From Hell to the Cross

Smoke curled from the rough limestone chimney of a two-room log cabin, precariously perched on stacked stones, overlooking a dreary glade of cedar trees, miles from any other evidence of humanity.

On this late April night, Norma Clinkenbeard Smith lay on her roughly-made bed in the back room of that cabin, in the final stage of childbirth. Notwithstanding the pain, Norma worried that the child about to be born would suffer the fate of her first-born, Virgie June. Norma had married Coy Smith ...