Meadowlarks by Thomas Holladay (chapter books to read to 5 year olds TXT) 📕

Jason climbed onto the high ridge of a giant tree root, examining the vertical ridges and deep valleys in the tree’s bark, looking for a good spot and cut into it. The bark felt soft and should be easy to carve. It took only a minute to carve a clean looking ‘J’ already starting on the ‘A’.

“What do you think you’re doing, young man?” The vicar grabbed Jason’s wrist and lifted him away from the tree. “Give me that.” He took Jason’s knife and stared at it for a long time, like a poisonous snake or something. “These trees do not belong to us, and we don’t go around damaging what doesn’t belong to us. Not up here, we don’t.”

The twins and all the other kids had vanished.

“Oh, Jason.” Mom sounded apologetic again, looking like she might start crying or something. “How could you?”

Good grief. 

Jason stared up at the vicar. “I know these trees don’t belong to you. They belong to me, me and my mom.”

The vicar blinked like crazy, maybe trying to find something in his head to say. After a moment, he grinned and said, “Yes, well, I guess they do at that.” He let go of Jason’s wrist and returned the knife. He shook his head, frowned, and spun away. He stopped cold and looked across the field at the twins.

They stood close to their parents, looking stupid.

Jim Embry shrugged nervously and smiled at Jason.

The sheriff looked up at the sky.

The afternoon sun blinked through trees at the western ridgeline. He pulled Jim Embry’s arm and both men walked toward the parking lot.

Embry’s wife and twins followed close behind.

JOHN CROW NEVER STAYED for their monthly pot-luck. Some of them treated him like an unwanted outsider. He didn’t much care for the white man’s culture anyway. On nice days like this, he liked the walk into the village and back, following one of the many deer trails through the forest, keeping in shape, staying limber. It had been quicker before his horse up and died, his only real friend since that night ten years ago, since J.J. left, since Mary Lou died, since Kidro fired him.

John Crow had grown accustomed to his solitary life, no trouble at all. The white man’s culture was filled with gossiping women and scheming men, nothing of interest to John Crow.

These new Potters seemed different than the rest. The woman seemed much like Mary Lou, maybe why J.J. married her. The boy was very much like his father. He appreciated the way the boy had smiled at him in church. His life had purpose again, working for these new Potters. Maybe he’d live another fifty years.

This time of the year, deer were coming down. He'd already seen some signs. A taste of deer meat would be welcome.

Kidro had been the only man in the valley to ever shoot deer with a rifle. Everybody else used bow and arrow, only shooting them with a rifle if they'd been wounded and were suffering. Most folks hit their mark with the first arrow.

The Ralstons used a military crossbow but the others, those who hunted deer, they all used longbows and arrows made by Willis Donner. Olen Jacobsen brought the lemonwood all the way up from Oxnard.

John Crow sure liked his Willis Donner bow, made custom to fit his size. The others probably liked theirs too. The local kids learned to use a bow and arrow in school, starting with which eye was dominant. Willis made them different, right-handed or left. The valley's local team went to the state archery finals every year, the only real competitive sport they knew.

4-H was outside the school and more individual. This valley’s ranchers always showed well at the county fair down in Sonora, livestock or horseback.

John and Willis would have young Jason in those competitions by next year or the year after.

John left the deer trail in late afternoon and followed his own well worn path toward home, only a couple hundred yards, already scenting the welcome smell of rabbit stew.

He’d left his door open for air and that raccoon had come inside again. He kicked at it, chasing it out, set his Bible on a window ledge and dished up supper, rabbit stew over two slices of sourdough bread. He sat on his front steps to eat, watching the shadow line climb the eastern wall of the valley. A nice buck stood down in the trees near the stream. It watched him eat.

Too late for hunting. 

Time to prepare.

He finished eating, went inside to clean up and darkness crept in. He closed and barred his heavy oak door, closed and barred the window shutters and lit the lamp. He picked up his Bible and turned down onto the carpeted sand floor of his main room. He set the Bible on the mantle, grabbed the box of wooden matches and knelt to light the fire.

The sky had been clear all day. It would be a cold night.

He pulled the Bible down from the mantle, knelt before his fireplace and let the book fall open. It opened to the Gospel of John, Chapter Three. He’d read it so many times, it nearly always opened to that page. He read it again, trying to understand. He’d always loved the light, always tried to do what was right.

Who can explain the coming of this night?

Who could explain his need to prepare, his need to call out to Jesus.

His spirit cried out to all the lesser gods of this planet in his need for protection against the dark. Who could explain that?

Not John Crow.

Why did this thing stay here, in this valley? Why didn’t it move on to the next valley? John knew the why of that: This valley belonged to this thing, not to the Potters.

Why had John not been taken before now? Maybe the strength of his barred door and shutters made a difference after all. Maybe it was the chiseled etching on the door.

Why