FEUD OF THE WORLDS - MARCO PALMER (best fiction novels of all time TXT) 📗

Feuds start for all sorts of reasons – pig stealin’ or violatin’ one of our women folk – even lookin’ toooooo long at one of our women folk – or at one of our pigs for that matter – even grinnin’ when you shouldn’t oughta be grinnin’ - Yep, that’ll start a feud in these parts and in my ‘sperience, scores ain’t easily settled ‘round here without a whole lotta Hellfire and damnation. I reckon that in all my fifty-two years, there’s been feudin’ most everyday ‘cept for Sundays and holy days - days we lay down our rifles and slingshots, put aside our differences and come together ‘round the table of the Lord to speaketh in tongues of angels and picketh up the deadly serpents. But then just as shore as fried possum grits ‘ll burn a hole in your britches, Monday comes again and we all go back to feudin’. I can’t rightly recall what the Cartwrights did way back when – rustled some cows or so the story goes – but we’ve been feudin’ ever since. This ain’t ‘bout the feud betwixt us and the Cartwrights however. Since I’ve lived to tell it, I’m settin’ down the record of the feud that commenced ‘twixt the Earth and wherever it is those aliens comes from.

The feud broke out on a summer night as I recall – not long after sundown, but still light enough to take aim and shoot – not at the aliens yet. I’m gittin’ to them. To begin with, ‘twas just normal feudin’ with the Cartwrights. They was ‘cross the Tugfork on their side – the Kentucky side o’ the river and we’s on the West Virginia side. Nine of my sons is there ‘long with most of my kinfolk, ‘bout two dozen of us in all and we’s all tryin’ to pick off any Cartwright we could. Of course the Cartwrights is tryin’ to pick us off in return and so bullets is flyin’ back and forth ‘cross the river, though it was the trees, rocks and bushes that took the worst of it.


2)


My youngest boy, Methuselah (I reckon he’s nine) got his hat shot off his head and he was mighty upset. “Pa,” he cries, “those Yankee lovin’ cow rustlin’ Cartwrights done put a hole through my hat.” I could see Methuselah was ‘bout to start bawlin’ and there were tears in his eyes. He’s ten foot away or so off to my side, crouched behind a boulder and ‘zaminin’ the hole in his hat. I should ‘splain that Methuselah’s hat is sort-a like a coon skin cap – ‘cept the hat weren’t made of no coon.

I took aim at a cowering Cartwright from behind the hickory tree I was hidin’ behind, fired a shot, missed, and then called over to Methuselah sayin’, “Yer new hat? The one made out’a ol’ Hezekiah?”

“It’s like Hezekiah’s been shot all o’er agin,” moans Methuselah.

I dove to the ground and rolled over to Methuselah. Luckily I had all kinds of practice doin’ this kind of thing in church – and even though the bullets was whizzin’ by like the fiery darts of Satan, my roll was a holy one and the bullets ne’er touched me. I then sat with my boy behind that there rock, took a look at that hat and shook with righteous ‘digna-tation and anger. “Hezekiah was a good dog” I said, “and ‘taint right he should be disrespected now he’s dead. If the Cartwrights want this feud to last another fifty years then shootin’ our dogs is the mos’ low down shameful way they kin go ‘bout it - even if the dog is now a hat.” I then put that cap back on my boy, and it was like Hezekiah’s tail was waggin’ again – course we kept the the dog’s tail and sewed it in back when we made the hat – but it was like Hezekiah was contented to be in his rightful place on Methuselah’s head, and


3)

I’m proud to say Methuselah’s feudin’ nature was revived and he says “Let’s go shoot us a Cartwright, Pa!”

Toothless cousin Ezekiel Tanner saw all this from up above – he was high up in the branches of a sycamore and shooting at any Cartwright who dared raise his cowardly head from whenst they was a hidin’. But after listenin’ to Methuselah and me, Ezekiel laughed and coughed and wheezed like someone with tubark-ulo-sees and called down sayin’ “He Heeeeee! You tell em’ Ho-Ho-Hosea. We can shoot our own dogs thank yu very much.” Unfortunately Ezekiel’s lapse in con-stration cost him his life and a Cartwright bullet struck him square in the head and he fell out o’ the tree, flat on his old wrinkled face.

“Curse those lilly livered Cartwrights!” I hollered. “Now they got me riled! It’s one thing shootin’ a hat that used to be a dog, but then to treat a toothless ol’ man the same way as they would a dog-skin hat - an’ Ezekiel was a second cousin once removed from my grand-pappy no less! - is just downright ini-quy-tuss!” To Methuselah I says, “Gimme some cover fire son.”

I then rolls away from the boulder, picks up Ezekiel’s fallen rifle and with the two guns blazin’ I stands up and runs towards the Cartwrights and inta the shallows o’ the Tugfork.

“YEEHAW! TAKE THAT YOU CUUUUUR-SEEEEED CARTWRIGHTS!” I hollers.

I then shoots the hat off a Cartwright who is a pokin’ his ugly inbred red head from ‘bove a rock on t’other side o’ the river.


4)

”THAT’S FER HEZEKIAH!” I yells.

I then shoots a Cartwright out o’ a tree in holy retree-be-yu-shee-un for cousin Ezekiel.


”AND THAT’S FER EZEKIEL TANNER! EYE FER EYE AND TOOTH FER TOOTH!” I hollers.

Suddenly the feud stopped and like the first day of creation, there is light – light everywheres – it’s as if the sun wanted to peek in on the world while it was night. Everyone and everythin’ was a glowin’ like fireflies, and there was a whinin’ like mosquitoes but so loud the sound rumbles and shakes the whole area and makes us cover our ears for the pain of it. Squintin’ and lookin’ up into the light, I sees a space ship –Well, I’s guessin’ it was from outer space – but it weren’t no flyin’ saucer – to me, it looked more like a moonshine still – a big copper barrel with ‘tach-ments. It passes overhead and then dis-pears over the tree-line on the Cartwright side o’ the river.

I stands there in the Tugfork with water flowin’ by my knees, and dang-nabbit it is like I is a froze there and too dumbfounded to move or say anythin’. I was frightfully shaken up, but then I comes to my senses and makes a hasty retreat to the shore before the Cartwrights comes to whatever senses they has, (and in my ‘pin-yun, senses slow and dull from all the incest-us relations in that backward fam-ley) and what was I sayin’? Right ‘fore they comes to their senses and starts a shootin’ agin.

Safe behind the rocks, trees and bushes on our side o’ the


5)


Tugfork, my sons and kin gathers ‘round me, lookin’ just as stupefied as I is. Methuselah asks, “What was that thing in the sky Pa?” Another of my boys, Amos – he’s near sixteen, and looks like a Cartwright with his red hair and freckles, (but I don’t hold that aginst him) he says what I is already thinkin’. “It was like a flyin’ moonshine still, weren’t it Pa?”

“No Amos,” I corrects him, “I reckons it comes from further away than the moon and shines a whole lot brighter.” I then turns to speak to the rest of my sons and kin and asks, “Anyone wearin’ underwears?”

They shakes their heads and not a one of us is.

”Confoundit!” I swore, “I need somethin’ white fer makin’ a flag o’ truce!”

Then Uncle Obadiah, (who ain’t right in the head, and doesn’t talk ‘cept for laughin’ and droolin’,) blew his nose in a dirty hanky and then hands the rag over, yuckin’ it up all the while.

”Much obliged Obadiah,” says I even though I was more deeeeeee-sgusted than thankful. I then put the hanky on top of my rifle and holds it up the bushes and waves it ‘round, givin’ everyone a shower of Obadiah’s snot. ”TRUCE! I CALLS A TRUCE!” I shouts. Soon we’s seein’ red, cause all those carrot-topped Cartwrights come out from their hidin’ places and Lamentations Cartwright, who is the leader of their clan and has a red beard almos’ as long as my black beard, leads the Cartwrights down to the river edge. I in turn leads all us Tanners


6)


down to our side of the Tugfork, and me and Lamentations faces off ‘cross the water.

“Whatchu callin a truce fer Hosea Tanner? Today ain’t Sunday!” hollers Lamentations.

“But we’re gonna act like its Sunday Lamentations,” I holler back, “We’re gonna lay our feudin’ down an’ behaves likes we have the faith to pick up every rattler and cottonmouth they keeps in the church ‘cause can’t yu see? We got ourselves an invasion from outer space!”

Then just like a Sabbath day, all us Tanners and Cartwrights comes together in Christianly brotherly love and we marches up the mountain on the Kentucky side till we comes to a Cartwright cow pasture and there just floatin’ in the air above the field is that flyin’ moonshine still from outer space.

We doesn’t have to think twice about whats to do. Lickity-split we ducks down and takes to hidin’ and spyin’ and this is what we done saw: The aliens was after the cows for some strange and wicked reason and also the crops. As the glowin’ copper moonshine still floats there, a great circle of flat grain forms ‘neath it, and then the grain is taken up in a whirlwind and sucked up inside the space ship. In the meanwhile a beam of light shines down on a frightened cow, singled out from the herd, and that poor heifer is then lifted up in the air. All the other cattle in the field runs away and huddles together at the far end of the pasture and as far away as possible from the aliens whiles they makes a powerful racket of moos and bellows. Then a door kind-


7)


a slides open in the space ship and two aliens appears – now if I’d never seen nothin’ like em before I prob-ley woulda soiled my jeans - but I weren’t su-prized ‘bout the way the aliens looks ‘cuz my oldest boy, Shibboleth, resembles these here aliens – but if you haven’t seen Shibboleth, then let me just say there’s a reason we makes him wear a ten gallon hat - This ain’t helpin’ you at all to picture ‘em is it? Forgit Shibboleth for nows, and lemme tell you about the aliens. It’s their heads you first notices and it looks like they’s balancin’ a big fat pig on top o’ their heads. Then you notice that the pig aint no pig, but is just a head, and the head is split down the middle, and there’s no polite way to say it, but it looks like someone’s butt. Yep, right