Slowly and gently, he brought his hand over the small foals neck, the foal flinched a little but didn't pull away. The first day, every time he had placed his hand on the foal he had pulled away and squealed, Mae had nearly bit him a few times. Outside the barn he could hear his uncle yelling at his father, since the foal had been born his uncle had not left his father alone. Last night he had walked into the hallway after hearing his uncle roar, his uncle had shoved his father hard against the wall and had held him there, glaring at him. When his uncle had seen him staring he had released his father and walked past, if he wouldn't have moved a bit to the right he would have been pushed around.
"You're spoiling that little brat rotten!" his uncle was yelling.
"I done gave him a birthday present," his father said in defense. "that ain't spoilin', that's showin' mah love fer him."
"You brought home a pregnant mare three and a half weeks before his birthday who birthed a week and a half before his birthday and you just gave him the foal that night instead of waiting!" his uncle replied back. "that's spoiling to me."
"So whut was I s'pose to do?" his father exclaimed. "say to him that the foal was his but he a-couldn't have him yet? That thar's wrong, Brother!"
Slowly, he reached his hand up to the foals ears and gently patted him on the head. The foal nickered and turned his head around, his dark eyes looked into his brown ones for what seemed like a long time. Smiling brightly, Four Way Shot patted the colt on his nose, he rubbed his hand over it gently. When he took his hand away the foal tried catching it with his tongue.
"So what's going to happen on his birthday?" his uncle yelled. "You going to show up with nothing and just say that the foal was the only thing you could afford to give him?"
"Nah, I gots plenty o' stuff fer him," his father replied. "jus' ye wait."
"Damn I'm glad I don't have a kid," his uncle said, a hint of a chuckle under his breath. "nothing but trouble from the minute they are born."
"Not really..." his father started to say.
"Oh really," his uncle interrupted. "crying at all hours of the night, needin' their diapers to be changed, constant begging for shit that they don't need, hell man even your own son has emotional problems at his age!"
"He's a young 'un," his father defended. "all young 'uns his age cry an' all."
"All kids cry in the middle of the aisle near the candy when his parents say the word no?" his uncle questioned. "I don't think so, I haven't heard any human kid do that."
"When ye done has a keeeee..."
He knew why his father stopped saying the word kid, his uncle said he didn't like kids or want kids, he acted very mean and bossy around not only him but his younger half sister. One time when his sister had gone to the small general store down the road with her father, his uncle had tagged along, when they returned his sister had tear stains on her cheeks, during supper that night she had tried getting out of her vegettables, her father had said it had been fine but when she had jumped down his uncle had grabbed her and had plopped her back in her seat then had told her to finish them. His father and his uncle had had a lot of words between them about the way his father was raising him, his uncle said that his father was spoiling him too much, while his father said he wasn't.
"Yeah, you'd better not say that sentence fully," his uncle snarled.
Patting the foal on the nose, he turned around and exited the stall. The foal and his mother's stall was right by the door so it didn't take him long to reach the bright sunlight. Blinking his eyes, letting them adjust to the light, he remember what his father had said the day before when he had caught him releasing Belle and her newborn filly into a small paddock beside the barn. He had asked if it was safe for the foal to be let out so soon, his father had said that he had been keeping his eyes on the baby and had made the decision to let her and her mother out for a romp. The filly was trotting around and around the paddock, her mother following with her ears almost flattened to her head.
"I'm going for a walk," his uncle said. "tell whoever making supper to not wait up for me."
"Don't ye stay out fer long," his father yelled at his uncle's back. "thar's a storm a-comin'."
Looking up at the sky, he could tell that the weather was going to change fast. The sky was turning from blue to a dark greenish color, he could smell in the air rain and for some reason a lot of electricity. Closing then opening his eyes, he watched as a dark gray cloud floated in front of the sun, he thought he felt a rain drop on his cheek. Hearing his foal whinny behind him, he shook his head and walked on, if a storm was coming both his father would need to put the sheep, goats, cows and the horses inside their barns and he was sure he'd need some help in doing some of that.
"Pa?" he called. "Wait up fer me."
"If yer a-gonna help me out son," his father said. "hurry up, that storm's a-comin' fast."
His father wasn't kidding when he said that the storm was coming fast, before they had finished putting the goats in their barn a long white lightning bolt struck the tree on the side of the ranch, one of the branches had fallen and the ground had caught fire for a tiny second before going out. By the time they had the sheep in the barn with the goats it had started to get really windy and by the time they had put half of the cows in their barn it had started to rain. Before three, his father shook his head and said for him to go in where it was dry and safe.
"Ma," he said. "I's worryin' 'bout mah uncle."
"Which one hon?" his mother asked, she set a glass of milk in front of him.
"Torch," he said. "he done went off a-fore the storm started."
"Been wondering for a while were the Fireman went," his mother said. "did he say where he was going?"
"Nah, all he done said was that he a-was goin' out fer a walk."
His mother looked out the window for what seemd to be the longest time before going back to finishing the dishes. He heard her mumble that his uncle would be fine and that he'd be back before the storm got bad. For some reason the whole house got cold, he brought all four of his arms up and wrapped himself up. Turning around, he walked out of the kitchen to the living room where his sister was. He sat down on the couch and watched his sister. Slacia was sitting on the floor, in front of her were a few dolls, she was putting a purple dress on one of them. Sighing, he slid down from his seat on the couch and grabbed a doll, his sister looked up at him, shocked, then went back to fixing her doll, she was now bringing a brush over the dolls black hair.
It was five thirty before the first rain drops were heard, it drizzled for all of a minute before it started down pouring. His father and everyone else who had been outside ran inside soaking wet. There was still no news on his uncle, he was starting to get worried and he could tell that a few others were as well. He wondered where his uncle was, he wondered if his uncle was okay and he wondered if his uncle had somehow found a dry place to wait out the storm. His uncle liked lightning, he liked it a lot, especially when it struck a tree or bush and caught fire. Looking at the window, his father had pulled the curtain so that no one could look out of it but the lightning was so bright that it didn't matter. It seemed that once one lightning bolt ended another would take its place. Hearing his sister cry, he looked away from the window. Slacia had jumped and ran over to her father who had scooped her up onto his lap. A loud, and what seemed very close, thunder clap made him follow on her heels.
He had started walking before the storm had started its rumbling, now it was raining so hard and the lightning was so frequent that he had had to take refuge inside a hollow tree. It wasn't very good shelter, but it was something to keep the lightning from hitting him. He'd be right messed up if one of the bolts hit him, inside of him were wires and electrical circuits. Looking down he saw that his pants up to his knees were wet and he could feel water in his boots. Cursing, he stamped his foot and looked outside. The rain had slowed down some so he made the decision to move from his shelter to someplace else, there was a shed about fifty feet away from him that would be the perfect place to wait out the storm. Looking up at the sky, he watched for the next bolt of lightning. When it came he ran out of the tree towards the shed, it seemed that another bolt couldn't wait for the thunder clap that followed the last, a long blue bolt crashed down and zapped him on his back. Losing his footing, he slipped and fell down a hill to the rocky and grassy valley below where he lost consciousness.
The first thing he saw when his eyes decided to work was a deer, the animal was a few feet from him and had its head down to the ground. Growling, he tried pushing himself up. Something was wrong with his flamethrower arm, he could not use it at all, when he tried to use his other arm it hurt a lot. Clamping his bullets over his silvers, he pushed himself up to a seated position. Looking to the right, he surveyed his flamethrower arm. His flamethrower was a complete mess. The nozzle was bent badly, it looked like a can-opener had opened the top of his flamethrower, fluids were flowing badly from that arm. Still with his bullets clamped over his silvers, he removed his jacket and wrapped it around his flamethrower. Slowly he raised his legs up and with a loud and painful roar stood up. The deer looked up but didn't run away, at first he was curious about this then forgot about it. His left leg hurt just about as bad as his left arm, seeing a stick to the side of him he bent down and picked it up, leaning on it he took a few steps towards a path. He knew the valley well, he had come here a few times just to get away from things at home. There was a river that split the valley, on all four sides were bushes and trees, inside the bushes and trees there was nothing but green grass. There were very few places like this so he had kept its whereabouts to himself. Stopping long enough to catch his breath, he looked up and saw that the deer was still standing where he had first seen it, it's head was above the grass but he wasn't eating any of it, its eyes were on him.
"Yeah and what the hell are you looking at?" he snarled at the deer. "You act like you've never seen a being like me before."
The deer cocked his head to the side then lowered his snout to the ground, he could hear the animals teeth grind the grass it pulled up from the ground. He had seen this deer and a few others over the years, this one was a male but for some reason he had no horns. He had seen 2 other male deer and they had had large racks ontop of their heads, this one was different. The base color was light brown, much lighter than the other deer he had seen, and he had light white spots all over his coat. He had seen this deer for nearly two years now, it had never gotten the adult coat that other deer had and had never grown horns. Sighing, he took another step and this time he felt great pain shoot all the way up from his ankle to his hip. Falling to his knee, he yelled a cuss word then flopped to his side. He had never been in this much pain, not even when the kid in the movie he had been in many years ago struck him with the whip or when the actor in the same movie had clubbered him with a fire extinguisher.
Putting all of his weight on the leg that had not caused him pain he stood up and took a few tiny steps towards the trail. Looking to the the side, he saw that the deer had gone off a ways, it was now by the river. Shrugging his shoulders, he turned his attention to the trail. It felt like forever, but when he reached it and saw that it went to a bench he breathed out the air he was holding. He could sit on the bench for awhile, collect his thoughts and fully wrap his jacket around his flamethrower arm, it was trailing the ground behind him and it wasn't doing it's job of keeping his fluids from spewing out on the ground. Limping painfully, he reached the bench and sat down on it, when he did he heard the sound of a Hawk flap its wings.
"Ow! Shit how the hell did this happen to my flamethrower?" He exclaimed.
After unwrapping his jacket from his flamethrower he had discovered that he had some grass and rocks inside his flamethrower, he had spent five minutes slowly pulling the blades out and had gently tipped his flamethrower, the rocks had come out of the end. When he had started re-wrapping his flamethrower one of the buttons on his jacket had caught up against the opened top, it had been real painful to get it removed without further damaging his weapon. Sitting back, looking out the valley, he saw that he had a fluid trail from him to the spot he had been laying just a little while ago. Looking up a ways, he saw that there was a metal pipe jutting out from the hill. He guessed that he had fallen on that and that had peeled the top of his flamethrower open. He had pulled his pants legs up, the leg that was giving him a lot of trouble was badly scratched and cut and he had twisted his ankle badly. He had removed his shirt and had wrapped it around his leg tightly. He stayed sitting on the bench for at least fifteen minutes before pulling himself upright, he grabbed the stick and slowly standing up, every muscle in his body hurt. Turning towards the front of the trail, he started for home. With every step he thought he had heard what he thought was the call of a Vulture in the distance. When he was a few feet from the bench he stopped, he didn't know why but he turned around and headed east, towards the sound. It seemed like the Vulture cry was pulling himself towards a low lying bush. Sighing to himself, he stop fighting himself and walked towards the bush, a few minutes of looking and then he'd be heading for home he thought. It seemed forever before he reached the bush, when he did reach it he thought he'd just turn around and head away from it. Instead, he found himself pulling the leaves to the side and looking down to the ground. What met his eyes looked to be a very messy infant. An infant of dark complexion with red and silver bullets, silver lower teeth and a flamethrower for a right arm.