Murder, seen through the eyes of a child excerpt!
foreword
This story takes place in the Appalachian mountains in the 1960s. This is an invention, but it is based on real events that occurred in the lives of three young boys. The mountains during this period are still very picturesque and abundant in wildlife. Trees are big and strong, towering above the ground, as their peaks reach out to the sky with beauty and energy.
Clear water cuts its way down the mountainside between the ridges, clean, cold and refreshing. It is good and safe to drink.
There is no pollution here, because mining or any type of mining is not allowed anywhere in this area. Later in the 1970s and 1980s, strip mining operations will dominate the region.
The lives that affect our history and the people who live here are honest and hardworking people. They cherish the earth, treating it as a precious gift. One of these families, Fergusons, still enjoys a simple way of life in these mountains, reminiscent of the traditions passed down from generation to generation — from imposing parents to parents — over the years.
Here three members of this family are important. These are Danny, Jake and Ty Ferguson, a trio of unforgivable characters who live outside the land in this part of the country.
Their home is located deep in a place called Middle Branch. The people of Ferguson are humble and generous people, and ideal examples of a clan that still looks and dresses like mountain families from a bygone era.
However, few people realize that their land is rich in coal and other mineral resources, which greedy corporations and corrupt people will have almost any length.
At the same time, this story also tells about the life and adventures of three young boys who witnessed the tragedy: Joe, (I), Travis and Billy. However, while terrible incidents explode around them, these boys will find ways to get into some very interesting evil.
“Killing through the eyes of a child” is their story.
Chapter 1
Fishing trip
My friend Billy on my bike went on a bike early in the morning on a beautiful August morning, squealing all the way right in the yard.
Then he wrapped his arms around his mouth and shouted as loudly as he could, as if I could not hear him: “Hey, do you want to, do you want to fish today?”
Billy was one of the closest friends I ever had. He lived on the road a bit and, like me, he came from a large family. And, like most boys my age who lived in our area, he was skinny, like a broom gear at 12 and still growing up.
We all might have noticed that Billy was coming to an end because his curly brown hair was weird and crazy, and he always stood almost all the time.
In fact, the first thing that someone saw when Billy was approaching was his hair slamming in the wind, and then no one doubted that it was him. At that time, he was the tallest of all my friends, coming to a pure height of five feet, one inch. In addition to this, Billy was always ready for adventure, and in a drop of a hat he would be to find him.
I was so excited about fishing. I loved our fishing hole, which was located in a beautiful isolated area in the very head of the Middle compartment.
There, the water was so clean and pure that you could count the endless varieties of fish swimming in schools and more than 20 feet of water on their own.
We used to catch many places in our lives — we pulled catfish and crappies and a big drum for our mouths — but from all these fishing holes in all the places we found on our beautiful mountain, time passed — it was rarely blessed, because the best all-around, where you can swim.
He rested on top of the highest mountain peak in the Middle Branch, reaching only after a tense 2-mile ascent through a breathtaking but treacherous mountain pass.
Sweat would have dripped us as we climbed higher, but we rejoiced at the natural beauty around us — the signature of this foot of the Appalachians, a system of 480 million years spanning east to west across the country.
The mountains soared with wildlife, and each time we lifted them to get to our fishing pit, it was like a symphony of songs and sounds of birds and other creatures filled with air. We observed and saw deer, wild boar, bears, squirrels, rabbits and many small animals feeding and interacting in the green habitat of the ridges and valleys, many of which were in the hands. how they played and slept. When it came to some larger wild life that we could hear, falling through a more sinister soil planting, we knew that we were at a good distance for all obvious reasons.
We were tired and stopped resting from time to time when we moved on, but the long hike was worth it. I can't remember the time when we didn't catch a lot of fish as soon as we arrived, and settled down.
So I didn’t need a second thought for me to reply to Billy, and I shouted in the same excited way: “Of course, I love to go!”
And that was an understatement.
“Do you think we should go to Travis's home and get him to come with us?” He shouted.
“That sounds good to me,” I replied, when I ran out to meet him. I was excited.
“Come, let's go,” suggested Billy.
Travis was one of our closest friends. The three of us did everything together, and it was rare to see us separately. We were a little troika, and Travis loved fishing as much as Billy. So we jumped on our bikes and headed towards his home.
Travis did not live too far, just along the road. Unlike us, he was restrained and did not believe in chances, but we managed to attract him to all that we did, if it was good or bad.
Travis was short and stocky and heavily built for all four-foot eight meters from him. Needless to say, he was strong from our small group that came in handy.
I, I was a pole of beans, so skinny that Mom and Dad could hardly find a belt for me. They usually buy one of them as close as possible to my size, and they can find and disable it. Then they take a nail, heat it over a hot stove and burn new holes in the skin to put it.
Whenever I didn't have a belt, I would use a piece of grass rope from hay bales to hold my breeches so that I would not find them around my ankles. I stand high in the proud four feet 10 inches tall.
We made a pretty tutu, we three. Each of us individually feared the death of his own shadow, but together we thought that we were invincible. We could not refuse anything.
Once in the house of Travis, Billy, Travis and I drove to the Misty Void to begin a long journey through the mountains to our favorite fishing trap. We got to the old dirt road, which leads to Fog Hollow, a path that was smooth in places, while other places were so bumpy that they were bent on our bikes if we hit them too hard.
We could quickly go to flat places and have a good time. And we did it, right past the bootlegger house at the end of the road at the head of the Misty Wasteland. The sun was barely that day, and no one moved when we were stuck. The bootleggers were a family that sold moonshine, whiskey and home brew to all the locals. They were called bootleggers because we lived in a dry county where the sale of alcohol was prohibited.
When we got to the place, we hid our bikes out of sight and went along a small stream into the forest. We took the trail leading to our fishing boat and walked deep into the mountains. A soft breeze caressed our skin, moving branches in the early morning air. They gently walked back and forth through the sunlight, tears burst through the leaves. It was a fall, and a hint of orange at the tips of the green from a temperature starting to a cool night just increased the glorious panorama around us.
The path leading to the mountain carries the centers of travelers. Carved to the ground, parts of it now resemble a set of stairs that correspond to our feet thanks to water, which steadily falls from year to year. It follows the formations of each ejection, now protruding from the earth.
We had to be careful in some parts of the trail, especially in those places where spring found its way up and down, trickling down the rocky steps, and then down the mountain side. One wrong step, one mistake, and you were not.
As we climbed, we heard the ferocity of gray squirrels bouncing and swinging branches of trees in the distance. Then a mysterious rustling in the brush, like a deer, ran up to the ridge, its white cotton tail swaying from side to side. The animal stopped at the peak, turned its head back towards us, the ears rose high before it rose proudly - head in the air - out of sight. He managed to get away from us.
Silence was mystical when we gazed into a huge towering canopy of oak, hickory, walnut and beech trees resting on the horizon. These huge trees consisted of virgin forest, the tops of which reached the sky during their long life with open arms in the empire. The woodpecker broke the silence when he struck a nearby tree with his beak with impunity, looking for food. Other birds chirped, stealing our attention as they filled the air, and our ears with their songs.
My mind was filtering out such incredible sights and sounds, a tranquil symphony that was repeated across the mountains, filling my soul. Despite the fact that I had heard and seen this before, I never got tired of beauty and how it made me feel.
Finally, after a pleasant long two-mile hike, we came across our favorite fishing trap, a pond about five hectares in size or more, which twisted, wounded and made its way through the top of the mountain between the ridges.
The best part about the pond is the place where it was located, right between the tops of the two highest ridges in the very head of the Middle Branch. As we approached, we saw that the mist of the morning mist slowly rises from the water and disappears before it meets the sky. Smiles crept over all three of our impatient, young radiant faces, as we imagined a fish that jumped out of the water when the fog disappeared and more of the pond came into view.
There, the water is so clean and clear that you can easily see the bottom. Cattails are scattered around the edge at one end of the shore. When they swing back and forth in the morning wind, the humming birds and insects are on the sides, trying to grab the morning meal in the cattail buffet.
On one side of the pond, there are still parts of the old fence, part of a long and winding wooden barrier that surrounds the gardens that the Ferguson family planted and nursed their property on top of the mountain. It was only a short distance from the pond, at the back of which were rear rock formations that rose 20 feet above the water.
We used these cliffs as a diving platform in the summer months when we swam there. Parked on the shore on the right side at the back of the pond was an old boat that the Ferguson family made.
It was rumored that Danny Ferguson built a boat so that he could use it as part of his trick when he was courting Betty Lou, a clerk at a local country shop, which he often bought there on picnics there.
In the morning the pond is very quiet and has no pulsation, although wild black ducks silently cut through the water on the other side. It is quiet and peaceful, and even the raven hears from afar with their famous bell sound - this is a pleasant comfort.
We all hurried to our favorite places along the shore of the pond in order to get our poles in the water as soon as possible. But when we started throwing, the shrill sound of the shot stunned us. He bounced from one ridge to another across the mountains, straight to our drum floors, breaking the golden silence early in the morning. It scared me so much that I decided to jump out of my skin.
A shot rang out from behind the pond, and the three of us, at about the same time, looked up from the water and looked in the direction of where he had come.
We noticed Jake and Danny Ferguson walking toward us wearing rifles and what seemed to be a big red fox. They had just shot him and dragged him out of one of their traps. The fox was lifeless, her body limping as she hung from the ground by Danny's hand.
The brothers looked at our way and saw how three of us were fishing. They immediately changed direction and headed towards us and stopped. They were older, with Danny about 30, and Jake a little younger, at 27 years old.
“How's the fishing going, boys?” Asked Jake.
Danny looked unusually impatient when asked, “Catch any good fish today?”
Billy tried not to look as scared as he was, but I could tell that his knees were shaking.
