The strangers’ approach halted almost immediately after Joe began reassuring his children. The smallest of the others, slightly in front and to the right of the rest of the group, pointed vehemently in their direction. She turned urgently to the rest of her party while doing so.
They appeared to freeze mid-stride for a long indecisive moment. They then dropped to the ground; first one, then the others, each as their situation and the idea of the need to become less visible, less of a target, took hold. In doing so it was more than obvious that their reaction was unrehearsed and seemingly unanticipated. In dropping to reduce their visibility and with at least one of their aims presumably to draw less attention to themselves, they nevertheless did so with enough clatter of carried accoutrements as to be easily heard from across the divide. The noise of their concealment was almost sure to draw the attention of anyone who had somehow missed their unguarded arrival.
Before Joe could process what he was seeing and consider a course of action he heard the barking of a dog. Soon afterwards he saw what appeared to be a mixed breed cross between what may have been a small black poodle and something like a mangy unkempt Schnauzer bounding toward them at full speed. He’d never seen an uglier more scruffy looking dog in his life. Under different circumstances he would’ve laughed out loud at the sight of it.
Joe would’ve guessed fifteen or twenty pounds if forced too guess the dog’s weight based on what looked for all the world like a four legged ball of black and gray steel wool scouring its way towards them. Judging by the bark alone, however, he would’ve opted for something closer to fifty pounds. The stranger who’d pointed them out earlier screamed, “Jelly Bean!” She jumped to her feet and began running after the dog even as she screamed for it to stop.
A much deeper voice yelled, “Get your butt on the ground, now!”
The girl reluctantly obeyed, dropping to a knee, skinning it, before lying prone. As she did she yelled, “Jelly Bean,” again, more plaintively this time, almost immediately followed by the plea, “Please don’t hurt my dog.”
Joe watched with bewilderment as the surreal scenario played out across the field. Still frozen in disbelief and confusion, a shot rang out from amongst the strangers. Even before hearing the crack of gunfire split the still morning air glowing embers exploded outward from their fire; red hot sparks, charred blackened coals and pallid gray ashes rising then falling in an arc behind them. Joe turned to his kids, terror threatening to overtake his faculties. To have struck the fire the bullet had to have passed between Jake and Jen.
Jake was as flat as he could be, becoming as much as possible a part of the ground itself. He looked determined, focused, and shockingly unafraid. He didn’t appear to be injured. Joe was surprised, impressed and very much frightened by his son’s reaction. His bearing, his expression, his posture, his being itself wasn’t that of a eleven year old; at least not that of a eleven year old from the world of cartoons, breakfast cereal, bike ramps and baseball cards Joe was familiar with. It was Jen’s reaction, however, that changed everything.
The report from her twenty-two tore Joe’s eyes away from Jake. He focused on his daughter just in time to see her working the little rifle’s bolt action, expelling the spent round and feeding a new one into the firing chamber.
“Wait,” Joe said through gritted teeth with all the steadfast calm his shaking body and panicking mind could muster. Jen did not fire again. Nor did she remove her finger from the trigger or lower her aim.
A scream came from across the pasture. “Daddy!” the girl’s voice cried, no longer focused on the dog.
“He’s got a gun, a big one,” Jen told her dad. Her voice was unsteady, but her hands were as still as a surgeons. Her finger rested easily on the trigger just as he’d taught her. Her eye kept the man at the other end of the pasture aligned with the beaded sight at the end of the barrel. A tear escaped the other eye. It left a track as it ran down her dirty cheek and splattered audibly as it fell onto a dry oak leaf.
Jen’s tears seemed to be born neither from sadness nor fear, Joe remembered thinking later. Frustration maybe? Something else? The thought brought its own sense of trepidation. This wasn’t the time, however. He made a mental note to revisit the question when and if he had the time and opportunity.
The man in Jen’s sights seemed to be having trouble with his left forearm. She thought, but couldn’t be sure given the distance, that that was where she’d shot him. A voice in her head, one calmer and steadier than she felt, told her with an easy reassurance to adjust her aim a tad higher next time. “I’m gonna shoot him again if he points it like before,” she said to Joe, the steadiness having returned to her voice.
Joe swallowed, took a deep breath and tried to think; to become the rational man he’d always believed himself to be until this moment and these fears exposed the shallow nature of that rationality. “Wait Sweetheart,” he said to his daughter again, his voice noticeably quavering this time.
“The dog,” he thought. Before Joe could formulate the idea, much less a plan, the dog was on them. It straddled his son, forelegs on either side of Jake’s shoulder blades, hind-legs astride his hips as Jake lain perfectly still save a slight tremble Joe saw in his hand. With the boy face down, the dog was atop his back before it even occurred to Jake or Joe to offer a defense. Jake simply waited for whatever was next.
“No Jelly Bean,” Joe hissed as firmly as he could without increasing the dog’s hostility. Jelly Bean gave Joe a quizzical glance before grabbing Jake’s collar in his teeth, shaking it twice, then releasing it to vigorously lick Jake’s bare neck with his tail suddenly wagging high in the air.
“Daddy,” Jen said, her voice tinged with uncertainty, a lack of assuredness, a questioning of itself out of character with what could only be described as her usual overconfidence. Her tone was turned on its end, desperate for direction and confirmation. “He still has his gun. I shot him, Daddy. I think he might shoot again.”
“Put down your damned gun,” Joe yelled across the pasture. “There’s kids over here.”
“That wasn’t no kid that shot me,” the man yelled back, feeling the need to say something and yet coming up short when he reached inside himself for the right words.
“My name is Jen. I’m thirteen years old and I’ll shoot you again if you don’t put down your gun right now.” Jen replied. Her voice held conviction. No one hearing her statement was likely to doubt its truth.
Joe was speechless. He looked at his daughter, mouth agape, and was frozen with debilitating uncertainty. How was he suppose to handle the disaster unfolding before him? What exactly was it he was seeing and hearing?
Still without answers or even coherence, his system was further stressed when he saw Jake sit up, laughing no less, and holding the tail wagging dog back from his face by its ears as its long pink tongue reached out desperately to lick the face of his new found friend. Joe violently shook his head, forcing himself out of his stunned paralysis.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
