Chapter One: OLD MAN MOYER - A Novel by Joe Lyon

CHAPTER ONE
Jimmy Myers loved his leased Jaguar. He rumbled through the Ohio countryside, upsetting in his wake the quiet serenity of the autumn hills. He sped through the swirling leaves spun in circles from the fury of the car's speeding tires. The black tar road, the freshly painted lines of bright yellow and white, arched over the winding hills and meadows. On each side were remnants of cornfields, row upon row of brown and rotting cornstalks. The road was faultless and smooth, hemmed in on each side by bent wooden fence posts topped with rusty barbed wire. He was dimly aware that his Jag was gliding effortlessly in excess of 70 miles per hour.
Jimmy saw an old trash can lid nailed to the trunk of a tree that had been painted yellow and fashioned into a smiley happy face. It read, Have a Nice Day, but Jimmy Myers was not having a nice day at all. He was still very upset about the meeting he just came from, and his dismal failure. As he drove faster and faster his dark thoughts became colder and more menacing. He found himself thinking of terrible insidious things. His mind was preoccupied with sinister fantasies. Remarkably, he believed he wanted to kill someone. He believed that for the first time in his life he was actually capable of taking a human life. Not just anyone, Jimmy wanted to kill someone in particular: a fat son-of-a-bitch of a man named Chester Underwood, the man with whom he had just had the meeting. It was this man that Jimmy manifestly cast everything that was wrong with the universe upon, and Jimmy was determined to think of a way to pay Underwood back.
Ahead in the distance, Jimmy could see an old general store over the next hill by the 40 mph speed limit sign. He wanted another cup of coffee and decided to stop. Jimmy slowed until the Jag went crunching through the white pebbles of the general store's parking lot. He stopped and turned the engine off as the dust began to settle.
He stepped out of the car, and the breeze caressed his face. A cold crisp wind howled through the nearby trees, bending branches, causing the timber to sway and creak. Some of the autumn leaves were still stubbornly clinging upon the trees that bore them, flitting around in the cruel wind. Most of the leaves were lying like a carpet upon the bent and browning grass of the Ohio valley. The leaves blanketed what was left of the dying field stubble in beautiful colors of brown, orange, yellow, and red; they drifted in piles by the trees, the wire fences, and crumbling wooden fence posts. The beautiful blanket of multicolor leaves could be seen over every rolling hill in the distance.
He noticed a flock of black birds in a nearby tree, hundreds of them, all of them in one tree less than a hundred yards away. They were all loudly squawking. The birds were organizing for their migration south, and the wind just seem to blow in more of them with every wave.
The air was brisk and fresh, and it felt good to him. He took off his black sunglasses and looked around with dry stinging eyes. Wearily he rubbed his blood shot eyes and took a deep breath. He reached back in the Jag and pulled out a black leather coat to neutralize the chill, then put it on. White cotton ball shaped clouds lazily swept overhead, leaving wispy trails of vapor in the deep blue sky. Somewhere over the gently rolling hills a dog was barking, barely audible, and seemingly miles away.
Jimmy walked across the white gravel parking lot, by the rusting and broken gas pumps that obviously had not been used for decades. In the front of the general store, wind chimes accented the knocking of the old porch swing striking the side of the porch railing. A red plastic weather vane shaped like a farmer spun its arms erratically and twisted in the breeze.
The door clanged upon tiny bells as it opened. Inside the general store, it was very warm. An elderly man, short and sturdy in stature, who was mostly bald except for the hair around the tops of his ears was watching soap operas on television. A cigarette burned in the ashtray on the counter, and a folded newspaper lay beside the ashtray with today's date on it.
"Got a bathroom?" Jimmy asked the man while looking around. The store had about 5 racks of merchandise and two glass beverage cases. One of the beverage cases had bacon, milk, hot dogs, and bologna in it.
The old timer pointed to a wooden door in the far corner. "Over there," he said. "The light's on a string"
Jimmy went in and relieved himself. After he came out of the bathroom, he poured himself a cup of coffee in a paper cup, stirred in two heaping spoonfuls of sugar and put a lid on it.
"How much do I owe ya?" Jimmy asked the man. The man told him that a cup of coffee was fifty cents. So, Jimmy put 75 cents for the coffee and jangled the bells again on his way outside.
Strange, Jimmy thought. It was so quiet now. What changed? The wind stopped blowing, and the birds were gone, all of them. Jimmy looked up and could see no sign of any of the birds. How could they have all disappeared that sudden, and that soon? He was only in the store for about five minutes. The trees no longer were swaying in the wind. The air would have been completely quiet once again if it weren't for the distant steady barking of a dog. Over and over again the barking resounded over the hills. It had a maddening rhythm about it.
When Jimmy reached the car, the barking suddenly stopped. Jimmy paused. The silence was now deafening. He looked up, and looked around. Everything was absolutely quiet now. It was unnaturally quiet. Too quiet, he thought. Jimmy got the feeling he was being watched, but if he was being watched there would soon be nothing more to see than a cloud of dust from his Jag leaving the gravel parking lot. He got into his car and gently closed the door. He had a funny feeling that he could not explain; he could not put his finger on it. He inserted the key in the Jag and started it up. He sipped his coffee and looked around one last time for the birds. Nothing. No sign of the birds for as far off, and as many miles, as he could see.
He tore out of the parking lot and turned onto the main road again. He put on his black sunglasses, put the coffee in the drink holder, and banged the gears until he built up some speed. He turned up the radio when suddenly, over the next hill, a dog was slowly walking across the road directly in his path. He cursed, held onto the steering wheel tightly, and slammed on his brakes. The car skidded rapidly to the dog. The dog turned to look at the noise coming at him. Jimmy shut his eyes as the animal disappeared under the car. He held the steering wheel tight in anticipation of the coming impact. Next he could feel a rolling, bumping, impact under the car as he hit the dog. The feeling made him sick to his stomach.
"Oh Shit," Jimmy exclaimed. The car came to a stop. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw the dog lying in the street motionless. Jimmy rolled down his window and put his head out, looking, listening, for any signs of oncoming traffic. He drove in reverse taking great care not to run over the animal again, and backed up to the top of the hill. He reached the top and put on his emergency brake and hazard lights.
He got out of the car and walked to where the dog lay. He thought that maybe the dog might still be alive. The dog wasn't breathing. Its tongue was hanging out of its open mouth.
He remembered something that his father told him years ago: that when a dog's tongue began to hang out of his mouth like that it spelled bad news for the dog; he most likely is either dead or going to die soon.
Jimmy could see that the dog looked like it was an old golden retriever, but it was just a little different, like it was mixed with some other breed. Its muzzle was white with age, a little shorter but thicker than any golden retriever he had ever seen. The dog was male. Its long undercoating of fur was bleached white on the bottom. The long floppy ears also showed the color of his advanced age, but everywhere else he was of a splendid golden hue. His coat looked clean and well kept. Jimmy checked for a heartbeat. He could find none. The dog was dead.
"Great," he said sarcastically. "This is just great. I guess that's what I get. What else can happen today?"
He stood up and looked around. After a moment, he looked back down at the dead dog. Poor dog, Jimmy thought, must have gotten pretty broken up inside. The dog obviously belonged to someone. He wore no collar but was far too well groomed to be a stray. He gingerly dragged him to the side of the road and tried one last time to revive the dog.
He remembered his own dog from long ago, Suzy, his little brown dachshund. He remembered the tragic story. One day when Jimmy was a child, he got off the school bus and saw his dog Suzy across the street. As the bus pulled away, he turned and called for her, and she started to come. Just then, little Jimmy saw a car coming over the top of the hill. The car was coming too fast. He tried to get Suzy to stop, but she didn't understand, she just kept coming. The car didn't see the little dog. It ran over her right in front of him. Suzy rolled under the car violently. "NO!" He screamed and threw his schoolbooks down. He ran out into the street. The car, now well past the accident, noticed it hit something and stopped. Jimmy saw two children in the back seat pressing their little faces against the back window looking at the terrible scene. Jimmy got to Suzy and picked her up and held her. She was ripped open from her back left leg all the way up to the upper part of her stomach; she was bleeding down Jimmy's arm. He cried and looked up at the car, looking for somebody to help him. But instead, the brake lights went off, and the car drove away. Jimmy wept and put his head back down on Suzy's. He continued to comfort his dog in the last moments of her life in the middle of the road. Later that day, they did something they didn't prepare to do when they woke up that morning. They had to bury the family dog. And Jimmy blamed himself. If he had not called Suzy she would still be alive. It was his fault that Suzy died. It was entirely his fault, and his fault alone.
Jimmy stood up and looked around again. He saw what looked like a paved lane leading off the main road into a densely wooded area in the distance. He thought he could see what looked like the top of a house through the trees. Maybe it was their dog. He could not just leave the dog there. He did not want to drive off, like the car that killed Suzy did. He would not do that. He could not.
He went back to the car and opened up the trunk, then returned to the dog and gently picked the animal off the ground. He laid the dead dog in the back of the trunk and closed the lid. He got back in the car and headed slowly down the main road. He turned onto the paved lane that led to the woody area. The lane itself was secluded, lined with cedar trees; yet he felt confident that he had the right house. In gold letters, the mailbox post standing by the road read: MOYER.