Payback at Morning Peak Read Online Free PDF

sat seemed perilous. He shivered as a cold wind washed over his skin, and he wondered how much of the man’s ranting the others had heard and if they could separate Pete’s frantic pleading with his all-too-telling giveaway of Jubal’s hiding place.
    The men on the other side encouraged Pete’s brother, Al, who had also begun crossing on the log, to ease his way back to safety. Jubal was tempted to give his rifle one last tug for Al, but thought maybe he’d done enough for now. He’d get the others later. He eased the rifle out from between the branch and log and waited for them to move on.

    A wave of thunder rumbled through the canyon, awakening him. Light cold rain blew through the cave’s opening. Jubal had waited nearly an hour after the men left the log bridge before making a move, listening to them argue among themselves until their voices faded in the distance. When he thought they were at least several hundred yards past his cave, he made his way carefully back along the edge of the giant crevasse.
    Now water dripped steadily onto his hair from the cave’s porous ceiling. He rolled over on the damp earth, a dull, insistent pain radiating through his left side. It came rushing back, the events at his log bridge.
    “Jesus, mother of Christ, they both fell. Oh, Christ a-mighty. What in God’s name?” Jubal couldn’t tell who spoke.
    “They’re gone. Al, you did the best you could, leave it be.”
    “Pete was my brother, Billy. What d’you mean, ‘leave it be’?”
    Jubal heard the sound of breaking leaves and twigs as someone walked away.
    “I mean leave it. He was drunker than all hell. Now let’s git.”
    Al groused as he followed Billy and the Indian to a switchback and then proceeded toward Jubal and the rim of the canyon. As they neared, Jubal tried to press himself deeper into the ravine wall.
    “What in God’s name will I tell ma?”
    Tell her that Pete, her beloved son, had just participated in the rape and murder of three innocent people, Albert. Al wasstanding above the log looking back at the ravine where his brother and his friend Jorge had fallen.
    It was all Jubal could do to keep from firing his rifle from below into the man’s groin. The barrel was pointed the right way, his finger poised on the trigger. But the others were close by and would be on him in a second. Jubal waited.
    He would wait as long as it took. Like Edmond Dantès.

FIVE
    Jubal didn’t know how long he slept, whether he was actually rested or if his stupor was due to his current predicament. In any case, he would have to move. He looked around the cave, his sister’s body lying in the leaf-strewn bier, Cotton cuddled into her right arm where he had placed it. He thought on what she had said at the end, about him being kind and funny. In that last moment, she had been thinking of him, and not of herself.
    He thought she, being the person she was, would not have sought revenge, but a sort of salvation for her tormentors. But that was her. He had no such thoughts of salvaging anyone.
    Crawling to the edge of the shelter’s opening, he gazed at a world of spring torrent. Low in the eastern sky, clouds covered the distant mountains as the sun edged through to wake the dark morning. If the renegades werestill looking for him, he should just sit awhile. The rain would have obliterated any tracks left behind. He felt weak.
    Stretching out of the cave’s opening to wash, he looked to the leaden sky and let the water lash his face. Having taken what he thought was his father’s advice to save himself, was he simply trading one immediate hell for a prolonged one?
    The image of his bloodied father swaying on his hellish tether returned. Jubal sat at the cave’s opening, his head buried in his hands.
    “Jube, let’s take a stroll, son.” Jubal, Sr., had the .22 rifle tucked under his arm. “Your continued hounding of me about this firearm has strengthened my resolve to go slow in the releasing of it. I’ve said this