Yellow Mama E zine

FOLLOW YOUR PATH

by Victor Kreuiter

          Robert and Carl weren’t back for more than a week – back with the aunt who raised them – before the trouble they were running from came looking.
Their aunt, Denice West, worked summers at The Half Moon Diner. (She worked the high school kitchen the rest of the year.)  Clearing a table, she heard her nephews’ names mentioned, turned and saw a man at the cash register. She wiped her hands on her apron and walked toward him, saying “Those are my nephews.”
          He turned.
         She didn’t know him, but knew the type. Big head, big shoulders, big hands in front of his big gut, big jaw, greased-back hair and dull eyes. She motioned with her hand, walked to the door and stepped outside into the parking lot, and waited. In the sunlight he looked even bigger.
        “Money or drugs?” she asked.
         “Money,” he said.
         She looked around the nearly empty parking lot and pointed at a Cadillac parked at the edge. “That yours?” He didn’t respond. She walked to the car, looked inside, then walked back to him.    “How much?” she said.
        He told her.
        “For who?” she asked.
         He shook his head.
        She reached into her apron, pulled out a phone and dialed. Carl answered. “Get your brother,” she said. Robert answered and she said “Somebody here’s looking for you two. Who you owe money to?”
        “Aunt Denice … look … we …”
        “The name, Robert.”
           He coughed, then said “Wayne Lumler.”
          “How much?” she asked.
         Robert gave her a number.
         “That don’t match what this man says,” she said. “Who’s lying?”
          She listened, and when her nephew stopped lying, she punched off her phone, looked at the man and said “Call Lumler. We need to talk.”
         The man shook his head.
         “Okay,” she said, “I’ll see him tonight. I’m working now.” She waited, thinking there might be a response, and when there wasn’t, she said “You’re not from around here, are you?”
         No response.
           “Lumler’s trouble. You been warned,” she said, and walked into the diner.

#

           When she got home, Robert was lounging on her couch. She walked to him, grabbed his long hair and yanked it until he was standing in front of her, yanked his head back-and-forth a couple times, then pushed him back down. “Pack up and get out,” she said.
          She saw Carl in the hallway. “You, too.”

#

          Wayne Lumler lived in a trailer stuck between soybean and corn fields his family owned. Locals knew the only reason the family farm was still in the family was because of what Wayne did, and it wasn’t farming. Denice pulled into his driveway, let her nephews pull up closer, got out of her car and walked to their pickup. “Stay here,” she said.
           Denice West raised her nephews when their mother (her sister-in-law) and father (her brother) overdosed. The boys were still in grade school. After the deaths, Denice quit using drugs, too. She joined Brother Malcolm’s All-Souls Forever Ascending Congregation, which some called a cult. Services, such as they were, were held in a pole barn out in the country. For years she’d drag her nephews to services on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. It didn’t help.
          She walked up three stairs and pounded on Wayne Lumler’s door. Lumler opened it, wearing shorts, a KISS t-shirt and flip-flops. He recognized her immediately. Her and her brother and sister-in-law bought almost all the drugs they used from him. “Got my money?” he asked. He turned, walked back inside, and she followed. Seated at the kitchen table was the man from the diner. Wayne sat. She sat.
          “What my nephews done don’t involve me,” she said.
          “Denice,” he said, “you’re involved if I say so.”
          Denice reached into her purse and pulled out a little bitty handgun, a four-shot derringer, and held it. It had been her brother’s. Across from her was the man from the diner. To her right, Lumler. He turned to his friend and said, “You see that thing?” He pointed to the gun and forced a little chuckle.
          The man lunged over the table, landed on Denice, she went over backwards in her chair, Lumley jumped back, and Denice felt two hands on her throat. She kicked, grunted, then a shot was fired. Then, quickly, three more shots.
          Denice squirmed, rolled sideways, shoved the body off of her, stood up and without thinking threw the derringer to the floor.
           Lumley grabbed it and pointed it at her. She hacked and coughed, stepped back away from the kitchen, rubbed her throat, looked at Lumley, at her pistol and said, “It’s empty, Wayne.”
The door burst open and in came her nephews, eyes wide. “Look here,” she said to them. “Wayne shot this man dead.” She backed further away, her boys crowded close to the body, and she said, “I wasn’t here.”
           She turned and was gone.

#

           Wayne Lumler was mad as hell. Robert and Carl got the dead man’s body into the trunk of the Cadillac, then Lumler made them scrub his kitchen, all the while bitching about his money.
          “We’ll get it,” Robert said. He was on his knees, wiping everything down for the second time.
           “We got a buyer,” Carl said. “You’ll see.”
           “Where’s them guns?” Lumler asked.
           “In my aunt’s shed,” Robert said.
           Robert and Carl West bought two bags full of guns with money fronted by Wayne Lumler. They said they had a buyer, across the river, in Memphis.
          “Get ’em,” Lumley said.
            Lumley walked to the kitchen sink, leaned over it, spit into it, turned, and said “And get that car and body gone, too.”
           “When it’s real dark,” Robert said, “we’ll get to it.”

#

            “Leave something behind?”
           Early morning, the darkest hours. Robert was inside the shed, Carl just outside the door.     Their aunt was holding a shotgun, a couple steps away from Carl. “Come on out,” she said. She stepped back, looked at the duffel bag at Carl’s feet and waited. Robert stepped out, held up his hands and said, “Aunt Denice, listen ….”
            She stepped forward and pointed the shotgun at Robert. “What else is in there?”
            “Nothing,” he said.
            She quick-stepped, raised the shotgun, twisted it and rammed the butt into Robert’s forehead. Down he went. She stepped toward Carl, raised the shotgun and said, “What else?”
             He went into the shed and came out with a duffel bag and dropped it next to the other one.
            “What’s in them?” she asked.
            “Guns,” Carl said.
             “Those are my guns,” Wayne Lumley said. He’d been waiting in the dark, came up slow, and reached around and twisted the shotgun out of Denice West’s hands, pushed her once and pointed the shotgun at her.
           “Wayne,” she said, “that thing ain’t loaded.”
           He laughed.
            She quick-stepped and kicked Lumley in his crotch … hard. Down he went. She stomped his crotch once more, leaned over, picked up the shotgun, spun it and slammed the butt into his forehead.

#

            In prison, Brother Malcolm read the holy books. He studied Christianity, Judaism, Islam. He studied Taoism and Buddhism and Confucianism. He meditated and prayed and fasted. Released early – for good behavior – he lived like a hermit, in a pole barn he rented for practically nothing, while he prayed and searched for his path. The All-Souls Forever Ascending Congregation was the result, started in that pole barn. His message? “Your life-path is cosmically ordained … the good and bad. That path is holy. It’s consecrated. You must follow your path.”

#

           Wayne Lumley moaned, groaned, tried and failed to stomp his feet … and that went on for hours. Finally, Denice had him untied. “We’re going to Memphis to sell them guns and get your money,” Denice told him. “Happy?” She slapped him. Hard. “You and these nitwits” – she pointed at her nephews – “are going in your dead friend’s Cadillac. None of you are riding with me.”

#

           The Harbinger was a dump of a tavern on a two-lane, north of Memphis. Two motorcycles were on the lot when Denice pulled in. The Cadillac pulled in beside her. Denice walked to it, tapped on the window and said: “Stay here.”
           She walked into the bar – two men were sitting in the corner – tapped on the bar and a door behind it opened. Out stepped a skinny man dressed in black jeans, black boots, black t-shirt, black ball cap, and wearing a sidearm.
          “You Ornell?” Denice asked.
          “Who’s asking?”
           She held out her phone, took his picture and said “I’ll be right back,” turned, and found the two men standing behind her. She raised her phone, took their pictures, turned back to Ornell and said “I have to know who I’m dealing with. I’ll be right back.”
          Outside she showed Ornell’s photo to Robert. “That him?” she asked.
           Robert nodded. She took Robert’s picture.
           Back inside, the three were on barstools. She approached, showed Robert’s picture, then asked “You buying something from him?”
           Ornell looked at the two men, trying to look bored.
           “Guns,” she said.
           The three stayed silent.
           “They’re outside,” she said, “if you’re interested.” She gave them a minute. No response. “Sorry to bother you,” she said and turned.
           Before she got to the door, Ornell spoke up. “I’ll be out,” he said. She turned back and said “Don’t come without money. I’m selling them guns today. You ain’t the only interested party.” (She made that up on the spot.)
          Outside, Robert and Carl were leaning against the hood of the Cadillac. Lumley was leaning against the trunk, facing away.
           “Pull them bags out the trunk,” she said.
           Carl got the bags out onto the gravel and closed the trunk.
           “Get me two pistols,” she said. Robert made a sound, Denice looked at him and shook her head. Carl pulled two pistols out of a bag and Denice said, “make sure they’re loaded, then put one on top the rear tire, the other on the other rear tire, then you and your brother lean back on the hood and try to look like you ain’t about to piss your pants.”
          Carl scrambled, checked the guns, got them where she wanted them, then joined his brother.
          “What do you know about this Ornell?” Denice asked.
          Robert rolled his shoulders. Carl shrugged. “He’s a survivalist,” Carl said. Lumley looked over his shoulder and laughed.

#

           Ornell stared at the bundles of cash in the gym bag, wondering if he should just kill that woman and take the guns, or see if he could negotiate the price down and save himself the trouble of dumping a body. The Massey boys – Calvin and Clarence – were with him. They were muscle, maybe, but none too bright.
          He closed the bag and headed toward the door, stopped, did a little thinking, then turned and said, “maybe you two go out the back, go round the far side and keep an eye on things.”
Ornell Walsh was a fundamentalist and true patriot … that’s what he claimed. “When we get to Wyoming,” he’d say, “we’ll start our real life.” Sometimes it was Utah, or the Dakotas, sometimes Idaho or Montana. He and the bunch he ran with planned to go out west to escape the clutches of the federal government … whatever that meant. There, they would raise families, live right and be free. The problem was financing. That’s where the guns came in. The current plan was to be super-cautious, supersmart, plan systematically, then maybe rob a couple banks, or a string of grocery stores, or gas stations. They wanted to do that in advance, on the way out west, then lay low, live right and be free.

#

         Malcolm Willard lived the first part of his life in foster care. His mother died – that’s what he was told – shortly after he was born. She’d been addicted her entire pregnancy. Growing up, Malcolm was extremely intelligent, impetuous, a handful, and prone to tantrums. That was his childhood and adolescence. When he wound up in prison – twenty-three years old – no one was surprised. In prison he changed. He rechristened himself Brother Malcolm, and was studious, quiet, and a model prisoner. Released early from prison – good behavior – he never once reported to a parole officer and none ever came looking.
           Denice West had unburdened herself to Brother Malcolm several times. “My nephews are gone bad,” she told him, “I raised them, and they’re all wrong.”
          When Denice West called him, after the boys returned, after trouble came knocking, she sounded frantic. He calmed her, and when she explained her plan to get them out of harms’ way, he said he needed to think on it, pray and meditate. When he called her back, he asked “Do you understand the potential violence?”
          She hadn’t mentioned what happened to the man who came looking for her nephews.
          “Violence,” he said, “is confounding. It’s stressful. Very emotional. It is true, it can be justified, but not always.”
          Denice stayed silent.
          “Do not start,” Brother Malcolm said, “what you cannot finish. That’s a cardinal rule.”

#

         Ornell came out with the money. He dropped the bag at the front of the Cadillac and said, “Let me see them guns.”
           Denice pulled the bag onto the hood of the Cadillac, opened and stared inside, then pointed at the bags holding the guns. “Back there,” she said.
         That’s when Wayne Lumley turned to see who was buying the guns, which was a mistake, because Ornell got a good look at him, and Ornell Walsh knew Wayne Lumley was nothing but a drug dealer … and a drug dealer was nothing but a death merchant.  Ornell and his ilk despised death merchants.
          “Lumley!” Ornell shouted, sprinting toward him. Lumley, in flip flops, turned to run, stumbled, and flopped down on his belly. Walsh ran to him, extracted his sidearm, pointed it at Lumley, then screamed “Calvin! Clarence! Drug dealer! Death Merchant!” He pumped four rounds into Wayne Lumley’s back before common sense kicked in and stilled his trigger finger.
           Calvin and Clarence were rounding the corner of The Harbinger, at full gallop.
           Robert ran to the far side of the Cadillac, pulled a pistol from the top of the tire, held it out in front of him and walked toward Walsh, pulling the trigger. He managed to hit Walsh three times, once in the cheek and twice in the chest, while only taking two in return. Neither would benefit from emergency healthcare.
           Calvin Massey arrived first, grabbed Carl, snapped his neck, pitched him like a rag doll and charged Denice. She pulled a pistol from the driver’s side rear tire and put four shots in a tight cluster just under his neck.
            Seeing his brother gunned down, Clarence turned and ran. It didn’t do him any good.

#

           That event made the news. Six dead in a shoot-out? Gun runners and a drug dealer and a disconsolate aunt unable to stop weeping? That’s television news at its best!
           “I tried for years to save my nephews,” she said on screen, and she kept to that story while an investigation dragged on and on, before, finally, law enforcement took the win they’d had served up. Besides, the story got old and the public forgot.
           Some months later, Denice West was allowed to bury her nephews.
          She lost her job at the school. The school district felt it didn’t look good, her involved in a shootout. She squirrelled up, licked her wounds and kept to herself … fall into winter, winter into spring, spring into summer … before late in the following summer she took a duffel bag full of money to Brother Malcolm’s pole barn and dropped it in front of him.
          “It didn’t go like I planned,” she said. She swallowed. “I worry, was it justified?”
          He shrugged, leaned over, unzipped the bag, looked in, sat back up and said, “Let me pray on it.”
           She walked out of the pole barn and waited. When he came out, she asked, “You really think that was cosmically ordained?” He shrugged. “I’ll pray on that, too.” He looked back inside, sighed, and said, “That’s evil money, but I might turn it to good use … help build the congregation.”
          She worked a smile onto her face. “That’s good,” she said. “I hope so. I really do.”
That was the last time Brother Malcolm saw Denice West, and the last time Denice West saw Brother Malcolm.

#

           She left her home. She’d become unpopular, and needed a change, and there was her life-path to follow.
          Follow it, she did, finally settling in Idaho some years later. She found work in a diner and worked there for years before marrying a widowed rancher, fifteen years her senior. He owned two-hundred-and-twenty-thousand acres, a lumber company, a bank and a ski lodge, and before she agreed to marry him, she insisted he hear everything. All of it. What she’d done and why she’d done it.
         He’d sit back and close his eyes and listen carefully, and when she stopped, he opened his eyes and smiled. “Tell me more about this Brother Malcom stuff,” he’d say. “You say that you and me … us together … that’s ordained? That’s consecrated?” His smile grew bigger. “I like that. I like hearing that. I’d like to meet Brother Malcolm.”
         And they did go, once.
        Brother Malcom had moved on, nobody knew where. Few remembered him, and if anyone recognized Denice West, or if she recognized anyone, no pleasantries were exchanged. Her new husband was disappointed, until Denice pointed out that there can be nothing wrong with the life-path … it is what it is, and must be respected, and honored … and traveled.
      “You’ll keep me on the path, will you?” he asked her, and she promised she would. And it was only a couple years after their wedding that he passed, leaving her wealthy, and comfortable, and more than satisfied with where her path had taken her.

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      Victor Kreuiter’s stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Bewildering Stories, Halfway Down the Stairs, Yellow Mama, Literally Stories, Tough, Rock and a Hard Place, Del Sol SFF Review, The Windhover, Straylight Literary Magazine, Crimeucopia’s “Let Me Tell You About” anthology, and other online and print publications. His story, “Miller and Bell,” was included in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of 2023.

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     J. Elliott is an author and artist living in a small patch of old, rural Florida. Think Spanish moss, live oak trees, snakes, armadillos, mosquitoes. She has published (and illustrated) three collections of ghost stories and three books in a funny, cozy series. She also penned a ghost story novel, Jiko Bukken, set in Kyoto, Japan in the winter of '92-'93. Available in  Paperback and eBook on Amazon.