Me and Jack sat at the small wooden table in our small wooden house watching as our mom and dad argued with each other again. This was the second time today, we were starting to worry what would happen when I seen our father pull out his volcanic pistol and pulled the hammer back and point it dead at our mothers forehead.
"I'll blow your brains out right here you filthy bitch", he gave her a look of hate as he tightened his grip on the gun. Jack was sixteen at the time; he always wore his blue overalls with a black thermal under for the cold nights. He kept his short brown hair cut neatly out of his face, one time we didn't have money for a barber so we took turns cutting our own hair. Our mother said we looked like two drunken fools woke up from a bad prank. He jumped up and ran towards the two, Jack stood in-between our mother and the gun aimed at him now.
"You'll have to kill me first". He starred our father down.
"you think I won't"? Our father looked at Jack and grinned.
"I don't have time for this," he lowered the gun and walked into the house. Sitting in his favorite chair just in front of the door he pulled a bottle of whiskey from his long pockets and took a long drink. Our mother sat outside while jack held onto her.
"what's the problem, Jack," our father mumbled. His eyes were closed shut. Jack stood up and walked into the house. He grabbed the pistol from the end table and pointed at our father.
"get out."
Our father laughed. "you don't have th—"
POWW! The loud crack of the pistol made me jump from my seat and fall into the corner of the kitchen. Our father sat in the couch with a hole in his stomach, blood poured from the wound as he looked up at Jack.
Smoke still rose from the barrel of the gun.
"get out, now."
He looked down on our father and before he could move Jack plugged the man with three more shots. "Jack, what have you done?" Our mother looked horrified as she walked into the house to see her alcoholic husband bleeding to death in his chair. That night Jack and I buried our father a mile from our house by the small town of Armadillo.
A few days passed and our mother just sat outside, I heard her and jack talking outside,
"I did what I had to do, there was no other way", jack looked at our mother from the chair on the porch. There was still blood on his overalls from the few nights before.
"Why did you have to stay with him anyways?" Our mother crossed her arms and looked down at her feet,
"He brought food home; he was our only way of eating. I don't know what I'm going to do now". She began to pace back and forth looking down at the floor still.
"We're going to be fine", Jack said softly looking towards the town.
"We don't have any money jack!" She yelled at him, "We're going to starve. We" She walked past me into her room and slammed the door leaving jack outside to look over the cactus fields. The sun was just rising over the land, Armadillo could be seen over the horizon with wagons and people on horseback coming and going, Jack got up and walked up to me in the living room. "Get your things ready, Billy". He grabbed the volcanic pistol from the cabinet above the stove, "we have some business to handle.
