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| Saint Sebastian River Bridge [Click image to call up all published instalments] |
Wednesday,
August 30, 1922,
continued
Frank’s house was now flaming fiercely, scorching the trees. The two houses were lighting up the area and Red could see some of the other men.
The last five men had taken one boat to the middle island, to go after Cooter Summerlin while Hell broke loose on either side of him.
Senegal, his two shadows, the Reverend and the Deacon, all appeared from the darkness.
“Time to head back to the boats,” Ezra Stone said. He looked questioningly at Red. “You get what you come for?”
Red shook his head. “One of ’em, anyway. Celia said Middleton ain’t here.”
The Deacon stepped up in Red’s face. “What do you say? Of course he’s here. My sources were sure.” The man had the deepest, richest voice Red had ever heard.
Red shrugged. “I’m only tellin’ you what she told me.”
“Don’t you bet on it” |
Calling to the other men, they ran for the boats. By the time they all got to them there were several more structures on the island burning, sheds and a barn and more racks draped with drying nets.
Another cracking boom sounded from the north, and the men were laughing nervously. They generally agreed them two boys left behind was shore doin’ a good job of keeping their victims’ attention. Another column of flame and smoke, nearer, marked their handiwork.
They dragged the boats off the sand and bailed in from knee-deep salty water. The motors cranked up—no need for secrecy now. They sped to the second island and once more found the docks on the east side, not far enough around to be caught in the maze of mosquito-infested mangroves and sandbars but far enough to be sheltered from the endless boats wakes and wind-waves in the main channel. The five men who’d come first had left their boat beached.
They slammed up on the shore and charged, splashing, up the short rise, heading for Cooter Summerlin’s place.
Bobby Frankenfield’s shack was maybe a hundred yards to their left, invisible through the brush on the island’s southern tip, but no one seemed worried about Bobby. The Reverend had taken the notion that the boy was simple, and only in need of proper care.
Red Dedge wasn’t so sure.
The men set to approach Cooter’s homestead had been waiting until they heard the motors of the other boats, concealed behind trees and stands of palmetto. Before the others got to the house, they opened fire.
Glass shattered, chips of wood flew |
A low shadow on the porch was popping away with something small, probably one of those Savage .380’s that were so popular. It was really just a pocket gun; at this distance you might hit a barn if you were lucky.
But it was drawing attention from the window. Somebody, somebody big, was doing something just behind that window. The rising sun shone over Red’s shoulder and the windows reflected only sky. Except. Except that form, doing something, and whatever it was they weren’t baking a damn cake, that was for sure and for certain.
Mad as hell now, Red fired both barrels of his reloaded shotgun at once and took out the window. A shout of pain, then, “Mother fucker!”
His shoulder throbbed from the double kick of the twelve gauge as he frantically broke the action and slid in two more shells of Number One Buck.
Through the now-open window he clearly heard the clack-clack of some kind of weapon. A heavy one. Bullets exploded out of the window, all at once, a terrifying, explosive hammering.
“Shit!” yelled the man with the bat. “He’s got a damn machine gun!”
Red had never heard a machine gun. He didn’t like it one bit. Bullets tore up the ground, shredded through foliage, and thumped into trees and logs. A man shouted and fell to the ground. They all cowered behind whatever they could find.
“Reload! Reload!” |
The automatic rifle spit fire at him, but he was already diving for cover.
“Haha, you bastard, you’ll have to be faster than that!” The gun chewed up turf within two feet of the Deacon.
He turned to his men, all crouched down. In a low but carrying voice he told them, “When he stops to reload, you shoot the fuck out of that window. If you have a shotgun, shoot below the window, with slugs if you got ’em. That wall’s only clapboard.”
Red checked through his extra shells and found three ball loads. He hadn’t thought of it, but clapboard was usually only about three-eighths of an inch thick. Of course, a twelve-gauge slug would go through it. The Deacon knew somethin’, for sure.
The chattering machine gun ceased, and for a few seconds, through the ringing in his ears, Red could hear the cicadas screaming in the trees.
The Savage popped again from the porch.
The line of men outside opened fire. It was a rainstorm, a forest fire. Chunks of wood a foot long flew from the walls, including the low wall surrounding the porch below the screens.
At the same time the men on their left let go, chewing into the front corner of the house. A woman’s scream, a dying shriek, came from the porch. A man yelled from the front corner, another cry of mortal pain.
They kept firing. It seemed to Red like an hour but was probably, he thought, only a few minutes. No more firing came from the house, but the men weren’t about to expose themselves yet. That damn gun had scared the shit out of them all.
Senegal’s addict boys hustled up with bottles with rags stuck in the tops. They were passed up and down the line, lucifers were scratched to life, and the rags, soaked in the one hundred ninety-proof liquor that filled the bottles, flared to life.
“Rest of you, cover us, just in case” |
Red and several others up and down the line let fly, more chips of wood and the last of the window glass flew, and the Deacon wound up and threw the flaming bottle in his hand. Others followed, some going in the window to explode inside, others smacking the wall, the alcohol splashing and flaming.
One man tossed his and the rag came out, pouring flaming ethanol over his shoulder. He screamed and another man ripped his shirt off and beat out the flames in his hair.
The bottle landed short, didn’t break, and just poured out burning booze into the sparse sandy grass.
The man to Red’s right, who’d been hit by the machine gun, had been wailing the whole time but Red hadn’t heard him. The sound of a window shattering came from the far side of the house.
“God damn it, one of ’em’s getting’ away! Come on!” Red didn’t stop to think that he’d just shouted orders at a band of men twice his age. It wasn’t done, not by an eighteen-year-old boy, but as he sprinted around to the right of the house they came anyway.
As he rounded the southeast corner of the house, he saw Clarence Middleton running into the mangrove swamp that led to the eastern channel. He threw the Parker up, sighting on his back. It was an easy shot, maybe twenty yards. Perfect distance for buckshot through brush. No way he could miss.
He hadn’t reloaded |
He was leaving a visible blood trail so Red had winged him, but if he’d of been a deer, Red wouldn’t of bet on venison for dinner.
It had to be Middleton, the Summerlin fella was described as dumpy and this guy was a damn barn-door slab of a man, big in the shoulders, tall and solid. Like Middleton was described.
So Celia had lied to him, just like the Deacon said. Summerlin was, he thought, probably dead back in the burning house. The son of a bitch had been there when they’d burned his farm.
Red wondered if he’d still been alive when the flames got to him. They would have done that to him and Guy if they’d been at the farm when they destroyed it; burned them to death, without a second thought. He hoped Summerlin had been conscious. He hoped it had hurt.
Middleton was clearly gaining on him, the bastard moving through the swamp like he was born there, which, according to the Judge, he was.
He fired his last shot and had no choice but to stop to reload the pistol. He’d just opened the top-breaking Model 3 and dumped his spent shells when the men behind him caught up.
The older men, he noticed, were moving a lot slower than the others. Somewhere along their path the sandy ground had turned to shallow water.
His hands shook |
The men around him were firing into the trees, but they could barely see Middleton as he slipped between the gnarled mangroves as if he were trotting across open field.
Red charged forward again, cocking and firing, but after another six wasted bullets, the sound of splashing water receded. Clarence Middleton had escaped.
They slogged back to the dry land of the island, soaked to the knees. The night had been cool but an hour after dawn the heat was rising, and the cicadas were already singing in the trees.
Red retrieved the Parker, thankful he’d been on dry sand when he dropped it. He’d had nothing in his mind but putting an end to one more of the men who wanted him and his brother dead. Besides, God damn them, they owed him for his farm.
As he stepped into the clearing around the Summerlin homestead, which was well on its way to burning to a pile of ash, he saw the Deacon, Reverend Stone and Senegal Johnson. They were standing together, considering the flames.
Red stepped up beside them. “Reckon there’s anything worth taking?”
They looked at him appraisingly.
Ezra Stone spoke. “Would have been nice to know if they had a cache of money somewhere, but it’d probably be in one of the houses. If so, it’s gone. I won’t countenance theft of personal property, understand?”
Red nodded; he noticed the others nodding as well. This statement wasn’t just for him.
“Our best bet for recouping some of our loss is if there’s still some moonshine left. Anything that cannot be identified. Cash, liquor, guns, yes. No boats.”
He snapped his fingers. “In fact, sink any more boats you find. Burn any buildings too. Search them first.”
The Deacon took over. Senegal stalked south into the tropical brush.
“So, who is still alive?” |
Red stared at the flames for a few seconds before answering. The Deacon didn’t rush him.
“Oh yes sir, I took care of him good. Blew his God damn face off.”
The Deacon didn’t blink. “And his wife and children?”
Red looked down, shook his head. “The kids weren’t there. I threw his wife out in a nightgown and torched the house. I didn’t search it,” he said hastily, at their skeptical stares. Celia had lied about Clarence Middleton, after all. “No chance in hell she would have lied. She saw me throw down a lantern and set that house afire. The Devil himself couldn’t make a mother let her kids burn up.”
They all nodded at this. “All right then. Reverend Stone, may I assume Frank Frankenfield is also no longer polluting the good air of this Earth?”
Stone nodded marginally. “You may. His poor wife, too, suffered her husband killed and her homestead burned. Although we harden our hearts to bring righteous vengeance on our enemies, their families deserve mercy. Unfortunately, we killed Mags Summerlin before we knew who she was. She was firing at us, trying to kill us, but she was also defending her family. We take no comfort in killing her, but the retribution of the Lord is irrefutable.”
Red was pretty sure being shot dead and burned up was about as irrefutable as you could get, but he reckoned he’d better keep his trap shut. These men were here to help him, but themselves as well; these island rats had preyed on their neighbors, both black and white, for years.
“All right, boys, let’s get back to the boats. Still gotta pick up Goat and Eddie.”
| Copyright © 2022 by Roger Owens |
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