Free The Front Porch Prophet by Raymond L. Atkins Page A

was a fine gun, and I hated to see it go.” He sounded melancholy. “Pull,” he continued, blasting away at the Jeep. “You want to take a crack at it?” he asked. “You used to be pretty good with this shotgun.” A.J. thought he had recognized it, and now he knew from where.
    “Is that it?” A.J. asked, accepting the shotgun from Eugene. He hefted the gun and sighted down the barrel. “Yeah, this is it. I had almost forgotten about that night,” he said absently, remembering. He looked over at Eugene. “You nearly got us both killed.”
       “Killed? No. Seriously injured, maybe.”
    “I should have just shot
you
,” A.J. said. “I could have told everyone it was an industrial accident.”
    “An industrial accident with a shotgun?” Eugene asked dubiously.
    “We were in Sand Valley, Alabama. I could have sold it.”
    On the night in question, Eugene and A.J. were cruising the Lover across the state line in Alabama where, everyone knew, the romantic pickings were easy. They were young bucks at the time and accepted as hard scientific fact the supposition that Alabama girls put out. Alabama boys knew better and were all trolling in Georgia where, in theory, the damsels were waiting impatiently for love.
    Eugene and A.J. rolled into Sand Valley around midnight, having heard about a set of twins living in that small town who were wild and could not be satisfied. The boys weren’t equipped with names or addresses, but such is the nature of the decision-making process when optimism and testosterone are involved. They were apparently of the impression that these girls would be at the outskirts of town, holding a sign written in lipstick that read:
FRISKY TWINS LOOKING FOR GEORGIA BOYS—NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY,
or something to that effect. Unfortunately, this had not occurred. Quicker Georgia boys seemed to have beaten them to it, so they ended up parked by the depot splitting a bottle of very cheap wine before they undertook the long ride home.
    After they finished the bottle, A.J. stepped behind the depot for a moment to relieve himself. While he was indisposed, he began to hear strident conversation from the front of the depot. The discussions seemed urgent, but their raucous tone did not prepare him for the scene that greeted him when he returned to the Lover. There in the middle of the street was Eugene, engulfed by four of Sand Valley’s farm-raised, corn-fed finest.
    The misunderstanding had occurred over remarks made by Eugene regarding the boys’ mamas and sisters. These comments had been good-natured jest, an icebreaker of sorts, but the boys took it all wrong and hostilities ensued. Eugene was briefly holding his own, but sheer weight of numbers was destined to bring his downfall. A.J. had to act quickly, so he reached into the Lover and removed Eugene’s old twelve-gauge pump shotgun from the back floorboard. He cocked and shot it in the air, twice. Then he aimed at the melee in the street. All was quiet in Sand Valley, Alabama.
    “Let him up,” A.J. said. He was in deep water, but no better ideas had occurred to him, so he guessed he was stuck with the one he had. The largest of Eugene’s assailants disengaged himself from the pile and stood. He and A.J. recognized each other at the same moment.
    “Longstreet,” he said, drawing the name out slowly like an incantation, his voice dark and full of menace. “You’re Longstreet.”
    “Yeah, you big son of a bitch, I
know you,
too,” A.J. replied with his shotgun still leveled at the crowd. The other three continued to hold Eugene down. “I told you to let him up.” A.J. spoke in a quiet tone that in no way reflected the panic he was feeling.
    He was on enemy turf facing Mayo Reese, who stood six-feet, six-inches tall and weighed about two-hundred eighty pounds on the hoof. They had encountered each other on one previous occasion, when Sequoyah met Sand Valley on the gridiron in a preseason exhibition arranged by their coaches. The match