TOM HARDY is a native Texan, the son of a father who left home at thirteen to become a working cowboy and a mother of Cherokee lineage. He was born and raised in Fort Stockton and Alpine in far West Texas. He attended Sam Houston State University on an athletic scholarship and majored in business administration. After ten years as a teacher and coach at the high school and college levels, he returned to school and received a master’s degree in Health Care Administration from Trinity University in San Antonio and moved into hospital administration.

As he was making the transition to health care, he wrote his first novel, Unsportsmanlike Conduct, an unflattering view of college football, published in 1983. He and his wife Patricia have raised three children. Retirement from the corporate world has allowed him time to return to writing. Slow Moving Dreams is his second novel, and he is working on his third. All of his books are set in West Texas where he was raised and continues to enjoy a love of the land and people who make West Texas special.

Slow Moving Dreams First Edition, 1 ed. Edition

A Novel

By Tom Hardy

TCU Press

Copyright © 2011 Tom Hardy
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-87565-424-9

Contents

Acknowledgments,
1 4:00 pm, Friday, November 17, 1961, Texas Panhandle,
2 6:30 am, Saturday, October 2, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
3 2:00 pm, Tuesday, October 5, 2004, Austin, Texas,
4 10:00 am, July 1958, Alpine, West Texas,
5 2:45 pm, Tuesday, October 5, 2004, Austin, Texas,
6 4:00 pm, Wednesday, October 6, 2004, Texas Panhandle,
7 9:00 am, Thursday, October 7, 2004, Austin, Texas,
8 8:30 am, Monday, July 23, 1956, Alpine, West Texas,
9 10:00 am, Thursday, October 7, 2004, Texas Panhandle,
10 11:00 am, Thursday, October 7, 2004, Texas Hill Country,
11 1:00 pm, Saturday, July 28, 1956, West Texas,
12 4:00 pm, Thursday, October 7, 2004, West Texas,
13 5:30 pm, Thursday, October 7, 2004, Pecos, Texas,
14 6:00 pm, Thursday, October 7, 2004, West Texas,
15 10:00 pm, Thursday, October 7, 2004, Davis Mountains, West Texas,
16 8:00 am, Friday, October 8, 2004, West Texas,
17 11:00 am, Friday, October 8, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
18 5:00 pm, Friday, October 8, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
19 6:30 am, Saturday, October 9, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
20 2:00 pm, Saturday, October 9, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
21 5:00 pm, Saturday, October 9, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
22 8:00 pm, Saturday, October 9, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
23 1:00 am, Sunday, October 10, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
24 8:00 am, Sunday, October 10, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
25 9:00 am, Sunday, October 10, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
26 12:00 pm, Sunday, October 10, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
27 12:00 pm, Sunday, October 10, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
28 4:00 pm, Sunday, October 10, 2004, Alpine, West Texas,
Permissions,
About the Author,

CHAPTER 1

4:00 pm, Friday, November 17, 1961, Texas Panhandle

There were three men and a boy in the car, cruising just below posted speed limits on a long, straight, almost flat highway in the Texas Panhandle country on a cold, overcast, blustery day. Winter had not fully taken hold yet, but it was always windy in this flat country, and the wind made it seem colder. During particularly strong gusts they could hear grains of sand speckling the side of the car. They had begun their trip well before dawn, and it was now late afternoon. All four were tired, but they had taken turns with the driving, and there was a nervous energy in all of them. None of those not driving had napped. The purpose of the trip weighed heavily on each of them.

The men all looked to be in their forties, the boy in his younger teens. They wore blue-collar work clothes—khaki pants or jeans and cotton shirts. All four wore the style of lace-up boots that could have been work footwear, or hiking and hunting footgear. The driver, Tom, was a very thin man with sharp, Indian-like features. He had very black hair. The man riding in the front was a heavier man but resembled the driver in facial features. His hair had begun to turn gray though, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses with bifocal lenses. The others called him Ray. The man sitting in the back with the boy was a very stocky and strong-looking man named Ben.

A wrinkled paper grocery sack in the middle of the rear seat contained what was left of sandwiches they had prepared for the journey. A large thermos contained enough coffee for each to have one more cup before they reached their destination, although the coffee would be cold by now.

The country they were driving through was flat and featureless, farm country, but the fields were devoid of life in the November chill. Occasionally a house could be seen back away from the highway, or a windmill, and sometimes a tree or two, stark against the empty landscape. Creosote-soaked telephone poles carrying power lines straight down the line of the highway were the only topographical feature most of the time.

Just before sunset, Tom pulled off the highway and drove a short distance onto a deserted dirt road that showed no sign of recent use. All of them got out, stretched, walked about, and relieved themselves. One opened the trunk of the 1954 Chevrolet sedan. Squeezed into the large trunk were ten army surplus gas canisters. Ray removed three of the canisters and poured the gasoline into the automobile’s tank using a tin funnel that Ben held. When the tank was full, Ray returned the empty canisters to the trunk. The men took sandwiches from the sack and ate hurriedly while standing, their backs turned into the chilling wind, mindful to put the waxed paper wrapping back into the sack to leave no evidence of their having been there. Fearful of someone chancing upon them, all four nervously scanned the dirt road as far as they could see. They had carried enough gas for the trip to eliminate the need to stop at a filling station and chance being seen and remembered, and had brought sandwiches for the same reason. The plan was to reach their destination, do their business, and drive back home without stopping except at deserted side roads like this one to refill their tank, giving no one the opportunity to remember them.

When the sandwiches and coffee were gone, Ray and the others got back into the car and started the final leg of their trip. It was well after dark when they found the road to the farm they sought and turned on to it. After bumping along a dirt road for almost a mile, a frame house flanked by a large barn came into view. Tom pulled the car into the driveway in front of the house, coasting the last few feet with the engine off for stealth. Light glowed in several of the windows in the house. The four men got out of the car and carefully eased the doors back until they made silent contact. Quietly raising the trunk lid again, Tom and Ray took out .30-30 Winchester carbines. As silently as possible, both levered rounds into the chambers and eased the hammer onto safety with their thumbs. There was a pause then, and the three men looked at each other as if to say, “Are we really ready to do this?” Ray nodded an affirmative to the unvoiced question, and Tom and Ben nodded in reply.

Ben whispered instructions to the boy to stay in the car, ready to drive during an escape if a speedy departure became necessary. Then the three men stepped quietly onto the porch. Tom reached up and unscrewed the bulb of the porch light. Taking a deep breath, Ben knocked loudly on the door.

Someone could be heard moving inside the house. A light came on in the area just inside the door, but thanks to the unscrewed bulb, the porch remained dark.

A white-haired man opened the door. An average-sized man with nondescript features, he wore denim bib overalls with a plaid shirt.

“Who’s there?” the man demanded, trying unsuccessfully to see from the lighted interior to the darkened porch, squinting over the reading glasses worn low on his nose. “What do you want?”

With that Ray stepped around Ben and shoved the muzzle of the Winchester into the man’s chest in a distinctly ungentle manner.

“You’ll find out soon enough what we want, you old bastard,” Ray snarled, punctuating the remark with another jab of the gun barrel into the man’s chest. “Where’s your brother?”

“He’s out in the kitchen,” the man stammered. His eyes had widened and he stumbled backwards at the appearance of the gun. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“Move!” Ray commanded, prodding the man again.

The man backed unsteadily into the house and wobbled down a hall into the lighted room at the back of the house, followed closely by the three intruders, Ray with the gun pressed to the man’s back.

Another man was seated at a small table in the kitchen, eating soup from a bowl. He was slightly smaller than the first man, and looked to be roughly the same age as the first. The second man also wore dirty overalls, and had long, disheveled white hair. His facial features were sharper, covered with what appeared to be several days’ growth of white beard. A prominent Adam’s apple began to bob up and down as he looked up when the first man was pushed roughly into the room. “What the hell—?” he exclaimed, but got nothing more out as Tom stepped forward and pushed the barrel of his Winchester to a point six inches in front of the man’s nose.

“Jesus!” the second man said as he stared down the barrel of the rifle with wide eyes. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“Look at me real good you son of a bitch,” Ray answered. “Do you remember me?”

Both of the frightened men seemed to look carefully at Ray for the first time, but recognition did not come. “What about me? Do you remember me, Jesse?” Tom said to the second man still sitting at the table. Then he turned to address the first man, standing unsteadily at the end of Ray’s gun. “What about you, Lige? Think of me as a thirteen-year-old kid. Think of my sixteen-year-old sister. That might help you remember.”

The two men were shocked to hear the intruding strangers use their names. They both looked more closely at the two gunmen, and recognition slowly began to register on the face of Jesse, sitting at the table, and then on Lige, and real fear began to show its ugly expression.

“Now wait,” Jesse pleaded in a shaky voice. “That was twenty or thirty years ago. You can’t come back at us now for that.”

“It was yesterday for me you bastard,” Ray snapped back. “Let’s take a walk out to the barn to see what’s changed out there. Get up!”

“No. Wait,” Jesse started to plead.

“Goddamn it!” Ray exploded. “Get your sorry ass up and start moving or I’ll blow your damn head off right here in your own kitchen.”

Ben led the way, opening the back door and walking outside. Lige stumbled out behind him with Ray following closely, keeping the rifle barrel in contact with his back. Jesse got clumsily up, knocking the soup bowl off the table, and followed his brother on unsteady legs.

“Can’t we just talk about this for a minute,” Jesse pleaded. He appeared close to collapse from fear, but his begging provoked no sympathy from the intruders.

“We’re going to talk about it all right,” Ray spat. “Just like we talked about it when you two herded our sister and us out here. I used to beg too. Do you remember that? I begged you to leave her alone and let us go!”

Lige was near to tears. He kept whimpering, “Oh God. Oh God. Oh God,” as he stumbled toward the barn.

“But I barely even remember that,” Jesse whined.

“That’s okay,” Ray said. “I remember it good enough for both of us.”

Ben, still in the lead, had reached the large door on the barn. The door was open, and a single light was on somewhere inside the large building, creating enough light for Ben to step inside and locate a bank of light switches. He began to flip the switches, and the inside of the barn was bathed in bright light from several bulbs on the ceiling and along the sides. The front half of the barn was open all the way to the roof trusses. Stalls on both sides from the middle to the back of the barn divided the side spaces into square cubicles. A loft ran around the entire barn roughly fifteen feet above the earthen floor. Bales of hay were stacked on the loft all the way around the barn. More hay was stored in most of the stalls. Ben pulled the sliding doors of the barn shut, first one side and then the other. When the second sliding door slammed into the first with a loud bang, Jesse cried out and fell to his knees.

“Get up!” Ray yelled. He grabbed the old man’s shirt and roughly pulled him upright. “Now let’s go back to the stall where you two used to rape my sister and whip Tom and me.”

“I don’t remember where,” Lige whimpered. “It was so long ago.”

“Then I guess I’ll just shoot you here,” Ray said. He pulled back the hammer on the Winchester.

The click of the weapon cocking into firing mode sounded like thunder inside the barn.

“No wait,” Lige hastily added. “I remember now.” He walked unsteadily to the last stall on the right side. Jesse followed.

Using their rifles to prod and direct the two captives, Ray and Tom maneuvered them to the fence, standing in the next to last stall, facing into the last.

Ben took rope from a hook on the wall and pulled his pocket knife from his pocket. He cut pieces of the rope several feet long.

“Put your hands through the fence,” Ray demanded, “just like you used to make us do.”

When the two captives placed their hands through the fence Ben roughly tied their hands securely, and then looped the rope around the fence so that the two could not back away. He unbuttoned the shoulder flaps on their overalls and pulled the garments down below the trembling knees of the two farmers. Then he took lengths of the rope and tied a loop around their knees, connecting it to the fence. The two were now securely tied to the stall fence, their overalls down around their ankles revealing thin, bony white legs below boxer shorts on both men. Ben then went to the door and left the building. Those inside could hear a car start up and move to what sounded like just outside the door.

“This is the way you used to tie us while you did your business with our sister in that stall,” Tom said, his voice shaking in anger. “How does it feel?”

“Tonight the bill comes due for that,” Ray said. “You two are going to pay for what you did to our sister, and to us.”

“Wait,” Jesse begged. “We’re sorry about what happened. We were young ourselves then. But we got some money now. You can have it if you let us go. We can all just forget this.”

“When hell freezes over,” Ray answered coldly.

Ben came back into the barn. He was carrying a coiled leather whip. He flipped it outward, and the leather snaked out almost ten feet.

“Let me go first,” Ray said. “I’ve been waiting twenty-five years for this.” He took the whip from Ben and positioned himself behind the two tied men. He pulled back his arm and arrayed the whip behind him, then lashed it forward. The whip tore through the still air in the barn with an evil hiss. Jesse screamed as the frayed leather tip tore through his underwear and buttocks. Lige began to cry and struggle wildly against his bindings, but he could not move away. The whip hissed through the air again and again, leaving angry red streaks on the two tied men from their upper legs to their upper back as they cried out in pain.

Their screams reverberated and seemed magnified inside the closed walls of the great barn.

“Please God! Please God!” Lige cried loudly.

“Stop! Please stop! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Jesse begged.

But Ray seemed lost in a furious rage and continued flailing away at the crying old men. Finally even Tom and Ben were repelled by his out-of-control rage, and both moved to stop him. Ben wrapped his arms around Ray from behind and held tight against his struggling, while Tom grabbed and held his wrist from the front. For a while Ray thrashed and made unintelligible sounds as tears of hurt and anger rolled down his cheeks.

“Ray! Ray!” Tom called to him. “Calm down. It’s okay. Let one of us take our turn.”

Slowly Ray calmed down and realized he had been out of control. He seemed to wilt in Ben’s arms.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Ray almost sobbed as he let Tom take the whip from his hands. “I guess I’ve kept that bottled up inside me for so long, it just came out all at once. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Tom said soothingly. “I’m mad as hell too. Let me take my turn.”

Tom took the whip and Ben led Ray to a spot out of the way. Ray sat on a bale of hay and stared at his hands as if wondering if they were his.

Tom lashed the two crying men several times and then Ben did the same, but Ray’s loss of control and their having to stop him seemed to have taken much of the enthusiasm out of the act. Their lashes were hurtful, but nowhere near as vigorous as Ray’s.

The backs of the two tied men were marked with angry red welts and cuts bleeding through their ripped shirts and shorts from their buttocks to their shoulders. They were both crying.

“Are you going to let us go now?” Lige whimpered.

“Hell no!” Tom said, “That part was for the times you tied Ray and me to the fence and beat us. Now you are going to pay for raping my sister over and over.”

“What are you going to do to us?” Jesse sobbed.

“We’re going to hang your sorry asses right here in your own barn,” Ray answered coldly.

CHAPTER 2

6:30 am, Saturday, October 2, 2004, Alpine, West Texas

The morning sun had not quite cleared the mountains when the man stepped onto the covered front porch of the small frame house. Blowing into a mug of coffee, he walked to the end of the porch and leaned against a support column. He sipped the hot coffee and stared out at a wide valley. To the left side of the valley as he looked out at it, a small town against impressive mountains was waking, electric lights glowing in ordered symmetry in the half-light of sunrise. To his right another distant range of mountains was just becoming visible at the edge of the retreating darkness. The wide valley, perhaps ten miles across, lay between the two mountain clusters. Behind and above the house rose two closer, almost identical mountains.

As the sun climbed over the mountains daylight spilled across the valley. The man smiled as he stood on his porch watching another day being born.

The man looked like what he was—a working cowboy. He wore jeans and well-worn riding boots with high heels and pointed toes, and a faded gray work shirt beneath a denim jacket.

The man was slim, and the hands cupping the coffee mug were worn and scarred. His face was darkly tanned, but midway up his forehead the tan gave way to pale skin, the mark of a man who wore a hat when he worked.

Noticing a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, he looked to the right—toward the towering twin mountains—and saw a group of mule deer grazing on the upward slope, no more than fifty yards from his porch. There were ten in the group, one buck with an impressive rack of antlers, six does with no antlers, and three fawns, not much past the nursing stage. The man stood motionless, watching the grayish-brown deer graze, moving between small patches of grass growing on the rocky hillside. Periodically the deer would raise their heads to look for threats, and detecting none, lower them to continue grazing. The man felt lucky to be able to watch the reclusive deer from such close range. Not wanting to spook the skittish animals, he stood very still as he watched.

Eventually the horse in the nearby corral noticed the deer and snorted a startled exclamation that alarmed them. The deer rapidly bounded out of sight over a small rise on the slope. The man watched appreciatively as the deer nimbly ran and jumped over the rocky hillside. He smiled, tossed out the remaining coffee from his mug in an arching spray that sparkled in the morning sunlight as it fell through the air, and walked back into the house. The house went dark as the lights that had created a warm orange glow in the windows were turned off. The man reemerged carrying a weathered, gray Stetson hat that he pulled down over his head. He walked stiffly on the high-heeled boots down the porch steps and across an open area that might be considered a yard. As he headed toward the corral, he passed a rock tank and a windmill.

(Continues…)Excerpted from Slow Moving Dreams First Edition, 1 ed. Edition by Tom Hardy. Copyright © 2011 Tom Hardy. Excerpted by permission of TCU Press.
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