Wiley Cash - A Land More Kind Than Home

“What about you, baby?” he said. “Was it worth it for you? What you did in our bed, what you did in that church; was it worth it?” He turned and looked down at her. “You’re always telling me that I need to get back into the Bible, and so I got it out and looked all through the New Testament, Julie, and I found a verse for you. In the book of Matthew, Jesus said not to kill, not to commit adultery. He also said, ‘You shall not steal.’ But my favorite is ‘You shall not bear false witness.’” His body braced like he was thinking about firing on her. “I reckon that part of Matthew probably wasn’t ever read out loud in your church. If it was, maybe y’all chose not to hear it. But I wanted you to hear it. I wanted to tell it to you.”

A noise came from inside the house, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the screen door fly open and Jess run out onto the porch. Before I could yell at him to get back inside, the screen door banged shut and Ben spun around toward Jess with his gun still raised. I reacted without even thinking about it and fired once and caught Ben in the right side of his throat. He dropped the gun and fell backward onto the gravel. I heard Jess screaming from up there on the porch, and I knew that he’d seen it.

“Hold on now, Jess,” I hollered at him. “You stay up there. You wait for me. Just hold on.” He kept on screaming out words I couldn’t understand, and then he folded his arms around his belly and hunkered down on the porch.

I kept my gun drawn and pointed it at the front of Chambliss’s car, and I crept around the driver’s side until I saw Ben laying there. His eyes were wide open, and his chest was heaving. He breathed heavily through his mouth, and I could hear a gurgling sound coming from his throat where he’d been shot. Blood had begun to soak the gravel around his right shoulder. I holstered my pistol and picked up the shotgun and broke it open. Both barrels were empty. I looked down at Ben. “Goddamn it,” I said. “Goddamn it, Ben.” He looked up into the sky and blinked like the sun was in his eyes. I sat the shotgun on the hood of the car and stepped around to the passenger’s side.

Julie was lying on her belly halfway into the grass like she’d crawled as far as she could, and when she saw me she screamed and backpedaled to the gravel and threw her back up against the side of Chambliss’s car. When she raised her left hand to protect herself from me, I saw that it had almost been blown clean off from where she must’ve tried to cover her face and duck when Ben shot at her through the windshield. Her cheeks and forehead were peppered with shot. I holstered my gun and bent down to her. When I tried to touch her shoulder, she drew away from me. I heard a siren coming down the road from the highway, and I remembered that I’d called Robby for backup before I left the house.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “It’s all over now. You’re going to be all right.” Her eyes were wild and terrified, and she wouldn’t look directly at me. I reached out slowly and took hold of her left forearm. Some of her fingers were missing. “You just keep this raised,” I said. I propped her elbow on her bent knee. “Keep that up, just like it is. I’m going to go inside the house and call the ambulance.” Robby pulled into the driveway and stopped his car behind mine. I stood up to make sure he’d see me. He got out and left his door open and ran up through the grass, but he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Julie sitting against the car. He looked inside where Chambliss’s body was laid out across the front seat.

“What the hell happened?” he asked. He drew his pistol.

“Put that away,” I told him. I pointed down to Julie. “You need to stay right here with her,” I said. “Make sure she keeps that arm up just like it is. I’m going in to call the ambulance. You stay with her.” He knelt down beside Julie. Her chest heaved, and she started crying.

I looked over the hood of Chambliss’s car where Ben lay in front of the bumper. I couldn’t hear him choking anymore. He’d rolled his head back and to the right like he was trying to get a look at the house behind him where Jess was still hunkered down on the porch. His eyes were open wide and fixed on whatever it was he’d been trying to see.

“The ambulance is going to be here soon, Ben,” I said, but as soon as I said it I knew it wasn’t going to make any difference for him.

I looked toward the house when I heard Jess’s feet coming down the porch steps. I didn’t want him finding his mother all shot up too, so I ran up the driveway and caught him before he got all the way out into the yard. I picked him up and carried him back up the steps, and he kicked his legs and threw his arms around like he was trying to fight me. Something warm came through the front of my shirt, and I knew that he’d wet himself and it had soaked through his underwear.

“You shot my dad!” he hollered. “Daddy!” He called out for his mother too, but she was crying and didn’t answer, and I wondered if she could even hear him.

“Come on, now,” I said. “Let’s go on back inside the house. The doctors will be here soon and they’re going to fix everybody up. It’s going to be all right.”

“You shot my daddy!” he said. “I saw you!” I could feel his whole body shaking like each sob was the last and hardest he might have inside him. I held him and tried to keep his head against my chest so he wouldn’t be able to look over my shoulder and see out into the yard. Once we got inside the house, I sat him down on the sofa and pulled the curtains closed behind him and shut the front door.

“Just sit right here,” I told him. He was still crying, and his whole body shivered. He pulled his feet up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. “Sit right here and wait one second,” I said. “I’m going to make a phone call and have the doctors here real soon. It’s going to be all right.” I stepped back away from him and looked around the front room for a phone, but I didn’t see one. I looked back at Jess. “Where’s your telephone?” He just stared up at me without saying anything, so I kept my eyes on him and kept backing away toward the kitchen. I peered in the doorway and saw a telephone hanging on the wall right inside.

I took the phone off the cradle and held it to my ear, and when I went to slip my finger into the rotary I realized how bad my hands were shaking. I dialed 911 and stretched out the telephone cord and walked as far back into the front room as it would let me. Jess was still sitting on the sofa. He had his chin resting on his knees, and his eyes were closed. When the operator came on, I identified myself and told her that we needed a couple of ambulances immediately, and, just before I was about to hang up, I looked at Jess and thought about how his mama was sitting right out there in the driveway near the husband who’d just tried to murder her, and I made a decision that surprised me more than just about anything that had happened that morning.

“Wait,” I said to the operator. “While I got you on the line, can you put me through to James Hall, over in Shelton?” I listened while the number was dialed, and then I heard a soft click before it began to ring. It must’ve rung six or seven times before he picked up. I looked down at my boots and held the phone to my ear and listened as he fumbled with the phone on his end. The clock on the table by the front door said it was 8:33 in the morning.

“Yeah?” he said. I could hear him breathing heavy into the phone, and I imagined him on the other end, his eyes closed, hoping that I’d dialed the wrong number and wouldn’t be bothering him again once I’d figured it out. “Hello,” he said. He sounded like he’d either just woken up or maybe hadn’t even been to sleep yet, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was hung over.