Read Renewal 2 - Echoes of the Breakdown for Free Online

my land.” Then he raised the shotgun towards my dad.
    “What’s your name?” Dad asked the man.
    “What’s my name? It don’t matter what my name is,” the man replied.
    “If I don’t know your name, then there’s no way I can know if you’re the owner of this land,” my dad said. I couldn’t see his face from where I lay in the leaves, but I can imagine his face was set pretty hard by the tone of his voice. “Turns out, friend, that I know the owner of this land, and he doesn’t look a thing like you and your boys here.” Dad was lying, but he was doing it for a good reason.
    “I said this here’s my land, and if you and your pretty wife there don’t want to be buried on it, you’re gonna walk away now, and leave all your stuff here.” The man was sounding a little anxious now. I guess he never expected anyone to argue with him.
    My dad had another trick up his sleeve. “I’ll tell you what. Since this is your land, where’s your house? We’ll trade you some of our food if you have anything we can use at the house.”
    “I ain’t trading nothing!” the man was getting upset. “I’m taking it.”
    “What’s your address? I’ll send you the rent when I get home.”
    “Rent? What the...”
    “Ok, tell me this then. What’s the name of that road?” Dad asked, pointing towards the school.
    “You son of a bitch! Just walk away!” The man was practically screaming now. His boys had their guns up, pointed in my family’s general direction, but not really aimed. They may have been confused by someone who would not be intimidated.
    “Not gonna happen. Like I said, I got kids to feed.”
    I don’t know if Dad was trying to humanize us by referring to his kids again, or if he was just helping my mom to harden her resolve, but that part was working. She had her shotgun pointed squarely at the second man, and her barrel was rock steady.
    The man took a look around, gauging the situation, and he suddenly sagged. “Well, shit. I had to try, right?” He laughed like the whole thing was a big joke. It was a crazy, dangerous laugh. No one was fooled. “Me and my boys will just be going now.”
    The man half turned away, and then snapped back quickly, bringing his gun to bear. Dad shot him twice, and Kirk, with a second’s delay, hit the man in the hip. He crumpled instantly. In those two seconds, we jumped as Arturo’s rifle cracked twice in rapid succession, paused as he retargeted, cracked twice again. Somewhere in the middle was the boom of Mom’s twelve gauge shredding the second man. The intruders were all down without firing a shot.
    The leader was surely dead, as well as the two outliers, but the second man wasn’t. His chest and lower face were a red meaty mess. He was writhing on the ground and screaming something I couldn’t understand. My mom took one look, calmly set her gun down, and threw up all over the ground at his feet.
    We started to get up, but Arturo snapped at us, “Stay here until we tell you.” He was trotting back to camp as he gave a look that would have kept us rooted until we starved. Before he reached the scene, Kirk looked at the gun in his hand, looked at Mom, and then walked over to the man on the ground. He was facing the other way by then, so I couldn’t even guess what Kirk was thinking when he raised his pistol and shot the bleeding man in the head.
    “Dammit, Kirk!” Dad yelled. “What are you doing?”
    Arturo arrived at Kirk’s side, and asked him for the gun.
    “No. It’s mine now.” Kirk said in a scary tone.
    “Well, listen kid,” Arturo said. “If you’re gonna carry that gun, you’d better learn one thing. You don’t kill a disabled enemy until you ask him some damn questions!”
    By that time, Mom was sitting on the open ground, hunched over. She was either panting or sobbing, I couldn’t say. She had lost everything in the previous five minutes. Her own innocence, her husband’s, and worse, her son’s, but most of all, she had