The Old Smithville Highway
By Donald Jones
Kids learn growing up that there are good people, and there are bad people. When I was twelve years old I learned the hard way that some kids could not be trusted. Just because someone acts like your friend does not mean that they are. This was especially true about Paul, one of the kids in my neighborhood.
Paul lived with his sister, and mother. His father had abandoned them while he was a baby. At first I felt sorry for Paul because he did not have a father. Paul was a natural carpenter; he could build most anything if he had the wood and nails. He fascinated me with this talent. Sometimes Paul and another boy named Bill, and I would go camping in a lot next to his mother’s garden. We would tie several sapling tops together and then tie limbs around the sides and make ourselves a miniature teepee. We would cover it with burlap and then we put sage grass on the sides. We would dig a fire pit in the middle and put a berry bucket full of water over the fire and make hobo stew. We gathered vegetables from the garden and cut them up and then add chopped hot dogs. It was delicious.
One day Paul, Bill, and I decided to go down to Charles Creek. Paul had a pouch on his side. It had a rope, ax and other items that he always carried on our trips to the woods. He and Bill started whispering to one another laughing. I suspected they were up to something. The road went downhill wound around curves, and straightened out at the bridge at the bottom of the hill. When we were about two thirds of the way to the bridge, they grabbed me, tied me up, and laid me in the blind side of the curve. I did not take kindly to this treatment; at first I thought they were kidding. They said they wanted to see if a car would hit me or if the car could stop in time.
The midday sun had turned the pavement into what seemed like hot coals. The tar in some spots of the road was melted. The prospect of someone flying around the curve was terrifying. The first thing I knew I had to do was get out of that road. I realized the best way was to roll so I rolled myself to the side of the road. Then I started to work on the knots. Fortunatly these two jokers were no Boy Scouts or they would have known how to tie a square knot. After about fifteen minutes of struggling with the rope, I finally got free. Furious, I followed them; I crept up the hill to follow them, to see what they were up to. They were still heading down creek. Taking another chance of getting tied up again did not appeal to me so I headed home.
Paul had never behaved this way before which puzzled me. When Paul got back home, he saw me in the yard and spoke to me. He asked how I got free and laughed it all off as a joke. I told him I could have been killed if a car had come around that curve. When he saw I was not laughing, he said he was sorry, and said it was only a joke. I decided to forgive him and forget it.
That could have been the end of the story, but it wasn’t. Paul had gotten a new 22 rifle about a month or so later, and asked me to go shoot with him. We went out into a large field. He had a place already cleared out in the high sage grass. He put the gun on a couple of sticks, which propped up the barrel. He got down in a prone position and acted like he was sighting it in. He was pointing it in the wrong direction. He was pointing it at houses.
“Take a look,” he said.
I got down on my stomach and looked through the scope he had sighted. The gun was aimed into the living room of Mr. Childress who lived about five houses down from me. The cross hairs were lined up on Mr. Childress, sitting in his evening chair watching TV.
“Are you crazy?” I said.
“Go ahead pull the trigger,” he said, “ I dare you.”
“What! Are you nuts? Why? He’s never done anything to me,” I said.
“He did me,” he said, “He ran me off the other day when I was eating some of his grapes over on the fences by the road.”
“Well I’m not crazy. I’m getting out of here. You’re going to get yourself into a lot of trouble, and I don’t want to be around when it happens,” I said as I strutted off through the field.
“ I’ll tell them it was you,” he shouted and then laughed.
“Yeah, and who do you think owns the gun, dummy?” I said as I looked back. Then I headed for home. Perhaps that parting comment saved Mr. Childress’ life that day. No doubt Paul considered who owned the gun. Paul was notorious for trying to get others into trouble and he could have gotten me in trouble, if he had gotten me to pull that trigger. What he failed to understand was, my Dad taught me never, under any circumstances to point a loaded gun at anyone.
That was the last time I ever trusted Paul. Staying away from him was a good idea. In those days I did not know the right word to describe Paul, but now I do. He was a psychopath.
In his late teens, Paul was arrested for beating his mother with a two by four. His adult life was lived in and out of the local jail. His sister grew up, got married, and had a good life. His mother remarried in time, to a man who loved her, and stayed with her till his death. Her daughter took her in to live with her. Paul did not fare so well. My father told me a few years ago that Paul died of a heart attack after getting drunk.