The Sweet and Pungent Odor of Gasoline

The lights were too bright for his eyes, making him squint into the otherwise perfect darkness. Two headlights, blinding him, shot against the elm and past it, into the high-grassed valley below. But the way the hill dropped off, all he could picture was the elm, a few feet of grass in relief, each blade casting its own shadow, and then nothing. Just the blackness past the blades' individual shadows. But he was facing the lights of the Jeep, hands tied behind his back, standing without his shoes. Where the lights went after him was only his imagination.

An hour and a half previous, he was sleeping alongside his wife in their dowry bed. She, seven years younger than he, awoke first at the pounding on the door and, in turn, awoke him. He was groggy for only a moment, until he heard the balled, angry fists against the oaken entrance. Wiping his eyes and pulling up his khakis, he shouted, "I'm coming, you Charlatans. I'm coming." He shoved his nightshirt haphazardly into his pants, tied his belt, and pushed back the lock of hair as it hung in his face. He kissed his wife once, on the bridge of her nose and motioned for her to remain where she was, tucked neatly under the covers and shivering from her fear.

Plodding to the door in his bare feet, he heard his own clipped footsteps reverberating on the masonry, resounding each time his heel his the tile. I will miss these squares, he thought, and the people that helped lay this floor. Oh, the work that went into this home! But do not think of that, he thought. Those thoughts will only end in your death, anyway. But that is where I am going, is it not? Am I not tramping to my death at this late hour? Again, do not think of it. Ok, I will put it away then.

His guests, only three men, waited for him to open the door and, when he did, they pulled him outside by the collar of his nightshirt. "Kiss your wife, Old Man. You will not be returning."

"That I have done and more this night," he said.

"Then turn, arms behind you." Peter did as he was told, taking a final look at the oak door he carved by hand, it's smooth edges and fine grain. Tying telephone cord around his wrists, they led him back to the jeep in the blackness of the night. It was a new moon and hiding behind the clouds. Even it, he reasoned, did not wish to see this unfold.

They drove for more than an hour over the bumpy road. The air was stifling, the engine loud and he smelled the sweet and pungent odor of gasoline in his nostrils. His arms chafing, he turned to one of the men, Smith - a miner, he remembered, and asked for a scratch. The man chuckled, squinting at the old lord. "Even as you go to your death, you still find the need to have someone scratch your itch? Oh, you dog. You will pay for this." With a rush, Smith gave Peter the back of his hand, swooping downward and scraping his knuckles across the old man's cheekbone, then mouth, then clear. Pursing his lips, Peter tasted the sweet-iron of blood. It had been too long since last he bled, he reasoned. Another reason for this game.

"Why didn't you kill me back there, in my home?"

"It would have been too easy. We wanted you out in the farmland, in the air where you beat those who worked for you. We wanted you to die in the land that made you wealthy, not in the comfort of your home where you enjoyed your riches. There must be justice."

"You speak of justice as though you are intimate with her."

"Soon," spoke the driver, "you will be familiar with her, too."

They pulled up to the elm, leaving the Jeep running. By the sound of it, there was an exhaust leak. Each getting out in turn, they pulled him out, dropping him on the hard soil. It was mid-spring and he felt the wind whistle under the truck and move the hairs on his toes. Now he stood facing the Jeep, looking into its lights, breathing lightly. This is easier than I thought, he reasoned. This is but a small thing. Just do not dwell on it, and things will be fine. Just do not dwell on it.

The three men walked to the back of the truck, opened it, and each pulled out a carbine. The bolts went into their places with the familiar pop-slide of his youth. Each would take responsibility for the death, he thought. Not one man would be free of this sin. Walking back around, the man who was in the passenger seat - Frank, he believed - a farmhand, took him behind the wrists, led him until he faced the elm and kicked him behind the knees, leveling him. I was right, he thought. The lights go off into the darkness. It seems a great cliff, this tiny knoll in the darkness. But I remember it well; it is a place I used to tumble as a boy. His head was placed against the jigsaw-puzzle bark of the tree, eyes looking down. Not much longer now, he thought.

The cold iron of the carbines found the back of his neck, at the base of the skull. One. Two. Three. Yes, he could feel each one pleasantly against his neck, contrasting the warmth of the night. He breathed in long, slow sobs now, ready for it to be over. The men looked at one another, each giving a curt nod, and squeezed the triggers nearly simultaneously. The echo resounded off the trees into the still, quiet night.

The man's body slumped forward, head backward, leading with the neck. The bullets found homes in the tree at different angles and his blood, dark as the night now, washed over the fresh wounds of the elm. The three assassins got back in the Jeep and, calmly putting the truck into gear, drove back the way they came. Peter remained on his knees, in the darkness, until he was found the next dawn by a neighbor who heard the shots and woke in the night.