Protection

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Clint took a deep breath. He knew he shouldn't tell anyone what he was about to say, but when he looked into Bliss' eyes, he felt like he could actually trust someone. She looked at him with compassion, as if she knew what he was about to say. Too bad he didn't need her pity, but he didn't say that. They had made a deal, anyway.

"There's something you should know about me, you know," he told her.

She nodded.

"We made a deal once, that if you told me about Seth, I would tell you how I became a gunfighter. Well, I'm telling you now."

She waited while he summoned his courage.

"You know that newspaper you showed me earlier today?"

She nodded.

"Well, Kassidy Klaine was the head of the Slade brothers. I told you that I wasn't any relation to them and that wasn't entirely true. I've tried to forget about them for the past eleven years, but nothing that didn't happen."

"Were they your brothers?" Bliss asked.

Clint nodded. "Yep. There were four of us. Joe, Abel, Clyde, and me. Both our parents died of the fever when we were young, so the eldest, Able, had to take care of us for years. Money became scarce and Abel decided that we needed another way of living. Kassidy found us and offered my older brothers a job with her robbing banks and holding up stagecoaches. She said that I would be too young to go along, so I had to stay home in Tennessee by myself and keep things running around the place. The three of them would come back every once in a while and tell me wild stories about shooting and robbing people and how filthy rich they would become in such a short time. I was so young and looked up to them so much, I soaked up every word they had to say and was convinced that life on the wrong side of the law was the one for me. Once I turned fifteen, I convinced them to let me come along on a job. One that was in Destin, Virginia. An old friend of Kassidy's had written her husband somewhere about a big gold delivery in the town. Her husband had relayed it to her and she took the opportunity. I got put to holding the horses while my brothers went inside to do the work. Kassidy hadn't come with them this time, which was so strange to me because she was always with them before in the stories they had told me."

Clint looked up in the middle of his narrative to gauge Bliss' expression, which showed nothing more than genuine curiosity. He went on.

"I stood in my hiding place, holding onto the horses as tight as a could, determined not to let them go. I heard gunfire and every sensible thought ran from my mind. Before I could compose myself, I had ran down the hill and was standing smack in front of the back door of the bank. All I could hear was the hail of gunfire coming from inside the bank. I wanted to open the door and save my brothers, but I knew that I couldn't. I panicked, running far and fast away to save my own life. All three of them died that day. If they hadn't died from their wounds, they hung for murder." Clint swallowed hard. "After that, I decided that I wouldn't be on the wrong side of the law anymore, but I wouldn't be on the right side like a pious schoolmarm. I knew that I was good with a gun. I had to be in order to live up to the Slade name. I took up gun fighting. By seventeen, I'd brought thirteen wanted thieves to justice, dead and alive. I was known as the kid that could outshoot any man. Everything escalated from there. I was made out as some hero, when in reality all I ever did was find a poster and gun after the face plastered on it. There's nothing that separates me from a lawman or an outlaw. I guess I've straddled the fence for the past eleven years."

He fell silent, and they sat there in the stillness for a few moments.

"I... I can't imagine..." Bliss finally said. "You were only fifteen?"