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He's Comin' For Ya, AlisterFeb 15 '07 (Updated Mar 05 '07) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Inspired by a real historical incident, but I'm danged if I tell you which one it was.
Compared to the way Peter Vandenhilt was feeling inside, the leaden gray skies and biting winds that kept most of Fillmore’s citizens in that day were downright bright and balmy. He’d taken his place at the bar of Francis Turner’s tavern less than five minutes after the sign said “OPEN” and hadn’t stopped ordering double shots of the strongest whiskey since. Even on his better days, Vandenhilt was easily the crankiest fella for miles around, with a smile almost never corrupting his ruddy, weather-beaten face. The only other man around who could compare in size to Vandenhilt was Alister Mays, a successful cotton farmer who lived to the east of town, right at the point where the land declared itself unfit for cultivation by turning into an impenetrable cypress swamp. While Mays was generally as paranoid as Vandenhilt was surly, the two somehow struck up a friendship that had lasted many years. In fact, except for the bottle and whoever was around to hand it to him, Alister Mays was the only friend that Peter Vandenhilt could claim. But just as surely as we sometimes end up hating most strongly the ones we used to love, Alister became the focus of Peter Vandenhilt’s wrath that morning. As glass after glass of whiskey disappeared down that disgruntled Dutchman’s throat, he began to perceive his friend as the cause of all his sorrows and sufferings, and muttered aloud the terrible things he’d like to do to Mays. Old Francis himself never did figure out what set that train of thought into motion, but midway through Peter’s second bottle, he found the tirade threatening enough to dispatch his helper Erwin to the Mays place with a warning. Guard yourself, the boy was to tell Alister, Peter Vandenhilt’s got it in for you. About twenty minutes after Erwin’s departure, Vandenhilt finally decided the time had come to shift from talk to action, so he slapped a handful of coins on Turner’s bar and left the worried tavern owner for the general store across the way, where he intended to purchase a skinning knife with which to remove Mays’ bristly hide. As he inspected the razor-sharp edge of his purchase and ran his thumb along the blade, Vandenhilt continued the grisly monologue he started at the bar, seemingly talking to himself but loud and clear enough to scare the living coonskin out of the clerk at the counter. He was completely unaware that Mays' teenage nephew Rufus was right behind him, also listening in on every word of his murderous fantasy. Dropping the tinned goods he’d been looking at, Rufus sped out of that store and toward his uncle’s farm, to tell of all he’d overheard. As Vandenhilt stepped out of the store with a brand new skinning knife in his possession, he glanced up at the heavy sky, which threatened to let loose a barrage of icy rain. As he stared into the threatening grayness overhead, Peter was nearly knocked down by Sam Harper’s mule, an unpredictable beast that had broken free of its master’s grip and taken off down the street on which that hotheaded Dutchman was standing. Well, they say that whiskey slows a man’s reflexes, but it sure didn’t seem to have that effect on Vandenhilt, for he knocked the mule unconscious with a swift right hook to the side of its head. It just so happened that Sheriff Cash saw Peter’s act of violence toward the mule from a window in the courthouse on the corner. And while the Sheriff wasn’t the kind to chase a horse thief if it meant he had to miss a meal, he found it unacceptable that any man in Dixie would, regardless of the inclement weather or how much liquor he had in his system, dare to strike down an innocent animal in the town he had sworn to protect. He dashed down the steps and immediately placed Vandenhilt under arrest, figuring that an afternoon nap in a cozy jail cell might give the man a chance to sweat out the whiskey he’d been putting in his body all that morning. Meanwhile, over at Alister Mays' place, the messengers were received with all the warmth of a body that’s been resting at the bottom of the Pocayo River in the middle of December. Alister accused Erwin of trying to stir up trouble between him and his good friend Vandenhilt, and threatened to toss his instigating rump off the porch if he didn’t leave the premises immediately. No sooner had Erwin cleared out than Rufus came running up with a similar story, but he was far less lucky than his predecessor; Alister decided to teach his nephew a lesson by locking him up in the outhouse. He would not, he claimed, be drawn into a feud with the only man in the county he trusted by a bunch of youngsters bent on causing trouble. Back at the jail, the sheriff decided after three or four hours that Vandenhilt was probably sober enough to release from confinement. The effects of the alcohol were certainly diminished, but whatever made Peter so hostile toward his friend that day had nothing to do with the contents of a bottle, for he again set out to take down Mays once his feet hit the streets of Fillmore. If anything, he was more determined than ever to harm his former friend, having somehow concluded that his incarceration that afternoon was also Alister’s fault. By that time, late afternoon had arrived and brought with it the cold snap that had loomed all day. Undeterred by the plunging temperature that was quickly turning an area of normally moderate winter climate into a maelstrom of driving sleet and bone-chilling winds, Peter Vandenhilt pushed forward with his plan to walk the fifteen miles or so to Alister’s farm, so he could exact his revenge for all the imagined offenses Mays had committed against him. The fact that the sheriff had confiscated his knife and failed to give it back upon his release also meant nothing-Vandenhilt felt confident in his ability to rip Alister apart with his teeth and hands. He hadn’t even covered half the distance when he encountered a second mule, this one pulling a wagon on which rode Newton Murphy, his intended victim’s closest neighbor. Being a man of some intelligence, Murphy gazed into the face of Vandenhilt as he and his animal overtook the clearly belligerent pedestrian and read nothing but malice toward Alister there. Giving his mule a crack across the back and a good loud “hiii-yah!”, Newton raced off down the muddy road to warn Mays of the danger moving into his midst . Perhaps because he was a man of equal status or maybe just because three independent warnings ought to be enough for anyone, Alister took Murphy’s words to heart and accepted the fact that his closest friend was currently coming to kill him. Resigning himself to a violent death, Mays retreated to his bedroom with a bottle of moonshine produced by his own still hidden in the depths of the swamp to await the arrival of Vandenhilt. He downed half the bottle and laid there for a good half-hour, just staring at the walls and wondering what could’ve set off Peter. As he lay there sulking in self-pity and speculation, Alister heard a light knock upon the bedroom door, followed by the sounds of his servants and hired hands softly begging him to come back and take control of the situation, lest they all fall at the hands of the terrible Vandenhilt. Emboldened by their pathetic entreaties, he found the courage to cast aside the bottle, stagger to his feet, and emerge from the room with the resolve to fight his friend-turned-mortal-enemy to the last. The first thing Mays did was have Rufus released from the outhouse, whereupon the teen was ordered to take three farmhands down to the old wooden bridge and destroy it with fire to delay the approach of Vandenhilt. Four of the other youngsters in Alister’s employ were instructed to do the same to the stables, barn, and farmhouse, so that Peter would find nothing left to destroy or plunder. Mays himself began to draft plans for a strategic retreat into the swamp, where he and his makeshift infantry would make a final stand with pitchforks, guns, and shovels. For his part, Vandenhilt was running out of energy. His will to kill Alister was fully intact, but his physical resources were being rapidly depleted by the combined effects of cold and exhaustion. When he saw the bridge he’d have to cross to reach Mays’ property going up in a giant blaze, he veered off into the woods to look for a shallow place to ford the creek. As he passed beneath the branches of a particularly sprawling holly tree, he was suddenly pulled to the cold damp ground by a searing pain in his lower right leg. When he looked down at the steel jaws that crushed his flesh and bone, he realized with horror that he had stepped into one of the bear traps set by Alister back when that old black panther was killing his hens. And then the blackness of shock put an end to the angry odyssey of Peter Vandenhilt. When Alister and his crew discovered Vandenhilt’s frozen body on the following morning, the relief was tempered by an overwhelming sense of confusion and loss. Mays himself had nearly died from hypothermia after spending a night in the swamp with a muzzleloader in his hands, waiting for a man that never showed. Everything he owned had been put to the torch, his best friend lay dead in the woods, and Rufus hardly spoke to him for a good six months thereafter on account of the outhouse incident. But oftentimes it seems that good things ride into town on the backs of the bad, and Alister learned that his newfound reputation as “the man who brought down evil Peter Vandenhilt” afforded him a level of respect he’d never known before. He also found himself more likely to trust the words of others, especially those of his new best friends Newton Murphy and Sam Harper, who was eternally grateful to Alister for putting a stop to the wicked drunkard that had treated his mule so brutally. As for the losses incurred when Alister had his property burned to the ground, he found he didn’t need it in his capacity as Sheriff Cash’s new deputy, a position that had ol’ Mays working half as hard as any farmer while making twice as much. If you see him to this day, he’ll still tell you that swapping out farmland on the edge of the sticks for a public treasury-funded apartment in downtown Fillmore was the best decision he ever made. Copyright 2007 Of Vanity & Scars http://www.epinions.com/content_4957708420 It Started With A Woman http://www.epinions.com/content_4950892676 The Minister's Right Hand http://www.epinions.com/content_4947091588 Moonlight & Its Revelations http://www.epinions.com/content_4945059972 A Sympathy Most Peculiar http://www.epinions.com/content_4942831748 Changing Out The Ghosts http://www.epinions.com/content_4941586564 The Coming of Elliot Stephens http://www.epinions.com/content_4939489412 Where Everybody Looks The Same http://www.epinions.com/content_4938047620 Abner http://www.epinions.com/content_4937785476  |
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