Instrument

A Course of Action

Samuel decided Cowtown was as good a place as any to start his new way of life. He found an apartment, bought a few pieces of furniture, and combed every pawn shop in the area looking for the right gun. When it was all said and done, he found three. The first was a 12 gauge Ithaca shotgun that would drop the empty shells at his feet. It was in good condition, having never been used much. It seems there were a lot of people who liked the idea of semi-automatic shotguns, and many were following that trend and trading in their pumps. That suited Samuel just fine. The second was a Smith & Wesson stainless steel .357 magnum revolver with a 4 inch barrel. He liked the idea of stainless steel, to cut down on the need for constant upkeep due to changes in humidity, weather, etc. Lastly, and just to cover all the bases, he bought a very tiny 5-shot revolver chambered for a .22 caliber rimfire. It was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand without being obvious, and was also made of stainless steel.





When it came to making the rent, Sam found he was able to pay the bills pretty easily selling advertising for a publisher of the local telephone directory. Yellow page advertising sales paid well, and he seemed to have a talent for coming up with eye-catching ads that his clients appreciated. The nature of the work allowed him to learn the city, as well as many of the suburbs. On top of that, he actually liked the work, and was into his seventh month in Fort Worth when he woke in the middle of the night. He'd been dreaming about walking in the park at night, something he did quite often. He almost thought it was real, except for the fact that the street lights in his dream were all green. Except for one, that is. It was red, and was familiar to him. When he started walking towards the light in his dream, he saw a large cat sitting in the middle of the light. The cat turned his head towards Sam, and then stood, stretched, and sat down again facing Sam. And then he vanished. It was at that point Sam awoke, already sitting up in the bed. He didn't exactly know why, but he jumped up and got dressed, and headed out the door. Just before he walked out, he tucked the .357 into the back of his belt, just in case.





Two blocks away, as he approached the intersection from his dream, the street was totally deserted. "What the hell am I doing out here this time of night?" he asked himself. Absolutely nothing was going on. Disgusted with himself, he sat down on the curb and shook his head. He began to question his own sanity when, in the dark across the street, a set of glowing eyes became evident. Samuel and the cat locked eyes, and were in the process of a good old-fashioned stare down when they were interrupted by the sound of squealing tires in the darkness somewhere behind the cat. Samuel jumped up and began to cross the street when a dark sedan came careening around the corner, lights out. Samuel stopped, clearly lit by the street lamps, and everything in his soul told him to jump to avoid being mowed down. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the cat stood fast, and for some inexplicable reason, so did he. As the driver tried to negotiate the corner, it was clear there was a struggle going on inside the car, driver and passenger locked in battle over control of the wheel. They both seemed to see Sam at the same instant, and the car began to slide sideways as the driver slammed on the brakes. The car came to a stop with the driver's door less than a foot from Sam. Sam didn't know how he knew it, but he knew exactly where the car would come to a stop. He looked across the street, and saw the cat was still there, sitting patiently. With the hair standing on the back of his neck, Sam leaned over and rested his left forearm on the driver's window to look inside the car.





The driver and passenger seemed to be frozen in time, staring at Sam full in the face. The driver was well-dressed, mid thirties, in a dark suit and a blue turtleneck. The passenger was similarly dressed, but appeared to be quite a bit older than the driver. What caught Sam's interest was in the back seat. It was hard to tell who was back there, but they weren't moving, and appeared to be covered with a blanket. Looking a little closer, he was able to make out running shoes and shapely female legs showing from under the blanket. Sam could only think of one thing to do.





Sam placed the muzzle of the revolver against the driver's forehead. "Nice night for a drive, fellas. Whatcha up to?" Neither man spoke. The passenger relaxed his grip on the steering wheel, and was the first of the two to speak. "You seem to have caught us in a delicate position, young man." He looked at the driver, as if prompting him to agree. The younger man sat stock still, his eyes focused upwards on the gun barrel. The older man began to shift his weight, and Sam said simply "If your hands drop out of sight, you're going to have to clean this young man's brains off your face before you do anything else." In response, the passenger placed both hands back on the wheel. "You know, this isn't what it seems..." the man began. Sam cut him off, "And just what would it seem to be, pray tell?" The older man cut his eyes left and right, as if trying to find somewhere to disappear to. Sam was very tempted to laugh, when a moan sounded from the back seat of the car.


The young lady sat up, almost like a jack-in-the-box, the blanket falling away to reveal bright red hair and shocked green eyes. She looked at Sam, then at the two men in the front seat. She repeated this several times before she spoke directly to Sam. "Who are all you guys?" Sam never took his eyes off the two men as he spoke, "My name is Samuel, and I haven't really had the time to make the acquaintance of these two gentlemen." She seemed to ponder for a moment, as if she was moving in a slower frame of time reference from the rest of the world. "Erica" she said simply, "And these are my dad and my ex-boyfriend." She opened the back passenger door of the car and got out, straightening her sweat shirt and shorts as she exited. "They seem to think the way to get their way is by being stupid and overbearing." She leaned back into the passenger window of the car and looked at the three men. "Thank you Samuel, but please don't hurt anyone on my account."





She turned and sprinted away into the dark. Sam gently pulled the gun away from the driver's forehead and stood up, careful to keep his eye on the two men. "Well, I guess I'll go back home now, but I do hope you guys will turn your headlights on when you leave. Hard to tell when you might need to see where you're going." Sam stepped back away from the car towards the cat's side, never turning his back on the car. The older man placed his hands on the dashboard of the car while the driver turned on the lights and carefully backed the car up. Sam pointed down the street, away from the direction Erica had taken, and the car slowly pulled away as directed. Sam stood there for a moment, watching the tail lights recede. When they were gone, he looked down to see the cat looking up at him. "I guess you're waiting on me?" Sam said. The cat looked across the street for a moment, then stood up and walked across to the other side. The street light on that side flickered for a moment, and the cat was gone. Sam thought about following Erica to get the story, but then decided against it. He slid the gun back into his belt, "This is liable to get tricky, I suppose" he said as he walked back the way he had come. He had a lot to consider.





Samuel recalled the red hair and the green eyes as he sat there in the confessional. Father Thomas asked, "Did you ever find out what was going on?" "No, Father, I never did. But somehow, I knew there was a bad ending in the making." Sam shook his head at the thought as Father Thomas asked, "But how can you be sure?" Sam smiled grimly, "Because I met up with her old man again a couple of years after that." "What happened, did you get to ask him about it?" "No, Father, I had to kill him that time." The priest hadn't expected that, but before he could speak, Samuel said simply, "But you don't have to worry about that one. I already got absolution."





Thomas sat back in the confessional wondering what he'd gotten into, when the doors to the church banged open and the sounds of rushing feet assaulted the silence. He started to rise and confront the rowdy folks, but Samuel spoke first. "Keep your seat, Padre. This'll only take a minute." Thomas heard and felt Samuel exit the confessional. The sound of a silenced pistol and falling brass made the priest jump, then drop into the floor in front of his seat. The smell of spent gunpowder wafted into his nostrils as penitents' door opened again. He felt the weight of someone settling into the seat, and Samuel spoke quietly, "Sorry about the interruption, Father. I'll take care of the mess shortly. Now, where were we?"