The Horrors on Blood Mountain Part 1

A hard-hitting and stoic hero finds a woman on the side of the road dying and begging him to save her daughter, but is there more to the task than being a hero?

*Warning graphic language*

“Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.”

-          Ephesians 6:11

 

 

Somewhere in the mountains of Tennessee

1935

 

“Where the hell is Kin?” Charles Duke yapped for the third time in less than five minutes while rubbing his hands together in the bitter cold of the cabin. The winter winds outside hissed at the idea of fire being set inside the walls, while the snow blanketed the forest in a dead white started to freeze under the pale moon. “It’s damn cold in here. Where the Hell is he?”

                “Oh, shut your trap,” Joseph Duke snapped, the oldest for the four brothers and the leader of their little gang. He lit up the pipe hanging from his round face keeping the match a bit closer to him for a moment longer. The heat of the tiny fire was a welcome source of comfort in the dark cabin, but the hard smoke was even more so when it filled his mouth.

                Charles snarled back at his brother, thinking about throwing a few fists at him just keep warm. While most families might have shaken hands or hugged to show love, the Duke Brothers fought each other, but it had been too damn cold to do such a thing.

                He stuck his hands into his armpits mumbling to himself. They were all waiting for Kin to get the firewood from the shed outback. Kin the youngest had no choice but to follow the order of his brothers. He fought them more often than not, but in the end, he still had to carry out their commands.

                Pa had taught them the order of things before he went off and got himself killed in the war. He left the four boys alone with their mother leaving Joseph to take care of matter at home.

                Thankful, Joseph thought more than once in his short, miserable life that Jackson Arkansas, the head of the Arkansas family, and the only bootleggers in Tennessee, took him and his brothers in, was a blessing from God. A few other bootleggers tried to start up without Jackson's approved, but when that happened, he sent the Duke Boys to show them the errors of their way. If they lived, which they rarely did.

                Joseph glanced at the door noticing Kin had been taking a bit longer than normal, but the heavy footsteps of Jim ‘the Mute’ Duke broke his thought. He turned to look at his giant brother, towering over all of them. His face rough from years of being in fight, like all their faces, and his beard in a needed of a clean.

                “The girl, good?” Joseph asked.

                The Mute nodded, taking two large steps to stand next to his brother Charles. He crossed his arms, standing there trying not to be cold. Somehow, Joseph noted, Charles and Jim had been best friends even if Charles gave him more Hell than anyone else for not being able to speak. Maybe, Charles felt bad about hitting Jim in the back of the head with a bat when they were little, and since then he has never spoken.

                Pa was all Hellfire and brimstone about the matter. “Damn it, boy,” Pa shouted,” You broke poor Jim.”

                “Sorry, Pa, sorry,” Charles cried, but the punishment still had to be handed out, and Pa whipped Charles until he could lay down. The scars running down Charles’s back looked like that slave fellow Whipped Peter in the history books, who had his back all torn up for trying to escape his master. Joseph never did find out if Whipped Peter got away or not, but he didn’t care too much. He had nothing against the black folk of the world, somewhere his family was equal to them. He had spent many of summers working beside them, he just had more important things to worry about than some slave who died before Joseph had even been a thought.

                He could have found out what happens to old Whipped Peter when he got back home. Mr. Arkansas made sure he and his brother could read and write. He made sure all his hounds were treated right and had the brains do their jobs well.

                “No point in having a dumb dog,” Mr. Arkansas would say before shooting one of his hunting dogs who wouldn’t listen to him.

                “Ah, wherein God’s name,” Charles shot to his feet,” is that son of ---“

                Someone moved on to the pouch outside, stopping at the door to the cabin. No one moved, everyone waiting for Kin to open the door with an arm full of wood, but then Charles stepped forward, maybe, thinking his brother needed help with the door.

                He reached out, taking the door handle, and before he could turn it, a shotgun blast tossed him back into his chair. The door splatter wooden steaks into the air mixing with the blood of Charles. Before the body of Charles could hit the chair, fold forward, and dropping to the ground, his brothers were racing from the door. He would gasp one more time before the air would escape the holes in his chest.

                The last thing Charles would see was the door of the cabin been kicked in by a man with a long face, powerful in his body, with black eyes of a wolf on the hunt for prey. He carried Kin’s shotgun in his massive arms but tossed it aside instead of reloading the weapon. The man’s clean face stay clam in the face of death. He had seen it much in his life.

                This killer shields his eyes with a black Cowboy hat and darker coat, almost looking like a priest from Texas, he turned on Charles’s brothers. He hissed out the last of his life before the man known as Abel Solomon pulled his large hunter knife out.

                Abel Solomon had one goal in his life to kill evil wherever he found it. He had a clear moral code, solid in it's black and white, and the skillful in killing of men. He acted on his goal dashing for the Mute, shoving the knife up through his jaw killing him quickly. He spun on his heels seeing Joseph go for the pistol on the table under the window. Abel was beside him before he could blink bring the blade down on his fingers. Four of them gone before Joseph could feel the pain but the blood had been a clear sign as to what had happened to him.

                He fell backward with Abel nailing the knife into his belly. Joseph hit the ground screaming, “She in the room. She is the room.”

                “I didn’t come here for her,” Abel growled in a deep-throat voice picking up Joseph by his shirt. “I came here for you.”

                “Why?” He cried with real tears racing down his face. The only other time he had wept like a boy was when his Pa never came home.

               “Belle,” Abel cold voice said. The chill pouring from the single word kept the winter winds at bay.

               Joseph’s eyes went wide as he said,” The boss man ordered us to do it. She took hi-“

               The knife cutting his throat, slicing the word in two. Abel let him fall to the floor heading to the close door where the girl sat tied up.

Author's Note

I came up with Abel Solomon after reading Solomon Kane and looking into the Question a bit. I wanted a hero who was very black and white in his moral code while at the same time quick to action. Abel will react without thinking in almost all situations, the cost of those actions might come back to bite him. This story was simply me getting to know Abel and seeing how I could write for him. It took me a bit longer to get to the end because I’m trying to move quickly in these stories, but I think you’ll enjoy it.