Letters From the Grave

yourself.”

  Ryan showed a wry smile. “Naw, I ain’t goin’ in there. You must think I’m a fool. You’d jes’ close this here door and lock me in tryin’ to get to me. Well, it ain’t gonna happen thata ways. You go get ‘em and bring ‘em to me.”

  Jake looked at Ryan momentarily then stepped into the shed. The interior was dark and he paused to let his eyes adjust. Ryan grew impatient. “Hurry up now!”

  Jake took a deep breath. He hoped Ryan knew his only way off the platform was to fly and didn’t shoot him in the back. “All right, Ryan. Be calm, I just need to see where I’m going.”

  The shed was only about ten feet square and there was a two foot clearance at the end of the generator engine and the side wall. The space behind the engine was nearly pitch black. Jake moved partially behind the engine reaching into the darkness. His preparation had been perfect.

  Ryan was not watching Jake closely. From almost ten feet away and blocked by the engine, Jake had nowhere to go. Ryan was excited about the gold as Jake stepped back into view. But instead of a box of coins, his hand gripped a twelve gauge shotgun that he swung with practiced speed to aim middle-mass on Ryan. Jake started to command Ryan to lay down his weapon, but Ryan panicked and fired. Jake had no choice. The shotgun blast was deafening inside the small metal room. Ryan’s shot had gone wild, but Jake was a steady hand with weapons and fired a focused blast of lead shot instinctively at the other gun, disintegrating Ryan’s right arm.

  Ryan fell screaming in agony. His right arm was shredded and his hand was mostly gone with only his index finger and thumb remaining in the sinewy pulp. Bits of flesh and fingers covered the deck behind him. The handgun was in several pieces. Jake quickly pumped another shell and stepped out of the shed. Ryan was crying in pain, gripping his right shoulder, trying to stop the pain radiating through the remnants of his arm. Most of the nerves were severed and blood ran from every vessel. He was in a fetal position, looking at his hand when Jake kicked his left shoulder. Ryan screamed again as tears ran down his face. He grimaced, “Ah ... Ah! You shot me! My hand, my arm, it’s all gone! Oh, Jake, it hurts bad. How could you do this to me! It hurts so Bad! Help me! Help me!”

  At least Ryan was alive and starting to respond. Jake cycled the slide on the shotgun one more time to get Ryan’s attention. He wasn’t planning on killing him yet.

  Ryan pleaded. “How could you do this? Why ... why shoot me!”

  Jake knelt down resting the shotgun on its butt, pointed into the air, “Simple, asshole. You threatened me and my family. For all I know, my wife is dead. I think I’ll dismember you, blast by blast, starting with your feet.”

  “No. No. She’s alive! Ryan’s face grimaced as he whimpered into the oily non-skid deck. You need me! Oh God ... this hurts! Jake, you gotta help me!”

  He pointed the big gun at Ryan’s left foot. “Where’s my wife!”

  Ryan clenched his teeth in pain. “I got her locked up! Don’ shoot!”

  “Where!”

  “I. I can’ tell you. Youd jes shoot me.” He rolled over onto his side again.

  “Get up, shitbird.”

  Ryan, screamed, “Jake I can’, my arms’s gone!”

  “Get up or I’ll shoot you right here. You asked if I killed before. Yeah. I’ve killed lots of people trying to kill me. Today, that’s you, Ryan. I’ll kill you and eat your brains for dinner. Now get up! Jake showed a calm determination that Ryan, nor anyone else in thirty years, had seen.

  Ryan struggled to his feet, gripping the remains of his right arm and bending at the waste. He tried to stop the spurting blood which pulsated freely.

  “Tighten that grip, Ryan, or you’ll die from blood loss.”

  Jake kicked Ryan to the edge of the platform near the stairway down to the water. The ladder was pulled halfway up the side to keep curiosity seekers from coming aboard. At the edge, Ryan started panicking. “What yo doin!”

  “Where’s my wife, Ryan?”

  When Ryan didn’t answer, Jake kicked his legs out, smashing Ryan screaming to the deck. He kicked both knees to straighten his legs. When Ryan resisted, he clubbed him with the shotgun. While laying semi-conscious, Jake bound Ryan’s legs with multiple layers of duct tape he had previously put in the generator shed with the gun. He bound off his severed stub to slow the bleeding.

  He put the gun down and went to the winch controls used to bring supplies aboard from the boats using a boom near the ladder. He swung the boom over Ryan and lowered the hook attached to the winch cable. Ryan was starting to regain his senses when Jake hoisted him upside down into the air.

  Ryan screamed in pain and terror. “Watta you doin? You cain’t do this! I surrender, take me to the police!”

  Jake stared directly into Ryan’s eyes as he dangled in front of him. “You don’t get it, do you, Ryan? This isn’t about justice. This is personal between us. You’re about to die the most awful death I could plan.” Ryan panicked, wetting his pants.

  Jake swung the boom outboard, suspending Ryan a hundred feet above the water. To emphasize his next point, he lowered Ryan down twenty feet so that he could see the change in water color from azure blue to black under the shadow of the platform. Jake walked down the loading ladder, just opposite the swinging body. “Listen to me, Ryan. Listen carefully.” Ryan was having difficulty focusing through his terror of the water below and the blood surging to his head. “Listen to me, asshole!”

  Ryan bawled uncontrollably, “You cain’t do this! I got rights! Help me, Jake, I don’ wanna die!” He was crying like a baby.

  “Listen, Ryan. It’s important and might save your life.”

  “What? What! Anything!

  “You see that black water down there? It’s over a thousand feet deep.” Ryan shook his head, transfixed on the surge below. “This platform is a natural reef. Fish live under it. Around the Gulf, all the big sharks live under these platforms, eating the fish, and the scraps from the cooks. All that blood from your arm is causing them to go mad right now. Think about the movie Jaws. You’re going to be shark bait in one minute! I’m gonna lower you down there and watch them rip you apart, starting at your bloody arm. Doesn’t that sound like fun – your kind of fun!”

  “No! No! Jake, I’m beggin’ please ... please I’ll do anything!”

  “Where’s my wife?”

  “Okay. Okay. Pull me up. I’ll tell you.”

  “I’m sorry Will, but I can’t do that. You can tell me right now. After you tell me, I’m calling the police on my copter radio. When they have Julie safely again, I’ll bring you up. Otherwise, the cable will continue falling with its old brake, while – well you know the rest.”

  Ryan’s face was bright red and smeared with tears as he screamed through clenched teeth. “All right. She’s in the trunk o’ her car.”

  “You maniac! Do you know how hot it gets in Louisiana!”

  “Yeah. I do. You gotta hurry!”

  “Where!”

  “Across from the police station.”

  “Try again, asshole, they’ve been looking for her car.”

  “No! I changed the license plate. I thought it was purdy clever, don’ you?” It was the wrong thing to say to a humorless man on the fringe of madness.

  Jake ran up the stairs and up the ladder to the helicopter. Ryan was screaming in the background. He reached through the open door for the microphone after turning the radio on. “CHI Operations, come in.”

  They were waiting for his call. “Go ahead, Jake.”

  “Ross, you gotta call the Lafayette PD now! Julie’s locked in the trunk of an oh-five maroon Honda by the station. Not her license. She’s dying Ross. Tell them to hurry. Call me back when they get her.”

  “The call’s underway, Jake.” It was one of the pilots. “Where are you now?”

  “I’m with Ryan. I’ll give the location once I know about Julie.”

  ?
??Roger that, Pal.”

  Jake went back to the cable, and Ryan was still swinging in the air. “Ryan, can you hear me?” He wasn’t responding, and his body was slack, appearing dead. Jake pulled him back up on the deck. Blood loss and shattered nerves had shut down his systems, but there was a weak pulse. Jake left him lying unconscious on the deck, still bound with duct tape.

  Jake ran back to the helicopter to wait. Minutes later they called, “Jake, come in.”

  “I’m here, Ross.”

  “They’ve got her, Jake. She’s in bad shape. Not responding with weak vitals. She’s being taken to the hospital, and they may want to airlift to Houston.”

  “Will she live, Ross?”

  “They don’t know, Jake. She’s been in that hot box for a long time. Just don’t know.”

  “I’m coming in Ross, ETA in twenty.”

  Jake jumped into the cockpit and started the engine. He was airborne in half a minute, flying at top speed near the ocean. He keyed the radio. “CHI Operations.”

  “Go ahead, Jake.”

  “Tell the PD that Ryan is on Old Glory. He’s been shot and is in bad shape. Suggest police helo and medevac ASAP.”

  “Will do, Jake. See you in a few.”

  He crossed the first marshes doing almost one hundred forty MPH one hundred feet off the deck. “CHI Control, 067N inbound ETA one minute.”

  The reply came. “067N inbound, Roger.”

  Before he could land, Ross called on the radio, “Jake, they took her to University Medical Center, suggest you stay in the air.

  “Roger that