Current Issue

Having retired from his first career as a hospital clinical engineering administrator, Don is well into his new career as an English teacher. He taught composition at the college level for seven years, but now teaches journalism and creative writing at Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia. As a member of a local writing group, he has had the opportunity to produce more, which, through practice, invariably leads to better work. As an English teacher he has developed a better grasp of the nature of writing and loves to impart that knowledge to his students.

The river ran red as the sun dipped behind the mountain to the west, its vermilion rays reflecting off the water like a thousand twinkling Christmas lights. It was autumn, and the leaves were equally colorful, though the yellows and golds were washed to a uniform russet by the light.

Tim Jensen turned the "Open for Business" sign to its flip side and stepped out into the waning light. Closing and locking the door, he patted its center panel affectionately with his open palm and paused to relish the cool night air, the gentle pine-scented breeze, and his good fortune in having fulfilled his dream. The store and bait shop had been a satisfying success since he had bought it in the spring. It was functional, but rustic. Built on the edge of the river, the frame foundation jutted over the water on cantilevered supports. A bare flip of the wrist from the deck on the back would put a fly smack into the center water. The Stovers had told him the best season would be the fall, as tired, stressed city dwellers headed to the hills for the sights, sounds, and smells of the countryside. Their prediction had proved more than prophetic, as business had boomed since Labor Day.

It was a Wednesday night, and the only day of the week he closed early. Daylight Savings Time was still in effect, so sunset was not really that early. It was almost 8:45 when Tim turned away from the door, a smile flickering across his face. The flicker went out with a sudden gust of surprise when he abruptly bumped into a man who seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

"Oh...excuse me," he said, stepping back from the man and recovering his composure. "I'm sorry. I didn't see you there. Did you need something? I was just closing up, but I'd be glad to reopen if––"

"Don't need nothin' from the store," the man said, interrupting Tim and taking a half step forward.

Tim peered at the man, trying to identify him. Most of the residents of the area had frequented the store over the course of the summer and Tim thought he could recognize many of them. There was nothing familiar about the man, though. He was taller than Tim's six feet, and might have stepped off the cover of a country music album, complete with hat, shirt, belt buckle, jeans and boots. Over the shirt he wore a dark vest, emphasizing an already impressive muscular bulk. The sun had completed its descent below the hilly horizon, leaving the porch in deep shadows. The dim light failed to fully illuminate the man's face, highlighting only the edge of his nose with a thin line of pale red.

The man reached into the left side of his vest with his right hand and pulled out a .45 semi-automatic. It seemed an unusual handgun to be carrying around, and Tim searched his memory for locals that may have spent time in the military. There was no one he could recall, but he knew he didn't know everybody yet, and certainly didn't know the background of many that he knew as acquaintances.

"This seems like a good enough reason," the man said, waving the gun as if he were shooing flies off his plate.

"Look, if there's something you want or need just tell me," Tim said. "I don't have anything worth shooting anyone over."

Tim started to protest. It had been a particularly good day for midweek and he didn't relish losing it all to some crazed stranger threatening him with a gun. The bag was tucked under Tim's left arm, the keys to his Jeep and the store in his right hand. He made a move to drop the bag from under his arm and catch it with his left hand. Through design or accident, something Tim was never quite sure about, he missed the bag and it fell to the floor at the stranger's feet. Tim stood there, looking at the man, and doing his best to say nothing and keep a straight face. The man remained as he had for the previous minute, looking at Tim and waiting for the bag to be handed to him. Like adversaries in an old west shootout, they glared, rooted to their spots in a game of waiting.

Tim held the crazy notion that the man would bend over to pick up the bag and he would be able to surprise him with a swift kick to the face. Scenarios flashed through his mind in a kaleidoscopic montage, too fast to grasp and formulate fully. The standoff continued for ten seconds, seeming like minutes, when the stranger raised his gun hand in a gesture meant to indicate that control was his and there would be no move to pick up the bag. Tim recognized the futility of his notion and slowly bent his knees, stooping down to pick up the bag without taking his eyes off the man. He stood up, offered the bag, and it was taken.

Another wave of the gun convinced Tim to stop questioning any of the man's motives. He turned and unlocked the door, pausing for a moment to look back in the hope of getting another look at the man's face. The shadows were deeper, the dusky light barely providing enough to see the man's outline, only visible in the contrast between the dark porch and the lighter roadway twenty yards away. He turned back and pushed open the door, stepping in as he reached around the doorjamb to turn on the light.

The fluorescent lamps flickered momentarily before coming up to full power. Tim made a sweeping glance of the store, wondering what would be of value to such a desperate man. He nervously reached into his pocket and pulled out several coins, turning them over and over in his fingers. His survey lasted for only a moment before he heard the click of the light switch, and the store returned to darkness. Tim had begun to turn around when the butt of the .45 hit the back of his head. He fell forward, face down on the plank floor. His right arm hit first, loosing the coins in a twirling silver dance. They spun and rolled, one by one falling into the wide spaces between the floor boards, each in turn making its own metallic plop as it hit the river water below the store.

The van labored, underpowered for the hill country to which it was being subjected. Pete and Trudy Jensen, their son Tony, and their daughter Linda had spent a long day squinting out of the windows at the scenery. The sights were new to the children, but the bright sunny day had taken a toll on their eyes and their patience. The fading light made it more difficult to navigate the winding country road, but it was a welcome relief. Tony settled into his chair, leaned his head back and pulled his black cowboy hat down over his brow.

"Twenty minutes ago it was a forty-minute drive. You figure it out," his father answered. He tried to keep the irritation out of his voice, but the day had worn on him as well. Tony's question was another version of "When are we gonna get there?"

"I don't have my calculator," Tony answered in typical sixteen-year-old fashion. He was ignored.

Tim groaned heavily, opened his eyes to the darkness in the store and slowly rolled onto his back. The hard floor pressed on the knot protruding from the back of his head. He winced and quickly lifted it, placing the fingers of his right hand on either side of the sore spot before resting it again. A soft, pearlescent glow lit the tops of the trees across the river. Tim could see them through the windows on the river side of the store, signaling the rise of the first autumn full moon. Gathering his will to move, Tim made a survey of his body and decided the bump on his head was the only casualty. He sat up slowly, experiencing a slight spell of dizziness before regaining his equilibrium. He stood up without incident and looked around the store. It had suffered no damage.

The night was preternaturally quiet. The usual crickets and owls were silent. The river, something Tim could normally hear when the store was empty, had ceased its burbling voice. He cocked his head in an attempt to hear better, but the river and the night were still silent. He walked over to the window, the sharp rap of his boot heels on the wooden floor lost in the silence. Tim did not usually use profanity, and considered those that did to be lacking a significant degree of intelligence. The night had been an unsettling experience and Tim lowered his standards enough to voice a loud "Damn!" He heard the word in his head and could feel the vibrations of his vocal cords through his inner ear, but the effect was as if a pound of cotton had been stuffed in each ear. He shook his head, with no effect except to renew his dizzy spell.

The intruder had left the front door of the store open. Tim walked out to the porch, reasonably sure the man was no longer around, but feeling the need to check. There was nothing to see, and in Tim's condition, nothing to hear. Still a little shaky, he returned to the inside and went behind the counter.

Stretching eight feet down the left side, the counter served as the center of operations for the store. The cash register, telephone, and customer files were all located on, or behind, the counter. The store’s "protection system" was Tim's concern at the moment. Pulling out the twelve-gauge shotgun, he checked the safety and made sure there was a shell in the chamber and ammunition on the shelf. Tim had never thought he would have to use it––he left the city to get away from the violence and constant threats to safety. He returned the gun to the shelf under the counter and went into the storeroom behind him. He failed to see the flash of headlights as a van turned into the parking area outside the store.

Pete, Trudy, Tony and Linda breathed a collective sigh of relief as the van spewed loose gravel on its sharp turn into the parking lot. They had miscalculated the drive time and were disappointed to see that the store might be closed.

"I'm not sure. It looks kind of dark, but I thought Tim kept it open later than this. We'll call from the pay phone if there's no one here," Pete said.

The van came to a halt at the edge of the lot, just to the left of the front door. Dousing the lights and cutting the engine, Pete spoke to his son. "Why don't you go see if anyone's there, Tony? We'll wait here and you can signal us if Uncle Tim's in."

Tony put his hat on straight, pulled it down low over his eyes, and climbed out of the back seat. Hitching up his pants, tucking in his shirt, and stamping his feet to get his jeans back down over his boots, he stood tall and walked toward the steps to the front door. Trudy watched with more than a little awe as she realized how much he had grown. The past three years had seen him rise from a chubby new teen to the stature and comportment of a near adult. He was an impressive figure in the dim light framed by the open front door of the store. She watched him disappear into the store with a mother's satisfied sense of accomplishment.

Tony walked into the store, taking light steps instead of his usual boot-heel clomps. There seemed something serene and mysterious about the atmosphere in the store and Tony had some unconscious reason to leave it undisturbed. He took several gingerly steps farther in, the counter on his left and the several rows of shelves on his right dimly lit by a small lamp on a table behind the counter. His gaze traveled around the dim interior, from the far end wall glowing a pale white over the display panel at the top of a soda machine, to the windows on the river wall that cut a precise rectangle out of the store's gloom, and to an alcove on the left, past the counter, that faded into blackness. Knowing that no one was in the main part of the store, he turned back to the counter, jamming his hands into the pockets of his jacket in a gesture of resignation.

Tim finished his quick check of stock in the storeroom and turned to go back out to the counter. The turn of his head caused another moment of dizziness and he reached out to steady himself. The rush of blood in his head echoed in his inner ear. He had not regained any of his hearing and silently hoped it would be temporary. He turned off the light in the storeroom, pulled open the door, and stepped out into the space behind the counter. Facing the storeroom door, he pulled it shut and turned toward the counter, moving slowly to avoid more dizziness. The slowness turned into a slow motion scene as he saw the visage of a surprised man take a step back from the counter. Tim's still-foggy brain registered a scene that seemed too familiar. The hat, jacket, and shiny belt buckle brought visions of a moment that somehow seemed long ago, yet strangely recent. A hand coming out of a jacket pocket followed the figure’s sudden movement backward. Not again! Quickly gathering his wits, he reached under the counter for the shotgun, determined to have the upper hand this time. He raised it to his waist, sliding his hand up the stock to the trigger guard. Flicking the safety with his thumb, his finger found its way onto the trigger and began its reflexive contraction.

Tony had just turned to the counter when he noticed a sliver of light wink out in a doorframe behind the counter. Its meaning did not register on his absent musings, but the appearance of a man walking out of the dark door and turning toward him woke him up and he instinctively took a step backward. The uneven boards of the floor caught the edge of one boot and slightly upset his balance. In an attempt to regain his footing, his arm moved forward, restrained by the limits of his jacket pocket. His mind split between concentrating on his balance and acknowledging the man in front of him. He saw the movement of his uncle, and saw the appearance of the shotgun. He could not put it all into perspective fast enough to shout out before he saw the faint orange blast out of the end of the shotgun.

The blast hit him in the left shoulder and side of his neck, spinning him around a full turn and a half. Tony was barely conscious of the spinning room and the floor coming up to meet him as he fell. He was not conscious at all when he hit.

Tony lay still on the floor, his life slowly draining away. It ran down through the cracks between the boards and dripped steadily, the large coalescing drops plopping into the river below. The crystal moonlight made a feeble attempt to illuminate the river, but its silver glow could not do justice to the color as the river ran red.