Joe Manning owned a good-size ranch outside of a small town in Virginia, and he was plowing one day close to his house. He was getting ready to plant a garden patch for the family to use for their livelihood. Three men came along the road. All three had sidearms and one man had a rifle. He shot Joe in the back while Joe was trying to get to the house to get his rifle and defend his family. Then they killed his wife and young daughter, burned the house down around them, and left Joe in his yard bleeding to death. Joe, who cared deeply about people, was the first person in the community to volunteer to help everyone who was in need. Joe, with his wife at one time or another, had entertained in their home all the people in the area. Who could have shot poor Joe Manning in the back twice and destroyed his family and house? What is going on around here? This has always been a nice area of the country. I wonder who is behind all this killing. Why would they kill his wife and daughter, and why would they have burned down his nice house? This is really a mystery. I wonder if Joe will survive. The doctor does not think so. I wonder what the sheriff is doing about it. He does not seem to have a clue. Will anyone else have to die before we find out who the culprits are?

Joe Manning Lived Here

By Ted Miller

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2012 Ted Miller
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-5375-8

Chapter One

It was early morning on a Tuesday, like any other day. Joseph Manning woke up to the sound of the early-morning wind coming down off the high mountain that Joe loved to hear. As the sun was coming up on the back side of the mountain, the warm air started pulling the air from the cooler valley up the mountain. It had a sound like no other wind. The air moved slowly but steadily, and this was the awakening of the day. This was the greatest time of the day. It was just before dawn, and Joe got dressed in his daily work clothes of faded blue jeans, a blue plaid shirt, his slip-on work boots, and a red bandana that sometimes he wore around his neck. And Joe went to the table and grabbed a biscuit that was left over from the meal the night before. He spread butter on the biscuit and started out the door, and then he thought of the honey that he had found in an old tree a couple of weeks ago. Joe was an honest man, but he robbed the bee tree of the riches of their work. He was cutting some fence posts on the hillside back of the barn; he saw a bee flying past him. He did not think much of that, but a moment later, another bee went by in the same direction; he followed the bees with his eyes, and they were headed for a little sunken place in the hillside. They flew so fast that he could not tell what kind of bees they were. Unless they were honeybees, he was not interested in them. But he had a craving for some honey. He walked down the valley in the same direction that the bees had been flying, and he saw another one. These were bees that were working a hive of some sort. He kept following the bees with his axe in his hand. He watched them again, and they were coming toward him. Again he saw them flying in the other direction; he knew that bees flew in a straight line. There was a water seep low down on the hill, and it pooled up. When there was calm water, the bees could land at the edge of it to gather water and carry it to the hive. Therefore, the hive must be behind him. He turned around and started walking back away from the water. He went slowly this time as he was watching this line of sight that they were flying; he saw more bees, and this time, he saw where they went. They went into a tree that had a hollow place in it. He came close, and he could hear them working in the tree; he went back home and brought back two buckets, a large oil cloth, some dry wood, and some smartweed that was green. He took his axe and knocked a chunk of wood out of the side of the tree to make the hole larger. This got the bees stirred up. But with the larger hole, he could reach down in the tree. He started a small fire by banding the wood together with a leather strap like a torch, and he put the weeds on the fire, which made a horrible smoke. This he held close to the hole. The bees left the hole because they were afraid of the smoke. He wrapped the oil cloth around his arm and reached down in the hole and took out honey with his hand until he filled both buckets with honey, and then he moved away from the tree and let the bees go back into their hive. It was springtime, and the honey had lasted the bees through the winter; and now that it was spring, they had no more need of it. Joe left them enough honey to last the hive until the blossoms and flowers bloomed out in a few weeks, allowing them to start making more honey. Of the two buckets of honey he took, one was for family use, and the other one was to be taken to Sam's mercantile to trade for what they needed. He spread the honey on the biscuit. Biscuit, butter, and honey are food for a king. Joe was thinking about his life on the ranch, and he came to the conclusion that he had a wonderful life. He really lacked for nothing. His wife and his daughter completed his life here on the ranch, which he loved dearly. God had been so good to him. He stepped through the door, down off the porch, and stopped with a smile on his face, looking at the light that was coming over the mountain behind him. He could see on the top of the mountain range far away in front of him where the light was working its way down the mountain and onto the huge valley floor, and he could see all that God had given to him, but the vast green valley between the ranges of the mountains was still bathed in darkness. He stood there and watched as the sun coming over the mountains was forcing the darkness down the mountains to the west of him. He looked around him up on one of the limbs of the oak tree close to him. He could see a couple of mockingbirds. They were just waking up and shaking themselves to arrange their feathers and singing like they had to make music for the whole world to hear. Joe watched the small animals moving out of their place of protection from the predators of the night. The night is when the predators of the world do their work; now that daylight was coming, the predators would go back to their place of hiding, waiting for the next night to hunt again. Joe watched the world come alive—a beautiful world, a world full of many things for every person to enjoy, to fear, to love, to hate; but whatever this day brought to him, Joe felt that he could handle it. Joe was a hunter too; he was a man who at one time was hunting his own place in this world. He hunted for a place to live, a place to work, and most of all, he was hunting somebody to love and to share this world with him. He thought that he had found all of these things once before, but along came a war, which took everything from him.

Joe fought in the war. He was a good soldier; he had to kill good men. He hated the killing and the maiming of good men, but he had a job to do, and he did the best that he could do. He felt maybe it would help to end the war.

After the war, Joe started over again and moved into this country. He came into this valley for a new start in life. He still had his hopes of one day finding a good woman to work with him and give him a family. Joe had plans for his wife and family to prosper on this land that God had given him to use the rest of his life. Or however long that God would allow him to use this land as his own. After he found this land and settled down on the land, he found his wife and had a daughter. Finding a wife and having a daughter completed his wonderful world. Life was good. Maggie, his wife, and Jennie, his beautiful daughter whom he loves dearly, are in the house behind him sleeping and soon rise and join him in this new day. Joe had bought this track of land in the beautiful country of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. He had worked hard to clear a place on top of a knoll. He cut down the trees to build his log cabin and other buildings and made a homestead on a high place that overlooked the very large valley that lay before it. Joe Manning had bought some of a new breed of cattle called white-faced Herefords. They were a tough, strong breed of beef cattle. These cattle were brought onto Joe's place and were growing fat on the sweet grass that was everywhere in this beautiful valley. Joe thought about the very large valley. He looked almost as far as his eyes could see. The grass was tall, about up to the belly of the cattle grazing on it in one of the fields. Joe did not leave his cattle or his horses in the field long enough to eat all the grass down close to the ground. He moved his herds over to another field and let them graze there.

Joe worked hard to build himself a small but beautiful log house on top of that knoll; he made it a one-bedroom house. He cut the logs and hauled them down off the...