The Hillbilly Pt. 02

The Hillbilly, Part 2

Some of the comments on the original story asked for another installment. I never imagined a sequel, but in time this idea came to me. It isn't necessary to read the first part, but it might help. I hope you like it.

There is no sex in this story, but there is a little BTB.

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"Hey, Hillbilly, you got a minute?"

"Hell, yeah! What's on your mind, JP?"

I'd like to tell you that JP was one of my lifelong friends going back to when we were in grade school together, but he wasn't. He and I served together. That's where I earned the name "Hillbilly" and it's stuck with me ever since. Jason Patrick Kirkwood, or JP as he was called, was a city boy from Detroit who used to come home with me on leave and he fell in love with Western Maryland. I suppose that's one of the things I liked about JP - he knew who he was no matter where he landed. He could make friends with just about anybody anywhere, and he didn't let his surroundings define him. I've seen him carry on conversations with college professors, then turn around and treat the janitor like they've been friends all their lives. He's just that kind of guy. So when JP wanted to talk, I figured it was something that I wanted to hear.

It was late afternoon, so we settled into a local pub and had our talk.

We talked about everything and nothing until we had our beers, took a good chug, and then settled down to business. "Hillbilly, I don't know quite how to tell you this and I don't want you to shoot the messenger."

"JP, I haven't shot anyone in... what's today?" That earned me a smile.

"You know Gail Edwards? She lives over on the western side of town?"

"Yeah. She the same Gail Edwards you've been dating now for about a year? The same Gail Edwards I've been telling you if you don't put a ring on her finger soon, you'll lose her? You mean that Gail Edwards?"

JP was smiling. "Yeah, I'm getting there."

"Get there sooner."

JP looked just a bit put out, but maybe a little amused at the same time like a man with a secret that he wanted to share. "Okay, don't tell a soul, you hear me? I went to one of those high-end places in Baltimore last weekend and I ordered her a ring. It'll be ready in two weeks..." He raised his finger at me and said, "...but don't you tell a soul, you got it?"

Now I was smiling. "Who would I tell?"

"Your wife, your daughters, someone she works with..."

I was laughing now. "Okay, you have my word. I'll tell no one. Is that what you brought me here to tell me? Well, congratulations! It took you God damn long enough!"

"I know, I know... You were beginning to think I was gay, right?"

"No, but she was." Busting JP's balls was too much fun.

He just smiled and shook his head. "I've given her plenty of proof that I'm not, don't you worry about that."

JP got quiet for a time after that and then said, "That's not why I wanted to talk with you. It's about Babs."

Babs, or Barbara as my parents named her, is my sister. I sometimes wonder how we were raised in the same family? Where I grew up in the woods, hunting and fishing, learning how to use what I found to build shelters and fires, she mostly kept her hands clean and her outfits carefully coordinated. Well, girls will be girls, and yet she never made fun of me and if I cleaned it, she would cook it. I loved my sister and I'd do anything for her.

"What about Babs?"

"Gail told me that she saw Billy in Frostburg last Saturday while I was in Baltimore. He was sitting in some back booth where she and Dolores stopped in for lunch." He stopped and just looked at his beer.

Billy is my sister's husband. "And?"

"And he wasn't alone. She said he was having too much fun with some woman who wasn't Babs."

"What's too much fun?"

"Let's just say he had his hands full and not with lunch."

I'm not exactly a hard guy to read.

"Hillbilly, don't do anything stupid. She's only met him two or three times. She could be wrong."

I nodded, but I didn't think she was wrong. I'd never really trusted the guy. I don't know why, but he just seemed like someone who was faking it.

JP was looking worried. "What are you going to do? Remember, your wife needs you. Your daughters need you."

"I know. I guess I'll start by checking him out. There's no point in worrying Babs if he isn't doing anything." Who was I kidding? We both knew what he was up to.

We were quiet for a time and then our conversation drifted onto other topics. Once our beers were finished and we were paid up, I thanked him for the information. "You know you need to bring that girl over to the house for dinner when you finally man up and pop the question?"

He just chuckled. "Sounds like an expensive meal if you ask me!" With that he got in his car and was gone.

As I watched him drive away, I was happy for JP but worried for my sister. JP had married a few years after we left the service, but their marriage didn't take, and she ran off with some weekend hunter she met from the city. I was looking forward to getting to know Gail better.

Meanwhile, I had a lot to think about. I wasn't sure this was something that I could easily tell my wife. If I did, she would want to tell Babs, but she'd also know that telling Babs would worry her and maybe needlessly. I decided to keep this to myself for now.

I knew the drill and I'd been through it before. I started watching my brother-in-law. I parked across the street from his office shortly before lunch in case he had a noontime date, and then I returned to watch him leave at the end of the day. It was an hour here and an hour there. Sometimes I drove my truck and sometimes I borrowed a friend's. Since every beat to hell pickup in town looks the same, he never noticed.

I caught him on the second Saturday that I was stalking him. I knew I couldn't park in front of his house and hide from him, so I parked on a cross street that he would pass on his way to the highway. I followed him to a no-tell motel, and when he turned into the parking lot, I turned into the gas station across the street. From there I watched him leave his car, greet a surprisingly young, big-chested blond, and enter a room. Now I knew what JP meant by having his hands full.

Not a minute later, as I sat there wondering what to do next, I noticed Babs pull into the same motel parking lot. I guess she'd been listening when dad and I talked about tracking game, and she learned more than I thought. She'd followed him there.

I got out of my car, and I walked over to where Babs was parked. I startled her when I climbed into the car and then she melted into my arms and cried. What's a brother to do at a time like that? I held her, told her it would be alright even though I didn't think it would, and assured her that I and the family would be here for her.

Eventually, she got herself together, dried her eyes, and asked, "Did you bring your gun?" Sometimes a moment is so sad that humor is the only solution.

"Sorry. Next time."

"What do I do now?"

"For starters, we're going to walk over there and see if the curtains are open even a crack. You're going to bring your cell phone and get video of your bastard husband, and then we're going to leave."

"Just like that? We aren't even going to confront the son-of-a-bitch?"

"Right now, he doesn't know that we know. That gives us an advantage. He's like a deer wandering down the path and we're sitting in a blind just waiting for him to get in the right position. He thinks he's getting away with something, but we're in control. We'll document what he's doing and then figure out what our next move is."

Babs nodded. A blind man could see that her heart was breaking, but I'd also seen that look before. Her resolve was forming, and Billy was in her crosshairs. He just didn't know it yet.

So we did as I said. It was easy. We stood along the wall by the window appearing to talk as she held her cell where the curtains were cracked open. Nobody noticed, least of all my asshole brother-in-law and his fuck bunny. Babs got all the video she needed and more than she wanted to watch, then we headed back across the street.

As we walked back to her car with my arm around my loving sister, I tried to make a small joke to lift her spirts. "You turned out to be a very good tracker. You followed him and got here right behind me."

She looked at me with those sad eyes. "The asshole left his credit card statement on the table. I saw the motel charges." Then she began to cry anew and through her tears she said, "I married an idiot!"

There was no denying that and no longer any doubt nor any reason to keep my wife out of it. In fact, I figured this was when we needed another woman, so we headed for my place to tell my wife everything.

Babs and my wife are a lot alike, and they are close more like two sisters than in-laws. They both grew up in hunting families and they could both be comfortable in just about any setting you might imagine. That includes their ability to handle a gun. Neither of them was especially fond of hunting, but they did like going down the road to the gravel pit and shooting cans and bottles. They were pretty good at it.

That night I took my sister to my home, and we told my wife everything. Babs cried, my wife listened, and I got a bottle of wine with two glasses. Once they were settled and talking, I poured myself a beer. I figured my job was to sit quietly and wait. When it was time, I'd know what to do, but until then this was for them to sort though.

You think a hillbilly can be scary? These women were dreaming up twenty different ways to castrate a man and I was starting to feel very uncomfortable. After one bottle of wine and a little dinner, the two had worked out a plan. Leave it to women to find a creative solution to a bad situation. Babs called her husband and told him she was spending the night here. I overheard the call, and that bastard didn't have a clue that he was busted. Sunday she was prepared and went home to play the dutiful wife. On Monday, my wife went with my sister to see a divorce lawyer where they very coolly and calmly laid the framework for his financial destruction.

The lawyer would need a week, maybe a bit more, to get the papers ready. He said he had a lot on his desk, but promised he would get them done "in as timely a manner as possible." I never liked lawyers. If I gave my boss that answer, I'd be on the street. Still, it gave my sister time to break the news to hubby that she was divorcing him. That's where their plans got interesting.

They say that "Men plan, and God laughs." Well, he wasn't laughing when he heard what these two women had cooked up.

That night over dinner my wife asked, "Did you call your friend?"

I had to smile. How many wives would refer to another woman as "your friend"? It sounds like a not-so-veiled accusation, but in this case the only wrong answer would be "No."

"Yep, she's expecting your call. It might take her a while, so you'd best call her tonight and start the wheels turning."

My friend is one of my hunting buddies. She invites me every year to hunt her land with her. She's a farmer by occupation, a serious land conservationist, and not your basic lace and rose water kind of girl. Like my sister and wife, she grew up in what you might call an outdoors-oriented family and went full-on hillbilly. Her family named her Beatrice, but she goes by Bebes.

I tried not to listen in on their conversation, but my wife wasn't hiding anything, and I got the gist of it easily enough. I wouldn't want to be Billy. That was Monday night. Later that week Babs and my wife put on their gardening clothes including old shirts, bib overalls, and boots, and they headed over to Bebes' farm. This was their game, and I was happy to stay away. By Friday the women were ready.

Billy is nothing if not predictable. On Saturday he announced that he was meeting his buddies for a few beers and headed off to a motel out of town. The women were not far behind.

Did I mention that Bebes' farming interests were primarily sheep, goats, and pigs? She kept a few cows but felt that everything related to a cow was heavier and didn't keep many. She also stabled a few horses for the city folk that rode on weekends, but the pigs provided her contribution to this day's activities. Then to help her haul hay bales, compost, and such, she had one of those farm trucks that was a bit bigger and taller than a standard pickup.

Billy pulled into this week's motel. Once again, I managed to park across the street just in time to see the same top-heavy blond trot across the parking lot and get into his car beside him. They were making it too easy! Billy and the bimbo sat there making out for a minute before Bebes' truck pulled into the lot.

Now I know for a fact that the girls were expecting to find Billy's overpriced convertible empty and the lovers already in their room, but they weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. They quickly turned the truck around and backed it up to the driver's side door of Billy's convertible. I think the bimbo was just too scared or confused to get out of the way. In the world of fight or flight, she chose to just sit there stunned and with her mouth open. It wasn't open for long! Bebes hit the hydraulics, the truck bed tilted, and three tons of pig shit poured through the open top of Billy's convertible. I could see the girls in the cab laughing and giving each other high fives.

They were efficient and the entire matter took hardly a minute. The truck bed was coming back down as they drove away, and I could see the girls still laughing in the cab. I was busy taking photographs that the police would never see as the two miscreants were digging themselves out of the uncomposted manure.

It's a widely held opinion among farmers, or among people who live in farm country, that the smell of fresh pig manure is worse than most other farm animals. I've never challenged that opinion. As I sat there enjoying the show, the wind carried the stench of that shit-covered convertible to my truck, and I would have left if not for the shear entertainment of watching those two try to climb their way out of that sopping pile of filth. I took care to capture it all on cell-phone video to show the women later.

I never did learn where the two went or how they got there once they were freed from their acrid prison.

When I got home my wife was showering in our bathroom and Babs was showering in the guest bath. I poured myself a bourbon and listened to the two of them occasionally laughing to themselves as each relived the events of the day in their mind. As I sat there, I thought about my friend Bebes. Her husband had left her without warning five years earlier. They were a poor match from the beginning, and I think today may have given her a small measure of closure as well.

That night I cooked venison tenderloin with carrots and potatoes on the grill with Bebes as our guest of honor. I knew that my job was to provide the women with a good meal and the freedom to speak without a man listening in, so I happily stayed in the background and kept their glasses full.

The divorce progressed with fits and starts as they do. He asked for forgiveness, but she had none to give. He tried to have her arrested for the stunt in the motel parking lot, but the police couldn't prove it was her. It seems that when a truck load of pig shit is headed your way, checking the license plate isn't the first thing you think of.

As they say, the marriage ended less with a whimper than with a bang. The judge brought down his gavel, declared the marriage over, and that was that. We were there to support Babs and walked with her out of the courthouse and into her new life. Billy caught up with her and begged for forgiveness one last time. When she turned him down, he said, "Don't you miss me?"

She looked her now ex-husband in the eye and said, "Yes, but my aim is getting better."

Once a hillbilly, always a hillbilly.

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So I promised you a little BTB. In this case, BTB stands for Bury the Bastard (in pig shit).

I love stories about good women, and I love these three women even if they are only fiction.