in blood. Her body had been slashed and stabbed repeatedly, and her throat had been cut. Her face was black and blue and one eye was so full of blood you couldn’t tell if the eye was still there. Jess’ legs finally buckled and he dropped to his knees.

             
It took him several attempts, but he finally got the strength to slowly stand up; but his legs were still trembling and he almost fell to his knees again. He knew he had to tear his eyes away from the grizzly scene in doorway. He finally found the will to turn away and go back out the front door. He looked out to where his pa had been plowing. The horse and plow was still there, but he still couldn’t see his pa anywhere. He started to walk in that direction. As he did, he saw something on the ground behind the plow.

             
As he reached the horse and plow, he saw his pa’s body lying beside the plow. Jess knelt down next to his pa. John had been shot several times. One shot in the chest, one in the stomach and two in the head. After what seemed like an eternity, Jess gathered enough strength to stand back up. He stumbled backwards from his pa toward the house a few dozen steps and then he fell backward into the deep rich black soil. He looked up at the sky and the tears streamed down both sides of his head. He stayed that way for almost five minutes, wondering if there was anyone looking down on him right now. He finally got the strength to stand back up and he slowly turned around and walked toward the house. He stopped about two hundred feet from the house, not sure if he could summon the courage to go back in there. Then, all of a sudden, he realized that he had not found his sister Samantha yet.

             
Jess took a few steps toward the house and then stopped as if he had hit an invisible wall. He swallowed hard and wiped the tears from his eyes. He knew he had to look for Samantha and that meant he had to go back into the house, but he couldn’t gather the courage to do it. He decided to go to the back of the house and look in the windows. He walked around to the back of the house and got within two feet of the first window. He leaned his back against the outside wall of the house and tried to gain the courage to look inside.

             
He slowly stepped up to the window of his pa’s room and looked inside. There was no sign of Samantha. He made his way over to the other window and looked inside, but Samantha was not there. He turned toward the barn and stable and he walked over to the barn. The door was already open. He walked into the barn and called out his sister’s name. He looked around and was getting ready to climb the ladder to the top floor when he saw her arm sticking out of a pile of hay. Tears of fear filled his eyes again as he walked toward her. He knelt down and began to clear the hay from Samantha’s body. Her clothes were torn apart. Jess sobbed uncontrollably. She had been beaten to a pulp and shot; a single bullet hole in the middle of her forehead.

             
He picked her up and carried her body out of the barn. As he stepped outside, he stopped for a moment and looked out toward his pa’s body. He went around to the front of the house and up the steps and laid his sister’s body gently down on the porch. Then, he sat down on the steps of the porch, laid his face on his arms, and sobbed for what seemed like an eternity. He couldn’t believe this was happening. He wondered if this was just a bad dream and he would wake up soon.
How could anyone do something like this?
This just can’t be happening,
he thought to himself.

             
He wasn’t sure if he had fallen asleep or was simply still in a daze when he began to hear the beating of hooves on the ground. He lifted his head as Sheriff Diggs quickly reined up his horse in front of the house and dismounted. As soon as Sheriff Diggs hit the ground, he knew things were bad. He already saw Samantha’s body lying motionless on the porch. He ran up the steps of the front porch to get to Samantha’s body to see if there was any chance that she was alive. There wasn’t.

             
“My God, Jess. What in the hell happened here?” asked Sheriff Diggs. Jess tried to mouth the words, but he couldn’t speak. He just sobbed more loudly.

             
“Where is your father, Jess?” asked Sheriff Diggs.

             
Jess lifted his head, tears still streaming from his eyes. He slowly pointed toward the field where he found his pa’s dead body earlier. The sheriff saw the horse with the plow just sitting still out in the middle of the field. He could just barely make out what looked like a body on the ground behind the horse and plow. He began to head down the steps to run out to check where Jess was pointing, but before he got to the bottom step, Jess grabbed the sheriff’s arm and stopped him in his tracks. The sheriff knelt down and put his hand on Jess’s shoulder.

             
“I’ve got to go out there, Jess,” explained Diggs.

             
Jess looked at the sheriff and shook his head as if to say no. He tilted his head slightly back and to the right. “Inside,” he sobbed, so low that the sheriff didn’t catch what he had said for a second or two. “Ma,” added Jess weakly.

             
The sheriff started back up the steps to look inside the house. As he opened the screen door, he gasped and froze. He stopped breathing for several seconds and then he slowly let the air out of his lungs. “Damn it,” he whispered under his breath.

             
He glanced back out at Jess still sitting on the steps; his head back down on his arms that were crossed on his knees. The sheriff fought back tears that welled up in his eyes and his throat felt like he had tried to swallow an apple whole. Becky had been like a daughter to him. He walked toward her, but stopped abruptly. He noticed boot prints in the blood on the floor. There were four distinct sets of boot prints. Jess was one of the four sets of boot prints, but he noticed something odd about one of the other boot prints. Some of the prints were made from a boot with a missing heel; a left heel. He scanned the rest of the room and spotted the murder weapon. A large kitchen knife covered with blood lay on the floor of the kitchen area, about ten feet from the body. There were no boot prints in that area so the sheriff surmised that it had been thrown over there. He walked over to the body. Another wave of sadness along with sheer hatred for the people responsible for this pulsated through his body, stopping him in his tracks again. If he ever found them, he would just shoot them where they stood. No trial. Then he would drag their bodies out in the woods and let the buzzards and coyotes pick their bones clean. They deserved nothing less.

             
He walked closer to Becky and squeezed past her to get around to the back of her body. When he got behind the body, he looked up at the nails and rope that tied her to the doorway. He decided to cut the body down. He went inside Becky’s sleeping room and got a large blanket. He wrapped it around the body as best he could and reached down and pulled out the knife he always kept in his right boot. He carefully cut down Becky’s body and placed it on her bed. He grabbed another blanket and made sure that she was completely covered. He grabbed another blanket to cover Samantha’s body outside.

             
He walked back outside and Jess was still sitting on the steps. He gently placed the blanket on Samantha. Jess had stopped crying and had lifted his head up, looking out across the ranch toward the main road. The sheriff touched Jess’s shoulder as he went down the steps and headed out to the field where John’s body was. As he got close to the body he noticed one set of boot prints going in both directions. They were made from the same boots with the missing left heel. He looked over the body and surmised that whoever had done this had shot John with a rifle from a distance and then walked up and finished him with a few shots from a pistol. John’s body was behind the plow and there was no evidence that it had been dragged there. Surely if he had seen anyone coming up the ranch road he would have walked toward the house to see who it was. He probably never saw it coming. The sheriff walked back to front of the house and looked at the footprints. Near as he could tell, there had been three men. He found the prints from the boot with the missing heel again. He turned to walk over to the steps and when he looked up at Jess, he was startled by what he saw.