I CHANGED MY STORY

BANG! One of the British soldiers dropped dead on the ground. Lucas Jackson ran behind a tree and almost peed on himself when he saw another one belonging to the British, pointing his pistol at one of his fellow Boer soldiers. BANG! BANG! Lucas shot him dead and put his gun back in his pant pocket. Lucas then winked at John Coleman and quickly ran off.

He ran across the dead grassy field, hiding behind broken tree trunks and long weeds. He ran past dead soldiers, who were bloody and broken. They reminded Lucas of the toy soldiers he had when he was a young boy. Lucas was a good child, kept to himself and played in his room all day. Never did he yell or raise his voice at his mother. They only had one another and Lucas was not going to loose her.

Finally, Lucas had reached his destination. Lucas walked into the old pigpen, without pigs, and he lay down on the ground. Lucas reached into his dingy brown pocket and pulled out the deep gray gun, he looked at it. This gun had killed numerous people. It was now going to kill one more. Does it have to come to this?

Lucas was a normal teenage boy. He was quiet, calm and collected, until he had to war.

It was a bright sunny morning of the year 1884 and Lucas had ran to get his mother milk from the pasture where their two cows remained. The pasture was about half a mile down the road from their small cottage they named home.
Lucas wasn’t a small teenager; he was good for his size, about 5’11 standing straight. Lucas weighed one hundred and forty pounds, under-average weight. He could barely hold the pail full of milk, whenever he came walking back from milking the cows. Lucas continued down the road in his blue jean overalls, his reddish brown hair pulled into a small ponytail at the back of his head. Lucas whistled his favorite song along the narrow path with trees along the sides.

Bam Bam Bam. Someone was banging loudly on the door. As if that person was angry. “Coooooming! Hold on a minute!” Lucas’ mother yelled. She wiped her flour covered hands on her apron as she hurried towards the door. Mrs. Jackson looked out the peephole and her brown eyes became big with apprehension.

“Ummm…may I help you?” Mrs. Jackson asked the three, crusty looking soldiers who stood under the doorframe. They were wearing their uniforms, green army colors with hints of brown mud on them. They responded to Mrs. Jackson’s question.

“Is there a man by the name of Lucas Jackson here?” One soldier asked as he tried to peek his head inside their home. Mrs. Jackson got rid of that problem and immediately stepped in front of his chary view.

“Noooooooooo. I think you have the wrong home Mr.” Linda Jackson lied. She slammed the door in their face quickly. She was not going to let the officers get to her only pride and joy.

“Ma’am open the door.” Another one of the soldiers yelled to her sternly from one side of the door. He tried to push the door back open, but it wouldn’t budge. Luckily for them, in was an oak wood door.

“We are coming in. You can either open the door or we’ll have to knock it down!”

“You can just try to knock the damn door down, cause my son is not coming with you!” Mrs. Jackson ran to her room and rummaged under the flowery covered bed cover. She found what she was looking for.

The three soldiers kicked in the door, six times before the black wooded door came off the rusty hinges. They stared at the crazed woman before them, their eyes wide with horror. One of the soldiers quickly realized the situation and he pulled out his shotgun, used only for emergencies. Mrs. Jackson was standing about two feet behind the dusty colored purple couch. She held a .45 caliber gun in her hand pointing it at one officer at a time, going back and forth between the confused soldiers. Never did they imagine this little lady could have such hatred in her voice.

She had heard about the war. The British were going to war with the Boer and her son, Lucas was neither apart of the Boer nor the British. Brent Jackson, her husband, had moved the family to Kenya, Africa long before the war and long before he was killed in the line of duty. The Jackson family had move to Africa long before ten percent of it was ran by Western Nations. After the explorers settled into Africa, industrialization, caused better communication and transportation systems. Along with these systems were telegraphs, railroads and steam navigation to help people communicate with others still in the country they left behind. Not only did better communication help these settlers, but also better medical medicines, for many forms of tropical diseases such as malaria treatment—quinine. Mrs. Jackson was here before all the dang transportation and medicines. She was here when the Native Kenyan’s ran their own area.


“I am going to tell you dumb soldiers one more time, before I shoot. My son is not-“

Boom! Boom! Bam!

The soldier with the gun shot Linda Jackson, age forty-five, three times. She looked at the officers and smiled as she fell slowly to the already bloody reddish-brown puddle that lay under her. Once again, the soldier with the gun walked up to the lady and shot her in the middle of her forehead once more. He looked at her frayed head and then spit in her head. “That’s for being stupid.” All three of the soldiers walked on the broken door, the one with a huge footprint towards the bottom of it. The three of them continued to walk outside. This would be a death threat to all those who tried to come between them and motherless Lucas Jackson.

Lucas finished milking the two fat cows, Betsy and Brownie. He lifted himself off of the ground, leaving the milk-filled metal bucket on the greenish brown field. Lucas stretched his arms up towards the blue sky, filled with fluffy white clouds. I hope miss mother isn’t worried, I have taken a little longer than usual but these slow cows wouldn’t do anything. He picked up the pail and headed back towards home.

When Lucas arrived home, he noticed the door laying some feet inside his home. Lucas ran into the kitchen and noticed the flour still waiting for him to bring the milk, sitting patiently on the counter. Lucas face was twisted with confusion as he walked back into the room. He noticed some red stuff near the couch and on the once opaque white walls. Lucas walked towards to couch.
He fell to his knees and gasped at the sight before him. His late mother lay sprawled on the carpet, her blood soaked beneath her. Lucas stared at his mother and he began to cry. “WHYYYYYYY?”
“WHO DID THIS TO YOU?!” Lucas was now wailing.
His cry’s echoed throughout the cottage. He cradled his mother in his arms and buried his face in her blood soaked apron.
Lucas welled for days after his mother’s funeral and days before it too. Mrs. Jackson was buried alongside her husband. It was a well prepared funeral, although Lucas was too heartbroken to arrange her proper burial necessities himself.

As Lucas laid there in the pig pen, he thought about the drama his life had endured. At first, moving to Kenya had been the highlight of his young life. Looking back today, Lucas believed it to be the biggest mistakes of his parents, God rest their soul. He closed his eyes and began to dream a common dream he had been having many times.

Soldier, you will be coming with us after they (as the strange men pointed to the group burying his mother))bury the lady who resisted us. The three men, wearing bloody covered clothes , laughed with beers in their hands. One took a swig and replied to Lucas “Boy we got ‘em, we got her good didn’t we?”

Lucas was confused. He knew his mother’s killers hadn’t been caught…yet. Lucas was confused. He wanted to take the law into his own hands, but didn’t have any type of leads. Something told him that the demons themselves were staring Lucas in the eyes, calling him towards the British side. Lucas knew that if he were to fight he’d prefer to fight for his land, like the Boers. Instead of the overpowering British who wanted and needed every bit of land.