Summer of the Redeemers Read Online Free Page A

different.
    Her eyes locked on me and I stopped breathing. She turned, called something over her shoulder, and one of the men started walking toward her.
    “Run!” I tore free of the honeysuckle and slipped down the bank of the creek. Alice came out from under the bridge, and together we waded the shallow water, not concerned for our shoes, only worried about our lives.
    “Run, Alice!” I climbed the opposite bank in front of her so I could help with the baby. Maebelle let out a terrible cry as if we were snatching her bald-headed.
    “Hey! You!” the man called.
    “Run!” I cried. I had Maebelle in my arms and sprinted toward the edge of the woods where we’d left the bicycles. Alice was behind me, dragging in air.
    A brown and white streak erupted out of the woods, headed straight for the bridge over the creek and the tall, thin man who was coming for us.
    “Picket!” I thrust Maebelle into Alice’s arms and turned back toward the church. The man had stopped on the bridge, his face contorted with fury as Picket squared off at him, her hackles raised and her teeth bared. If he made another move toward us, she’d latch onto his leg. Instead of staring at the dog, the man was looking at Alice and Maebelle.
    “Picket! Come here!”
    She ignored me, her focus never shifting from the man. She could sense his rage as easily as I could see it written on his features. There was no way she was going to relax her guard. Several other men had clumped together, and a teenage boy ran into the church and returned with a gun. He handed it to one of the men.
    “Picket!” I could hear the fear in my own voice. They meant to shoot her.
    “Bekkah!” Alice grabbed my arm as I brushed past her, running toward the bridge. “Bekkah, don’t!”
    My fingers found the collar in Picket’s thick fur, and I pulled her back with me. Toenails screeching in the wood of the bridge, Picket was rigid, and a fierce growl erupted from her teeth. At the edge of the bridge I looked up at the man. There was a terrible smile on his face.
    “That’s a dead dog,” he said softly. The man with the rifle cocked it and aimed.
    Picket weighed nearly fifty pounds, but at that moment it didn’t matter. I gathered her in my arms and fled.
    “This here’s private property,” the man called after us. “Come here again, and you’ll be sorry. We’ll get the sheriff on you and that cur!”
    Maebelle’s descent into the basket was less than tender. Alice held my bike for me and then got hers. The man was sauntering across the bridge as we pedaled furiously away, Picket at our side.
    “Whose baby is that anyway?” the man called. “That ain’t no way to treat a young’un.”
    My bicycle chain whirred, and Maebelle had begun a soft, steady cry. The motion of the bike seemed to soothe her a bit, and I wasn’t slowing down for her anyway. At least not until we were well clear of the Redeemers.
    Sweat was dripping down Alice’s face, and mine, when we pulled over in the shade of a mulberry tree that had sprung up wild in P. C. Harless’s fence row.
    “Those folks are crazy mean,” Alice said as she took Maebelle out of the basket and rocked her in her arms. “It’s okay, baby,” she crooned softly. “Hush, hush, baby.” She was about to cry herself.
    Neither one of us wanted to talk about how close we’d come to serious trouble, but we couldn’t pretend nothing had happened. “It looks like they’re all going to live there together, doesn’t it? Mama’s gonna die when she finds out they’re going to have a commune.”
    “Mama said if Daddy stayed home all the time, I’d have twenty brothers and sisters instead of just ten,” Alice said. She made a face at Maebelle. “I couldn’t stand it.”
    “Me either. And they sure didn’t look like happy people. They were mostly wandering around like lost souls.” There had been something definitely eerie about them. Not a single spark of laughter or enthusiasm. It was as if they’d