Payback at Morning Peak Read Online Free PDF Page B

before, Jube. It’s a small-caliber weapon but still very deadly.”
    “A firearm is only as good as the brain of the person holding it. Right, Pa?”
    “You remembered my little quote, son,” he said with a laugh. “But let’s see what else we can come up with today that might hold you in good stead these coming years.”
    Walking deep into the woods, the elder Jubal Young taught his son the finer points of riflery. He finished by saying, “If you’ve learned anything, let it be primarily this. Never, ever, point this weapon at a human being. You hear me? Even in jest.”
    Jubal still remembered his father’s final words that day. He thought it ironic that the one thing the older man had warned against had come to pass. When Jubal hadaimed at a human being, it had not been in jest, it had been in a threatening manner, a terrible deadly moment.
    He would never be free of it.
    Holding tightly to his left side, Jubal raised himself to a seated position. He had drifted off again. The rain had stopped and now a briskness spiked the air, smelling of pine and damp grass. He needed food, not having eaten since the previous day, while on his hunt. He remembered the smoked meat his mother had wrapped in old newsprint, along with a chunk of sourdough bread, and felt a lump rise in his throat. He caught himself and made a vow never to cry again, then immediately realized that making a number of promises to himself didn’t change his predicament.
    Though his family was gone, he was alive and in good health, except for a crusted wound on his forehead and a couple of jagged holes in his side that appeared to be mending well. Jubal felt better for the moment, having stated to himself a few simple facts. He smiled, thinking about something his pa had said. A person has to take oneself to the woodshed from time to time. You got to look inside, tell the truth to yourself. He bundled Pru’s body into his arms and edged out of his damp shelter.
    Jubal felt no pain on his trip down Morning Peak. Only a quiet sensation in his hip. Pru felt light, like she was a part of him.
    The charred remains of the family barn lay in the distance, the house and front yard bordered by a copse of singed cottonwood and ponderosa. Jubal sat down behind a large boulder and took it all in.
    As he poked his way through the damp forest, a small strawberry bush yielded a handful of bitterly unique fruit. It reminded him of Pru and ma making a tart strawberry jelly that he so loved. It took nearly the entire morning to make his way to the valley floor. He paused occasionally, listening for sounds of the men, but felt they would have no need to return, since they had already ravaged everything in sight.
    Still, he waited, listening to the sounds of the mountain, the whispered leaves and occasional high-pitched calls of the ravens. Young’s Valley seemed at peace.
    As he approached the homestead, something like music came across his ears. He hesitated, listening. It drifted from an area of the house hidden, from where he stood, by a stand of large pines, then waned. Faint lilting sounds hung in the air. A strong breeze moved the branches of the surrounding trees, and he realized he was listening to his mother’s wind chimes, still hanging on what was left of the front porch.
    “Jube, what have you done, dear?” Jubal’s ma said to his pa.
    “Oh, it’s nothing, really. Just a poor copy of a thing I saw hanging in McNeil’s store. I was going to buy it, but I thought we could use the money best on bacon and salt.”
    Jubal’s father had made the chimes from broken glass, horseshoe nails, and long strands of rawhide. He had hung a worn-out rim from his wife’s small garden wheelbarrow horizontally, then strung the glass and hardware with bits of baling wire.
    She loved it.
    “I’d wondered where my long-lost thimble went.” She looked closely at the hanging apparatus.
    Pru giggled.
    Bea continued, “Hmmm, and there’s the other half of those broken