Aftermath of the Reckoning

Chapter 24

With his back against the wide oak, Patch cocked the hammer of the .357 Magnum. The gun felt odd in his hand, as if his muscles remembered something that his brain had long forgotten.

Peering around the tree, he caught a glimpse of a blue shirt darting behind a small wooden shed on the opposite side of the stream. The shed seemed out of place, too far removed from the town to be of much value. It looked like it had been built haphazardly as some of the vertical boards hung askew.

Must be at least two men out there.

Patch bolted across the stream toward the front of the shed. A flash of green appeared to his left and he turned his head just in time to see a man wearing camouflage fatigues fire an arrow in his direction.

A thick black cylinder on the head of the arrow suddenly halted and exploded mid-air, less than a foot away from his chest. Tiny steel balls rained down everywhere, splashing the water near his feet. Patch dove into the stream and continued crawling forward to the shed on the other side, not more than thirty feet away.

He didn’t have time to consider how the arrow exploded without impacting anything or why he wasn’t feeling the pain from the BBs which surely embedded into his body. With his adrenaline pumping, he made it to the door of the shed and stood at the corner nearest the stream.

Looking through a large crack in the shed, he saw no one inside. But he did see the jeans of someone on the other side on the other side. The sound of the revolver discharging resonated and was followed by a surprised cry of pain from the other side of the the shed.

Patch quickly rounded the corners and found an overweight bearded man in a ratty blue T-shirt lying on the ground, bow and arrow resting a few feet away. The man clutched at his calf where the bullet had tore through a chunk of flesh.

Patch pointed the gun at the man’s head and yelled, “Tell your friend to lay down his weapons! We do not wish to harm you!”

From Patch’s left, a long southern drawl emanated, “I’d say it be too late for that now mister. I dunno how you dodge that last one, but you best drop it now. I won’t miss again.”

Seeing the man in camouflage from the corner of his eye, arrow aimed directly at him, Patch didn’t have time to consider his options. Even though time seemed to slow down at that moment, Patch could barely follow the movements as they occurred.

In a blur of an instant, the man dropped the bow and turned to catch a rock the size of a baseball flying toward his head. Somehow he caught it and used his left hand to draw a large hunting knife as Zoey charged from the other side of the shed. Zoey lept into the air and twisted her body sideways while the man ducked and drove the knife upward with lightening speed.

After the thrust missed entirely, the man slammed forward into the ground with Zoey’s knee digging into his back and her own knife held at his throat. Patch had only a moment to witness the intense rage in her eyes, her entire body seemed to radiate an aura of ferocity.

Zoey growled, “It’s over.”

“Zoey, NO!”

***

Before Zoey could slice the throat of the man’s head that she held in her hands, before she could sever the right carotid artery and it surrounding tissue, and before she could plunge deeper into the abyss of madness that threatened to consume her, Patch’s two words jolted her back into reality with shattering force.

Her forearm still covered the man’s eyes, pulling his head back, while her knife pressed against his neck. However, she held that position, motionless and dazed, like a robot patiently waiting for its master’s next command. Her brain simply could not process both her own actions and Patch’s reaction fast enough.

Patch returned his aim to the wounded man at his feet.

The man raised a hand as if to block an incoming bullet. “Hey man, don’t shoot! We’ll leave you alone, promise!”

Patch spoke calmly. “Call off your other men.”

“It’s just us, man! We ain’t got nobody else hunting these parts today.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true. Tell ‘em Caleb!”

The camouflaged man spoke in a strained voice, “It’s just me and Ken. We’ll get outta here, just let us go.”

While still maintaining his aim, Patch walked over to one of the bows and kicked it away. “Zoey, you can let him go now, if he tries anything I’ll put a bullet in his skull. Take his bow and knife.”

As if being freed from hypnosis, Zoey paused briefly and released her hold on Caleb’s head. She stood and picked up the man’s knife along with the bow nearby.

Caleb got to his knees and rubbed the back of his neck. “Hey mister, you going to steal our stuff?”

Patch responded, “Shouldn’t that be the least of your concerns? We’ll leave it in the shed, now get out of here. Your friend likely needs medical attention.”

Caleb stood and walked over to Ken. Like a movie over which she had no control, Zoey watched as Caleb kneeled down to examine Ken’s leg. “Fucking idiot. Shot in the leg, I can’t take you anywhere.”

Ken seemed to be breathing more heavily. “Caleb, they got me good, I ain’t going to make it man! I can feel my body getting cold!”

“Shut up! You ain’t going to die from this you idiot.” Sticking his fingers in the holes where the bullet passed, Caleb ripped a large piece of cloth from Ken’s jeans and used it to tie a tourniquet around the man’s lower calf.

Caleb, demonstrating the considerable strength of his tall and athletic frame, helped the heavier man to his feet. Ken placed an arm around Caleb’s shoulders and limped along with Caleb to the southeast.

When the two attackers disappeared from view, Patch turned to her and said, “Zoey, you OK?”

“Yes. I mean no! I don’t know…” She couldn’t explain it, but she felt angry at Patch. Why did he stop her from killing that man? She was only trying to protect him! It was an act of pure self defense. Didn’t he understand that?

Patch walked over to her and pulled her body close against his. “Hey, what’s wrong? You saved me back there. Thank you.”

After dropping the knives and bow, Zoey brought her arms around Patch’s torso. She wasn’t angry at Patch. She was upset at herself! How could she lose control so badly? She whispered, “Patch...do you hate me?”

“Zoey, I would kiss you right now if I could.”

She held him tighter as tears stung her eyes. “I...I wanted to kill him Patch, so badly. I wanted to kill both of them. You saw it...you saw the real me. That’s who I am, Patch. I...I…”

“Zoey, yes I saw you. I saw the anger. But what you did, you did out of love, out of a desire to protect me.”

“Patch, when I lose control like that, I can kill everyone, I’ve done it before. I can kill you…”

“But you won’t kill me, Zoey. Even if you hurt me accidentally, that will not change the love that I feel for you right now. You are yourself Zoey and you always will be. And I cannot stop myself from loving all of you, even the parts you want so desperately to hide.”

Zoey held him as tight as she could, wishing that she could fuse with him, to become one being, one soul and never separate. She didn’t think she could bear being away from him for a second, from losing the man who understood her so well. “I love you.”

She reached up and stole a kiss from his soft lips. She could see that he wanted more but he resisted his urges out of concern for her well-being.

Patch kissed her forehead. “I love you too.”

She listened to his heartbeat as they held each other for a while. Eventually Patch said, “Let’s go check on the horses and get out of here.”

Reluctantly, Zoey released him but quickly took the gun from his hand so that she wouldn’t have to let go of him entirely.

Patch didn’t complain.