Payback at Morning Peak Read Free Page A

that’s the word. Anyhow, he’s funny sometimes, right?”
    Quiet for a long time, Pru worried Jubal when she finally spoke. “I’d been picking flowers.” Her voice softened. “I think I was running and calling out to ma. Then, a smell like somebody’s sweat. Is Butternut okay?”
    Jubal didn’t answer. He sat at her side, the arrow jutting out of his left hip, the blood flow fortunately stanched.
    “A man was mean. He did hurtful things.” Her voice began to fade. “I want ma. Please get her.”
    He wished he could.
    Pru raised her clenched fists and made feeble striking movements into the air. She cried out.
    Jubal once again stroked her forehead. “Try to relax if you can. It will be better soon.” He pushed his arm under her neck and brought her head close to his own. He kissed her softly on the cheek. Her eyes opened wide.
    “I love my brother Jubal. He’s funny and kind.…”
    Then she was gone.

TWO
    “We should split up, go our separate ways. There’s gonna be a price to pay when the law finds out about this.” Billy Tauson stood by the burnt farmhouse, his prematurely gray hair in contrast to bits of charred embers clinging on his dark tailored jacket. “Dammit all to hell. I didn’t mean for this to get all crazy. Where in Christ’s sake is Wetherford?”
    The men crowded about, tending to a young wounded cowboy.
    “How you feeling, Ty?” one of them asked.
    “Poorly. My vision’s gone all jiggled. I need something for the hurt. It’s getting me down.”
    The men glanced at one another, pretty sure the youngest of their hearty band wouldn’t see another sunrise.
    This whole plan had been a debacle from the beginning. Tauson had promised his group of misfits a hearty supper in town and a night of drinking if they wouldaccompany him out to his former ranch and scare the devil out of what he described as “the new tenants.”
    It had gone all wrong. Instead of hollering and frightening the folks when they arrived, the first thing rowdy Pete Wetherford did was ride down the older man of the farm as he came out of the barn. As the fellow lay on the ground trying to catch his breath, Wetherford tied the man’s arms above his head, tossing the end of his lariat over the corbel above the hayloft door. Laughing, he passed the rope around his saddle horn and spurred his horse forward, sending the farmer into the air, kicking and thrashing.
    Billy Tauson tried to settle everyone down, but Wetherford’s actions had driven the mob wild, and they soon lit the farmhouse ablaze. The woman, Bea, was trapped in a small outbuilding, where Wetherford raped and beat her, then left her begging on hands and knees for mercy as she succumbed to the pleasure of his friends.
    Then the shooting from the forest. Tauson had ducked behind a fallen oak. “Whoever that bastard is, he’s gotta be stopped. Wetherford, you and your brother Al circle ‘round to that fellow’s left flank.”
    Pete looked over his shoulder at Billy. “How’s about you and your shot-to-hell cousin Ty kiss my skinny behind?” He snorted at his own remark. “It’s that brat bastard son of the farmer. I’m fixing to just lie here and wait the little prick out. Okay, Mr. Boss Man?”
    Billy Tauson sucked on his teeth, wishing he had the huevos to call Pete Wetherford out. But for now, he’d wait.
    A few random shots came from the woods, and then nothing for nearly an hour.
    When Tauson had finally called out that “the little shit skedaddled,” there began an onslaught of arguing back and forth on whether to pursue him, but when things finally settled, the men broke out their jugs of rotgut whiskey and began to get even more drunk.
    “Who was that damn billy goat?” one of the men called out. “He sure as hell knew how to handle that rifle.”
    “Never mind about that little bastard,” Tauson said, “where’s that varmint Wetherford?”
    “I’m a Wetherford,” said Pete’s brother Al, “and I resent your talking like