Gun Play at Cross Creek Read Online Free PDF Page B

from Texas, he had tried to imagine what it would look like. Now he was looking at it, and he couldn’t believe it. He climbed down from his horse and curled the reins in his hand. Dropping to the ground, he leaned back and watched the clouds overhead. They were so high up, almost as distant as that dream and the time in which he dreamed it. So much had happened since then.
    Part of him wanted to mount up and ride away, to leave the dream behind. The urge to bolt was so powerful, he was afraid to get up, for fear he would act on it. Watching the clouds did little to calm him. He could hear his heart thumping in his chest, a huge, distant drum. It seemed like the ground beneath him vibrated with every beat, rattling his bones and threatening to tear them joint from joint.
    He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he reopened them, a solitary hawk sailed across the sky, its great wings beating twice as it found an air current and started to climb. Then, spotting something, it tucked its wings and fell like a stone. Atwater sat up to watch as the bird plummeted, fanning its wings at the last moment, still falling, talons extended. There was a brief flutter of the great wings, then they settled into a steady stroke as the bird began to climb. Atwater watched the struggle of a small rabbit for a few seconds, then turned away.
    It was the order of things, the way of the world, really, but he didn’t want to watch. When he turned back, the hawk was a small speck far across the valley. He sighed and got to his feet. Keeping a tight grip on the reins, he started to walk downhill. At first, every step was slow, deliberate. He was stalling and he knew it. But he didn’t know any other way to do what he had to do.
    When the land bottomed out, he felt more in control of himself. He steeled into a steady gait, the horse matching him stride for stride, barely tugging on the reins. He angled across the meadow studded with Indian paintbrush and columbine. Bees swarmed around him, diving in toward his face, and he batted them away with his free hand. He was grinning, and it made him feel foolish, but the place was so pretty, he couldn’t help himself, and wouldn’t if he could.
    The tall grass was lush and green, and the fragrance of the blades crushed under his boots swirled in the air around him. At first, he wondered if anyone else felt this way, surrounded by so much beauty and so much vibrant life. Then, realizing how selfish he was being, he wondered that not everyone did feel that way. It was what life was supposed to be, what he had dreamed it could be, before he grew up. Before he knew better. And he was amazed that something deep inside him could still respond so powerfully to something so simple.
    And other memories kept crowding in on him. He remembered back before his son was born, they had just finished the first house. Katie wanted a bath, to celebrate, she said. It was near nightfall, but it was warm, and he had filled a huge cauldron with water from the creek. Then he added a halfdozen pails of hot water heated one by one over the fire.
    He could still see her now, her skin picking up a metallic tint from the sun as it began to set. Her body was perfect, so much softer than the other women he had known, but stronger, too, as if she had bones of steel. And the curves were right where they were supposed to be.
    Standing there naked, her red hair almost a cloak all the way down to the backs of her thighs, turned, one leg bent at the knee as she stepped into the bath, she looked like a golden statue. That moment had frozen in time somehow. It was how he always saw her, all golden and round . . . and perfect. It was how he still saw her.
    Morgan moved toward a broad, shallow stream, stepped in, and, instead of crossing, decided to follow it a way. The water wet his cuffs, but he didn’t care. It was so clear it hurt his eyes to look at the reflected sunlight and the fine white quartz sand glittering