The Far Empty by J. Todd Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

he named Vinegaroon, hard up on the banks of the Pecos River and deep in the Chihuahuan Desert, and got himself appointed justice of the peace. He heard cases in his saloon, drew the jurors from his best drinkers, and only ever used one lawbook—a dirty and water-stained 1879 edition of the
Revised Statutes of Texas
. Anything else he burned.
    In a case where an Irishman shot a Chinese laborer, the Judge ruled that homicide was the killing of a human being, but he couldn’t find any law against killing a Chinaman.
    Later, he moved his saloon and his courtroom to a railroad right-of-way, where he homesteaded for twenty years, illegally. He always made sure the school had free firewood in the winter. He ended every marriage service with “God have mercy on your souls.” They call Bean the Hanging Judge, but he really sentenced only two men to hang, and one of them escaped.
    There are all these books and films, each one adding a little bit to the mystery and the legend, turning his violent exploits into jokes. He lied and cheated and stole at every turn; beat a teenage wife and killed men over other women. But he made sure a few cold kids got firewood, so all was forgiven or ignored.
    He led a dark existence in a desperate time and place and became larger than life. He was life and death. But only in Texas, this godforsaken place where there’s more blood in the ground than water.
    •   •   •
    I know the stories everyone tells about my father, those that get repeated over and over again so that it’s hard to find the man—the real man—standing in the shadows behind the one people think they know or simply need to believe in.
    How he saved Brenda Holt and baby Ellie.
    How he arrested two Mexican drug runners up in Platas with an empty gun and a cold stare and two words of Spanish.
    How he pulled out the tub that killed Nellie Banner-Ross with his bare hands. Everyone is positive they saw him do it—even though I know it’s still there, clean and smelling of bleach and my mom’s shampoo.
    How he hands out Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas hams and donates half his salary to charity.
    How much he loves his one and only son.
    •   •   •
    Two days after my dad saved Brenda Holt from Dillon, she was kneeling in front of him in our garage while he leaned back against the hood of his truck, his hard hands wrapped around her head. She was crying, and even through his smile he kept telling her to take it easy as he listened to the Rangers on the truck’s radio. The station popped in and out, static mixed with Brenda’s sobs.
    •   •   •
    Once I saw him calmly washing blood off his hands in our mudroom sink, turning them this way and that, looking down at them asif they belonged to someone else, making sure there were no stains beneath his wedding ring.
    •   •   •
    There are times even now he stands in my doorway, watching me, unblinking, looking at
me
as if I belong to someone else, his gray eyes as unfathomable as the ocean, inescapable like the tide. Sometimes he lies fully dressed on his bed all night, those eyes unblinking, and I don’t know if he’s awake or what he sees or if he sees anything at all.
    •   •   •
    Every now and then, I feel again the hot touch of that old Ruger rifle. It’s like the skin on my knee still burns, a phantom brand, from when the gun brushed against me, that moment right after my father used it to kill Dillon Holt.
    What does it take to shoot another man?
    How long do you think about it before you pull the trigger?
    How long after? I looked it up. That Ruger has a rate of fire of 750 RPM and a muzzle velocity of 3,240 feet per second. My father was probably less than a hundred feet from Dillon when he shot him.
    Not even the blink of an eye or a whole heartbeat. At that distance or closer, I guess you don’t even think about it all.
    •   •   •
    I once had a dog, an Australian shepherd called, silly enough, Shep.
    My mom