Tim McGregor - Killing Down the Roman Line

“Where were you?” The boy’s eyes screamed murder. The accusation like battery acid to the face. “You should have been here,” he hissed. “You shoulda been home.”

Emma clamped her palm over her mouth. She was going to be sick. She wanted to crawl under the bed and never come out. Anything but this. “Travis,” she said. “It’s not your dad’s fault. Come here, honey.”

Travis’s eyes shot from dad to mom and swung back. Laser guided death rays. “That’s a lie. It is your fault. All of it.”

Jim reached for him. “Stop it.”

Travis ducked back. “What are you gonna do? Hit me?” He vanished from the doorway. The sound of his heels banging down the stairs.

No one spoke. Neither parent willing to look the other in the eye.

The mason jar hit with a pop and shattered. Penny nails scattered over the floor. A coffee tin on top of the metal locker tipped over, raining drywall screws on Jim as he rattled the door. The lock stuck, the little key refusing to turn. He bashed it with his fist, jarring the handle back and forth trying to shake it loose. Nothing.

Jim looked around the cluttered basement for a hammer. Dusty furniture that would never be repaired. Travis’s hockey gear dangling from a hook, outgrown and needing to be replaced come winter. Where was the axe?

The lock turned. He flung the doors open and rifled the shelves. Knocking out of the way, he swept it all to the floor and reached way into the back. Fingers wrapping around the prize.

He slid the bundle out, laid it across the washing machine and slipped the sock from the shotgun. A Mossberg pump action he used for duck hunting and taking potshots at the odd turkey vulture. Two summers ago, a young bear had roamed the back country of the Roman Line tipping garbage cans. He’d kept the gun over the back door, worried the stupid thing would get into the barn where the horses were. Twice he’d spotted it but it had vanished by the time he ran back for the shotgun.

The safety was on, the open chamber empty. He held the release and pumped the action three times. The action smooth, no forgotten hulls in the magazine. He laid it aside and reached back into the locker. One last box of ammunition. He shook out the contents. Four rounds and no more.

Enough to do the job.

Back up the basement steps, the gun sheathed in the green sock. He thumbed through the list of names on his phone, a faint hope that he had Puddycombe’s cell number. Nope. But then why would he? They weren’t really friends. Puddy was just the guy who slung pints at the pub, everyone’s friend in the moment. After tonight that would change.

The cell’s battery was low. One bar and no time to recharge it. No matter. He dropped it back into a pocket and turned off the basement light.

Travis stood in the mist of the open freezer door, scooping ice into a wash cloth. An ice-pack for his mother’s battered face. The boy’s eyes dropped immediately to the rifle in his father’s hand.

“Why did you get the gun?”

Jim moved his thumb over the grip, feeling for the safety. Ensuring it was on. He hadn’t expected to find Travis in the kitchen. “Where’s your mom?”

Travis nodded towards the parlour but kept his eyes glued to the rifle. “Why do have that?”

He stood the gun in the corner. This was one of those situations, teachable moments, but Jim was damned if he knew what he was supposed to school his son about holding a gun in his hand and revenge in his heart.

He nodded to the loaded firearm in the corner. “Don’t touch that.”

Emma was on the couch, feet tucked under her and holding the ice pack to her face. He knelt before her, down to her eye level. “Let me see that.”

The ice tinkled as she lowered her hands. Her eye was swelling up but her lip had stopped bleeding. She looked awful. “Not so bad,” he said.

A grimace from Emma, than a wince. The lip splitting open again at the slightest movement. She knew he was lying, she always did, but let it go. From her perch on the couch she could see partway into the kitchen. The shotgun against the wall. “What are you doing with that?”

“Lock the doors after I leave. Stay inside.”

“Where are you going?”

“Stay away from the windows.”

Emma lowered her head until her chin notched into her clavicle. He couldn’t tell if she was crying again. Did it matter? “Where are your keys?”

“In the bowl. Why?”

He crossed to the table in the foyer, fished her keys out of a misshapen ceramic bowl that Travis had made in the fourth grade and came back. Dropped the keys into her palm and folded her fingers over them. “Keep those in your pocket. If I call and say ‘leave’, you go. Just get Travis and drive to Norm’s as fast as you can.”

“Jim…”

He knew what she was going to say. Don’t do anything stupid. Think it through . He cut her off. There was no time for that. He squeezed her hand until her eyes lifted. “Emma, listen to me. You don’t know where I’m going. You don’t know what I’m doing. You turned your back and I just left. You understand?”

She looked at the keys in her hand and then back to him. Her left eye a runny slit against the swelling. He wondered if it would leave a mark. Something permanent that both would pretend wasn’t there.

“Make it hurt,” she said.

Not what he’d expected. Her good eye was sober and clear. No bullshit, no wavering.

The skin of her brow was cool and damp on his lips. “I promise.”

His knees popped as he straightened and went back into the kitchen. Travis was gone.

So was the gun.

He was on the porch. Butt up on the rail, heels bouncing off the balusters. The Mossberg next to him, the barrel tilted against the railing.

Jim let the screen door thwap behind him. Looked at his son. “What did I say about touching the gun?”

“I know what you’re gonna do.”

“Your mom needs more ice. There’s Tylenol in the medicine cabinet.”

Travis didn’t move. “What happens afterwards? After you, ya know…”

“Go back inside.”

“You haven’t thought it through. You’ll go to jail. What’s mom gonna do then? Or me? Run the farm by ourselves while you get raped by gangbangers?”

Jim crossed the porch and shooed his son off the rail. “Don’t sit on that, you’ll break it.” Travis slid down. Jim put a hand on his shoulder. “You didn’t see me. You came home, found your mom and looked after her. I wasn’t here. Got it?”

“Whatever.” Travis shrugged it off.

“Tell me you understand.” He held the boy by the shoulder. Travis nodded. “Go back inside. Look after your mother.”

THE OLD SCHOOLHOUSE lay west of the Corrigan farm, half a mile from the main road. A one room brick hut, built and paid for by the farmers of the Roman Line in 1889. James Corrigan and Robertson Hawkshaw had contributed the lion’s share of the funds and the labour, the two men working side by side in the August sun of that year. Children born on the Roman Line were schooled here until 1944.

The shell of the schoolhouse stood firm but the roof was little more than tarpaper. The windows long gone, the interior pilfered and abused. Three vehicles sat parked in the track leading in from the road. Puddycombe’s Cherokee, a silver Tahoe belonging to Hitchens and Combat Kyle’s shitbox Corrolla.

Bill Berryhill had brought a six of tall boys, like he was at a picnic. He found a crate to sit on and lit a cigarette. Puddycombe stood looking out the window and Hitchens leaned against the desk. Kyle couldn’t stand still, kicking debris with his scuffed combat boots. Snickering at the graffiti on the walls. Cartoonish genitalia and swear words.