Filed to story: Return of the Reaper Story
“Are they the men who took Jenna?” she said, breaking from his grasp.
Joe Bob stared at her, features drained of blood.
Jenna. In the face of his own death he’d forgotten Jenna.
Merry leaned on the table and waved her hand before Gunny’s eyes. He was teaching her to play chess at the kitchen table.
“What are you doing?” Gunny said.
“Nothing,” she said and sat down.
“You don’t believe I’m really blind?”
“I believe you.”
“Then why were you waving your little hand in front of my face?”
“How do you know that if you can’t see?” she said.
“Why do you think I can see?” he said fingering the crenulations atop the rook to his right.
“You beat me three games without being able to see.”
“Maybe you’re so bad at this game even a blind man can beat you.”
“Unh uh!”
“I know what a chess board looks like. I know how the pieces move. You let me know which piece you moved and I can see it in my head.”
“You ‘member it?” she said in open awe.
“It’s not hard. Memory is a muscle. The more you work it the stronger it gets. Your move, little girl.”
“Did you teach my daddy chess? He told me you were his teacher,” she said and slid a pawn forward with his hand atop hers.
“I taught him all kinds of things. Chess was not one of them. He’s a good player though. Surprised he hasn’t taught you already,” he said, moving a pawn forward to block her path while freeing his bishop to move.
“What kind of school was it?”
“A very special school. A very hard school. My job was to teach men how to be smart even when they were hurt or scared or tired.”
“You scared my daddy?” She pulled her hand from under his.
“Not so’s you’d know it,” he said and left his hand hovering over the mane of the knight until she slid her hand to the piece once more and moved it to threaten his queen.
“Your daddy was my best student. He taught me as much as I taught him. You want to hear a story about your daddy?”
“Mm-hm.”
“We had your daddy locked up in a kind of jail. He had a secret and his orders were to not tell us his secret. No matter how hungry or tired or thirsty he got. It was like a game, you see. Only after a few days it doesn’t feel like a game any more. Most men hold out a week or maybe two. You know what your daddy did?”
“Unh-uh.”
“He escaped the first night. We locked him up and the next morning he was gone. And so was one of our trucks. And he took parts from all the other trucks so we couldn’t chase him. He broke our radio so we couldn’t call out for help. There we were, a whole school full of soldiers and marines stuck in the middle of nowhere with no way out and no way to tell anyone the trouble we were in.”
“Wow.”
“You bet wow. You know what happened next?”
“Unh-uh.”
“Your daddy drove back the next day with a box of Mexican takeout. Must have drove all night and all day back and forth to the closest town.”
“Was he in trouble?”
“Hell, no. He did what he was supposed to. He kept his secret. Only maybe four other men made it through my class without giving up his secret. Your daddy is the only one who ever escaped on me.”
“Are you best friends, Gunny?”
“We’re brothers, little girl. You know what that makes me?”
“No?”
“Your uncle.”
“Cool,” she said and he felt her hand slide a bishop across the board to take his queen.
“I did not see that coming,” Uncle Gunny said.
Joe Bob was freaking.
All alone in the shower, mud streaming from his legs, he was quietly falling apart. The mud was from digging a grave for Mojo in the early morning hours. The dog’s skull was crushed. The Rottweiler weighed in at sixty pounds and needed a big hole.
He sank to the floor, face in hands, and let the needle spray of scalding water beat down on him. He let himself cry. He allowed the pain welling up in his chest to come out in a bestial wail. The all-around glass walls misted to hide him from the world.
Delia was already gone. She’d packed two bags and took off for her sister’s place in Tulsa. She wasn’t staying in this house one more night. If he believed her, she might never come back. Delia demanded he pay for a charter and Joe Bob didn’t argue. Twenty grand for a deadhead flight to Oklahoma. He paid for that and the car that came and picked her up and took her away.
Joe Bob ran through his own options for heading for cover. He had responsibilities, people who relied on him, obligations. None of that meant anything if those two men came back.