Master Yoshi

I stayed behind, I was still watching the driveway from just inside the barn with the.22 rifle.

Mack looked over, "Kevin, good spot. Jake, you're upstairs with the 30-06. Rules of engagement. Anyone points a gun at us, drop him, one shot - as he pulls the gun up, don't wait. We don't fight fair, we fight to win. If there's someone else, and they're armed, drop them immediately, and second. Don't shoot at people with hands up. Knives, only if they're close enough, say 20 yards, to there." He pointed.

Jake took a long sigh, pulled on the bolt of the 30-06 to check the round.

Mack continued, "If it's me, I put a second and third round into each one, fast but calm and sure. Aim SMALL, Miss SMALL."

We nodded.

"If either one heals up, he's coming for us, in the night, quiet, sure as the sun rises. Like I said, I think I might know who these jokers are."

Looking over at me, Mack took a deep breath and considered a minute. Then he said something I'll never forget. He said, "Kevin, son, you're getting older fast. Two wives, eh? Not too strange around here. The only real fix might be to make it happen."

I said, "Uh..."

"You serious?" His eyes bored into mine. Marta was close enough to hear this exchange, the girls were still filling buckets.

"I'm willing. Yes. I'm serious."

Jake nodded and headed up the back stairs to the loft, shouldering one of the backpacks and carrying the 30-06 with a determined air.

Mack looked at Marta, then back at me. He said, "Question is, getting married. Kinda a big deal. Here's my thinking. Even if we get rid of the immediate threat, either by persuasion or force, there's a bunch of Kylors over in Stubenville that won't like dead relatives, or what they'd think of as 'wayward women'."

Marta looked at him. "That's ... Brent Kylors people, you think?"

He was grim. "How many people named Kylor are there in the world."

She shook her head, "Talk for another time, they'll be here..."

Mack looked at me. "Gotta know, Kev. Option one, you deliver these women back to their relatives, everyone goes home alive. Girls might end up dead tomorrow morning, but it's not on our property, we didn't do it."

Marta looked at him like he'd eaten a turd.

I chortled, and my face said it, but out loud I intoned, "Just. Not. Happening." There were tears in my eyes, I felt them.

Mack nodded, serious. "Had to ask. Option two. You say you're going to marry one or more of these girls, you're lying or not, but you don't go through with it. We delay the wedding until after graduation or whenever, you fly somewhere, you part ways, no one knows where anyone is."

Looking at him, I said, "Does that keep you safe? You're family, too, Mack. Even if you are an asshole sometimes."

He grinned, his missing eye tooth leaving a gap (I never got the story behind that). "Right. Thank you, and yeah, probably right. So. Option three, maybe creative. We get either Pastor Jergins, or maybe their pastor, uh, Free Righteous..."

Marta told him the church name.

"Right. Get him, or the other, or both, whatever. Marry both of these girls to you, asap, we don't have bloodshed. Or, at least, we stop with these two idiots. Couple of years, meet up again, get a divorce nice and quiet in Vegas or Miami, no one knows, no one cares, go back to your life."

This seemed very wrong. "You're saying, Leave them. After I marry them."

Mack said, "Lots of people do stupid things when they're young, Kev. Like, my beating on my cousin and never saying sorry... Sorry."

As much as I hated Mack for not doing anything when the other two beat on me, he only 'bumped' me a couple of times.

"Option four?"

"You leave here, now. Disappear. They stop by and hold us at gunpoint every once in a while, or decide to kidnap your sister Jane as partial payment."

Marta inhaled.

He glanced at her, "I know, Marta."

I said, "Call their pastor, and ours. Jergins." I was grim, but faked a pretend call, "It's a party, Jergins, honest!"

Mack smiled, pulled out his phone, looked around a bit, and dialed. I didn't hear the conversation as a whole, but I did hear, "Sir, we need you here in faster than your car will legally drive. If you don't get here, you will be doing several funerals, and then possibly your own.... Yes. Thank you. And, the other guy. Yep. Pick him up, or they might decide you're to blame alone, if you catch my drift."

The girls were still moving fast around the yard, getting buckets in place, and stacking some random crap around so they'd have cover in the backup-dive-there place.

Mack got the riding lawn mower, an ancient model but made trustworthy by him, and drove it right over to the lane and parked it just inside where it widened out. It blocked us in, but it meant they couldn't drive in and hide behind their pickup, close to us.

Thinking about it, there was an exit - someone could drive in back of the shop then between front yard trees, but whoever was driving up wouldn't know that.

The girls finished up and got into place, turning empty buckets over as a place to sit. They had a nice wide place to dive in case of gunfire, even a second row on top of the first by making them brick-stacked, tough with buckets full of water.

I watched Mack go to the house and come back with a shoebox-sized hard-case. Opening it on one of the overturned buckets, he pulled out his Sig-Sauer and three clips. Pushing one into the handle and handing a clip each to Joanie and Carrie, he pulled back on the receiver and chambered a round. Showing them the safety with it aimed vertically, he put it back in the small holster.

Looking at them, he said, "Which of you...?"

Carrie said, "I'm a better shot with a pistol. Joanie's a bow hunter."

The things I was learning about them kept piling up.

Mack pulled out a bandana and wrapped it, then pointed to the ground near the truck. "Stash it there. Dire. Emergencies. Only. Let us handle things, if only because I don't want to dodge bullets from behind me. Plus, the video is on already, we have to let them do the first thing, demonstrate malice and intent. Or, we go to prison, and die there when they put a hit on us."

I could see this was a risk. Those girls might just decide to shoot first and involve all of us.

We waited. I got a fishing chair from the wall of the barn and sat down, well behind the door but close enough to see.

A horn honked about a half hour later, it was the two pastors, both in the front seat.

Of course the dogs ran over and wagged their tails, they knew Jergins.

They got out and walked over, and Mack and Marta walked up to them; Marta was holding her phone to record the whole thing.

I couldn't hear it.

Mack called the girls, who had moved to stand behind a big hay bale near the barn, to go over behind the truck.

Mack had the other pastor raise his hands and patted down his waist and legs. I guessed that we didn't need to worry much about Jergins, I'd never gotten that vibe from him.

Calling me out, Mack led us all to stand behind the pickup in a sort-of wedding formation.

The other guy said, addressing the girls, "Carrie. Joanie." Looking at me, he asked, "And you are?"

"Kevin Cooper, sir." All this usage of the formal 'sir' was odd but catching.

He held out his hand to shake. I was still holding my.22, but Mack motioned for me to put it against the truck, so I did. His hand was still out.

I said, "I don't care to shake your hand, sir. Until we prove otherwise, looks like you were going to be a party to two counts of 1st degree kidnapping or human trafficking, or two capital murders."

He looked at me like I'd called his mother a whore, but then looked at Mack and said, "My name is Kayland Boffers, I'm pastor at ____."

"We know, sir."

I knew this was sort of my ballgame, even though the pastor was there, and Jergins' attitude was just deferential enough he was trying to figure out what to do next.

Mostly, things were coming together, and either I stepped up my game, or people were going to die. They would die both Because of me, and probably In Front of Me. And, I might be one of them. Looking at them carefully, I said, "Carrie and Joanie. This is your thing. Do we have a solid plan? Do you really want to get ... married?" I was still a little freaked out.

They both nodded, but I clarified and asked them, "Carrie? Joanie? Out loud." Glancing over, I saw Marta had gotten her phone out and was recording video.

Each of them glanced at the camera and said, "Yes. Now. This afternoon."

Marta said something urgent to Tallia that Mack heard, and Tallia went running off back to the mobile home, a fast jog but not a sprint.

I decided if no one was saying why she was running, then it must be important.

Everyone was looking at me. I could back out. It was still possible.

Who was I kidding.

I looked at Jergins. "Pastor, I've known you since Pastor Neffers left, you seem like you're okay. I want you to do the ceremony, but make it fast. First, Mr. Boffers?"

He looked over at me, wondering what was going to happen exactly, I think.

"Sir, you're going to witness this. Tell me. If Pastor Jergins does the ceremony, and you witness us three say 'I do' - seriously, as 3 of us - will you consider us married in your church? You'd need to tell other people, CLEARLY, that we are in fact married. I don't want you to deny anything later, it might get someone killed."

Boffers glanced at Marta's camera, so he knew that he couldn't lie or change his mind.

Jane got her phone out to record about that moment, too, but I could see she was still keeping her eyes on the lane.

Boffers readily nodded. "Mr. Cooper, I have done many weddings in my career. Yours will not be the first that's a throuple. A colleague of mine did one that was a third wife, but as a 'religious joining ritual', not a state-licensed marriage. Not sure if that was a divorce-marry-next thing or if he just did the ritual. Doesn't matter. Yes. I'll recognize it as, 'a religious joining ritual exactly like the multiple marriages of long ago'. Civil stuff, county court, that's the final say for the certificates, what we do in rituals is our business."

I wanted to hear it again, he'd been too long-winded. "Please tell Pastor Jergins that, again, plainly."

Boffers was confused but repeated himself. "I will recognize any marriage you perform as just as valid as one I perform, which is, it's valid and true before God."

Jergins was standing there. "Sir," I asked, "Will you do this?"

He looked back at me and blinked, nodding at us, "Sure, I thought I said that. Yes."

Tallia came back with some things. She picked up a rock, then a second rock, and came over to the girls. "Here." She handed each a rock, "Something old."

Pulling out two cookies, she presented one to each, "Something New."

Her hand held two earrings I vaguely recognized. She said, "Something Borrowed."

Lastly were the two winter gloves. "Something Blue."

Carrie and Joanie both gave her big hugs and thank you's, and put the items in their pockets.

Jergins rearranged them slightly, so it was me with Joanie on my left and Carrie on my right, and him in front of us.

I'd been to weddings before, lots of them, as the church pianist. I knew lots of things about weddings. "Sir. Before you start. Please make the vows 'husband and wife', not 'man and wife'... Oh -wait. No. Make it husband and wife, then husband and wife, for each pair of us, then 'wife and wife, for the two women.'"

They looked at each other. I didn't know if they wanted that, and I worried.

"Okay then..."

He launched into things, definitely doing the short form that said 'love honor and obey' which is one of those things I wasn't sure about, but they each said yes, so I said yes.

At the end, I realized we needed rings, but Tallia and Marta both pulled off rings and handed them over, and Jane had a ring, too, she gave it to the girls so they could give it to me as one person.

It didn't fit my ring finger very well, it only went past the first knuckle.

Jergins pronounced it, just like I asked.

We looked at each other, me back and forth, and I heard him say we could kiss.

We kissed. I had been facing Joanie at the moment he said that, so I kissed her first, then turned to Carrie and kissed her, just about as long and lingering. Her lips were... NICE.

Afterwards, we stood together and Mack got out his phone to take pictures also, getting lots of poses together so everyone's phones could have a chance to get it documented. There was quite a lot of hugging, too, and, suddenly, crying.

Jane was busy writing out something on notebook paper.

There was a yell from the loft, and a honk from the lane as a pickup truck pulled up in a big hurry, not hitting the lawnmower (which would have been bad for the pickup, it was an ancient handbuilt-looking oil-field-pipe massive hunk of steel lawnmower, but it got the job done).

Mack grabbed the.22 and set up behind the pickup and told us to be ready to hit the ground fast.

The truck had lurched up to a stop and I saw an old guy was driving, and had a super-mean look on his face somewhere behind the beard. That look had fierce death behind it.

The other front-seat guy was 300 pounds of muscle, lard, overalls, and beard hair.

Out of the back of the pickup bed, two women got out, pretty nimbly too. One was the older matronly lady we'd seen before, Rachel, and the other one I recognized from long ago at church, and from the wedding I'd played.

The old guy reached behind him to the gun rack and started pulling out a rifle, but there was a crack in the air right near me, it was Mack firing the.22 into the air. He shouted at them, "That gun, all the guns, stay in the truck. I see a gun, I will end you."

The old guy dropped his hand from the long gun and then showed us, pantomime, he was going to drop a handgun in the pickup, too.

Mack let him.

Jane was still furiously writing on the hood of the truck. I wondered if it was a peace treaty or something.

Mack had them step over closer, but not too close.

The big guy, Duke, had his right hand wrapped in a blood-stained kitchen towel. He was pissed. He said, "Thems women aiz promised! They ain't fer 'te likes of you'zall fuckin' mud people."

The Rachel lady had a look of vile hatred and boiling anger on her face. The other lady was angry, too, but I think she was too meek, she kind of hung back, but she had a slinky look to her like she'd be happy to come up behind you and give each of your kidneys a new steak knife.

Mack said, "You're about 10 minutes too late. Pastor Jergins and Boffers just married them. They're no longer your concern."

The boiling one, Duke, muttered something about monkeys and hangings, I missed it, but I was well behind the truck.

Rachel yelled, "You girls come out here right now, we're going home. It's not right, you don't have our blessing, it's not a real wedding."

Joanie was quick with a shouted, "NEVER!!!" and Carrie echoed it, and then it looked like they were going to add some kind of insult. Marta interrupted and asked, "Girls, just, let me? Would you like them to go away?"

Carrie and Joanie quickly said, "YES, please!" Carrie urgently added, "If we go with those people, we'll be dead in a ditch before we even get home, or they'll chain us in the basement like they did last winter."

Mack heard that and his back straightened.

Marta called out, "They don't want to come with you. Ever."

Rachel and Duke (being the loud ones, it seemed) took turns telling them to come out, to 'let them go', to 'respect family allegiances', and all manner of other things. When that didn't work, they all four started in on the "You don't do this to us!!! Come now! If you don't, we'll come back and cut your throats in the night! Come on, you'll be fine in our house, but here you're Dead!"

The interesting threats to us to let them go or they'd do a whole bunch of things to us. That included hangings, shootings, cutting on us, putting a bomb on the propane tank, raping all the women, etc. To each threat there were colorful racial slurs such that I was confused about what some of them meant.

Mack just let them go on yelling, getting more red-face and vicious as they went. The lady behind, Ferne, had a seriously wild look in her eyes, and I saw something in her hands, both hands. I said, "Mack. White haired lady. Something in her hands."

Mack pointed at her, aimed the gun right at her head propped upon the hood of the truck. "Ma'am, you'd best drop what you're holding right now or we're going to have a problem."

She didn't drop it, she just kept walking closer.

I could see. It looked like... She held it up. It was a ... I yelled it out, "GRENADE?"

Mack said, loudly, "One more step, lady, my brother up in that loft, he ends you. Walk back to your truck, or put that grenade in the dirt, nice and calm."

Her other hand had a knife.

Rachel saw what was happening and went over to her and pulled her backwards, but kept yelling, "I should let her. Hell, I should do it. One of these days, you're getting it, you Fuckin' (slur). This farm? Boom. No more. Buncha dead ____(slur)."

Mack asked Marta, "What happens, these people leave here?"

"You saw them... that look in their eyes? They want blood. They blow us up."

Mack said, "Okay, that's far enough. Lie on the ground, all quiet like. Jake, anyone touches that truck, put a round through their tire. Rules are rules. They brought a grenade to a wedding."

Jake called down, "Three minutes out."

"What?"

"Almost here."

The men stood there, not sure what to do. They wanted to leave and edged over towards the truck, but Mack said in a calm voice, "That'd be a bad plan."

Sirens sounded behind them, roaring engines, and one of the cruisers appeared around the side. Jake had to have told him where to drive through the front yard.

Sheriffs jumped out, guns drawn, and Mack put the safety back on and laid it on the ground. We all put our hands up, and the four racists got bracelets and handcuffs. The officers took a handgun each off Rachel and Duke (tucked into a pocket and belt, respectively).

I realized that despite our watching closely, they had handguns enough to shoot us all.

If we'd let them come closer, we'd have been dead.

The cops went up into the loft and came down with the 30-06, which got taken to a squad car, as well as the SigSauer in the dust by Carrie's feet.

Somewhere in the middle of that, Jane handed me a pen and pointed to the paper. It was already signed by most of the group except me.

It said, Marriage Certificate Affidavit. "On this date I do solemnly swear under penalty of perjury I did partake in a marriage ceremony wherein...."

It spelled things out, and next to our printed names there were lines, and people signed their names. I signed, under 'groom & husband'.

We had a lot of reciting what happened when to do, rides to the sheriff's station (we were outside city limits, technically), and I spent until almost 1:30 am talking through everything I saw for about the fifth time through.

There are two hotels in Beaver. Our town isn't that big. It's big enough for a nice, pretty clean traveler's and trucker's hotel, and another hotel, for the ner'do'wells that stop on by.

Mack (with me being only 18 and not able to rent a room), walked Carrie, Joanie, and I into the nice hotel and got a room for us. He was going to be across the hall.

As we were going up in the elevator, he said, "Kevin. Girls. One thing, just occurred to me. Today's Saturday. Church is tomorrow morning."

He was right. The girls were confused, "We're not..."

He waved it off, "You don't have to do Absolutely Anything you don't want to. Gunfights, even if no one dies, are an automatic excuse for that week. You're good." Looking at me, though, he said, "You might have to play piano, though?"