The rest of the story Ch.2

As I stood on the stone and gazed into the hill, the hot breeze blew into my face. Not only did the breeze make me blink to get the moisture back into my contact lenses, but it brought with it an erie feeling. I kind of felt like I may be doing something wrong, or I was in danger or something. I brushed the feeling away. I thought to myself; what could possibly happen? This is an old man, I don't think that he could physically do anything. Even if this guy had a weapon, he probably would have a hard time hurting me. He was strange, really strange. What I was gazing at was equally strange in magnitude. The hill side was covered with Rocks of all sizes. Shale mostly, littered with Juniper trees, Brush and a little grass. But there it was, in the rock, and in between a couple of juniper trees was a perfect three quarter circle without a bottom. The circle was formed in what looked like black rock. From far away the circle looked to be a very thin line but very distinct. If I moved even an inch to the left or to the right I couldn't see it, but if I stood in the correct position on the stone it was as clear as day. The old man nudged me on the elbow, "can you see it, can you see it"? I told him I could, and said: "What is th...". "Quiet" he said, "you'll know soon enough. The old man turned around and walked back to my truck. I followed him to his door and helped him back into the truck. As I walked around to my side of the truck I looked at the old man and he had his eyes fixed on something else. I climbed into the truck and started it. "Where to next boss?" I asked. (I call people boss a lot because I think sometimes it makes people feel good, and lets face it, I knew who was in charge.) I started to ask him about the black circle again when he cut me off, and pointed to a hill in the distance. "Drive to the base of that hill" he said. I drove and he talked. He told me that he was going to show me two grave sites. One of the grave sites was of a man whom was shot in a gun fight, and the other was a grave site of a man that he killed. My gut instantly twisted in a knot. I looked at the old guy and didn't have to say anything, he knew that I needed more details. As we approached the hill I looked at the old man, and a sad look came over his face. He said in a low quite voice, "I swore that I would never come back here, and 75 years later here I am. Stop the truck". I stopped the truck and the old man groaned as he opened his door to climb out. I opened my door and followed. The old man started walking towards a small pile of rocks. The pile wasn't uniform, and I was a little surprised that I never noticed it before.

The old man pointed at the rocks and said: "When, I was a boy sneaking around up here, I used to just watch what was going on. I was sneaky, and I was quiet. I knew that if I ever got caught sneaking around the characters up here would probably kill me. So I learned to be sneaky just out of survival. I knew the dangers but I just couldn't stay away. I was curious. I guess you could say that I was as sneaky as an old Indian. One day I hid in between a couple of rocks up on that hill and watched two fellers. They were arguing about something, and the one feller said he was done and turned his back to walk away. As he was walking away, the other feller reached into a bag he was carrying, and pulled out a gun and shot the other guy in the back. The guy fell immediately, started shaking and moaning bleeding all over, then the guy shot him a second time in the side of his head. I pissed my pants. I really pissed down the side of my leg. I thought about running but I was frozen. I couldn't breath and I couldn't move. I sat up on that hill and watched for two hours as the other guy took a flat rock, dug a shallow grave and buried the other guy. I remember smelling the piss in my pants hoping and praying that the guy wouldn't smell it. The guy stacked those rocks on the grave, and left. When I saw he was gone, I ran as fast as I could those five miles back to the house. I couldn't tell no one. I just couldn't tell no one."

I just kind of stood there looking at the old man. A sick feeling came to me as I imagined the situation happening, and for the first time that evening, I just didn't dare say anything.


To be continued.