Thing With Feathers (9781616634704) by Anne Sweazy-kulju Page B

But his son was happy, and she seemed to be happy in his company. There wasn’t much more that Wyatt could have hoped for.
    Preacher Bowman could only watch as his daughter, his wife, swelling with his son, conversed with her father-in-law. If there was one man in the whole valley who could ruin Bowman, it was Wyatt Marshall. No one had more money or inspired more respect than he. Whatever Wyatt said would be believed. Preacher Bowman had reason to fear the man.
    Bowman watched as Marshall made his way back to the rooftop. The rafters had been covered with cross boards, and the shake was three quarters to the peak. The preacher had been resting for a spell. It would have looked inappropriate if he rested any longer. He climbed up after Wyatt.
    “Can ya hand me another stack?”
    Wyatt reached with the hand he was using to steady himself and slipped. His feet grappled for the cross boards even before his hands came down to catch him, but to no avail. Wyatt Marshall slipped off the roof. In a desperate grab, he caught a cross board and was holding on to his life with the strength of the last three fingers of his right hand. The hand was turned painfully while the rest of him dangled vertically over the peak of the barn.
    Preacher Bowman had been shadowing Wyatt. He was the only man near when the accident happened. He scurried to the edge of the roof to help the man, grabbing for the outstretched left hand. That secured, the preacher grabbed hold of Wyatt’s right wrist and clenched tightly.
    “What has she told you about me?” he asked Wyatt through clenched teeth.
    “What? Preacher, help me. I…I can’t hang on.”
    “What did the little demon tell you about me? Answer me or so help me I’ll let you drop.”
    Wyatt felt his grip loosening and he struggled to hang on. “Demon? Preacher, I don’t—there’s nothing—ah! Please help me!”
    The preacher searched Wyatt Marshall’s eyes and saw confusion suddenly change to understanding.
    And Wyatt did understand. He had suspected all along that there was some dark secret that only those in the preacher’s house knew of, and probably his son. His imagination would not have allowed him to guess just what that darkness was, until then. But in the flash of an instant, with his life literally hanging in the balance, everything became startlingly clear for Wyatt.
    “‘For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do…’” The preacher let go of Wyatt’s wrist.
    Blair screamed.
    The body of Wyatt Marshall hit the ground with a whump . His legs were twisted in a most gruesome way. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. The men came running from all directions, and everyone was shouting. Blair’s mouth was still open, but she screamed silently. Her head rose up mechanically to look at the perch from which her kindly father-in-law had fallen. Her eyes met a look in her father’s. It was a satisfied look. He’d killed Wyatt Marshall, and he looked satisfied, no, justified. She knew that look so very well. The day turned suddenly cold. Blair fainted.

Chapter 23
    T he body of Wyatt Marshall was laid in the back of a wagon and led to the homestead where Mavis waited. One of the Tjaden boys ran the entire distance to tell her there had been an accident and then cranked up Wyatt’s Model-T in order to fetch a doctor. The nearest one was at least an hour’s ride away, in Tillamook.
    The lumber wagon pulled up in front of the house. Will and Sean had to restrain their mother by her shoulders from going to see her husband, whose fatal head injury became immediately apparent to those in attendance, the instant he was lifted by his oldest boy. The race to Tillamook would be a futile one. Wyatt Marshall had died instantly. Tiny, bony Mavis Marshall put up a hell of a fight against her two strong sons, but it soon became clear that she had derived most, if not all of her strength, from her husband. When she was told he was already gone, that strength