Chapter 4
A few days later Jed checked around Ridgecrest and was able to get a job working for Mario Florio at an auto repair shop. He was going to try and pay Tucker for the rent even though he wasn't asking him too. He was good with engines and he needed to work to pay the bills and keep up with his alcohol and drug addiction.
After being in Randsburg for a few days, the boys decided they wanted to walk around town and find out a little more about where they were going to be living. When they talked to Jed about it, he told them to make sure they didn't say anything to anyone about who they were. He told them that if anyone asked them questions about where they lived or where they were from just tell them that your dad rented the King house here in Randsburg from your Uncle Tucker. He told them to stay away from the tweakers that lived in some of the shacks and mobile homes around town. "They could be dangerous if you rubbed them the wrong way. Cooper said, "Don't worry dad, we'll stay away from everybody and we won't talk to anyone either."
The boys decided the first place they wanted to go see was "The Joint." That's where their mom and dad first met and they had heard a lot about it. When they got to the old building it was locked up and no one was around. They didn't think it looked anything like what they had imagined. They tried to peek through the windows, but couldn't see inside. There were a few people driving around town, but not much was going on. The town was pretty quiet and dead except for a few tweakers that were just hanging out around their places.
The boys were already beginning to hate living in the desert and they let Jed know exactly how they felt about it every chance they got. They felt like they had been forced to live in a dungeon of hell. It was so hot they felt like they could hardly catch their breath during the day and at night it would get cold enough that they had to wear a sweater or light jacket. Because it was so hot during the day, they started going out after it cooled down a little in the evenings.
For the next few weeks the boys spent their time going all over the three small towns and checking everything out for themselves. Because of their frustration of living in the desert they broke into some of the old empty houses that had been boarded up, just to see if there was anything they wanted to destroy or steal. They broke a few windows that weren't already broken in the houses or they just vandalized them in some way.
Their frustration continued to mount until one day they made up their mind to burn one of the old historic houses that had been standing for over a hundred years. It was a house that was part of the history of the town because the first mayor of the town lived in it when it was originally built. They didn't care about that; nothing about history meant anything to them. They could've cared less. To them it was just an old ugly old house and they wanted to burn it.
They snuck out of the house one night after Jed passed out on the couch. They took some old newspapers and a book of matches and headed to the empty house. When it was almost midnight they broke in and quickly set it on fire. Once it was on fire they ran and found a hiding place across the street where they could watch it burn. They were really excited as they laughed and high fived each other as the neighbors tried in vain to put the fire out. By the time the fire fighters got there the house was burned to the ground. Jed never found out that they were the ones that burned it down. He was oblivious to what the boys were doing around the towns because he was too consumed with his own personal demons.
When summer was over Jed told the boys they had to go to school. He figured it would give them something to do with themselves during the day while he was working. They were supposed to be in the eighth grade, based on their age, but they didn't go to school as much as they should've when Bessie was alive and responsible for them getting to school. When school started Jed took them and dropped them off. On the way there, he told them they had to use the last name of King because if they used Bailey the Sheriff department might figure out who he was and come after him.
The first week the boys were there they appeared to be very friendly and likeable to all the other kids and teachers. They acted like and seemed to be just the typical and normal eleven year old kids in every way. Even though they seemed to possess charming personalities they were just being manipulative to everyone at school so they could gain their trust.
The second week they were in school they figured they didn't care and started showing who they really were. They got into several fights with some of the other boys. The boys were making fun of the way they dressed and talked, since they were raised in the backwoods of Tennessee. They had developed the southern drawl and spoke a lot different than the California kids. Fitting in with these kids was a lot harder than anything they were used to during their years in Tennessee. They felt like they were under attack from the other kids.
It was during that time that everything changed for them and their survival instincts started to kick in. Not wanting or willing to conform to their current social environment they fought back. They developed the attitude that they weren't part of the school group and never formed a social attachment to the kids or the teachers.
They spent a lot of time at the principal's office during that second week. When Friday rolled around they were suspended from school for one week for fighting. When Jed went to pick the boys up from school the principal had him come into her office and talk to her about them. During their conversation, she told him that she felt the boys were suffering from a lack of social connection to the rest of the kids and had no respect for the teachers or authority. Jed wasn't surprised by what she was saying because they had already retreated themselves and didn't let anyone else in.
When he left the school, Jed was angry with what the principal had told him. After he got in the car with the boys and on the way home, he didn't really know how to handle the situation so he yelled out at them, "I told you boys to stay out of trouble. What's wrong with the two of you, why won't you listen to me? Don't you understand you could get me in big trouble if you have to go to the Juvenile Detention Center? I'd have to go down there to the place and try to explain to the police who you really are?" He didn't realize it at the time, but the only reason the boys hadn't spent time in Juvenile Detention already was that they had become very clever at hiding their criminal activity. He seemed to be more focused on what might happen to him instead of the welfare of the boys.
Cooper spoke up, "But dad, the kids at school have been making fun of the way we talk and dress. It's happened every day since we started that stupid school." Jed replied, "It doesn't matter. You boys have to learn how to ignore their insults or you'll get in trouble everyday you're there. I don't want to be called in to the principal's office like that again. Do you boys understand me?" They continued to try and tell Jed that they didn't feel like they fit in with the rest of the kids at school, but he wouldn't listen to their excuses or anything they had to say.
From that point on, the boys made up their minds they wouldn't talk to anyone at school and they would try to ignore what the kids said to them. They would use their own dialog with each other when the other kids were around. They were going to start making fun of the kids like they used to do with Curtis. After doing that for a few weeks they found they could make fun of the other kids and laugh at them and get away with it.
Soon, they had become the misfits and outcasts of the school because of their behavior and their inability to fit in. Because they were so willing to fist fight the other boys, the other kids developed a fear of them and tried to stay away from them. They wouldn't include them in any type of activity or have anything to do with them. The boys had to eat by themselves and spend all their time together. Even the teachers had developed a fearful and stand-offish attitude toward them. They also wouldn't ask the boys to participate in any of the school activities for fear they would end up fighting with them or the kids.
After the first full month of school the principal had Jed come in again and talk to h
er about the boys and their inability to fit in with the teachers and other kids. It angered Jed because he felt like the teachers and the other kids had isolated themselves from the boys and not the other way around, like she was claiming. Even though it angered him he didn't say anything to her, except that he would talk to them about everything when he got home. He never talked to them about what the principal said to him because he actually felt better about them not being so friendly and social with everyone. He felt like it kept them isolated and his identity safe and he was okay with that.
Despite everything the principal had said to him, Jed continued to get up every morning and take the boys to school. He was determined that they would get an education. He would drop them off on his way to work. That was usually the only time he was able to spend time with them. He worked long hours at the shop and didn't get home until late at night. He was so busy at work that didn't have any control of what they did once they got home from school.
They were supposed to ride the bus home every day after school until one day when they got kicked off for fighting with the other kids again. After that happened they were forced to walk home every day. When Jed found out about it he said, "You deserve to walk home because you didn't do what I told you to do and stay out of trouble." They tried to explain what had happened, but Jed refused to listen. "I don't want to hear your excuses. If you don't want to follow the rules then you have to suffer the consequences of your actions."
The boys had a lot of time on their hands every day before Jed got home at night. They didn't have anyone to watch over them or try to guide them in the right direction. They were pretty much left to fend for themselves. During that time, they were deprived of the right food and nourishment because they had to fix their own meals. That just added to their frustration and anger. They were living in poverty and that added to the breeding ground for some of their criminal activity. Jed had become a stranger to the boys and they didn't feel like he cared about them or loved them at all. Because of their frustration, when they talked to people they had become very disrespectful to everyone, including Jed.
Over the next few years the boys continued to develop the "bad kid" attitude and did everything they could to antagonize the people in and around Randsburg and the neighboring towns of Red Mountain and Johannesburg. The boys would hide and throw rocks at passing cars and houses. They would break windows out of houses people lived in when they didn't think anyone was home. They stole things that people left out in their yards and they killed several family pets in and around the towns just for the fun of it. They had total lack of disrespect for other people's personal property and for any type of authority. Nobody could catch the boys in the act of committing any type of crime so they couldn't report them to the police. They were extremely good at hiding the things they had done. The town people knew they were trouble makers and had developed a deep dislike for them. They hated to see the boys come around.
One day they were sitting around bored so they decided to go explore all the abandoned mines they could find in the area. They went out and spent the entire day hunting for the different mine locations. While exploring, they encountered a few Western Diamondback and the Mojave rattlesnakes along the way. Jed had told the boys about the snakes in the desert because of what happened to Justin when he got bit by one. He had told them, "It's sometimes hard to tell the two rattlesnakes apart because they both have the diamond shape patterns on them. The big difference is the Mojave rattlesnake has a greenish color to it and can grow up to four feet long. The Western diamondback has a white line that extends from the eye to the mouth and can grow up to seven feet long. If it's nighttime when you come across one you can tell the difference, they both sound the same. If you get bitten by the Western Diamond back it might not kill you, but the Mojave rattlesnake is more aggressive than the Western Diamondback and if you get bitten by it you could die if you didn't get to the hospital in time. You need to stay clear of all the snakes if you can because they are both venomous and you don't want to get bitten by either one of them." Usually the boys would pick up huge rocks and smash the snakes in the head so they never had a problem with them.
When they found out about the mine near the old Silver Dollar Saloon, Cooper got the bright idea that he wanted to go to the bottom of the old mine shaft and explore what was down there. It took the boys a while to scrounge up enough rope so they could tie it together to get to the bottom. They carried it down to the mine shaft and then tied it around a huge boulder that was located near the hole. They dropped the rope into the hole and waited for the sound of the end of it hitting the bottom.
Cooper said to Dalton, "I'll go down first and check it out and then when I come up you can go down and check it out for yourself." Dalton said, "Why don't I just go down with you and we can both explore it together? Cooper looked at Dalton like he was stupid and said, "Somebody needs to stay at the top, just in case something goes wrong, dummy." Dalton was wondering what could possibly go wrong, but went along with what Cooper said.
They had brought a couple of flashlights with them so they could look around once they were at the bottom. Cooper stuck one of them in his back pocket as he grabbed a hold of the rope with both hands and started to make his way down. When he got about three quarters of the way down the rope came apart where they had tied it. He let out a yell as he fell the rest of the twenty feet to the bottom. He landed with a thud and at first it knocked the breath out of him. Dalton was yelling down into the hole to see if he was alright, but he couldn't answer him for a few minutes because he was still trying to catch his breath. Dalton started to panic until Cooper was finally able to yell back up to him that he was okay.
Cooper yelled to Dalton, "The rope must have come apart where we tied it. You'll have to go back home and see if you can find some more rope. Try to borrow some from somebody if you can't find any at home. When you find some, you can come back and tie it to the end of the rope and I'll climb out of here. Try to hurry because it's kind of creepy down here." Dalton yelled back to him, "Okay I'm going to throw the other flashlight down and then go see if I can find some more. I don't know how long it'll take, so relax and I'll be back as soon as I get it." He dropped the flashlight into the hole before he went running toward the house.
The second flashlight busted apart when it hit the bottom, but Cooper was able to shine his light on it and retrieve the batteries. While he was waiting for Dalton to come back Cooper started looking around at everything that was down there. He then realized that he had landed in the middle of a few skeletons and a couple of skulls. When he shined the light on the bones he started quickly pushing himself away from them. He stood up and looking around, realized there wasn't much else to see down there that interested him. It wasn't long before he started getting bored with being down there and wanted out.
When Dalton got back to the house there wasn't anyone home, so he frantically started looking through the tool shed and everything else trying to find more rope. Not having any luck, he went to a couple of the neighbors to see if he could borrow some from them. None of them were willing to give him a helping hand because of the all the mischievous things he and Cooper had been doing around town. After trying several people, he realized it was no use; none of them would help him out. He would have to wait until his dad got home and then see what they could do. He knew his dad kept a long rope in the pick-up, just for emergencies.
Cooper had been down in the hole for over four hours before he lost the light from all the batteries. He was wondering what was taking Dalton so long and starting to get nervous about being down in the hole. He thought he should've been back hours ago. Sitting in the dark with the skeleton remains he was starting to freak out a little. He started yelling and screaming, hoping someone might hear him. Not getting any response, he finally gave up and sat down and just waited.
While he was waiting for Dalton to get back, he was feelin
g scared as he imagined that he could hear the laughter from the ghosts down there as they made fun of him. He also imagined he could hear them say, "You're going to be down here with us for a long time, boy. You might as well get used to it, but don't worry, we'll take good care of you." He tried to put his hands over his ears so he couldn't hear what was going on in his mind. That didn't help because he could still hear what he thought was their voices. Being down there was starting to get to him and it was slowly driving him crazy.
When Jed got home it was late and Dalton went running out to meet him in the driveway. He immediately told his dad what had happened. Jed had a seven-five foot rope in his pick-up so he told Dalton to hop in the truck. They headed down to the mine and by the time they had gotten there Cooper had been down in the hole almost six hours. Once there, Jed yelled down to see if he was alright. When he heard his dad's voice Cooper was both relieved and apprehensive as he said to himself, "Oh crap, now we're in big trouble. Dad's going to kill us for this." After a short hesitation he yelled back to his dad that he was okay. Jed pulled up the rope and quickly tied his rope to the end of it and threw it back down into the hole. He asked Cooper if it reached the bottom and as Cooper grabbed hold of it he yelled back to his dad that he had it. When he had a good grip on it, he started climbing up the rope until he made his way out of the hole.
Once he was out Jed pulled up the rope and wrapped it around his shoulder. While he was throwing it in the back of the pick-up he said angrily, "What the heck were you boys thinking by going down in that place? Cooper looked at him with a dejected sheepish look, "Sorry dad, we were just looking for something to do and it seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm sorry that we had to bother you with this." Even though Jed was angry, he was also relieved that Cooper wasn't hurt when the rope came loose and he fell the other twenty feet to the rocky bottom. "Don't do something stupid like that again. The next time you may not be so lucky." They both said okay and that was all that Jed ever said about it. He didn't even ask Cooper what he had seen while he was down there; maybe because he already knew the answer to a question like that.
Before they went to bed that night Dalton asked Cooper how things went while he down there in the old mine and if there was anything interesting to see. Cooper said, "Nothing but bones and skulls and a couple of creepy ghosts that kept laughing at me." Dalton laughed out loud and said, "Yeah, that's funny! I thought you were tough and you were going to beat it up if you ever saw one." Cooper hit Dalton on the shoulder, "We'll, that was the problem, I didn't see them, I just heard their creepy voices."
By the time they were thirteen years old things had gotten a little out of hand with them. Some of the people in Randsburg, that knew Tucker, called him on the phone and told him he had to do something about the renters he had living in his house. They believed the boys were the ones causing a lot of trouble in the Rand area. He tried to make excuses for them until the calls became too frequent for him to ignore.
He finally had to have a talk with Jed and tell him what everyone in Randsburg was saying about the boys. He told him that he was getting a lot of pressure from the people in town and didn't have any choice but to have them move out. "I need to sell the house anyway. There's no reason for me to keep it now that I'm married." He told Jed he would give him forty five days to find another place to live.
Jed spent the next few weeks looking around the three towns to see if he could find a place they could afford to rent. During his search he went by the old house in Red Mountain where he and his brothers were raised. It still looked the same except it had a few missing tin peaces in the fence and there were weeds all around the decaying old house. Everything was boarded up and there were signs on the property from the Bureau of Land Management saying "no trespassing." Jed wondered if it was possible they would be willing to rent the old house to him and the boys. He also wondered if he could really live in the place after what had happened there.
Not being able to find anything else available he could afford or that would rent to him because of the boys, he finally mustered up enough nerve to go to the Bureau of Land Management to talk to them about renting it. When he sat down with the person in charge of the property it was an older man with solid gray hair and beard by the name of Clyde Snow. When Jed introduced himself he gave Clyde the name of William King and asked him if the place might be for rent. Clyde looked at him sort of weird as he squinted his eyes, "You talking about the old Bailey House?" Jed pretended to be dumb, "I'm not sure, is it that place that has the tin fence around it and it has your signs up all around? If that's the one you're talking about, then yes, that's the one." Clyde said, "You must not be from around here are you son?" Jed replied, "No, me and my two boys are from Tennessee, but we've been renting my cousins house in Ransburg for a few years now. He decided to sell the house so now we need a place to live. I thought we'd check on that old place just to see if you'd rent it to us."
Clyde squinted his eyes, "Well, William, I don't know if you know it or not but that house has some real bad history attached to it." He then proceeded to tell Jed everything he already knew about how Justin and Joshua died there. He also told him about all the bodies that were buried on the property that law enforcement agencies had dug up. Jed pretended that it was all new to him as he sat and listened. After telling the entire story, some of it just rumors, he looked Jed in the eye, "Are you sure that you're still interested in renting that old place after hearing what I just told you?" Jed laughed, "Yes sir, I am. Me and the boys aren't afraid of a few old ghosts."
After talking for over an hour Clyde finally agreed to rent Jed the house for only a few hundred dollars a month. In return for the cheap rent, Jed had promised him that he and the boys would clean the place up and work on the house to get it back in shape. Once the papers were signed, Jed was happy, but somewhat apprehensive about going back to the house, and all the memories he would have to come face to face with.
When Jed told the boys they would be moving into the house where he and his brothers were raised in Red Mountain they were very excited. They were even more excited when Jed said he would take them down to Palmdale and see if Johnny Jackson still lived there and if he had any puppies from Mister's blood line. He figured if he had any dogs left he would try to talk Johnny into selling him a couple real cheap or maybe giving the boys one.
Jed told them it was going to take a lot of work from all of them to get the house back in shape before they could go visit Johnny. He told them they would have to help him with cleaning the yard, repairing the fence, covering up gravesites, and working on the house. They were more than willing to do their part because they wanted their own place and they really wanted a dog. While they worked on the place they talked about different names for their puppy. Dalton liked the name Skeeter but Cooper liked the name Samson. They figured they would flip a coin to see what they would call it once they had one. They were extremely intrigued and fascinated with the fact that Joshua had trained Mister to kill anything he wanted him to kill. The boys talked about it and wondered if they would be able to do something like that with their dogs.
They worked on the place almost every day and cleaned it up while they were still living at Tucker's house. Jed was still working at the repair shop so he could only work on the house when he had time off. Working around the house was hard for him because all the memories of his family started to haunt him. The first night they were there he felt like he could almost see and feel the presence of Justin and Joshua as he went from room to room rehashing old memories of better times when they were all together. It caused him to sink a little deeper into his despair. Working on the place caused him to drink and take more drugs to try and cope with all the deep emotions he was going through. The boys talked about it amongst themselves and hoped Jed would be able to live there without going off the deep end.
After a short time, the boys had done a good job of cleaning t
he property of all the weeds and trash and covering the empty graves sites. They also patched up the places in the fence that had missing pieces. They got rid of everything in the house; old furniture, clothes and anything else that was left in it. They dug a hole in the back of the house and burned it while Jed was at work. After a few weeks of working on it they were able to move in. They didn't have any furniture so they just slept on the floors in sleeping bags. Even though it was empty, it was still their home and they liked it there.
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