The Most Dangerous Animal of All by Gary L. Stewart, Susan Mustafa Page B

produced their badges, he wasn’t surprised.
    “We’d like to monitor your telephone,” one of the men informed Earl, who had no choice but to agree.
    The minister listened politely while they explained how the bug worked. When they were finally gone, Van’s father, tears rolling down his face, got into his car and drove to his pastor’s home. Suddenly, the minister needed some ministering of his own.
    After his confession, the pastor allowed Earl to use his phone. Earl called his family in South Carolina. He informed them that Van was in a lot of trouble and on the run. “Spread the word,” he said. “If Van and the girl show up, I will pay for any help they are given.”
    Out of options in Texas, my father offered to write a check to anyone who would give him and his pregnant wife (as he called her) a ride to Mississippi. It wasn’t difficult. Judy’s condition elicited sympathy.
    Earl’s brother Rufus, having gotten the message, was not surprised when Van and Judy showed up at his door in Meridian, Mississippi, hungry and disheveled. He agreed to help the couple on a temporary basis.
    Rufus’s dilapidated farmhouse was located on a few acres in the woods outside of town. In mid-November, the temperatures were dipping into the mid-forties, but there was no central heat in the house, only a cast-iron wood-burning stove and a few space heaters scattered about. An outhouse served as the bathroom, and Judy, who was six months pregnant, had to make the trek to the smelly, rickety old building often.
    “I want to go home,” Judy told Van on the first night of their stay, trying to get comfortable on the lumpy sofa bed Rufus had folded out for them.
    “Stop whining and be still,” Van said. “We’re lucky to be here. At least we’re safe.”
    Judy didn’t see it that way.
    Although Rufus allowed them to hide out there, he was not comfortable with the idea. He worried that others would find out that he was harboring fugitives and constantly made the couple aware of the trouble he was courting on their behalf. He had promised Earl he would take care of them. He had not promised to make their stay a pleasant one.
    “If you want to eat, you hunt your food,” he told Van. “I can’t be feeding the whole damn family.”
    “You can come with me,” Van told Judy. “I’ll teach you how to hunt.”
    “No,” Judy cried. “I don’t want you to kill anything.”
    “You want to eat? Let’s go.” Van grabbed a rifle from beside the door, checked to make sure it was loaded, and headed out the door with Judy in tow.
    “Just aim and shoot,” he said, positioning the rifle along her shoulder.
    “I don’t want to,” Judy begged, tears glistening in her eyes.
    “Shoot the damn thing. Just aim and pull the trigger,” Van said.
    She got off one shot and handed him the gun, trying to hide her trembling hands by rubbing her shoulder where the gun had kicked.
    She watched in horror as a squirrel appeared from the brush and Van took aim and fired.
    “Look,” he said, holding the bloody rodent triumphantly for Judy to see. “One shot. And he was running.”
    Judy didn’t want to look, but Van held the squirrel close to her face and then laughed when she retched.
    At dinner, Judy begged him not to make her eat it, but Van insisted, the tone in his voice inviting no argument. Judy put the meat into her mouth and tried not to vomit.
    Every day, her body burdened with the weight of her child, Judy hesitantly followed Van into the woods, praying he wouldn’t shoot another animal. Van’s bullet always met its mark.
    Three weeks later, Van decided it was time to move on. Judy couldn’t have been happier. The Van she saw in the woods was not the charming man she knew. She didn’t like this Van.
    Rufus gave them some money and an old family footlocker in which to pack their things. Van recognized it from his childhood. “Where did you get that?” he asked.
    “Your father gave it to me years ago,” Rufus told