Outlaw's Reckoning (4 page)

Clint stepped to the street and looked over to Henry. The kid wasn't much more than a foot shorter than him, but he looked up at Clint as if he was squinting at the top of one of the nearby mountains.

“Which way do you live?” Clint finally asked.

The kid turned on his heels to the right, stuffed his hands into his pockets and started walking.

Clint followed his lead and turned the collar up on his jacket. “So your name's Henry?”

“Henry Hasselman, yes, sir.”

“That's a name that rolls off the tongue.”

“It's from my father.”

Clint nodded and kept walking. “Where's your father?”

Henry drove his hands a bit deeper into his pockets and stared down at his feet as if he needed to silently command them to move. Even in the darkness, the sadness could be seen creeping in on the edges of the kid's face.

“How long's your father been gone?” Clint asked, unsure whether or not the condition was permanent.

After a few more steps, Henry replied, “He's been dead for years. I barely remember his face anymore.”

“That's all right. I'm sure he wouldn't mind, since you've been so busy and all.”

Henry looked over at Clint with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. That didn't last long, however, and was soon wiped away by a grumble from the back of his throat. “You don't know that.”

Clint laughed and said, “If tonight's any indication, I'd say you've been busier than anyone ought to be.”

That caused Henry to laugh a bit as well, even though he struggled to keep from doing so. From there, his steps were a bit lighter as he led the way toward the edge of town.

Looking ahead a ways, Clint saw the streets open onto wider roads. Most of those roads appeared to end after less than a quarter of a mile, with one road turning into a trail that led out of town. Situated alongside the shorter, branching roads were several houses arranged in small clusters.

There were lights in the windows and some folks on their porches. A few people ran back and forth between the houses, making the area seem like a little town of its own. A few of those people looked in Clint's direction, but were put at ease when they saw Henry walking with him.

“Are you going to tell me, Henry?” Clint asked.

“Tell you what?”

“Come to think of it, I'd like to know how you got your hands on that much money. Before that, I'd like to know why you'd want to go through so much trouble to hire a gunman. Someone around here giving you trouble?”

Henry kicked at something on the ground in front of him and muttered, “Something like that.”

“Who is it?”

But the kid wasn't going to answer that question as quickly as he had the first. Henry kept his head down and his eyes focused on the road. His jaw remained set firmly in place. His hands remained jammed into his pockets.

“Whoever it was must have done something pretty bad to warrant being shot down,” Clint said.

But Henry wasn't playing along. He listened to what Clint said and kept right on walking. Since he hadn't picked up his pace, there was still some hope that he didn't want to end the conversation just yet.

“I bet if you think it over,” Clint said carefully, “that you might not even want to go so far to teach someone a lesson.”

That caused Henry to plant his feet and stop dead in his tracks. He straightened his back and looked Clint directly in the eyes. It was the first time that both of them seemed to be on the same level. “I've thought about it plenty and I know what I want. That asshole deserves to die.”

Clint held his ground without challenging the young man in front of him. “Why's that?” he asked.

“Because he shot my pa.”

Narrowing his eyes to study the kid carefully, Clint wasn't able to find the first hint of a lie in Henry's eyes. There wasn't even as much anger as one might expect. Instead, there was just the quiet resignation of someone who'd been forced to live with something so long that he wasn't hurt by it so much anymore.

“Someone shot your father?” Clint asked.

Henry nodded.

“When was this?”

Shaking his head, Henry turned on the balls of his feet and continued walking toward the houses. “Years ago. I told you, I don't even remember his face anymore.”

“Then how do you remember who killed him?”

Henry stopped once more so he could look over his shoulder at Clint. Some of the fire was gone and was replaced by the mix of nervousness and anxiousness that had been there since the first time Clint had laid eyes on him.

“My house is right over here,” Henry said. “You can come in if you like.”

“I think I'll take you up on that.”

Just when Clint was beginning to think of Henry as someone older than his fourteen years, he saw the front door of Henry's house fly open and his mother run outside. At first, there wasn't a way for Clint to be certain the woman was Henry's mother. Then, after seeing the way she looked at the boy and grabbed hold of him as though he was still in short pants, there wasn't anything else she could have been.

“Oh, dear Lord, I was worried about you!” the woman said. “Where have you been? Don't ever leave like that again! I was worried out of my mind.”

Henry weathered his mother's storm with nothing more than a prolonged roll of his eyes. He stood in his spot as she circled him and fretted with everything from his ears to his clothes to the tips of his fingers. He knew better than to try and stop her, so he just kept his mouth shut and waited for a lull.

And just when he thought he might be able to sneak away from that house without being noticed, Clint saw the anxious woman look in his direction. Her face was slightly rounded, but mostly thin. Kind eyes complemented a wide mouth that naturally curved into a warm smile. Her hair flowed over her shoulders in a way that made it look like water being poured over a smooth ledge.

As she spoke to Clint, her voice took on a softer quality, but there was still a good amount of caution in her tone. “Are you a friend of Henry's?” she asked.

Clint tipped his hat and said, “We just met, ma'am. My name's Clint Adams.”

She shook the hand that Clint offered, but her posture was growing more uncertain by the second. In fact, he even caught her glancing through the wide-open door of the house to a shotgun hanging on the wall.

“He's a friend, Ma,” Henry said. “Clint helped get me out of a fight.”

Seeing the woman's eyes grow wide and panic show on her face, Clint quickly added, “It didn't turn out as bad as you might think. He got into a spot of trouble and I happened to be in the right place to get him out. No harm done.”

“Sure,” Henry said as he took the gun from his belt. “Tell that to the man that was shot.”

Although Clint expected her to react to the sight of the gun, he didn't expect her to take it from Henry's hand as though it was a toy. “Henry Hasselman, I told you to never touch this gun! Now get inside and set the table for supper.”

“But it's too late for supper.”

“Exactly. You were nowhere to be found, so the food got cold. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have anything to eat.” Allowing her friendly manner to return, she looked to Clint and asked, “Would you like to join us?”

Still looking at the pistol in the woman's hand, Clint nodded slowly. “I guess I could stay.”

At that moment, she looked down, as if she'd just realized what she was holding. Although she looked embarrassed, she still didn't seem put off by the weapon. “This must strike you as peculiar,” she said.

“You could say that.”

“This used to be my husband's gun. He taught Henry to shoot with it and I can never seem to keep him away from it. Ever since his father was . . . well . . . ever since his father's been gone, I don't have the heart to get rid of that gun.”

Glancing toward the house, Clint caught a few glimpses of Henry moving around inside. “I know you don't know me, Miss . . .”

“Oh, my name is Kayleen Hasselman. Please call me Kay.”

“All right, Kay. I know you don't know me, but your son was almost killed today.”

Normally, Clint would do anything to avoid putting such a fright into a woman. This time, however, seeing the scared expression on her face let Clint know that some rules still applied with this woman.

“My Lord,” she gasped. “I thought he was just building that up. He's gotten into trouble before, so I figured this was another of those times.”

Clint shook his head. “He went into a saloon waving around a wad of money and nearly got killed by a couple of robbers.”

“My God.”

“Do you know where he would get that kind of money?”

Kay's eyes closed slowly and she lowered her head. Rather than lift her chin again, she began nodding slowly. “I might have an idea.” Turning toward the door, she announced, “You get that table set for three and then serve up the food, Henry! You hear me?”

“Yes, Ma,” the boy replied.

Looking back toward Clint, Kay walked around the house and motioned for him to follow. The house wasn't very large. In fact, it seemed only big enough to have two or possibly three small rooms within its walls. Kay led Clint to the back of the little structure and then knelt down to start scraping at a patch of dirt near the base.

Clint lowered himself to one knee and was about to offer his help when he heard Kay's hand knock against something that most definitely wasn't dirt or rock.

She moved more dirt aside and eventually cleared enough away to reveal a small tin box. Taking the box out of the hole and holding it in one hand, she opened the lid and immediately let out a shaky breath. “Oh no,” she whispered.

Clint looked into the box and saw only a few small chunks of dirt rattling around inside.

“What is that, Kay?” Clint asked. “What's going on?”

Standing up, Kay grabbed hold of the box in such a tight grip that she nearly put dents into the tin. Without so much as glancing at Clint, she stomped to a small back door that was so narrow, Clint needed to sidestep through it in order to follow her.

Kay made her way straight to Henry and held the box out in a trembling hand. “What's the meaning of this?” she demanded. Before the boy could answer, she snapped, “You took this money! You took this money and that gun? What in the hell is wrong with you?”

“I just wanted to—”

“Tell me later,” she interrupted. “I'm too angry to listen to it right now. Get into your room and shut the door.”

“But—”

“Go!”

Even though Henry was a few inches taller than his mother and outweighed her by more than fifty pounds, he winced like a scolded pup at the biting tone in Kay's voice. Henry put down the plate he'd been holding and took off for his room. The moment the door was shut, Kay took a key from a hook on the wall, fit it into the hold beneath the handle of the door that Henry had just closed and locked the boy inside.

There wasn't any more shouting once that door was closed.

Kay pocketed the key and then shook her head before looking at Clint. “It's all I can think of to keep him here,” she said. “Would you still like something to eat? I've made some shepherd's pie.”

“I think I'd like an answer to my first question,” Clint replied. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Let me fix you a plate and I'll tell you as much as I can. It's the least I can do considering how much trouble you've been through already.”

“Henry's father wasn't always such a good man,” Kay said as she put together a plate of food similar to the one she'd already given to Clint. “I've never wanted to lie about him to Henry, but I didn't want him to be ashamed of where he came from, either.”

Clint scooped up some more of the beef and potato mix with his fork and said, “That makes sense.”

Taking the key from her pocket, she unlocked Henry's door and held the plate into the next room. Clint couldn't see much through the doorway, but he could tell that the room was very small and still occupied by the fourteen-year-old. Henry took the plate and walked back inside so Kay could close the door.

Although she started to lock the door again, Kay dropped the key into her pocket instead. When she sat down at the table behind her own plate, Kay couldn't help but look at the empty spot at the table between herself and Clint. “He won't leave that room,” Kay said. “Henry's never defied me directly.”

“Does that include stealing money and walking into a saloon with a gun?”

“Actually, I've never told him not to do that. It sounds idiotic, I know. Do you have any children, Mr. Adams?”

“It's Clint and I've never raised a child. Still . . . I've been around enough of them to know that what you said isn't so idiotic. There's grown men who stick to worse lines of thought than that.”

Kay smiled and picked at her food. Her disposition took a turn for the worse as she said, “A few months ago, I would never have believed you if you told me Henry had done something like that. I wouldn't have even believed he could pull together more than a dollar or two.”

“I was wondering about that.”

“We were given that money not too long ago,” Kay said. “A man showed up in town and started asking around about my husband. He found his way to me and said he was one of the men who rode with my husband when he was killed.”

“If you don't mind me asking . . . how did your husband die?”