..... "Stop!" he screeched. "Stop it!!" Sounding for all the world like some little girl getting the tickle monster from a weird uncle.
..... Still, it scared the shit out of them. Junior grabbed his dick and tripped over the man he was pissing on. Jimmy damn near jumped out of his skin.
..... Mr. Avery, though, was another story. He took two quick steps and hit Moon so hard I felt it inside my own head. He reached down and picked him up by the scruff and shook him like a misbehaving puppy. He drug him through the fog toward his sons.
..... Goddamnit, Moon, I thought. You goddamn goody two shoes little dumbass...
..... It was pushing ninety degrees that night, but I went cold all over. My stomach twisted into such a knot I thought I was going to throw up. I looked behind me to the fog-hung water and thought how easy it would be to make the other side. A scream came from beyond the truck, but I didn't turn. My foot sank to the ankle in the cool, slick mud....
..... Moon was too scared to struggle. Not even when Mr. Avery got him to the trestle and slapped his head sideways. Not even when he raised him up and Junior pulled the noose down toward his neck. Maybe they had intended just to scare him. Maybe it was some sick type of joking around. Either way, if the girly sound of my brother's voice had made them jump, the next sound they heard froze them in place. Even Mr. Avery. It was the sound of a shotgun racking a round, and the shotgun was in my hands.
..... It had come courtesy of the Avery's own gun rack. I hadn't checked it for shells, but the looks on their faces told me it was loaded sure enough.
..... "Turn him loose," I said, trying not to let my voice crack like my brother's. I put the barrel right on Mr. Avery.
..... Mr. Avery dropped Moon and all three of them raised their hands. Moon broke away from them and stumbled back toward me. He stood beside me at the truck's fender with a welt rising on his head. Blood oozed from his scalp just behind the ear, and his chest heaved with the beginning of an attack.
..... "Get in the cab," I said. The keys were in the ignition. I'd just seen them.
..... "No," said Moon.
..... "What?" I said.
..... He raised his skinny arm and pointed back to the dark form in the fog, directly under the noose.
..... "Him too," he said.
..... I took a long breath. Nobody moved.
..... "You heard him," I said. "Get the nigger in the truck."
..... Mr. Avery opened his mouth to offer an opinion on the matter. I put a round of shot through his left leg. The flame that squirted from the gun barrel lit the fog up in an orange flash all around us. The damn thing near to jumped out of my hand. Still, I kept a grip on it. I had another round in the chamber before Mr. Avery fell, before he even screamed. I swung the barrel on the brothers and pushed Moon toward the cab.
..... This time, Moon got in. Jimmy went for his Daddy but Junior grabbed hold of the black man and pulled him by the shoulders toward the truck. He cussed Jimmy up and down until he left his daddy be and helped his brother lift the man over the tailgate.
..... I wasn't but five feet from them at this point. I had the gun right on them. They pushed the man into the bed and I saw the blood on the sack was crusted, and that the man beneath it was so far gone his limbs had gone stiff and hard.
..... I looked at them and saw sunburn and bloodshot eyes and beard stubble. Inhaled the stink of stale beer and piss. I thought about the cut on Moon's head and how he was struggling to breathe, and when Junior said, "You'll get yours," I put a round of shot through his face.
..... His head broke apart like a watermelon dropped from a great height. So did Jimmy's. Though, as he'd turned to run, I got that view from behind.
..... I stumbled over the bodies as I rounded the truck for Mr. Avery. He'd stopped his whimpering by then, and I found him pulling himself toward the creek beneath the fog. I dry clicked with the barrel pressed to the middle of his back, and he let out a pathetic little cry. I realized then the gun had been plugged so as not to violate game laws, and I was thinking about that as I grabbed hold of the barrel and went to work with the stock on the back of his skull.
..... When it was done, I went and got in the Avery's truck and cranked the engine. Moon climbed out from where he was on the floorboard, put his seatbelt on as he sat up next to me.
..... I reached over and squeezed his skinny arm, felt he was cold and shook like a baby bird out of the nest. His narrow chest though rose smooth and steady now. I squeezed harder, like my hand needed to feel him to make sure he was really still there.
..... "He alive?" said Moon.
..... "I'm sorry, bubba," I said, and I put the truck in gear and drove us back through the woods.