The Broken and the Dead (Book 1) (3 page)

Mr. Franks opened the Driscol’s car and helped Billy get out, Mom was helping Mr. Caulfield. “Come on Elaine, we gotta get outta here” I yelled.

I started pulling on her shoulder but she wouldn’t respond to me.

“I’m scared Johnny”, my little sister said, she was holding Ronald to her chest like a shield.

It was the first words she had spoken. Mr. Caulfield stopped and said something to Mom then started back to the police car. I figured he was going to see if anyone was alive in there. Mr. Franks opened the rear driver’s side door.

“Come on kids we’re going to my house for now” he said.

Mrs. Franks opened the driver’s door and reaching in said

“You are Elaine right? Come on honey, it’ll be okay.”

Elaine did nothing for a second then she took Mrs. Franks hand and started scooting over to her. We all kind of got bunched up about the same time, all but Mr. Caulfield, who had succeeded in getting the cop out of his car, he had blood on his head and he was limping something terrible. The officer yelled something at Mr. Caulfield and he reached back into his car for a shotgun. That’s when we saw more of the crazies coming from between the houses, headed straight for us. The path to the Frank’s ‘Mc Mansion’ was cut off. The shotgun was incredibly loud: 1, 2, 3, 4 blasts before the cop was tackled by the mob. His shrieks were horrible as they tore him apart.

We all gathered up at the rear of our van and I could hear Elaine scream

“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?”

I looked around and it was clear no one had any ideas, Mr. Franks was holding his wife, Mom and Mrs. Driscol held on to Lucy, Billy and me and poor Elaine just kept crying out for us to do something. Mr. Caulfield reached into our van and got my baseball bat. He looked determined and angry.

“Mommy, where is Mrs. Caulfield?” Lucy asked.

“Not now honey.” Mom whispered.

The first mob was still taking the cop apart, eating what was left of him. But the second mob was just at the curb opposite us, that was when more blasts rang out. It was Old Man Tucker. 

He walked down the street. He had two guns, one in each hand; in his left hand he had what looked like something Marshal Dillon would carry in the stupid ‘
Gunsmoke
’ reruns my dad liked so much, in the other hand a more modern looking pistol, black and menacing. He was firing with the black gun really fast but when one of those crazies got too close he would pause, lift the big cowboy gun and when it went off it sounded like a cannon. When that thing hit, the crazy would be knocked off his feet.

Old Man Tucker started yelling at us,

“COME ON, COME ON! MOVE IT! THIS WAY!”

At first no one did anything but finally Lucy did, she just started walking towards the old guy. She didn’t take her eyes off of him like he had just invited her for a tea party. That got Mom moving,

“All right, let’s go!” she yelled and we all started heading that way following Lucy.

Lucy stood behind him and waited, Old Man Tucker pointed the black gun at the sky, and did something to it and an empty magazine fell to the ground at his feet. He fired once more with the other gun then produced another magazine and shoved it in the grip of the black gun. Mom grabbed Lucy and picked her up then we all paused like we just didn’t know which way to go.

“MY HOUSE! RUN! GO! GO! GO!” he yelled.

He started backing down the street and we all ran ahead of him, all of us that is except for Mr. Caulfield, who stayed near Old Man Tucker’s back. That baseball bat waving back and forth in his hand and I could tell he was more than willing to crack one of those crazies with it, in fact he looked like he wanted to do nothing more.

That was when something went wrong with the black gun and Tucker cursed. He fired once more with the cowboy then turned and start to run after us; he might have been big and mean but he would lose a race with a turtle with a bad leg. The crazies were on him in a flash, when one grabbed his arm he spun around to hit it in the head with the butt of his revolver. A second crazy tackled him and he went down hard. I swear he bounced. That was when Mr. Caulfield reached him, he smashed the crazy’s head with my bat and pulled Tucker out from under the attacker. Mr. Caulfield jogged easily beside Tucker as he huffed and puffed his way to us.

We went in through the back door and spilled in there like water through a hose.  We spread out through the kitchen making room for those behind us. Finally Mr. Caulfield and then Old Man Tucker joined us. Old Man Tucker slammed the door shut and turned a deadbolt, then he reached up and slid a bolt up into the frame and then he reached down and did the same thing with one that went into the floor. The door didn’t have a window in it, and the rest of the windows were high up and covered with weird metal mesh. I guess it was decorative but it reminded me more of the things they put over store windows so crooks can’t get in. I for one was happy they were there.

I could hear the mob or what was left of it pounding on the door. Old Man Tucker turned to us and said

“Don’t worry, it’s a steel door, there ain’t enough of them to get through it.”

Lucy was standing near him and said

“Ain’t is not a word Mr. Tucker.”

Billy and I looked at each other in horror,
oh my God what was he going to do to her now
? He laughed. Quiet and low more kind of a rumble really, but it was a laugh.

“You are right Miss Lucy. I shall try and remember that.”

How anyone could laugh was beyond me but he did.

We had barely caught our breath when an angry voice made me jump.

“Alright Tucker, where did you get those guns?”

Mr. Franks stepped forward, obviously angry at something. Old Man Tucker turned and stared at him

“None of your fucking business Franks” he answered.

“Now listen here Tucker, just who do you think you are?”

Mr. Franks said as he started across the room towards Old Man Tucker. Personally I thought Mr. Franks was stupid and I guess my Mom agreed because she stepped in between them and asked

“What difference does it make? He saved us.”

Mr. Franks looked like he couldn’t believe what my Mom just said.

“Saved us? Are you stupid? They only came after us when he started shooting those people out there!”

Mr. Franks said.

“That’s bullshit Bob.” Mr. Caulfield said. “We would not have made it 10 yards if he hadn’t come out there for us.”

Mr. Franks looked like his face was going to explode “If you think I am going to stay here with some gun toting psycho then you have another thing..”

Whatever Mr. Franks was going to say was lost to history because Old Man Tucker shoved that big cowboy gun right in his face, and said “Get out.” Mr. Franks sputtered and try to say something but Old Man Tucker cut him off again and pulled the hammer back with what seemed to be a thunderous “CLICK”.

“I said get out.”

That’s when Mrs. Franks got involved.

“You can’t do that Tur..um..Mr. Tucker. You send us out there you will be killing us.” she said.

“Not my problem Ms. Franks, but you can stay if you want.”

Mrs. Franks started to plead again and Mr. Franks looked like he was trying to appeal to Mr. Caulfield. I could see that Old Man Tucker was getting close to losing it. That was when Lucy tugged on his shirt.

Old Man Tucker glanced briefly down at her,

“What is it Miss Lucy?” he said as he returned his attention to Mr. Franks.

Lucy said “I don’t think you should send him outside just for being a nosey poker.”

Old Man Tucker laughed for the second time.

“Well, I reckon you are right about that too Miss Lucy.” and he pointed the gun at the ceiling and slowly let the hammer down. Lucy added that she was not sure but she didn’t think “reckon” was a word either. Old Man Tucker looked at Mr. Franks and said,

“Well, I guess you owe your life to the good sense of young Miss Lucy here.”

He moved towards the sink where he put pulled the slide back on the black gun and a bullet tumbled out. He put a fresh magazine in, chambered a new round then set the black pistol down on the counter.  He picked up a glass and filled it from the faucet. He drank it then turned back to all of us.

“Well, make yourselves at home, living room through there, den past that” he pointed the other direction and said, “bath room is at the end of the hall. My bedroom is on the left, an extra one is on the right. We can figure out the sleeping arrangements later but I have got to lay down for a bit, my back is killing me. If you want Mrs. Driscol there are cans of chili in the cupboard and a big pot under the sink.” 

I noticed Mom and Mrs. Driscol look at each other like Tucker had said something stupid and Mrs. Driscol rolled her eyes the way Elaine usually does when she wanted to make Dad angry. To tell the truth I really didn’t know what he had said that was so wrong. I liked chili too.

With that Old Man Tucker picked up his pistol but he paused for a second then handed it to Mr. Caulfield.

“Here, keep that handy, she’s loaded so better put it on safe.”

Mr. Caulfield nodded then took the gun. Old Man Tucker was just at the hall when he turned back to us,

“Oh, Caulfield, thanks. For coming back for me I mean.”

Mr. Caulfield smiled and gave a half a salute to Tucker who disappeared down the hall and into the bed room he had said was his. He shut the door behind him.

Mr. Caulfield suggested we keep the noise down and we did, barely whispering and after about an hour the mob outside quit banging. Mr. Caulfield looked outside and said they were still around but looked confused.

“Like they know we are near but have forgotten exactly where.” 

Billy was suddenly at my side and he whispered

“Johnny, you gotta see this.”

I followed him into the living room where Lucy had found a TV and was watching “Clifford the Big Red Dog”, we left her to it and I followed Billy into the Den.

In the back was a fireplace with a couple of couches, one on either side. On the left was a whole bunch of shelves with all sorts of boxes and tools on them and a desk with a swing arm lamp showing all sorts of parts from a totally disassembled gun. But what had me and Billy transfixed was the right hand side. All along that wall were glass front gun cabinets, and they were filled with all sorts of guns. Long guns and hand guns. Each gun was different and labeled with a little card.

“Look at this one” Billy said excitedly pointing to the first one in the cabinet.

I looked over his shoulder as he read “1758 French Charleville Flintlock, 69 caliber” then added as he pointed to something next to the rifle

“Look at the size of that bayonet!”

We were having a blast, Old Man Tucker had a civil war musket, and something called a 30-40 Krag from the Spanish American War, he had a bunch of WW I rifles, American and British and French. Four of the French ones actually, funny looking things and they were all labeled as one kind of another Berthier or Manlicher but all were noted as 8mm Lebel. He had a huge Swiss rifle with a brass scope that went nearly the entire length of the gun. The card said it was a ‘Vetterli Shutzen’ from 1881 in 10.4 mm. He had Remingtons and Marlins, lever action guns and single shots. He had three Russian rifles called Moisan-Nagants. Apparently each was different but they looked the same to me. One tag said it had a hex something another and other was from a place called Tula. The third had a scope on it.

He had shotguns too. Most, but not all, were double barreled and he had them arranged in size from .410 to 28, to 16, to 12 to 10 gauge. He had pump shotguns like the cop did and remembering him made me sad because we couldn’t save him too. He had a few military looking guns, like M-16s or something. 

In the last two cabinets were hand guns, pistols and I found out from the labels that the cowboy guns were revolvers and the others were pistols. Apparently Old Man Tucker loved Colts. Most of what he had were Colts, he had four them that were labeled COLT DA 41, and there were extra cards by them one said something about Jesse James who I had heard of and the other about John Westley Hardin, who I had not. A bunch of the colts looked very old fashioned and from tags I learned they were all black powder with 1847, 1856 and 1861 dates. There were two guns missing from that cabinet, one spot had a tag that said “Ruger Super Blackhawk, 44 Magnum” and the other one said “Colt 1911, 45 ACP caliber.” He also had a Ruger SR45 that also said 45 ACP. He had other pistols, the littlest one said 25 Auto, then 380 auto then 9mm, then 40 S&W and finally 45 ACP.  Those looked about the same to me just differently sized. 

Just below where the Super Blackhawk should have been was a nearly identical one labeled “Ruger Blackhawk, 357 Magnum.”  Billy said his favorite was a very shiny silver colored revolver that according to the label was a “Mitchel Arms S.A. 44 Magnum”. He had a bunch of revolvers that were various makes of ’top-breaks’ all of which were from around 1900, 32 and 38 caliber mostly but one was 45 long colt. This was the only case that was unlocked and when we tried the drawers at the bottom we found they were filled with boxes and boxes of bullets. Apparently if he had a gun, then he had at least a few bullets for it. All together we figured he had over a hundred guns but the cards said that most of what he had dated from the First World War or before.