An Undisturbed Peace Read Online Free PDF Page A

snorted. He sped up but shortened his step. He pulled against the reins ’til Abe thought his arms would leave their sockets.
    He should have listened to the horse as O’Hanlon instructed him. Instead, he kept up the struggle. The inevitable moment came when he lost the battle. Just inside the edge of the woods, Hart broke into a gallop. Abe lost control completely. Hart raised his head, nostrils flared. He had a mad look in his eye. He was entirely to himself and the peddler an annoyance he ignored. Abe flopped about on his back as bothersome to the horse as a cloud of gnats.
    Abe was terrified. If he fell off at that pace, he might die. He lost his reins and clung for dear life to the front edge of the saddle. Hart galloped on without concern for him. The two knocked against branch and brush. Some of the wares they carried came loose and flew through the air. Tin cups and pans banged into tree trunks, china plates smashed against rocks.
    Oh, they made a terrible racket. All of nature tried to get out of their way. Birds flew from the trees. Rabbits leapt through the grass. Abe heard larger things, he knew not what, bound off, throwing clods of dirt into the air, making odd thuds. Then, suddenly, without warning, Hart stopped short. Abe shot from his saddle like a cannonball, landing at the foot of a grandfather oak. He lay on the ground, breathing heavily, thanking God he hadn’t crashed into it. The trunk would have cracked his spine. After checking his limbs—it was a miracle nothing broke—he got up, bleeding from his arms, his thighs, and the back of his head. Hart, meanwhile, had slunk under the cover of a stand of trees just behind him. His ears were splayed out at the sides, listening, waiting, and then Abe heard what kept Hart from the clearing all that time, what stopped him short, the thing he knew that Abe did not.
    Screams. Horrid, bloodcurdling screams. The screams of women, and, he judged, children. Many of them. Out of nowhere, a stiff breeze came up and then he could smell what Hart smelled earlier. The iron scent of blood, rivers of it, he was sure, because the scent was strong and whatever its source, whatever mayhem was happening, it was too far away for him to witness with his eyes. He had only his ears and his nose, which next caught the scent of smoke, the burning of grass and wood and he didn’t dare think what else, but it was something stinging and sour. All he knew for certain was that hell lay ahead and so he did what was reasonable.
    He fled. He mounted, dug his heels into Hart’s side, and loosed his reins. The horse didn’t need a second prod. He bolted deep into the wilderness. Once they stopped, miles later, Abe took out his map and realized that again, he was impossibly lost. He hadn’t a clue where they were or how far off the map’s route they’d got. All he knew was that they’d run a long time until they were well free of the screaming, the blood, and the smoke.
    It was night, but he was afraid to sleep. He tried to determine from the stars where Marian was and headed in what he prayed was the right direction. Sometime in the night, he rested Hart by a place where he could drink. Later, he fed him what grain he had left. He would have rested longer but the horse pulled his head up again. His ears twitched. He started to prance. Abe understood he had to mount him straightaway and ride wherever the horse judged best because again the beast heard danger that he did not.
    After a time, clouds covered the moon and the stars. The sky went dark and he could not see much before them. A low-hanging branch jostled him. His seat went wrong, which tottered the horse. They tumbled down a steep slope of rocks, ripping their flesh ’til both bled freely, but then once more they heard horsemen and wagon wheels and weeping. They were pursued by demons no matter what direction they chose. There was nothing to do but rise and flee from where they had