Bannister

Chapter One

Home, Texas panhandle

"Jess. Jess, wake up." Ma's hand circled my upper arm, her shake kinda like her voice. Something was wrong.

My head snapped off the pillow. It couldn't have been a twister, not this time of year. "What's wrong, Ma?"

"There's no time to explain," Ma said, her whispered tone urgent, like when pa had to run for the doctor when her last baby came too early, and died. "Wake your sister, then get in the cellar with the little ones."

"But Ma…"

"Do as you're told."

I reckon I knew not to argue with Ma, but the pressure in the small shack was so thick, it was hard not to press back. Tossing the blanket off my thin frame, I ran to wake Francie, but as I put my hand on the knob of the bedroom the two girls shared, my bare feet came to a halt.

The kitchen and living room served as one room, with two windows, one on the east, the other west. Pa stood against the east, long iron in hand, his gaze zeroed in on something on the opposite side. My oldest brother, Johnny, was alongside him, holster strapped to his side, hand attached to a pistol. He'd never worn one before.

My heart responded to the summersault of my belly, the pound going all the way into my throat. Whatever was wrong was worse than everything that'd hit us before. I reckon that's why I had to get to my sister. I pushed through the door, the darkness almost as frightening as seeing Pa and Johnny's images in the simple glow of the lamp.

"Francie," I said, but as I touched her, I realized she'd already been awake. Her eyes bore into mine, wide. She could feel fear's cold clasp the same as I. "Ma says to get in the cellar."

"Joey and Emma?"

I looked behind me. From that angle, I could just make out the corner square that led down to the cellar. Ma was handing the toddler down the hole to where a pair of seven-year-old arms reached. "Already there."

Francie followed my dart to where Ma had just lowered herself, her hand immediately reaching out for Francie's, but where my older sister went in without a single pause of step, I lingered out. I didn't wanna get locked up. I woulda rather been in the position to fight. Francie was two years up on me, and a girl, at that. She wouldn't be expected to be anywhere but alongside Ma taking care of the kids. Me at fifteen, though, I wasn't one of them youngsters anymore, but a man. A position next to Pa and Johnny was where I belonged.

"Jess."

Ma. I knew what I'd wanted, but there was no way I could look at that face, soft, yet pleading, and not obey. "Coming, Ma."

I only put one foot on the ladder's top rung before jumping all the way to the floor, my thump its own natural startle, and Ma was quick to put her arm around Joey. Francie held tight to Emma, which left me kinda alone in the middle. With nothing to put my hands around, my fists were in a perpetual open and close rotation. Oh, how I wanted to put that grip around a gun.

Listening to the gentle voice of Ma soothing Joey's whimper, I started to pace. I made it only two passes before stopping, my toes pointing toward the ladder's bottom. There, my eyes drifted upward, past the latch that secured us underground, to where I knew Pa and Johnny stood, waiting, watching. I knew the ticking off of minutes went painfully slow when there was nothing to occupy your mind but worry, but enough had to have gone by for the night's darkness to depart. Danger could no longer be locked behind a shroud. Perhaps it was right outside of our door. I strained to hear, but instead of a hollow knock, I heard my name.

"Jess."

It was cool and dark, the cellar lit only by a single candle, yet it was easy to find the baby blues and I lowered down to the level of a three-year-old. "What is it, Joey?"

"I scared."

Looking from one face to the other, Ma, still with a grip on her youngest, kinda had the hardest chin, but I could see that Joey's expression was shared among them all. We were all scared, and I suppose that feeling stretched outta the cellar and onto Pa and Johnny's backs too. But that didn't mean there wasn't something else there. Strength, hope and love. That had to count for more, right?

Ma nodded, showing that comfort's touch could change from hers to mine and then I picked up Joey. His arms went around my neck in a brotherly stranglehold, the tight cling about the same pressure as I put against his back. "Well, you know something? You've got on the same britches and boots I once wore. That oughta make you close enough to how I am right now, don't you think?"

But what exactly was I right now? Unable to do much, that's what, except put one soft cheek against another. Although my little brother would have his own definition.

"Yur brabe, Jess."

I ain't sure I felt that way before I'd dropped into the cellar, but I did then. Looking in Joey's face, bravery's stout stake drove all the way into my core.

"I wuvs you, Jess."

"Back at you," I said, Joey's squeeze returned and then with one step, I handed him over to Ma. I knew what I had to do.

Maybe it was written on my face, but I reckon it was mostly because she was my mother, Ma knew what was going on inside my heart. "Jess, you're not going to…"

"I have to, Ma."

She closed her eyes, praying, most like, but in that silent whisper to heaven I reckon she understood that somewhere along the line, maybe even that morning, I'd stepped from boyhood to manhood. "Be careful, Jess."

Climbing the ladder, each step brought a rush of adrenaline through my veins, but where I thought that added pulse would send me like a lightning bolt through the door, once I reached the latch, I barely made it rise. The tension was worse on this other side than how it'd been before, and my knees coulda been knocking together, but I forced them straight.

"Pa?" I lifted the cellar door another inch so that more than my eyes could peek out. "I wanna see."

Pa looked at me with the same kinda blue that I wore, the notes of understanding on his face stronger than the harsh look I normally received when he dealt with my disobedience. "Come here, Jess."

I crept through the cellar door, my belly scraping the floor as I crawled to my feet. The ground was cold under my bare toes, the soft plop of my feet like I was skipping rocks over Truman's pond, the ripples going quiet as I reached Pa's side. Putting an arm around me, Pa nodded to the distance and I followed his gaze.

As far as I could see were columns of smoke. Musta been five or six places gone up with it, and the darkest smudge in the middle had to be Truman's, the big house that Pa worked shares for. And the man I immediately tagged as responsible was right outside. He was alone, but I figured by the dust cloud blurring the air just as badly as the smoke was, he had friends on their way.

Ice crystals growing down my spine, I stared up at Pa's face. "Who is it, Pa?"

"One of Frank Bannister's men."

So it wasn't the main man after all. Otherwise, Pa woulda said the name straight out.

Frank Bannister. I'd never heard of him, but the way Pa said his name, with a kinda venom reserved for the lowest kind, I knew he had. Whoever this man was, because he belonged to one even more evil than he, was Pa's enemy, which meant that he was mine too. I narrowed my eyes at his frame, my scrutiny able to sum him up in a coupla passing seconds.

Our whole family is bred on outlaw's stock. Maybe not on Ma's side, but there's enough Harper's stuck in eternal solitude, either by a set of bars' stout closure, or a grave, without as much as a stone bearing our name that I knew the feel of a bad man when I saw one. But it was the reasoning for such destruction that was lost to me. Every other sharecropper musta already been hit, and with us bordering the far corner, made us last.

"What do they want?" I asked Pa, but Johnny had the answer on the tip of his tongue. He spit, and the words flew with it.

"They wanna kill us."

"John." Pa was using his stern voice, kinda like a scold, but not, at the same instance.

Johnny huffed. I guess he can do that at eighteen and not get switched. "It's the truth, ain't it, Pa?"

"He hasn't fired yet," Pa answered, but by the hardening of his jaw, I wondered if Pa was thinking the same as Johnny, just not letting it come aloud.

My fist went into a ball. "Pa?"

"What, Jess?"

I looked at Johnny, holding a stance like I'd never seen, then back at Pa. His wasn't as sturdy, maybe because he still had an arm around me, but this man I revered so much was as close to a solid iron as I'd ever seen. I wanted to be like them both. "Pa. I wanna fight too."

"I know, Son." He patted my arm. "But all I've got are these two guns. Besides, I need a responsible man I can count on down there. Now go on, Jess. Get back in the cellar with Ma and the young'uns."

It was hard being rejected. Ma'd already nodded my leaving the lower level, but I knew Pa had the final say. I wouldn't be fighting. As my body moved away, I took another look at Pa and Johnny. They were perfecting their aim. The rest of Bannister's bunch musta caught up, and by the stone that Pa turned into, Bannister himself was among them. I best get below. I'd barely lowered one foot when the dreaded storm cloud that Frank Bannister lived inside let loose. Lead started raining worse than how a flash flood starts, its staccato blasts pounding the walls, breaking glass, and severing hearts.

I thought they moved with the kinda speed that couldn't be seen, but I watched the bullet break through the window and go right into Pa, the impact's thud so disgusting my mouth filled with bile. Staggering for a moment, Pa's hand clutched at the blood that soaked his front, and then he could no longer hold himself upright. A breath that was nothing but a shallow wheeze escaped his lips before he crashed to the floor.

Stunned, I didn't realize I'd left the cellar door wide open. I wasn't the only one that saw Pa fall.

"No!" Ma screamed, but before her foot could touch the ladder, Francie pulled her back.

Johnny picked up the rifle and I was outta the cellar, the door's clank almost lost with the sound of gunfire. It was brutal, but I had no choice but to step over Pa. It gave me a clear view, though, so I didn't have to wonder. He was dead.

I pulled up along my brother's side. "Tell me what to do, Johnny."

"You wanted to fight." He barely looked down at my head, as it was Johnny's finger that went into a point to the floor. "Take up the gun and shoot it."

I filled my hands. Both left and right going around the handle, I raised it from the ground. I bent my head away from the window, hardly able to be called such anymore as it was just a bunch of tattered pieces of glass seemingly suspended between the four frames. The tip of the gun went through, and then seeing a man atop a horse, I fired.

I didn't keep my eyes on him long enough to know if I hit him. My focus was only for one. Where was Frank Bannister? I'd never seen him, couldn't picture him, but I'd know him, all right. He killed Pa, and he had to die. Firing at every shadow, my throat burned with the screams I couldn't emit, the sear against my vocal chords matching the heat that was pumping outta my gun. I wasn't gonna stop shooting until I knew that vile man was dead. But then after the repeated click snapped in my ears at least a dozen times, I realized my weapon was empty.

My shoulders slumped, I turned my eyes to Johnny. He didn't look much different than me, for the rifle in his hand was just as barren. Together our heads looked to the door, expecting its burst to come in with the kinda explosives that would have no counter attack. When our eyes met, we shared a kinda connection that only brothers bound for the same eternity could have. We were gonna die.

But even the inevitable could be delayed if the devil's hands were toying with the strings of our souls.

Johnny's gaze suddenly shifted upward. He sniffed, the shaft of tainted air its own deadly assault. "Oh, God."

I heard a distinct snap. "Johnny?"

"He's burning us out. We've gotta get the kids!"

My gut received a walloping as I stumbled over Pa's body to get to the cellar. "Ma!"

Johnny bypassed me, throwing the cellar door open, the view from the dug-out ground terrifying, for the ceiling was crawling with flames. "Get up here, Francie! Then Ma'll pass up Emma and Joey. We've got seconds to get out!"

With one hand, Johnny hauled Francie to the floor, and then stripping his upper half of his shirt, Johnny began slapping at the growing flames. They were falling from above, the immediate touch of each spark igniting a new torch that leapt to new bounds with one blast of air through the broken glass. Johnny fought for the doorway, the stomps and smacks clearing a way to safety. I followed my brother. Kicking a chair that was robust with orange into a corner, I whipped a blanket off of another that had yet to be seared and began beating the fire. I killed one burst, but there were so many more, my hands couldn't move fast enough. And through the roar I heard something sickening. Laughter. Deep, and terrifying.

For a brief moment I looked toward the window, and there I got my first and most formidable look at Frank Bannister. It felt like an eternity of time as I stared at him, wearing the darkest shade of evil like a cloak. His mouth hung open with his jubilee, the laugh, like a taunt, but it was all part of his terrible pomp. If I woulda had a gun that had just one bullet, I woulda shot that face clear in two. The separation done only because the flames were eating the curtains, the blaze so brilliant it blocked out everything on the other side of the broken pane. In another second he was gone.

I heard Ma's shout through the toddler's cough and my attention went back to pounding the leaping heat. "Francine, take Joey first!"

I jumped at the crackle and pop, my eyes going straight upward. Wrapped in flames, a beam fell from the ceiling, its corner striking Francie, setting the bottom of her nightdress afire. Francie screamed, her foot stomping her hem to ashes, yet more embers were falling from above, igniting golden sparks from her hair on down.

Johnny gripped her arm. "Get outside, Francie!"

Francie's face went white as Johnny dragged her across the floor to where the air was only smoky, not aflame. "Ma! The kids!"

The blanket fell from my hands. "I'll get them!"

I took one step and half the ceiling gave way. Every breath in my lungs whooshed out through my teeth as I scrambled to the cellar, no longer open, as the upper boards clipped the upright door, crashing it closed with a seal far greater than the underside lock.

The terrifying screams below matched mine. "Ma!"

My hands clawed at the door, but even if I carried the strength of ten men, there was no prying even a corner loose. I stretched my hand for the blanket and beat at the vibrant skeletons that covered the door, again and again until the black disintegrated to powder.

I felt the push of hope rising, but I was only looking directly in front of me, not at the rest of the house, so intense with fire that the air in the shack was almost gone. "I'm coming, Ma!"

"Jess!" I could barely make out Ma's voice through the horrendous crackle. Or was that their choking? "Jess, help us!"

Emma and Joey called to me, their childlike innocence lost to the terror. At the third repeat, the sound was noticeably faded and I gripped the cellar's handle. I had to get them out! I pulled at the door, feeling the muscles in my thin arms be stretched beyond endurance, but it wouldn't budge.

The magnitude of the horror hadn't caught up with me. If I lived, it would, but at that moment, where burning, coughing and the screaming of my name surrounded me, I didn't care if I died. Coughing with such severity it felt like my lungs had caught fire, I almost stopped fighting. Almost. There was something in me that I hadn't been introduced to until that moment, and putting my hand out for a hearty shake of it, I allowed determination a home inside of me.

I didn't care how much the fire was in control, I was gonna win!

Suddenly I was being held up in the air by the seat of my pants and in two passing seconds, the air I was swallowing was clean. I was outside. No! "Let me go! Let me go! I gotta get Joey and Emma! Ma!"

"Stop it, Jess!"

I thought Johnny had released me more than just how he'd held onto my belt, my legs in a run for the burning door, but I was getting nowhere. Abruptly turning, I pounded both fists into Johnny's chest. "I coulda got 'em out, I know I coulda got 'em out!"

"I said, stop it!" The sting of a palm going across my cheek and the mass of red that had been printed over my eyes disappeared as I looked into Johnny's fury. "Whaddya wanna do? Burn to death?"

I kinda wished I had. I wrenched my arm outta Johnny's clasp, but where a minute before I woulda been pounding the ground to get back inside, now my legs had turned into iron rods, hammered deep into the soil. The house I'd known my entire life was on the ground. Everything inside, from the makeshift bed that I shared with Johnny, the girls' room and the main bedroom, to the kitchen was unrecognizable. The only thing with some semblance was the chimney, but in one blink it toppled, the round rocks that had built it upward toward the sky fell into hell's hottest wrath. But there was more that mattered, much more, and was absent. The strangled calls for me were gone.

I thought I was gonna cry, but the drops turned to stone. "Johnny. They're gone. They're gone!"

"I know." He sighed, and by its sound, it was like his body was ripped in half with it. "At least I saved you and Francie."

Johnny dropped the rifle, the only iron that had escaped the beast, his feet in a straight arrow to someplace, God only knew where. Johnny didn't. But he was walking there.

I watched him leave, and as he turned into a speck, I picked up the discarded weapon. My hands circled the cold iron, my back just as solid. I really was the man now. Part of me hated it, but the rest of me was reveling in my new status and what I could do with it. I could kill. And I wanted to. Again and again and again.

A small palm slid over my shoulder, its tremble unmistakable. Francie.

I couldn't forget that I wasn't alone. It was two of us. But even though I'd already established the fact, it was worth repeating. I was the man now.

I'd never reach the height that Pa and Johnny stood, but I felt as if I grew a coupla notches. "I'll get him, Francie. For Ma and Pa, Emma and Joey. I'll get Frank Bannister, if it's the last thing I ever do!"