My Life Part 5... Drunks and Guns

Once in a while my fathers friend would have his teenage son come spend some time at our cabin for a week or two in the summer. We'll call him Tom.
This one summer right after we moved into the cabin, we all loaded up in the car and went to a doubleheader baseball game about 45 minutes drive away. All of us kids took off to play, running around like hooligans as kids will do on a fine summer day at a baseball field. We had a grand day eating hotdogs and drinking pop.
My mother (lugging my baby brother with her) met up with some of the players wives and spent her day chatting with friends and avoiding my father.
Dear old dad spent his day hanging out near the concession stand with buddies slurping down one Genesee beer after another.
Mom told dad before the end of the second game that we needed to leave because the baby was fussy or something. He, of course, was enjoying his beer swilling and bullshitting too much to leave just because she could not handle the kids.
Mom continued trying to get us all rounded up and ready to leave. Dad meanwhile was feeling very abused and put upon because he was having to listen to her tell him we needed to go.
He was smashed beyond belief.
As I have mentioned before, sober dad = charming, funny. Drunk dad = dangerous.
I could literally feel his rage directed at her, and was afraid. He roared for us kids to get in the car, all the while glaring at mom.
We got in the back, and mom reached in and handed the baby to me. After she stood up, and put one leg in to get in the car, my father stomped on the gas pedal, dragging my mother alongside the car for a little ways while she was screaming at him to stop the car. Finally, he let her get in, and peeled out onto the road.
Not a word was spoken by anyone. But, I knew what was coming, and my fear jumped to terror of the night ahead.
He turned onto the highway leading home, and instead of maintaining legal speed, continued to press down on the gas pedal, ever so slowly increased speed, glaring at my mother, daring her to say a word. In his mind, if she said anything in an attempt to tell him what to do, that would justify what was coming next.
I was sitting in the middle on the back seat, and could see the speedometer needle reach 80, pass it to 85, 90, 95, 100, 110, finally pegging at 120mph.
All the while, he was glaring at my mother, weaving in and out of traffic, so drunk I am surprised he could even see.
Mom tried to calmly get him to slow the car as he was speeding up. He just glared. She finally said "N, if you want to kill yourself, wait until your family is not around!"
I could hear my voice in my head saying over and over "stop mom, maybe it will be ok. Stop mom, and maybe it will be ok" I knew better of course. But it was like a mantra repeating over and over in my head.
Shockingly, we made it to the house without dying, or killing anyone else. The fear was a tight knot in my stomach, I needed to throw up and my hands were shaking. I could literally taste my fear. Mom said "Kids, go in the house", and Tom and I took my 3 year old and 9 month old brothers into the cabin and waited for what would surely come next.
It was worse than I had imagined.
Out in the clearing in front of the cabin, he hit her, punched her, threw her onto the picnic table and clenched both hands tightly around her throat, bending her back over the table, raging at her in a tightly controlled voice that raised to a bellow. She was turning deep red and choking and I was beyond fear. Beyond terror.
Finally, when she was near unconsciousness, he let go and stormed into the house.
He passed us without a glance and went into the sleeping area where his guns were mounted on the wall. He pulled down the .12 gauge shotgun, loaded both barrels and headed back to the front door. He opened the screen door all the way and aimed the gun at my mother, who was still gasping for air at the picnic table.
Just as she looked up, sensing movement from his direction, he pulled up, aimed at her head, and fired. KABOOM!
Time stopped. My mother screamed his name, my brothers screamed and began to cry in great, terrified, gulping sobs, and I yelled at my father to stop.
Before she could get away, he aimed again, and pulled the trigger. KABOOM!
Knowing that he was out of ammunition for the moment, my mother tried to grab us kids and take us with her to walk to the neighbors house to call the police. He very calmly told her that she was more than welcome to get the fuck out, but she was not taking his kids anywhere, and he would kill her if she tried.
With terror on her face, she looked at me and said "take care of the boys, I will be back soon" and with that, she began walking down the hill.
I didn't know what to do next. The boys were crying and hysterical and I could not get them to calm down. Tom looked as if he was afraid to breathe.
"Get outside, but don't go anywhere"
This was said calmly, with dead eyes as he looked at me, standing there, a skinny nine year old with a baby in her arms and a toddler holding her leg.
I was too afraid not to obey, but it was beginning to get a bit dark by this time, and there was nowhere to go, so Tom and I took the babies and went to sit in the car.
After some time the three year old calmed down and began playing quietly in the back seat. The baby cried himself to sleep. None of us had had dinner.
We sat there for hours, occasionally hearing ranting or crashing coming from inside the cabin.
"I will shoot the first cop I see! I will shoot anyone who comes near this cabin! If that bitch sends the cops here I will kill them then myself!" I heard him ranting. I wished he would just pass out. Then we could go inside and I could feed the kids and put them to bed. My arms were tired from holding the baby, so I lay him on the floor by my feet.
Time stopped it seemed, and things got very quiet in the cabin. It got darker and darker until finally at about 10 or 11pm, a patrol car comes up the hill and two police officers get out. They come to the car to check on us and I told them that my father had guns and had threatened to shoot any cops he sees.
The officers took their flashlights and with their guns drawn, approached the cabin quietly and crouched low. I kept waiting to hear the first shot come from the cabin.
As they got close to the cabin, the turned off their lights and called out to my father. No response.
They walked around the cabin looking in windows. I could not watch. I could not keep myself from watching.
Eventually, the officers came back, leading my handcuffed father to their cruiser. They put him in the back, got in the front and drove away without a word to us. They just left us there in the car. A boy of 15, a girl of 9, and two boys aged 3 and 9 months. They left us.
I picked up the baby, Tom picked up my other brother, who had fallen asleep by then, and we carried them into the cabin and put them to bed. Then we sat at the table and waited.
A couple of hours later, my mother came home. I was never so happy and relieved to see another person in my life.
The next morning, my mom drove to town to press charges against my father. She stood before the judge who told her "He has been released. We put him in a cell for the night, and I talked to him this morning. He's sorry for how he behaved and promised never to do it again".
In later years, my mother told me that she just stared at the judge for a moment and then said "He strangled me. He pointed a gun at my head and pulled the trigger. Twice! and you let him go?" At that moment, she knew that nobody would help us. We were on our own.
Later that day as we were working outside, my father walked up the hill, took my mother in the house for a few minutes and then they came outside and started working like nothing had happened the night before.
I wonder if he ever noticed the bruises?
I wonder if he ever noticed the powder burns on her forehead or the singed hair where his shots had come within a hairsbreadth away from killing her?