A Place Called Harmony (25 page)

Clint noticed Patrick’s restlessness at dinner. The kid talked even more than usual and mentioned twice that he’d left something back at one of the houses and planned to ride out after supper to pick it up.

When Annie offered to tag along, Patrick shook his head and argued that he’d just as soon go alone and allow her time to rest. His little bride had been feeling poorly since the funeral.

“I’m sure you’d like a little private time,” he said as he kissed her boldly on the lips.

Everyone at the table laughed, knowing that with so many people around, there was no private time.

An hour later, when Truman walked upstairs with Karrisa, he whispered, “I think I’ll go with the kid tonight. Something doesn’t feel right.”

She looked up at him, her blue eyes showing nothing of what she might feel. “Patrick doesn’t like you to call him
kid
.”

“I know, so I don’t to his face, but hell if I can’t stop thinking about how young he is. To tell the truth I don’t even remember ever being so young even when I was the same age.”

“Be careful, old man.” She giggled suddenly. “You’re starting to make no sense.”

He smiled down at her, liking the sound of her happy. “I will, dear. You and little Danny go on to bed. I won’t be late.” He couldn’t help but be pleased that she cared enough to be worried about him.

Once she was settled in their room, Clint checked both his weapons and silently slipped down the stairs. The trading post was dark, but he could hear Harry and Ely playing cards in the corner office. The freight driver and the owner of the trading post were an unlikely pair, but they had age and loneliness in common. Sometimes in this part of the country that was enough to keep a winter’s worth of conversation going.

Clint moved out the front door and headed to the barn, thinking he and Patrick were also a mismatched pair to be friends. Even forgetting the ten-year difference in their ages, Clint could not think of one thing they had in common. By the time he’d been Patrick’s age he’d fought three years and had grown too hardened to even think of home.

None of that mattered. All Clint knew tonight was that Patrick was worried about something. If there happened to be one chance in a hundred that the kid had a reason for concern, Clint planned to be close enough to keep him out of danger.

Patrick’s horse was missing from the corral when he got to the gate. Clint could hear Shelly cleaning and sharpening his tools in the barn. The silent McAllen had skipped supper, as he often did, so he could finish a project or lay everything out for the next day.

Clint didn’t worry about Shelly eating; little Jessie always brought him out a plate on the nights his spot at the table was empty. Shelly probably hadn’t noticed Patrick had left.

Clint saddled up his horse and headed toward the first building site, his own. For a change, the moon was out and the night calm, but the ground was still wet enough to smother hoofprints as he moved along the wagon ruts everyone now thought of as a road. Just out of sight of the trading post, Clint heard Patrick before he saw him. The tinny jingle of his harness sounded like no other.

“Hey, McAllen, hold up and I’ll ride with you.” Clint’s words were low, but they carried on the still air.

Patrick pulled up on his reins and waited but didn’t turn around.

When Clint was even with him, Patrick said in a cold, hard tone. “I’d rather go alone tonight, Truman. I’m not looking for company.”

Clint leaned forward in his saddle. “You sure about that? There may be trouble out here that you aren’t aware of. Matheson and I thought we noticed smoke from a campfire about an hour before we headed in to supper.”

“Trouble probably does wait for me.” Patrick still didn’t look at Clint. “And I have to face it alone.”

“But—”

“No. This is my fight, Truman. You have to promise me you’ll stay out of it.”

Even in the shadows Clint saw the steel in Patrick’s jaw. He wasn’t asking that Clint step away, he was demanding. Whatever was out there waiting for him, it waited for him alone and he wanted it that way.

“Fair enough.” Clint gave in. “I won’t interfere.” He turned his horse and rode back toward the trading post.

Let it go
, he told himself.
Karrisa’s right, he’s not a kid. He can take care of himself. He didn’t ask for or want your help.

Clint argued with himself for a few hundred yards before he turned around. He’d said he wouldn’t interfere, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t watch. The kid might not have any idea what he was getting into. He might think his father waited for him, but it could just as likely be Dollar Holt and the one remaining member of his gang. Maybe they were watching the trading post, waiting for the chance to capture one of the men. Then Dollar might try to ransom him for the outlaw tied up in the barn.

As Clint neared the frame of what would soon be his home, he saw Patrick’s horse tied to one of the posts that would hold up the porch. Without leaving the shadows of the tree line, Clint slipped from his mount and tied the pinto to a cottonwood by the road, then started walking the last thirty yards.

A mind trained in battle never forgets the skills that kept him alive. His senses turned razor sharp.

Two men stood, their outlines blinking in and out between the studs of the house. One Patrick. One older, stouter. Clint couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could tell they were squaring off like two mismatched fighters in a ring.

Something moved in the trees not far from where he’d left his horse. Clint whirled and pulled his Colt in one liquid movement.

The shadows of three men flashed in the moonlight between the cottonwoods, almost as if they were disappearing and reappearing in the blink of an eye. They walked like farmers pacing off their field, not trained fighters. Their feet were heavy, scarring the earth as they moved, and their breathing rapid and noisy. Clint would bet they’d never known battle.

He stepped into the moonlight just as they trudged from the trees. “Make another move and you’re dead, gentlemen.” His words were low and deadly serious.

All three men froze. They’d been advancing without their weapons drawn and now were helpless.

“Pull whatever guns you have out slowly and drop your weapons in the mud.” Clint stepped closer. He wanted the men to see his face and know that he wasn’t the twenty-year-old they came to hurt. He was a hardened soldier who’d kill if he needed to.

The trio looked nervous and did as he said. Two stood tall in defiance, but one began to shiver.

“We’re not here to bother you, mister,” the tallest of the three had the nerve to say. “We’re on the Lord’s business, so we’ll ask you to step aside.”

Clint knew his smile was wicked. “I don’t care about the Lord’s business—I figure he can take care of that himself—but you’re on my land. So that makes whatever you plan to do my concern.”

Now two had the shakes, but the courageous one spoke again. “We won’t be on your land long. We’ve just come to beat the devil out of a boy and help his father get him back on the straight and narrow.”

Clint moved closer to the one talking and made sure his Colt was pointed directly at the man’s middle. “You’ve come to beat Patrick McAllen. He feared you’d come. Four of you against one. Right? Sounds like a real fair mission to me.” He tapped the barrel of his Colt against the spokesman’s chest.

Now no one moved. The one who’d been so brave seemed to have lost his voice.

“I could even the odds a bit, but I think we should have a talk first.”

Clint wanted them to see the truth, not hide behind a mission they didn’t understand. “Patrick McAllen is a married man of twenty, not a boy. He’s a fine carpenter and he’s my friend. I’ve a good mind to shoot all three of you in the knees so you’ll have to crawl the rest of your lives and won’t spend so much time thinking you walk above another soul.”

Clint could smell fear. Or maybe it was urine.

“The man you came to hurt is good, unlike you three who sneak up in the dark so you can make sure it won’t be a fair fight. He’s not like me either. I’d shoot you right where you stand now except for one thing—he wouldn’t like it. So how about you all stay here with me and watch? None of us will be in on the fight tonight.”

When no one objected, Clint added, “Only one rule. If you move or speak, you’re dead. No warning shot. No second chance. Just about like the rules you probably had for Patrick McAllen. I’m guessing you didn’t plan on giving him an inch.”

The three not-so-wise men stood in the shadows and watched the scene unfolding before them in the skeleton of a house.

*   *   *

Patrick lit the lantern and waited. He knew his father was close. He wouldn’t have to wait long. Solomon was not a patient man.

Footsteps stomped across the boards leading to what would be the front door of Truman’s home. Patrick was aware of every movement in the air, every smell in the night. The swish of mud beneath the boards, the huff of his father like a roaring train coming straight toward him. Deep down he knew that he’d been waiting for this confrontation since the night he’d slipped away. His earliest memories were of backing away from his father’s rage, only there would be no more backing away tonight.

Tonight, one way or the other, this struggle would be over.

Patrick left the lantern on the ground and stood. He’d face his father as a man, not a cowering boy.

Solomon stepped into the bones of the house and puffed up, like he always did. Chest out. Arms on his hips. Feet wide apart. Like an avenging angel. Once, years ago, he’d been a powerful sight to behold when angry, but his body had widened and softened from lack of work and his black hair had grayed and thinned. He didn’t seem so big, so strong, so right anymore. Maybe he never had been, but Patrick was too frightened to notice.

For a minute they simply stared at each other. Patrick wasn’t sure Solomon even saw him as his son any longer. Once people fell in Solomon’s eyes they were worthless. Simply extra baggage in a world already crowded with sinners. His son was nothing to him now.

The same was true of fathers, Patrick realized. After the beating, he’d always felt he had no father left inside the man. Solomon was not a part of his family.

“You stole Brother Spencer’s daughter,” Solomon began. “There will be no forgiving for you in that house either.”

“I married her.”

“You ran out on your family.” His voice rose slightly. “Crawled away like a snake.”

“I left.”

“You dishonored me. You were to walk in my steps. I’d already set your path for you. All you had to do was follow me.”

Patrick couldn’t help smiling. The man no longer held any power over him. “I’ll walk in my own steps now. I don’t want to follow in yours. I never did. None of your sons ever did.”

Solomon rocked as if about to explode and screamed, “You didn’t listen to me. You didn’t obey and now you must pay. Even when you beg, I won’t forgive what you’ve done.”

Patrick shook his head. “No. Solomon, I won’t come back and I won’t beg.” He almost smiled. It all seemed so clear now. “To think how I feared this meeting. After you beat me until I was more dead than alive when I was a boy, I used to have nightmares about what you’d do if I ever tried to leave again. Now I see you for what you really are: a bully of an old man who just wants his way. You trapped your daughters by never letting them look at a man, but you couldn’t trap your sons. We all slipped from your grip and none of us will ever come home again. Why should we? We never knew love there once our mother died.”

Patrick knew he was poking a bear, but he couldn’t stop. He had to say all the things he’d felt and never been able to say.

Solomon seemed to swell with rage. “You will return with me! You will or I’ll see you dead. I don’t care how many days or weeks or years it takes, but I’ll make you see what path is right for you or your death will be on your own hands.”

Insanity whispered between Solomon’s shouts and Patrick knew it had always been there, simmering just beneath the surface. The endless lectures, the beatings, the need to control everyone around him. Solomon’s rage had always been so great, everyone had allowed it, knowing he could snap beyond reason any moment.

Patrick shook his head. “I’ll never return, and there is nothing you can do about it. Even if you were brave enough to kill me, I still wouldn’t be returning. Face the truth for once in your life. You didn’t just lose your sons, you drove them away.”