Chapter 22, Revenge in the making

"I wanna kill that SOB," yelled Ed Tate Jr. "That bastard hill topper SOB shot me Pa, he shot me!"

Willie Banks stood in the doorway after he and Robert walked Deputy Ed Tate Jr. into the family home and onto the couch. He had moaned and screamed obscenities since Robbins had applied a bandage to his side and Willie had stuffed him into his truck. Now Willie just stood and waited for Ed Sr. to make his grand entrance down the stairs. Robert stood out on the porch smirking.
Between the groans and curses, Willie heard a rumble from the stairwell and motioned to Robert, "the king is now ready to visit his subjects."

"Pa, Pa, that bastard shot me Pa, he shot me, that bastard hill topper shot me!"

"What the hell are you going on about," came Ed Sr.'s voice from behind the curve in the stairwell. "Shut the hell up, boy!"

"Ooooow, Pa that SOB shot me, he shot me!"

Appearing around the corner, Ed Sr. lumbered down the remaining steps in his bath robe, his corpulant body landing heavy upon each step and bumping up against each wall in turn as his form filled the entire empty space between them.

"Well, what's going on, I didn't summon you here," Ed Sr. said to Willie.

"Was dropping Jr. here," Willie said.

"He shot me Pa, that ..."

"I said shut up Jr.," Ed Sr. snapped. "Now, what the blazes is going on?"

"Benton Shields shot Jr. at the hotel a bit ago, Doc. Robbins patched 'im up," Willie replied.

"And you saw this?"

"Naw, was outside, but Jr. an' the Sheilds where in the office when it happened," Willie shook his head.

"What did you do Jr.?"

"What'd I do? I din't do nuthin', it was him who shot me!"

"You sure it was Benton Shields?" Ed Sr. turned to Willie and raised an eyebrow.

"It could've been his wife, I dun know."

"It was Benton, that bastard Benton what shot me, Pa!"

"And I'm sure it was unprovoked," Ed said.

"Hell yeah it was unprovoked! He jus' pulled his pistol an' shot me!"

Ed Sr. turned to Willie again for confirmation. Willie just shrugged and shook his head.

"Ya gotta b'lieve me Pa, he shot me, shot me but good!"

"Robbins said he's jus' grazed, round didn' go in," Willie looked at the pathetic form writhing on the couch and shook his head again. "Jr. if you'd a taken one to th' body, you'd know pain, you got what we used ta call a gold brickers wound, 'nough ta send ya off the line if yor a coward."

"Coward! You take that back, Willie! I'm the one who shot that bastard Hillcock 'cause you wouldn't!"

"What?" Robert, who had been standing off to the side of the doorway half listening to the exchange stepped into the doorway.

"What's he doin' here?" Ed Sr. grouched.

"He he'ped me haul Jr. carcus here."

"Jr. killed Howard?" Robert asked with alarm.

"It's none of yor buisness Robert, now either you leave or I'll shoot you myself, you jus' fergit about it," Ed Sr. scoweld.

Robert eased back from the doorway. Willie, used to this sort of exchange didn't blanche. Leaning out of the door for a moment Willie rolled his eyes and motioned to Robert to relax.

"And Jr., stop yer bellyachin', you prolly deserved it anyhow," Ed Sr. groused as he looked at his son, a posture of contempt and irritation struck.

"We aint' gonna do nuthin' about it," Ed Jr. hollered in shock and surprise. "He shot me, Pa, he shot me!"

"I told you to shut up with that! You did something to deserve it, so I ain't playin' the doting parent fer ya on this one. I've sat across from Benton Sheilds on the village committee, he aint the killer type, if I'd wanted ta shoot ya I wouldn't be listenin' to ya whine an' cry like a baby, I'd a kilt ya straight!" Ed Sr. lumbered over to his favorite chair and sat down. Willie didn't feel like getting into his normal spot for another tirade or any more of Ed Sr.'s buisness of using him, so he stayed put in the doorway. "We ain't gonna let ole Mr. Shields off the hook mind you, here's what I want you to do."

"What we gonna do?" Ed Jr. suddenly perked up, his mortal wound forgotten for the moment.

"Not you, Jr. Willie, now c'mere and sit, don't like talkin' ta someone who's behind me."

Willie hesitated biting his lip. If he sat he'd be hooked into doing more of the Tate's dirty work, but what he had already done made it it inevitable that he would be doing more in the future or accept that the whole community would know the role he'd played the last several years in the anti-social activities of he and Ed Jr.

"Well Willie, get over here," Ed Sr. commanded.

"Wait here, sorry 'bout this," Willie said to Robert who looked at him with curiosity. Willie closed the door to the house and stepped into the now darkened living room to take his seat of submission to the side of Ed Sr. Willie regreted not having closed the door and not just leaving with Robert.

Fifteen minutes later Willie emerged from inside the house and stood out on the porch. It struck him odd that of all the valley farmsteads the Tate's was the closest to the base of the hill and wasn't a farm at all, but a house and the remnants of a ramshackle barn and feilds that were fallow from too many seasons of neglect. It was probably the only home in the valley that was furthest away from the chemical plant. His own home, reaching back along the base of the mountains which was cut by Happy Valley Road and within shouting distance of Howard Hilcock's farmstead. His son Willie Jr. was the first to show signs of the poisoning sometime after he left the Hilcock's to see the body. It was from his own barn that he and Ed Jr. argued over who was to do the shooting.

He was also one of the few in the Valley to really know what had happened at the plant and why, having seen it for himself just before rushing down to the Hilclock's to verify the kill. It didn't take long or much thought to figure out what was going on with Willie Jr. when he started complaining of burning eyes and an itchy nose. He had been outside playing and came running into the living room rubbing his eyes and bawling. Willie didn't waste any time in packing the family up and heading up the hill to check into the hotel. It wasn't until he got to Robert's home that the seriousness of the epidemic was revealed before his eyes. The livestock where the first creatures to succomb, then the people.

Now he stood upon the threshold of the devil incarnate upon this earth and he trembled. He had become its sycophant, guardian of its even more evil offspring, and the vehicle for destruction that he could not seem to tear himself away from, like his first view of death upon the battlefield when his division landed on the shores of French held North Africa. The dead Vichy French soldier held him in fascination, this once living human now reduced to decay and lifelessness. He was spell bound by it.

Robert sat in Willie's pickup truck and Willie wished he hadn't brought Robert here, for now there would be questions to be answered and they were none to easily answered. The elder Tate's plans were unfolded to him in all thier frightening reality and Willie wondered from what recess did this plan germinate from? This once sleepy and quiet valley now racked by turmoil of the soul and of late seldom the witness to anything of death save for the shroud of old age. There was already one death and rumor had spread quickly at the hotel that Howard's wife had also passed before Jim could get them up the hill. A generation wiped out in one feld swoop, but that wasn't to be the end of the death, if the Tate's got their way.