TALES OF TERROR Excerpt



In the next hour, we got rid of the moonshine, picked up the few groceries Uncle wanted and headed home. I wanted to go swimming in the creek but Dandy had other plans for us being it was Saturday afternoon.

"Jimmy Handchard has this new gun and we go'n shootin' in his back forty." Dandy said as we got into the 1937 Ford and bounced down the dirt road kicking up a long plume of tan dust. I had no idea of what the day and night was to bring. If I had, I would have stayed at home, listened to the Grand Ole Opry on WSM radio, and stayed out of trouble. Just like our uncle hollered after us.

"Jimmy, let's see that new gun of yours." Dandy said as we headed out into the woods behind their farm.

"Well, it's my daddy's forty-five. Said it come out of the war. One of those gee-eye models Uncle Sam issued to the troops."

"How'd he get it?" I chimed in.

"Got this friend who brought it back from the South Pacific."

"Got some bullets?"

"A few. We can't shoot many."

"Well, how many can we shoot?"

"There's enough we can all take a couple of shots each. I thin the clip is full."

We brought some cans with us, set them up in a tree fork, and stepped off fifty feet. Jimmy took first shots at it but missed both. The report was deafening, almost as loud as the shotgun blast from Uncles gun.

Then Dandy tried it. The gun bucked, slammed his straight arm backwards over his head. The large gun almost caught him side of the head. "Wow! That is some kick." And, he fired the next one with more restraint and tore a large hole in the tree below the can. These guys weren't the best shot at this but I had seen them shoot rifles much better. What is wrong here?

They let me have a turn at it with the warning, "Yus got ta ho'd it still, lock yah arm out, big kick. Nuttin' like yah has ever had afor. Ya gots to squeeze da hand grip real hard like."

The gun was real heavy and big like a cannon in my small hand. I liked the feel of it. Not my first time of holding a pistol but not this big. I rested my other hand below, cradling the gun. How anyone held it still and sighted down the barrel was beyond me. It just weaved up and down. I pulled the trigger and it literally jumped out of my hands but hung by the trigger guard.

"Holy shit!" I yelled, jumping up and down, ears ringing. "No. I do not want to shoot it again. That's scary. Hurts my ears too."

They stood around laughing at me. But their ears rang too. We all agreed it was hard to shoot because we could not hold the gun still, sight, and pull the trigger. Not realizing that any small deviation of the barrel would throw off the aiming point inches at twenty feet. In addition, we decided that the noise is so loud that it would surely draw some attention more than a rifle or shotgun sound. And, it did.

I knew before it came. All of a sudden from the direction we were shooting, I saw it coming. Then heard it. There was a terrific commotion in the woods. A ripping and slashing of trees, saplings, and brush. A flash of black breathing fire. Some huge thing was coming our way at high speed, full gallop. The sun had been going down; the light was dimming in the heavy forest of trees. Then it appeared, coming straight at us, snorting, nostrils flared, blowing smoke. A large black, ring-nosed, Angus bull with a horn spread more than two feet. Hot damn! One ear was torn off, hanging by threads of skin, and dark bloody hair. The fire in its eyes blazing.

Terrified, we ran helter-skelter, scattered in different directions, ducking around trees, trying to dodge and get the bull off our tails. I was breathless when it came on to me. It's hot breath on my neck. I still carried the pistol, cold, frozen steel in my hand. "Shoot it!" Someone screamed loudly in my ear.

Without further thought, I reacted, ducked behind a tree, wrapped myself around it, in a flash of insight, leveling the gun out in front of me, letting it hammer once, twice, and three times until the gun clicked empty. The bull snorted, thundered by me, skinning the tree I was behind, veered off to its right, stumbled once, dug into the ground, slid to a stop ten feet past me, and dropped to its knees, slowly collapsing. Dead! Its nostrils pulsed and flared like two large, gaping, black, wet holes. The deafening blasts echoed through the forest, pounding in my ears. It seemed minutes of a dream until all was quiet again except the echo in my head made me know all this is too real.

I stood with the gun in my hands looking at the hulking bull that must have weighed a ton. Its torn, bloody ear dangling behind the monstrous horn, bigger than my arm that had dug into the earth. Jimmy and Dandy came alongside of me their mouths hung open, gaping at the inert figure on the ground that was still exhaling smoke from its nostrils. Struck dumb, nobody spoke for seemingly minutes. I really did not believe that I had killed this thing.

We stealthily tiptoed over to it. Looked at it cautiously as if it was going to jump up and come after us again. "Holy jeez." Dandy exclaimed, "Your shot at da can must've missed da tree, went thru da woods, tore da bull's ear off. Ragin' it come ater us. Dis your bull, Jimmy?"

He was shaking. "N-No, m-maybe a neighbor. I don't know who has Angus. What we going tell them now?" Fcar filled his voice.

"Hell, I don't know. Would dey believe dat we dint purposly shoot it?"

"Don't know. It's da way it happened. Runnie did it."

"Well, I mean, damn. He dint know. No'n cud see it comin'." Dandy defended me.

"Yall know wha' dey say 'bout shootin' on the straight and level, 'speshly into the woods. May hit people. We's spose to know better."

I still could not believe that I started it all with that one shot. But there wasn't any other reasoning about it. "Howdaya spose that happened?" I said stupidly.

"Well, you did it." Dandy said accusingly.

"You told me to shoot." I squatted and looked at the one large hole in the bull's head. Blood continued to ooze from it. I had shot him right between the eyes. Halfway proud of my feat of shooting a raging bull that was coming to kill us. I was still shaking.

"No, I dint neither tell yah no such thing, dammit." Dandy said defensively.

"No, he's right. No'n tol ya ta shoot." Jimmy said, backing him up.

"Damn, I don't believe it. Someone told me to shoot." We sat down on a log and all is silent for several minutes. I was frustrated.

Jimmy checked the clip and said, "The gun's empty. You shot three after that fust one. Dandy and I shot two times each. Dat's eight rounds. Jeez, yah wuz half-sceared of the gun ater firin' once. You ever killed anything before?"

"Yes. Lived in the woods with a rifle and hunted small animals. I mean I've shot rabbits and birds with a shotgun but nothing this big."

Dandy hummed and yawned. "I declare, I've never seen the like 'for or since. It's near like ya saw it come when you wrapped yerself 'hind dat tree. Plum sceered the crap out of me. But yor granddaddy, bless him, was a cool killer like yah is. Reckon he tol ya to shoot? Yes, I heard he kilt more than one Negra or sim'tizer when he rode with the KKK. He'sn a terror I heerd tell. Take nuttin' from no man, least of all Negras. Rode a white horse round the farm. He farm most of fiv' hunnert acres an' rode tall in da saddle, he did."

"I had heard that. When was that?" I asked.

"Oh, I heerd it wuz 1905 or abouts then. Dont rightly 'member now. Then I heard he died in a gravel pit. It caved in on him. They cun't dig 'im out fast enuff. Suffocated rotchair. That happen not too fer from here, as I do recall."

The terror didn't end there.