I was up on the curve in Symmes Creek Road, about a kilometer east of the Gallia County Farmhouse. A man with a rifle was here and I also had a rifle. The man and I began having a dispute and finally began swinging our rifles at each other. At one point I was lying with my back on the ground and he was poised over me with his rifle ready to strike me. I considered defensive moves and thought I might use my rifle to block his blow. I also thought about slamming him in his testes with my rifle.

Finally I was standing again and ended up shooting the man several times with my rifle. I was unaccustomed to shooting the gun and a couple times I had difficulty ejecting the spent shell before firing again. But I managed to do it.

After the fight was all over it appeared that I might have actually killed the man. But I also realized that another man who was my friend was with me and that he had been badly injured in the fray. He was lying under a barbed wire fence and was bleeding profusely from several wounds. I was unsure whether he had been shot or had simply obtained lacerations in the fight.

But my attention was directed elsewhere, because down in the bottom field by Symmes Creek I heard voices. I slipped over to the top of a large cliff from which I could see down into the field far below me. There I saw several men running along. They were very far away and just looked like ants. I knew they were friends of the man whom I had just shot and I knew they were now going to come after me. I sighted my gun in on one of them, but not being able to see him clearly enough to get a good aim, I didn't shoot.

I returned to my companion to see if he was still alive. A pickup truck was here in which I could leave and I knew I must decide immediately whether to take my companion with me or leave him behind. I felt his bloody wrist for a pulse, thinking there probably wouldn't be any. But suddenly he began moving and I realized I was going to have to hurry and load him into the back of the pickup truck.

Copyright 2004 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com