The Reckless Gun

By Thomas 'DOC' Savage

Fred McCoy survived that miserable war.  He survived losing his wife when she died giving birth to their son. But when a monstrous hurricane struck his small farm near the Florida coast, tore his young son from his very arms, and lost him to the raging black waters, Fred McCoy lost his humanity.
He drifted west, leaving a trail of bodies behind him.  Eventually, he drifted into Arizona Territory where he found a refuge with a Mexican family. He began to heal.  
He began to live again. But his bloody past caught up to him. 
A lot more blood is about to be spilled.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.C. Hulsey Books
• Release date: Mar 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224745548

Book preview

THE RECKLESS GUN

THOMAS ‘DOC’ SAVAGE

Table of Contents

Title Page

The Reckless Gun

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Copyright © 2020 by Thomas Savage

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

This book may contain views, premises, depictions, and statements by the author that are not necessarily shared or endorsed by J.C. Hulsey Books

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Edited by Cindy Heaton

Cover Art by Michael Thomas

Cover Design by J.C. Hulsey Books

Published by J.C. Hulsey Books

April 2024

10987654321

If you strip away everything that makes a man human, you likely won’t be pleased with what’s left.

The Old Philosopher

CHAPTER ONE

Daddy! Help me!

Hang on, son. I’m comin’. Just hang on a bit. I’m almost there.

Hurry, Daddy! I’m slipping! I’m sli...

Son! Freddie! No! No, oh God, No! Freddie!

Fred McCoy stood screaming in panic and horror, chest deep in swirling water as he watched his young son disappear beneath the roaring waves. The battering wind tore his words away; flung them into the blackness of clouds above him.

Striving with every ounce of strength in his hard-muscled body, he thrashed his way to where the boy had vanished. There, he dove under the waves that threatened to drive him away, frantically grasping in the dark waters, hoping for the touch of familiar flesh. Striving as his tortured lungs demanded breath. With his heart breaking in his chest, Fred thought it would be best to just breathe, just suck this cruel water into his own lungs and go to wherever his only son had just gone.

Even as he vainly searched and as that hopeless thought was about to take him, something in the primitive part of his brain, that part he couldn’t control and which demanded life...even though the only reason for life had just been snatched from him...forced his legs to propel his body upward. Up, into the air, into the roaring storm.

As soon as he reluctantly drew air into his starving lungs, he expelled it in an anguished scream of pain and frustration. His son, his only child, his reason for existing, had just been lost. How could he possibly face the empty life that now awaited him?

In his heartbreak, he beat futilely at the mindless, tossing waves that buffeted him and tried to drive him away from the last place he had seen his son. He screamed and screamed his son’s name, but the uncaring wind tore his words away and flung them into the blackness that surrounded him. He screamed until his throat was raw. But in his hopelessness, he knew Freddie was gone.

*   *   *   *   *

The storm lasted two full days. It was three more days before the water went down. For another four days, Fred McCoy searched for Freddie’s tiny body. He sloshed through ankle deep mud and peered into piles of debris thrown up by the most destructive hurricane to hit the Florida coast in the memory of its oldest survivor.

In the end, he had to accept that his son was truly gone. Gone to where his wife had gone when she had died giving Freddie birth. He had nothing left. He was empty inside. He had no thought of going on. What was the use? What could he do? It was all gone.

He finally returned to the home he’d built with his own two hands. The home he’d meant to share with his wife and children. The home he had expected to grow old and die in.

Now what? After being submerged in the muddy water for so long, just about everything was ruined. He wrestled the kitchen table and one chair from the wreckage of their home and sat down. His dry eyes surveyed the damage. There were no more tears in him. He didn’t see anything worth salvaging. He sat there as the sun made its way beyond the Gulf of Mexico.

He was still sitting there when the same sun reappeared the next morning. Fred McCoy was trying hard to accept the emptiness inside him. The vast, empty place that had once been filled with love and hope. What could possibly replace it? What could ever fill that void?

Finally, hunger and thirst drove him to move. His soul was now empty, but his body demanded to be dealt with. The pitcher-pump that stood by the tin sink gave a stream of clean water when he worked the handle. He stuck his head under the stream and let it wash some of the dried mud from his face and hair. Then he sucked great quantities into his empty belly.

With that part satisfied, he looked around at his ruined home. Waist deep water, water that was really more mud than water, had soaked everything it reached. The floor was covered by half a foot of stinking mud. He could have salvaged some of his clothes and washed them so they could be used, but why?

Hanging from a peg by the door was his old .44 Remington Navy. The same peg held his sweat stained campaign hat. They were the only things he’d kept from that damnable war. He never thought he’d shoot that gun again, but he strapped the gun-belt around his waist and pushed the felt hat onto his head.

Now that he was finally moving, his movements became more deliberate and less automatic. Everything in the bedroom was a mass of stinking mud. But the old chest of drawers Sara had brought into their home still stood. In the topmost drawer, above where the black water had reached, was a small wooden box that held a sheaf of now useless Confederate dollars.

Sara had insisted on keeping them, sure the South would one day rise again. Now it was worthless paper. But there was also a handful of silver eagles. Those would still spend.

He stuffed the coins into his pocket and turned to survey the place that had once been so happy. It held only sadness now. Turning, he slogged through the mud on the floor to where the door stood open. Outside, he made his way uphill to the barn.

The barn was where he’d been trying to get to before that monstrous wave had snatched Freddie from his arms. Never in his thirty-five years had he seen a wave that high. Twenty feet if it was an inch. It had washed silently over his head in the darkness. And Freddie was gone before he knew.

The barn was sturdy. Only the top of the wave had reached it. His horse was still in her stall but kicking at the boards in hunger. Fred climbed to the loft and threw down hay. He lifted the lid of the feed bin, but all the oats inside were fouled with mud. Nell would have to be satisfied with just the hay for now.

As she ate, he got out the curry brushes and worked her over to get the mud off her. She nickered in contentment as he groomed her.

The water that had washed into the barn was just over belly deep on Nell, so his saddle had escaped the worst of it. He cleaned it up after he finished with the horse. When she finished eating, he threw the saddle on her, mounted up, and left. He never looked back. Not even once.

CHAPTER TWO

Fred McCoy’s aimless ride took him steadily north. He failed to notice when the low, sandy hills filled with groves growing citrus fruits and alligator pears gave way to steeper hills with spreading live oak trees, bearded with Spanish moss blowing in the breeze. He failed to notice even the gathering darkness until he felt his horse stumble over a palmetto clump.

He dismounted and poured water from his canteen into this hat for Nell to drink. There was plentiful grass where he’d stopped, so he stripped off her tack and let her graze. It wasn’t necessary to put her on a picket. Even if she wandered off, she’d come back at his whistle. He’d been present at Nell’s birth and raised her every day since. She was as faithful to him as a dog might be.

He sat with his back against an ancient live oak and thought briefly about lighting a fire. But the idea held no comfort for him. He knew he’d never again know comfort.

He sat there as the stars wheeled overhead. At some point he slept, but without dreams. He woke with the rising sun and continued his aimless ride.

By the evening of his second day of wandering, he came to the tiny town of Ellaville on the banks of the Suwanee River. And now, he had to acknowledge his growing hunger. At a sprawling, three-sided stable, he found an old cracker who sold him a quart of sweetened oats for three copper pennies. He left Nell there and walked to a