Into the Free Read Online Free Page A

could kill you, Marie. I could.”
    Yanking his blade back behind him, he stands tall and looks down at Mama. She trembles on the ground, tears in her eyes, her breath short and fast, and he spits down into her face. Right in her face.
    Mama closes her eyes. Jack gives her one last hard kick in the side. The sound of a cool watermelon being busted open in the heat of summer, a thick and empty jolt that drains all the sweetness out.
    “You disgust me,” he says. Leaves Mama wadded up in dirt and blood and tears.

     
    When I finally get the guts to move, I close my knife and put it back in my pocket, trading it for a fistful of rocks. Jack starts his truck and I run after him. I throw gravel at the tailgate and scream, “Don’t ever come back! I hate you! I hope you fall off your big fat bull and die!” The words come out like fireworks. It’s not my voice I hear. It’s someone else’s. Someone brave and strong. Someone not afraid of what her own father might do to her.
    He flips the brakes and pops the truck in reverse. I want to run, but I stand right where I am. I rub my fingers over five jagged stones. “God, give me strength,” I pray, thinking of Mama’s stories about David and Goliath.
    Jack jerks his truck back into our little piece of the Suttons’ plantation and jumps from his seat with anger in his eyes. He stomps straight toward me, limping on his bad right knee. His coal-black eyes burn into mine. But, for the first time ever, I don’t look away. I don’t run, either. I stare right back at him and stand my ground.
    What Jack doesn’t know is that this time is different. I’m about to turn ten, and I’ve had enough. This time, I am just as angry as he is. This time, I’m not going to hide. I pull back my throwing arm, take good aim at the man I fear most in the world, and throw the stones right at him. All five at once. I hope to knock out his eyes or bloody his nose or, if prayers be answered, cut a fatal gash across his big mean head. But all five pebbles bounce from Jack’s chest like rainwater, and he doesn’t stop walking for a second, not even when he laughs.
    Instead, he grabs me by the arm and drags me over to Mama. She is struggling to get up from the ground, and he knocks her back down. “Look at her,” he yells at me. “ Look at her, I said! Is this how you want to end up?” She tries to stand and he kicks her down again. I hit him. Punch him as hard as I can. My hand stings and blood rushes to my head. I don’t want him kicking Mama anymore. I keep punching and hitting and screaming and yelling for him to stop.
    My punches don’t hurt him, of course, because he’s Goliath, and I’m only nine, even though I sometimes feel like I’m the only grown-up in the family. The only one who sticks around and doesn’t head off for the rodeo or the valley every time things don’t go my way. Jack laughs and paces back to his truck.
    “Go, then!” I yell. “We don’t want you anyway, you stupid cowboy!”
    A trail of dust unravels behind him as he drives away.

CHAPTER3
     
    The noise of Jack’s truck sands my bones as Mama manages to pick herself up and move to her bed. I stomp back to the puppies with hot blood pumping through my veins. I kick the ground and punch the air. But I refuse, refuse, to cry. Mama does enough of that for the both of us.
    It’s almost dark before I finally calm down enough to sit still. I stay a fair distance from the dog and her puppies. I sing them to sleep with a song I make up about lightning bugs and Jesus. Then I go in to fix egg-salad sandwiches for Mama and me. I figure the last thing she’ll ever want again is a bite of pot roast. Same goes for me. So I set it aside to take out to the stray, and I sweep up the mess left behind from Jack’s latest fit.
    I set out a fresh cup of water on Mama’s bedside table, kiss her good night, and try to smell her strawberry shampoo under the stench of mud and blood in her hair. Then I grab the roast and