The Uvalde Raider by Ben English (great books for teens TXT) 📕

How many would die? Ten thousand? One hundred thousand? Or even more than that? The enormity of it all brought to mind a quote attributed to Robert Kennedy. “Killing one man is murder,” Kennedy had proclaimed. “Killing millions is a statistic.” There was a hard, bitter truth to that revelation. The human mind becomes numb to the boundless horrors attending such overwhelming death tolls of one’s own kind. It was simply beyond the intellectual comprehension and emotional cognizance of most people.

In a world where more and more placated themselves with the mistaken belief that all things were relative, such sheer depravity flew in the face of their freshly coined ‘new age’ philosophies. The idea of good and evil was mentally and emotionally uncomfortable for most and intuitively challenged this kinder, gentler narrative. Their journey through life found them professing little belief in either and blissfully ignoring any evidence to the contrary.

Micah Templar knew better. He had lived a life where both existed in tandem, often enough on a day-to-day basis. Man’s unbridled inhumanity to his fellow man was not some feckless byproduct of chance or circumstance, it was a real and enduring primal drive engendering all the vilest elements that lie at some depth in the soul of the species.

This perversely strong passion ran through one conduit or another to ultimately whatever destination where it could do the most harm. It was known as hate, and hate is the byproduct of the evil that occupies some corner, be it small or large, admitted or denied, in all men’s hearts.

The seed for such a somber epiphany into the shades and shadows of all men’s souls had been planted by his own father, during the time Micah was preparing for his first combat tour to the Republic of South Vietnam. The year was 1966, and the Tonkin Gulf resolution had paved the way for a large-scale Marine Corps involvement into that unhappy land. Micah had come home on leave prior to shipping out and as he stood there waiting for the Greyhound bus, Jeremiah Templar stood with him.

In the interim they had talked of many of the usual things, of livestock, of family and of the need for rain. Yet it was only at the sight of the bus itself that Jeremiah Templar appeared to become more apprehensive as to what was occurring, and perhaps even vulnerable. The idea of his father being vulnerable in the slightest to anything of mortal man’s hand was something new to his son, and Micah had found it a bit unsettling. Seeing the bus approach, the elder Templar’s countenance darkened with a great sadness mixed with resignation to the bitter remembrances of earlier perilous times.

With the noise of people bustling about and the odor of spent diesel fumes hanging in the air, Jeremiah Templar took Micah’s hand in a calloused grip that was stronger than any other his son had known before or since. In that strength was not only the barbed wire and rawhide physical toughness of the man, but also an impassioned yearning from the inner spirit to pass along the hardest-won lesson of all. It was at that moment, in front of that terminal, when Jeremiah Templar cautioned about hate and what it could do to a man.

Peering out from under the brim of his sweat stained, weathered felt hat, his father had said; “Son, you do your duty and stay true to your raising. But whatever you do, try real hard not to hate your enemy. Hate is the mother for most all of the evils in this world. The man you are looking at through rifle sights will probably be fighting for what he believes in, same as you. That don’t make him right but it don’t make him evil, either.

“There’ll come a time when you will confront an evil, and that is the only thing on this earth that you should hate with all your heart. But when you do, keep in mind there is some sort of evil in us all, just looking for an excuse to up and break out. Keep a tight rein on it and on that hate. Because if you ever let that hate start controlling you, the evil within us all will set itself loose. And it will burn hotter than the fires of hell, and consume most everything else good found inside.”

With his greenish gray eyes shining with emotion and the gift of hindsight, Jeremiah Templar added, “I know, because I rode that black trail myself for too long. For God’s sake, son, as well as your own, you do better than your old man. You come back home whole and in one piece.”

As he finished, the bus came to a stop behind them and the door swung open wide. Micah managed to get out a “Yes sir,” and picked up the sea bag at his side. Releasing the elder Templar’s hand, he turned and tossed it into the bin beneath the passenger compartment. Facing his father again, Micah found there was so much he wanted to say but just could not find the words.

Standing there in his faded blue jeans and long sleeve khaki work shirt, Jeremiah Templar found them for him.  “I know son, I know. Now get on that bus.”

The young Marine clambered aboard the Greyhound and found a window seat. As it sat idling, he watched his dad standing on the sidewalk with his arms folded. When the bus began moving, Jeremiah Templar raised his right hand above his head, palm out. He kept it that way for as long as the bus remained in view.

Not more than about a year and a half later, Jeremiah Templar breathed his last and