A Case of Self Defense

"Who is this guy? What the fuck is he doing here?" Jerry yelled at her. Her hand came up to cover her mouth as she stared down at Barnes groaning on the floor.

"Honey, it's not what it looks like!" She said, looking up.

"Jesus Christ! You are in there washing your ass to get it all clean for this motherfucker?" Jerry shouted.

"No, Honey! We were just going to talk, is all." She whined.

"At two in the morning, in our bedroom? You are naked!"

"I..I just needed a shower, we weren't..." Her eyes were filled with terror.

"You lying BITCH!" He screamed.

In that flash of rage, Jerry shot her too.

Shelly did exactly what she was supposed to, just like on TV. Down she went, screaming. Jerry watched her for a moment, the vision seemed unreal. It was like she was a stranger, and this was all in a movie or something.

Then he went over and looked at Barnes. The man was moaning loudly. He looked up at Jerry, his eyes full of fear.

"Don't kill me! No! Please!" He screamed. Jerry saw the blood on his shirt, right in the middle of his stomach. He couldn't tell for sure where the second bullet hit, but he knew he had hit him.

He thought for a second of putting one between Barnes eyes but thought better of it.

"Motherfucker!" Jerry told him, delivering a solid kick to his head.

Barnes got nice and quiet.

Suddenly he felt stone calm. It was like all of this was happening to someone else.

Walking over to Shelly, she was screaming and crying. He had hit her low down on the left side. There was a tiny little hole, it wasn't even bleeding very much.

"Was it worth it?" He asked her.

Shelly didn't answer, she just stared up at him with wild eyes.

"Fuck it!" He muttered under his breath, then he went over to the nightstand and picked up the phone.

"I found an intruder in my wife's bedroom, I shot him. My wife was wounded in the scuffle, can you please send an ambulance?" He asked, calm as a cucumber.

Then he stuck the pistol into his belt and went downstairs. Checking the fridge, he found the six pack of beer sitting there.

Like always, Shelly had done her shopping. There was an unopened bag of chips on the counter, along with a can of mixed Peanuts she knew he liked. Jerry grabbed those and went into the living room, sitting down where he could see the bottom of the stairs.

He was thinking about the job he had just bid, began to run the numbers in his head. The pistol was poking him, he moved it over to his side where it was more comfortable. He could hear Shelly upstairs sobbing, so he reached for the TV controller and turned it on. Some people were talking but he had no idea at all what about.

The chips were good, nice and fresh.

He was on his second beer and halfway through the bag of chips when he heard the sirens. They sure took their damned sweet time, he thought.

On the way to the Police station he was pissed off that they wouldn't let him take along his can of mixed nuts.

They hadn't been real gentle either. They spotted him sitting there eating the chips, then they saw the pistol stuck in his belt.

Suddenly guns were pointed at him, and everyone was yelling. The one cop reached down and took the pistol, Jerry had just stuck another chip in his mouth when they grabbed him and mashed him onto the floor, twisting his arms behind his back.

"Ow, you are hurting me!" He complained, but no one answered.

"Shut the fuck up!" One of them growled at him later when he asked for his can of mixed nuts.

Jerry shut up.

+++

"It's not looking too good," The lawyer Jerry hired told him. Jerry didn't know the man, he had never needed a lawyer before.

One of the other guys in jail with him had mentioned him.

"Mercer, Maclaren, Hanson, Ireland and Phillips." The guy said, reciting it. That sounded to Jerry like the guy spent a lot of time dealing with lawyers.

"I use Jack Ireland, damn good lawyer!" The guy had bragged.

"So how come you are still in here then?" Jerry asked him. That just got him a dirty look.

But he had to have someone, so he called the lawyer. Jack Ireland was a short and dumpy looking man, he had an extremely weather beaten briefcase with him.

He went over the charges, shook his head.

"So what comes next?" He asked the man.

"Bail hearing, we will get that. There is enough equity in your house to cover it, then we wait for the Grand Jury to look at the case."

"How bad is it?"

"Attempted murder. If you are going to shoot somebody, for God's sakes kill them. If you don't, they will testify against you. Right now, you are in a world of shit. I can't believe you used that little pop gun, should have been a magnum or something." He gave a little snort at that.

"How bad are they?" Jerry asked. Nobody was telling him anything.

"Your wife will be fine, just a hole in her side, Barnes was pretty well messed up. Those little .22 caliber rounds tend to rattle around in there, so he spent a lot of time in surgery. Say, why did you shoot him the second time?"

"He was still coming at me."

"Well, that one looks deliberate, you hit him in the balls." Ireland said, looking at him with a sidelong glance.

"Good." Jerry said flatly, getting another snort from the lawyer.

"A magnum would take them clean off, all you did was poke a hole between them." He snorted again.

It was nearly a month before bail was set and Jerry walked out into the open air again. The air smelled so fresh after being in there that it was almost a surprise, he had gotten used to the smell.

He couldn't go home, the court restricted him from that. The restraining order said 100 yards, Jerry didn't care. Shelly was living there, having gotten out of the hospital long before he got out of jail.

But he did beat Shelly to signing the papers, the place was titled as Shelly Jacobson OR Gerald Jacobson.

Either one could sign the papers, one of those neat little points in letters of the law. That came as a pleasant surprise, something he hadn't even noticed when they signed the papers.

It hit him that Shelly had handled that part, now he knew why. But that tiny point had obviously slipped her mind what with being in the hospital.

Jack Ireland actually was a pretty good lawyer, and he wanted to make sure he got his money.

So if Shelly wanted the place for keeps, there would be some bills. Jack Ireland had one very large lien against the place.

Jerry was flat broke, he had used the savings account to retain the lawyer, and he was well aware that the retainer was only the start.

He also knew damn good and well that would piss Shelly off, but he really didn't give a shit.

His truck was parked right where he had left it, down the street and around the corner. He guessed it was over 100 yards like the restraining order said, he wasn't too sure about that.

The truck also had a dozen parking tickets on it, it was a surprise that it hadn't been towed.

Jerry took the tickets and tossed them into the trash, what were they going to do, arrest him?

+++

At the office, Jerry went in to talk to his boss. The man seemed to be very nervous, then he told Jerry they wouldn't be needing him any more, since he was gone they had to hire someone else.

Jerry understood, he had already seen the newspaper stories.

That night he curled up in his truck, getting a kick out of the place he pulled into. It was called South Park, it seemed the joke was on him.

The next day he called the lawyer, somehow the Jack Ireland made arrangements for a police officer to go with him to get some of his things.

Maybe he wasn't such a bad lawyer after all.

Shelly was nowhere to be seen. Jerry got his clothes, then he grabbed his tools and both of his collector Epiphone guitars. He also grabbed his fishing tackle and all four of his coin collections.

He thought about grabbing the brand new big screen TV but he had no place to plug it in out in the woods.

On the way out, he spotted the can of mixed Peanuts still sitting on the lamp stand by his chair. He grinned at that, grabbed them. He looked in the fridge, started to grab the last five beers but the cop gave him a dirty look so he left them.

Then on the porch, he changed the access code on the alarm system to something else right in front of the Cop who never even noticed.

He grinned to himself at that little act of meanness.

At the local hock shop, they handed him $1500 for the two guitars and all of his fishing poles except for one he kept.

$1500 in cash, it was everything he had left in the world.

Next he went to the post office, he and Shelly kept a box there. Of course his key didn't work, Shelly had taken him off of it and had the key changed. They had his mail though. The clerk wasn't supposed to hand mail over the counter, he knew that because of the big sign. But he asked her flat out, stone faced, having spotted the fear on her face when she saw him.

It was no problem at all, she handed him the bundle quickly. There were several credit card application forms and one for a funeral home.

That seemed to be fitting.

He also rented a different box, then filled out the paperwork so the court had his address.

He actually did think of just taking off, but driving a monstrous yellow Dodge Ram crew cab, he thought he might be easy to find.

+++

Two weeks later, Jerry still had no luck finding any work. His unsmiling face had blessed the news for days.

The story in the papers told of an overly jealous and insane husband that had broken into a simple at home business meeting and just started shooting.

He could figure out where that version of what happened came from, Art Barnes was a powerful local wheeler and dealer.

He decided his lawyer had been right, if he was going to go to all the trouble to shoot someone, for God's sakes, kill them!

Otherwise this is exactly the shit you get, everything twisted around right back into your face.

Back at South Park, his new home, Jerry pulled his truck into the bushes far enough to hide it from the street. He got out his fishing pole, found some grasshoppers and caught a half dozen little six inch long Trout in the nearby creek.

They had to be 8" long to keep them, he didn't give a damn. What were they going to do, write him a ticket?

He built a small fire and fried them up. He was just cleaning out the pan in the creek when his cell phone went off.

"Jerry! Hey man, I need to talk to you!" His old boss said. He suddenly sounded nice and friendly.

Now what the fuck? Jerry thought.

"You remember that job you got, the fencing at Sam Martin's Farm over in Idaho?"

"Sure."

"Well, he has over 10,000 acres, and he wants a larger section cross fenced. Two pole barns, and a line fence all the way to the city limits! This will be the biggest job we ever did." He said, excitement was clear in his voice.

"What's that got to do with me?" Jerry asked. He was still mildly pissed off with the way he had been treated.

But then everyone treated him like that lately, it had gotten so bad he spent most of his time by himself in the park.

"Martin insists on you, he says if you aren't handling it then he will hire someone else."

"Well, that's nice of him, but...." Jerry knew he was not supposed to leave the state.

"What do you say?" His boss asked.

Jerry didn't know what to say. Then it hit him.

"Maybe. What's the offer?"

"You get your job back?"

"Nope!"

"Well, how about..double commissions then?"

"Double?"

"Yes, and your job back full time? I mean...uhh...You aren't carrying any guns, are you?"

"No, I am not allowed to have a gun! The cops took mine." That pissed Jerry off.

Hell, he wasn't running around shooting everybody, he only shot two people. It wasn't like he was a nut, just blazing away in all direction if something irritated him.

But the papers sure made it sound that way.

"How about my back salary? That wasn't fair the way I got fired, I didn't even get to explain."

"Shit, that's months?"

"Half of it then, plus my benefits back?" Jerry was well aware that he had been the company's best salesman by far.

The man hesitated, Jerry could almost hear the wheels turning. He knew also damn good and well it was only about $0.50 per foot profit, but 10,000 acres? Literally miles of fencing?

Pole barns, one of them 100' by 60'?

Damn.

"OK, deal." His boss said.

Jerry went down to the tiny little corner store and bought himself a can of mixed nuts to celebrate. He bought a bottle of beer, too. He wasn't allowed to drink beer but he didn't give a fuck. Still, he drank that quickly and buried the bottle.

+++

The sour faced old Judge looked at Jerry and his lawyer with suspicion. But he approved the request to cross State lines as part of his work, and he had to return each and every night.

"You have some damn serious charges hanging here, Mr. Jacobson. Damn serious! But I can't deny a man the right to do his work until this case gets heard. So don't screw this up or I will throw you right back into jail, got it?"

"Yes, Your honor." Jerry managed to keep a serious face.

+++

The next day he was on the way to Idaho. Old man Martin met him with a smile and a handshake.

Apparently the news hadn't gotten quite this far yet, and Jerry could see no reason to bring any of it up.

"We are putting Corn into that little patch down by the creek, nice South facing land in there. Got to keep the Sheep out of there. Then the Angus, we were running them free range but they got a big development going in, I am just tired of listening to them gripe so we want to keep them on our own land, OK?"

It struck Jerry that this crusty old man must have one hell of a lot of money. It was nearly 8 PM by the time they got back to the ranch house, Jerry knew he had to go to get back to Oregon before midnight.

He hated the idea of turning down dinner, plus maybe even seeing Molly again. But he had to go, so he did.

Once back in Oregon, he called in but just got a recording, then he called again as soon as the bail office opened.

"Hey, you don't have to call in every damned day. Just follow the rules, OK?" Whoever answered told him.

"OK." he answered.

Nobody ever checks on anything unless something happens to get their attention, he realized.

Back into his truck and back to the Martin farm he went, driving at exactly the speed limit.

He spotted Molly sitting on their porch the moment he drove up, she hopped up and ran inside. She was back in seconds with a big floppy hat and a basket. She was wearing cutoff blue jeans and a T-shirt, from the bounce it was clear she hadn't bothered with a bra.

"Let's go!" She told him, climbing into the truck.

"Where?"

"Dad told me to show you the section down by the development so you can get the measurements, they are all busy shearing today."

"Shearing?" He asked.

"Yes, the Sheep. They will be busy until dark."

It took over an hour to reach the area they were talking about. Cattle were wandering around, none of them paid much attention to them.

On the way, they talked about everything under the Sun. He kept glancing over at her, liking the way her soft breasts bounced each time they hit a rough spot. There were traveling across open fields, there was not even a hint of a road, just periodic strips of what looked like an ATV trail.

It popped into his mind that it had now been one hell of a long time since he was with a woman, but he put those thoughts out of his head. This job was big, he didn't want to do anything at all to upset her folks.

Jerry pulled up over a big rise in the trail, there was a fair sized river and about a half mile past that was a row of three story apartment buildings. They continued on down and out of sight.

That looked really strange, completely out of place in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. Then he spotted the highway on the other side, cars streaming by at a high rate of speed.

Progress, they called that, he thought.

Jerry could see the problem, range laws be damned, cattle in someone's back yard was an irritant.

"The fence goes in 50 feet from those buildings, all the way down to the city limits. We are lucky because we own the river bank on both sides."

Jerry shifted into four wheel drive to cross the stream, then drove the fence line, using his odometer to get the distance. Then back at the big house, he sat down and did the math. The job was going to take their entire crew weeks to complete.

Finally finished, he looked up at Molly. She was sitting in a chair, her legs crossed, the upper leg moving back and forth, her shoe hanging from her toes.

"Everybody is down at the lower barn, they won't come in for hours now. Want to come on upstairs?" She grinned.

Jerry flushed at her being so forward about that, but he knew he couldn't.

"I can't. I mean, I am..still married, we are separated but....Besides, I barely know you."

"Oh. I'm sorry then, I didn't realize, you don't have a ring on. Are you getting a divorce?"

"Yes, probably. In fact, I am sure of it."

"I see. You didn't get along then? What was the problem?"

"I...uhhh...I shot her." He admitted.

"You what?" Molly's eyebrows went up.

"I shot her..and her lover. They were at my house..in my bedroom."

"I see. I guess maybe I don't blame you. Did you...kill them?"

"No." Jerry told her.

"Well, that's good, I guess. Lots of troubles, though?"

"Yes." Jerry told her the whole story, Molly sat quietly and listened.

"So that is why you had to leave last night? To go back to Oregon? Do you have to do that every night?"

"Yes, until the court case, then I will probably end up in jail."

"Maybe not, we will see. So? Can I come with you?"

"With me?"

"Yes, to Oregon. I'm not afraid of you, and you are nice. Maybe even the one, I don't know yet. I do know I am sick of living way out here in the middle of nowhere. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love it out here, it is home to me. But the only men around are either old or married, so I get....lonely sometimes."

"What about your parents? Wouldn't they get upset if you just...?" Jerry asked.

"Dad told me I should try and catch you, he said you looked like good stock. He never said anything like that to me before. He met one boy I dated and told me he wasn't worth the effort. I guess you didn't mention having an old lady, or Dad would never have considered that. He is kind of old fashioned." She grinned at that.

"It's...this is kind of sudden." Jerry managed.

"Jerry, I am no virgin. I know about men. Well. One man anyway, a boy really. We both grew up out here so we already knew about all of that, so we tried it. But still, I am no prude and I think I would like to be with you. Then if I..you and I decide we want to be together full time, I will never cheat on you, OK? You can be pretty sure about that, I happen to know what you might do about it!" She giggled at that.

Jerry didn't have to think about that very long.

"What do we tell your....?" He started to ask.

"Come on, good grief!" Molly got up and took his hand, led him down to the lower barn. A dozen men were working with the sheep, Mr. Martin saw them coming, saw they were holding hands and grinned.

"Jerry and I are leaving, we will be back in the morning, OK?"

"OK, honey. Have fun." He grinned again and went back to work.

Jerry blinked at that, Molly just smiled.

"Dad and Mom are farmers, they know all about sex. Everything and everybody does it, it's natural!" She laughed.

Jerry didn't quite know what to say, he had never in his life met any woman like this. She obviously wanted to be with him, so to her there was nothing wrong with just saying so.

Somehow Jerry managed to not break the speed limit on the way to his motel except for one stretch. That was not an easy thing to do with Molly sitting bare breasted beside him, one hand busy keeping him hard nearly all the way.