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?"

Clint nodded. A man could do a whole lot of changing between fifteen and twenty-six, and he had. He just couldn't figure out if the change was for the better or the worse.

"That's an explanation for why I missed that man a few weeks ago when he was sneaking around outside. The way his eyes were... they reminded me of Abel. I froze and couldn't pull that trigger... even to wing him. I've never froze like that up before... it kind of rattled me, to be honest," Clint confessed, keeping his gaze on his folded hands that were resting on the tabletop.

Bliss took a deep breath. "So you have no family at all?"

He looked up at her. Her eyes clouded over in moisture... over him. Why would she cry over him? He had turned out just fine, anyway.

"Well, I have several aunts and uncles back East, but they never had much to do with me or my brothers after our parents died," he answered her.

"Don't you ever get lonely?" Bliss asked.

Clint shrugged. "You get used to being alone after so many years. Believe it or not, I'm not all that boring of company." He ended his words with a slight smirk, but Bliss didn't even crack a smile.

"You never got to be around your family at Thanksgiving or Christmas?" she asked.

Clint shook his head. He had forgotten what it was like to celebrate the holidays. He hadn't celebrated either of them since his parents died when he was ten. From what he had heard, he wasn't missing out on much more than stress and hassle.

Bliss gave her head one stiff nod. "You'll celebrate it with us this year. Even if you get the job done before they get here, you'll stay on until after Christmas. Sound good?"

Clint opened his mouth to protest, but she didn't let him get a word in.

"Good," she stated.

She stood and wrapped her robe tight around herself, slinging her long blonde braid over her shoulder to hang down her back. She turned and walked back down the hall toward her room, and Clint shook his head.

He had thought that she wanted him to leave so that she could get her freedom back, and now she was making him stay, perhaps longer than necessary. What did that mean?

Women were so confusing. Did they even know when their own mind was made up?

*****

Clint walked outside the next morning to catch the cowboy that Sherman was sending into town before he rode off to Plateau.

"Hawk! Wait up a minute!" he called out after the man.

Hawk turned around and waited while Clint jogged over to where he was. "You need something, Slade?"

"Um, yeah I gotta favor to ask," Clint told him, drawing a paper out of his pocket. "I need you to send a telegraph while you're in town."

"Where to?" Hawk asked.

"The newspaper office in Carlisle, Virginia. Send those exact words," Clint pointed to the note that he had given to the cowboy.

Hawk read over the note and looked back up at Clint, his eyes narrowed. "You sure you wanna go that far, Slade?"

Clint nodded. "Don't mention a word about this to anyone, understand?"

Hawk shook his head. "Once word gets around town..."

"Don't let it," Clint said severely.

"You don't know Ike at the telegraph office. He can't keep a secret to save is life."

"Bribe him then," Clint suggested.

"With what? I'm broke, you know."

Clint rolled his eyes. Did he have to spell everything out to the man?

"You gotta iron?" Clint asked.

Hawk nodded.

"It can be used to more than firin' bullets if push comes to shove."

Hawk's eyes widened. "I can't pull a gun on that man! He'd kill over and die of a heart attack!"

Clint rubbed his face in frustration. "Fine. Fine. Just find some way to get him to shut up about it. If Miss Cooper or Sherman finds out I'm doing this, they'll hang me up by my toes and beat me like a piñata."

Hawk nodded.

"Oh, and one more thing," Clint reached inside his pocket and withdrew a few bills. "This is for your trouble."

Hawk's eyes lit up.

"And don't you even think about wasting it on drinkin' or women, ya hear? Buy something you really need," Clint told him.

Hawk scowled, but mounted up anyway and was soon on his way toward town. Clint breathed deep. He hoped that he was doing the right thing. Bliss was trusting him now.

For once in his life, he felt that he answered to someone, someone that he didn't want to let down this time.

He couldn't say it was a bad feeling, either.

*****

Bliss plunged her hands into the soapy dishwater as she scrubbed the breakfast dishes clean. She had woken up in a bad mood this morning, and she couldn't put her finger on why she felt that way. Everything upset her, like the way the soap they had didn't make bubbles too well, like the way that Damian and Daddy always left their dishes on the table, and the way that everyone vanished from the table as soon as breakfast was over, the only ones even offering to help with anything being Colt, who always insisted he get the water for the dishes in the morning. It was all annoying her, and she felt like squashing the world between her fingers.

"Need something, Bliss?" she heard Colt ask as he entered the back door.

Do not snap at him. Do not snap at him. Do not...

"No," Bliss retorted in spite of her efforts.

"What's that matter with you?" Colt said knowingly.

"Nothing's wrong with me." Bliss threw a plate into the dishwater.

"Uh huh," Colt shook his head, catching her eye.

"Got something to say to me, Kidd?" she asked.

"No," Colt sat down at the table and crossed his arms, looking at her.

"Then why are you sitting here?" Bliss vigorously washed a cup.

"Because you obviously have something to get off your chest," Colt smiled.

Bliss let out a harsh sigh. "I have no idea what's wrong with me. I just feel bad," she said.

"Then just tell me what's on your mind," Colt nudged.

Bliss dried her hands, turning to him. She knew she couldn't hide much from Colt. He knew her too well.

"It just angers me that Clint had to grow up without a family of any sort. He has no happy memories and obviously doesn't know how to make more. I'd be sick of myself if I had to live like that. It's not fair that I at least have happy memories of my momma and still have Daddy, whereas Clint has no one. No siblings, no aunts or uncles who care about him, and both of his parents died at the same time. I feel so petty and childish. Here I am complaining because I don't know what happened to my mother while my daddy has been there the whole time. I had you and Grace. I had this ranch, and I even had Seth for a while. He never had that much." Bliss stood in front of Colt as she spoke.

His eyes clouded over with something se couldn't place. A look that had never darkened Colt's face before.

"Maybe he likes it that way," Colt offered.

Bliss shook her head. "No. I could see it on his face. He regretted not having any attachments."

"I doubt it, Bliss. Men like him don't like people feeling sorry for him, so I'm sure he'd not take kindly to this conversation," Colt said.

"Don't you see? Compassion is exactly what he needs. Someone to turn him around let him know that it's okay to trust people and to allow himself to feel for them." Bliss tried to persuade Colt that Clint needed compassion, all the while knowing in her heart that compassion wasn't what he needed most.

"I think we both know that he really needs the Lord," Colt blurted.

Bliss didn't speak for a moment. "That won't help him at all."

"Why do you say that?"

"Why tell him that God will help him when all God is really gonna do is desert him when hard times come. He's gonna basically disappear and then keep throwing things at you until you bend so far you break. Then he'll desert you and you won't hear from Him ever again. God doesn't care, Colt!" Bliss begged some sense to enter the fool man's head.

Colt shook his head. "You can't convince me otherwise, Bliss. Did it ever occur to you that God might not have broken you? That you might have broken yourself? There is a difference."

With that note, he stood and walked outside, leaving Bliss alone to ponder his words.

Words that made no sense to her scarred heart.

*****

　Thanks so much for reading guys! If you have any questions or there is any confusion, I'll be glad to help... as long as it doesn't give away the plot! Thanks for putting up with me. My brother's team got 3rd place in the basketball tournament! :O One of their littlest guys was acknowledged as some sort of elite player of some sort, too. That little guys was shooting 3 pointers like nobody's business! Anyway, I had a great time and made a new friend in the process! Too bad I didn't get much writing done!

Thanks again guys!