Payback Trail
Series: The Trail, Book 4
Written and Narrated By: David R. Lewis
Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
Action-packed? Check. Bit of a kinda sorta tear or two along the way? CHECK!
Just when Ruben Beeler and Miss Harmony are settling in with a newly mobile youngun, their son Bill, wouldn’t ya know it?
Ol’ Marion Daniels, US Marshal, shows up, and there’s a case to be solved, and wrongs to be righted. Rube loves his home, loves his family, but dang it if The Trail doesn’t come a-calling on him from time to time.
This time, it’ll be just Rube and Marion as Homer is now a happily married man. But before all is said and done, we’ll be meeting more help as it arrives, as friends are called upon and as enemies are made.
A theft and murder has the duo setting out and landing just shy of Arkansas where a man went after stolen cattle and was later found dead and rotting. The law ain’t no help, and danged if Rube doesn’t haul off and lose his temper.
This is one of the many Life Lessons that Ruben receives in this 4th installment of the David R. Lewis series that I’ve come to love so much. EsPECially cuz o’ those Life Lessons as we see Ruben as he’s evolved from the manchild he was in Deer Run Trail, and here he comes along and shows that he just might be shaping up into a young man to be proud of. Here, Marion cautions Rube about losing his temper, how it’s okay to be angry, but to lose your temper? Why, THAT could get a man killed. No focus, no awareness of the surroundings. Ya might go and get yourself shot.
Ruben, chastened and thoughtful, is now aware of himself and is living up to the respect that he’s earning. But he remains, as always, kinda a hothead, and always up for a challenge.
Which is good because instead of unscrupulous bigwigs, Rube and Friends are up against a clan livin’ and killin’ in the hills and hollow of Arkansas, a clan of ne’er do wells who do NOT live like the South lost the War.
New friend is fellow lawman Addriss Tippideaux, up from Louisiana bayou way. He and his BIG mule, Mose, along with townsman Hec(tor) will be squaring off against the clan of cutthroats who live along the Payback Trail (Called Payback ‘cause of the worst of the clan’s encircling a house with kerosene oil and setting it ablaze, burning the occupants to death because of a slight. Yup, he’s a bad one, all right…).
As action-packed as these audiobooks in the series are? My good golly gosh, with author David R. Lewis narrating, they just so happen to be pretty goshdanged emotional as well. Ruben has been living without a Pa for several years now, but danged if Marion ain’t a father-figure as well as a good buddy worth fighting and dying for. Add Rube’s ability to be present in each glorious moment out in nature, or his slow-simmering outrage when a young girl shows up, running from the clan, and Lewis’s voice speaks volumes! Whether it’s the choked voice of Rube learning he’s turning into a fine young man, or his complete and utter gratitude to be appreciating how beautiful his time out on the Trail is (Or for that matter, how desperately happy he is to have such a fine family, such good friends), or he’s carefully planning how to bring outlaws to justice, Lewis has just the right tones, the emotional range to carry it all.
I found this to be an even more emotional jaunt than the prior three audiobooks (Which is saying a LOT), but that’s to be expected when there’s affection, pride, and sorrow added to a jolly mix. Finish it all off with a bangup ol’ gunfight and Marion showing just WHY he’s a Marshal to be reckoned with, and this, my friends, is a Winner!!!
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