Liar's Winter by Cindy K. Sproles

Author:Cindy K. Sproles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kregel Publications
Published: 2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

THE DENSE FOREST couldn’t keep the damp spring mist from beneath its foliage. Wet limbs filled with buddin leaves smacked me in the face. The leaves of the past fall covered the trail, makin it slick.

Walton had give me a strong horse, but strength couldn’t help with the slippery, wet leaves. The steed would take two steps and slide, groanin and steppin again. Walton was right when he said the path was weak.

I thought the hidden trail from Edna’s to the shack was hard. This one climbed the hard side of the mountain—so thin that at times my shoulder would scrape the side of the bank.

I patted the horse. “Come on, boy. Don’t you lean to the left. We’ll both tumble off this ridge.” I tried not to look down.

The mountains are deceptive. Beautiful in one breath, but all the glory, all the beauty of touchin the heavens and kissin the clouds as they pass is dangerous. Even treacherous.

We crested the first ridge and a small clearing came into sight. I shaded my eyes, blockin the sun enough to see the next rise in the mountain. In the distance, I could see the gap openin into sky, and the second mountain Walton described. It looked so far away. He’d said I’d know it when I saw it. I reckoned that must be it. For a minute I wondered if the mountain that laid ahead was Thunder Mountain. I had to trust Walton wouldn’t guide me wrong.

“You need a rest, boy.” I laid my head against the animal’s neck. His heartbeat pounded in my ear.

“I don’t reckon we know your name.” I slid off the saddle and led the horse to a small spring that bubbled from the ground. “Get yourself a drink. I’m of the mind you deserve it.”

The horse sniffed at the water then began to swirl his tongue in the clear puddle.

His wasn’t the only heart that was racin. Mine felt it would rip through my chest.

It’s funny what fear does to a body. Your mouth dries, heart runs a mile a minute. You shake. Sometimes you lose your water, but for all the times I was afraid as a child, none of that could match up to this.

I ain’t right sure that Momma and Poppy would ever know the fear a five-year-old youngin had when left with a rope tied around her waist. Left alone to wonder what banged in the night on the mountains.

I’d been scared witless.

The longer I was away from Poppy and Momma, the more my eyes opened. And though I can’t say they ever laid a hand to hurt me, there was more ways of meanness than just layin an ill hand on a soul.

In the weeks I’d been with Edna, I’d felt safer than I had my whole nineteen years. I still wrestled with the fact that Momma and Poppy raised me. I loved them, but hated them in the same breath. And Gerald, there was nothin right or kind about him after Momma lost that baby.

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