HUMANE TREATMENT
“It really seems a shame,” Shawn stated looking down at the
near lifeless form with its glazed over eyes and almost
imperceptible breaths.
“Isn’t there an easier way to do that?” he asked.
“How easy do you want it?” retorted Jason. “All you do is set
the snares along the fence line and check them the next day.”
“That’s not what I mean, this seems incredibly cruel,”
Shawn criticized as he turned away from the bobcat as it went
through its final death throes. The loop in the wire snare had
tightened around its hips and held it fast about three feet from an
animal crossing running underneath the barbed wire fence that
enclosed the twenty-five hundred acres that made up Jason’s
ranch. It was obvious that the animal had suffered for quite awhile
as it struggled to free itself from the trap while fighting starvation,
dehydration and exposure. It was also obvious that it had been
languishing there for a lot more than one day and so he found himself
irritated with Jason’s “check them the next day” explanation earlier.
“How many animals have you trapped like this?”
“We usually catch about fifty or so a week,” boasted Jason. “I have
snares set at every crossing we can find on the perimeter. You
should see how many hogs, bobcats, coyotes, rabbits get hung up in
the snares. Disposing of all the carcasses is the real pain-in-the-a*s.”
“I thought folks like to hunt hogs and bobcats,” Shawn remarked a
little confused as, over the years, he had seen scores of bobcats and
hogs stuffed and mounted in countless law offices and always had
assumed that they were prize trophy material for hunters to adorn
their offices with like fine furniture.
“They’re just a nuisance,” was the response. “Whether they are
predators like this bobcat or just pests that get into the feed corn,
I don’t need them screwing stuff up for the deer population. I don’t
maintain all this god-damned high fencing and pay for special bred
does and spend all the rest of the money I spend on this place to have
unwanted pests come in and put me behind schedule. Hell, last year
you’d be in a blind and have two or three dozen hogs come up to your
feeder and you’d just spend your evening hunt watching them eat
everything on the ground. You don’t have any idea how long it takes
to weed out a population like that. I’m talking hundreds of hogs alone.
Now we catch them coming in along with the predators like coyotes
and bobcats and have eventually eliminated them all as a factor on the
property,” explained Jason in matter-of-fact fashion that undoubtedly
seemed entirely logical to him.
Shawn wasn’t a big hunter and simply understood Jason to say that
he needed to kill animals in this inhumane manner so that he could
eventually kill more deer with, arguably, his more humane rifle.
Although it bothered him to a degree, he had grown up and lived his
entire life in the southern part of the country where every fall real men
(the ones prosperous enough to be able to afford the luxury and/or the
time off) waited vigilantly for the ecstasies of the opening weekends
of first dove and then, shortly afterward, quail and deer seasons.
Although he never had his own place, (his father was not a hunter) he
had quite often been able to hunt with friends over the years and was
certainly guilty of taking his share of lives when fall rolled around.
He had a shotgun he had used to take down the only three deer he had
ever killed and since the last deer-kill had actually made him somewhat
sick to his stomach, he had stuck to shooting birds, mainly dove, for
about the last fifteen years. Birds didn’t seem to bother him so much
and he actually liked the sport of shooting them on the fly. It also didn’t
hurt that you could hunt dove while sitting on an ice chest drinking beer
and talking with your friends in stark contrast to the ritualistic misery
of rising before dawn in freezing temperatures and sitting in motionless
silence for hours waiting out a glimpse of a wary buck that may or may
not come.
“Can we go back to the truck now, I’m thirsty?” he asked wanting to
escape the present scene as the bobcat was making him uncomfortable.
“Yeah, let’s go get another beer,” agreed Jason. “The hands will come
and clear this off later tonight when they run all the traps.”
“C’mon Jason, you can’t just leave it there like that. I don’t think its
dead yet and that’s pretty sadistic if you ask me,” Shawn scorned.
At this point he really didn’t care whether or not his friend got annoyed.
“S**t, you really think it makes that much of a difference? You’re
just too f*****g tenderhearted,” was the response as expected.
“F**k it. Go on back and open two more Heinekens and I’ll take
care of this.”
As Shawn walked back through the short brush to the truck he
heard the sound of something being bludgeoned with a large fallen
tree branch. He didn’t look around. When he reached the truck he
fished two Heinekens from the cooler in the bed, popped the tops
and jumped inside Jason’s new Ford F-250 Crew Cab which was,
of course, fully equipped with the “King Ranch” package and had,
in addition to the routine amenities like power windows, sunroof,
fancy stereo and four-wheel drive, those beautiful saddle leather
upholstered seats in dark brown with the famous “Flying W”, the
logo of the legendary King Ranch, branded into their backs.
Setting the two opened bottles into their respective built-in holders,
he thought to himself that it seemed excessive to spend over fifty
thousand dollars on a ranch truck that stayed mostly out in the middle
of nowhere inside a shed and spent most of its working time scraping
through brush and running over rocks and debris getting beat-up and
scratched like a cheap rental car. Oh well, perception and status is
everything and conspicuous consumption was Jason’s trademark as
it was for many of their colleagues who liked to see who could
accumulate the most expensive toys.
Shawn had been practicing law for a little over ten years. Like most
of the more successful (or affluent) attorneys he had centered his
practice around plaintiff’s personal injury. Early on it seemed like an
endless docket of car accident victims that came through his office
mostly fed by the senior partners so that he could cut his teeth and
get experience on smaller less complicated cases. Eventually his
knack for picking up the fundamentals of litigation and a courtroom
presence that was naturally pleasant and seemingly sincere paved the
way for consistent favorable outcomes and within about five years he
was working on more complicated cases involving industrial accidents
and defective products and where the victims had either been seriously
maimed or killed. In Southern part of the country with the notoriously
liberal juries and routinely high damage awards, a practice like that
could easily make a lawyer wealthy and Shawn was well on his way
to a lifestyle he had never thought possible growing up.
Jason was about seven years older than Shawn and had been at
the top of the food chain in plaintiff’s practice for several years.
He had at least ten verdicts in the multimillion dollar range and
probably twice that many seven or eight figure settlements. At a
contingency fee of forty percent of the gross recovery it added up
to quite an income. He had his own firm with about three young
associates but had recently approached Shawn about teaming up
as partners. They had worked together well on several cases over
the years representing co-plaintiffs and, although he liked his solo
practitioner status and its freedom, Shawn really looked up to
Jason and thought it was probably an opportunity he shouldn’t
pass up as Jason seemed to get choice cases referred to him from
other lawyers and Shawn knew that plenty of dollars were going
to be flowing through Jason’s doors for a long time to come.
There was a muted thud in the back of the truck and a second
later Jason was plopping down in the driver’s seat.
“S**t, it’s getting cold,” he said.
“Yeah, I’d rather have a shot of warm cognac than this cold beer,”
was Shawn’s reply. He looked through the rear window into the
bed of the truck to see what had made the thud sound and, sure
enough, there was the bobcat, dead with its eyes open, staring
toward the cab.
“Are you going to bury that?” asked Shawn blowing into his cupped
hands to warm them as the chill outside was really starting to be felt
inside the truck as the sun sank lower.
“Hell no! We need to get on the road. I’ll just throw it in a trash bag
when I get home and let the garbage guys take it tomorrow,” stated
Jason as he turned the key over and then set the heater. “Finish that
Heineken and there is a bottle of Jack Daniels behind your seat.”
It wasn’t warm cognac but Shawn decided that whiskey would
probably work and so he gulped down what was left in his beer
bottle then took a nip from the Jack Daniels bottle that had been
sitting in the back three quarters full. It helped warm him up.
“Thanks for coming up here with me,” Jason said appreciatively.
“It’s a long drive and I couldn’t have moved that blind all by myself.”
“No problem. I enjoyed riding all the way up here to watch you fart
around the ranch,” Shawn kidded back. He knew that Jason had
plenty of ranch hands to move his deer blinds but it was his friend’s
way of forgetting about courtrooms and clients to come up and mess
around at his ranch. He also knew that Jason liked his company and
would just as soon spend his day off with Shawn than anyone else.
Jason was divorced and Shawn was single. They both liked football,
women and partying. Their approach to work was similar. Besides,
lawyers tend to hang out amongst themselves because most “regular”
people can’t stand them.
When Shawn got out of the truck to open the gate so that they could
drive through the sun was all but gone. After Jason made it through the
gate Shawn swung it closed and snapped the padlock into place locking
the precious twenty-five hundred acres of varmit free, prime deer hunting
heaven away from poachers. As he jumped back into the truck, he
glanced back again to barely see the dead bobcat’s eyes gleaming in
the last little bit of remaining light. Jason noticed his glance and detected
the disapproval that must have been apparent.
“God damn it, they’re pests,” he scowled, half laughing as if to
convince Shawn that he was taking the matter way too seriously.
“By the way, when are the depositions going to start in the Cantu case?”
“Week after next. Are you going to help take them or just leave
the work up to me as usual?”
“No, I was thinking you’ll do just fine on your own,” chuckled
Jason. After a moment of calculated silence by Shawn, he gave in.
“I’m going to take lead on these first ones.”
Shawn smiled.
“You know, if you’d just come on over, you’d have some help
from my troops and you wouldn’t always have to work everything
up yourself. You’ll also make more money.”
“I know. I’m just hesitant to pull the trigger I guess,” laughed Shawn
ironically as he noticed a nice sized buck just off the road in the twilight.
“Well, don’t sit on your a*s forever superstar. I’m going to need
somebody pretty quickly and . . . . .”
Just then the sound of “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly” theme song
interrupted Jason and diverted his attention away from his admonishment
of Shawn and toward his cell phone. Jason was a dedicated Clint Eastwood
fan and was so avid that he had set the movie's theme song as the ringer
tone on his phone. All Shawn could think of was that he was glad it
ended what was going to be the same redundant conversation he had
been engaging in with Jason for the past several weeks.
“Hello,” said Jason. “Hey Carlos, what’s going on? Any word on
how the ruling on that motion for summary judgment is going to
come out?”
Shawn knew immediately what the call was concerning. Jason had
a case filed in a nearby county against an oil rig drilling company that
had apparently been in charge of a rig site where a laborer had been
killed. Carlos was the local counsel that plaintiff’s lawyer’s typically
used when they had larger cases filed in that county. Actually, if the
case was big enough, there were three local guys you could lock up
and, by hiring them all, you could assure yourself that you would be
treated “fairly” in the county courthouse. The best local counsel always
worked for the plaintiff’s lawyers. The defense firms just didn’t pay
enough; especially when the local guy could make ten percent of a
multimillion dollar fee just by being present, looking pretty and
socializing with his buddy the judge enough to know that his side
would, at least, receive discretionary rulings and perhaps the inside
scoop on what orders were coming down.
Because he wasn’t involved in that case, Shawn became disinterested
and ignored the conversation. By now rain had begun to come down
in the form of sleet. Little specs of ice were building on the hood of the
truck and on the windshield around the area cleared by the wipers.
Inside the heater had the cab quite comfortable and the stereo was
playing ZZ Top. Another thing Jason and Shawn had in common was
their preference for music from the sixties and seventies and Shawn sat
back happily and listened how Jesus had just left Chicago and was
bound for New Orleans.
“Damn, it’s getting icy!” complained Jason. “Hey, hand me that
bottle of Jack.”
“Alright, but take it slow in this s**t,” admonished Shawn looking
out at the sleet coming down in the illumination of the headlights.
“This looks like it’s going to get worse.”
“Well, we have four-wheel drive and I know these hill country roads
well enough,” barked Jason, obviously fortified with confidence and
what was about four gulps from the bottle of Jack that was now about
half empty. “Once we get out of the hill country the ice will disappear
and we’ll have pretty decent road all the way back to the Valley.”
“Good,” was all Shawn said as he decided that another nip of Jack
wouldn’t hurt and reached for the bottle. They had been up since
before six in the morning and had basically been drinking all day but
Shawn didn’t feel particularly drunk. He did feel a little sleepy. Hiking
around a ranch all day will do that to you. By now on the stereo Eric
Clapton was at the crossroads falling down on his knees. Shawn’s
eyes were getting just a bit heavy and he decided he would shut them
and just listen to the music. As he sat back and closed his eyes, the
image of the dead bobcat floated inside his eyelids.
The shrill of the mockingbird seemed to pierce his ears. It was giving
him a headache; or perhaps the headache was already there. Shawn
opened his eyes. His eyes hurt and he could tell by the way they felt
that they were most definitely red. It was daylight and the sun looked
like it had been up for at least an hour. What the hell was this? The
truck was sitting at the bottom of a rather large bluff and about two
hundred yards from the road.
From what he could tell the drop had been around fifty feet of pretty
steep rocky hill into a trench and they had eventually come to a stop
not-so-conveniently created by a large boulder only after they had
apparently careened off of a couple of good sized oak trees and a
wooden rail fence. His shoulder/seat belt was still fastened and the
deployed air bag was hanging in his lap. He looked out of the passenger
side window at the mockingbird that was sitting on a part of fence
railing that had survived the collision. The bird was no more than five
feet away and he was screeching at Shawn like it was the bird’s fence
and it needed to know the vehicle’s insurance information.
Half dazed and completely confused, Shawn just stared at the bird for
a good minute trying to pull himself together and reconstruct what had
happened. He looked at his watch. It was working. According to his
watch it was eight fifteen. He felt so bad that looking at the minute hand
magnified by the little window displaying the date on his Rolex caused
his head to throb as his eyes adjusted. “Oh s**t!” he thought. “What happened?”
He looked over to see if Jason was okay and noticed for the first time
that he was alone in the truck.
After about ten minutes, Shawn mustered enough coherency to unbuckle
himself and get out of the truck. Slowly, he opened the door which, to
his surprise, opened easily considering the look of the scene from where
he was sitting. Before he stood up he noticed that the key was in the on
position as were the headlights. Fortunately, the stereo had stopped as he
did not think he could stand any more noise. On the floor by his feet was
an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. There was a smell of whiskey in the cab
but it was muted by the smell of oak, field grass and cow manure that rose
from the surroundings of the accident site.
Standing outside of the truck, Shawn noticed that the door on his side
was heavily creased and the passenger fender was badly dented. There
was a trench of tire tracks reaching all the way back up the hill and to
the road. Both tires on his side were flat. The hood was pushed up and
the front caved in from hitting the rock. It looked bad and he thought to
himself that he was glad they had decided to take the ranch truck back
home instead of Jason’s Mercedes which they had come up in. He
looked around for Jason but couldn’t find any trace. He began to walk
back up the hill toward the road.
“What the Hell happened?” he asked himself as he made his way up the
bluff onto the road. The sun had been up for awhile and things were much
warmer than they were when he shut his eyes the night before. The ice
had long since melted from the roadway and you really couldn’t tell where
they had and had not been traveling. He stood at the crown of the road
and looked both ways. The pavement was desolate. His only company
was a raccoon that had apparently made the mistake of trying to cross
the road at the wrong time. It was bloated and partially frozen.
“Probably just a pest,” Shawn said to himself sarcastically thinking of
the bobcat and of Jason. His head was clearing and he was beginning
to get worried because it seemed really strange that Jason was gone.
He waited for about ten minutes to see if any cars would pass by and
then, thinking that perhaps Jason was passed out in the grass somewhere
near the truck, he retraced his path back. About a hundred feet from the
vehicle he noticed a sign that had apparently been knocked over by
Jason’s truck. It wasn’t a big sign but it wasn’t small either. “Reinhart’s
Crafts, Antiques and Smoked Meats . . .exit one mile,” the sign read.
That made sense. The southern country was full of crafts, antiques and
smoked meats as towns like Fredericksburg and Kerrville, with a heavy
German culture, had for years been the focal points for antique hunting
and, like any good German community, for sausage and smoked meats.
The only problem was that Shawn had no idea where in the southern
country he was. “Dumbass!” he thought of himself, “Get to your cell
phone.” He started down the hill back to the truck as fast as he could
without losing his footing. He didn’t want to end up tumbling down like
they had apparently done last night. When he reached the truck he
began rifling across the floorboards looking for his phone. It was in
the back of the cab under a hunting vest. He grabbed it and stood up
outside to call Jason’s number first and then his office second. The
display was totally blank. “S**t!” he thought, “I knew I should have
charged that son-of-a-b***h night before last.” He always plugged in
his phone just so this wouldn’t happen and now, the one time he was
lazy, he was screwed.
He searched the grass and trees nearby just to see if Jason had,
by chance, crawled somewhere and passed out, but his friend was
no where to be found. He chose to get back to the road to flag down
a car or, at least, to survey the landscape from what appeared to
be the highest point from which to look.
Back on the road he stood waiting for someone to drive by. By now
the sun was well up in the sky. He was glad it wasn’t summer as by
this time he would be sweltering in the southern heat and he welcomed
the slight chill he felt. As the sun rose higher, the chill gave way to
complete comfort and he removed the jacket he had worn on the
way up and slung it across his shoulder so he wouldn’t get too warm.
No cars passed by. He looked out over the field where they had
crashed and could see a cluster of buildings in the distance across
a pasture. He was growing impatient and uncomfortable as hunger
began to gnaw at his stomach. The fact that he had not brushed his
teeth nor changed his underwear since the day before only made him
more irritable. “F**k it,” he decided and headed for the buildings
across the field.
It had been about thirty minutes and, although the temperature was
more than cool enough to keep him from sweating, Shawn felt himself
beginning to get winded. The fact that he was borderline hung over
from Jack Daniels and dazed from whatever accident he couldn’t
remember didn’t help. The wind was beginning to pick up and its
faint howling in his ears only tended to make his already existing
headache and grumpy disposition worse. The buildings were getting
closer and he came upon a corral about a hundred yards from a
well built, freshly painted barn. A dirt driveway extended from the
double barn doors several hundred feet to a farmhouse. The house
was old but well kept and was also freshly painted and appeared
large enough to contain at least four or five bedrooms in addition to
the other rooms one would expect to find in a house of that type.
There were chimneys at both ends of the structure and a porch that
extended all the way around. The second floor had windows on all
sides but no balconies. There were rose bushes planted all along the
cliché white picket fence that closed off the yard in a typical rectangular
fashion and, as Shawn came up the driveway past the back of the house
toward the front, he could make out several rows of vegetables which
obviously constituted a garden a few feet from what seemed to be the
back door.
Circling the picket fence perimeter, he walked through a gate which
crossed the little sidewalk that ran from the driveway to the front of
the porch. He climbed the three wooden steps to the porch level and
approached the door. Through a traditional screen door he could see
inside the farmhouse as the solid front door was left open. Shawn
assumed the door was open because the climate was so nice. It is
rare when you can open your house to the outside temperatures and
be comfortable without air conditioning or heating and it was definitely
one of those rare days. It was hard to believe that the night before had
been so miserable.
“Hello,” he called through the screen as he rapped on the door several
times. He could not detect any movement in the front room and did not
hear anything for quite awhile. Then, faintly and only upon serious
concentration, he could make out what sounded like a radio broadcast.
From the way it sounded he could tell it was not coming from a very
sophisticated stereo system but from a rather old fashioned box style
transistor radio. As if that wasn’t enough, what he heard sounded like
a crop report. “This is too much,” he thought to himself, “Can this be
anymore stereotypical?” After several moments, he heard an unsteady,
aged voice calling out from one of the back rooms.
“Who is it?” the voice inquired. “What do you want?”
“Hello. Ma’am my name is Bradley Adams and my friend and I were
in an accident up the road a bit and my friend is lost and I need a little help.”
“Hold on,” was the response. He waited outside the screen door
until a very slight frame made its way into and across the front room
over to within a few feet on the other side of the threshold. It was a
small elderly woman. She appeared to be in her late sixties or perhaps
her seventies and wore an old fashioned house dress just like you
would expect to see on a woman of her age in this setting. Her posture
was slightly curved forward but she looked, for the most part,
well preserved, healthy and pleasant. Her hair was gray and she
wore wire frame glasses. “Come in young man,” she offered.
“Thank you Ma’am,” Shawn said graciously.
“You say you had an accident?” the lady asked.
“What happened?”
“I’m not quite sure. I wasn’t driving and either I was asleep
when it happened or I just can’t remember.”
“Where did it happen?”
“Right off the road that runs along the top of that bluff on the
far side of your back pasture.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No. I don’t think so . . .I mean I feel fine.”
“What did you say your name is again?”
“Shawn McBride.”
“Hello Shawn, I’m Helga Reinhart. You say you had a
friend with you?”
“Yes. My friend Jason Sanders was driving and I can’t find him.
May I use your phone Ms. Reinhart?”
“I’m sorry but my phone has been out for the last three days. I only
have one phone in the house and I’m afraid it’s so old that it finally
gave out. If you would like to wait around for awhile, my nephew
Helmet is coming out to pick up some things to take to our store and
he’s supposed to bring me a phone when he comes. He can give you
a lift or you can use my new phone, provided he brings me one that works.”
“That would be great. Thanks.” He looked around the room
and noticed all the old fashioned furnishings. There were so many
pieces that the room seemed fairly cluttered.
“Why don’t you let me fix you something to eat? You look like
you could use some breakfast.”
Shawn was starving but really didn’t want to impose. “I’m fine.
You don’t need to bother.”
“Nonsense. It is absolutely no bother and I was going to make
myself something anyway. Come out to the kitchen with me and
at least share some bacon and eggs with me.”
Bacon and eggs sounded wonderful. “Thank you very much Ms. Reinhart,”
he said and followed her through the front room around a corner and
into a large, very clean kitchen. The smell of biscuits was just making its
way through the door of an old but well maintained oven.
“Call me Helga. Sit down at the table and let me pour you some coffee.”
Shawn sat down at a long wooden table. It was weathered and scratched
and had undoubtedly seen plenty of action. It was long enough for four full
sized long backed chairs to sit comfortably on both sides with one at each
end. He sat down on one side where he could look out the back kitchen
door at the yard outside.
“You have a nice place, Helga. It looks like you really keep this place up.”
“Thank you. I try. This place has been in my family for five generations. I
was born in this house upstairs and my husband died in this house right
there in that front room. I have help keeping it up. My nephew Helmet
and my daughter Tilda and her husband are out here quite a bit checking
on me and helping out.”
Shawn thought the story about Helga’s husband dying in the front
room seemed a bit curious but he decided to leave it alone not wanting
to do anything to upset the kind woman. His gaze shifted out the kitchen
window past the barn to another building at the end of another dirt
driveway. It had a chimney and smoke was rising.
“What’s that building?” he asked.
“Oh, that’s the smokehouse.” Helga answered with a tone of pride.
Then it dawned on Shawn that the smokehouse, the antiques cluttering
the house, and the last name Reinhart could only mean one thing.
“Oh, you have the store. I saw your sign up on the road.”
“That’s right. Best smoked meats in three counties.”
“I saw that. Antiques and crafts too, right?”
“Yep,” she said as she scooped out a healthy portion of scrambled
eggs onto the plate she had set before him. “Try this,” she demanded
as she placed two links of sausage alongside the eggs in addition to
two strips of bacon.
He not only tasted the sausage and bacon and eggs, he wolfed them
down along with three biscuits smothered in strawberry preserves.
“That is delicious,” he complimented sincerely.
“Thank you. Don’t worry, I’ll send you home with some when you
leave. Maybe if you tell your friends, they might stop by for some
one day. It’s always good to get your name out there.”
Shawn couldn’t help but think how lucky he was to have come
across Helga in his hour of need. He knew very well how suspicious
people tend to be of strangers and how rare it was to find someone
actually willing to go out of their way to help out. Yes, Helga was indeed
an old fashioned kindly old lady. The whole situation seemed a bit surreal
and dreamlike. The barn, the farmhouse with the picket fence, the garden,
the antiques, and this sweet old lady in the old fashioned clothes
determined to make sure he was fed all added up to a scene from any
number of old black and white movies. Yes he had lucked out for sure
but as he thought to himself how fortune had smiled upon him, he began
to wonder what had happened to Jason.
“You haven’t happened to see my friend?” he asked.
“No one has been through here for days except for Helmet.”
Shawn found himself in a dilemma. Should he wait here to use the
phone or should he go back to the truck and see if Jason eventually
shows up with a tow truck? Surely Jason is coming back for his friend
and his fifty thousand dollar truck even if they are both banged up a bit.
He then became more than a little irritated that his buddy had just taken
off and not at least left a note or some direction instructing Shawn of the
plan now that they were stranded in the middle of nowhere and missing
work. He reminded himself that he needed to call the office once he
could get a line out to let his secretary/receptionist know that something
had happened and that she needed to be on stand-by in case something
weird happened like Jason having been abducted by aliens and not coming back.
He thought surely Jason would show up with help and probably be
annoyed that he was gone and holding up the process of getting things
wrapped up. “Helga, I think I’m going to go back up to the truck and see
if my friend shows up. If he doesn’t show up in an hour or so, would you
mind if I came back and used your new phone?”
“No honey, I don’t mind at all. If he does come back and you boys
need any help, you feel free to get back here and we can call for
whatever you need.”
“Thank you for everything, Helga. You have been wonderful.” He felt
like he should kiss her on the cheek like he would his mother but he didn’t
really know her and he didn’t want to do anything that might unsettle the
dear woman. He started back through the screen door.
“Wait a minute,” she called out, “Don’t forget this.”
He turned around and she was holding out a small brown paper
bag in her right hand.
“It’s a pound of smoked sausage. Half pound of regular and a half
pound of spicy. If you like it, remember where you got it and tell
your friends.”
“Thanks again. I’m very grateful.” He started out across the porch,
down the sidewalk and back through the pasture.
When he reached the truck he looked at his watch. It was now
almost eleven. He looked around but still no Jason. He sat back in
the passenger seat and looked over toward the damaged fence.
The mockingbird was gone. He thought that it might help pass time
to listen to some music but the battery was dead. Of course it was
if the lights were left on all night.
It was almost eleven thirty now and this was getting either ridiculous
or scary. Shawn began to set mental parameters for how long he would
wait here before he hiked back to Helga’s to use the phone. He calculated,
quite arbitrarily, that Helga would probably get her visit from her nephew
and her new phone by early afternoon and so he might as well wait here
till at least one o’clock or so and so he tried to occupy himself for at least
another hour or so since by now both hands were close to pointing straight
up at the golden crown at the top of his watch dial.
Now he was getting a little thirsty. He remembered the cooler that was
in the bed of the truck. At least it was yesterday. He climbed back out
of his seat and walked around to the back. Luckily, if not surprisingly,
the cooler was still sitting upright and the lid was still secured. He quickly
flung the box open and was satisfied to see that there was still plenty of
ice inside. Ice keeps a long time when it’s cold outside. He fumbled
through the contents hoping that there might be a bottle of water he
could drink but, not uncharacteristically of Jason, they had brought a
vastly more abundant supply of beer than they had water and all he
could fish out of the ice was a cold Heineken. “It could be worse,” he
thought as he resealed the cooler.
As the lid closed he found himself looking directly into the eyes of the
dead bobcat that had obviously been jarred about in the accident but
apparently not enough to throw it from the truck. The eyes, now with a
gray film over them, seemed to stare at him. It was starting to bloat and
soon it would smell. Even though he thought it would probably serve
Jason right to have dead animal stench in the back of his expensive ranch
toy, he thought it would be best under the circumstances to throw it out
into the tall grass. He searched the bed of the truck for a rag or something
so that he wouldn’t have to touch the dead animal directly. He found one
of Jason’s hunting gloves. “Perfect,” he thought as he put on the glove,
picked up the dead animal by the tail and flung it over to the other side
of the fence. He dropped the glove back into the bed and then went around
to the cab to get the bottle opener out of the console.
Yes, he was pissed off that Jason had wrecked the truck and then taken off.
He was pissed that he was stranded with no clue what was being done to
get him home and he was pissed that he was missing work just to sit and
do nothing. Despite being so irritated at life, the ice cold Heineken tasted
really good and he drank it somewhat quickly. It went down so good that
he thought to himself: “Why not have another? There’s nothing else to do
out here.” He grabbed another cold one from the cooler, opened it up and
started on his second. It might be good idea to climb back to the road and
see if there’s any activity going on. “Better take a leak first,” he thought.
He made sure he relieved himself behind the side of the truck away from
the road. As he stood there he caught glimpse of Helga’s farm. “Hope she
doesn’t have a telescope,” he thought as he zipped up his jeans and turned
to go up the bluff to the roadway. As he was about halfway up the slope he
heard an engine speed by. He quickened his pace and hurried as best he
could to get to the top of the bluff but by the time he was standing on the
road whatever engine he had heard was far out of sight. It was past twelve
thirty. The sun was straight up. He stood in the middle of the road, half of a
still-cold Heineken in his hand. The wind had picked up just a little but not
enough to make it uncomfortably chilly. His frustration and irritation now
began to turn to utter boredom and he started to pace aimlessly up and
down the pavement just waiting for something to happen.
After about fifteen minutes of pacing he decided to backtrack up the
road to see if he could discern how the ordeal began last night as he
dozed listening to golden oldies. He walked back toward where he
surmised they had begun to leave the road. As he tried to make out
tracks that had long since melted away with the sleet that would have
evidenced them, he noticed that, not more than about three feet from
the pavement there were a couple of thick wooden posts snapped and
splintered with only a few inches left rising above the grade. Just past the
remnants of the posts was an area of gravel on the road’s shoulder that
had obviously been pushed and scraped out of place as something passed
through it sideways. He could tell that whatever had spun through this
gravel had jerked to the right and traveled straight down the bluff.
Standing in this spot it was pretty obvious to tell that the object that had
left the roadway at this point was the truck with the “Flying W” branded
in the seats.
Shawn started to walk down the path he perceived as the trail they
had followed toward the eventual dead end of the large rock they
crashed into. As he got closer to the truck he, once again, passed by
the downed sign for Reinhart’s. The splintered posts and other physical
characteristics made it apparent that this was the sign that had been snapped
off up on the shoulder near the highway. Shawn had handled enough
vehicular accident cases to know that, technically, that sign was way too
close to the roadway. A little slide in the ice and Jason would not have
had much time or chance to correct his path before smashing into the sign
if all the timing was just right, or wrong.
By now it was one thirty and Shawn was a combination of exasperation
at Jason’s absence and worry at his disappearance. No cars were passing
by on the little two lane road. He couldn’t even find a road sign to tell him
what road he was on. “I’d better head back to Helga’s,” he concluded and
so he pulled a link of sausage from the bag he had placed in the driver’s seat,
opened another cold beer from the back and started back across the pasture
toward the little farm compound. “This stuff is really pretty good,” he thought
as he bit off a mouthful of the spicy and washed it down with cold lager. He
began to think about the fact that, had a client come into his office with serious
injuries under the same circumstances, he might be prone to sue Reinhart’s
store for negligence in placing that sign so close to the road. He wasn’t hurt
and Helga was sweet so he pushed his lawyer mindset aside and started
looking forward to seeing her again and using her telephone.
When he reached the screen door again, he tapped twice and said,
in an audible but not raised voice, “Helga, it’s Shawn McBride. I came
back to use your phone.”
“That’s fine. Come in and sit down. Phone’s not in yet but it should
be in about an hour.”
Shawn swung open the screen door and Helga came walking out of the
kitchen and motioned for him to sit on an old sofa with flower designed
cloth upholstery that just had to be antique. She had a soft smile on her
face and she sat down in an old rocking chair facing the sofa and began
to rock slowly back and forth. Shawn sat down at one end of the sofa
and tried to make small talk as he was apparently going to have to wait
for awhile longer.
“My friend never showed up.”
“I gathered. Would you like something to drink?”
“No thank you. I’m fine.” He had just finished his last beer as he passed
her barn and dropped the empty bottle into a trash bin sitting just to the
right of the barn doors.
“How badly is you car hurt?”
“It’s a truck actually, but it seems to be pretty banged up.”
“I’m sorry. You said you don’t remember how the accident happened?”
“No Maam. It looks like we may have slid off the road a bit and hit
that sign for your store.”
“Oh my! That’s not the first time that sign has been hit.”
“Yes, I don’t want to alarm you but I think your sign may be illegally
too close to the roadway.” After he blurted that out he immediately
thought that he might have been well advised to soften his language
and found some synonym for the word “illegally”.
“Do you think so Shawn? Goodness, I hate to hear that. What makes
you think that? Are you sure I can’t bring you something to drink?”
“No thank you. Well I know a little about the rules for sign placement
on highways because I’m an attorney.”
“I see. You’re a lawyer.” He could see the curve of her smile turn
down just a bit but it still looked quite pleasant. He was used to seeing
smiles disappear whenever he told folks for the first time that he was a lawyer.
“That must be very interesting. What type of law do you practice?”
she inquired.
He braced himself for the reaction to his next answer. This was the
response that almost invariably wiped smiles off of the faces of new
acquaintances. “I practice mostly personal injury law.”
“I see,” she said in a manner that was certainly more polite than he
had generally seen before and certainly nicer than he would expect
coming from someone who had grown up in the conservative, small town,
German culture of the southern country.
“My husband and I were sued one time,” she offered quite gratuitously.
“We hired a hand once to work on our barn and he apparently fell and
broke his back.”
“Really?” Shawn inquired. “That’s unfortunate. How did he fall?”
“My husband had built a scaffold so he could paint the upper part of
the barn but apparently the hand thought it was too much trouble to move
around and so he just used a old ladder instead without tying it off. One
afternoon he had been drinking beer and I think he was drunk and just
slipped off the ladder and fell down about twelve feet flat on his back.”
“Did you have workman’s compensation or any other type of insurance
to cover an occurrence like that?” he asked thinking that if they had worker’s
comp, there was no lawsuit to be made against them. He could tell from
her face what the answer was.
“No. We had no insurance. The hand found some lawyer in San Antonio
to take the case and after we spent about three thousand dollars on our
own attorney, we decided to just pay the guy off because it seemed
cheaper and easier at the time.”
“I’m very sorry,” Shawn offered. He knew there was always two sides
to every lawsuit and he couldn’t pass on whether the case against the
Reinharts was meritorious or not but he knew that decency demanded
that he at least let her think his opinion was that the hand and his attorney
had basically stolen money from them.
“It upset Freddie so much he came home after signing the papers and
had a heart attack right there in that sofa.” Water started to well up in
her eyes but she caught herself and quickly changed the subject by offering
him some fresh lemonade.
Shawn immediately deciphered that Freddie was obviously her husband
that died here in this front room. To make matters worse, he apparently
died because he had been sued. The comfort Shawn felt initially in this
kind lady’s house was now long gone and he felt like s**t, embarrassed
and wishing he had gone to medical school. His only thought was to join
Helga in changing the subject and he answered: “I’d love some lemonade.
Thank you.”
Helga went off back into the kitchen softly singing some song that he could
not make out. He began to wonder just how long nephew Helmet would be
bringing the new phone so he could start the process of getting out of there
and back home.
“Where does your nephew live?” he asked.
“Oh, Helmet lives very close by. It’s probably about a quarter mile on the
other side of the road where you ran off.”
Shawn wished he had simply crossed over the road and wound up at
Helmet’s on the first try. He would have had a phone to use three or
four hours ago.
“I didn’t see any homes on that side of the road.”
“You have to look really hard because it is hidden by a bunch of pine
trees. Lot’s of folks miss it.”
“Do you think he is there now?” Shawn asked thinking that might be
the quickest way to solve the situation.
“No Dear, Helmet had to run errands and he had to stop up at the store
before he heads this way and so I’m afraid there probably wouldn’t be
anyone home at his house.”
“I see.”
“Don’t worry, he’ll be here before you know it.”
Shawn sat back, waiting for his lemonade and wishing it was
“before he knew it”.
After about seven or eight minutes Helga came back into the front
room carrying a silver tray with a large glass pitcher of lemonade on
it aside two glass tumblers filled with ice cubes. They were the kind
of cubes you got out of ice trays you filled with water and froze; not
from an ice maker. She poured him a glass and handed it to him with
a coaster so he could set the glass down without making a ring on the
antique coffee table. He thanked her again and took a sip. It was tasty.
A little tart, but homemade tasting like he had expected. She sat back
down in the rocking chair; took a sip from her glass and then got a look
on her face like she was ready to discuss something serious.
“I know you think it’s our fault your friend crashed. You think that
if we had put that sign back off the road and been more careful that
you’d probably be home right now instead of sitting here wasting time
drinking lemonade with a silly old lady.”
Shawn was taken totally aback. Her tone was not mean. It was not
accusatory. It was rather kind but serious like she had thought the
situation through and was trying to address the obvious knowing
how his mind must work.
“Helga, I’m certainly not saying it was your fault. I can’t even remember
what happened and so any thought I may have is just a guess.” He
wondered whom she had included when she said “our fault”.
“Yes. You are being nice but if our sign is too close to the road and
you hit it, I would think that we are, at least guilty of . . .
what do you call it. . .negligence.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. I was really just telling you about the
sign because you said it had been hit before and I thought you might
want to do something to make sure you don’t have to keep replacing it.”
He thought that sounded good.
“Thank you for that,” she replied. “I just don’t want to have a situation
hanging over my head. Like I told you earlier, I’ve been through being
sued before and I don’t want it to happen again.”
Shawn was almost insulted. “Helga, I have absolutely no intention of
suing you or anyone. I’m not hurt and you’ve been nothing but considerate
and nice to me. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I could talk to Helmet and my daughter. We all own the store together
and so the sign belongs to all of us. Maybe we could give you a little
something and we could all put this behind us.”
“Helga, again, I’m not going to make a claim against you or Helmet or
your daughter or anyone else over this. I just want to use your phone
and get on back to McAllen and forget about this day, except for that
fine sausage you gave me.”
“Well you say that now but, tell me hypothetically, how long would you
have to sue us if you ever decided to do so?”
Shawn knew she was asking what the statute of limitations was for
a tort action. It was an easy answer so he told her. “For the sake
of argument, legally someone has two years to file their lawsuit before
they are barred from pursuing. Helga this is absurd. I’m not going to
sue you tomorrow or next year, so relax.”
“But you don’t understand. I’ll be worried about this for the next two
years! I’m old and I don’t want to spend two years of what life I have
left worried about being summoned to court and bothered with lawyers
again. No offense.”
“You have nothing to worry about. Even if I sued you, what would my
damages be? I’m not hurt. It’s not my truck that got wrecked. All I’ve
had is a half day of hiking and a little inconvenience and that doesn’t
amount to a worthwhile lawsuit.”
“Still something could change. I hear all the time about people getting
into accidents and then they go to a doctor some days later and all of a
sudden they have a back injury or something else wrong with them. You
seem really nice but so did our farm hand before he got drunk and fell
off the ladder. I wish we could work something out so I could just be
through with this awful situation.”
About at his wit’s end, Shawn could only think to ask:
“What would you suggest?”
“What if the we paid you a little money and you signed something that
said you were settling the claim with us and . . . what’s the term . . .
releasing us from anything in the future?”
Actually, for unsophisticated folks, Shawn thought that was a pretty
smart solution. Consideration would be exchanged. There would be
a signed release. That would end any possibility of future problems
for them. He just thought it was completely unnecessary. “It’s needless,
I promise.”
“But you’re a lawyer and you could draw up the paper yourself in
no time. We could bring you some money; cash if you like and that
would be it and then there would be no uncertainty. I would have
peace of mind and you would be compensated for your inconvenience.”
As put out as Shawn was with the suggestion, he began to both wear
down and realize that he could probably walk away from this horrible
day with a little money. After all, the sign probably did cause, at least
in part, the accident. He had to waste the entire day (it was past two
at this point) waiting just to contact anyone who might be able to come
get him. He figured a missed day at work was worth something, after
all if you broke down his income from last year into fifty forty-hour weeks,
he made close to five hundred dollars an hour.
As he kept trying to justify the suggestion by adding up what he arguably
perceived as possible damages, he began to think: “Why not? These
people are pretty simple. If they want to throw some money at me over
this deal, let them.” He wondered if they had even thought about Jason
since it was really he that would have any worthwhile damage claim since
it was his truck that was smashed. Hell, for all Shawn knew Jason could
be hurt and really have a claim. No, it wasn’t his problem what they wanted to
do with Jason and they were only asking him about his claim.
Again he asked: “Helga, I think this is silly but what did you have in mind?”
“Well I suspect you are a busy man and I assume missing a day of work
probably has cost you something. I want to be fair. What if we gave you
a thousand dollars and you sign a paper and walk away?”
Shawn was a little amazed that the number was that high. He was
expecting more in the neighborhood of a hundred dollars and that
would have been fine with him. Truth be told, the release would be
just as good whether they paid one dollar or one thousand.
Now he had a crisis of conscience. He could suggest that a much
smaller sum would be just as legally adequate or he could take advantage
of the situation and agree to the suggested amount. A thousand dollars
must be a lot of cash to these folks. As a lawyer, he had never negotiated
an offer down to less. He decided that he would not start today.
“If you think that’s fair, a thousand is fine with me,” he said with
a deliberate note of hesitancy. This was like found money or getting
that lucky scratch-off on a lottery ticket. It was like he unwittingly caught
a leprechaun in a trap and now was going to receive his pot of gold.
He thought again about the scene yesterday with the snared bobcat.
He smiled to himself, “Today the bobcat’s name is Reinhart.” His mood
was much more pitiless than it had been the day before. After all, when
you think about it, a thousand was probably fair just for the annoyance.
His plaintiff attorney’s brain kept gathering steam and Helga’s idea made
more sense as each minute ticked by.
“Fine, fine, thank you. I’ll feel much better,” Helga gasped as if she
was actually thankful that she had just agreed to give up four figures.
How miserable had her previous lawsuit experience been, Shawn wondered.
Had it cost them thousands in attorney fees only to cost even more to
settle the case? He wished he knew more about the case just out of lawyer
curiosity. It made him feel bad that his profession did that to people from
time to time. As bad as he felt, he still planned on taking his easy money.
“Bring me some paper and a pen and I’ll draw up a simple release.”
He sat down at the long kitchen table and began putting down the
standard boilerplate language that would be short but binding and
look like he had done a professional job. He didn’t even think to ask
if Helga had a computer or a typewriter. He just started printing.
As he got to the part about the release being binding on all heirs,
assignees, successors in interest, etc., he heard a vehicle coming up
the driveway toward the house.
He rose from the chair and looked out the kitchen window to see
what was going on. An old pickup truck, it looked like a Chevy,
pulled up and stopped. Helga was walking over to talk to the driver
and she stood there speaking to him for a couple of minutes before
getting out of the way so he could open the door and get out. Shawn
was certain it must be nephew Helmet since the man was carrying a
box that looked like it was the right size for a phone. The man and
Helga walked around to the bed of the old truck and lifted up what
appeared to be a tarp and looked for a few seconds at whatever
was beneath it. They both turned and began to walk toward the
house. Shawn sat back down and kept putting down the finishing
touches to his legalese. A second later, he heard the screen door
open and close.
“Shawn, Helmet is here with the phone.”
“Okay,” he answered.
A moment later Helmet came walking through the kitchen door.
“How ya doing?” Helmet asked in a pleasant country voice. He was
as typical as you might expect. He was tall, about six foot three and
had broad shoulders and weathered skin. It was easy to see he was
used to hard work and Shawn became a little intimidated by
his presence.
“Fine, thanks,” Shawn uttered back. “I’ve been waiting for you.
I hope you brought a phone.”
“Got it right here,” Helmet responded and he proceeded to open
the box and take out a pretty standard phone to plug into the one
phone jack located right by the refrigerator door. It wasn’t even
cordless. Shawn sat and wondered when the last time he used a
phone like that might have been.
“Sorry I’m running late,” Helmet apologized.
“Shawn, he had some trouble last night,” Helga added.
“I’m sorry he’s so late.”
“It’s no problem,” Shawn answered thinking that if the phone had
come too soon he might, in all likelihood, be a thousand dollars poorer.
“I hope it was nothing serious.”
“No,” Helmet explained. “We had a predator at my farm last night
and I wounded it. It took half the morning to track it down and finally kill it.”
Shawn thought to himself that Helmet should have his farm surrounded
with snares like Jason’s ranch and then he wouldn’t have those types
of problems. “What kind of predators do you have out here?” Shawn
asked just in the vein of making conversation.
“You’d be surprised. Foxes, coyotes, bobcats, you name it. Last year
we had a mountain lion taking off goats. Farmers have to protect
their assets.”
“I understand,” replied Shawn.
“Aunt Helga tells me you had some trouble,” Helmet stated
with some curiosity.
Suddenly Shawn felt extremely uncomfortable. Dealing with Helga
had been one thing but now he wondered how Helmet would receive
this idea of settling out a nonexistent claim for that many dollars without
wanting to talk to anybody or, at least, see what Shawn was going to
do first. Shawn just knew that this guy was going to view him as some
type of con man shyster who was trying to take advantage of his dear
old aunt. He was certain Helmet was not going to be happy with him
and Helmet was a big man. Greed gave way to intelligent discretion
and he began to explain to Helmet the same line of reasoning that he
had attempted to use to convince Helga earlier that settlement wasn’t necessary.
Helmet sat down at the kitchen table. He happened to see the handwritten
release that Shawn had been preparing. “Is this the paper my aunt made
you draw up?”
“Yes.”
“Look,” Helmet said with a submissive smile on his face, “When it comes
to stuff like this, Aunt Helga is the boss and she calls the shots. I appreciate
what you are telling me but if doing this is going to make her feel better and
it gives her peace of mind, I’m not getting in the way.”
That sounded good to Shawn. Now, if he could only get his money and
use the phone he would be on his way.
“Can we sign the paper and get this over with?” Helga asked. “Shawn,
can you take a check or do you need cash?”
“A check is fine, Helga,” Shawn replied. He wanted to wrap this up and
get going while everyone was in a good mood and he didn’t feel like waiting
while some little old lady counted and recounted out that much money.
“Just sign here for yourself and here on behalf of the store and that’s it.”
Helga signed the one page release Shawn had drafted and then he signed
it and it was officially executed. Actually, it should have been notarized but
Shawn was willing to risk it that the check would clear and he wasn’t planning
on suing anyway so it didn’t really matter.
Helga left the kitchen and then came back about a minute later with a
checkbook and a fresh glass of lemonade. She handed the lemonade to
Shawn, opened the checkbook and asked again for his last name.
“McBride,” he reminded her and a second later the check was in his hands
made out to him for one thousand dollars. Easy money! He took a big gulp
of lemonade. It was good; tart but good.
“I gotta go Aunt Helga,” Helmet announced and he headed for the kitchen door.
“Wait here a minute, dear,” Helga instructed Shawn. “I’ll be right back.”
She walked out the back door behind Helmet. The door was left open and
Shawn could hear that they were having a conversation but he couldn’t tell
what was being said or discussed.
“Time to get out of here,” Shawn thought and he skipped over to the new
phone, one grand richer. He was wondering how long it would take his friend
to believe the story he had to tell him. He hoped that Jason was alright and
was still worried that he had seemed to disappear all day. “Aha, dial tone,”
Shawn said to himself and dialed Jason’s cell phone. He could hear it ringing.
After about the third ring Shawn could barely make out a little tune coming in
from outside the window. He knew he recognized it but he just couldn’t make
it out. He moved the phone away from his ear to discern it better. Now he
could hear it and he grew chilled as he listened to the final measure of the
Clint Eastwood theme song. He looked out the kitchen window toward the
sound and saw both Helga and Helmet looking in the back of Helmet’s truck.
The song ended. They both turned around and glared at Shawn peeking
through the window. He wanted to vomit. He wasn’t sure exactly what was
going on but he had a good idea that he needed get away and fast.
He turned to dart through the front room and out the screen door. All of a
sudden his head started throbbing and his vision got blurry and he felt like
he was going to fall. He tried to right himself by grabbing onto the long
kitchen table but his knees were giving out. The last thing he saw before
he fell was the glass of lemonade that Helga had handed him with the
check. The lemonade!
When Shawn came to he was somewhere he had never been. It was dark
and it smelled like smoke. The walls were naked boards with no paper or
paneling and he knew it wasn’t the farmhouse. The dirt floor and the smell
made him realize immediately that he was in the smokehouse. As his blurred
vision cleared, he slowly made out a form lying on a board about ten feet
away from him. It was Jason. He had been shot in the leg and in the head.
His eyes were open and staring right at Shawn. He tried to scream but
something had him around the throat. It was a rope and it had been
slipped over his neck like a noose and his hands were tied behind his back.
Shivering he looked over to his left and saw the backs of Helmet and Helga
standing over Jason.
“He showed up at my place last night, bitching about the weather and
complaining about our sign,” Helmet recounted to Helga.
“How much money did you offer him?” Helga asked.
“Five thousand. He looked like a real slicker.”
“Did he take it?” Helga inquired further.
“Hell no! He said that even though his truck was insured, he didn’t
care and that he was going to go to the doctor and make sure he didn’t
need physical therapy or something like that, and that we needed to
watch where we put our sign or something like that. Hell Helga, I can’t
remember everything!”
“It doesn’t matter Helmet, a predator is a predator. You’ve got to
protect your property. Now go put up another sign. There are lots
of ranches around here and it sure seems that lawyers like to hunt.”
“Okay, Helga, but it seems we haven’t had a lawyer come through
like this for quite awhile. The last four times the sign got hit it was
just regular people driving too close to the shoulder.”
“Well, maybe we’re weeding them out slowly in our neck of the
woods. Anyway, we got two this time,” she replied proudly.
“What about your guy? It sounded like he almost didn’t want
the money,” asked Helmet.
“You know, Helga, you would have had to let him go,” he continued.
“Yes, he was kinda nice, but in the end, he decided to take it. The
lawyers always take the money or threaten to sue you for more.
Other folks just don’t seem to be that way, but yes, this one wasn’t too
bad . . . . for a damn lawyer.”
At this point they both turned around to notice that Shawn had
regained his consciousness.
“Seems like kind of a shame” Helmet said as he walked over and
pulled on the rope that ran up to a rafter, through a pulley and down
around Shawn’s neck. Shawn’s feet left the ground and his tongue
grew thick in his mouth. His eyes began to bulge and just before he
strangled he could hear Helga say: “Well, it’s like Freddie always said.
They’re nothing but a nuisance. Just pests.”
By the next morning the temperature had dropped somewhat but the
sun was rising brightly in a clear and picturesque sky. Just a few hundred
yards off of a winding hill country road, the smell of freshly made biscuits
was making its way from the Reinhart’s farmhouse down the footpath that
ran past the barn and over to the smokehouse. If you drove by very slowly
you might notice that a downed fence had been recently patched together
again until full-scale repairs could be made. Back up the road, a brand new
sign advertised the crafts, antiques and smoked meats that could be purchased
at Reinhart’s store. This time the sign was further from the pavement,
but only an inch or two.
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