The Killing Blow

by J. R. Roberts

  Clint shook the woman’s hand. The strength in her grip was hard to miss. “Obviously not enough to prevent you from letting me into your home.”

  “Well, I must admit you’re cleaner than I would have thought.”

  “Mother!” Allison said in a surprised shout that made her seem more like a teenaged girl than a mother, herself. “He’s a guest.”

  Sophia shrugged and walked over to the stove. “I’ve seen plenty of hunters and plenty of trappers. They are hardworking men, but usually they’re dirty. That’s all.”

  “Well, thanks to the best barber in town, I’m not so dirty anymore,” Clint said.

  It wasn’t long before the table was set and the food began filling the plates. Clint sat back and watched as a feast was spread out before him that made him hungry enough to start chewing at the table. Thankfully, dinner was started before he had to resort to such drastic measures.

  The night was full of small talk and bad jokes, which went on all the way through dessert. Once he’d had his fill, Joseph darted from the table and shot outside. Sophia insisted on cleaning up, leaving Clint and Allison by themselves. Judging by the sly grin on Sophia’s face, that arrangement was no accident.

  “The river isn’t far from here,” Sophia said. “Just a short walk. You two could use the fresh air.”

  “Would you like to take a walk?” Allison asked.

  Clint grinned at the way the daughter allowed herself to be not-so-subtly guided by her mother. “Sounds like the perfect end to a perfect dinner.”

  As the door shut behind Clint and Allison, Sophia smiled with the satisfaction of a job well done.

  FIFTEEN

  The sun was just high enough to cast a golden glow on the water as Clint and Allison walked along the lake. It was early enough in the season for the summery warmth to be wiped away almost as soon as the sun started going down. Still, it was late enough for the night to be comforting rather than cold.

  “I thought Mark would have come with you,” she said.

  Clint shook his head. “The last I saw of him, he was walking back into the woods.”

  “Walking? Does that mean he’ll be back soon?”

  “I doubt it.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself and leaned in a little closer to Clint. As soon as she felt his arm drape over her shoulders, she melted against him even more. “That’s too bad. I would have liked to see him one more time. Did he sell that bear skin?”

  “He sure did. In fact, I’d bet that everyone in town will be seeing plenty of that carcass as soon as those men get it nailed to the side of their store. Things like that can keep a place in business.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Of course,” Clint said. “How often do you get to look at the hide of a famous bear?”

  Clint managed to keep a straight face for a solid thirty seconds. When he started laughing at himself, Allison was quick to join in.

  “I’m just glad it’s over,” she said.

  The silence that followed those words was enough to catch her attention. When she looked at Clint, that silence only grew thicker.

  “Aren’t you glad it’s over?” she asked.

  “I just hope it is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Snapping himself out of his thoughts, Clint held her tighter and said, “Nothing. Sorry about that.”

  “You never got a chance to tell me what happened with those men that met up with you and Mark outside of town. I’d like to hear about it.”

  “It wasn’t much.”

  “I might have been away from you all,” she pointed out, “but I could still hear the gunshots, Clint. I know it was something.” She turned around without breaking his grasp. That way, her body was pressed against him while she looked up directly into his eyes. “You stood between us and those armed men. There’s nothing to be ashamed of about that.”

  Clint told her about what happened, leaving out the messier details. He recounted the fight more like a newspaper story than something that actually happened not too long ago. When he was finished, Clint could feel Allison’s heart beating powerfully against him.

  “My God,” she whispered. “You could have been killed. I mean, you hear people say that sometimes, but you . . . really . . . could have died. Thank you.”

  Her words were genuine. That much was obvious. Yet, somehow, they still didn’t ease Clint’s nerves. When she finally eased up on her hug, Allison found Clint gazing up at the stars as more and more of them showed up overhead.

  “That wasn’t the first time Ordell was in a gunfight,” Clint said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Mostly a hunch. Part of it’s how he handled himself. I’ve seen the way people act when they’re under fire and it’s a rare man who can keep his nerve.”

  “He’s a hunter,” she pointed out. “He lives by his gun. My father used to hunt a lot and he barely even flinched when they went off.”

  “It’s different when someone’s pointing a gun at you and threatening to pull the trigger. Even if a man can keep his nerve with a gun in his face, there’s even fewer who can actually hold up once the lead starts to fly. One thing’s for certain, though. Animals are a lot steadier than men.”

  Allison shook her head as if a fly had buzzed into her ear. “Did you say . . . animals?”

  Clint nodded. “Something’s been nagging at me and I think part of it was the way Ordell’s horse reacted during that fight. It didn’t even twitch.”

  Since she didn’t seem to know what else to say to that, she asked, “Did yours?”

  “No. That’s my point. My horse is like most others. It’ll get used to the sound of gunshots after enough of them are fired over its head. They have to train horses in the army so they don’t rear up or bolt once things get bad. That’s not the sort of thing you find in a trapper’s horse.”

  “Maybe he bought it from an old cavalry officer,” she offered.

  Clint let that settle for a moment before he said, “The man he killed wasn’t much more than a boy. Wasn’t even twenty yet.”

  “Doesn’t take twenty years to make a killer.”

  “He was Ordell’s nephew.”

  Allison didn’t have an answer for that one. Instead, she took a breath and let her eyes wander toward the same stars that had caught Clint’s attention.

  “I don’t know why that still bothers me so much,” Clint said. “There’s been plenty of times a man’s been forced to shoot his own brother. Hell, that happened plenty of times during the war.”

  “It sounds to me like it’s not just that one thing that bothers you, Clint. Maybe it’s all of these things that don’t sit right.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe I’ve just been around too long and seen too many things to let anything go.”

  “If anything bothers you too much, that just means you need to set it right.”

  “There’s not much left for me to do.”

  “If Mark’s nephew lived here in town, then maybe the rest of his family did.”

  “The boy lived with his mother,” Clint said.

  “Does she even know he’s dead?”

  “That’s a good question,” Clint said as he thought about what he’d heard from Ordell as well as all the things he’d heard from that nosy barber. “There might be a few things to see to around here after all.”

  SIXTEEN

  Although Westerlake was a fairly large town, all Clint needed to do was pay another visit to Aldo and ask the barber where Miss Ordell lived. He said he needed to see her to pay her respects and that was exactly what he intended to do. Since the excitement of seeing that bear skin on display had spread through the town, the barber wasn’t exactly surprised that Clint wanted to check in on the sister of the man who’d put it there.

  It was an hour before noon and the day was already turning out to be a hot one. Clint made his way to a row of narrow, two-floor houses situated on the half of Westerlake closest to the woods. He had to knock on the door twic
e before anyone came to answer it.

  Eventually, the door opened a crack and a timid eye looked outside. “My brother’s not here,” came a tense little voice.

  “My name’s Clint Adams. Perhaps your brother mentioned me?”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  It didn’t take finely honed instincts to pick up on the tension in her voice when she mentioned her brother. Clint did his best to put on a friendly smile and make his voice as close a match to that smile as possible.

  “Actually, ma’am, I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Me?” the voice asked.

  “Are you Josh Ordell’s mother?”

  He could see movement through the crack, which might have been a nod on the other side. Suddenly realizing that she wasn’t exactly easy to see, she opened the door a bit more and said, “If Josh is in trouble, take it up with the law. I don’t want no part of it anymore.”

  Shifting on his feet, Clint asked, “Would it be all right if I came inside?”

  She thought it over and then started to open the door. When she caught sight of the Colt on Clint’s hip, she pushed the door closed until the opening was just a crack again. “Who are you?”

  “I met up with Mark Ordell a few days ago. We both took on that bear.”

  “Sure you did, mister.”

  “I also fixed his rifle. It looks like an old musket with a carving on the stock. His initials were engraved on the trigger.”

  When she heard that last part, the woman allowed the door to open again. “They’re my father’s initials. Well . . . our father’s.”

  “That’s an odd spot for an engraving.”

  “When Daddy gave Mark his first rifle, he had his initials carved onto the trigger. He said that way Mark might just remember the lessons he was taught before he goes out and blows his own damn head off by mistake.”

  Clint nodded. “Seems like he learned a lot. That’s a hell of a rifle to give to a boy.”

  The woman opened the door all the way and stepped aside so Clint could come in. “He gave Mark an old Winchester, but Mark kept that trigger and put it on every gun he’s had since then.” Once Clint was inside, she shut the door and quickly threw the latch into place. “So you and Mark really killed that bear?”

  “He landed the killing blow, but I had it chase me enough to get it good and tired.”

  For the first time since he’d laid eyes on her, Clint saw the woman smile. Unfortunately, even that wasn’t enough to make her too attractive. She was a small woman with a slight build. Her hair wasn’t dirty, but still looked stringy and hung straight down over a good portion of her narrow face.

  She might have been a bit taller than she looked, but carried herself with her shoulders stooped and her chin hanging low. The smile came and went in a few seconds, leaving a sad frown in its place. The harsh truth of the matter was that she looked much more comfortable wearing that frown.

  “I don’t believe I caught your name,” Clint said.

  “It’s Lisa Ordell.”

  Clint offered his hand by way of a formal greeting, but Lisa looked at it like she’d never seen one before. Without making a production out of it, Clint took his hand back and stepped into the house.

  Compared to the house where he’d had dinner the night before, this place was more like a cave. All the curtains were drawn and what little light there was came in thin beams through cracks in the material or walls, themselves. Everything from books to clothes to papers and old crates were piled up in every corner. A few dogs sniffed around Clint’s feet, but they quickly scurried off to get lost somewhere else inside the house.

  “People been talking about that bear like it was some kind of monster,” Lisa said. “Mark’s been hunting worse than that since he was a kid.”

  “And you don’t talk to him very much?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why not?” Clint asked.

  “It’s a family matter.”

  After giving up on trying to find a clean place to stand, Clint nudged some things aside with his boot and stood next to the shelf where Lisa rearranged a bunch of glass statues. “Actually, I thought I should come by to talk to you. It’s about your son.”

  Hearing that caused her eyes to brighten and her entire body to perk up. “You’ve seen Josh? Where is he? Do you know him?”

  “I didn’t know him, ma’am, but I did see him not too long ago.”

  “Where was he?”

  “He came out to have a word with your brother. There were other boys with him and they were all carrying guns.”

  As Clint spoke, he could see tears forming in Lisa’s eyes. There was also an anger welling up in her that seemed to be pushing those tears out even more. “Who were those boys? Where are they?”

  Clint reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Ma’am, your son is dead. I’m so sorry.”

  Lisa’s tears stopped. She let out a breath and shrugged Clint’s hands off of her. To his surprise, she didn’t need any help standing up. In fact, she seemed to be standing even straighter now than when she’d answered the door.

  “That son of a bitch,” she whispered. “Mark killed him, didn’t he?”

  “It was a bad situation and—”

  “He killed Josh!” she snarled while glaring angrily into Clint’s eyes. “Didn’t he?”

  Seeing that there was no way for him to make things any better, Clint merely nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “What?”

  “My son. I want to see his face. Can you take me to him?”

  “I suppose,” Clint replied. “But that might not be such a good idea.”

  “Then why’d you come here, mister?”

  Although he was a bit surprised by her brutal frankness, Clint couldn’t exactly argue with her reasoning. “I came to find out what happened between your brother and your son. It seemed to me like there was more to it than just two men butting heads.”

  “There was,” she said, confirming Clint’s suspicion as well as the story told by a certain barber. “Plenty more. I can tell you what happened after I see my boy. Otherwise, it ain’t nobody’s business but his.”

  Clint nodded. “All right. Give me some time to collect my horse and I’ll take you to him.”

  SEVENTEEN

  It was a few hours before Clint made it back to Lisa Ordell’s house. When he rode up and reined Eclipse to a stop, the Darley Arabian was still breathing heavily from his run. Clint did his best to fix up his rumpled clothes and patted some of the dirt from himself before knocking on the door.

  When Lisa answered, she muttered, “Took you long enough,” just loudly enough for Clint to hear.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “There were some matters that needed to be straightened out. If you’d like, we can go to see your son now.”

  The door opened a bit more, allowing her to peek outside. Since the sun was blazing down in all its fury, the inside of her house seemed to be all the more darker. She squinted out like a mole peeking from its den and then took a few steps outside.

  “We’d best hurry,” she said.

  Clint climbed back into the saddle and reached down for Lisa’s hand. She took it and pulled herself up until she was sitting as comfortably as possible behind him. She wrapped her arms around his middle and hung on as if she were grabbing onto a tree trunk in high wind.

  Snapping the reins, Clint steered Eclipse back toward the street and into the growing number of others in carts or on horseback. The town was busy as always, but the street seemed to have gotten a bit more crowded since Clint had arrived.

  “You’d better hurry,” Lisa said.

  Rather than ask any questions, Clint gave the reins another flick. Despite his size, Eclipse had no trouble at all navigating between the slower animals and vehicles in his way. The stallion wove between them like he was threading a needle until finally he broke into a clearer stretch of road.

  Clint headed for the edge of town,
noticing that he could still hear plenty of other horses even though there weren’t many in front of him. Taking a quick look over his shoulder, he spotted two riders directly behind him. They were both the same age as the riders he and Ordell had encountered outside of town.

  “Those boys look familiar to you?” Clint asked.

  Lisa twisted around in the saddle and then righted herself. “Yes. That’s why I told you to hurry.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Josh knows them.”

  “And you don’t?”

  Although she didn’t answer right away, Clint could feel the tension in Lisa’s arms as she grabbed on tighter to him. He could also feel her head bump against his back as if she were hanging it in shame.

  Finally, she said, “They been threatening me to get to my brother. Lately, they been trying to get ahold of Josh as well.”

  “What do they want?”

  Before she could respond, one of the men behind Eclipse let out a piercing whistle. “It’s her all right!” he shouted. “Looks like the bitch hired some protection to get her out of town!”

  “To hell with that,” another of the riders said.

  The moment he heard the horses close in on him, Clint snapped the reins and touched his heels to Eclipse’s side. “Hold on tight,” he said.

  Lisa did just that and pressed her face against Clint’s shoulder.

  They might have been in a less crowded section of town, but Clint still didn’t want to start any trouble there if he could help it. There were already too many things that didn’t sit well with him and Clint didn’t want to add accidentally harming a local to the mix.

  Although they’d been headed toward the only end of town that didn’t face onto the river or the woods, Clint steered Eclipse toward the wooded half and bolted through a crossroad just as two wagons were about to pass each other. He could hear those other riders getting tangled up with the wagons and took that opportunity to steer down another road.

  “How many of these men should I expect?” Clint asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lisa replied. “I’ve been locked inside my house with the windows shut so I wouldn’t have to think about them.”