Ken Douglas - Ragged Man

The few seconds it took her to grab a breath seemed like forever. Any second the thing was going to get her, she thought. She forced herself to turn and look up the hill. It wasn’t easy. She had to push her tired, aching, and damaged body onto its side with her good arm. If the thing came for her, there was nothing she could do. She sat up, fighting the urge to cry out. Sitting, she turned, expecting the worst, but there was nothing there. Whatever it was, it apparently didn’t want to leave the forest.

She felt exposed on the hill. She felt like she was being watched. Then the thing roared once more and by the sound of it, she was able to tell that it was going away, but for how long? Would it come back? She had to get off the hill. She had to get home to J.P.

She tried to move, but it was agony. Her arm was screaming. With great care, keeping her feet in front of herself to control her rate of descent, she went down the hill on her backside. It was agonizingly slow work, but she forced it upon herself. She couldn’t afford the luxury of waiting for help. She wanted to get home to J.P. as quickly as possible.

After a few minutes, with not much progress, she slipped and started to slide. She was out of control, rolling and tumbling in the sluice, screaming against the fear and the stabbing pain. But the careening ride didn’t last long, in short order she was thrown out of the sluice and deposited on the soft beach sand below.

She tried to stand and found that if she bit hard enough into her lip, it was possible. Then she saw the most beautiful sight, Rick’s red Jeep coming down the beach. Once again he was going to be her savior.

J.P. shuddered when he heard the animal scream from the forest. He knew what it was and he was afraid, but his mom was out there. He ran toward his mother’s bedroom, tripping on the oval rug in the hallway. He picked himself up and hurried on. He stopped for an instant in front of his mother’s bureau, he was scared shitless, but again he heard that animal roar and he pulled open the bottom drawer.

He knew what was there, his mom had shown it to him and told him to never, never touch it, but he was going to touch it now. He knew the gun was loaded, because his mom had told him it was. “This is a thirty-eight Police Special,” she had said. “I’m showing it to you, so you’ll know what and where it is. It’s not a toy,” she continued. When he asked her why they needed a gun, she said, “We’re alone now and you never know who might come calling in the middle of the night.” She had gone on to say that she trusted him and his judgment, after all he was almost eight. That’s why she wanted him to see the gun. She trusted him and here he was grabbing it out of her bottom dresser drawer, but he wasn’t going to play with it.

With the gun in hand, he raced down the hallway, careful not to trip again. He left the hardwood floor and turned onto the wall to wall carpeting of the living room. He skirted around the davenport and coffee table, more afraid than sure of himself, with his little boy’s hot, sweaty hand extended for the front door’s big brass doorknob. He threw open the door, crossed the porch and went down the steps, skipping the last one.

He didn’t have any farther to go. Standing in front of the house with the sun hanging in the early morning sky, he was confronted with silence. The woods were quiet. He strained to hear the steady drone of forest noises, and hearing none, strained his eyes for movement. His eyes weren’t disappointed. They fixed on the rustle of bushes behind Rick’s house. There was something there. He saw a blur dart behind the pines that extended from behind Rick’s house to the back of his house.

The birds are back there, he thought.

“ You’re not gonna get the birds!”

He bounded up the steps and again raced across the living room, but instead of going into the hallway, where his bedroom and safety were, he turned into the dining room, careful not to bust his shins on the one chair that was always pulled out from under the big round oak table. That table always reminded him of King Arthur and his knights. Now, he was Sir Lancelot on his way to protect his mother from the evil dragon.

He threw his shoulder against the swinging kitchen door, throwing it inward, without breaking his stride, running across the tile floor into the service porch. He grabbed the back doorknob and tried to turn it, but his hand slipped round the knob. Locked. He let go of the knob, and, with shaking fingers, tweaked the lever in the center of it and turned. Then he grabbed the doorknob and turned, turned and pulled. The knob turned but the door was still locked, deadbolt locked, double deadbolt locked.

Mr. Keeper at the hardware store told his mom that double deadbolts were better than singles. That way if a thief broke in through the window, he couldn’t get the doors open to take their stuff out. He could hear Mr. Keeper’s voice, plain as the gun in his hand. “There is a danger to double deadbolts though, you can’t get out without a key, there have been children killed in fires, because they were trapped inside.” He remembered old Mr. Keeper telling his mom to be sure your boy knows where the key is kept.

He had his own key on his key ring, somewhere in his bedroom, but he couldn’t remember where. Then he remembered that his mom had a spare, an emergency key. It was in the cupboard, next to the coffee filters, hanging on a coffee cup hook. He lay the gun on the dryer and ran into the kitchen. He opened the bottom cupboard and using the kitchen counter for a hand hold, stepped up on the lower cupboard shelf. He was too short to reach the top cupboard by himself. He opened the top cupboard door, grabbed the key and pulled on it, breaking the key chain. Then he hopped down and went back into the service porch at top speed, fighting the urge to be scared. Sir Lancelot was never scared.

Back in the service porch, he fumbled the key in the lock and turned the deadbolt. He started when it clicked, but only for an instant. He grabbed the gun and opened the door. Cautiously, not running, not in a hurry anymore, he stepped out onto the back landing. There was something out there. He felt it. He looked at the loft. The birds usually up and pecking the ground or billing and cooing were silent. Something in the air had frozen them statue still, silent sentinels warning him of the danger out back.

He descended the steps, no longer Sir Lancelot. He was a cautious Rambo, a nightfighter climbing down those wooded stairs, one hand on the railing, the other clutching the gun. The gun that his mother had forbidden him to ever touch. Leaving the steps, he crossed the silent yard to the loft. The sound of his footsteps rang through the quiet morning air. Now, he was only a boy, a scared boy.

Running his eyes through the inside of the loft, he saw Maverick, a tough male blue bar and his mother’s favorite, by the feeder, unmoving, head cocked, eyes alert. He sensed danger. Dancer, his favorite, was on Maverick’s left in the same position. All the other birds were in their orange crate nests. Never had he seen them like this.

He walked around the cage, knowing something was out there. He wanted to turn and run back to the house and crawl into his bed, but something told him he was no safer there than he was out back with the birds. Besides, his mom was out there somewhere. He hoped she was okay.

He saw something move beyond the clearing, twenty feet from the loft. He turned to face it. Nothing there. But something was there, in the bushes. He knew it sure as Maverick and Dancer knew it.

He took a step forward, squinting into the morning sun. He remembered from the Louis L’Amour stories that his mom read him, that a gunfighter liked to have the sun at his back, and he was staring into it. What would a Louis L’Amour gunfighter do? He would move, try to get a better position. J.P. moved away from the loft, toward Rick’s house, never for an instant taking his eyes of the area where he’d seen the bushes move.