Harnessed Passions Read Online Free

Impressive,” the sheriff
said under his breath as he took his hat off and scratched his
forehead. "Don't know what's come over him; he's usually a real
quiet boy, but the last few weeks he's been plum loco; hell the
whole town has gone crazy. One girl dead, another sent East last
month and now this. ‘Fraid to ask what’s next."
    "No harm done," Daniel replied. The sheriff
nodded his head, leaving the saloon and its occupants to relive the
glorious details of the evening's outcome in private. Daniel
slipped his watch and brandy flask back into his pocket, before
raising his eyes up to the amused look on his friend’s round
face.
    "Here's to you," Harold said, lifting his
glass in one last taunting salute. "To your first night in Mayfield
Kentucky." Daniel clinked glasses with his friend, his eyes
narrowing dangerously as he swallowed the burning liquid, growling
softly under his breath as it floated down his throat.
    "Do you greet all your new residents with
such endearing hospitality?" Harold snickered, filling the glasses
to the rim with the last remaining whiskey from the bottle.
    "Nah,” he answered with
amusement. “Just the fancy
breeches ."

Chapter Two
    Kentucky 1881
    The cracking of a whip echoed throughout the
silent room, echoing in the open window like an executioner's axe
as it struck a victim's neck. Harold Leonard completed his work
then gazed up from the stack of papers to eye the elderly man
sitting across from him. It wasn't hard to see why this man
demanded respect and why he received every ounce of it.
    Victor Turner was a large man, though his
illness had taken a dramatic hold on him; reducing him to a shell,
confining him to a wheelchair. His once powerful stature was weak
and thin, his face drawn and shallow. Still, he possessed a power -
more in his eyes and arrogant mannerism, then his disease raked
frame - warning one and all not to tangle with him. Even his name
demanded attention. Victor Turner; it sounded like a single
syllable the way people used it; never Victor or Vic, not even
Turner and rarely Mr. Turner, but Victor Turner. It was as if
speaking his name would turn the clouds to gold and the earth to
wine.
    His dark hair streaked liberally with grey,
hung to his shoulders like a shroud; his eyes shone a brilliant
emerald green and his large weathered brown hands spoke of many
long years of hard work and strong determination. Though the dark
shadow of death stood on his front step, he still did not about to
back down to anyone. Harold only hoped the old man knew what he was
doing this one last time.
    The woman next to him sat as a quiet
observer, watching but not speaking a word. She remained so quiet
in fact, that one easily forgot her presence. She had spoken little
the past hour and a half as Victor dictated his wishes to the
lawyer. She didn't look pleased with what her husband revision to
his will, but she wasn't the sort of woman who would argue with him
- leastwise not in public. Her dark hair, much the same as her
husband’s was streaked with grey and held securely at the back of
her head, beneath a dark violet bonnet made of the same costly
fabric as her gown. Her dark blue eyes sparkled like precious
sapphires in the morning light and her full lips were red with
rouge.
    She wore an expensive velvet gown in soft
lavender hues, a white gossamer satin collar embraced her chest in
a modest cut and full bustle on her backside accented her tiny
waistline. Around her neck she wore a string of tiny pearls, a ten
karat opal hung from the center of the stand, surrounded with small
diamonds. The woman reeked with the air of sophistication and
money, spoiled to the point of eccentricity by her adoring husband.
What a strange couple these two made, Harold thought as he tried to
console his own misgivings on the day's events.
    "I have to ask you again; are you certain,
this is how you want things to be handled?" the younger, plump man
asked; his honey brown eyes searched Victor’s