Mark of the Hunter Read Free

like he used to. I hope he ain’t holdin’ a grudge against me for givin’ up on chasin’ the man who killed Lottie. I swear, honey, there weren’t no tracks to find on the other side of the river, or I’da sure as hell went after that son of a bitch.”
    â€œI know you woulda, Jesse,” Cindy said. “I’m sure Cord knows that.”
    The dark clouds that lay behind the jagged scar across Cord’s forehead were not enough to hide the deep wounds on the young boy’s brain. Often in his sleep, the horrifying image of his mother’s lifeless body came to haunt him. And the name he had come to despise flashed across his memory even when he was awake—
Levi Creed
. “This here’s Levi Creed,” he remembered his father telling his mother, as casually as if introducing a business associate. He tried to erase the picture of his mother’s body, but he did not try to forget her murderer’s name, for he was determined to avenge his mother’s death someday. Smart enough to realize that he was too young to think of immediate revenge, he contented himself to wait until he was ready before going in search of Creed. He had time. Of that he was certain, for he felt confident that a man like Levi Creed would show up again in the thriving cow towns of Kansas or Nebraska. He would not be that hard to find. In the meantime Cord’s every thought was directed at growing stronger.
    The months turned into years. The changes in the undersized boy for the most part went unnoticed by those seeing him every day until Jesse took a good look at the two boys as they walked toward the house for supper. “You noticed Cord lately?” he asked his mother as she and Cindy set the table. “He’s shootin’ up like a weed. He’s taller than T.G.”
    â€œI noticed,” Nettie replied. She had been aware of the boy’s growth spurt, but had not made mention of it, thinking it best not to, in case T.G. was concerned about it. She had suspected that Cord would eventually develop, even though he was still small at age twelve, for his father was a huge man and his mother was not a small woman. And now it was obvious to her that Cord was going to be a sizable man when he reached his full height—just like his father. The only trait he inherited from the evil man, she prayed.
    The late Horace Anderson’s small parcel of land was easily farmed by the three men of the family, so much so that as time went on, Cord spent a good portion of his time working on the parcel that became his with the death of his mother and father. It was a poor piece of land, evidence of his late father’s lack of knowledge of farming and his reluctance to work for a living. Cord and his mother had done the best they could, which amounted to little more than a vegetable garden and a cornfield. He had no real interest in holding on to the land. It contained too many bad memories. Besides that, he was just biding his time until he felt ready to begin what was likely to be a long, long quest—to find Levi Creed.
    Just after his nineteenth birthday, Cord decided it was time for him to leave his grandmother’s house. T.G., having courted the preacher’s daughter in Moore’s Creek for over a year, finally popped the question, and the young lady said yes. While the family was pleased with the union, it did cause some problems. T.G. naturally planned to build his own house on his grandmother’s farm, but initially, he and his bride would have to move into his grandmother’s house, or his father-in-law’s. And T.G. was not at all favorable toward moving in with the preacher. The problem was solved when Cord announced that he was leaving, making his room available for T.G. and his new wife.
    Nettie was immediately concerned, for she feared the ever-somber, seldom-speaking young man would fare better close to the family that knew him and his tragic past.