Morgan James - Promise McNeal 01 - Quiet the Dead (28 page)

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Promise McNeal mystery…….
Quiet Killing

1.

“Wake up, Girl. There’s fire on the mountain.”

January McNeal’s plea was a hard whisper on the cold night air. If he had spoken louder the voice would give proof of a lingering Irish lilt, and the soreness of his mouth from the beating delivered by the High Sheriff’s deputy when they threw him in the Perry County jail. But he didn’t speak louder. Not yet. He watched the midnight darkness beyond the window and held the raspy sound deep in his throat, contained by enough force to bend the bars separating him from his home, wife, and child. By that force, that power, he willed his whispered words to travel time and distance until they fell into the ears of the sleeping Reba. “Git the baby and make for the cave. Hit’s fire you smell, Girl. And hit’s coming for you.”

The wind turned, blowing a puff of burning pines into his face and he coughed on the bitter taste. Tears spilled down his face, stinging cuts left by the deputy’s fists. He pressed his body against the iron bars and stretched his right arm into open air. With long fingers extended upward, his voice erupted full, deep, and loud enough to wake the sleeping drunk sharing his cell.

“And the righteous shall know God, and be delivered from their enemies,” he shouted into the wind. “Rise up oh Israel and be delivered!” Lightning bull whipped across the night sky, a cluster of devil claws convulsing along the top of the mountain ridge and illuminating the fire marching up the slope towards his cabin. Thunder and his animal scream exploded behind the lightning, roiling and shaking the very ground where he stood.

“All right.” I heard myself call out, as I fought up from the dream and sat upright in bed. I had heard thunder. There was no thunder outside my house, but an incessant, whooping ear-piercing bark came from just beyond the bedroom window. “Whose dog….” I said aloud, and hit the floor with an angry thud at being awakened from much needed sleep. I opened the shutters for a look into the back yard but didn’t see the barking dog. What I saw was my barn burning like the fires of hell, and my goats, Minnie and Pearl, huddled tightly in a panic at the far right of the small pasture.

Morgan James lives in Western North Carolina with her husband, dogs, cats, goats, and one loud Cockatiel. Like Promise McNeal, she has deep Atlanta roots and an abiding love for its history and people. Look for the next Promise McNeal mystery available soon on Amazon.