Chapter one
This was the seventh time this year.
Uncle Tim hauled my older brother through the door with the familiar iron fist he always used on us. Noah looked like a swine worker, his clothes and hair jabbered with dirt; and his skin with fresh bruises I was sure was Uncle's doing.
The man dropped the door's latch back into place and reached for the whip hanging from his hip. "Joining those wretched drug meddlers aye, you scum!"
My body jerked when I saw him fling the first hard stroke to my brother's bare arm. At seven, I wasn't exactly sure what to do. But I did know he had no right to strike Noah like that. His hand was in the air to give a second strike when I heard myself shriek. "Leave him alone! You bad man!" I regretted the words as soon as they'd left my mouth; because his attention immediately shifted from Noah to myself.
He looked surprised. But the look drifted away quickly and his anger returned just as he began his steps towards me.
This was the point I was supposed to scream for help. However, the sound would easily be drowned by the thunder slashes and pouring rain from outside.
"I see you." He narrowed his yes with a smirk. "Noah's been teaching you his bad tongue huh?"
I shivered my tiny figure, looking up at him with teary grey eyes. Before he reached me, his characteristic stench of sweat and liquor hit my nose. And I'd begun to pray for mom's return.
My eyes moved to his whip as he began to lower it unto me…and then I shut them.
But then I heard Noah shriek.
My brother sent a pan swinging to smack Uncle Tim on his back. At fourteen, he'd already become my father figure, quite ready to take my bullets if ever I were to die.
I recall when first I stole. Having been starved for two days, I'd snuck some bread into my pockets and was munching it down in our small cabin of a room when Uncle barged in and caught the food in my hands.
Just when I'd already begun to imagine myself getting several dozens of his whip, Noah came in and claimed he'd given me the loaf. Till now, the scar on his left eye always reminded me of that day.
Now… he grabbed me into his arms and began to race towards the door.
Uncle was still recovering from the numbing pain while I struggled with the door's latch. Seconds later, after having swung the door open, mother was just before us, her hands filled with bags of seeds for the week's work.
Surely this was not the first time Uncle Tim had tried molesting her sons. But sometimes when she'd tried to come in between, he'd added her to the mini war.
That never stopped her from being that defensive mom though.
Now she slipped out a knife from one of the bags, ending up littering a rainbow of seeds everywhere. "Go meet Uncle Brad boys!" She shouted to us and nudged us out through the doorway.
Uncle was now staggering towards us in his usually half drunk manner, having his whip still in that one unflinching grip. "Just wait till I get my hands on…"
Mother stopped him halfway when she began swinging her blade around to threaten him. "Go away!" She continued to scream to us again and again.
But of course we were too worried to leave. And on second thought, we wanted to help.
As though she read our minds, she stepped into the house and locked us out.
Now there was no turning back.
In the almost piercing darkness of the night, through the drenching downfall of rain, Noah sped through with me in his brotherly arms. And although we hardly saw our path, the tiny glimpse of light from other small cabin houses helped to guide us.
Father died when I was four. Even though I wasn't sure how, stories said he died in a war. And soon, we'd run out of food. Instead of starvation, mother brought us here months after to live with dad's older brother.
I never really believed in the existence of Hell or the Devil until that very day. He might have had his heart at the back of his chest.
But every night, mom always told us how our sufferings were better than starvation. And how there was a silver lining in every cloud. I wasn't seeing any to be honest.
Uncle Tim hated everyone, everything. Also including a day old baby just because it breathed from the same air he did.
Most times, we fed from the neighbors around us, because most of the money we and mom made from the harvest, Uncle squandered in liquor.
Uncle Brad was one of those neighbors.
Whenever my own Uncle wanted to kill us like today, Mom sent us to his mini restaurant to pass the time.
He was one good man; one man who always made me wonder where Uncle Tim was created.
Several minutes later, we shivered into his eatery dripping wet. Noah finally lowered me into the floor with my hand still in his. "Wait here Jeffery," he whispered to me and went off to an adjacent door in search for Uncle Brad.
And there I was; a tiny, innocent seven year old who got drenched by the rain while escaping from his maniac Uncle.
My stomach grumbled with hunger and I automatically looked around at several smiling customers and all the food before them. The aroma teased my aching nostrils even more, And I began to wonder if this was what all fatherless children went through.
But patience took over.
Very slowly, I lowered myself to sit upon the wooden floor, my eyes turning to the small television hanging on the wall above the counter.
A boxing match was flaring on the screen, one I'd watched more times than I could count on this very same spot.
It was the March of 1997, Montana, booming with pouring clouds and long nights.
But I knew there was more to life than all the gloom in this lonely town.