Tis The Season ©

Or putting it simply




I wish you all a safe and happy time during this time of year.



Walker

How Much? ©

Jingle Bells
Santa smells
A million miles away.

Oh what fun
It is to throw
All this money away.

That’s what happens when you follow a herd of reindeer all over the place.
How’s the shopping going?
Bloody hell, it’s getting fucken expensive.
Everything you want to buy you have to mortgage next year to afford it

I remember stories about how people used to get an orange for Christmas

now it’s an apple.


For the orange all you had to do was reach up and pull one down as opposed to cutting the tree down to sell for wood to buy an Apple.
The orange represents the thought.
The Apple represents, not thinking, unless you’re getting the Apple then thumbs up, you scored large.
The question is do you feel like Santa or Saint Nick?

What’s wrong with making gifts like they used to before Mattel and Barbie showed up?
They would probably last longer than the crap they sell today in stores in fact I would rather someone knit me a scarf than buying me one.
For one it means more and it would probably be warmer.
D1 is building a toy box for her cousin at school.
I couldn’t believe she took wood shop this year and decided to make everyone’s gift this Christmas.

I think that’s great.
I told her she can make Inia a back scratchier like this.



Inia will go bonkers over it as she scratches her inch when I’m not around.

It’s cheaper to make things than to go into debt trying to buy what you can’t afford.
Why spend $700


when with a little sweat and a saw you can bring this cheaper version home.



and with a little handy work you can get it to squat too



Ipods, playstations, TVs, laptops….the lists are long and expensive.
I’m not shy to say I can’t afford to drop five grand on gifts for sixteen people.
I don’t know how some people do it but this boy can’t and won’t.

Over the years I have learned ways to circumvent some of the cost of the big ticket items.
Sales are great for some things but for some it still isn’t worth it like TVs.
I wouldn’t buy a used TV especially the new LCD or Plasma TVs.
They don’t have a great life span so buying them new is the best way to go but for things like games I prefer to buy from places like KIJIJI.
You get great deals from parents whose kids have no more use for their game consoles.
It’s recycling without throwing money to the big box stores.

I have done most of my shopping this year except for a few last minute items I need to pick up.
Even with careful shopping a lot was spent but I must admit for what I spent I got a lot for my money.
The kids will be happy as will everyone else.

Giving is supposed to make you feel good.
I know it makes me feel good but when you are pressured to give more than you can, then it’s not what you should be doing.
I was given a list of possible gifts.
I was given a list but no one asked me for one.
Funny how that works eh?

My advice to anyone who may want it is to shop how you feel and in the end you will feel good.
I know I do.
It’s all apples and oranges in the end anyway.

Have a nice day

Walker

The Haunted Throne ©

So you walk into your parent’s house and find them huddle in the corner.
I’m thinking someone farted and they were hiding from the smell but no it wasn’t, it was the haunted toilet that had them freaked out.

What?
Haunted toilet?
What, what the fuck is a haunted toilet?
What toilet is haunted?
Can toilets be haunted?

I mean I can see the benefits in haunting a toilet, all that sweet pussy sitting on your face.
That would be something until the diarrhea hits you between the eyes that is or some fat guy sits down and drops a log in your eye.
That’d hurt.

So I ask them, what haunted toilet?
My mother says the toilet in the basement is haunted, it flushes by its self.

Huh?

She says she sits on the toilet and when she is done and goes to flush it does it before she has a chance too.
I look at her thinking COO COO
I look at my father next to her and he is nodding his head telling me it does it to him too
He went for a piss and when he was done it flushed itself without him doing anything.
I’m thinking I need to check their prescriptions.
How much wine did you have with lunch?

My parents got this old toilet in the basement that must be at least thirty years old so it nothing fancy like some of the new ones out there that flushes it’s self.
The only thing new on it was the valve on the inside I changed last year.
Fucken thing is so old I am scared to put my hand in it so I didn’t catch whatever lives in it.

My mother says my brother is down there now trying to get rid of the problem.
Yeah, probably down there peeing on the seat.
I start towards the basement to see this possessed toilet when my brother came up and tells me it’s the weirdest thing he ever seen, the toilet flushes it’s self.

What the hell is wrong with these people?
I go down there and like an idiot I stand in front of the toilet and wait for it to flush.
Fifteen minutes I stood there staring at this ancient porcelain bowl waiting for it to open bowels of hell and swallow a gulp of water.
Nothing.

I pull the top off and look in.
What was I looking for?
I have no idea.
A Poltergeist maybe?

There was nothing there but water and the valve.
So, what now?
I flushed it and it did its thing.

Now what?
I stand there watching the tank fill.
Exciting….

It fills to where it’s supposed to and stops.
I wait
I listen
I don’t hear anything

I nudge the tank just in case the ghost of past shits has fallen asleep.
Nope, nothing
Nada

I put the lid back on and stand back to watch it for about ten minutes.
Sort of giving it one more chance to prove me wrong but it was a silent ten minutes.
“Fuck this”,
I turn to go out of the washroom and stop.

Maybe I got to piss in it?
This is ridiculous and walk out to the stairs then go back to the washroom and close the door behind me.
I’m an idiot

I stand in front of the toilet but don’t have to go.
So I turn the tap on and in about five minutes I’m making ripples in the center of the bowl.
When I’m done I pull up my fly and the toilet flushed.

Wtf

I stood there watching the bowl empty then refill.
This isn’t possible.
You got to do something bad to be made to haunt a toilet bowl I'm thinking then cursed to get stuck in a Greek’s house that loves eating lentils regularly.

Not satisfied with the possessed toilet theory I pull the top off the tank again and look in.
Water and the valve.
I’m looking at the valve and thinking about when I installed it.
It’s one of these fancy things that you can adjust to make it fill less water in the tank.
Up until recently it worked perfectly.
I look closely and there is a button on it and it was pushed down so I flipped it up.
I didn’t know what it was for but it was a button so I got to flip it up.
Nothing happened so it didn’t really matter.

My father, he who never throws anything away brought me the paperwork for the valve and after ten minutes of reading I learned that the switch enables the toilet to refreshes itself if you so choose.

I find that funny.
Something designed to help conserve gives you the option to waste more that a normal toilet.
I look at my father and ask him if he has been playing inside the toilet tank.
He said no.
He lied.
I know when he lies.

My mother told me he was tinkering with it a few weeks earlier and he said he only changed the flex pipe.
Uh huh and why was he in the tank?

When my father sees something he doesn’t understand he has to touch it.

I waited an hour in the kitchen and we didn’t hear the toilet flush again on its own so the mystery of the haunted toilet is solved.
After that I went home having a little chuckle to myself all the way up to the washroom and onto toilet when it rose up and bit my ass.
The toilet seat snapped as I sat on it and bit my butt.

Why not.

Have a nice day

Walker

Hello, It's Me ©

Well that’s done, I hope those of you who read the Red Clay posts enjoyed them and if I ever decide to write another 21 post story just shoot me.
But, I did owe many of you an ending since I had abruptly stopped writing them so now that is done.
My head hurts.
I will leave them up until the end of December and archive them after that.

So what have I been up to for the last um three weeks?
Well, the porch is done and paid for.
That was fun.
Paying, what an adventure.
To avoid paying double taxes we paid for materials cash and the labor by cheque so that meant we had to go to the bank to get some money.
This is where the fun starts.

We needed seven grand and my parents didn’t feel it was safe for my father to walk out of the bank with that much cash on him so they wanted me to go along for protection; after all I am the gangster in the family according to my mother.
I look at my mother and enlighten her a little.
That was 25 years ago when I was younger and more flexible or at least didn’t creak and crack when I moved.
At my current age I’m scared the next fart might spit out a vital organ.

So off to the bank we went.
Over the years the area has changed a lot.
The branch my parents have been using for the last forty years is now in what is called China Town, an area that once was mostly inhabited by Italians and other southern Europeans.
Most have of them have moved out to the suburbs but some diehards like us have stayed and more or less blended in.
That’s what been North Americans should be like.

That’s what we are right?
Descendants of a bunch of interlopers who came over the oceans to impose ourselves on the native population by either killing them or cheating them out of what is, was rightfully theirs.
We got them drunk and stoned then empties their pockets.
But you got to give the natives credit, they learn real quick.
Today they're killing us back with cheap smokes after they give us free booze at their casinos as we loose our houses at the crap tables.
That’s one way to get the land back.

So we walk into the bank and there isn’t one person in there that isn’t Asian.
Not even the token teller.
Me I don’t give a shit but my father he’s like.
“They’re all Chinese”.
Me I say, “No, some are Vietnamese, Korean, yeah some are Chinese”.
He looks around and says, “They’re all Chinese to me”.
I tell him, “The teller on your right, she’s Vietnamese, and the one over at the other end, now she’s Chinese”.
“How do you know that”? he asks.
“Well it’s obvious”, I tell him ”The Chinese chicks have bigger tits”.
He gave me a dirty look ”You’re a Malaka, that’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard”.

We stood there in line for about five minutes waiting and he says ”How do you know she’s not Korean”?
“They have fatter nipples”.
He turned his head towards me and shot me this sharp look, I thought his eye was going to pop out, it’s a good thing a teller opened up before he could say anything.

At the booth the teller asks him to slide his card in the slider but my father doesn’t have a bankcard.
He refuses to own one.
He doesn’t trust computers so, no card.
The teller punches in his account number and brings up his info.
My father passes him a paper showing how much money he wants.
The teller looks at the computer and turns to my father and says he has to fill in a request for this amount and it would take two working days.

My father asked me what he said and I told him in Greek. “She said you can’t have your money”.
“What”!!!!
“Why”?
“It’s my money”.

I explained to him that the bank didn’t keep umm $7000 in the bank any more.
My father stood there in a trance for about thirty seconds.
“No money”?
The teller shakes her head at him.

He looked over at me and in Greek says, “The Chinese took my money to China”.
I told him “No they didn’t, this is the Bank Of Nova Scotia, they just bought the province and moved your money over there and invested it in golf courses”.

Imagine that, once you could go to the bank and draw out ten, twenty grand, now you have to make an appointment two days in advance to visit it.
I told her to put the request in and we’ll be bake in two working days.
As she is filling in the form she looks at us and apologizes first but says she has to ask by law, “What do you need the $7000”.
I translate to my father and we talk for a second then turn to her and say,”There’s a sale on chicken” and I made her write it down.
It’s our fucken money so the government could go screw themselves.

It’s bad enough they are in our pockets as deep as they are, they have no business how we spend the pennies we’ve managed save over the years.
They’re probably pissed off they didn’t get it all I guess.

With the paper work done the old man and I headed for the car.
On the way he says, “She was half Korean and half Chinese”.
“Yeah, that she was”.

Have a nice day

Walker

The Red Clay: Part Twenty One ©

The smoke drifted up into the night sky dispersing as all dreams do in the morning light.
Thilivhali looked up through the smoke at the witchdoctor and asked the old man if this is what awaits him in the future.
To loose everything he loves, to die alone on some strange soil.

Was this his destiny or was there a way to change his future?
The old man look down at the boy and told him that you can’t run away from your destiny and history is what you make of it.
What is meant to be will be and in the end what is meant to happen will or there would never be a balance in the universe.

It doesn’t matter what path you take into the jungle they will all lead to the other side just that some will take longer, some shorter; others are perilous but in the end you will always find the other side.
What path you take the witchdoctor said, will determine how hard it will be.
The old man left the boy sitting in the night by the dieing fire to absorb his words and think on the events of this evening.
The future was his to dwell on, to create and make his own destiny.

As Jonas watched he saw a young couple get up and walk off towards a cluster of huts.
The woman was beautiful; she would fetch a nice price if he didn’t keep her for himselfhe thought or maybe he would just keep her for the trip across the ocean and then sell her when he was done with her.

Putting the looking glass away he sat down to wait for dawn’s early light before they strike.
They will go in before they could get a chance to fully wake up and their wits together to put up any resistance.
The idea would be to limit the casualties and increase the profits, it’s all about the profits.

Just before dawn as a fog drifted into the village from the jungle and with no one stirring, the slavers snuck out of their hiding places, stealthily moving out of the forest and into the village.
This trip had yet to produce any slaves or ivory.
Jonas was loosing money by the day with Smith less than a week away from picking them up on the coast.

A hundred slavers charged through the centre of the village letting out loud frightening screams all at once to startle the inhabitants just before they hit the huts to paralyse their victims as they barged into their lives throughout the village.
Hut to hut they entered and found nothing, not a soul was to be found anywhere in any of the huts.

Jonas stood in the centre of the village pistol in hand watching everything unfold before him.
It was the same story village after village that they had raided.
Nothing, no one, all were empty and had been for days.
His lieutenants reported to him that they had found no one in the whole village just the burning embers from celebrations of the night before.
Yes, the night before the village was full of people dancing around, and that young woman he saw through his spy glass was here but where were they now, where was she.

Jonas went from hut to hut to look for himself and true enough they were all empty of people but their belongings were still there.
He was starting to feel a little uneasy.
For some reason his senses told him that he was in trouble but just couldn’t put his finger on what it might be.
Jonas called his men in and they started gathering at the centre of the village to get new orders from their leader.

He was looking at a map of the area to see if there was some place they could go and find where the villagers had gone too.
Just then a baboon’s scream filled the morning air.
The trees of the jungle reached out with long fingers and even longer nails to touch them as spears rained down on the slavers while they all stood around in the open at the centre of the village.

Many fell in the first volley as the rest scattered looking for cover from the deadly rain.
Jonas barely survived a spear that went by his face.
He pressed up behind a hut for protection.
He had to gather his forces and get them to hold their fire because right now, they were only wasting powder shooting at shadows.

He stuck his head around the side of the hut and called for one of his lieutenants to come over, then watched the man get halfway to him before a spear downed him.
Cowering behind the hut he called out into the air for everyone to hold their fire.
As silence slowly fell across the village, an eerie silence that was interrupted by a loud roar that came from the jungle, a prelude to the next chapter of this history.

Destiny was being created as hundreds of warriors poured out of the edge of the jungle shaking shields and spears at the slavers in their village showing their courage and fierceness just before as one they all rushed out like a pride of wild lions.

Jonas looked at the mass of warriors wondering who they were and where they all had come from.
From what he had heard there was no other tribe in the area and none of this size.
Looking up to the other end of the village a warrior stood tall wrapped in a lion skin flanked by two other tall warriors, one older one younger.

Thilivhali looked down towards his enemy, and enemy who he had never met but one he had known so well for the last ten years of his life and leading up to this day.
Ten years he dreamt of this moment, this man, the thinking and planning for this, his wedding day, a day of rebirth for him and his people.
This is the day the shed any innocence they may have had left but not for glory but the right to live.
For the right to be free and exist to live as they wish.

The witchdoctor had said that destiny was written in history and it couldn’t be changed but each path was different to get to one’s destiny and it didn’t matter which he chose the end result would be the same.
For years he had been planning for this very day.
His whole existence so far in life was for this moment and its outcome will determine how his, they’re future will unfold.

They laughed at him when he first went to the chief and the elders with his story and explained what had to be done.
He told them his story and what was needed to be done, to prevent his dream from becoming reality but it fell on deaf ears so he had to win them over.
First his family who like the rest didn’t believe him either and then by gaining the respect of his elders.

As he grew in the years leading up to manhood, his many deeds for the tribe and by caring for them he gained the respect of the elders and they began to listen to him.
They had grown to trust his judgment over the years and the witchdoctor respected him also, so they decided it would do no harm in being cautious thus agreeing to his plan and the defences he proposed.

After convincing his elders he spent years talking to other villages and trying to bring then into his final plan.
He knew it was not enough for just them alone to fight, the more they were the better their chances were of succeeding.
At first they started thinking him insane as those who first heard him at his village thought until stories filtered back to them that whole villages had disappeared without a trace.

After hearing the stories from the survivors milling around in the jungle they were willing to listen to him and give their support.
The hardest thing was convincing the other villages to move all their people here to his village and prepare for this battle.
It’s hard to get people to leave their homes and belonging but it was essential that they were all close for their protection.
It took him almost another year to train the warriors and to prepare this trap for the slavers, a fitting wedding gift for his wife and their future he thought.

Now the time was here and he had to carve out his future but to do that he had to win or they were doomed along with everyone else as was their way of life, as it would vanish as does the spilled blood into the ground.
Like a general he stood at the top of the village and watched as his warriors charge the flaming sticks of the slavers, some falling but the rest rushing in fearlessly until both clashed against each other in the centre of the village.

Hali woke up in the morning and went down to the post office to mail his package then returned to the hotel before Ada had awakened.
They went for breakfast and then returned to get their luggage to take off for the African coast and their new future together.

Thilivhali started running towards the white man followed by his father and brother, side by side they charged towoards their future and that of their village as destiny beckoned them forward into time.
Three slavers jumped out at Thilivhali with a swords but Thilivhali blocked the blow of one with his shield and impaled him with the spear in his other hand as his brother lashed out at the other two killing one but was cut by the third before Thilivhali’s point silenced him forever.

His father had run past them and went onward towards the white man.
He remembered the stories his son had told him.
This was the demon he had to kill to save his children’s future.
Thilivhali and his brother turned and raced off behind their father when they saw their father stumble but then regained his step and kept on charging towards the white man.

Holding up his brother they ran together when they saw their father’s club come down on the white man hitting him on top of the shoulder and sending him back against the hut but before Thilivhali’s father could raise up the club once more to deliver the finishing blow he collapsed backwards to the ground.

The battle raged all around Jonas as it was now hand to hand combat with spears and swords.
He looked at the other end of the village and could see the three warriors coming towards him and he grabbed the pistol in his waistband, his sword in the other he waited for them to get closer.

Halfway to him his men jumped out and engaged the two of them but the old one pressed on until he was within range but gave him a little more so that he was sure before he raised the pistol and shot him in the chest, but he kept on coming.
Before he could grab the other pistol the warrior was upon him and coming down with a club hitting him in the shoulder sending him back against a hut before the old man fell at his feet.

A sharp pain shot through his shoulder as he lay back on the side of the hut.
He knew his collar bone was broken.
Looking back up the path he could see the other two now running towards him, he knew he was the focus of their attention but why?

Thilivhali’s brother fell to the ground, leaving him there he kept on until he got close to the man when he saw him raise his weapon.
Side stepping the thunder went past him as he move in for the kill and certain victory.
Stabbing out with the spear the white man knocked it away with his long knife and came at Thilivhali with a fury, hacking and slashing left and right at him.

With pain shooting through his left shoulder, Jonas regained his feet and stood up to meet the charging men.
The young one fell but the big warrior still came on.
Grabbing his gun with his good hand he pulled it out and took aim but his shot missed when the warrior dodged left.
Now it would be his skills with a blade that would be put to the test.

He parred the thrust of the spear and lashed out at him but the warrior was quick on his feet or had his wound slowed him down.
He charged in and started slashing and stabbing at the warrior but to now end until the man slipped on a stone and fell to the ground leaving him to the mercy of his blade.
Seeing his chance Jonas rushed in and stabbed down but the warrior got his shied up in time and deflected the attack.
Jonas stomped down with his boot on the shield and tried to hack off the others head but he couldn’t get a clean shot at it.

Even wounded the white man fought like a crazed beast refusing to give up and had put Thilivhali down to the ground.
He needed to get on his feet before he was cut badly by one of these wild blows that were raining down on him.
Pushing up with his shield he made an attempted to get up from the ground but the white man’s long knife came violently down cutting off the top of his shield.
Then with a back swing of his blade it was knocked from Thilivhali hands leaving him on the ground on his back defenceless and at this man’s mercy.

All around him the slavers were once again getting the upper hand on the villagers.
Their long knives overpowered the spears they used by cutting the heads off of them leaving his warriors with just the shafts to fight with.
Slowly the slavers pushed the warriors back towards the jungle.

Ada watched from the jungle at the battle unfolding before them and could see that the villagers were loosing.
She was looking at the beginning of the end of everyone she loved and cared for.
Her whole world was slowly being slaughtered.
Turning she looked at the other around her, old men, women and children.
She looked at her mother her sisters…

Ada leaped out of the jungle with a fury, screaming at the top of her lungs and holding a spear with both hands charging at he main body of combatants.
Behind her came hundreds of women, children and old people, all armed with anything they can use to fight with.
They followed Ada into the fray to fight along side their loved ones.

Ada stormed in ramming her spear into the throat of an unsuspecting slaver then watched as he crumpled to the ground blood gurgling from the gaping wound like a slaughtered goat.
Her father looked to his side and smiled at his daughter, her brother was next to him fighting with his life shining brightly through his eyes like the proud warrior that he was.
It was a vicious battle with everyone’s lives on the line.
People pressed up together, friend and foe, this was hand to hand combat with survival on the line for all of them, villagers and slavers included.

The slavers were pushed back by the weight of the new force that joined in the fight, turning the battle back in favor of the villagers.
Bodies piled up while the earth soaked up the river of blood as it flowed amidst the heat of battle.

Jonas looked down on this warrior and had to admire his strength and fighting skill but it wasn’t enough to beat him so now he will have his life spill out at the end of his sword.
Raising it over his head with his good arm he paused for a second to smile down at Thilivhali and was bringing it down when something pushed out the front of his shirt.
Jonas looked down in bewilderment as he saw the tip of a spear slowly emerging out the front of his shirt.

Jonas Beacham III was sitting in his study reading the newspaper when his butler walked in with the mail for the day and handed it to his master.
He told him to put the mail on his desk and he would look at it as soon as he was done with the newspaper.
He was going through the national section when something caught his eye.
There was a small piece about a shootout that happened at a desert bar in Nevada two months earlier.
It seems that a man shot it out with two bikers and was killed along with the bartender and the two bikers.
There were two survivors and they were both cleared of any wrong doing.
One was an old man who has never been seen since that day and the other a young black man on his way back to California for his final semester in medical school.

It seems that one of the dead men had given a satchel to one of the survivors and told him he could have it.
The police have decided to let him keep it along with the other contents that were in it since there was no one willing to stake claim to it or dispute the boy’s claim.

Jonas smiled and sank back into his leather chair.
He had finally shaken the family curse and he could sleep better at night knowing that he didn’t have to worry about what bad thing was to befall him next.
His whole family’s history has been nothing but blood and money with murder being the main tool.
They were cursed by someone for some thing his great great grandfather had done and all suffered for it since but now it was over.
He finally got rid of the cursed statue that bond him to the curse.
It wouldn’t let him throw it away like it did to his predecessors and he couldn’t give it away either but it could be stolen.
The $500,000 was the sum for the profits made by his ansestor that brought this curse on them.
He didn’t know if it would make a difference by repaying the curse back but he didn’t want anything connecting him personally or his family to the past or the curse and thought this would balance it out.

With a sigh of relief Jonas call his butler and told him to bring him a brandy, it was a good day to celebrate then got up and walked to his desk and started looking at the days mail when the butler came in and handed him his brandy, that’s when he saw a package sitting in front of him.
Picking up the brandy he took a sip from his glass and was wondering about that package, he wasn’t expecting anything from any one.
Drinking the rest of the brandy he put the glass down and began opening the package, inside he found a small object wrapped up in paper.
Unwrapping it he suddenly froze, it was in his hands again…but how?

He recoiled in fear and tried to toss it away but his hand held a tight grip around it and it was now starting to feel warmer.
Grabbing it with both hands to try and dislodge it only trapped the other hand and was now holding onto it just as tight as the other was and it was getting hotter.

He tried to pry his hands apart but they didn’t seem to want to let go, struggling only made his grip tighter around the statue.
The statue was beginning to glow red like a hot coal in his hands sending searing pain through his brain.
His clothes began to emit smoke when they burst in flames engulfing his whole body.
His screams went unanswered as he fell to the floor trying to put out the flames by rolling around to no avail as the flames rose to the ceiling.
Then as suddenly as it started it was over.

Thirty minutes later the butler walked into the study and found his master laying on the floor dead with a clay statue laying next to his right hand.
He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a blood stained handkerchief and tossed it next to the old man on the floor.
Mary Smith’s great grandson turned and walked out the door.
With every step John took down the street time ceased to exist as did Jonas Beacham III existence slowly dissolved into the the neverever as did the generation before him.

Thilivhali braced himself for the blow the white man was preparing to bring down on him when he saw him stop, his eyes frozen in a state of shock.
A spear emerged out of the man’s chest and he fell to his knees at his feet dropping the long knife next to him and grasped at the spear’s head.

Thilivhali pushed back to a safer distance and stood up just before the white man fell over on his face.
Standing there behind where the man was standing stood Ada, a scared look on her face.

She looked up at Thilivhali and he went to her, taking her in his arms while his eyes scanned the immediate area around them.

His brother had come up to them now and were joined by a handful of warriors.
Most of the slavers were killed but some got away into the jungle, Thilivhali stopped the warriors from chasing them.
Her wanted to let them go to tell others that there is a price to pay if they ever come back.
He told them to take the dead slavers and lay them out on the plain for the veltures to feast on and to let their bleached bones be a warning to others who don’t come in peace.

That night it was decided that they would move deep into the jungle and away from this new danger that had come upon them.
During the meeting of elders the other tribes decided to join them as it was also decided that Thilivhali would be the new Chief of all their people.

In the morning light 1000 men women and children lined the outskirts on the village waiting for their new chief to give the order to move on to their new home, a safer one they hoped.
Thilivhali signaled them to start and they moved into the jungle and out of sight as he stayed back until the last person had dusappeared into the bosom of their world.

Turning he stood there staring as the fire engulfed the main hut, his father laying at the entrance wrapped in his lionskin gaurding the entrance for eternity.
A small hand took his.and he looked over to Ada standing next to him smiling.
It took them a month to get to what was to become their new home before they started to building a new village.

Ada curled up to him when they lay down in their new hut and whispered to him that she was with child.
Smiling at his wife Thilivhali kissed her forhead and told her they would call him Hali Diego.
Ada gave him a strange look then laughed and asked him how did he know it was going to be a son, it might be a daughter.
Thilivhali smiled wrapped his arm around his wife and went to sleep.

Dalton Henry II was watching his son Dalton Henry III run up and down the long hallway of their Tripp St. home in Chicogo, while his wife was helping their daughter Annabelle get ready for the trip down to Georgia and their family reunion.
It was supposed to be a huge shindig with thousands of people.
His great grandfather Dalton Henry a banker before the civil war had married Annabelle Baker in 1856 and help save her father’s plantation.
Her brother had married Rebecca Baker and their children had later married into the Butler family creating one of the largest families in the south.

The end or is it just the beginning of another dream to a different tomorrow?
Life’s struggle is not the path taken but the choice to take it.

Walker

The Red Clay: Part Twenty ©

Hali was deep in his hole hugging the ground tightly to his breast anticipating that at any moment January 1 1968 was to be his last day on this earth.
The ground all around him was being violently torn up by mortars.
They had been warned that the Vietcong might do something on their New Year but being as it was an important holiday to all Vietnamese and they had agreed to a three-day ceasefire.

The atmosphere at camp was relaxed on that New Years Eve, up until the early morning of New Years day, when they came.
They came like a dark wave out of nowhere and everywhere causing death and destruction to everything and everyone like a hoard of locusts swarming across a wheat field.

They had been camped on the south bank of the Perfume River when the attack came.
First the mortars then rockets stabbed into their fortifications before they came out of the darkness like ghosts riding the smoke belching death with every step.
They came by the thousands.
Eyes bulging and screaming like demons from the deepest pits of hell they came.
They came at them with their AK47s showering down death from every direction.

Ten months earlier he had been in Louisiana wandering the bayou either collecting herbs or fishing for catfish or crawfish.
At night he would sit out on the porch with his son in his arms while his mother rocked nearby in her chair.
The boy’s mother, Manon...she had died after childbirth from fever so it was just he and his mother to raised the boy now but his unit was ordered to Vietnam.
Now he was far from home.

It seemed his life was just beginning a year earlier when Manon told him she was pregnant.
It was right after entering boot camp.
Now, he might never see his son again, his only comfort was in knowing his mother would care for the boy if something were to happen and he didn’t come back again.

There were only a couple of hundred men in camp and they were spread out really thin with large gaps between them.
Like lunatics from an insane asylum the enemy ran towards them.
Hali and his comrades poured a wall of death into them but they just kept coming.
With the burning fires all around them now to light up the night their exposed positions were being fired on more accurately than before as the rockets and mortars come down from overhead.

Hali looked to his left and could see Zawolski and Henderson shooting into the oncoming enemy.
To his right he could hear the chatter of the M-60 manned by O’Rieley and Moses “Eagle Feather” Jones.
His partner Frank Enriques was three feet away from him picking and choosing his targets as fast as he could but they were still getting closer and closer to their position.

Lt. Col. J. Beecham III sat at his desk two miles from where the battle was taking place busily trying to find a way out of there before they were overrun and he was killed.
He had too much at stake to be killed here in this shit hole he thought to himself.
Just yesterday he got his leave approved to return home for his father’s funeral.
His father never approved of him joining the military but he joined just to spite his father whom he despised more than anyone he knew.

When he was a boy he watched his father push his mother to drink herself to death then put him in military school for the next twelve years.
Twelve years passed without a word from his father.
He wasn’t even at his graduation when he finally finished school.
It wasn’t until he found out that he’d joined the Marine Corps did his father Jonas Beecham II speak to his son and that was only to belittle him in front of his commanding officer.

Now he was dead.
Fuck him and good riddance he thought to himself as he stuffed papers into his attaché case.
The only time his father ever sat him down to speak to him was right after his mother died.
He was drunk, his breath reeking of brandy.
He said his mother was a whore he fucked in some back room then mumbled about some kind of family curse.

The only curse he ever saw was his father and now he wouldn’t have to bare that demon with him gone.
That’s if he could get out of this hellhole.

He had been in the Corps now for twenty years and had climbed through the ranks safely until Vietnam but it all wasn’t that bad.
In fact, until now Vietnam had been very profitable for him and had amassed a fortune that he had hidden in various foreign banks waiting for the day he could leave this army of fools and live a life of leisure.
If he got anything from his father it was his business sense and maybe a little of his cruelty.

Over the last five years he along with some acquaintances from school back in the United States had a lucrative business going back and forth shipping cash and drugs by using military planes.
This allowed them to bypass customs by landing safely on air force bases back home and abroad all at Uncle Sam’s expense.
So many planes were coming and gong there was no time to check them all and his friends had people working on the receiving end thus avoiding any detection of the goings on behind their backs.

As he closed the case there was a knock at the door.
Picking up his 45 he asked who it was, Corporal Smith, his driver was there to drive him to the airfield to catch his helicopter.
He told him he would be with him shortly then grabbed his coat from the coat rack and his case.
He was going to miss the money he made here and the women but with what money he had along with his father’s estate, he should be able to keep him in the lifestyle he craved.
Besides, he would think of ways to make more.

“You will never amount to anything in the military” Jonas Beecham II, his father said to him twenty years earlier.
With this last shipment he would have twelve million dollars put away but the old fucker went and die before he could choke him with it.

Hali grabbed the radio and called Headquarters for flairs to be put up.
Less than a minute later the night sky lit up and they could see, a sea of Vietcong moving on them.
He knew there was no way to stop this many.
There were hundreds just in front of him alone, as an ocean of flesh running across the field pouring waves of death down upon him and his comrades.

Picking up the radio again he sent in the coordinates for some heavy gun support just a hundred yard ahead of their position then yelled to Enriques to get ready to pull back towards H.Q.
They could hear the shells coming in overhead before erupting on the ground showering everything, everyone with dirt, blood and scorched flesh everywhere.

Standing up he call to his left at Zawolski and Henderson to pull back then he looked to the right and could already see the others falling back with them.
It was a mad dash falling back a hundred yards to their secondary positions where they dug in once more to wait for the enemy to occupy their old positions.
They didn’t have long to wait.
Despite the merciless pounding they took in the open, there was still a swarm of screaming bodies crawling over their old parapets.

Reaching down Hali picked up a plunger and twisted the handle time and time again setting off the explosives that they had planted in their old foxholes sending bodies and parts sailing through the air.
They had anticipated this might happen and had prepared this little trap.
As the fireworks were going off they poured clip after clip into the smoke and dust but the enemy was still advancing on their new positions.
This was suicide.

Hali reached down to his belt and pulled out his last clip.
He yelled over at Enriques for ammo and Enriques said he was on his last one too.
This was it.
Each shot had to count and then run for it or fight hand to hand with an empty gun.
Zawolski and Henderson ran over both looking for more ammunition.
He told him there was none and to prepare to pull out but to look out for any weapons from those who were killed.

There was nothing left to do.
They had enough ammunition to cover their retreat and with any luck maybe find some along the way back and maybe make a stand but to stay now would only bring on their own death in a short time.

Taking all the smoke grenades they still had left they pulled then tossed them along the route they were heading to, to cover their retreat.
They pulled up to Moses, the big black man stood there legs planted into the ground cursing, swearing down at the enemy as he poured hot lead into the darkness with the M60 in his arms.
O’Rieley was leaning up against a tree with his face blown off.
Hali told Moses they were pulling out then yanked O’Rieley’s tags from around him neck.

As they turned to bug out between the sandbagged walls behind them, a group of Vietcong burst out of the smoke and upon Moses.
Moses cut into them with the big gun mowing six down with his first sweep but was hit repeatedly as he swung around to face a new group.
Enriques stumbled, tripping Hali.
Zawolski and Henderson went to their knees picking off the enemy as they swarmed around Moses.
Moses raised the big gun and fired into them until the big gun went silent then used it as a club to beat down the enemy as their bayonets pierced his body.

More and more poured out of the smoke until ten stood over Moses continuously stabbing him in the chest.
Hali crawled over to Enriques to see how he was.
He was hit inside the thigh and bleeding profusely.
Doing his best to tie it up under these condition he help him to his feet and they all fell back together.

They had gone half way back when they had to stop to rest.
Henderson had found a shotgun along the way and Hali picked up a 45 from a dead officer.
Enriques was in bad shape and needed a medic as soon as possible before he went into shock.

Lt. Col. J. Beecham III with Corp Smith following behind with his bags made their way to the airstrip for a ride out to safety by helicopter but when he got to the hanger there was no helicopter.
The only helicopters were ferrying out wounded and was told it was only for wounded and he would have to wait for his to arrive if it was coming at all.

He could hear the battle getting close and knew he wouldn’t make it if he didn’t get out now.
He told the Corporal to watch his bags until he got back and took off towards the communications tent to see if there was another helicopter coming to get him.

Jonas ran through the dust and smoke until he got to the tent only to find it blown up.
Stepping back out to look for someone to help him mortar shells exploded all around knocking him to the ground.
A continuous barrage rained around him for what seemed like an eternity before it stopped as quickly as it had started.
Jonas lay there in a daze.
Deaf from the concussion that had knock him to the ground he stared around in terror before he started pushing himself off the ground.
As he got to his feet two men stumbled out of the smoke running towards him.
Quickly he pulled out his gun and took aim at the nearest one then shot him through the body.
He then turned it towards the second man but before he could shoot they both fell to the ground in a heap.

Hali help Enriques to his feet again as Zawolski and Henderson covered their retreat.
As they reached the outskirts on the HQ bunker it started raining mortars.
They stumble through the exploding ground trying to get to the safety of the bunker but didn’t make it.
A mortar landed under Zawolski ripping him to pieces.
Henderson stood there staring blankly, Zawolski femur sticking out of his chest with Zawolski’s boot still on the foot.

Hali carrying Enriques moved into the HD compound when something punched him in the side spinning him around and to the ground.
Both he and Enriques lay on the ground side by side now helpless.
He rolled over on his back and stared up at the night sky.
The sky was clear and the stars twinkled as they did back on the Bayou.
He remembered the nights they sat on the porch staring out at the stars together.

Jonas walked over to the two men on the ground and looked down at them.
These were two of his own men and not enemy combatants.
He looked around to see if anyone saw anything then bent down to see how they were.
One was shot in the leg and in a bad way.
The other one was shot in the side and would probably survive with immediate help but if he did that, they would find out it was he who shot him and could be used against him.
But on the other hand he could use these men as a ticket out of here.
Jonas stood up and thought for second.
Enriques looked up at Jonas as Jonas raised the gun then pulling the trigger once, then again.

Jonas made his way to the medical helicopter with Corporal Smith on his heels carrying his gear.
Jonas told him he found a wounded man needing evacuating immediately and told the pilot he and the Corporal were coming along as they all pilled into the last helicopter and flew off.
Hali opened his eyes and looked up at Jonas.
It was the last time he ever opened his eyes.
The pilot came around after landing to check on the wounded man but he had died before reaching safety.
Looking at the body the pilot noticed the bruises around his throat then looked at Jonas.
Jonas stared back at him saying nothing.
The pilot though he wouldn’t want to mess with that man as he slowly backed away.

Hali sat on the edge of the bed looking at the two tags.
They were his father’s.

Walker