NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION ACCOMPLISHED

“You folks, pipe down. I’m going to only read this once. And then I’m going to burn it. So if you don’t listen it’s your own loss.” Terry announces in his former Marine authoritative way. The family gathered immediately becomes silent and scurries to find a seat. Terry hesitates continuing but only because of the content of his father’s letter. That chokes him up each time he thinks about it.

Terry, as Tom Rowter’s eldest biological son, received the letter from his father, postmarked the day after his death. Tom Rowter died that early July evening in a terrific explosion that filled the skies above Lake of the Ozarks with light, thunder and the remnants of Tom’s 85 foot yacht. Terry recognized the return address on the envelope to be that of Tom’s lawyer from that lake community. Upon opening the envelope, another envelope within was marked “To be opened by my son Terry or Bill immediately upon notice of my violent or unexplained death”. Reading the contents of that inner envelope, Terry immediately realized there was no use contacting the lawyer for further details. The contents of the letter were self-explanatory and contained much more than what the lawyer probably knows.

Terry had immediately contacted not only his brother, but his step brothers. At first the Roapes family members had politely declined the invitation. But Terry insisted they had better be present if they ever wanted to close the books on what happened to their family.

Each of the boys’ wives are present for the reading as well.

And now Terry sucks it up, and begins reading the letter aloud to the assembled group.

“Dear Terry, Bill, Rusty and Joe. And I hope your wonderful wives are present as well although I apologize for the coarse nature of this letter.

Terry and Bill. I want you to know that my heart is breaking as I sit here and write this. The thought of leaving you is almost too much to bear. But I love you dearly and I know that if I do not go through with this, your lives will be sacrificed because of it. Besides, if you are reading this letter there was probably an autopsy and you now know what I’ve known since last Thanksgiving. That is that I have stage 4 terminal cancer in a number of areas of my body. And I’ve heard life expectancy ranges all over the charts and so I can only tell you that they honestly had no idea how long I had to live. If the matter explained in this letter caused my early demise, it also relieved me of going through a very painful last month, whenever that was to be.

Rusty and Joe. I want to again apologize.

Oh. That is such a trite word given the loss you have suffered. But it is the only thing I can give you and the only expression of how I feel about how my involvement with your family cost you not only your mother, my wonderful wife Sunny, but your grandfather, Dusty, whom I had grown to love like he was my own father. You see I would never for a moment wish that I had not met your mother. My wish would be that it didn’t turn out like it did.

Well, perhaps I can make it up to you two in some small amount, and at the same time secure all you boys’ future and that of all of your children, my wonderful grandchildren.

After I learned of my prognosis and had that verified by three of the major clinics across the country, I made a New Year’s resolution. I resolved I would end the threat to our families.

You see, I have identified the origination point of the chaos and calamity that has befallen the Rowter and Roapes families. His name is Duncan Garrison Keeling. And yes. You know that name. He was the rogue CIA Section Director that established his own unsanctioned ‘Black Ops’ organization.

To be accurate our families actually were drawn into this vortex of mayhem because Dusty was friends with General James Stragg. The General was such a good friend to Dusty that even when the General retired as Deputy Director of the CIA and told us he was himself dying of cancer, he still assisted in the raid upon the drug cartel’s stronghold in Mexico to rescue the kidnapped women of our family. But after that, I, most of all, owed Jim for all of his behind the scenes CIA arrangements, and his personal involvement in rescuing my wife, your dear mother, Sunny, Dusty’s wife Pat and my granddaughters.

As you all know, the man who kidnapped our women, the head of the drug cartel, Chalazar, answered to a man in our government named Tribos. After we killed Chalazar while rescuing our women, we exposed Tribos connection. When Tribos fled to Mexico he was immediately exterminated by Chalazar’s competitors who had taken over his operations and despised Chalazar’s American government connections for having supported that drug cartel instead of theirs. When Tribos was killed his wife and son tried to take their revenge on all of us using their connection with Keeling to support them. Belle Tribos even infiltrated our ranch by tricking our chief aviation mechanic Buddy into marrying her. That cost us the life of two good friends, Buddy, and Gunny. Why? Keeling’s agent, and it turns out, past girlfriend, Gretchen Black, was killed trying to steal General Stragg’s safe that he had left to me in his will. That safe turned out to expose all of those people. And perhaps directly involved in the threats to our family is the fact that it exposed Keeling’s operation globally, got most of his people arrested or killed, and allowed the government to seize well over one hundred million dollars from his various accounts.

But what brought this whole story to a head was the night I shot Gretchen Black as she tried to gun down Rusty, Bill and then my love, Sunny. As we all found out later, Gretchen and Keeling were involved when Gretchen, an alias for the woman actually named Lilly, was going through the CIA academy. After his exposure, Keeling planned no less than four different major attempts on killing me, Sunny and all of you. We were only spared by God’s grace, and the skill He has given each of you.

But I know in my heart that God’s called me to put an end to Keeling’s threat upon you, my beloved family. Keeling has sworn an oath to kill you all in addition to me and will not hesitate to take your loving children too. Therefore, I have set a trap for Keeling. He is here in Osage Beach, Missouri. I expect him to come after me on my boat and I will not let him leave alive.

Those of you in law enforcement might consider this letter as evidence of premeditation. If so, I plead guilty and would not have resisted arrest by you or anyone you feel obligated to contact. I want you to know that although I have never stated so in public, and I ask you not to as well, I must do this. But again, if you are reading this letter I have already either accomplished what I have set out to do, or not, but have died in the process.

After Sunny was gunned down, up at the family’s mountain plateau cemetery overlooking her beloved ranch, our families were decimated and fractured. I felt all spark of life die in me when my wife died.

I don’t blame you, Rusty, for how you reacted to me while I still lived on the ranch. To the rest of you, do not think Rusty ran me off. I left of my own free will because I just found no way that I could explain to the Roapes family why they shouldn’t blame Sunny’s violent death, and then after that, Dusty’s fatal heart attack on me. In my heart I blamed myself as well.

If my meeting with Keeling does not end his life, but mine, well, I guess that explains why you are reading this letter. I ask you to work with each other to protect those whom we all love. Do not let your hate for Keeling consume you. Contact former President T. Bout and ask for his help to protect our family until Keeling is stopped. The President has offered to Dusty many times to end these threats on our families. He and many who have worked for the President over the years are ready, willing and able to help you.

I have not gone that route because years ago, when all this trouble started, Dusty told me we would handle this as a family. I promised him I would accept his decision. But if I fail, and since Dusty has in a way died because of Keeling as well, I release you from that obligation and plead with you not to go after this madman yourself. Hunker down and let professionals take over where I have evidently failed.

To all of you, I want you to know how much I love you. You have each enriched my life immensely and I don’t regret for a moment knowing and loving you all. I would prefer that my and Sunny’s grandchildren would not know the contents of this letter. Perhaps you might find a gentler way of expressing what I sought to accomplish.

Keep your faith in God above and each other.

With all my love,

Your loving father,

Tom Rowter”

By the time Terry finishes reading the letter there isn’t a dry eye in the house. The boys’ wives are openly crying and hugging their husbands.

Terry spends a few minutes looking through the pages of the letter. He wants to memorize one last time the curve of every letter in his father’s horrible penmanship. He raises the letter gently to his face and kisses the last page where his Dad signed it. Then he raises a lighter to the document and sets the bottom of the pages ablaze. As he drops the pages into the metal wastebasket on the floor the flames can be seen quickly growing visible above the rim of the container. But just as quickly the flames are out of sight and soon gone forever, just as his father will be.

“I have been told by the FBI investigator in charge that the DNA of Duncan Garrison Keeling was found scattered within the small portion of the yacht’s wreckage that was collectable. Our Dad did what he set out to do and for that I will always be thankful.” Terry announces and then takes his seat beside his crying wife.

The sun can be seen setting through the little chapel’s wall of windows that overlook the peaceful lake. None of the family stirs to leave. They all remain to watch one last sunset together as a family.

PUBLISHER/AUTHOR’S LICENSE NOTE: This story is submitted to Reedsy for its January 2020 short story contest; 4. Accomplishing a New Year’s Resolution. It can be used by Reedsy in any manner deemed appropriate. Story title, content, characters and story line all rights reserved.

Author: T.W. Anderson

Story adapted from T.W.’s romance/suspense novel series “A Reluctant White Knight” published through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. Available in paperback and ereader versions from Amazon.

www.ReluctantWhiteKnight.com

ReluctantWhiteKnight@gmail.com