What Child Is This

Kurtis Anton

Description

Good and evil battle for dominance in the settling of the Wild West, and a young couple with high hopes become easy targets in this unforgiving new world.
What Child Is This encompasses the definition of grace and mercy, transcending three generations from 1870 to 1945. The story embodies compassion, lost hope, sacrifice, and the choice of life over death. Justice is delivered supernaturally over the many revengeful worthy acts which take place in this story, from beginning to end.
Wyola Everest is a beautiful young woman, in love with a very good young man named Colton Jaminson. They have embarked together on a dream of an amazing future with huge, lifelong plans. On their journey, they are abruptly and unexpectedly thrown into a fight for survival, derived through evil, at the greatest of all costs, their own life self-sacrifice.
Families, friends, and enemies alike, lay claim to both good and evil throughout this historic adventure. Who will win or lose, and at what price? Our story takes us through three generations of a family born through hate and evil, where each character reveals their true heart; not by their actions or words alone, but by way of their sacrifice or tempestuous demons, each residing side by side, living within every man and in every human heart.

Sujets

• Viejo oeste
• American Old West
• Adventure
• Fiction
• Action

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 10 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665728928
• Langue: English

Extrait

WHAT CHILD IS THIS


KURTIS ANTON






Copyright © 2022 Kurtis Anton.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.




Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.


Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-2893-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2891-1 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2892-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022915662



Archway Publishing rev. date: 10/07/2022



CONTENTS
Dedication

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33

Special Thanks
Authors Note
Acknowledgements Of Love And Gratefulness



DEDICATION
To my dearest and most beautiful wife, Holly - I love you now and forevermore. Nothing in my life would have been possible without your unconditional and abounding love!!
To my dearly beloved children, Timothy and Ambrielle. I love you two so very much and long to be a better dad. Forgive me for my past and grace me eternal binding with you.



Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good
—Romans 12:21



1
Late Fall 1871
The blizzard whipped up the huge, glacial-carved valley, propelled by nature’s unyielding power. Blowing from the southwest in restless fury, early winter spread a blasting snowflake curtain, enveloping the surrounding trees and mountainous landscape into a white and gray, oblivious abyss. Whether it was dawn or dusk was impossible to discern in such a storm.
Suddenly a figure emerged through a thick wall of blowing snow into a treeless clearing, fully exposed to the elements. Shrouded in a thick buffalo frock, he strenuously placed one foot in front of the other, moving slowly yet with concentrated determination. A wide-brimmed hat shielded his face from the blast of incoming snow. He might have been the only human for dozens of miles—or so it seemed to him, being so alone and isolated by the snow.
The stranger worked his way across the remote Minaret Vista, high up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, teetering on what looked to be the edge of the world. Pausing for a moment to adjust his grip on something heavy he was dragging behind him, he caught his breath while gazing out across a deep, fog-filled canyon meadow to his right a thousand feet below. The gap revealed an unobstructed view of the devil-toothed mountain range, miles across on the other side of the vast, storm-filled valley.
Peering over the ledge, he tugged and pulled his cargo along the deep, crusty snow. In that instant a gust boiled up from a thousand feet below, just as a stone fell, stirring the fog into a swirling vortex while the powerful force rose and blasted ice particles, peppering his face at the same moment. Shielding his face and quickly looking upward, he observed the jagged mountain range as it quickly faded into the mist of the storm.
A dark and theatrical backdrop loomed high over the mountain saddle he was struggling upon. This bridge perched between two mountain ranges, their peaks standing firm like castle towers in the distance, funneled the wind and elements right through this lower pass where the man labored and then blasted him like there was never going to be a tomorrow.
The steep hardness of the far-off mountains made the tips look less like a range and more like the smooth sheet metal of a giant timber saw turned upside down, the vertical rock pinnacles rising thousands of feet into the sky resembling the teeth of a devil, with the devil’s mouth being the bottom of the dark and foggy valley below.
The man removed his focus from the conditions and continued to trudge his way through the elements. With both arms behind him he awkwardly lugged the heavy, bulky object. Under labored breath he slowly made his way toward a mound of dirt and snow, piled up ahead of him. The air was so cold and thin that with every deep heave of breath he drew in his lungs would petrify, and a broad haze left his lips when breathing out.
The stranger released his death grip on the dark object behind him. It was so frozen that the thud echoed through the unstoppable winds. After pausing for a moment to breathe again he reached out, grasping a shovel stuck in the pile of dirt-and-snow-mixed spoils. As the stormy wind’s gust drove ice particles into his cheeks yet again, he cowered for cover for a brief respite behind his arm, heavily sheathed by his buffalo frock.
Leaning onto the shovel as if it were a cane the man shifted his gaze to the object he had dragged through the snowy wilderness. Crouching down, he restrained his hat from the fierce snowstorm and then grasped the frozen object, rolled it over and revealed the body of a very dead white male.
The dead man’s eyes were frozen wide open, his petrified stare fixated on the snowy sky. His face was completely frozen, with the blood once pumping through his veins having stopped in its tracks, making the face a deep purple and black. Though lifeless, his eyes still showed traces of both shock and terror. In the right temple was a deep crimson hole and dried blood, exhibiting the violence that had befallen this very unfortunate man.
Scanning the corpse before him, the stranger knelt down and began rummaging through the pockets, careful not to recast his gaze on the dead, frozen face as he continued his task. He peeled back layers of clothing—once finely woven textures that had since transformed into a stiff, cardboard-like texture—snapping a coating of ice that had taken its own shape in a frozen state of moisture and blood.
As he opened the outer garment, he peered over a second deadly wound in the chest. From a pocket of the inner garment the stranger retrieved a piece of yellow, folded parchment that appeared to have a bullet hole through the center.
Struggling against the elements and forceful gusts of the relentless wind, he rose and slowly unfolded the document, transforming the one bullet hole into four bullet holes, surrounded by dried, frozen blood and black powder. He could still make out the writing on the paper which read:
WANTED
DEAD or ALIVE
$5000 REWARD
Below the text was a face staring back at him, a sketch almost entirely obscured by the frozen blood, powder burn, and wet, falling snow. He could, however, still see the eyes. They looked as cold and endless as the winter storm that angrily swirled about him. The wind groaned yet again, ripping the paper from his hands and carrying it into the gust as if it were a snowflake.
As the stranger kept looking for more, digging deeper through the dead man’s clothing, he withdrew three large brass keys on a single ring buried deep in the inner pocket of the jacket, an ineffective attempt to remain hidden from prying eyes and hungry fingers. From his crouched position on his knees the stranger raised the keys, taking a focused image in his mind as if they held some kind of potential value.
Cold as it was, he quickly pocketed the keys and unsuccessfully tried to close the dead man’s frozen eyes. Then with a firm and forceful shove he rolled and pushed the corpse over into a shallow pit as it filled with blowing snow. With a muffled thud, the fully frozen body landed faceup in the bottom of the pit.
Grasping the shovel again as if it were a cane, the grave digger slowly rose to his feet in the blazing storm. He then scooped up a considerable amount of dirt and snow, heaving a pile directly into the grave upon the dead man’s face and open eyes which peered up to the heavens for the very last time.



2
January 1944
War was heavy in the air. Jacob tugged nervously at the new navy sailor Dixie Cup cap clenched in his hand. His grandfather Emil, a tall, still-strong, wide-shouldered yet thin man, walked a couple of steps ahead of him, ascending a steep hill toward the headstones of the Bennington National Cemetery in San Diego, California.
Rows upon rows of white crosses sat on an immaculately-trimmed lawn as if to remind Jacob that he might never come back. A small tractor pulling a draw reel mower was moving along between endless straight lines of parallel stone crosses that ran down the slope, away from him and across the rolling terrain. It seemed as though the rows of never-ending, white grave-marking crosses went on for as far as the eye could see.
Jacob had just received his new uniform two days prior, a week after that dreaded letter of his impending deployment had arrived. The conflict he was heading for changed everything he had known of peace and a very happy youth. He had set in his mind to remain strong, so as to not