The Regulator

Wheezing fitfully, he struggled to claim just one good breath from the oxygen and other tubes curling and entwining themselves about his wheelchair like the kudzu that slowly devoured the family’s land.

Travis stared at the old weathered barn, its boards grayish-black and half rotted with time, carefully listening as his father labored over his words. “You know how we take care of such things. We tried talkin’ to him. Didn’t do no good.” He drew a slow rattle of a breath and continued, “In the barn, near the door, behind  the old  barrel…my shotgun.” He looked at his son with a tinge of regret in his watery eyes. “Justice is in your hands now, boy…mine shake too much.”

Travis drove the winding country roads, over rusted bridges, through forests of tall pine trees, up the ridge where the hill-folk lived much as they had for centuries past, deep in the country where even the deputies feared to tread unless invited. Things there were still handled in the old way. When a man had done a bad wrong or couldn’t be reasoned with, folks handled it as they had for generations. Usually, one man would be appointed to represent the folk, see to it that things were made right, and carry out justice. This man was simply known as “the Regulator”.

Sometimes however, it became more personal than just stolen cattle or moved boundary markers, and that was what had Travis driving the back-roads with an old shotgun in the seat next to him. His brother-in-law had taken to the ‘shine, which was no crime, but he had also taken to beating Travis’ sister, and that was enough to incur any brother’s wrath, but she loved him for what reasons the family could not understand, and so he held back though he dearly loved his sister. Love to him was a mystery that no man could truly understand. It was when he talked her into putting up her part of the family acres for sale to cover his debts, well, that’s when the family decided the matter had to be settled.

It was a long ride up to the ridge, along rolling pastures where cows stood grazing with heads bowed. On past abandoned churches and graveyards filled with the old people with their silent tales to tell, yet no one spoke as Travis passed; the blackened headstones adrift in a lonely sea of fallen leaves.

There was plenty of time to think about the deed, and he wondered what it was like to pull a trigger and watch a man fall to the ground, knowing he will never get back up, all his tomorrows bleeding into the ground. Travis wondered if he would feel much pain, and then dismissed the thought, because in truth he just didn’t care. They had been friends once, but that was long ago. Besides, family outweighs friendship, at least it always should, and when men make choices, they pay for them, and today he had the duty to collect.

Though he felt calm, he knew taking a man’s life was no small matter, whether for justice, or in war, or for love, it took a lot of courage on the part of the executioner. All sorts of consequences were flying across his mind; the strongest was whether God would forgive him for this obligation. However, Travis somehow knew he would be forgiven. The Regulator was the strong and vengeful arm of the All Mighty Himself, commissioned to dispense justice and restore right order.

This was the old way, the right way, and he as so many before him, would do his duty to family and community. The gun felt good under his right hand, the metal cold, the wooden stock warm; it seemed like a living creature, its nostrils ready to breathe smoke and fire upon the wicked.

Since the time of the kings, even before, back to the days when men rode free across virgin lands, those given the responsibility held a sacred trust, an oath. Justice chose him to be the Regulator this night, and as the sun settled down behind the western tree-line a calming darkness descended over the land and over Travis. His truck seemed to glide over the rough roads, as he thought of his sister, and his family, and how he was now their protector.

He turned up the gravel drive, tires crunching through rock and sand, up the low hill where the mobile home sat among strewn auto parts and muddy toys with a crude porch added to its weathered front.

Adrenalin had taken over now, Travis didn’t seem aware that he had gotten out of the truck, the shotgun cradled in his arms, his boots treading the soft earth of the pasture that made up the front yard.

His brother-in-law stepped out in an old stained t-shirt, and carrying a near empty bottle of whiskey in his hand. Travis’ ears were buzzing. He could barely hear the curse words coming from his brother-in-law’s lips as he raised the gun. A second later the whiskey bottle whizzed by his head, but he made no mind of it, he simply leveled the gun at the drunken, belligerent fool before him. Taking a deep breath his finger caressed the trigger, applying minute pressure, slowly, deliberately, the center of his brother-in-laws chest came into focus just beyond the end of the barrels...

…and then a pain seared into him like fire from hell, and blood misted from an opening in his shoulder, as the gun suddenly became like granite and fell to the ground. Another piercing, red-hot bolt struck his chest and he slumped to his knees. His vision became blurred, but through the haze he could see his brother-in-law still standing on the porch, and then, off at the corner of the home, his sister holding a smoking pistol, her bruised face streaked with tears from blacken eyes.

As the cold earth rushed up to meet him, he felt no anger, no sadness, no fear. It all came sharply into focus, and he understood, that Love has its own brand of justice, that makes no sense to the rest of the world, and it chooses its own Regulator.