| General Fiction posted March 15, 2024 | Chapters: |
-1- 2... 
|
  |
A search for the God of Ben Persons
A chapter in the book Right in the Eye
Right in the Eye, ch 1A
by Wayne Fowler
The author has placed a warning on this post for violence.
This segment follows One Man’s Calling and Another Is Called. It begins in 1886 in the Colorado gold country. Ben Persons left Creede following God’s leading. Slim becomes the protagonist.
Chapter 1
“Just as well to give it up, old man,” one of the claim jumpers yelled, the last muffled by another shot fired by his thieving, bushwhacking partner.
Slim Diddleknopper ducked lower into his mine, a rough, unsupported scrape of a hole in the side of Bachelor Mountain. He didn’t answer, hoping they’d be stupid enough to believe him dead and walk out from their cover.
Another shot fired, this one more muted, muffled-like, a popping sound. In the space of milliseconds, Slim surmised that the claim jumper loaded his own and shorted this one of powder. Whether imagined or not, his mind told him that he saw the slug’s approach and that he’d be well-advised to duck aside. Which he did, but apparently in the wrong direction. A bullet that might have produced the mother of all headaches, instead plunged directly into his eye socket, finally settling embedded at his brain stem. It was lanterns out for Slim. His other injuries came incrementally as he cascaded down the sixty-degree embankment when the no-goods rolled him off.
It had been the best, richest dig of his life, his finest prospect. And he’d been circumspect in his behavior: not showing out, spending very little, keeping his jubilation to himself. He hoped that no one would learn of his strike until he could afford to bolster and protect the operation. In the few months since filing his claim, he’d scratched out enough gold to estimate a life’s earnings. Had he worked his brother’s farm as asked, and borrowed a lot of money from a bank, he could have eked out a meager living on a farm of his own and died of old age, broke but with the same life-long earnings as he now had, unspent. Instead, he chose to seek his fortune. He could now return to the Ozarks and buy that same farm and die of old age, land rich, but penniless.
Trying to convince himself that he had made the right choice, he scanned his lonely camp, knowing that an Ozark living would more than likely be replete with squalling young’uns, first his, then them theirs. Those were his thoughts as the rifle shots caromed and ricocheted all about him just before watching the one that was bound for his eyeball.
In that fleeting instant, his life passed through his mind. He was oblivious to the torment soon to be offered him by the two robbers, unconscious of the bruising and breaking along the hundred-yard rapid cascading descent. He landed wedged between two boulders as if attempting a fat-man squeeze. The only reason his good eye survived plucking out was that a turkey vulture fought and chased off two crows that had just begun feasting on his bloodied skull. And then the vulture exploded.
+++
A miraculously aimed and timed rifle shot from over a hundred yards down the mountainside caught the buzzard midflight, slamming it into a granite slab, feathers flying.
“Can you hear me? You alive?” Ben Persons fairly shouted at the old man as he dislodged him. He didn’t think about the uphill challenge to his shot. He just drew his rifle from the scabbard and fired, hoping to scare the buzzard off and not accidentally hit the man wedged between the boulders.
Ben Persons was a young man with a calling, a man on a mission for God. Though uncertain of anything but the very next step before him, he contentedly marched onward. Barely into his manhood, a man with some horse skills and people skills alike, his eyes were drawn to the beauty of the mountainsides.
The birds’ cawing and screeching had gained Ben’s attention, though he’d heard gunfire from some undetermined direction and was being watchful. The injured man might have been shot, Ben couldn’t be certain, seeing a lot of injury and blood, but no discernable gunshot wound. Getting to the bad guys, assuming this wasn’t a bad guy himself, took low priority. Getting what remained of this unfortunate soul to water and then to medical help was the immediate need. Ben prayed all the while that he un-jammed and manhandled the old codger to the small mountain stream near where he’d tied his horse.
Old codger, Ben mused, studying the weathered prospector, wondering whether his initial guess of the man’s age was right. “Who are you, Mister?” he asked of the unconscious man who could be as young as thirty or so, or well into his fifties.
+++
The claim jumpers heard the rifle shot. As one, they both jerked to a crouch, each searching the small draw’s crests, neither certain of the shot’s direction.
“See anything?” Carl asked his partner, Jud.
“Don’t you think I would’ve said somethin’ if I did? I told you we should have buried him.”
“And have somebody find his grave? You’re stupider today than you were yesterday.” Carl cleared his throat and spit near enough Jud for him to recognize the insult.
“You don’t have to put no cross on it! Now shut up. He might be creepin’ up.” They both moved about, duck-walking as they tried to determine their safety. Had either the courage to stand in the next several minutes they might have seen Ben wrestle Slim from his bind. Neither did.
“Now, like I said. He fell an’ died. In two weeks we file claim on his desertion. We don’t spend no gold until the mine is in our name,” Carl said.
“Yeah, yeah, and one of us stays here all the time. Just one thing – you ain’t the boss. Now I say we start right now with splittin’ everything down the middle. Start lookin’ for his hide. Pro’lly in the mine. I’ll look there.” Jud turned to walk toward the mine entrance.
“Well, you ain’t givin’ orders. That’s all I’m sayin’. I don’t take orders from nobody.” Carl side-stepped, blocking Jud’s path.
“So that means you think you’re the boss? I’ll start in the mine, I said.” Jud’s glare told Carl to back off.
Carl kicked over Slim’s make-shift lean-to, kneeling to pick through his meager belongings as Jud entered the mine. Not finding anything resembling what might hide wealth, he surveyed the campsite, paying particular attention to trails leading in or out. At the end of the most obvious, he was rewarded with a stench of human waste after kicking over a mound of earth and pebbles. Thinking what better place than that to hide gold, he took a rock and stirred through the mess in a futile attempt to dig beneath.
The only other trail from the mine was down the mountain. No one would hide booty where someone could get it that easily, but he looked nonetheless. Returning to the camp, Carl started into the scrape of a mine, causing Jud to startle, quickly turning around to exit.
“Wha’d you find?” Carl asked.
“Nothin’.”
“Then why’re you spooked?”
“’Cause you spooked me. You numbskull.”
“You’re hidin’ somethin’. You been diggin’.”
“Sure, I dug. Lookin’ for his hideout. Now move an’ let me outta here!”
“Wha’d you find?” Carl demanded. “Empty yer pockets.”
“I ain’t emptyin’ nothin’.” Jud attempted to push past Carl only to get pushed on his butt.
Jud rose with his pistol in hand, unseen by Carl in the semi-darkness, his frame blocking the light. Backing from the entrance, Carl’s hand found Slim’s pick ax. Intending to persuade Jud to show his pockets’ contents, he stood outside the mine, the ax at the ready.
Jud fired twice, missing with the first shot, and catching Carl dead center in the gut with the second. “I told you I didn’t find nothin’!” he yelled. “I scratched around for a soft spot in the floor. Now look! Yer gut-shot!”
“Help me,” Carl mumbled as he tumbled to his back.
“Yer done, an’ you know it,” Jud said. “I’ll get you some water.” He turned to retrace their steps to where their horses were tethered.
Returning with two canteens, Carl was waiting with Slim’s rifle propped on a raised knee. Missing his left eye by an inch too low, Jud crumpled to the ground, kicking and flinching with both arms and feet for what Carl presumed to be an hour or more before finally dying. Carl survived until just before sunrise when the stream of his blood finally reached Jud’s body.
(chapter 1 to be continued)
This segment follows One Man’s Calling and Another Is Called. It begins in 1886 in the Colorado gold country. Ben Persons left Creede following God’s leading. Slim becomes the protagonist.
Chapter 1
“Just as well to give it up, old man,” one of the claim jumpers yelled, the last muffled by another shot fired by his thieving, bushwhacking partner.
Slim Diddleknopper ducked lower into his mine, a rough, unsupported scrape of a hole in the side of Bachelor Mountain. He didn’t answer, hoping they’d be stupid enough to believe him dead and walk out from their cover.
Another shot fired, this one more muted, muffled-like, a popping sound. In the space of milliseconds, Slim surmised that the claim jumper loaded his own and shorted this one of powder. Whether imagined or not, his mind told him that he saw the slug’s approach and that he’d be well-advised to duck aside. Which he did, but apparently in the wrong direction. A bullet that might have produced the mother of all headaches, instead plunged directly into his eye socket, finally settling embedded at his brain stem. It was lanterns out for Slim. His other injuries came incrementally as he cascaded down the sixty-degree embankment when the no-goods rolled him off.
It had been the best, richest dig of his life, his finest prospect. And he’d been circumspect in his behavior: not showing out, spending very little, keeping his jubilation to himself. He hoped that no one would learn of his strike until he could afford to bolster and protect the operation. In the few months since filing his claim, he’d scratched out enough gold to estimate a life’s earnings. Had he worked his brother’s farm as asked, and borrowed a lot of money from a bank, he could have eked out a meager living on a farm of his own and died of old age, broke but with the same life-long earnings as he now had, unspent. Instead, he chose to seek his fortune. He could now return to the Ozarks and buy that same farm and die of old age, land rich, but penniless.
Trying to convince himself that he had made the right choice, he scanned his lonely camp, knowing that an Ozark living would more than likely be replete with squalling young’uns, first his, then them theirs. Those were his thoughts as the rifle shots caromed and ricocheted all about him just before watching the one that was bound for his eyeball.
In that fleeting instant, his life passed through his mind. He was oblivious to the torment soon to be offered him by the two robbers, unconscious of the bruising and breaking along the hundred-yard rapid cascading descent. He landed wedged between two boulders as if attempting a fat-man squeeze. The only reason his good eye survived plucking out was that a turkey vulture fought and chased off two crows that had just begun feasting on his bloodied skull. And then the vulture exploded.
+++
A miraculously aimed and timed rifle shot from over a hundred yards down the mountainside caught the buzzard midflight, slamming it into a granite slab, feathers flying.
“Can you hear me? You alive?” Ben Persons fairly shouted at the old man as he dislodged him. He didn’t think about the uphill challenge to his shot. He just drew his rifle from the scabbard and fired, hoping to scare the buzzard off and not accidentally hit the man wedged between the boulders.
Ben Persons was a young man with a calling, a man on a mission for God. Though uncertain of anything but the very next step before him, he contentedly marched onward. Barely into his manhood, a man with some horse skills and people skills alike, his eyes were drawn to the beauty of the mountainsides.
The birds’ cawing and screeching had gained Ben’s attention, though he’d heard gunfire from some undetermined direction and was being watchful. The injured man might have been shot, Ben couldn’t be certain, seeing a lot of injury and blood, but no discernable gunshot wound. Getting to the bad guys, assuming this wasn’t a bad guy himself, took low priority. Getting what remained of this unfortunate soul to water and then to medical help was the immediate need. Ben prayed all the while that he un-jammed and manhandled the old codger to the small mountain stream near where he’d tied his horse.
Old codger, Ben mused, studying the weathered prospector, wondering whether his initial guess of the man’s age was right. “Who are you, Mister?” he asked of the unconscious man who could be as young as thirty or so, or well into his fifties.
+++
The claim jumpers heard the rifle shot. As one, they both jerked to a crouch, each searching the small draw’s crests, neither certain of the shot’s direction.
“See anything?” Carl asked his partner, Jud.
“Don’t you think I would’ve said somethin’ if I did? I told you we should have buried him.”
“And have somebody find his grave? You’re stupider today than you were yesterday.” Carl cleared his throat and spit near enough Jud for him to recognize the insult.
“You don’t have to put no cross on it! Now shut up. He might be creepin’ up.” They both moved about, duck-walking as they tried to determine their safety. Had either the courage to stand in the next several minutes they might have seen Ben wrestle Slim from his bind. Neither did.
“Now, like I said. He fell an’ died. In two weeks we file claim on his desertion. We don’t spend no gold until the mine is in our name,” Carl said.
“Yeah, yeah, and one of us stays here all the time. Just one thing – you ain’t the boss. Now I say we start right now with splittin’ everything down the middle. Start lookin’ for his hide. Pro’lly in the mine. I’ll look there.” Jud turned to walk toward the mine entrance.
“Well, you ain’t givin’ orders. That’s all I’m sayin’. I don’t take orders from nobody.” Carl side-stepped, blocking Jud’s path.
“So that means you think you’re the boss? I’ll start in the mine, I said.” Jud’s glare told Carl to back off.
Carl kicked over Slim’s make-shift lean-to, kneeling to pick through his meager belongings as Jud entered the mine. Not finding anything resembling what might hide wealth, he surveyed the campsite, paying particular attention to trails leading in or out. At the end of the most obvious, he was rewarded with a stench of human waste after kicking over a mound of earth and pebbles. Thinking what better place than that to hide gold, he took a rock and stirred through the mess in a futile attempt to dig beneath.
The only other trail from the mine was down the mountain. No one would hide booty where someone could get it that easily, but he looked nonetheless. Returning to the camp, Carl started into the scrape of a mine, causing Jud to startle, quickly turning around to exit.
“Wha’d you find?” Carl asked.
“Nothin’.”
“Then why’re you spooked?”
“’Cause you spooked me. You numbskull.”
“You’re hidin’ somethin’. You been diggin’.”
“Sure, I dug. Lookin’ for his hideout. Now move an’ let me outta here!”
“Wha’d you find?” Carl demanded. “Empty yer pockets.”
“I ain’t emptyin’ nothin’.” Jud attempted to push past Carl only to get pushed on his butt.
Jud rose with his pistol in hand, unseen by Carl in the semi-darkness, his frame blocking the light. Backing from the entrance, Carl’s hand found Slim’s pick ax. Intending to persuade Jud to show his pockets’ contents, he stood outside the mine, the ax at the ready.
Jud fired twice, missing with the first shot, and catching Carl dead center in the gut with the second. “I told you I didn’t find nothin’!” he yelled. “I scratched around for a soft spot in the floor. Now look! Yer gut-shot!”
“Help me,” Carl mumbled as he tumbled to his back.
“Yer done, an’ you know it,” Jud said. “I’ll get you some water.” He turned to retrace their steps to where their horses were tethered.
Returning with two canteens, Carl was waiting with Slim’s rifle propped on a raised knee. Missing his left eye by an inch too low, Jud crumpled to the ground, kicking and flinching with both arms and feet for what Carl presumed to be an hour or more before finally dying. Carl survived until just before sunrise when the stream of his blood finally reached Jud’s body.
(chapter 1 to be continued)
Slim Goldman (Herschell Diddleknopper): miner who Ben Persons rescued in 1886
Ben Persons: young man with a calling from God
I put Cerrillos, New Mexico into Colorado for the story to work later on. Sorry New Mexico.
Being a bit too long, the rest of chapter 1 will be in the chapter 2 posting.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. Ben Persons: young man with a calling from God
I put Cerrillos, New Mexico into Colorado for the story to work later on. Sorry New Mexico.
Being a bit too long, the rest of chapter 1 will be in the chapter 2 posting.
You need to login or register to write reviews. It's quick! We only ask four questions to new members.
© Copyright 2024. Wayne Fowler All rights reserved.
Wayne Fowler has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
