underwear. He was drunk and rolling around on the bed and laughing. He then ordered me to come to him, and I did. He then grabbed me by the hair, and started to force my face down to his underwear and laugh. Both of my uncles told him to stop, which he did. A few minutes later, Bill picked me up and began to carry me back out of the house, to the truck. As we were going through the house, I could see that Jake was now in his underwear, and was lying on top of the girl and kissing her. We continued out of the house, and Bill carried me back up to the truck where he put me back on the seat, pulled my pants down, and began torturing and molesting me again. It wasn’t long after that that he sodomized me and I delivered the kick that would drive him off for the rest of the night.
After Bill had left, I fell asleep. The next thing I know, it was daylight, and I was dragged out of the truck and dropped onto the gravel road. I was surrounded by all three of the attackers, and they were all laughing at me. I was so embarrassed and humiliated; I don’t know if they knew what Bill did to me or if it was the way I looked (probably that). I had no shoes on, and the cold gravel really hurt my feet. It must have been fall (like Indian summer with cold nights and warm short days), because the grass was dead, and there was a mist or light fog in the air (you could see wisps of it drifting over the open fields).
The bad guy then went to a parking area next to the old barn, got into his pickup truck, started it, and drove up to where we were standing. I think the pickup truck was a 1955 Ford Pickup, stepside, with the small window in back. The color was canary or butter yellow or something similar, and it looked like new although it may have been used, but just looked that way. The three attackers continued talking for a few minutes, and then Bill went to the house to get the girl.
The girl was barefoot when she walked up to the truck. She was wrapped in an OD (olive drab) wool Army blanket (it was one of the ranch owner’s blankets). I could tell she had her night gown on underneath. Her hair looked a lighter brown (almost blond) than I remembered when they took me to see her in the middle of the night (it looked darker then). They brought her around to the passenger side of the pickup truck and made her get in. Then Bill picked me up and set me in the truck beside her.
As we sat there together, I asked her if she was ok, and she said yes (I think she said that because she didn’t want me to be frightened). I then asked her if they had hurt her, and she pulled up her night gownand blanket, and showed me a very large and dark bruise on her inner left shin and calf. I asked if it still hurt and she said yes.
The attackers were preparing to get in the truck to go somewhere, and Bill was trying to push me over so he could get in. I’m not positive, but I think the girl suggested that they leave me there at the ranch house (she knew what was coming, we were going to be murdered and she still did her best to try and save me). I could be wrong, but I still now and have always given her credit for such courage, because even if I am wrong, she deserves it, and since I can’t truly can’t remember who said it, then, I am saying it was her, and this was the second time she saved me.
I was removed from the truck, and picked up by Jake, and carried back down to the house. We were just about to enter the house, when the pickup truck, backed down the driveway to where we were standing. They were either having second thoughts about leaving me or had forgotten something (like the murder weapon, her belongings, or both). Bill jumped out of the truck and ran into the house, and a minute or two later, ran back out and got back into the pickup truck. Then the truck began to pull out forward. That’s the last time I saw her. I remember how little she looked between the two attackers. I could just see the top of her head through the rear window of the pickup, while the shoulders of the two attackers on either side of her protruded well above the bottom of the rear window. They drove up the driveway, out the gate, and for her, into oblivion.
Jake took my hand and we walked into the house. He had me just stand there while he made himself some coffee, sat at the table and leaned his chair against the wall. I asked him where they were taking her, and I’m really not sure what he said, but I know I asked. I was so scared, maybe what he said did it, but some how I found out and knew they were taking her to kill her and that I would be next. I freaked out, and started begging for my life and asking him not to kill me. He would just lean back against the wall in his chair and smile. He wouldn’t say a word, but seemed to enjoy my uncontrollable fright and begging. I kept pacing around the table as far as I could go one direction (he was blocking one end), then I would turn and go the other way. All the while, I was begging him not to kill me. I was trying to come up with reasons not to kill me, like I won’t tell anyone and things like that. How shameful I was being by offering to help hide the horrible thing they were doing. Even though I was only 5 years old, I knew what I was doing was wrong. I was being a coward and I am shamed for the rest of my life for saying such a thing. But I wanted to live.
This went on for a couple of hours. Even Jake was getting up and pacing around, and complaining out loud that they should have been back by now, and where were they. A little while later, we could hear Uncle Wendell’s bulldozer start (I loved that tractor, so I recognized it when it started, and so did Jake). Jake jumped up and said “what the hell is going on”, and began pacing again. We could hear the tractor engine straining as it was doing some kind of work. A few minutes later, Jake and I heard the tractor shut off, which meant to me that they were done and coming back.
Jake never answered me or said anything the whole time I was begging for my life, so I began getting even more frightened, because my pleas had fallen on deaf ears. A few minutes later, the bad guy’s truck pulled back into the driveway. Only the bad guy and Bill got out of the truck. She was gone.
They came into the house in a happy and excited mood. Bill headed for the pantry saying he was hungry, and the bad guy went to the sink and began washing his bloodied knife (navy style). He was washing and scrubbing his knife, when he turned to me and said “and your next”, then he started laughing really hard. I guess he thought that what they were doing was fun and funny. After the bad guy finished cleaning his knife, he joined Bill and Jake in the pantry. Jake asked what they did, why it took the so long, and what were they doing with the tractor.
Bill proudly answered his questions. Bill said they took a long time, because they raped her again, then he said she tried to run and get away, but Bill caught up with her and tackled her. He then spread her arms wide, and then while he held her, the bad guy came up to her and drove his knife into her heart. Bill then started laughing and bragging excitedly that “she died just like a deer, just like a deer”. Then Jake chimed in and said “that’s too bad, because she sure was some sweet sugar, yep, she sure was some sweet sugar”.
Bill went on to say that they threw her body in an erosion ditch in the back of an area called the flats (the rain water would cut deep gouges into the hillsides, to depths of four or five feet by three to four feet wide), and covered her over using the tractor. The erosion ditch they were talking about was right next to the tractor. I remember because that tractor just sat there in the same place for years after this incident. They then made their breakfast and sat down to eat. They offered me no food or drink, I guess because they were about to kill me anyway, so why waste the food.
They began discussing what to do with me, and for a second, I felt a glimmer of hope. But Bill wanted me dead so no one would find out what he did to me and her. So he kept coming up with ideas and insisting that they had to get rid of me. Then Bill finally arrived at a solution. Bill suggested that they kill me, then cut me up into pieces, put me into a burlap sack with rocks, and throw me in the lake (that was just outside, no more than 40 or 50 feet from the house). Then Bill goes on to say “Then no one would find him, no one would ever know what happened to him”. They all agreed and resumed eating their breakfast.
Whenever something bad happens in my life, I always ask myself “what have you learned Forrest”. On that day, at that exact time, I learned that there are different levels of fear, and when you get to the highest level, it’s like a door opens and you pass through it. Reality ceases to exist. On that day, I passed through that door, but I didn’t die, and that
