The Last Jeskey - Chapter 13

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 13

 

(Day 2 – Friday)

 

Freaky

 

How much trouble was I going to be in when Gary found out that the cops had taken all their stuff?  When Gary found out?  More like Gary and Dave both.  Maybe I better just start eating dog food from the floor right now.  But I hated doing that, and so far, they didn’t know.  But the guys often disappeared for a few days.  They would be back though.  Both of them.  I had no doubt at all.

I continued around the house, trying to pick up from where the cops had made such a big mess of everything.  Why had they done that?  Was that just something that cops did all the time?  Made a mess of things?  No wonder all the guys hated cops.  I hated them now too, and that didn’t count them taking me away from here and putting me though so much weird stuff the day before.  That little room with the warm rain had been nice though.

It was dark and getting late when I heard a truck pulling in out front.  Were any of the guys back yet?  I went out to the front porch to see.  It was dark, but I could still see that it was Dave’s pickup that had pulled into the yard, and right behind him was more lights.  Gary’s truck.  They would be wanting dinner!  I hurried back inside to get something started.

“Hell only knows what they found,” Dave said as he and Gary came into the house.

“Hopefully, nothing,” Gary replied.  “Hell, they’ve never found anything before.”

I saw them notice me in the kitchen, beginning to fix a late dinner for them.  Gary stopped dead in his tracks and shook his head.

“I told you,” Dave said with a laugh.  “She looks great, but go take a better look at her hair.  Look how long it is.”

Gary came around the table and stared at me.  “Damn!  It’s dragging on the ground.”

“Yeah,” Dave said.

“Ben would have had a fit.”

“True,” Dave replied with another laugh.

“Don’t bother with dinner,” Gary told me.  “We ate.”

“What did the cops do?” Dave asked me.

“Made a big mess of things,” I told him angrily.  “You should have seen the mess I had to pick up.  I got most of it though.  And now I know why you all hate them so much.  Damn cops!”

“True,” Gary agreed as he opened the beer fridge and pulled out two cans.  He handed one to Dave.”

“Do you know if they looked in the barn?” Gary asked me.

“They looked in the barn.  They looked in the house.  They looked in the root cellar.  They looked everywhere there is and then some…and made a big mess everywhere.”

“That’s cops,” Dave agreed.  “Come on,” he said to Gary.  “We better check the barn, and everywhere else.”

The two men went out and I breathed a small sigh of relief.  But I knew they’d be back.  Probably soon.  The only question now was, how badly would they punish me?”  I could only stand there in the kitchen and wait, but yeah, I knew I deserved whatever punishment I got from them.  I had talked to the cops.

It was a while before the boys came back.  Longer than I thought, but not long enough for my frightened stomach.

“There she is!” Gary exclaimed angrily the moment he laid eyes on me.

My fear went crazy as I saw the two of them head directly for me.

“Did you show those cops any of our secret places?” Dave demanded.

I was a bit confused.  “But he said, you told him to tell me you wanted me to show him where they were.”

“He said I wanted you to show him?” Dave asked.

“Yes!  He said you would punish me if I didn’t.”

“Shit!” he swore loudly.  “How the hell did you know where those places were?  That’s men’s business.”

“But feeding the chickens and pigs isn’t,” I told him.  “And when we had some, we kept them in the barn.  I’ve seen where you go.  I just never went near those places myself.”

Gary opened up one of the doors under the counter and pulled out my bowl.  He grabbed some dog food and poured it in, then he set it on the floor in the corner.  The message was clear, I’d be eating dog food for the foreseeable future.  “That’s on top of whatever way we decide to punish you for talking,” Gary told me.

Now I was really scared.  But…I knew I deserved it.

“Any ideas on what we should do about our stock?” Gary asked Dave as they headed into the living room.

“Not yet, except get some more,” Dave replied.  He pulled out his cellphone.  “In fact, I’ll start working on that right away.  They didn’t find any of the money, so we’re good with that much.  We can easily cover our losses with the drugs, and fortunately the guns were all paid for.  We were just looking for buyers.”

“Good!” Gary told him.  “And while you’re doing that, I know what I’m gonna do.”  He grabbed his hat.  “I’m gonna kill me a cop.  I just gotta find someone who can tell me where he lives.  And when I get there, I’m gonna kill him, and his whole family too.”  He grinned.  “It’s the least I can do for payback.  We gotta have some revenge!”

“Got that right,” Dave agreed.  “Want some help?”

“Let me figure out how to find him first,” Gary told him.  “You handle the business stuff.  You’re the one who’s good at that.”  With a nod of his head, he added, “Don’t wait up.”

Dave laughed.  “Yeah right!  Good luck!  And watch your back.”

Gary wasn’t around, and Dave didn’t say a single word to me all night.  He mostly talked to people on his cellphone.  Eventually, I laid down on the floor near the back door.  As always, I wrapped my hair around me and used part of it to lay my head on.  I went to sleep in total fear.  They were going to punish me.  They were going to punish me bad, even though I didn’t know I had done anything wrong…except to talk to the cops in the first place.

As I laid on the floor, memories of past punishments ran through my mind.  Memories that scared the daylights out of me.  The ones that scared me the most were the ones where they had dragged me deep into those woods.  They always whipped the daylights out of me when they did that, then they always left me some horrible way for a few days, reminding me about the bears, the lions, and the tigers that lived in the woods, and that they would probably come and eat me.  I’d seen bears a lot of times when they came too close to the house and there were always lots of them out where they punished me, but I’ve never seen a lion or a tiger.  The guys had described them to me though as being absolute monsters and the most dangerous things imaginable.  It was hard to imagine anything more dangerous than a bear.  Especially after a few days of being punished and having them all around me.  After a few days of that, I was always amazed that I was still alive.

Then there was the punishment where they took me once when they were all drunk and….  I didn’t want to think about that one.  It had been too horrible.  I had nightmares about it a lot.

I had done wrong.  I had messed with men’s business.  I had talked to the cops.  And because of that, I deserved whatever I was going to get.