Edward Lee - Header 2

Why haven’t they raped me? Why this nonsense about needing help with the camera?

“Okay, Helton”—it was the only thing she could think to say—“I’ll show you how to operate the Sony.”

“Why that’s just dandy, girl!”

She picked up the weighty unit, flicked some switches, turned on the lamp. “There. It’s ready now.” She turned the unit around to show him. “See that little square? That’s the view-screen. Whatever you see in that is what you record. And to shoot”—she shouldered the camera and began to record Helton’s astonished face—“you squeeze this little button here on the grip.” She panned around the inside of the truck, released the record button, then showed the view-screen to Helton. “Now I’m replaying the movie I just made. Watch.”

Micky-Mack rushed over and squatted next to his uncle. In the modest view-screen they watched.

“Hey! That’s you, Unc Helton!”

“Shore is! Dang if that ain’t a fine  movin’-picture camera!”

“It’s all stored on the camera’s memory, but it’s also copied onto this”—she snapped out the mini memory card. “You know, this doohicky that you bought twenty of. So for your friend to see your Christmas movies, all you have to do is give him this.”

Helton held out his hands. “It’s too good to be true!”

“That shore is some fancy camera!” Micky-Mack enthused.

Even Dumar, peering back, exclaimed, “Dang!”

Veronica set the camera back down. “There. Now you know how to use it, so you don’t need me any more. You can drop me off right here.”

Helton grit his teeth. “Naw, see, hon, it ain’t that easy.”

I KNEW it! “So it’s all a lie then, right?” she spat. “You abducted me because you want to rape me!”

“Please don’t think that,” Helton pleaded. “You’re right. We done sort’a took ya ‘gainst yer will, but it’s all fer a greater good. It’s like this…” Helton rested his shaggy chin on his dirty fingertips. “When a poe-leece man’s follerin’ some bad fellas, if that poe-leece man’s car breaks down, then it’s all right for him to stop the next car that come by and take it—I think it’s called common-deerin’. See, that poe-leece man’s allowed to take another car. Why? ’cos it’s fer a greater good. ”

Oh my God! she thought. This is crazy! “Helton? How long are you going to… keep me?”

“Aw, won’t be long, couple’a days or—”

“A couple of days? ” she shrieked.

“—or maybe a couple’a weeks, I s’pose. See, Veronnerka, it all depends how long it takes, and don’t ask me to ‘splain that, ’cos…ya simply wouldn’t understand.”

Madness, madness… “Helton, if I don’t show up for work tomorrow morning, then my boyfriend Mike will call me, and if I don’t answer, he’ll go to my apartment, and if I’m not there… he’ll call the police.”

Helton shrugged. “Don’t matter none. Oh, and since ya will be missin’ some workin’ time, we’ll’se pay double fer what’cha miss. How’s that?”

“How’s that?” she wailed. “That’s outrageous! You can’t just take people, Helton! It’s against the law!”

Helton’s tone grew stern. “So’s what was done ta my grandson.”

“ What? ”

Helton sighed. “Ya just wouldn’t understand, missy. So it’s easier ta just trust me…”

“Here we is, Paw,” Dumar said.

The truck slowed, jostled more violently, then stopped. Veronica, at last, broke down in tears and half-collapsed on Helton, hugging him.

“Please, Helton, don’t do this to me. Don’t hurt me—”

“We ain’t gonna hurt a hair on yer purdy head,” the bulky man assured. “And as fer you…bein’ our guest fer a spell… Believe me, it’s fer somethin’ real important.” Helton took something out of his pocket. “And it ain’t that we don’t trust ya, but, well, we’se just need ya ta stay put fer now,” then—

snap!

Veronica moaned when she was handcuffed to the metal table leg. Then Helton moved her knapsack far out of reach—the knapsack that contained her cellphone and wireless laptop.

“Git yerself some rest, why don’t’cha?” the younger man said.

Helton smiled. “Micky-Mack’s a crack shot with the sling, so’s he’s gonna catch us a squirrel or two while Dumar’n me build a campfire. But we’ll be just outside so’s if’n ya need anything, just holler.”

Madness, madness, she thought beneath her sobs.

“And if’n ya gotta pee”—Helton handed her an empty can of Heinz pork and beans. “There ya go.” He suddenly took a more serious cast. “While’s the squirrel’s cookin’, I gots to have me a long talk with the boys.”

Helton headed for the back door and exited the truck.

Madness, madness, madness, madness, Veronica thought.

(II)

Ten minutes was all it took for the young and eagle-eyed Micky-Mack to bag several squirrels, and a few minutes after that, those squirrels were promptly skinned and gutted via Helton’s big buck knife. Now the tasty rodents roasted slowly on stake-skewers over the roaring campfire outside the truck. The smell was delectable, and it was unfortunate that one of the family’s favorite meals would be tainted by the specter of death, sin, and secrets that hovered over many backwoods folks. They all sat on logs, keeping warm the way men were meant to. Dumar and Micky-Mack looked expectantly to their elder.

“Well, Paw?” Dumar asked.

“We’se waitin’,” Micky-Mack added, antsy by the mystery of what it was that so pained Helton to relate.

“The time’a reckonin’ is upon us, boys,” Helton began, eyes reflecting fire-light and something like dark wonder. “We done got our chops busted by this evil man Paulie, and now’s we’se out fer our revenge. It’s been the law of the land since time began. Someone do you wrong when you ain’t deserved it, then ya got no choice but to do him wrong even worse. Says so in the Bible”—he pronounced “Bible” as bob-ul. “Says ‘a eye fer an eye. ’” Helton sipped some soda yet scarcely tasted it. “What I got ta tell ya both tonight hurts me right in my heart—”

“It hurt me in my heart, Paw!” Dumar raised his voice, “seein’ my boy kilt so awful!”

“Simmer down,” Helton ordered. “And listen. In these parts, for years and years , folks been feudin’ over this’n that. It’s part’a man’s nature, I s’pose. But sometimes folks can be so blammed evil that they’ll do ya a wrong that’s so ever-livin’ bad it seems there ain’t nothin’ you can do back to get yer proper revenge. This happened to our family way back in a war they calt the Civil War when the Yankee Army come through here’n start burnin’ our ancestors’ houses down for nothin’ more than retrievin’ the nails out the ashes, which they’d melt down to make more bullets so’s ta kill more decent Southern folk. But that ain’t all they did, see?”

Micky-Mack was so intrigued he sat on the edge of his log. “What else they do, Unc?”

Helton’s voice lowered to a grim rattle. “They round up all the gals in all the nearby towns, even li’l girls nine, ten years old, and they made ’em all live fer a month in what they called a Sibley Camp on account that’s what the tents they put up was called— Sibley tents, and what they turned this camp into…was a fuckin’ camp.”

“A what, Paw?” Dumar asked.