Page 130 of Axton

The Sheriff spoke up. “Go home, Wayne. It might not look like it now, but Mike’s doing what should have been done years ago. He owns this mountainside and can do as he pleases.”

The old lady that relied heavily on her cane held that cane up in front of Michael. “You’ll burn in hell for doing this to your own kin.” The cane came down with a crack and hit the man Michael was pretty much torturing by still holding his arm behind him.

“Mammaw!” The man cried out.

“Don’t mammaw me, you dumb shit!”

She looked at Michael. “Let the dumb shit go.” Michael did, but kneed him between the legs and the man fell to the ground in pain. “It was bad enough when I lost your daddy to the law, but this is the sickest thing a grandson has ever done to his elders. You’ll burn for an eternity for what you’re doing!” She then kicked the man on the ground then looked down at him as he groaned. “Get your ass up and act like a man!”

The woman was disgusting. She looked at Kayla and I saw Kayla gulp. She must have been scared of the woman. “Kayla Marie, our little slut of a granddaughter. When I heard your uncle Delmar say he saw you stripping up on that stage I thought, huh, she turned out just like her mom.”

“She did what?” Michael growled again.

“She was stripping, just like your mama. While you were off in the war and paying her bills, she was sharing that God given body of hers with every man in the state.”

I looked at Kayla and she had tears building in her eyes.

“Step back, Gladys!” The Sheriff warned her.

Her eyes landed on the Sheriff. “If you think we are going to evict from our own land without a fight, you have another thing coming to you. Our blood will be on that boys hands.” She pointed her cane at Michael.

The old woman peeked behind Michael. “Oh, my lord, what do we have here?”

Michael stepped in front of me a little closer. “None of your fucking business.”

She looked down and saw the platinum band on my husband’s finger. “Oh boy, boy, boy, it seems I have a new granddaughter. Why don’t you step around here honey and let everyone get a good look at you.”

Michael reached back for my hand. “Do not move from behind me.” He warned me.

I saw the entire group of unhealthy looking people step left and Michael did what he could to protect me. “Jesus Christ, she’s an angel.” One man said.

“Holy shit, I ain’t never saw nuttin like her. How does that pussy taste, Mikey? I bet she’s real sweet.” One of the toothless ones said then did some weird thing with his tongue at me.

“Shut the fuck up, Shane.” Michael warned him.

“When we were just kids, I used to think you had it so damn good. You always had money, the sweet little piece of ass next door, and a hell of a nice house. But you never did appreciate a damn thing you had, then I found out your sweet little girlfriend was the biggest hoe on this mountainside. Could you imagine my surprise when I learned that baby wasn’t even yours.”

Michael let go of my hand and stood over the nasty man. “Shut the fuck up.” He growled.

“She was running around behind your back with that Caston kid, and you were so damn taken by her that you didn’t even notice she was a nasty little slut. You don’t think her brothers gave us a free ride with her when you were out working? She had one tight ass pussy, too bad she killed herself.”

That man went flying and landed on his ass.

“That’s assault!” The old man pointed at Michael.

“I didn’t see anything.” The Sheriff turned toward his deputies. “Did you boys see anything?”

“I saw the klutz trip over his own damn foot.” One of the deputies said. “And what just fell out of his pocket?”

“Oh, I think that might just be a little bitty bag of probable cause.” The sheriff chuckled.

I didn’t see anything on the ground, but I wouldn’t have said that out loud. All I knew was they had ten days left to vacate their home and I prayed they didn’t decide to move to Indiana just to poke at Michael.

Once the police did their jobs, I realized why Michael wouldn’t let me step out from behind him. The police searched them, a few had guns although they were felons, and that scared me. I hated those people, and they were so mean to my husband and Kayla. I had an idea of their childhood by Michael’s description, but it didn’t come anywhere close to the reality. The men looked so dirty and sickly, and so did the women. They made Pammy look like a delicate beautiful princess.

I was relieved when those scary people left, and we finally went back to the hotel.

Michaels sex drive was nonexistent while we were in West Virginia. So was mine, and a kiss goodnight was about all either of us could give. The poverty I saw on that mountainside made me look at life a little different. I couldn’t have imagined having no hope left for the rest of my life. All you could do was exist. There were children playing in their yards that were too little to be unsupervised. They were dirty and not dressed well for the weather. I was sheltered, fed false testament, the women had no rights, but there wasn’t violence, or starving children. We had a warm supper on the table every night, running hot water, and heat in the winter. We didn’t use tarps to keep the rain out of our homes, or have to sleep in feces as children. Just seeing Michael’s house frozen in time the way they left it showed how hard he worked to give Kayla a better life.

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