Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

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    “Stop yo’ blubberin’ now.” He meant his voice to sound gruff.
    “Papa. It ain’t her fault, it ain’t…” Cleveland spoke on great gulps of air.
    John released his boy and looked around the empty loft.
    “I ain’t meant to hurt yo’ momma. Just lost my head fo’ a minute. Won’t do it again.” He laid both hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Cleveland, you done the job of a man whilst I was away, and I’m feelin’ good ’bout that.” He heard the sobs simmer down in his son’s throat. “But, I’m back home now, and it’s the business of a full-growed man to look after you all. Where’s yo’ momma and the others?”
    Cleveland rubbed his eyes with his shirtsleeve. “I reckon I can’t tell you that.”
    “I can understand that, son.” John sorted it out. Rebecca Thornton. “When you next see yo’ momma, tell her to find me in Lawnover when she get ready. I’ll wait fo’ her there.” He patted Cleveland on the shoulder and walked down the ladder.
     
     
    The pile of white man’s junk lay at the end of the path as John galloped the horse toward the lane. The bile lurched up from his gut, and he yanked on the horse’s reins. He stared down at the debris. The feel of two red-hot pokers burning deep into his eyes would have soothed him more than looking at what was on that stack of goods. John couldn’t recall how he got off the horse, nor how long he’d stood shredding, stomping, tearing, and kicking at the pile when he remembered the matches he carried in his pocket. He struck one and threw it at the mass. When the flames licked too slow at a new patchwork quilt, he tossed in another match. He remounted the horse. The low-burning fire made slow work of the stack. To his satisfaction, the little flames lapped at a woman’s blue serge coat.
    Dawn came into full bloom. He kicked at the horse’s sides to quicken the pace and get away from the nightmare misery of knowing what had happened to his wife in his very own bed. The sour taste of bile rested just at the back of his tongue.
    How could she let this happen? He dug his heels into the horse’s side and snapped the reins. Why didn’t she just kill that cracker herself when he came near her?
    His throat felt sore, raw, from the cries flying out of his mouth. The labored snorts from the horse made their way from his ears into his brain. He eased up on the animal when it nearly stumbled at the fast pace John had urged upon it. His head throbbed with the furnace-red heat of his anger. Something gnawed at him.
    When Alexander McNaughton set his sights on his Annalaura, there was no way for her to win. If she killed him, it wouldn’t be no time before her neck was stretched to a tree. And, if she didn’t, if she let him have his way, well, she was still lost to John.
    As Becky’s cabin loomed into view, the gall puffed out his cheeks until he won the battle to push it back down into his chest. Turning onto Becky’s path, he laid his hand on the pistol tucked under his shirt and in the waistband of his pants. It was the only thing that could keep him calm enough to talk to Annalaura.
     
     
    “Becky, open up this damn do’. I know she in there.” John pounded on the old door until he felt it on the verge of splintering.
    “Get yo’self gone from here, John Welles. You ain’t nowise welcome.” The old voice sounded like it came out of a deep well behind the closed door of the cabin.
    “Becky, it won’t take me no time to kick this damn thing in.” John delivered the first blow with his foot and the old wood showed the beginnings of a faint, jagged crack. He readied his boot for the second assault when the door creaked open no more than two inches. He couldn’t make out Becky’s face in the gloomy slit of an opening.
    “I’m tellin’ you fo’ yo’ own good. Get gone from this place.”
    A bandanna still wrapped around Becky’s head made John believe that she had just come in from the outside. He had no time to deal with a crazy old woman. He leaned his shoulder into the door and shoved it open. Once inside, he stopped an instant to adjust his eyes to the dimness, only to feel cold, hard metal pointed between his shoulder blades. Slowly, the specter of Becky coiled around in front of him, holding a blunderbuss of a gun older than John himself. As she moved, she pressed the weapon into his skin, ending up with it dug deep into his chest, right over the heart.
    “I ain’t of a mind to tell you again. You