I have finished my book "Road to Reckoning".
(for those who did not see the earlier post about it, link: http://matthonnold.blogspot.com/2016/02/picture-214-my-next-book.html).
It was a Western.
I read very, very few Westerns.
This was a good one though.
Want to know a little about it?
(no, I'm not going to type-up a 500 word book report)
Here are some key quotes to give you a small flavor of the story:
- The banality of evil is in the joviality of the simpleminded.
- Piece by piece I was losing what little I had and getting closer to the little I had in front of me.
- I slept well with that giant sitting sitting above and my father's glasses against my breast. A quilt about me in the shadow of the valley.
- What men make of themselves after violence leaves is up to them.
- I did not want to leave him or have him leave me.
- His hands did not close on me when that was all I needed for the night. He stiffened and held me away.
- I did not know that adults would leave children, but Henry Stands was a bad one, I now knew.
- I watched him and although I knew he had done me a great deed I felt further from him.
- Do you not think that we could sell those guns? You with your father's schooling and me with my honesty.
- I did not entertain being a child ever again.
- Yes, I'm old. Old enough to have made cemeteries of men younger than you. Killed in wars. Killed in peace. Knifed and shot my way most of my life.
- I hoped there were not men now that looked up into the hills for fires.
- My hands touched on things that were cold. You get to know that touch as you grow older.
- Cowards never make good shots. That is how battles are won.
- You should know by now, son, that the world began when I was born.
- I did not know what faith Henry Stands had. He said he was a Proverbs man.
- The road behind me was closed. A bolted door from my side. Only my own front door ahead of me.
- As a boy I did not retain my Bible then. I look through it now and see more and more of what was me then and much that is of me now. Any man's whole life is there.
- It was a wonder now. Unseen anywhere! Unending! There was not a man ever before who carried two pistols and sent shotguns running as he fired repeatedly, fired magically!
- I was a Proverbs man.
- I thought no more on guns and Indiana rangers until my boys were old enough for me to tell them about the wooden gun and I went to my past to fetch it.
- I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world!
It was a good read.
My quota of Westerns for 2016 is now complete.
Out for now........
Matt