Meeting Daddy

It feels like someone is driving a railroad spike into the side of my head as I gradually come back to consciousness. Through a numb haze I hear muffled voices. I can feel tight bindings around my wrists and ankles. A great weight sits upon my chest, it takes a long moment to realize it is the other way around. I had been slung over the back of a horse. Gradually memories start to return. Getting lost, putting my horse down, the encounter with the strange pair. Groggily I **** my eyes open and right away notice that while not yet night it had become much darker since I’d been knocked out. Somewhere between then and now the rain had stopped. I twist my head to see the tall blond walking out of a shed toward me carrying a bucket of water. All I could see behind her is dense forest rising up a steep slope.

“Yer awake then.” She says, almost sounding disappointed. She sets the bucket down beside her. “I was just bout to rouse you.”

“Where…?” Turning my head I look off the back of the great black horse to see more forest and another tall peak. We were in some secluded valley deep in the mountains.

Grabbing me by the scruff I am pulled none too gently from the back of beast into a controlled fall straight down into the mud. Dazed as I was I still have enough to sense to roll away from the horse so as not to get crushed beneath its hooves which ends up getting me coated from head to toe in the black sticky mud.

“Whoowheee! Look at that little piggie play in the mud.” Fiona laughs cruelly. “Wallow little piggie, wallow down in that muuud! Ha ha ha ha!”

“Fuck!” I sit up and spit the mud and filthy water from my mouth. I shake my head and blink my eyes to try to clear my vision. What I end up seeing is a huge two story log cabin with a front porch than ran the entire width of the house. Sitting on one of the steps is Jessie with…his…elbows on his knees watching me with an amused smile on his girlish face.

“Aw mister, you gots yer nice city clothes all dirty.”

“Yeah, I fucking noticed.” I give my hand a tug but the bonds are good and tight, tied in a way I never saw before.

“Hey! Language.” Jessie scolds. “This is our home. Momma don’t like no cussin words here.”

“Y’all are nuts.” I hold out my bound wrists. “Untie me this minute!”

“Settle yourself city man.” Jessie says. “You gonna behave yourself, understand? And we’ll all get along real nice.”

I grit my teeth and glare back. “I suppose I don’t have much choice now, do I?”

“That’s the spirit.” Jessie winks.

From behind I am grabbed by my shoulders and hoisted up to my feet. Damnation this blond gal was strong!

“Fiona!” A gruff booming voice bellows. “Jessie! What the hell you got there?”

From out around the side of the cabin comes a big blond man in short sleeves and overalls. On his head was a sort of shapeless brimmed felt hat. He must have been near half a foot taller than me and half again as heavy with the muscular build of a Greek god. He had thick mustache and heavy stubble on his chin and cheeks. The family resemblance to this Fiona was unmistakable.

“Papa!” Fiona rushes to her father, in the blink of an eye the fiery eyed imposing woman in her twenties had become like a bubbly little girl. Next to his hulking figure she looked normal size. “Look at what we found Papa! Little piggy boy roamin the woods.” The man’s hard expression softens as he greets and hugs his adoring daughter. He kisses her forehead and pats her cheek with surprising tenderness. She blushes and giggles and bites her bottom lip. Daddy’s girl if I ever saw one.

“He’s a law man Daddy.” Jessie says in a tattletale like tone. I’d put money on the feminine lad being a middle child. “Says he’s unaf-afailiated.”

“Between jobs Sir.” I nod at the man, hoping he could see sense even if his peculiar children could not. “There seems to have been some kind of misunderstanding here.”

Instead of answering the man just looks me up and down with a long hard squint. I could see in an instant the man did not like me or what I represented in his eyes.

“He a long way from home Daddy, and ain’t nobody knows where he is.” Jessie says. “Ain’t even got no kin waitin for him.” He laughs. “Headin to Texas. He thought he was on the road to Chattanooga!”

“Hmm.” The man rubs his rough chin.

“Jessie said Auntie would want ’im.” Fiona says. “Did we do good Papa?”

Her father smiles at her, every time he looked her way his face would immediately soften even as hers lit up like a loyal puppy dog. “You done good Fiona.” He strokes her braid in an intimate sort of way that put me ill at ease. “You listened to your brother?”

“Yes sir.” She nods. “I never hurt him none, not even a little, a’cept what Jessie told me to do.”

“Atta girl.” He says proudly. “Peggy gonna need that man in tact. You done good baby girl.”

The woman beams at her father’s words.

“He said he put his horse down too, over in the slough yonder.” Jessie says. “We heard the shot. That’s how we found’im.”

“Mmm? Well I best be goin to get that before I lose the light. No use good meat goin to waste.”

“Good Sir! I must insist you release me this instant!” I go to move toward him but with my feet bound and still woozy I end up face down in the mud all over again.

“You ain’t law ’round here! You won’t be insistin on nothin! Ya hear!?” The man snaps before giving his children orders. “Go clean him up. Momma would kill you two bringin him in her house like that.”

This was crazy! These hillbillies wouldn’t listen to a word I said, I couldn’t even begin to talk reason with them. If not for my throbbing head I would have sworn this was some sort of fevered nightmare.

“On it Daddy.”

“Yes Papa!”

The man throws some extra rope on the horse and takes the reins to lead it out toward the bush to go and retrieve my dead mare. “And when y’er done with that bring him in and put him in the bindin chair.”

“Yes sir!” They say as one.