Chapter 6: Lights in the Night

Alex Sr. worked away during the week on a Columbia River dam site. He came home most weekends, making the three-hour drive Friday evening. Often he was quite late, saying he'd gotten "hung up" with friends or late work. Usually his breath smelled of whiskey. He had always been a drinker and enjoyed hanging out in the evenings with his tavern buddies. But now there was a new element: jealousy.

There had been jealous rages before. Once in Wyoming at a rented tar-paper shack on the South Platte river, he returned home from a drinking binge and stormed through the front door. He raged at Dee that he saw strange tire tracks in the dirt driveway. That argument escalated into a shouting and screaming match until Dee, frightened and humiliated beyond reason, grabbed her .22 rifle from the bedroom and chased Alex Sr. from the house, firing shots at his fleeing heels. He sped away in the family car and did not return until the next morning, hat in hand. That was another family "legend" -- the night Dee shot the heels from Alex Sr's boots.

It was a perverse jealousy, for Dee was faithful and Alex Sr. was not. But, he believed that if he could "play around," then Dee would also.

Graydon was asleep. He and little Alex had waited up late that Friday evening until Dee chased them to bed; then they had lain awake for another hour, peering out the upstairs windows beside their bed, looking for a glimpse of headlights on the Wolf Creek road. It was a fun time for the family when Alex Sr. was sober. They'd pack the Blue Goose with a picnic lunch and fishing gear for a day's outing. Or they'd just drive one of the mountain roads up the Methow, or Chewack, or Lost River valleys, sometimes topping out on a high ridge where they could see mountain peaks stretching away in all directions. Or sometimes, during hot summer weekends, they would go to a small lake for a day of fishing, swimming, and picnicking.

Shouts and his mother's protests awakened Graydon from a deep sleep. It had been a dreamless sleep, black and unconscious. Now he was fully awake, hearing the raging argument downstairs. In the dim moonlight he could see Alex Jr. stir in his bed, awake but huddled under his blanket.

Alex Sr's voice raised in anger, a torrent of accusations and curses punctuated by high-pitched, sobbing denials from Dee. A crash meant Alex Sr. had kicked the door, or a table, or a wall. Another string of curses and another crash, and more accusations of "having men visitors" and cheating and playing around behind his back.

Graydon had never heard violent outbursts this angry or furniture crashing against the walls so wildly as he was hearing now. His mother's voice became increasingly hysterical, broken with sobs, and then, while Alex Sr. resumed raging, she went silent. Another crash: Alex Sr. had kicked and punched the kitchen door, then slammed it open again against the wall, amidst sound of dishes and containers crashing and clattering to the floor.

Silence for a time. Alex Sr. had slammed out through the front door, onto the porch, muttering. Graydon could hear his mother pull a chair out from the kitchen table, its legs scraping against the rough linoleum floor.

The downstairs erupted again in violence: Alex Sr. slammed back into the house. Graydon heard a slap and his mother's scream, amidst more profane bellows.

Graydon stood up in his briefs and bare feet, frightened, unsure, his mind racing with conflicts and fear. He hated Alex Sr. when these drunken rages came upon them, but never before did he fear for his mother's safety. Now he was truly frightened for her. Graydon dare not face Alex Sr. directly. He was no match, physically, for the brawny, barrel-chested man whose great pride was tavern brawling with a pair of huge fists. Graydon was not yet 13, tall but thin, and he hated fighting. He was not at all good with his fists.

But he must do something. If Alex Sr. hit his mother with his fists ... it was unthinkable ... she was small, and Graydon couldn't imagine...

The rifle was in the closet, standing in the corner. It was loaded, 18 long-rifle hollow point rounds in its tubular magazine.

In bare feet, shivering in fear and the cold air of the night, he grasped his rifle and jacked the lever down and back, sliding a bullet into the breech. This also cocked the prominent thumb-hammer back, ready to fire. From long habit, Graydon slid his index finger through the trigger guard. His thumb on the hammer held it down. Downstairs the violence raged but he could hear no blows, only the slamming of his step-father's fist hammering against a wall or door, and more curses.

He eased down the confined, steep stairway, his bare feet feeling for and gripping each board as he descended. He reached the small bottom floor fronting the three doors: one to the outside, one to the kitchen, and one into the front room where the angry shouting continued. He stood there, the rifle at port arms, waiting. He would intercede. If he heard a fist strike his mother, he knew what he would do. He would turn the old porcelain knob, step through the door, and confront the man at gunpoint. At this moment, Graydon did not consider the raging beast in the room to be his step-father. It was a monster, and if the monster hit his mother or turned to charge, he would fire. And fire again, and again. Although it was only a .22 caliber rifle, Graydon had killed deer in the river's cottonwood bottoms with head shots, the bullet aimed between the eyes. He knew well the deadly effect his rifle would have. Shots into the center of a man's chest would be fatal.