IV
A slightly inebriated John Gray wandered into Tim's loft one night in late April. Tim lay in his bed, watching the rain drops on the window run into each other, listening to them pound upon the roof above his head. He was suddenly jarred when he heard John stumble through the sliding door below. He rolled over as John tripped up the stairs.
"Mr. Gray?" called Tim from his bed. He jumped out and pulled on his trousers.
He repeated his cry.
"Hey there son "slurred John.
"Rough night sir?"
"Oh son, you have no idea honestly, how much hardship can one man take in his life?"
Here was Mr. Gray, ready to spill his guts. Tim grew so excited he could hardly contain himself. The revelation of all the Gray family secrets became more vibrant with each passing minute. Tim could see the dollar bills piling up, the bedposts made of gold ........the Yacht in the South Seas .....
"Sir, do you want a glass of water or something?" offered Tim eagerly. John looked up. "How much pain do you think one man can handle in his measly existence on this measly earth, with measly wages, and a measly wife, and measly children "His voice trailed off into another series of mumbles and rantings.
"I imagine a man can handle quite a bit sir," Tim waltzed over to the icebox and pulled out his wooden can of water, handing it to a thankful Mr. Gray.
"Thanks son."
Tim shook his head.
"My daughter," continued John. "She was gonna marry Hugh. He's a nice rich boy, a generous past and a god damn heap of money in some vault in the town bank. A real smart nice kid good looking? Suurre."
Tim took a seat on the bed and got comfortable.
"Honestly, a great kid. I mean, all I ever wanted was money and hell, this kid was my ticket. He'd set me up real nice and I'd let him take care of my daughter. But then Dave came along."
Tim smiled. Jackpot.
"He ruined everything really. He made an offer we couldn't refuse. He left over a million dollars to Mary. That's more than good old Hugh Gregory will ever make! !" he laughed, a sad, pathetic little snigger. "I haven't talked to that rat Dave, in years my hatred too intense for that spawn of Lucifer!! But that money- those millions."
Tim struggled to keep from laughing.
"Uh sir, if I may interrupt."
John closed his eyes and flung his fingers into the air, as if to say in submission "proceed".
"Well," interrupted Tim, "I don't really see the problem here. Your daughter's rich either way you put it. I am failing to comprehend the tragic nature of this whole situation."
"Don't use all these big city boy words to confuse me. Speak some English to me kid "
Tim struggled to think of a word he used that confused the old man.
"I don't get it I guess," he translated.
"Well, of course, Dave hates Hugh. Of course he does. Could anything ever honestly work out this well for me. No, no Timmy. You don't know me very well at all. She won't get my god damn brothers millions if she marries Hugh! So I ended it." The finality of his words came as a shock to Tim. It was an abrupt ending to what he thought would be a long story. He tried to get him started again.
"So what happened tonight that got you all riled up.'?"
Tim regretted those words soon after he said them. They sounded too disrespectful to his cautious ear. But luckily, John was pretty drunk.
"Oh she was crying again. Reading some letter from the kid. Timmy, I'll kill him, see. I am an old bitter man and I'm sick of making no living at all off the parched earth beneath my feet." Well that was it. That was exactly how Tim was going to get his name back into the will. That was exactly how he was going to get Mary's name out. Just catch the two together and retrieve one of their self-effacing testaments of love. Tim almost felt bad for John Gray, who now wept like a little boy. He poured his heart out to a man that would only betray him, crying on the apathetic tread of Brutus, his pathetic, drunken voice a dirge of desperation and vulnerability. Tim was normally a pretty honest man, but money does some crazy things to people.

V
The stunning truth of that statement hit hard the next morning when Tim passed Mary in the fields, her eye all black and bruised. She turned away quickly, hardly muttering a greeting of any kind at all. Tim never imagined that John had it in him to rough up his daughter. But the old man was seeing gold and it clogged his conscience.
Tim went about his chores in the same dutiful fashion he always did. The sun rose high as early as ten, relentlessly pounding on his worn back. Tim rolled up his trousers and reached for the sack of fertilizer at his ankles. John followed his tracks with the plow. It was a tedious job, done in a tedious fashion; however, Tim had been revitalized by the events of the previous night, his steps with an extra bounce, his smile with an extra shine. He watched young Mary, her helpless gaze interrupted by frequent nervous glances towards the sky. It was almost as if she checked the height of the sun, doing it almost shamefully, her behavior again a source of great mystery for Tim.
At noontime the sun at its highest point, Mary dropped her rake and wandered towards the threatening brink of the forest. Tim's curiosity overtook him and as John stomped off into the house for lunch, Tim dropped his rake to follow her. Mary wove in and out of the reeds, her movements endowed with stealth and silence. A sturdy male voice suddenly rang out from the wood.
"Mary?"
Tim stopped dead in his tracks and peered out from behind a tree trunk.
Mary laughed.
"Hugh, I'm here. For Christ sake keep it down."
"Sorry, sorry. Oh I'm so glad to see you!! It honestly seems like an eternity. Are you receiving my letters? My love .?"
"Yea Hugh, they're truly lovely. Truly lovely."
They embraced and kissed gently for a moment and then pulled away shamefully, as if they had just been caught in some horrid act of heavenly defiance. Tim could hardly keep from laughing. Mary pulled a scrap of paper from her apron pocket.
"And is it true what you say here? We will be married before the summer blooms? That's wonderful!"
"Yes ....."
"When are the summer blooms? Really Hugh. I mean its romantic and everything but I kind of need a more specific date "
She placed the paper into her apron pocket.
"Right well," Hugh exhaled.
"Oh that's ok, sometime soon that's fine for now I guess. But I definitely need to be off for lunch, my father's got me on this horribly tight leash. Oh I can hardly breath on my own. Well goodbye love."
She leaned to kiss him and the letter slipped from her pocket into the grass.
"Bye dearest," sighed Hugh.
And with that the casual meeting ceased, Mary tip toeing back into the fields and Hugh disappearing into the forest, Tim left in silence, alone with a love letter worth over a million dollars.

VI
The next morning John Gray awoke to the sound of a knocking on his door. He rolled out of bed and pulled on his trousers. It was the Sabbath. The only day he could escape from work long enough to sleep a while and here he was, interrupted by some fool in the early hours of the morning. He grunted and stomped off towards the door.
"Good morning! Good morning!" the reverend offered a cheerful grin.
John groaned a pathetic greeting and struggle in search of a pathetic smile.
"Well sir, I ran into your dear brother yesterday evening and he gave me this here copy of his will and a history of its revisions and what not. It's merely the legal obligation of the heiress to David's millions to overlook these documents, a standard prerequisite to her inheritance of the fortune. So if I may speak to the young woman "
The reverend's obsequious pause heightened John petulance and he snatched the document out of his hands.
"Sir, that is really for your daughter to read "The reverend trailed off submissively as John shot him a threatening glance.
John scanned the will and then the history. Nothing special really until ....
Wait.
His eyes scrolled back to the middle of the document. It must be a mistake. He read the sentence over.
"Tim Connolly? "he mumbled.
"Pardon me sir?"
John grunted cruelly and the reverend retreated.
Tim Connolly was the original heir to the Gray fortune.
He could not believe his eyes. All along he had been mistaken. The kind boy from the north was a fake, and a liar, and even worse a former companion of his most hated brother. His confidant and friend at once transformed into a looming adversary with claws and sharpened teeth. Tim had all along been trying to get his name back in the will, attempting to rob John of his fortune, the most precious portal into his glimmering illusion of happiness! Tim's strange appearance and uncanny settlement in such a pathetic, dead end mid-western town and his unfaltering loyalty to the eternally jaded John suddenly made a tremendous amount of sense. John had never felt so betrayed, never so stupid, which was a surprise, for he in truth, lacked any real sense at all. And to make matters worse the little sense he possessed fled frantically at that horrifying moment of awareness. He shoved the reverend aside and ran to the barn.
"TIM!"
No answer. He ascended the ladder to the loft, Tim's trunk- empty, the bed- unmade. A giant bead of sweat dripped down the side of his face.
John jumped from the loft, trampling right over the reverend, who stood in his path shouting obnoxiously,
"Uhhh Sir "his filthy horn-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose.
John plowed through the doorway of the house and ran into his room where his wife nervously sat up in bed.
"John, hunny what's wrong?"
He glared at her and she melted to the floor. John snatched his pistol from the closet and in one of his brief dramatic moments foolishly placed a single bullet into the cartridge. One bullet, for one man.
On his way out he passed Mary in the hall, tears dripping from her face, flooding the hallway with despair.
"What's a matter with you?" he bellowed cruelly.
She glanced at him fearfully. "I've lost something "
And then it hit him.
John remembered the night, in his drunken stupor, when he revealed the family secrets to Benedict Arnold, the deceiver, the betrayer!! He spoke of Hugh and a note ....
"What did you lose! !" he screamed.
Mary crumpled to the floor.
"What did you lose! !" Again, this time louder.
"A note "whispered Mary.
"From Hugh ........"muttered John as he clenched his fist and raised it above the pathetic mass groveling at his feet.
Mary moaned.
"When did Tim leave?" his voice strained... apprehensive.
"I.... I.... "Mary struggled fretfully, "He walked out only a few moments ago. "
It was a torrent of fear that took hold of Mary at that moment, forcing that lie to tumble from her quivering lips. In truth she had no idea when Tim left but she had to answer him somehow, anything to escape the cruel force of her father. Mary would never realize the sheer magnitude of that seemingly innocent falsity.
John stared at her for a moment and then ran from the home, headed for David's office. Little time remained. He cut through the fields, somehow a shortcut. Time chased him, in harmful pursuit. He had to make it to David's office before Tim arrived. The will must remain untouched. He stumbled over a rut in the road. He caught himself in the caked dirt, and tore open his palm on the cruel earth. The blood trickled down his arm. In an animalistic instant he licked up the red and trudged on, time a precious commodity, a merciless enemy scraping frantically at his heels.
John entered David's office, sweat hanging from his forehead, in a devilish, desperate rage. His fanatic eyes scanned the room, Tim's watchful, threatening gaze absent from the static scene. He was just in time. He could feel the softness of new shirts on his skin, the comfort of a new bed with fresh springs inviting him, driving him to a morbid insanity. Dave looked up and their eyes met for an instant, until John shuddered and turned away, as if his conscience suddenly came into existence, only to be pushed away by the little devil on his shoulder. John pulled the pistol from within his coat as Dave dropped his pen, his widening stare horror-struck and dubious all at once. John pressed his sweating, selfish finger against the cold trigger, a lonely tear dripping from his weary brow. In a moment it was done. Not a sound slid from the depths of David's gut as the bullet burrowed into his soul. The pistol clattered to the floor as Tim rushed into the room, carelessly pulling up his trousers. John started at him in blank disbelief. He stumbled to the desk of his brother, fumbling with the blood stained will. Tim's name screamed back at him from the page, mocking his despair and the impetuous greed that drove him to such insanity. Mary's name remained a ghost of wills past, erased in its entirety from the David's testament. John screamed, a wretched animalistic howl deep from within the depths of his demented psyche. But he was too late. The damage was done and the illusion of wealth that had sustained his pathetic existence shattered to pieces on the floor.
David Gray's millions went to Tim Connolly and Mary Gray Gregory could have cared less. She hardly knew the man anyway. She and Hugh packed up and moved to the east, leaving the dusty dead end roads of Deer Lick Missouri behind. Her mother and younger brother soon followed. Tim went out to California with over a million dollars. He ended up marrying some voluptuous siren of western cabaret. They never had any kids.
No one really knows what became of John Gray. He disappeared soon after the murder; Tim was the last person to see him. I guess one could say that he got away with it, got away with cold-blooded murder; however, although he remained, drifting through life in the vague physical shape of a man, his mind lay in ruins, his psyche destroyed by years of selfish thought and pitiless malice. He shiftlessly wandered, a collapsing temple of a religion long ago forgotten amongst heaps of unread literature and the whines of a dissatisfied majority, motivated by selfish desires and shallow pursuits. He roamed off towards the golden ball that teased him each evening in the west, disappearing into the dust of mid-western country roads, another name added to the list of men who didn't make it, men who never really had a chance at all.