Free Thing With Feathers (9781616634704) by Anne Sweazy-kulju

there’s some things you don’t know, an’ I can’t tell ya neither. But I have made up my mind on this. She’s not goin’ back to the preacher’s house. I want her to stay here, with us.”
    Stunned, Mavis left the room to fetch some tea for Blair so the men could talk.
    Wyatt Marshall and his youngest son were left standing face-to-face. “Sean, is this what has been laying so heavy on your mind these recent days?”
    “Pa, I can’t talk about it. I made promises.”
    Wyatt bent and retrieved his pipe from the soft fir floorboards. The tobacco had been strewn wide and wild. He plucked at snuff remnants he could find and stuffed them back into the pipe; his shaking hands visibly betrayed strained nerves.
    Sean could see the effect his announcement had on his father—Wyatt Marshall was clearly rattled. Sean bent and swept up what remaining tobacco could be seen into his hand, and poured it into his father’s palm. “I’m sorry, Pa.”
    Wyatt looked into his son’s eyes. “And, Rebecca?”
    “It’s going to be alright, Pa.”
    Wyatt grabbed his son’s hand between his and squeezed. He nodded, but said nothing. There was nothing to say. And yet, he harbored a gnawing worry that a great storm was building on the horizon. He worried for Sean.

    Later that evening an angry mob, lead and incited by the preacher himself, pushed and prodded the music man toward the octopus tree. The eight branches of that particular spruce bent horizontal before reaching for the sky, giving the appearance of an octopus gone belly up. Henry Kellerich tied the noose and heaved it over a strong arm of the tree. He had no weak stomach for the task he set about doing. A German at heart, Kellerich was an advocate of swift, sure justice. He’d seen the girl come into the house with Sean, seen the beauty’s haunted eyes and tear-stained face, her delicate body ravaged by the sick rotter standing too near to him for his liking. Johnny grabbed the man, whose hands had been tied tightly behind him, and shoved him toward the noose. The man stumbled and fell to his knees. He began crying, which only proved to disgust Kellerich all the more.
    “Get up, you pagan,” he jerked the man to his feet and threw the noose around his neck. “It’s time to answer to your maker.”
    He and Johnny pushed the man up into the saddle of Johnny’s horse, Paint, as the township urged the punishment to befall. The music man was wailing. He pleaded for a chance to explain himself but could not be heard above the jeers and insults from the crowd. His eyes searched out Bowman in the midst of the onlookers and he yelled, “The devil tricked me. He made me do it!” Just then, Johnny Arthur slapped his horse’s hind quarters and the rope stretched taught as the horse unseated its rider.
    “Then to the devil with you!” the preacher hollered piously above his parishioners’ cheers as the life blinked out of the music man.

Chapter 18
    April, 1928
    Cloverdale, Oregon
    “I know you don’t care none for the man, Sean. I haven’t asked you about your business, but, son, goin’ to the Justice in the valley when her pa is a preacher? It don’t set right, Sean. People are gonna ask questions.”
    “Well, let them ask their questions. Blair’s never been anywhere outside of Cloverdale, so we’re getting married in the valley and spendin’ our honeymoon there.”
    He pulled the canopy over the Tin Lizzy and snapped it in place. The car was loaded with their things already. Now, with the canopy in place, they would keep dry even if the thunderstorm that was threatening decided to show itself. He just needed to fetch his bride-to-be and they would be ready to leave.
    “Son, I guess there’s no point in stalling about this. It’s time for me to give you some instructions.” Wyatt raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
    “Oh, Pa.” Sean groaned. “You don’t got to. Heck, I been on a farm my whole life. I’ve watched the bulls with the cows