Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 21010 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 105(@200wpm)___ 84(@250wpm)___ 70(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21010 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 105(@200wpm)___ 84(@250wpm)___ 70(@300wpm)
Following Benjamin into his office, he closes the door behind me. I realize I’m somewhere no Rowdy has ever tread before, and take mental note of my surroundings. Lots of plush chairs, and a desk with an executive chair behind it. More pictures on the walls, getting older and older until there’s one that’s an actual painting.
“Well, boy. Speak up. Make me not regret letting you stink up our house.”
“Damn, you don’t ever stop, do you?”
“Sorry. Habit.”
I take in a deep breath. I practiced this in the mirror a bit, but I’ve forgotten everything but the rough points of what I wanted to say. “What’s the whole point of this family feud, anyway?”
“Hmm? Are you really that ignorant? Are you as dumb as I always thought the Rowdys were?”
“I am not. I just never got the full story. My dad just said we shouldn’t approach McCormicks. That they’re posh and haughty, and that their family tree should have a lot more branches than it does.”
He raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”
“That you fuck your cousins. And closer relatives on top of that.”
Benjamin can’t help but laugh. “And we say the same thing about you. That your family reunion is more often than not where you people meet your one true love.”
I shrug. “It’s not like that. And I’m thinking what we think about you isn’t right either. Doesn’t answer my question though. Tell me a story, Papa McCormick. What’s this whole feud about?”
Benjamin takes a big breath as he walks past me and takes one of the photos off the wall. “This here is Eugene Halford McCormick. My great, great, great, great uncle. And in this photo? He’s dead.”
The picture he’s holding up to me shows someone with his eyes opened and faintly smiling. He’s in his twenties if I have to guess, a little older than me. “Doesn’t look dead to me.”
“Back at the tail end of the nineteenth century, taking pictures wasn’t easy. But people wanted to remember their relatives. And if someone met their end prematurely, they had ways of getting you a picture of your recently departed loved one. I believe it involved a lot of wire and makeup. People are surprisingly clever.”
“As much as I like a history lesson, Mr. McCormick, I don’t see where this little bit of trivia is going.”
“The Rowdy family and their roving band of horse-riding goons killed him. Pelted him in the chest with buckshot and revolvers. Eugene’s brothers returned fire, but it was too late for him. The best medical science of 1897 wasn’t going to rescue someone with a heart full of lead.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “What led to such a thing?”
He hangs the picture frame back up on the wall. “It was a territorial dispute. Our families squabbled over where the Rowdy grazing lands ended and the McCormick farmland began. It got heated. They brought in a lawyer after Eugene’s death and drew the line clearly. Neither family was happy. Compromise often ends up that way, but we didn’t want another incident.”
As he tells his side of the story, it jogs something in my mind. My dad didn’t really care about the feud, but I remembered a story that my grandfather told me during a picnic when I was young. “If what my grandad told me is true, your great uncle might not have been the only loss that day.”
Benjamin looks my way. “Are you saying my family killed one of your ancestors?”
I nod. “It’s an old legend. Yancy Rowdy is buried at the edge of the legally drawn property line. He was shot in some big gun fight, and knew he was dying. So he asked to be buried face down, ass up, so he could, in his words, ‘show those McCormick bastards his ass for the rest of forever.’”
Benjamin is forced to laugh again. “Really?”
I shrug. “I am not gonna start digging up the land to find him. I guess you could look around for obituaries and death certificates to see if Yancy Rowdy actually existed or if my grandpa was just telling tall tales to entertain us. But that’s what I was told.”
Ben leaned against his desk, looking down at the floor. “I have no doubt that’s what happened. I told you my family returned fire. But the Rowdys started it.”
I let out an annoyed groan. “Does it honestly matter?”
“Of course it does. It means it’s the fault of the Rowdys.”
“No, really, does it matter? This was over a hundred years ago, Mr. McCormick. It was ancient history when your grandfather was alive. And it’s even more ancient now. Are you going to keep holding the sins of our grandfathers against us? The sins of men we didn’t know. I can apologize for Eugene’s death, but it’s as empty as me apologizing for the death of the Queen of England, because I’m as close to her as Eugene, and about as responsible.”