Over Logan's Dead Body

“I can’t even remember what day it is anymore.” I half remembered remarking to myself. How long I had hung there I couldn’t remember. It might have been a week, hell, for all I knew it could have been longer. No matter, I was going to be dead soon anyway. At least, that’s what I was hoping.

The constant pressure on my throat had started to get tighter again. My tongue had ceased to be moist and soft and had become swollen and dry. As it hung loosely from my mouth, I could barely muster the strength to close it.

My whole mind had begun to black out at intervals. Is this what dying was? Slow and gradual or was I just as unlucky as I had always been. I was probably just unlucky. The others had died quickly…I hoped. I was only really sure that one had been killed instantly and he was the one hanging in front of my face. I assumed he was there; I had squeezed my eyes shut and no matter how much precious energy it took I refused to open them. I couldn’t see his swollen puffed up dead head anymore. It was harder knowing that I should have married him and that he tried to save me. But here we were hanging from the same tree branch. He was dead and I was still stuck stupidly between death and life. This was ridiculous! By all rights I should have been dead. Then again I was never one for following rules.

My father had always warned me about docile rebellion. Whatever that was! I never had paid attention but as I thought about him I realized that I would never hear those lengthy sermons on obedience again I wanted to cry but there was not even enough energy or water left in my body to even try.

Ouch! The noose had slid a little tighter again. I was either going to die from lack of food and water or my head was going to explode from the blood rushing to it. I could hear my throat begin to gurgle as I felt the air slowly being cut off. I was almost relieved. Soon I’d be walking along the path towards the big ranch in the sky where my mother, father, five brothers and John would be waiting…John. How it hurt deep down in the pit of my stomach when I saw him trying to save me. My white knight! I had called him that forever. Why not? I had known John forever we had almost been brother and sister. I really didn’t need another brother but John was different. Now he was gone.

I couldn’t bear it anymore! I had to look at him once more before I went to join him. I opened up my dry eyes and blankly tried to focus. I couldn’t. Was it my eyes or was I actually spinning on my rope like a rather large ripe apple. The black blur that kept passing every now and again must have been John. I gave up. I closed my eyes and waited.

Suddenly I felt a violent jerk on the rope from above. Followed by another and another. They were extremely painful and each cut off more and more air. I could feel the noose cutting into my skin. Suddenly like a rotten fruit I fell off my tree with a thud. My bony fingers immediately tried to loosen the rope but it was already loosening on it’s own. I lay in the position I had fallen in and couldn’t move. A chilly breeze blew. It smelled of moss. Rain from the North was most definitely on the way. I tried to smile but my lips cracked and began to bleed. I probably would have just withered away right there on that spot but a few minutes later John’s body fell on top of me.

Blood was seeping through his lips and bleeding on my cheek. At first I had been terrified but all at once I found the strength to push the corpse off of me and to my utter amazement I could stand. I slowly made my way towards my home a few feet away.

The old but hardy wood reeked with the smell of decay. Foolishly thinking I could handle the sight waiting for me inside I opened the door. The smell alone was enough to send me vomiting in the nearest bush.

I couldn’t go in there. My parents, or what was left of them were in there. Mindlessly I wandered the corral finding the bodies of my five brothers carelessly left where they had fallen. Ethan, Gideon, Malachi, Adam, and Joel, all handsome and all talented in their own ways. Ethan and Adam had been betrothed. That would never happen. I would never go to a wedding for any of them. They were all dead.

Desperate, I made my way towards the storage out house. Nothing dead in there. The only thing that had been taken was the whiskey and whatever valuables my parents could have possessed. Maybe the well right next to it still had water. My luck had taken a turn for the better. I was so eager to drink something that I nearly fell in. I drank long and hard wiping my mouth on my arm. The water worked miracles. I could feel my whole body soak every ounce of it up like a homemade sponge. My joints were oiled and my mouth moistened. I could move easier now. But the bruises I had now discovered kept my pace slow. I grabbed a box of salt crackers and a small barrel of hard candy and began to stuff my face.

I began to reflect as I ate. Raiders, that’s what they had been. Logan and his crew had come barging in. Pop gave him an earful, as did my ma. Logan laughed and unloaded a bellyful of buckshot at point blank range into both of them. His men took care of my brother who had been caught off guard. Shot them down like desert turkeys. John and I had been the back. John shoved me into a haystack but we had been spotted. John made a valiant attempt but they beat him and then strung the two of us up facing each other. His last words had been, “I love you.” The rope snapped and I lost track of all sense of time until now. Once it had been all over. I felt like a fool. Why was I chosen to survive? I couldn’t shoot a pistol, nor could I handle guns. I was a girl! Girls were raped and killed not chosen to be survivors.

That night I took a torch to the house and stables. I buried each of my brothers and set a pile of rocks up to keep away coyotes. Before I buried John I took his pistol belt. Lovingly I stroked every inch of it before strapping it around my waist. I tried to pull a pistol out but it was pathetic. I could barely do it. One thing my father forbade was for me to touch any kind of weapon. He told me that it was my brothers’ job to protect me. Now I was left alone.

The moon was calling my name. My mind was unstable and grief went through me like a shockwave. I fell on my knees screaming up at the softly glowing hunk of rock floating above in an uncontrollable rage. I had snapped completely. I clutched at my hair and at the dirt around me, howling like a crazed animal. I cursed and swore so loud that I hoped those damned sons a bitches could hear me in Hell because that was were I was going to send them. Even now, I go through times when I go completely out of my mind. I used to fear death before. Now that I am accomplished with violence, I fear myself . My body and my mind has never forgotten what I had saw. Instead of killing me it made me go half mad.

I was determined. Nothing would stand between my rightful vengeance and me. Katrina “Kitty” McFarlad was no more. She had been a stable young woman, a homemaker, a bit tomboyish but a reasonably good girl. She had died of hanging. The creature that had now become me was wild, unpredictable, unstable, a villain in every sense of the word. Even my hair had changed. What once had been raven black was now streaked with shocking white. I had a permanent scar around my neck and a smaller scar across my left cheek. I no longer even resembled sweet and endearing Kitty.

There was no one to stop me. I had nothing to keep my actions fair. I would damn them all. Kitty McFarlad would have tried to piece her life together from where it had stopped, but Kitty was dead. All that was left now was Lynx, an aspiring killer. My motto would be, “Over Logan’s dead body.”

I would have my revenge.