The Bear

Chapter 1

The sweat was smothering. It was cold. The bed sheets were soaked again.

He woke up the way he had for years. Night after night.

It was always the same dream. His wife was screaming for them to spare the lives of her children.

The men.

There were three of them. They were outlaws that had plagued three states with their rapes, robberies, and murders. Groups likes these were common during the war. Most of the men were fighting. And there was very little law in the land. Especially towards the end of the war. The south was descending into chaos. And lawlessness was everywhere.

This small loose knit group of bandits stumbled on to Jud's property one Saturday afternoon. Loretta was outside tending to the chickens. The children were milking the goat in the barn.

They held the guns to their foreheads. Maggie was always the first. She was so beautiful. Jud loved his daughter and always felt such pride when he thought of her. The trigger cocked. The explosion of the gunpowder. The smoke slowly rising to the ceiling. Maggie would slump to the floor in excruciatingly slow motion. Then Benjamin. He was always second. Why was he always second? The same gun. The same explosion. The same smoke. The same slow motion.

And, always last.

Always last. Loretta.

His beautiful wife. Screaming. Crying. Whimpering. She pleads for her life. But all they do is laugh. They fucking laugh! The kind of laugh that has no remorse. The kind of laugh that enjoys the pain of others. They laugh. As the last poof of smoke rises to the ceiling, silence follows. Loretta is lying on her back. Her knees bent. Her lower legs shoved neatly underneath. Her eyes open, staring at the ceiling as if she is thinking about what she will be making for dinner that evening. Red sticky fluid begins to cover the floor underneath her head.

In his dream, he screams. But no one hears him. "Leave them alone, assholes!" no one even flinches. Is he in the room? Or is he just a phantom? A fly on the wall watching the terrible scene unfold as if it is a play where he is the only spectator.

As each shot is fired, he lunges towards his children and his wife. He tries with every ounce of strength he can muster to somehow stop the bullets. Catch them? Jump in front of them? Maybe just will them from even coming out of the gun?

But it's just a dream. Or better said, a nightmare. The same nightmare that haunts his dreams with the same results night after night. Year after year.

17 years to be exact. 17 years since that night in October.

Jud sat up. He felt his hair. It was so wet. Every day. Wet. Like he had just taken a bath. But it wasn't water. It was the salty moisture seeping from his own body. Why wouldn't these dreams stop? Would they ever? It's been so long...

But the guilt.

The guilt was heavy. If he had just made it home a little faster. If he had not stopped for that one drink. That's all the time he would have needed. To have been there. To have been there when they broke in. To have been there before they murdered his children. Before they raped his wife. Before they took her life.

Alright, stop. It's time to get moving. You have traps to check.

Yes, traps.

Judson Burnett knew he couldn't stay in Tennessee. The war had ended. His side lost. His family was gone. The South was a mess. How was he to survive? He couldn't find work. And, even if he could, he knew he couldn't stay there and be reminded every day of what had happened. Of what he had lost.