They’s here!” I yelled, running toward you. But I came up short when you turned with the quickness of a rattle snake to point your rifle at me. You moved so fast that I didn’t have time to stop completely. The barrel of your rifle was so close to my face that I thought it winked at me. “Damn girl!” you shouted.
“Lawd don’t shoot!” I yelled, staring into the face its barrel. “Damn fool! I could’ve killed you,” you yelled back at me, as you lowered the rifle, way to slow for my taste. “I told you to go into the house.” I had to catch my breath before I could talk. I was scared to death. “What you doing down here?” you asked, frowning.
I gulped in air, talking fast, while I told you about seeing someone coming. “What!” You jumped up and ran passed me with the rifle at your side as you headed for the doors. “Why ain’t you say that before,” you whispered, carefully looking out of one side of the barn doors. Staring down the barrel of your rifle you asked, “Where? Which a way ? I ain’t heard no horses or trucks.” You looked toward the house and then down towards the road. Before quickly stepped over to the other side of the big doors to look out toward the field.
“I don’t see nothing, where they coming from? ” I ran up behind you. “They’s too far away for you to see, I seen they dust from up at the house.” I stepped outside to show you. “See yonder, way out in the field.”
You stepped out too. Lowering the rifle you covered your eyes against the Sun to stare out at the field. “You think they be the Klan coming for us after what we did?” I said scared. I wanted my Momma, I wanted Papa, I wanted to go home. I was so scared I wanted to cry.
You didn’t answer me, instead you threw the rifle over one huge shoulder and huffed, dismissing me as you turned to go back inside the barn. I heard you muffled, “Dang fool, got me all excited over nothing.”
“ But here’s someone…. “ I said, chasing up behind you.
“That there’s Billy,” you told me, before covering yourself in the thick shadows of the barn.
I stopped before going back inside myself. “Billy,” I said, confessed. “ Who’s Billy?”
Copyright © 2013 Glynis Rankin
