| The Creative Expressions of... Bill Vivrett |
 |
 |
| NightRiders: Incident on Big River Heights Page 3 of 6 __________________________________________________ |
|
|
| Updated 12.08.04 |
 |
 |
| Grimly, four horsemen pressed on, pursuing a past they could not change. Out of the half light
mist, they had become a living anachronism, frozen in a lawless time warp of their own making. Still, they came on�up from Blackwell Station following the Big River valley to Vineland. They stopped at Vineland�s spring only long enough to water horses. At the spring, Dick Berryman
asked, �Where we goin�, Sam?� �To hell...and soon but first I got to kill me an old farmer�on the way.� |
| They climbed the long hill, headed west/northwest to Big River Heights.
Driven and twisted from the first with demons of his own choosing, Hildebrand never even stopped to think abut what he hated most; authority, decency or justice. Yeh, he had another piece of killing to do, north on Peter Moore Lane near Stone House Road. But first, he would take car of the old man on Big River Heights Road. Once and for all. He�d do it right this time. �Maybe he�s already dead,� the youngest ventured. �Not till I say so,� the leader snapped tersely. �Maybe he don�t live up there no more,� another tried. �He won�t soon!� Sam cut in to end it. They were only four horsemen this time, but on they came into the blowing rain. Electricity energized the pre-dawn clouds; these cold October clouds that seemed to drape each rider like a shroud. It was still more dark than light at they now rode due west on the Big River Heights wagon road. The scattered farmers had built the road themselves to haul crops to market but it brought raiding partisans during the War Between the States and since. �Hello the house,� came Sam�s inevitable call. He too knew of this long-standing tradition among these isolated farmers in these ravaged heartland hills. He called out before he cleared the rise of the hill but all he heard were wind chimes. He knew this part of Jefferson County. He knew the small cottage was just over the last rise and to the left of the now muddy wagon road. And he knew all four would be silhouetted against the pre-dawn sky. (A bushwhacker thinks of those things.) The rain stopped suddenly! Very slowly, this was turning into a cold, slate gray day�the kind of day nobody cares about going back to for remembering. �Come on out,� the leader growled, �or we�re gonna burn ya� out, then shoot ya� where ya� stand.� Buck chuckled to himself at that. They planned to shoot him anyway. |
 |