Free Angels Watching Over Me (Shenandoah Sisters Book #1) by Michael Phillips Page B

deafening.
    I dropped my water bucket and ran toward the quarter. But about halfway back I stopped and hid behind a tree. Whatever was going on, it was clear it wouldn’t do a girl like me a bit of good to run out into the middle of it.
    What I saw from behind the tree filled me with more terror than I’d ever felt before or since. If I hadn’t been wide awake, and known I was awake, I’d have figured it for a nightmare. It was as grisly as the worst nightmare you could imagine.
    The riders were shooting and trampling everybody and knocking everything over and riding around recklessly with their horses kicking and rearing all over the place. They were shouting out horrible curses, and when I think back on it now, I figure they were taking out their anger toward the North and Mr. Lincoln on this little group of slaves, like we were the ones who had caused it all. The horsemen—and I later found out there were fourteen of them—were laughing and cussing like they were enjoying it.
    What kind of men would do that? I’ve been asking myself that all my life. What kind of people actually enjoy hurting others? I can’t think of anything to call them but savage as a meat ax, just plumb evil. If ever there’s a day of reckoning when all the things everybody’s done gets put right by God, then bad men like that will surely face some horrible punishment for such awful deeds. Seeing what I saw that day sure made me a believer in hell, because no hell could be too bad for men who could do what they did.
    At the time I was too stunned by what I was seeing to hate. But hatred would rise up in my heart soon enough. And it was a hatred I didn’t feel guilty for either. They were the kind of men who did evil that oughta be hated.
    They wore shabby, dirty gray uniforms and looked scraggly and mean. Children were screaming and running every which way, and chickens and pigs in their pens were cackling and squawking. Dust was flying about, and I reckon blood was already mixed with it all over the ground. But from where I was, I couldn’t see that yet.
    Then my grandpapa came running out of the house with the master’s shotgun that was kept there in case of trouble. I saw the fire explode out of the end of the barrel, and the sound ricocheted through all the commotion. One of the riders tumbled off his horse with the side of his face blown off. The next instant a dozen shots followed, and my poor grandpapa was jerked to the side with the bullets and then fell with half a dozen of them through his heart and head. I was terrified and I could not have moved if my life depended on it.
    One of the riders spun his horse around, waving his pistol in the air, trampling over Grandpapa’s body with the horse’s hooves, then turned and shot the body two or three more times where it lay. It seemed to incite the rest of them all the more. They went wild with rage. The man waving the pistol let out a great laugh, then tore off in a huge circle around the place, shooting in a frenzy.
    Then I realized he was riding straight toward me!
    I was paralyzed. I couldn’t even breathe.
    It was just an instant, but as he came riding in my direction, yelling wildly and with that evil fire in his eye, I looked into that face and knew I’d never forget it as long as I lived.
    He hadn’t shaved in a while. His whiskers were kind of reddish, though a dirty gray army hat covered up the hair on his head. He had a thick moustache, though not the kind that spin out into a point like some white men’s. But the eyes are what I remember most. I wasn’t close enough to see what color they were. But they were wide, so that the white went all around the inside part, and seemed to be flashing with fire itself. The only way I know to describe them is to say they were wicked eyes.
    The next moment my wits came back to me. What was I doing staring at him! Did I want him to shoot me in the head too!
    Fearing I was about to be a goner, I shrunk behind the tree trunk, sucking