Under a dark slate sky, the low hilltop was flanked by a dirt road and empty fields stretching towards the horizon. Its barrenness was relieved only by a single scraggly tree and high dead grass swaying weakly in the wind. Amidst this scrubby growth were graves — the cemetery for a hundred souls from the surrounding countryside, a cold ending to the harsh lives of generations of farmers.

The stillness was broken by the purr of a foreign coupe grinding down the dirt road. With an incongruous turn signal, it pulled onto a patch of gravel by the graves.

The driver climbed out, hidden behind stylish sunglasses and trenchcoat. With a furtive glance at the vacant wilderness, he purposefully approached the graves, quickly singling one out and walking to it. He stood uncomfortably with hands in his pockets and head huddled against his chest.

He waited — shifted his weight; checked the time on his cell phone. Ten minutes passed.

Then an ancient rusting Chevy struggled up the hill, growling and sputtering as it pulled onto the gravel. A mousy woman in faded jeans and an old screen print T-shirt extricated herself from the driver's door. She walked silently to take her place beside the man, and both stared down at the same low granite memorial.

The man broke the windblown quiet. "I'm cold."

"So's he," said the woman wryly, gesturing to the grave.

A huffy sigh. "Wasn't my idea to come." The man took a few hesitating steps, as though returning to his car. The woman was still.

"You enjoy your annual guilt trip, Jessica," he said. "I'm heading back —"

His companion didn't seem to hear. "I don't know how he did it," she said softly.

"I'm heading back to the city —"

"You used him, Aaron —"

"So did you. You're the one who told him —"

"And of course, what you did —"

" — was necessary," he snapped. "Get over it."

"Least we can do is remember the boy," the woman pleaded.

"That's why God made photo albums," said the man.

He turned in earnest towards the cars.

"I've been wondering," said the woman. "Sometimes, I think ... should I tell somebody?"

The man stopped, whirled. "You'd put your own brother's head in a noose?"

"We already did."

The man crossed his arms defiantly, but made no more movement towards the cars.

"Just stay for a few minutes. OK?"

He reluctantly stalked back to the headstone. "Ten minutes. I've had my fill of 'remembering.'"

The woman bent and silently, reverently bent the tall grass away from the marker. "They should maintain this place. Danny deserves better."

"I don't think Danny cares."

The woman sighed. "I wish you'd try ... just do it with me. The prayer; the one Danny always said. Then we can leave."

"Thank God," muttered the man.

The woman abruptly dropped to her knees beside the headstone. The man gingerly lowered himself, careful not to let his coat touch the dirt.

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ..." The woman prayed with feeling; speaking with a passionate need; speaking with eyes raised to heaven in her desperation to be heard. The man grimly mumbled along beneath her passion, embarrassed by the spectacle.

The woman continued, stretching her arms towards the low grey clouds: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread." Her voice seemed to catch in her throat: "Forgive us our trespasses ..."

Her body was suddenly wracked with soul-shaking anguished sobs.

"Forgive us our trespasses," tried the man, but his voice was drowned by the woman's weeping agony. "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us," he tried again.

Continuing was clearly hopeless. The man hitched up his coat and sat back on his ankles, looked miserably at the bleak sky. The woman reached out a shaking hand and laid it on the headstone; felt the unforgiving stone and accusing dates with her fingers. She finally spoke.

"Fifteen," she choked between sobs. "He was fifteen that fall ... how did he do it? Remember fifteen? We were idiots."

"He was a freak," the man snapped. "That's how he did it."

"And he rescued us both," said the woman.

The man sat heavily on the ground. There it was, the thing he'd been avoiding this whole time; the feeling he hated every time he returned to the cemetery; the reason he'd tried so desperately to escape back to Chicago as soon as possible.

Guilt.

Ten Years Earlier

Malcolm Burnham banged open the kitchen door and kicked his work boots off with more force than strictly necessary. Here it was, almost 11:00 Saturday morning, and that boy still hadn't started turning over the garden. They'd harvested the last of the vegetables over a week ago, and now the weather was getting colder.

He'd ordered his son to do the chore last weekend, and it lay undone all week while Danny pretended to do his homework more slowly than any child alive, or went off to that church in town. This morning, it was going to get accomplished, come hell or high water. Malcolm rehearsed his speech while scrubbing chore-dirt off his hands at the kitchen sink.

When were you gonna do the garden, Daniel? After dark tonight?

His sleepy son would look up at him with that pansy-faced innocent act — the calf-eyes that always got him off the hook with his mother. But he, Malcolm, knew better. Danny was lazy, plain and simple. He must've gotten those genes from his mother — or maybe it was that church.

You've had a week to do it on your time, so now it's my time. Haul your butt out to that garden right now, and if I don't see it half done by lunchtime, you can forget leaving this house for a week.

The truth is, his middle child was strange — he'd overheard Aaron call him "the freak," and he couldn't disagree. Danny always moped around the house; didn't have a friend in the world so far as Malcolm could tell. His other two children, Aaron and Jessica, were pretty normal as teenagers went. They partied on weekends and fought with each other and talked on the phone at all hours of the night.

But Danny was almost a ghost in the house: he seemed to simply float through life without leaving a trail. In all the years his son had been alive, Malcolm couldn't recall ever having a conversation with the kid that lasted more than two minutes.

That's probably why he gravitated to church. If you couldn't fit in with people, you turned to religion.

Malcolm finished scrubbing the swine dung and grime off his hands, then reached for the towel. He started when he heard a voice behind him.

"Mom's gonna be ticked. She's got dishes in the sink."

Malcolm whirled on his daughter. ""When you start payin' the bills, Jessica, then you can tell me what to do."

"It's just gross. We eat off those dishes, Dad. You could use the laundry sink —"

"What did I just say?"

Jessica rolled her eyes and left the room — no doubt on her way out front to tell Rita about his handwashing sins. Just what he needed today — his wife on his case.

Temper sharpened by this latest annoyance, Malcolm stalked up the stairs towards Danny's bedroom. Whatever else happened, that boy was going to spade the garden today.

* * *

Danny covered his head with the pillow. He hadn't shut his eyes all night, and hoped desperately he could get an hour or two of sleep — somehow — before Dad came upstairs. He was going to be mad about the garden.

But Danny couldn't erase last night from his mind.

A bunch of kids had gone out to the Mullins' empty old barn, the usual place. Danny had never gone before, but last night he'd joined Aaron and Jessica: It was better than hanging around the house another Friday night.

A couple of older guys brought beer; some kids Danny didn't know had the pot. As the night progressed, the booze flowed and joints were smoked. Two lone dusty bulbs in the ceiling tried unsuccessfully to pierce the smoky air as groping couples headed for the back stalls. A couple of boys more daring (or drunk) than the others climbed a rotting wooden ladder into the dark loft.

Yes, somebody's girlfriend would find out she was pregnant in a month or so. About the same time, two of the guys would have the first denied inklings they were rapidly becoming alcoholics. As soon as the morning, there would be hangovers to be hidden from parents.

But for now, good times were had by all. The cars were all parked in the empty field on the far side of the barn. Old Mr. Mullins, it was widely known, refused to get a hearing aid and was half-blind. From long experience, the kids knew he wouldn't even guess they were there — until he found their beer cans a few days later and called the sheriff.

But things didn't go quite as expected last night. Perhaps a neighbor driving by called Mr. Mullins, or somebody's little sister turned tattletale. Whatever the reason, just after midnight when the festivities were peaking, the old man creaked open the side door. He stormed in with a flashlight — and his shotgun.

The first thing he saw was half a dozen potheads sprawled across his rusting tractor. "What are you boys doin' here?" he growled, leveling his gun at them with shaking hands.

There was a burst of laughter from somewhere in the barn. All the teens quickly emptied out the back door and made for their cars; all of them except the dope smokers under the muzzle of Mullins' gun.

They were cornered. Their faces showed panic. But for some reason — perhaps the drugs — one of them was unafraid. He advanced on Mullins, looking the old man in the eye.

"Why don't you go back to bed, y'old geezer?" he said menacingly.

Mullins raised his gun; his hand seemed to steady as he spoke. He pointed it directly at the boy: "You just back off 'fore you get buckshot in your teeth," he warned.

The boy laughed. "It isn't loaded, and you know it," he said. With that, he smacked Mullins' gun to the ground.

The other potheads ran for the door. Mullins turned around; tried to leave his barn. He was unprotected now, and needed to call the sheriff .

But the lone boy who'd dared to challenge him was still there. He grabbed the old man from behind; pulled him to the ground. He knelt over Mullins, straddled his aged bony frame, and began punching and pounding and throttling. His face, his throat, his head — the blood, the blood ...

Danny could still see the old man's face covered in rivulets and splashes of crimson, hear him pleading with the attacker, "Stop ... no more; stop ..."

Danny covered his face in his hands. Why had the boy done it? Why couldn't he have let the old man simply leave? Danny almost threw up as he considered again, as he had a thousand times during the dark night, that the one who'd pounded Old Man Mullins almost to death, the lone boy who hadn't left well enough alone and run away ... was him.

* * *

In the backyard, Aaron was already wide awake and indulging in his favorite Saturday morning pastime. He squinted into the sunlight coming off the white-sided barn. His finger tightened on the shotgun's trigger; he took careful aim ...

The report filled the farmyard. A small flock of squawking birds lifted off; there were frightened noises from the pigs inside the barn. Meanwhile, Aaron's target — an unsuspecting squirrel perched on the fence rail — dropped to the ground.

He coolly set down the gun and wandered downrange to the tiny carcass: it was still moving painfully. Aaron ground an unfeeling heel onto its head. Then seizing the tail, he tossed the bloody mass over the fence.

The back door slammed and his sister charged down the back steps in a hoodie, peering around after the source of the shot and looking for somebody to tattle on. That's how she endeared herself to Mom these days — told on the other members of the family, so Mom could give them those sad, moon-eyed guilt looks and pray for their heathen souls.

Well, let her tattle. Dad never said anything so long as he got his mess out of the yard, and Dad was the one to worry about. Mom could give him guilt looks for shooting the poor, innocent critters all she wanted. After all, sending whole truckloads of pigs to the slaughterhouse was what put food on their family's table.

"Aaron, what're you doing?" Jessica asked, in her sweetest "gotcha" voice.

"Shootin' squirrels," he said. "Wanna see?" He looked over the fence — holding up the bloody creature might send her running back into the house. But it had landed a good dozen feet away: not worth the trouble.

"You know what Mom'll say ..."

"Only if you tell her, Snitch."

Jessica hated that moniker. She hesitated for a moment, perhaps torn between the pleasures of gossiping to Mom or irritating her brother with her very presence. She settled on the latter and walked across the grass towards Aaron.

"Could you believe what happened last night at Mullins'?" she asked, voice filled with the thrill of vicarious horror.

"What — you makin' out with Greg Hawkins?"

Jessica's face turned slightly red. "No — Mr. Mullins! Heather said he's still in the hospital in Bloomington."

Aaron's guard went up — he didn't know how much she'd seen.

"One of the guys beat him down when he started waving that gun around. Did you see it?" Jessica persisted.

"Part of it." Aaron shrugged.

"Weren't you by the tractor?"

"For a while. But I ran with everybody else."

"Yeah, Greg took off without me. What a butt," said Jessica, rolling her eyes. "Forget him."

Aaron didn't like Greg Hawkins. Actually, he didn't care for any of the older boys his sister had taken up with in the past year or so. At thirteen, she had suddenly — as their mother would say — "blossomed," and was wasting no time maximizing her newfound curves. Guys his own age, seventeen and more, were noticing this petite freshman who craved their attention.

"Good. He's too old for you."

"Please — only three years. I found him later and he said sorry. He was just scared."

"You just said 'forget him' —"

"Maybe. Heather thinks Mark Bremer likes me, so ... maybe."

Aaron could tell she was enjoying infuriating him with her popularity. As a kid, she'd always been a loner and hung around Mom a lot — kind of like Danny, who people were starting to call "the family ghost." Now, she went out more often than Aaron did. Sooner or later, he was going to have to deal with his sister's boyfriends ...

But for the moment, Aaron was somewhat grateful for the subject change. Better to talk about guys than old man Mullins getting beaten.

"Hey, when you get with those guys, you don't let them — touch you. Understand?"

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Like you didn't 'touch' Savanna when you were with her?"

"I didn't," he blustered. "When we went to Mullins, it was just — kissing."

Jessica laughed. "That's not what she says!"

Aaron reddened. He hated that his sister had made friends with his ex; hated that Savanna now delighted in using Jessica to torment him. "We were — older," he said weakly. "It's different —"

Jessica just laughed. Aaron picked up his gun and turned to walk towards the barn; his sister still followed. "Get outta here," he blustered. "Why don't you go irritate Danny instead?"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. Jessica stopped walking: Aaron turned, realizing his mistake.

"Or ... go talk to Mom?" he said. "Danny's probably still in bed —"

Jessica looked at him through narrowed eyes. "Does Danny know what happened last night? With Mr. Mullins?"

"How could he? He wasn't anywhere near the old geezer —"

"Does he know?" She asked again quietly, tilting her head and fixing Aaron with an uncomfortable stare.

"Don't go asking him a bunch of questions. You'll just get him worked up ..."

Jessica continued to stare at her brother, the suggestion of an unpleasant smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Did you see it? What happened to Mr. Mullins?"

"He pointed his gun at all of us. I mean, I was over there —"

"But who put him in the hospital?"

"You think I'd tell you?" Aaron blustered. "Right."

"I'll ask Danny then." She turned and walked towards the house.

Aaron strode after her, grabbed her arm and turned her around. "Look, we were all running. I didn't see who stayed behind, or whatever —"

"Please. You know —"

"I swear. It happened so fast, and I expected to get shot by the crazy old man, and figured maybe a buncha sheriffs were behind him —"

"OK." Jessica displayed her most dangerous smile and turned towards the house.

Aaron almost followed again, but decided to let her go. He couldn't stop her from talking to their brother, not without ...

But really, what was Danny going to say? The moron did have a self-preservation instinct; they didn't need the Burnham family all over the front page, with one of their members headed to prison. Danny wouldn't admit to what he'd done: Aaron was dumb to feel like he needed to protect him.

Besides, even if Danny confessed, it's not like it was really any skin off Aaron's back. The kid had had it coming for years.

Continue to Part 2

* * *

Want to get more from the story? There are questions for thought and reflection on Part 1 of "No Good Deed" at writingbygeorge.com.