him on the back.
Grandpa raised his pistol, but couldnât shoot because the truck was directly in line between him and the front porch.
I came off the cab, running downhill until my momentum threw me off balance and I knew I was gonna fall. Instead of landing flat on my face, I tucked a shoulder and rolled with it, coming back onto my feet and passing Grandpa in an instant.
He had his pistol pointed and was hollerinâ for Miss Becky to run. âTop! Stay out of the way!â I heard his feet pounding behind me, but much slower and heavier.
I was through the open gate when Miss Becky shoved the guy away, but she didnât run, and she didnât let go, neither. Thatâs when I saw she wasnât fighting, but hugging somebody. I slid to a stop and waved my hands. âGrandpa! Donât shoot!â
He heard me and lowered the .38, his face was white as a sheet. âWhat?â
âThey ainât fighting! Theyâre hugginâ!â
âWell, who is it then?â
The guy looked our way and I started hollering too.
It was my best friend, Mark Lightfoot.
Chapter Ten
The Wraith couldnât help it. It was dangerous, but he rode past Ned Parkerâs house and glanced up the drive to see a truck backed into the barn and a ratty-assed International pickup parked near the house. The glimpse didnât last long and he was past. Less than a hundred yards down the road, he squinted toward Cody Parkerâs house and felt a familiar ache.
***
One day Mark Lightfoot was living in an unpainted house tucked in the woods not far from Grant, Oklahoma, eating beans and greens when they had them, and sleeping in the same full-size bed with four other cousins. The next day he found himself standing in front of Ned Parkerâs house.
Heâd lived there before. Ned and Miss Becky took him in after his mother, brothers, and sisters were murdered in a sharecropperâs shack not far from the Parkersâ farmhouse. Until that night when his crazy daddy burst in with an axe, his life had been one bad patch after the other.
His dad was eventually captured, charged, and convicted of the horrific murders. Mark stayed with the family for the next several weeks and came to understand the Parkers were his dream family. When Ned and Miss Becky offered to let him live with them, he thought his life had finally taken a turn for the better.
It was the time of the Skinner, when folks locked their doors at night and slept with guns next to the bed in case the lunatic that roamed the darkness decided it was their time to bleed. Even then, Mark felt safe, because his informally adopted grandfather, Constable Ned Parker, could take care of anything.
The dream disappeared in an instant when relatives Mark didnât know he had, showed up one day in a ragged sedan to tell him who they were and that he was going to live with them in Oklahoma. There wasnât anything Ned and Miss Becky could do about it. The law was on his Aunt Tillieâs side.
She looked like his mama, but of course sisters always favored. She lived with a shiftless sharecropper named Grover and it was like living with his mother all over again. Grover didnât do much more than loaf around the house smoking or chewing cotton bowl twist, and working only when Tillie drove him away from their leaning shack of a house to earn a few dollars for beans, beer, and more cigarettes.
Eleven kids lived under one roof and Mark fell exactly in the middle of his new family. They pretty much ignored the youngster most of the time. Every child had a job. The older kids worked the fields in season, or hauled hay, or did odd jobs whenever they came available. The younger kids had chores around the hardscrabble farm, from hoeing, to feeding chickens and gathering eggs, to cutting wood for the stove. There was no electricity in the house, and the only light at night came from coal oil lamps.
Mark found he had a knack for milking. It was
Grandpa raised his pistol, but couldnât shoot because the truck was directly in line between him and the front porch.
I came off the cab, running downhill until my momentum threw me off balance and I knew I was gonna fall. Instead of landing flat on my face, I tucked a shoulder and rolled with it, coming back onto my feet and passing Grandpa in an instant.
He had his pistol pointed and was hollerinâ for Miss Becky to run. âTop! Stay out of the way!â I heard his feet pounding behind me, but much slower and heavier.
I was through the open gate when Miss Becky shoved the guy away, but she didnât run, and she didnât let go, neither. Thatâs when I saw she wasnât fighting, but hugging somebody. I slid to a stop and waved my hands. âGrandpa! Donât shoot!â
He heard me and lowered the .38, his face was white as a sheet. âWhat?â
âThey ainât fighting! Theyâre hugginâ!â
âWell, who is it then?â
The guy looked our way and I started hollering too.
It was my best friend, Mark Lightfoot.
Chapter Ten
The Wraith couldnât help it. It was dangerous, but he rode past Ned Parkerâs house and glanced up the drive to see a truck backed into the barn and a ratty-assed International pickup parked near the house. The glimpse didnât last long and he was past. Less than a hundred yards down the road, he squinted toward Cody Parkerâs house and felt a familiar ache.
***
One day Mark Lightfoot was living in an unpainted house tucked in the woods not far from Grant, Oklahoma, eating beans and greens when they had them, and sleeping in the same full-size bed with four other cousins. The next day he found himself standing in front of Ned Parkerâs house.
Heâd lived there before. Ned and Miss Becky took him in after his mother, brothers, and sisters were murdered in a sharecropperâs shack not far from the Parkersâ farmhouse. Until that night when his crazy daddy burst in with an axe, his life had been one bad patch after the other.
His dad was eventually captured, charged, and convicted of the horrific murders. Mark stayed with the family for the next several weeks and came to understand the Parkers were his dream family. When Ned and Miss Becky offered to let him live with them, he thought his life had finally taken a turn for the better.
It was the time of the Skinner, when folks locked their doors at night and slept with guns next to the bed in case the lunatic that roamed the darkness decided it was their time to bleed. Even then, Mark felt safe, because his informally adopted grandfather, Constable Ned Parker, could take care of anything.
The dream disappeared in an instant when relatives Mark didnât know he had, showed up one day in a ragged sedan to tell him who they were and that he was going to live with them in Oklahoma. There wasnât anything Ned and Miss Becky could do about it. The law was on his Aunt Tillieâs side.
She looked like his mama, but of course sisters always favored. She lived with a shiftless sharecropper named Grover and it was like living with his mother all over again. Grover didnât do much more than loaf around the house smoking or chewing cotton bowl twist, and working only when Tillie drove him away from their leaning shack of a house to earn a few dollars for beans, beer, and more cigarettes.
Eleven kids lived under one roof and Mark fell exactly in the middle of his new family. They pretty much ignored the youngster most of the time. Every child had a job. The older kids worked the fields in season, or hauled hay, or did odd jobs whenever they came available. The younger kids had chores around the hardscrabble farm, from hoeing, to feeding chickens and gathering eggs, to cutting wood for the stove. There was no electricity in the house, and the only light at night came from coal oil lamps.
Mark found he had a knack for milking. It was
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