Winchester 1886 by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2014-12-29T05:00:00+00:00

“That snake . . .” Peggy still heard that poor girl’s wail. “He was like the devil.”

Suddenly, she was back from La Crosse, and again inside this perdition that her husband called a home. She watched him stoking the fire, bringing it back to life, busying himself to heat up yesterday’s leftover coffee and corn pone. Another great breakfast. Coffee thick as tar, and no honey for the crumbling bread that tasted as if he had used more salt than cornmeal.

That snake . . . he was like the devil.

Peggy stared straight ahead and knew that she had made a horrible mistake. This home was under the earth. Well, practically. No other person lived anywhere close. Her husband’s eyes were like diamonds, like the rattlesnake’s. They had mesmerized her, tricked her. His hands . . . not hands. Cloven hoofs. So were his feet. She could really see . . . now that he had removed his boots. His socks were so filthy and full of holes . . . yes, she could see that his feet were likewise cloven hoofs. Why, she could see the tail, the horns, and the pointed ears. She looked at the rifle, but it was no rifle. It was a pitchfork.

Matt Crabbe was the devil. He was after her soul.

“You hungry?” he asked. “Sun’ll be up in a half hour. Might as well start our day.”

Start our day. Another day . . . that lasted an eternity. Another day of wind and dirt. Another day in hell. “I’m not hungry,” she managed to say.

“Got to eat.” He slid the coffee pot onto the grate over the hot coals in the fireplace.

A kitchen. Without an oven.

A home. Without a window.

A husband. Without a soul.

She moved to the table, sat down.

He did not put the bread into the Dutch oven, just pushed the awful stuff into a skillet and set it on the grate next to the pot. “I’ll fix you somethin’ then I gots to find us some game. That norther left a coat of ice an inch or two thick outside, but I warrant I should find some buck near ’bouts.” He gestured at the pitchfork, which had transformed again into that hideous rifle.

Somehow, she managed to eat, and even wash down the horrible bread with black coffee. She wondered if Lucifer were trying to poison her.

He reached over with his hoof-hands and patted her hand that lay flat on the table by her plate. “I know it’s tough. Takes some gettin’ used to. But this is gonna be a good place for us. Got water. Good farmland, I’m thinkin’. Don’t look like much right now, but it will. We won’t always be livin’ in this soddy. Don’t you fret none ’bout that. Just got to clear the field first, plant some crops, get us some money. And I’m thinkin’ that I might could set some traps along that creek. Sell us some skins in town. No, Miss Peggy, by the time our kids are maybe seven, eight years old, we’ll have us a fine, fine place.

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