Through Cloud and Sunshine by Dean Hughes

Author:Dean Hughes [Hughes, Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Religion, Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9781609075446
Goodreads: 17929585
Publisher: Deseret Book
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Shortly after Will began to butcher his ox, Jesse arrived. He had managed to buy a plodding old workhorse that he rode bareback. It was a slow means of travel, but at least he didn’t have to make the long trek on foot. Will saw him lead his horse through the gate at the end of the field and then lift the reins from its head and let it go free in the pasture. As Jesse walked closer, Will saw the concerned look on his face. “What’s happened?” Jesse asked. “Is that Billy?”

Will told him what he knew, and Jesse stared at Will in disbelief. “You mean he just shot your ox for no reason?” he asked.

“No, he had a reason. No doubt it was his way of telling me that I might be next.”

Will was looking down the road as he spoke. He had spotted two horsemen riding up from the south. “It’s George Samples,” Oliver said. “Him and his brother.”

The brother was bigger and oilier, with the same sort of dirty beard. George was unable to hide a grim smile as he came near. “Mornin’,” he called. He had stopped his horse on the road beyond the pasture’s sod fence, but he was not more than twenty yards away. “What you doin’ with blood all over yuh like that?”

Will stood up straight and looked at Samples. He knew what he wanted to do. He also knew he couldn’t do it. But he wasn’t going to take any more of the man’s gloating.

“George, you killed my ox. Are you—”

“Wait jist a minute thar, Lewis. Don’t start makin’ accusations. I don’t know nothin’ about killing no ox.” He glanced at his brother, who grinned, showing only two teeth in front.

“What’s next?” Will demanded. “Do you have in mind to kill more? Just tell me what you want from me.”

“I told yuh yesterday what I want. I want yuh to clear out.”

“You, and all the rest of yuh,” the brother said.

It was Oliver who spoke up. “There ain’t no call for all this. You Samples boys don’t have a right to tell people who can live here and who can’t. It’s not right to kill a man’s animals like that.”

“How’s yer ol’ milk cow doin,’ Oliver—and that ol’ team of plow horses? They in good health?”

“Don’t threaten me, George. I’ll have the law on you.”

“An’ here’s what I say. Jack Mormons should be run outa here jist the same as Mormons.”

“Never mind,” Will told Oliver. And then he walked to the fence. “George, what’s your brother’s name?”

“It don’t matter to you,” the brother said.

But George answered. “It’s Blake. Blake Samples. Don’t forget it. He’s a man who keeps his word. He could tote you under one arm, walk all the way to the river—an’ drown you thar.”

“Is it the roadwork you want?”

“What?”

“Do you have enough teams? Could you do the job if the county hired you to do it?”

“I could do it good as you. That’s fer shor.”

“What if I

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