The Other Side of Bad (The Tucker Novels) by R.O. Barton Page A

excitin g for this big-eyed boy. I spent many years thereafter watching “The Parade,”  and it never failed to make my chest feel too small for my heart and remind me of that first hunt. The hunt where I didn’t have a gun of my own, a day when I felt my father loved me.
    The brothers were all handsome, fun loving, hard fighting men. By then Uncle Roy and Uncle A. D. were in AA. The other three would only drink beer while in camp; otherwise, it could get a little dicey.
    The Tucker boys got mean on hard liquor. They grew up fighting. Sometimes each other, but woe be to the man who harmed one of them. Through all their toughness, there was a gentleness and loyalty that felt a lot like love, though you could bet your last dollar not one of them would ever say that word to the other.
    I remember them sitting around the old picnic table in the heart of the three-roomed camp; smoking, drinking beer, and telling stories on each other.
    As I leaned in the open doorway, back-lit by the  moonlight filtering through  black silhouettes of tall Cyprus trees that skirted the lake, I could feel the cool November breeze move my hair along with the Spanish moss hanging from the live oaks that surrounded the camp. I could breath in the smell of water that hung in the air and listen to the ducks night calling on the lake. All the while I would listen to the brother’s vibrant stories.
    Wild stories of duck hunts, of pretty girlfriends they stole from each other, tales of knife fights and broken noses. Like the time Uncle Ed hit a man who was getting ready to shoot A. D. with a pistol. A dispute over a woman; I believe it was the man’s wife. The man was standing at the bar when Uncle Ed hit him with his right fist; as he went down, his foot caught between the bar and the brass rail that ran along the bottom. The force of the blow broke his leg in three places, not to mention what it did to his face.
    Nevertheless, as a small boy, I fell in love with all of them, at the duck camps, the deer camp, and the fishing camp on Spring Bayou where we fished for bull-nosed bream, bass, the sweet sacalait, and red-eared chinkapin too fat to wrap your hand around.
    These men, all broad shouldered, barrel chested and narrow hipped, whose rugged tanned faces were creased with more than age lines—the scars of battles and laughter. They were larger than life to me. They were giants, men among men . . .and I wanted to be just like them.
    We hunted rabbits, sometimes at night with a spotlight. This was called ‘shining’ and was against the law, making it all the more like outlaws on a midnight raid. It was more effective on a moonless night. We were always surrounded in the black night by the sounds of crickets and buzzing insects, the croaking of tree frogs and the shrill chirps of cicadas, along with an occasional growl of an alligator. We would aim the light into the darkness while walking along raised oyster shell roads through the marsh, looking for the shining red eyes of a big swamp rabbit. Once, while ‘shining’ the edges of a railroad track, I heard a woman scream in the distance, piercing the black wall of night sounds, like a leering dagger through a black cloth veil. A scream so loud and long, I just knew she was being murdered. Uncle Ed held my hand, as I leaned on him and began to shake.
    “That’s a panther,” he said, then patted me gently on the shoulder. “A wild cat, and a big’n by the sound of her.”
    “Why’s she screamin’, Uncle Ed?” I asked.
    “She’s talkin’ to her boyfriend.”
    “She sounds scared,” I said.
    For some reason he thought this funny and laughed out loud while holding my shoulders. “One of these days you’re going to know all about that.”
    My heart was starting to slow down, but I still couldn’t shake the image of a woman in a long white dress, blonde hair flowing wild with the wind in the yellow moonlight, her face twisted with fear, like something out of an old Vincent Price