In the blink of an eye, the stranger's gun was drawn.
THIRTEEN
“What brings you out here?” Clint asked without acknowledging the fact that he was staring down the barrel of a gun.
The stranger spoke in a voice that sounded like it had been shredded by broken glass. “What the hell business is it of yours?”
Clint dropped his eyes for a second to glance at the gun in the other man's hand. That was enough for him to see it was a Schofield model that didn't see much use anymore. He could also tell by the stranger's steady hand that he was more than a little familiar with that weapon.
“Seems to me like you're spying on the woman and boy who live in that house over there,” Clint said.
“And I still don't see how it's any of your concern.”
“Maybe the woman doesn't appreciate being spied on. Maybe she doesn't like you knocking on her door and frightening her boy.” Clint narrowed his eyes a bit and tensed the muscles in his arm. “Or maybe she doesn't like seeing the face of an outlaw trying to hunt down a dead man.”
The stranger was probably a fairly decent poker player, because he didn't react too much to those words. He reacted enough, however, for Clint to know that the words had struck a chord somewhere within the stranger's head.
“I ain't hunting down nobody,” he rasped. “But I don't mind starting now if there ain't no other choice.”
Clint held his ground without batting an eye. “There's no cause for blood to be spilled, but you're done with this family. You can walk away, run away or be carried away. One thing I can guarantee is that you're going away. Right now.”
For a second, a hint of concern passed across the stranger's face. After it was gone, the steely coldness that had been there before was back and even colder than ever. Clint spotted the subtle change just in time to know what was coming. The instant he saw the stranger's gun hand move, Clint responded in kind.
Rather than drop his own hand to pull the modified Colt from its holster, Clint snapped that hand out and up to catch the stranger's wrist. Clint's movement was just quick enough to force the stranger's hand up as he took his shot. The gun roared once and sent its round into the sky over Clint's head. After that, Clint lost his grip on the stranger's wrist and felt an impact in his gut that took the wind out of him.
Clint felt the blow land and cursed himself for allowing it to happen, with the very breath that was forced from his lungs. Even though he didn't allow himself to buckle or be hampered by the blow for more than a second, Clint still wasn't able to keep the stranger from getting away.
If he was there to simply chase the stranger off for one night, Clint would have been content to let the man go. But Clint wasn't going to be in town forever, and he intended on making it so the Hasslemans could sleep soundly for a good, long time. Because of that, Clint sucked in a breath and took off after the stranger.
The other man was quick on his feet. In the short lead he'd gotten, the stranger was far enough ahead so Clint could only see the flutter of the back of his coat. Faces poked out of windows from the nearby houses in response to the gunshot, and Clint used them to keep track of the stranger's progress. All Clint needed to do was watch where the other folks were looking before they turned toward him, and he got a rough idea of where the stranger had gone.
As he raced away from the houses as well as the rest of the town, Clint felt the ground become rougher and less even beneath his boots. Every so often, his ankle would start to turn the wrong way, but he was moving so quickly that his momentum kept him from falling on his face.
Clint bolted through a row of trees and found himself looking out at an open stretch of land. There wasn't a lot of moonlight, but there was enough for him to realize the stranger wasn't anywhere in front of him. When he turned back around, Clint saw a shadow from the trees behind him rush forward like a hawk descending upon its prey.
Before Clint could make another move, the stranger had a firm hold on the front of his shirt and was pivoting toward the trees. The stranger's arms were strong enough to pull Clint along for the ride and eventually slam him against the closest tree.
Clint felt some of his breath leave him on impact, but he'd already steeled himself based on the most recent time the wind had been knocked out of him. This time, the impact only served to light an angry fire in the bottom of his stomach.
Bringing both arms straight up and inside of the stranger's elbows, Clint snapped his arms out and knocked the man's hands to either side. From there, Clint took hold of the stranger's shoulder with his left hand and then balled up his right to deliver a solid punch to the man's gut.
Clint heard the man wheeze and hack up a few haggard breaths. Still, the stranger had enough left in him to step back and pull himself free of Clint's grasp. The stranger's hand flashed toward his belt, and Clint wasn't about to stand still long enough to find out what was in store for him next.
Although Clint had been expecting another gunshot, he heard something heavy slice through the air while he dove away from the tree. Clint spun around and saw the stranger with a knife in his hand and a vicious snarl on his face. Fortunately for Clint, the knife was embedded in the trunk of the tree.
Clint didn't waste a fraction of a second before reaching out to try and grab the knife. The stranger wasn't about to let go. In fact, he was already pulling the blade free before Clint could get to the knife's handle. Rather than try to make a grab for it, Clint took hold of the stranger's wrist so neither one of them could take an effective swing with the weapon.
Since his options were quickly falling away, Clint wrapped his free arm around the stranger's neck and moved in behind him. Just as he felt his forearm sink in deeply against the man's windpipe, Clint felt the jarring impact of the back of the man's head as it was slammed into his face.
The stranger followed up the backward head butt by letting go of his knife and twisting around to face Clint. Bringing his knee up, the stranger threw his body forward so he could pack the biggest possible hit with what little amount of space he had. The man's knee caught Clint in the midsection, just below his ribs. Any higher and one of those ribs might have snapped. Any lower and Clint might have spent the next couple minutes puking up everything he'd eaten in the last day or two.
Seeing the victorious grin on the stranger's face was more than enough to get Clint moving again. Using every bit of strength he had left, he cocked his arm back and then straightened his back. As his upper body came up, so did his fist. When his knuckles made contact with the stranger's jaw, there was enough force behind them to snap the man's head back and send him staggering backward a few steps.
Clint didn't have much of anything left. The effects of all that running, combined with the hits he'd taken, left him barely able to stand up straight.
The stranger appeared to be in the same boat, since he hunkered down with his hands on his knees and his breaths making him sound like a steam engine on its last legs.
Neither one of them was in any shape to take off running, and they didn't seem too eager to fight.
All that remained now was for Clint to figure out what the hell to do next.
FOURTEEN
Clint's hand hovered over his holster. Even though he didn't recall the moment in which he'd dropped his Colt back into place, he knew it would be there when he needed it. He'd lived by that gun for so long that it was as vital a piece of him as his own arm. Judging by the stranger's stance and the caution in his eyes, Clint was sure the man was pretty much the same in that respect.
“Who the hell are you?” Clint asked.
The stranger didn't reply. Instead, he glared at Clint intently while waiting for one wrong move to be made.
“I know you've been watching the Hasselmans,” Clint said. “I know you've been watching them every night. I also know about the money you gave to them.”
Finally, something struck a nerve hard enough to elicit a response.
“None of that is your business,” the stranger said. “You can just forget about that money, because it ain't yours and it never will be.”
“I'm more concerned with you watching that family like a hawk.”
“Why?”
“Because they deserve to live in peace.”
“Do you know them?” the stranger asked.
“I know them well enough to know they should be able to rest easy in their own homes. Anyone deserves that much.”
“And why would you take such an interest in them?”
“Because I'm in a position where I can help, and I couldn't just ride away knowing some vulture is lurking around here waiting to sink his claws into a widow and a kid.”
The stranger eased up slightly, but the difference was almost invisible. Clint might have missed the subtle shift in the stranger's face and posture if he hadn't been watching him so closely.
“You ain't the law,” the stranger said.
Clint shook his head. “Nope.”
“And you ain't a friend of Jed Hasselman.”
“Is he that boy's father?” Clint asked.
The stranger shifted a bit more. This time, a questioning look drifted across his face. “Yeah. He sure was.”
“Then I didn't know him. Something tells me you did, though.”
Bringing his eyes up to look at Clint, the stranger seemed as if he'd been caught napping. He no longer focused on Clint, but looked around at every bit of movement and every bit of noise that passed through the night. Finally, he muttered, “I knew him.”
Now that his blood wasn't racing through his veins and some of the pain from those blows had subsided, Clint was seeing things in a different light. The stranger himself had eased back and was now even starting to turn away from Clint. Even so, the stranger's hand was still near his gun.
“How'd you know Mr. Hasselman?” Clint asked.
“It don't matter.”
“And why were you watching his family? If you were a friend looking in on them, I doubt the lady would have been so spooked.”
“She's got every right to be spooked,” the stranger said. “That's why I didn't force her to talk to me any more than she had to.”
“And why lurk about outside her home?”
Anger flashed in the stranger's eyes as he looked at Clint. That anger left him as he averted his eyes and lowered his head. “She wasn't supposed to know I was there.”
“You must have some reason for that.”
“I wanted to make sure she put that money away somewhere safe. When I gave it to her, she said she'd toss it out, but she didn't. Folks have a way of sniffing out money like that. All I wanted to do was make sure nobody came after her to get it.”
“That's why you've been watching her every night?” Clint asked. “To make sure she wasn't robbed?”
When he said that, Clint didn't believe it. The words sounded like something close to a joke as they hit his ears, but the stranger wasn't laughing. His eyes were focused on a point over Clint's shoulder, and he stared at it for a good couple of seconds before replying.
“Yeah,” the stranger said. “That's why.”
Those three words were packed with enough earnestness to swing Clint's opinion completely around. Even though he could scarcely believe he was saying it, he told the stranger, “I think you're telling the truth.”
Laughing under his breath, the stranger replied, “I don't give a damn what you think.”
The stranger settled upon his haunches and then lowered himself all the way down. By the time he was sitting on the ground, he looked like a set of bellows that had been allowed to drain of air until it was less than half of what it had once been.
Clint joined him by settling onto the ground facing the stranger.
“How do you know Kay?” the stranger asked.
“I just met her over supper.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah,” Clint said with a nod.
“What about the kid? Did you meet him over supper, too?”
“No. Actually, I crossed paths with him when he went into a saloon in town to try and hire a man to kill someone.”
The stranger's head snapped back as if he'd been swatted on the nose. “What did you say?”
“He took that money with him and tried to buy himself a gunman.”
“I'll be damned. Who's he want to kill?”
“My guess,” Clint said, “is that you'd be the one on his mind.”
Oddly enough, the stranger kept smiling and nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. Only problem with that is how many men saw the kid carrying all that money.”
“I'd be more worried about what sort of men they were instead of how many.”
“Either way,” the stranger grunted, “it ain't good. Looks like I botched things up pretty bad rather than makin' them any better.” He got up and dusted himself off. “Do you know who the kid talked to while wavin' that cash around?”
Clint looked up at the other man without getting up. He could draw his Colt sitting almost as well as he could while standing, so there was no need to put his aching body through the trouble of climbing to his feet. “I do know that he was already jumped by a couple of those men who meant to rob him.”
“Was the kid hurt?” the stranger asked as the deadly coldness seeped back into his eyes.
“No. I made certain of it.”
The stranger nodded and started to walk toward the town.
Since it didn't seem as though the stranger was about to explain himself, Clint asked, “Where do you think you're going?”