Morning Star Full Novel

Chapter 2

July 1, 1969

Two boys walked heel to toe atop the hot steel railroad tracks racing to see who could get to the bridge first. With arms extended, both boys balanced precariously on their own narrow rail, keeping a watchful eye on the other. The older of the two young men outdistanced the younger one with his slightly longer strides, and circus like high wire technique. Turning to see how far he led the other boy, he miss stepped and stubbed his foot on railroad tie, tripping, and falling hard to the ground.
"Damn!" yelled the injured boy, as he turned over holding his knee in pain. He looked at the injury and noticed a large blood soaked tear in the denim of his jeans. Gently, he peeled the cloth back and exposed a sizable bloody cut on his kneecap. The other boy stepped off the track and came to see what he was yelling about.
"Mom’s going to be mad," the younger boy said, staring at the blood soaked wound. "She told us not to go out here and now were in big trouble."
"No were not!" his older brother replied. "She isn’t going to know how this happened. I’ll just tell her it happened while I was riding home on my bike."
"You’re such a liar."
"So? Beats the hell out of being grounded!"
"I don’t like lying to mom,"
"Then don’t!" he barked back. "Let me do the talking."
Matt, the older boy, closed both of his eyes and clenched his teeth together. Wincing from the pain, he leaned back, and waited for the burning to stop. "Give me a minute," he said, wiping the sweat from his brow. He rocked back and forth on his hips leaning his forehead up against his thigh allowing the pain to subside.
"Hurry up!" Robby yelled impatiently. The younger boy paced up and down the tracks like a nervous bird. Matt rolled around on his behind, and with his hands supporting him, struggled to stand. Taking a hop on his good leg, he attempted to put weight on the injured knee and felt a burning pain. He bit down hard, and clenched his jaw again as he maneuvered and balanced along the tracks. His gate was unsteady, but he could walk with the sharp pain limping along as he went.
"Let’s get the hell out of here," Robby said to his brother, and they continued back down the tracks from whence they came. Walking on the railroad ties was difficult at best with his odd gate and limp. The going was slow and tedious, compounded by the hot sun beating down on them, and the thick stagnant humid air surrounding them. The overgrown vegetation along side the tracks brought forth a wide variety of smells and flying insects, which constantly buzzed about and bothered them.
The two brothers had walked these tracks many times before. The trains passing by could be seen and heard from the boy’s doublewide trailer, located on the outside perimeter of the trailer park. It was the boy’s only escape and adventure to walk the tracks down to the bridge were they could climb down to the creek below, and explore the stream bed. Many times they had come across an Indian arrowhead, or a sample of petrified wood. Many times they just broke bottles and vandalized the bridge. Either way they found a way to get away and have a place of their own.
"You ok?" Robby asked.
"What does it look like!" Matt barked back. "Hurts like a son of a gun!"
"You want to stop?"
"No, I have to get home and change before mom gets home."
Robby looked at his brother’s knee as he tried to keep his footing on the odd spaced ties. He saw the blood soaking into his brother’s pant leg running down the side of his shoe.
"You’re bleeding pretty bad."
"What am I supposed to do about it!" Matt yelled at him. He stopped and turned to his brother. "Wait here till a train comes by and hop a ride?"
"You’re a jerk!" Robby replied. "Do what ever you want," he added and walked back down the tracks without him. Matt hobbled slowly behind, groaning with each step he took. Minutes past by and the boys trudged onward, the tracks seemed to go on forever. Up ahead was a curve in the tracks bordered on both sides by tall trees and weeds for as far as the eye could see. The two boys, fourteen and sixteen years of age, had walked almost three miles to the bridge in relatively short period of time. The return was slow and agonizing.
"What time is it?" Matt asked.
"4:00," Robby replied.
"Crap! We’ll never make it back in time."
"We have an hour."
"It’ll take that long to get to our bikes. I can’t even ride with my knee like this. Plus it’s starting to hurt more." Matt stopped and bent over grasping above his thigh, attempting to stop the pain from traveling to his brain. "I’ve got to sit down," he said and stepped off the tracks to the gravel along side the tracks. Putting his hands down carefully, he leaned over without bending his knee, sat down and cried in pain. His eyes closed and he squeezed his leg tight taking a deep breath. A tear trickled down his face.
"You want me to go get help?" Robby asked. He looked down upon his brothers’ injury and his stomach began to turn.
"Hold on," Matt replied. "Let me think a minute."
"Think about what?"
"I need to figure out what you will tell mom."
"I’ll tell her the truth!"
"Give me a second!" he barked back. "You will not tell her anything, but what I tell you to."
"I am sick of this, and I am sick of your crap. I am leaving and I am getting help whether you like it or not."
A moment passed as Matt looked about at his surroundings and dire straits. "Go ahead," he said. "And hurry."
Robby took one last look at his brother and turned back to the tracks. Walking away he said. "I can go faster without you anyway. If I can get help we still might beat mom home." He picked up the pace and ran down the tracks stepping on every other tie in an awkward sprint home.
Matt sat there in pain with his hands smeared with blood. He wiped the dirt from the cut and let out a yell as the pain shot though his knee. The sun was still high above, and it beat down on him like fire from the sky. He again wiped the sweat from his brow, and smeared blood across his forehead in the process. He needed to get out of the heat.
The two boys had lived in the area since they’re family moved there in sixty-five. Many a time they make this journey, but they never veered from the steel tracks and the path it cut through the woods. The trees and brush surrounding them were virgin territory, and off limits, even to them. Tic’s, animals, and the threat of poison ivy kept them on their narrow path to the bridge, and the woods made these two brave explorers nervous.
A yellow jacket flew by and Matt froze in place. His eyes moved, but his head stood firm as he watched it buzz back towards the trees. He tried not to bother the insect as it flew by in fear of being stung and compounding his problem. "Damn bugs," he thought.
In his right ear he heard a mosquito buzzing and swung at the insect with his hand, missing it completely, smearing more blood on his face. The mosquito flew away and landed on his sweaty back away from his view. The heat was unbearable and the hot air around him was stagnant and stale. He needed to get into the shade before he died of heat exhaustion he thought, and scanned the vegetation for a place to rest.
Slowly standing, he limped over to a stand of marijuana growing freely along side the tracks. Parting the plants he spied a run-down wood shed, fifty feet into the woods under a canopy of branches. The shed had grayed with exposure to the elements and part of the roof had fallen into itself, exposing the interior. The path to the shed was covered with low growing shrubs and thistle, not an impossible journey for the injured boy, but a difficult one he needed to make. Along side the shed, surrounded by weeds, was a cement platform covered from the shade of the trees above. "A place to sit," he thought, and stepped through the marijuana into the woods.
His first steps were uneasy. The thistle scraped his leg as he past by, stinging with their sharp bristly flowers. The pain was still sharp as he bent his knee with each step, but the bleeding was beginning to stop and the air was starting to cool. The shade felt better than the hot sun that had burned his neck red.
An unrecognizable putrid smell carried in his direction with the slight breeze that had picked up as the afternoon wore on. The smell hung in the air like a cloud surrounding him, making him gag. For a second he thought of turning back, but moved on towards the cool shade on the cement slab.
It was the season for mid-summer thunderstorms, and he could feel the weather changing since noon, and the sky began to fill with clouds. The heat and humidity had become overwhelming and a cool breeze had begun tossing the leaves about on the ground. He knew it would storm soon and hoped he would be home before it began to rain. The cool breeze also carried the smell of death.
"Something must have died out here," he thought, gagging on the stench. He would just sit tight on the cement slab and keep watch and listen for his brother till he came back to get him. The smell was just an inconvenience he would have to put up with until help arrived.
Light trickled down from the foliage above dancing on the weeds that covered the ground for as far as the eye could see. The tracks he had made through the weeds were hard to follow as they disappeared from his view, swallowed up by the vegetation.
The concrete was warm to the touch in the mid summer heat. The shade did little to keep it cool and heat radiated from it like the burner on a stove. He sat down on the slab letting his bad leg rest on the concrete, his good leg hanging over the edge. He leaned back and put his weight on the heels of his hands letting his face point straight up into the sky. Sweat dripped onto the concrete slab and insects buzzed near, curious about the new visitor.
Forty-five minutes passed, and there was no sign of his brother. By now the sun had begun its journey to the west, and was casting long shadows across the wooded area. Huge cumulous clouds had moved in threatening to block the light, dropping rain as each minute past. Cracks of thunder echoed from a distance signaling the presence of an impending storm. Matt had leaned back and was resting comfortably on his back looking into the trees above watching the leaves dance back and forth. The heat from the cement slab felt good on his back and for the first time he felt better. The pain in his knee was starting to subside, and now was no more than a dull ache.
Jest then, he heard a rustling in the weeds. An animal he thought. Sitting back up, Matt cocking his head in the direction of the sound. Twenty feet to his left stood a coyote in a defensive posture, teeth exposed, growling at the boy. On the ground under the animals head was a torn piece of meat, shredded by the jaws of the beast. To his horror he noticed that the animal had torn the flesh from a human leg partially hidden under a bush. "Oh God!" he said aloud pushing himself away from the animal. All of a sudden, he realized where the horrid smell had came from, and he held back throwing up, finding it difficult to stop gagging.
The two made hard eye contact and froze in their tracks. The coyote gave out a long low growl, its fur bristling on its neck solid as a rock. Matt moved his eyes slowly around looking for a stick or branch he could use as a weapon to defend himself. There was plenty of broken branches all around on the ground, but he feared moving and setting the animal off opting to wait him out.
The wind picked up and sent the stench his way making his eyes water. The leaves in the trees started to rustle in the breeze, waving in unison above him, signaling the start of the thunderstorm. A lightning bolt flashed and a crack of thunder shot through the woods, which spooked the coyote as well as Matt. Neither moved and neither sent a signal to the other. It was a stand off of the worst kind.
The sky was getting darker, as it was now past 5:30 p.m. The air was noticeably cooler and a breeze shot past Matt giving him the shivers. A cold front had blown in, and changed the hot humid air into a thunderstorm. Sprinkles landed on the cement slab, creating dark spots wherever they landed and drops of water landed on the leaves of the vegetation. The sound of the rain on the leaves tapped all around him and sizzled like bacon in a frying pan.
Minutes past and the coyote stepped forward. Then stopped. Forward again smelling the blood on Matt’s pant leg. Fresh meat was better than rotten meat he seemed to be saying.
"Get the hell away from me!" Matt said under his breath trying not to alarm the animal. The last thing he wanted was to spook the animal and send it attacking. He was ready to put up his arms and defend himself, but did not know how much good it would do. He planned to grab the animal by its neck if it attacked and strike it in its face and eyes. He really hoped it wouldn’t come to this.
The vegetation was now being tossed back and forth in the wind; the sound of leaves whipping around was almost as loud as the snarls of the coyote. He was petrified and shaking in the cool air awaiting the imminent attack of the canine.
From out of the woods, the sound of a rifle crack broke above the sounds of the wind, and the animal took off running in a sprint through the trees. Matt looked to his right to where the sound came from. He saw his father, running through the weeds towards him, with rifle in tow followed closely by his brother. A sigh of relief came over the boy as his father came to a halt next him.
"Are you alright?" Matt’s father asked.
"Yeah," Matt replied. The boy squinted in fear, looking towards his father who was holding his rifle in ready position. He could see his father was very upset and the look in his eyes was that of pure anger. The rifle was leaned up against the cement slab and his father moved in closer. Looking down at his son’s injured knee, his father took a deep breath, reeled back his hand and slapped the boy across his face.
"I told you not to come out here!" he barked at the boy. "You don’t know how to listen do you?"
Matt put his hand to his face and looked away from his father.
"It’s going to get real nasty out here in the next hour. Supposed to storm all night. Tornado’s and all kinds of crap," his father yelled angrily. "Let’s get the hell out of here!"
"Hold it," Matt interrupted expecting another swat. He looked to his dad and judged his reaction before speaking.
"What is it?" his father asked impatiently.
"There’s something I got to show you," he added, pointing to where the coyote was before.
"This better be good boy!" his father said. His teeth were gritting, and his jaw was clenched.
"Look over there," Matt said pointing to the bush where the coyote was.
His father picked up the rifle from against the cement slab and walked through the brush towards the area Matt was pointing.
"What the hell is that smell?" he shouted over the wind. He stopped in his tracks at the bush and covered his mouth gagging. He looked down and pushed the leaves aside exposing what was underneath. He was shocked and horrified at the site.
He was a hunter but nothing could prepare him for what he saw. Under the shrub, lay the half-eaten body of a small child. She was maybe eight years old, naked, and vacant of life.