The
Mountain Reaper
“I’ll be back in time for supper,” Ephraim
murmured, pulling on his coat and tying his boots. “I’m
gonna be down in town; I have things to do.”
She
didn’t reply, of course. She was still pissed at him. She was
always pissed at him.
Ephraim
let out an aggravated groan as he grabbed his ax and rifle from where
they sat by the kitchen pantry. “Tell the boys to get outside
and do something today. I recon it’ll be a nice one.”
His
words were followed by nothing but tormenting silence. With her long,
blonde hair falling down to cover her face as she relentlessly read
the book in her lap, the one he called wife refused to answer him.
Part of him wanted to stride toward her, throw down his ax and gun,
brush away her silky hair and embrace her until they had forgotten
everything that had ever come between them. But the other part of him
wanted to run across the kitchen, fling his ax and rifle against the
wall, and lift her out of her chair by her collar, shaking her back
and forth until she was too afraid to ignore him any longer.
But,
he did neither. Instead he simply rolled his eyes as he left his
home, slinging his gun over his shoulder and tying his ax to a loop
in his belt. His boots crunched atop the mid-march snow once he
emerged outside, and the gentle breeze caused a slight chill down his
spine.
Stuffing
his hands in the pockets of his coat he soon escaped from the despair
his wife’s silence had sucked him into and found himself
humming along to nature’s cry for spring. The few birds that
dare be in the mountains at this time of year called out to each
other, bantering back and forth with their melodious voices. The soft
wind whistled quietly in his ear and caused the branches of the
tallest pines to collide, creating a calming aura. Ephraim continued
to hum his joyous tune as he gazed around at the mountains in awe,
his stride continuing to be strong and fast.
When
he count finally see buildings off in the distance and could hear the
faint drone of society, he let out a
sigh of exhaustion and lowered his pace. The
buildings sat small and far between, making up a town of few
stores and few houses. The streets were covered in a thin layer of
soft snow that had just fallen that morning, and the rising sun cast
a delicate light down on the place that he had always called his own.
The
streets of Leadville were rather empty that day, tread upon by only a
few random pedestrians who looked at him nervously after glancing at
his weapons before quickening their pace and walking off in some
other direction. The people seemed to change every time he came in.
Once things had been as they should have been; Women had worked at
home, men had worked somewhere else, and kids ran about stupidly
making trouble. The ladies were clad in long dresses and stayed quiet
when their husbands were near, and no one had looked at him with
concern when he brought his gun into town. But, once he had turned
thirty things seemed to change; things weren’t like they were
when he was a child. It upset the part of him that resisted
revolution; it made him hate others, and nearly hate himself.
“Ephraim!”
A husky voice shouted.
Confused,
Ephraim spun around in his pot to find a man approaching him His
belly bulging out further than it ever had before, and his come over
looking even more unappealing now, Bill looked like he had aged 10
years in only a couple of months.
“Well,
hey there, Bill,” Ephraim greeted with a hearty handshake and a
half-genuine smile.
“Haven’t
seen you in ages!!” Bill exclaimed, breathing heavily after
what must have been only a short run to catch up with his friend.
“Used to see you every day when you lived in town. Now that you
live up further in the mountains you don’t eve hardly ever show
your face ‘round here anymore.”
“It
takes longer to get down here than you’d think,” Ephraim
explained. “I can’t take horses up there; it’s too
steep. And foot it’s nearly a three hour hike both ways. You
may still be feeling fit and young, Bill, but age is catching up with
me.”
Bill
rolled his eyes but relinquished a slight smirk. “Still a smart
one, I see.”
Ephraim
shrugged his shoulders and smiled, shifting his feet uneasily, hoping
to imply that he needed to go.
Bill
let out a sigh and placed his hands just beneath the flab of fat that
bubbled over his belt. “I still don’t understand why you
had to move so far away in the first place.”
“It
was just getting too crowded for me.”
“500
people is too crowded for you?” Bill began to chuckle. “Oh,
buddy, you sure ain’t a people person, are ya? I’d love
to see you handle a place like New York City; I hear they’ve
gotten over the 50,000 mark as of a couple years ago! Only 1925 and
we already got over 50,000 people in one place; what the hell’s
gonna happen to us in 50 years? We’ll be living on top of each
other!”
Ephraim
didn’t reply and looked away without even cracking a smile.
Bill
stopped laughing and cleared his throat. “Well, do you want to
get coffee real quick? I ain’t got nothing on my schedule for
the rest of the morning here.”
“I
kind of do, though. Mrs. Landon asked me to come and cut some
firewood for her out at her place.”
“I
won’t keep you longer than an hour,” Bill urged. “That
needy lady can wait.”
“She’s
63 and widowed.”
Bill
shrugged. “My point still stands.”
“So,
how’s that wife of yours?” Bill questioned as he finished
off his last cup of coffee. “Has she even come to this town
once since you moved up there?”
“She
has no reason to leave,” Ephraim murmured, hunched over his
coffee while watching the people of the diner with a curious eye. Men
and women sat together, laughing, talking, and staring off in
silence. Children sat with their families or ran around with one
another, playing at the pinball machine or dashing in and out the
door. His eyes rested on one woman in particular. She had short blond
hair that was up in short curls, framing her perfectly porcelain face
well. She wore a loose shirt and baggy pants that touched the floor.
The silk cloth of her blouse fell upon her curves well, and it sent
an uncomfortable chill throughout Ephraim’s body. “God,
what is happening to this place?”
“What?”
Ephraim
looked away from the woman and back at his friend, shaking his head
as he did so. “Never mind. It’s nothing. Elizabeth is
well, though. She takes care of the house and the boys.”
Bill
gazed at Ephraim with concern before finally letting it go and
relaxing back in his seat. “Well that’s good. And Joseph
and George? How’re they?”
“They’re
just fine.”
“Good…
Good.”
Ephraim
took another sip of his coffee and stared out the window blankly,
watching as people crossed the streets and glaring as a large, black
automobile slugged through, disrupting the snow and the peace. “How
about Mary?”
“Mary’s
doing well,” Bill replied. “She’s out of state
right now visiting her folks.”
“And
you didn’t go with?”
Bill
shrugged. “Her folks ain’t never been fond of me, and,
quite frankly, I don’t really like them either. So, I told her
she can just go by herself. Besides, I got work.”
Ephraim
stared at his friend –dumbfounded. “You let her go out of
state without you? What the hell’s the matter with you?”
Bill,
taken back, furrowed his brow and placed his elbows on the table. “I
know it ain’t the… conventional thing to do, but I trust
Mary.”
Ephraim
raised his eyebrows and looked away, taking a sip of his coffee.
Bill
sighed and checked his watch. “Well, it’s past 11. I’d
say you better head over to that old broad’s house, don’t
you?”
Ephraim
nodded and set his cup down. “Yeah, I suppose I should.”
He dug a dollar out of his pocket. “This’ll pay for what
I got. Leave the rest for a tip.”
Bill
nodded. “See ya whenever you decide to come back.”
Ephraim
waved and left the building, his rifle hitting the door on his way
out.
The
walk to Mrs. Landon’s wasn’t far from the diner, and he
only came across two other people as he did. One was a poorly clad
man who gave him a courteous nod of the head as they passed, and the
other was a pretty young woman, no older than 20, who looked at the
ground with nervous eyes and hurried by.
The
gate to Mrs. Landon’s squeaked eerily as Ephraim opened it, and
slammed shut behind him. He knocked on the door heavily several
times, untying his ax from his side and holding it firmly in one
hand.
An
old woman answered the door and invited him inside, brushing her gray
hair out of her face and wobbling helplessly behind him.
“How
much do you need today?” Ephraim asked, approaching the back
door.
“Just
enough to last the rest of the winter,” She answered in a high,
sweet voice. “So, I really don’t need that much.”
A
high pitched barking interrupted them as a rat-like creature came
barreling down the hallway and flung itself at Ephraim. It started to
scratch at his pants restlessly, biting at him with its tiny teeth
and glaring at him with its beady eyes.
Aggravated,
Ephraim shook his leg and sent that rat-thing flying.
Slightly
shocked, the old woman hid her concern and ran to pick up her pet.
“Don’t mind Charles,” he muttered, stroking the
head of the ugly little monster that growled at Ephraim. “He’s
not fond of visitors. I won’t let him bother you, though.”
Ephraim
clenched his jaw and gripped the handle of his ax more firmly.
“That’s alright,” he mumbled as decently as he
could. “I’ll just be out back then. I won’t be out
there long.”
“Okay,”
the old woman said, following him as he opened the back door. “Don’t
exhaust yourself. Come in if you need a break!”
Ephraim
didn’t look back as he trudged across the yard and entered the
woods that encompassed the house, having to only take several steps
in until he found a small oak, begging to die. He swung the ax again
and again at the trunk of the young tree, chips of bark flying past
his face with every hit. It didn’t take long for droplets of
sweat to appear on his face and saturate the thin layer of snow at
his feet, and before he had even cut it down completely he had to
take a couple of moments to breathe.
As
he was swinging the ax and lapsed into a state of absolute solitude
and concentration, he came to realize an aggravating growling coming
from near his feet. Looking down slowly he saw a small, rat-like dog
biting at the leg of his pants. Aggravated beyond belief, but trying
to hold it all in, Ephraim lifted his foot up and swung the dog off
hard enough to send it flying until it hit a nearby tree. With a
shrill whimper it hit the ground and lay there for a long second
until Ephraim finally turned away and went back to swinging his ax.
A
newfound anger rushed through his veins without his consent, making
him swing even harder. His face flushed red as beads of sweat raced
down his cheeks, and the impact of his ax on the tree made his arms
reverberate with intense force.
Then
the growling came again. His face seemed to swell up like a balloon
as it fumed red and began to shake. His dark eyes felt as though they
were bulging from his skull, forcing his eyelids back before they
would pop away from his sockets and fall like marbles into the snow.
He couldn’t explain this anger that welled within, he couldn’t
define it… But he tried his hardest to control it.
“You
damn pest,” he growled back as he swung his leg to the side,
sending the varmint flying once more. The thud of its scraggly body
against the trunk of a nearby tree was even louder and more sickening
this time, bring Ephraim a calming satisfaction that ensured his eyes
a longer residency in his eye sockets, and allowed his face to return
back to a state of semi-normalcy.
There
was no hesitation this time when he went back to chopping down the
oak. His arms swung with a speed and ferocity that he didn’t
know he was capable of. Pieces of bark flew about his as if he were
caught in the midst of the storm, and for several long seconds he was
convinced he wasn’t even breathing. The world around him became
lost, and soon it was just him and the tree before him. The brisk
spring air suddenly transformed into fumes of hell, forcing the skin
of his arms and face to prickle in uneasiness, and his lips to become
numb. He never understood why this happened to him, and the thought
of the unknown only made him more uncomfortable and enraged, forcing
him even further into the recesses of hell in which he already so
frequently resided.
When
the growling came again he was finally pushed into oblivion, and the
anger that had flamed within his soul had taken over entirely.
Without so much as a blink of an eye his feet pivoted easily beneath
his body, and his arm kept swinging his ax. It only took a slight
change in the angle of his right shoulder, and the blade came
smashing down hard into the ground. And it wasn’t until his
face felt upon it the warm trickle of the animal’s blood that
he realized what he had done. In a matter of seconds the air around
him became brisk again, biting at his skin like microscopic leeches,
the silence became absolutely unbearable, and the anger that had
permeated his being has left him in a wash of panic.
The
beady eyes of the lifeless rat stared up at him with disgust and
sorrow, twitching ever so slightly with the minute amount of vivacity
they still held. Ephraim watched in petrified silence as the glimmer
of life slowly eroded from the beast’s pupils, and washed away
onto the snow as rivers of red.
Unable
to decide what to do, Ephraim did nothing more than turn back to the
tree and continue cutting it down in a calm and dutiful manner, his
face stoic and tight, and his eyes never averting from the point in
which his ax hit.
The
minutes passed by in hours, and it seemed to be days until he finally
heard the relieving crash at the fledging tree fell to its ultimate
demise. He proceeded to chop it into smaller pieces at the same
unhurried pace, and carried those pieces towards Ms. Landon’s
house.
When
he heard the back door creak open he was filled with a shot of panic,
but forced himself to hide it as best he could.
“Why,
thank you so much, Ephraim,” he heard her sweet voice say,
causing his panic to grow even deeper. “It sure does mean a
lot.”
He
shot a quick smile up at the old woman, and the sight of her grinning
face, her gray hair blowing across her eyes with the breeze, and her
frail frame finding it hard to stand upright made his guilt worsen
tenfold. He quickly dropped his gaze as he set down the last pieces
of wood and began to walk away.
“Oh,
Ephraim, don’t you want any money?” The old woman called
after him, waving her hands to stop him.
“No,
it’s alright,” he assured her, forcing one last smile
before he continued on his way.
“Well,
thank you again!” she cooed. Her soft voice being carried away
in the tender breeze, wrapping around his neck like a noose ready to
take his pointless life.
He
refused to turn around to say anything further. He kept his head down
towards the ground as he tromped around the house and stormed through
the gate, murmuring meaningless nothings to himself just to keep
himself from lashing out again. He could feel it again. It was
stabbing at the side of his soul, begging him to release it. But he
wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
Not
again.
With
his ax held firmly in his hand and his rifle bobbing on his back, he
walked through Leadville with a determined pace, ready for nothing
more than to be home. It had been too much, all of it. It was all too
much. He needed silence. Peace.
“Ephraim!
Well, how are you? I haven’t seen you in ages!”
The
patting of his shoulder by some man claiming to be a friend of his
was like a bullet wound to his heart. He had to clench his jaw and
close his eyes before he could even bear to raise his head and look
his fellow man in the eye.
It
was a distant cousin of his, a man he hadn’t talked to in
years.
“Hello,”
he stammered, looking his cousin in the eye for only a split moment
before averting them back to the pavement and attempting to pass him
by.
“Well
hey there, I haven’t seen you in ages, put ‘er there!”
suddenly Ephraim felt his hand being clasped and shook firmly, and
looking into the young man’s eyes made his soul feel naked and
barren. The near stranger could see his every secret, of this he was
nearly sure.
He
tried to force a reply, but he found himself at a loss of words. The
stranger’s name would not come to his lips.
“How
have you been?” The man asked, letting go of Ephraim’s
cold hand and taking a tentative step back, running his fingers
through his slicked back hair while gazing at his cousin cautiously.
“You don’t look so well.”
“No,
no I’m fine,” Ephraim assured, rubbing his palm on his
pants. “You just caught me off guard is all.”
“Whatever
you say… How’s Elizabeth and the boys?”
Ephraim
rolled his eyes. That question was overbearing. Every time people
asked him that he had to keep himself from strangling them until
their throat cracked underneath his fingers. It was as if his
well-being wasn’t good enough. It was as if he wasn’t
good enough for them. “They’re just fine.”
“Gosh,
I haven’t seen Elizabeth in… Well, in years, I suppose,”
The man sighed, placing his hands on his hips and looking up at the
bright, blue sky. “And I haven’t seen the kids since they
were not even big enough to crawl. You’ll have to bring them
down sometime. You can bring them all over for dinner at my place if
you’d like.”
Ephraim
glared into the large pupils of his cousin’s eyes, grinding his
teeth and clenching his fists to simply keep himself from bursting. A
small part of him wanted to do nothing more than take the ax in his
right hand right to the man’s head. He wanted to scream and
shout in delight as the man thrashed helplessly on the ground,
staining the pure, white snow with his blood. He wanted to watch as
the man’s eyes flickered back and forth in a frenzy of panic
right before his last breath wheezed out from in between his teeth…
But, instead he simply forced a strained nod, relinquishing a
whispered “sounds great” before he stormed off, brushing
roughly against the man as he did so.
The
air was bitter, the snow was crunchy, and that ax had never felt
heavier to him than it did right then.
The
walk home was not as relaxed as it had been for him that morning. The
birds’ voices were annoying and grated at his ears, and the
breeze that had brought dreams of spring now only brought images of
death. Every tree he passed seemed to be staring at him, judging him.
Everywhere he turned he could feel eyes on him, and he found himself
walking with his ax held tightly in both hands, his head spinning
back and forth to try and keep a gage on his surroundings.
He
tried to calm himself by thinking of home. He pictured the small
table and his reclining chair. He pictured the kitchen with his rifle
sitting beside the counter, and the rocking chair that sat facing the
big living room window. He pictured his boys lying in their separate
beds, facing the wall. Their small bodies were curled up in fetal
position with their hands underneath their porcelain faces. He
pictured his beautiful wife sitting by the window, staring out at the
mountains with glistening blue eyes. He could see himself moving
towards her, reaching out a hand to touch her, to bring her into his
embrace. Before his fingers could brush against the soft silk of her
dress she turned, piercing him with her gaze. Her eyes were filled
with a sorrow and longing that he knew would never be cured, and as
if she were God she brought him to his knees without lifting a
finger. A lone tear ran down her pure face, and as his soul died
right there on the stone, cold floor, she turned away and went back
to staring out the window at the bountiful mountain.
“What
in the hell’s got you so on edge?”
The
voice came so suddenly that Ephraim didn’t have a moment to
control his reaction. A deep scream came from his throat as he heaved
his ax high in the air and brought it flying down in the direction of
the words. His attempt was immediately brought to an end, however, as
a pair of hands grabbing him firmly around the wrists as his ax was
still high in the sky. After he had a moment to recover, Ephraim
allowed himself to open his eyes and see the man that stood before
him. At least in his 50’s, the man was several inches taller
than Ephraim, and possessed a full head of white hair and a thick
beard with streaks of grey. He wore a thick coat, heavy boots, and a
double barreled shotgun that was slung across his back. His grip was
strong, and it wasn’t until Ephraim relaxed that he finally let
go.
“What
are you doing here?” Ephraim immediately demanded, taking a
large step back and regaining a strong grip on his ax.
“Calm
down, buddy,” the man said with an almost mocking tone, holding
his hands out in front of him as if he were approaching a mountain
lion cub. “I’m just up here hunting, ain’t that
what you’re doing too?”
“No,”
Ephraim snapped, taking a step back every time the man took one
forward. “I’m headed home. And you’re not allowed
around here. All of the 20 miles surrounding my place is my property,
and you’re not allowed on it. You have to leave.”
The
man furrowed his eyebrows in confusion before spinning around slowly,
looking over the entire expanse of mountain. “I don’t
know what the hell you’re talking about, buddy. There ain’t
no houses around here. I’ve hunted here my whole life. Ain’t
nothing but mountain here… Listen, you sure you’re
alright?”
“Yes,
I’m alright!” Ephraim snapped aggressively. He could feel
his cheeks heating up and his palms beginning to sweat. His heart was
starting to pick up speed, and it took his deepest concentration to
keep himself under control. “And I know what the hell I’m
talking about, buddy. This is my property, and I want your ass
off of it right this second.” He lifted his ax up high enough
so that the blade was only inches away from his own face. He glared
at the man and watched as he took a step back, a sudden expression of
panic flickering across his eyes. “And, I am not afraid of
taking the punishment of trespassing into my own hands.”
“Listen,
I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but…”
“It
doesn’t matter who I am!” Ephraim shouted, his voice
reverberating through the entire forest, bouncing off the trunks of
the trees and rebounding off the rocky precipices. It silenced the
few birds who had dared to sing, and nearly brought the old man
before him tumbling onto his back. It took every ounce of his soul
that yearned for God’s approval to hold back the demon within,
making it hard to keep from racing forward, swinging the ax like he
were playing a game of baseball. As he stood there breathing heavily,
the old man began to cower, sinking closer to the ground with every
one of Ephraim’s pants. “It only matters what I’m
going to do to you if you don’t get your ass off of my land
right this seconds. I suggest you don’t stick around to find
out what that’d be.”
The
man heeded his advice, staggering to his feet and running off in the
direction of town. It took several minutes before Ephraim’s
heart went back to normal. Eventually he was able to lower his ax and
bring one foot in front of the other to start bringing himself home.
The rest of the walk was accompanied only by utter silence, even the
breeze had ceased to aide him. He was all alone, and he couldn’t
have asked for better timing. For just a moment he felt as though her
were in complete control again. And when he came to find a dark cave
engraved in the mountain side, he was nearly able to smile again.
As
he entered he let out a sigh of relief, throwing his gun and ax down
before sitting down next to his wife and kicking his feet up.
“Baby, you ain’t never gonna guess what happened just a
while ago,” he mumbled, taking the tattered hat from his head
and playing with it. “I met some dumbass wandering through the
forests hunting. I told him he was on my land and he had the guts to
tell me he was wrong! He told me that there aren’t any houses
up here, that nobody lives up here. Can you believe that?”
Ephraim let out a snort of laughter as he shot a tentative glance at
his wife. His foolish grin giving way to an aggravated frown, he
rolled his eyes. Her face was still down in that damn book. “’course,
you don’t think we belong ‘round her neither, do you?”
There was still a silence.
“Well, we had no choice,” he grumbled, focusing on his
hat again. “If we would have stayed down there someone would
have found out. They would have realized that… Well, we just
couldn’t stay down there any longer, you understand? We moved
here so that we could stay together. Otherwise, they would have taken
you from me, do you get that?” His eyes searched his stoic wife
for some sign of understanding, but all emotion was masked from him
by a curtain of stringy hair. “They would have taken you,
Joseph, and George, put you in boxes and buried you under dirt. And
don’t even ask what they would have done with me. They would
have done much worse with me, I promise you.”
Elizabeth remained impartial, remaining motionless in her age-old
rocking chair.
Letting out a sad sigh he got up from his seat and kneeled down next
to his love. Staring miserably at the unmasked bones of her body, he
grabbed her cold, unearthed hand, throwing the book to the floor. The
faint stench of death suffocating him, he leaned forward and kissed
her the bones of her cheeks nonetheless. “I’m so sorry I
did it,” he admitted. “I love you so much. I love you
more than anything in the world. If you just hadn’t made me so
angry… If you hadn’t made me angry we’d never be
out here.” He tried to keep his tears back but one escaped and
rolled down his cheek anyway. “I just wanted to keep us
together. I didn’t want them to take you away.” Ephraim
wrapped her skeleton in his arms, nuzzling his face in her neck,
allowing the few tufts of hair she still had left to envelope his
face in their deadly embrace. “But don’t worry,” he
assured her, letting her go and smiling at the blue eyes that seemed
to smile back. “We’ll make this work. You’ll like
it up here eventually, I promise.”
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