Page 1 of The Mountain Man's Retribution

Chapter One

FAWN

Smoke fills my nostrils, acrid and pungent.

Oh, God, he’s finally done it …

Big Man has fallen asleep drunk in bed, smoking his pipe, and set the cabin on fire.

Locked in the root cellar beneath the floorboards, I lie curled in a tight ball, my stomach roiling. He put me here frantically, his devil stronger than normal. Too powerful to stand the sight of me.

Anger overtakes me, more potent than despair or even sorrow. Because of his fleshly weaknesses, I will burn alive in the cool dirt beneath the homestead.

Unless I act quickly and decisively …

But how? Never has life demanded either of these from me.

Patting a folded stack of four pages in the right-hand pocket of my green jacket that I stole long ago from his books, I breathe shallowly, noxious fumes constricting my throat and filling the crawl space as I cough, fighting for fresh air.

You can do this, Fawn. You must do this.

Big Man’s root cellar is dirty, dank, and shallow, barely dug out enough to hold me for punishment. Now, I use the shape of the earthwork to my advantage, maneuvering my body to kickat the double doors locking me inside. Usually, he keeps them tightly secured with a chain wrapped around the handles several times.

But in his inebriated state, I never heard the familiar clink of metal or the grating sounds of the key in the lock. He’s jammed something between the handles to hold them shut. Maybe a stick? Or the handle of a hammer?

I scream and kick violently against the doors, waiting for Big Man to come running outside, finally awakened to the greedy flames. But an eerie silence veils the homestead, broken solely by the all-consuming hiss of destruction. Roaring, ravenous, unstoppable—ready to steal the air from my sod prison.

I batter the doors again and again, frantic for escape. Determined to break free from my dark entombment. I will not burn with Big Man. I refuse. He’s stolen everything from me for as long as I can remember—my family, my life, my identity, my name, my future. It ends now. Here.

With each frantic kick, the doors spring a little further apart. Whatever holds them shut is moving, shifting, and jarring loose at each blow from my feet. Smoke and heat lick at my prison, doubling down my urgency. I’m out of time.

Summoning all my force, I slam my feet into the wood again, and the doors gape. Just enough for me to shimmy through. I take great gulps of the night’s fresh air, clinging close to the dewy ground.

Freedom hangs in front of me, ripe like forest fruit. I don’t hesitate, knowing this has never happened in nearly two decades. I won’t wait that long for a second shot. Still, anxiety gnaws at me. Never have I lived outside of the confines of the prison Big Man made for me so many years past. If I stay, however, I’ll face the flames or far worse …

Long ago, Big Man repented of the sin that brought me here—kidnapping. The abduction happened so many years back thatmy memories are vague. Just enough to make me sick with want of what he stole.

Big Man intended to raise me, make me his new wife after the passing of his first. By the time I started bleeding, though, he couldn’t lay a hand on me, convicted by God of the reproach such defilement would bring. But neither would he let me leave, terrified of the earthly punishment awaiting him for his crimes.

So, he kept me, a prisoner, enslaved to daily labor and forbidden from seeing the outside world. The container of his cabin and the scant clear space around it became my entire world, along with ancient books in a dusty old steamer trunk that he allowed me to read on occasion.

But Big Man’s two sons, older than me each by at least a decade, would never show me a similar kindness. I’ve heard them plotting when they think I’m not near, describing how they’ll split me from end to end, drawing out my pain. The townspeople quit looking for me a decade ago. His sons know this, and they mean to use and destroy me without concern, a disposable person whose death will go unnoticed and unpunished.

All men have their devils. That’s why Big Man and I never touched under any circumstances. He worked hard to keep his at bay. But Malaketh and Kael are another story, driven solely by their darker sides, biding their time until they can steal me from Big Man.

Scrambling into the cool air of a mountain night, I look over my shoulder once as flames build, licking the indigo sky, pinpricked by a thousand twinkling stars. Malaketh and Kael’s cabins are down the mountain to the right in the next hollow. All hope will be lost once the fire catches their attention.

Sprinting into the shrouded forest past the tree line in the opposite direction, I vanish into the deep woods. I’ve never been here before. Big Man says bears, wolves, mountain lions, bullmoose, and strange men lurk in the shadows, waiting to devour me in a thousand ways.

I’ll take the gamble, certain of my hopeless fate if I stay. Especially if Big Man is already dead and unable to keep me from his depraved sons.

As my feet thud through the woods toward what scares me nearly as much as Malaketh and Kael, town and civilization, I kick myself silently. I should have closed the cellar doors tightly securing them. Made it look like I died inside.

But it’s too late. I can only hope the entire structure will crumble in on itself, so thoroughly confusing the men that they assume I also died in the flames.

The North Star guides me, and the full moon lights my path as I trample down the mountain at a breakneck pace. Hours pass, my pulse pounding as I push onward, far past any limits I’ve ever reached before, driven by adrenaline and the unthinkable fate that awaits me if I fail.

Breath catching in my throat, I wince at the sharp, stabbing ache digging into my side. Never permitted to travel far, I don’t have natural endurance for running. But I must push myself. There’s no other way.

---