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    The Man Who Got Away: Not Your Typical Christmas Story
    The Man Who Got Away: Not Your Typical Christmas Story
    The Man Who Got Away: Not Your Typical Christmas Story
    Ebook72 pages1 hour

    The Man Who Got Away: Not Your Typical Christmas Story

    By Daniel R

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    About this ebook

    Nicholas Clauzen worked hard, worshiped often, laughed, cried, loved, and lost. He and his wife built the most beautiful home in the kingdom, where they began raising their five children on their farm. Life was good until fate had other ideas.

    Lord Asster, offended by the beauty of Nicholass humble home, sets in motion a plan to seize the Clauzens farm for himself. As Nicholas is away to plead his case, Asster has the farmers family brutally murdered. Soon after, the nobleman himself is killed. Accused of a crime he didnt commit, Nicholas becomes a hunted man.

    Raw with grief and anger, he flees into the mountains, where he uses his woodsmans skills to survive in the wilderness. To pass the years, he makes wooden toys with an imaginary companion named Sprite. Desperate, lonely, and yearning for human contact, he decides to go back into the village in disguise to sell his wares, even if the price may be death. Once there, he learns that no one can afford to buy his toys because the royal family has taxed everyone into poverty as retribution for Assters murder. Determined to help somehow and to remind the villagers that there is still some good in the world, he gives the toys to the children before slipping back into the night, an anonymous, bearded benefactor from the cold North.

    In doing so, a lonely man on the fringes of sanity creates the legend of Santa Clausproving that even in horror, there can always be hope.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateDec 17, 2012
    ISBN9781475965421
    The Man Who Got Away: Not Your Typical Christmas Story
    Author

    Daniel R

    Daniel R. and Kathy L. Gadberry were both raised in the rustic splendor of rural Montana, and that experience enhances their fiction. They enjoy primitive lifestyle outings and still apply some of the techniques and skills mentioned in this story. Of these, the most integral is love.

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      Book preview

      The Man Who Got Away - Daniel R

      9781475965421.pdf

      Daniel R. and Kathy L. Gadberry

      iUniverse, Inc.

      Bloomington

      The Man Who Got Away

      Not Your Typical Christmas Story

      Copyright © 2012 by Daniel R. and Kathy L. Gadberry

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-6540-7 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-6541-4 (hc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-6542-1 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2012922742

      iUniverse rev. date: 12/12/2012

      9781475965421.pdf

      A tired, grizzled, old figure of a man stood outlined against the frozen, cobalt blue of a high mountain, winter evening skyline. As he stood, his eyes searched the landscape for movement, secretly hoping to find someone, anyone who might be passing through, but no one passed through there. Anyone who went there only went for a specific purpose or reason. And what better reason could there be for going to the end of the earth other than to be alone, or in this case, evade death? There was one more reason; that would be for anyone who wanted to capture or kill for great reward by the Crown, the man who got away.

      After all that’s why I’m exiled to this place,’ the old man thought to himself, ‘to escape the relentless torment of being hunted and to be free of the wicked, hopeless insanity that they have the audacity to call civilization. If I did see someone would I hide or risk the chance of getting killed just to hear a human voice? What difference would it make? I am already dead.

      He threw back his head, cursed the sky, and laughed long and loud with a nature that suggested a total loss of sanity. Then his eyes narrowed with the intensity of a man betrayed by all he regarded sacred and a primal scream broke from his throat that echoed from mountain to mountain. As his exhausting anger subsided he slowly sank to his knees in the snow and wept bitterly over the loss of what once was and would never be again.

      Age and nature exact a toll on all things and the old man, of course, was no exception. His mental and physical exertion had depleted his limited energies and without knowing it he had fallen asleep, his tears becoming frozen locks upon his eyes. Old, petrified muscles refused to respond to the commands of what for a waking instant was a panicked brain. Panic gave way to a bizarre curiosity with the thought of his mind being captured in a lifeless body and mental pictures of his predicament caused a smile to cross his thoughts and muffled laughter to issue forth from between his frozen lips. Although numbness enveloped every part of his body the stifled inner laughter started a warmth within him that crept from his heart to the cores of his appendages and in a period of time he was able to roll from a fetal position on his side to his back. As he rolled, something struck his virtually senseless face across the bridge of his nose. Unable to move the object with paralyzed arms, he instinctively twisted his head from side to side. Although the object remained in place, the motion scraped the ice from his eyelids enough for him to see that the thing he was trying to remove was indeed his own hand.

      While repeated attempts to remove his lifeless hand from his face utterly failed, the exertion caused his pulse to quicken and his stubborn determination caused his adrenaline to rise. Before long, blood was once again returning to his empty capillaries. Though from most aspects this was a good thing it also had its down side— pain. It felt as if a fire were consuming him, gradually at first, then more intensely with every bit of mobility that returned. He momentarily found himself wishing he could have found within his heart the courage to just lie there and die peacefully, instead of fighting for life and the pain that always inevitably accompanies it. He had to get home. Again the irony made him chuckle.

      Home was a hole, nothing more than a hole in the ground when he first found it. And, he had to fight for it! How pathetic is that? Actually, he wasn’t really fighting for the hole. It was sort of a byproduct of— or shall we say reward for? — managing to be alive after the fight. I don’t mean to say the fight like it was his toughest battle; after all, life is just one struggle after another. But, it was a fight, and pretty much a doozy at that.

      It was years ago. The old man, Nicholas Clauzen was his name if it makes any difference, tried to put the years in some sort of perspective but his mind was as tired as his worn out, frozen body. His thoughts faded back to that unforgettable fight, a ferocious encounter with a rather unfriendly she-bear and then even further back than that. There were

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