Feisty nine-year-old Orbie Ray hates his stepfather even more than he does mean colored kids with knives – a fact that lands him at Harlan’s Crossroads, there to spend a drought summer on his grandparent’s dirt farm while his family travels on to Florida’s sunny climes. Resentful, fearing for his naively religious mother, Orbie pines for the return of his dead father. He crosses paths with a black Choctaw preacher, Moses Mashbone, who wields a power that could defeat his enemy, but which can’t be used for revenge. $0.99 on Kindle.