But on the morning of Monday, April 19, 2004, for reasons that his family and friends can only speculate about, Perry Brooks decided to flout the court order, go onto Ames 's property, and bring the bull home himself. He asked his wife, Evelyn, to go along, but she refused. His son-in-law was unavailable. So was Wick Coleman, his son-in-law's uncle, who, like a number of farmers in Caroline, worked a second job on the railroad.
In the end, Brooks recruited Michael Beasley, a farmhand who lived in a trailer on a far corner of Brooks's farm, and Paul Orlett, a retired Marine infantryman and fishing buddy of thirty years. Orlett looked after his two-and-a-half-year-old grandson during the week. Having no one to leave the boy with that morning, Orlett brought him along.
The three men and the child drove over to Holly Hill Farm using a path that ran between the two properties alongside the CSX railroad tracks.They arrived at a paddock where the bull had been penned. Brooks and Beasley got out, and Orlett slid into the driver's seat. He turned the truck around and drove about fifty feet back in the direction from which they'd come.
Brooks was carrying an old, gray stick, about four feet long, that he used to guide his cattle. The plan was that Brooks and Beasley would walk behind the bull and drive it forward, while Orlett would lead the way in the truck.
Brooks and Beasley had just let the bull out of the pen, Beasley testified later, when Ames "pulled up fast in his truck." He was wearing his gun under his suit. He got out of the truck and confronted the men, Beasley told Orlett later, saying:"Put the bull back in the pen." Brooks drew his stick back by his ear in reply, Beasley testified.The entire confrontation lasted no more than ten seconds, he said. Brooks never said a word.
"He didn't get a chance," Beasley said.
Ames opened fire with a pistol. He shot six times, according to Beasley's testimony. The first shot, Beasley said, hit Brooks in the face. It entered Brooks's right cheek, according to the coroner, hitting his palate and exiting left, between his upper and lower jaw. Five more shots followed, hitting Brooks in the torso, piercing his heart and spinal cord.Two bullets hit the back of his upper right arm.
In the moments that followed, according to later court testimony, Ames walked to his truck and put the pistol on the seat beside a Winchester rifle. He picked up his cell phone and made several calls, including one to the sheriff 's department, which in turn notified the state police.When the law arrived, Ames said only this: "I'm not making a statement. He's over there if you want to try to help him."
What Would You Have Done?
That is the question that has rattled around Bowling Green in the year since the shooting. What would you have done, if you'd gone to bed one night master of your domain and awakened the next morning to find a registered letter in the mailbox, informing you that you owed $45,000 to pay for your neighbor's new fence?
And if you did not pay up, your neighbor was entitled to slap a lien on your property. This, even though your neighbor had three times your acreage and many times your cattle. And one more thing: Your neighbor was a lawyer, which meant that you would be fighting on his battlefield. (During the feud, Ames often served as his own attorney.)
Where was the justice? According to his friends, and his daughter Kim Brooks, that's what Perry Brooks wanted to know.
Brooks's instinct was to fight. His opening volley was a handwritten note, formal in tone, dated January 25, 1989. "Dear Sir: In response to your letter ofJan. 3, at the present time my finances do not permit me to participate in the fencing project. However, at some future date, if the need for the fence arises, I will be more than glad to participate. Sincerely yours, O. Perry Brooks."
By 1993, four years into the feud, Brooks's stance had hardened. "Dear Sir," he wrote his neighbor. "I wish to inform you that nobody from holly hill farm [sic] is allowed on my property.This includes you, your wife, your sons or daughters, your farm hands. Anybody associated with you is forbidden." He signed the letter "O. Perry Brooks, owner."
Brooks's friends-Bobby Lakin,Wick Coleman-and others say that at its core, the feud was not so much about money or class differences (though those played a role), but something more intangible and fundamental. It was about respect.
"He didn't treat my father as a human being, as an equal, as someone you would talk to," said Kim Brooks.
During the trial over the disputed boundary line, Perry Brooks was asked if it was true that he had once fired a shotgun in the general direction of John Ames.Yes, Brooks testified. And was it true that he had done so in part to "needle" John Ames? Yes, Brooks said again.And why did he want to do that, Ames 's attorney asked him.
"I think he needed it," Brooks replied. "Let him know somebody else was around besides hisself!"
Perry Brooks and John Ames met, according to Brooks family accounts and court testimony, at a public auction for Holly Hill Farm in June 1985. Holly Hill, a former plantation turned dairy farm, had fallen onto hard times.The auction was not a bankruptcy sale, but the widow of the owner was selling by agreement with the farm's creditors. Farmers around the county were in attendance that day. Ames, visiting from Richmond, approached Brooks to ask if there were any problems with the property. Brooks, Ames testified later, said no.The property was sold to Ames for about $442,000. Ames added the word "Corporation" to the farm name. Farm stationery listed Ames as vice president and his wife as president and treasurer.
According to testimony by both Ames and Brooks, they met again in January 1989 near their shared property line. Brooks had received the registered letter from Ames but had not yet formally replied. They talked about the cost of the fence, fencing materials, and the need to keep their herds separated. At some point, Ames reportedly remarked on the beauty of Brooks's land and said that his own cattle "sure would look pretty on it." The two men dickered. Ames offered to swap the fence bill in exchange for some of Brooks's land. Brooks said no. Brooks suggested Ames just tie in this new fence to the one hundred yards of Brooks's existing fence. Ames said he would agree, but only if they put the deal on paper and filed it at the courthouse. Brooks said no.
Brooks also told his neighbor that Ames 's proposed fence line was in error. It included a 1.87-acre triangle of land that actually belonged to him, Brooks said, by virtue of an old plat drawn up after the Civil War.That map, which used landmarks such as old sycamore stumps and white pine trees, gave him clear possession of that triangle of land, he asserted. In addition, he and the previous owner of Holly Hill Farm had made a handshake deal about the triangle years ago.
No, Ames replied, he had more recent legal surveys showing the land was his.The meeting ended with Brooks storming off, according to testimony.
At least three times in the months that followed, Brooks drove his tractor down to the disputed boundary line and nudged the new fence down, Ames alleged. He picked up posts and even a gate and carted them back to his barn, saying the materials and the new fence were over his property line and so belonged to him. On one of those occasions, Ames called out to him and demanded that he stop. Ames later testified that he had reminded Brooks then that they had talked about fencing the disputed section. Brooks replied, in so many words, that he didn't care.
On another occasion, Brooks showed up at the offending fence line with a single-barrel shotgun.
"What you got there?" Orlett said Ames shouted over to Brooks that day, a query that Brooks heard as a taunt.
"I'll show you," Brooks reportedly called back, and he discharged the shotgun in the air, according to court and other accounts. No one was hit, but Ames was frightened enough to take cover behind a tree, and later contended in a lawsuit that he believed Brooks had been aiming at him and that the incident caused him "severe emotional distress."