The Quick and the Dead

The Quick and the Dead

Softness, flannel sheets, a slight dip where she used to sleep within the cocoon of his love. He felt the coldness on his forearm. Fingertips tracing her outline in the sheets. The awakening void at the edge of consciousness. A place once filled with her warmth where he yearned to dream; is now filled with night terrors. Her body was a sanctuary for Sara, who was only two full moons away from entering their lives. The loss of her presence, the silencing of her voice, his waking nightmare. The witching hour alarm slowly enters my consciousness, a vicious reminder, as I awaken to the dread loneliness of the night. Left in the darkness of my memories, I find no solace in life’s measure. Sleep but no rest. Work but no satisfaction. Friends whose distance is mute testimony to this shell of a man. Come back to me, Bonnie Jean. I must move now or sink into the infinite void of my depression. The river has become my escape, the ripples and eddies my highway to peace. Solitude is the shroud that covers my pain. There is no justice left within the world as some moments change everything.

Fishing was a passion for Buddy and Bonnie Jean (BJ) Arnold. Rolling out of bed at 3:00 am, he would have been greeted by a southern breakfast of biscuits, gravy, sausage, grits and scrambled eggs, with a cup of coffee that would make your hair grow and your scalp tingle for hours before sunup. BJ was always an earlier riser than Buddy and she could “shame the devil” with her vittles before she and Buddy would head to the river. Buddy would fire up his Ford F-150 pickup with the Shadow Grass Camo pattern, “so as not to scare the fish,” he would declare and have the truck nice and toasty warm before BJ entered. Buddy towed his sixteen-foot-long Jon boat the two hours to Wargo’s landing. Inside the Mississippi River levee, the landing was located on the old Arkansas River in Desha County, Arkansas. The Wargo’s owned the only concrete boat ramp for thirty miles North or South on this side of the Mississippi River. On a Saturday morning, the pick-up trucks would be bumper to bumper from 3:00 am through 7:00 am, with “would be” anglers, waiting their turn to offload and rush to their favorite “secret” fishing hole. Bonnie Jean (BJ) would be right beside him, Feline toughness, tomboy, wife, partner in crime, best friends, but those days were over now. Buddy would fish in the middle of the week and work weekends as an emergency room nurse. Buddy’s first love was Bonnie Jean, their passion was the outdoors.

This midweek morning was like any other; it was spring cool but not cold. Water levels were low without much current to fight before the yearly spring floods made the journey perilous. There was not a mosquito in the sky. Mother nature was waking up from her winter hibernation, and life was good, which means ordinary. The plan today was to head over to Cooter’s Hollow. The hollow was a cove dredged to the bedrock, during the depression era, to harvest gravel to make the levees surrounding the Mississippi River drainage system. Cooter’s Hollow was prime white bass habitat in the late spring and a hot spot for spawning channel catfish right now. There may be a hundred people fishing or zero. You never knew until you got there and counted the boats. You could not fish from the bank at Cooter’s Hollow because the water was surrounded by limestone cliffs on the sides, topped with swamp oaks, sycamores, and wild pecan trees. There is a sandy beach at the far end of the Hollow; the problem was that the beach was usually quicksand until deep into the summer drought season.

Buddy’s midweek luck was holding, not a single fisherman in sight. He turned off his Evinrude 25 horsepower motor about fifty yards from the inlet entrance and switched over to his trolling motor. Silent so as not to scare the fish back into the deep river channel. He noticed smoke coming from a fire pit at the end of the inlet, in the forest, dumbass kids, he thought. Everybody knows you do not go near the beach this time of year. The Army Corps of Engineers would not check the Hollow, for safety, for at least two more months or until after the spring floods subsided. Never mind, it was not his problem to worry about until they interfered with his fishing.

Buddy threw the duck hunting camouflage net over the top of the boat. He settled back into a stand of cattails and shore grass and started casting for catfish. His logic was that if a Duck could not see him, neither could a fish. If he were lucky, he would get a good haul today and have a catfish fry this Sunday after church. Bonnie Jean and Buddy were inseparable, the quintessential high school sweethearts. BJ lost her life to a drunk driver about a year and a half ago. Seven months pregnant at the time, you can still see the devastation in the slump of Buddy’s shoulders and the far away look in his eyes. BJ was killed in a head-on collision with the town drunk Gifford DeYoung, a throwback to a bygone era. Former Klansman, wanted by the FBI in the 1950s, a man with a blacker heart hadn’t been born yet. Gifford hated everybody, but he seemed to hate life the most. Gifford was in love with homemade shine, and the shine loved Gifford to death, BJ’s death. BJ and Sara died violently while Gifford walked away with a few bruises and cuts. Gifford was in his seventy’s and still a moonshiner.

The catfish were biting, but they were not the big ones he came after, typically a pound to two pounds each, good eating but more work than fun. He was about to take a break, smoke a cigarette, eat a couple banana moonpies, and drink a Coke when he looked up to see somebody stumbling through the woods above the beach. The man appeared to be injured; he could not walk straight, stumbling along, mud and grass stains up and down his back and legs with a smattering of forest leaves stuck to him in places. Buddy froze, his breath stuck in his lungs, the adrenaline surge had his heart beating like a hammer in his chest, as his stomach fell to the bottom of the boat. Levi’s Bib overalls, red buffalo flannel shirt, Wolverine steel toe boots, silver hair, under a train conductor’s cap, it was Gifford, a very drunk Gifford. Son of a bitch must have a moonshine still close to the Hollow entrance. That would explain the smoke.

Buddy always kept a .22 magnum rifle in the boat for snakes and gators. He reached down and grabbed the nickel-plated pump-action Winchester rifle. Nobody knew he was here and Gifford would not be missed for days, not even by his own family. This was his chance to make things right. He watched Gifford flailing to get up, Buddy thought, the damn fool must be trying to get water for the still.” He slowly raised the rifle to his shoulder. Clenched the wood stock snugly between his cheek and shoulder. Buddy aligned the rifle’s aiming bead at the end of the muzzle between the opening in the square aperture inches from his right eye, on Gifford’s forehead. He placed his finger through the trigger guard and his thumb on the safety. The bastard was swaying too much to get a clean shot between the eyes. Patience, he’s coming your way buddy reckoned. The old drunk had raised himself from the sandy beach. Gifford stumbled to the water’s edge, pulled his zipper down, and started to sway while pissing half in the water, half on himself. Twenty-Five yards from Buddy’s boat, I have you now, you son of a bitch, Buddy thought. Buddy took a deep breath and held it, steadying his pulse, calming himself for the shot, safety off, he was seconds away from revenge.

“Help Me! Goddamnit I’m sinking. HELP!” Gifford screamed.

Shit! There is no way he can see me here, Buddy thought. He pushed the safety back on the Winchester and sat stock still, his mind racing on the possibilities. Gifford was in quicksand up to his knees now and struggling to lay flat and swim out. He would have made it if he had not been drinking his own shine, but chances were low in his condition.

Buddy moved the camouflage netting. He started the trolling motor, silently steering the Jon boat out to the middle of the inlet, about twenty yards from Gifford. Never saying a word, Buddy watched with grim amusement as Gifford struggled. Fully waist-deep in quicksand, Gifford screamed for “Help” towards the forest before noticing Buddy coming towards him.

“Mistah! Mistah! Please help me out of here! Throw me your dock rope fella.”

Buddy did not say a word, he just stared, holding the rifle in a death grip. There was a silent, grim fatality in his heart and soul. Savior, or executioner? In a moment of clarity, Gifford recognized Buddy.

“OH JESUS! HELP ME!!!

His screams were almost inhumane, like a coyote howling, gnawing its paw off to survive a trap. Gifford sank deeper into the quicksand as he struggled to lay flat and swim out. Buddy remained silent; he pulled the trolling motor into the boat, locking it into place. Checking to see if anybody was coming into the Hollow. Buddy pressed the electric starter on the Evinrude. The engine came to life with a cloud of blue smoke and noxious bubbles rising from the water. Buddy sat there, Winchester rifle in his lap, fifty foot of ski rope by his foot, contemplating Gifford while the motor idled. Could he be both witness, Judge and executioner for Gifford’s crimes? Could he save the demon that killed his dreams? He waited, the indecision eating away at him like maggots on a festering wound. He felt lifeless, hollow, and yet somehow the excitement burned deep in his soul, he was justified, his dreams of revenge within grasp. Hell, no one would ever find the body in the quick-sand, nobody would ever know, he surmised. A few more minutes, and BJ would rest in Peace, or would she?

“Forgive Me.” Barely audible but clear as a bell from Gifford’s lips. “I never meant to….”

He could not finish, the words caught in his throat choking him, the last gasp of a desperate dying man. Silently, Buddy pulled up within five yards of the beach. He raised the rifle to his shoulder. Gifford wept, the tears streaming down his cheeks, like dirty little rivulets of regret. Buddy focused his aim on the silver hair at the top of Gifford’s wife beater t-shirt, between the buttons of his buffalo flannel shirt. You will not be missed he thought. A heart shot with the .22 magnum would be instant he surmised. Straight through the heart, and then breaking his spine in two, only to watch him crumble into the quicksand and slowly sink into oblivion. This would be the mercy BJ never got. He pushed the safety off with his thumb. He took two deep breaths. Calming his nerves, Buddy found the void of focus as he stared down the barrel lining up the shot, his first and last firing squad, ignoring Gifford’s pleas and shrieks as he sank deeper into his tomb. Quicksand up to his collarbone Gifford stared silently at the muzzle of the gun before erupting in screams for help. Buddy moved his foot sideways to get a better base for shooting when he felt the ski rope wrap around his ankle. He hesitated, pushed the safety back on, then slowly laid the rifle on the bottom of the boat. He knew the sound of the rifle would carry over the water for miles. No telling who was hiking in the woods or traveling on the water. Let the quicksand take him, he thought. He reached down, freed his ankle and threw the rope into the front of the boat. Without a second glance, Buddy turned the boat around and left Cooter’s Hollow. gun's muzzlemuzzle of the gunuzzlezzf

“Come back here and help me you SON OF A BITCH!” Gifford wailed. “Pull me out GODDAMMIT!”

“Goodbye Gifford,” Buddy whispered. Rest in peace baby, he thought.

It was a good day fishing.

JC Nelson