There was a slight shrug.
“I’d be willing to bet you told him not to go, but he went anyway.”
Another shrug.
“Tell me this, Paddy.If I corner you in an alleyway and start shooting, what do you do?”
“I shoot back.”
“But what if I have a brother?A wife?A couple of kids?Will that give you pause?”
“You started it.”
“Your brother and his friends started that trouble on my ranch.They shot first.”
Paddy’s face was pale under the dirt, and his thin shoulders shook.
“You got no call for vengeance.I didn’t go looking to kill your brother or any of them other fellas.They made a bad choice.You made the right choice not going with them.So what’s your choice now?”
“I don’t know!”he cried.
This boy was lost and hurting.But he was facing the same thing that a lot of young folks faced.People lost their kin.Found themselves with nothing.Their dreams shattered.A lot of them, like this waif standing here with a gun in his shaking hand, would cling to the edge of a cliff.
Paddy was at a fork in the road.He had good sense.Caleb wanted to give him the chance to use it.It would make all the difference.
He looked hard into the boy’s face.“All folks make mistakes.But if they learn from them, they’re better for it.Is that gonna be you, Paddy?Is this a mistake?Or do you still think you need to do for me?”
“I don’t wanna shoot nobody.But what am I gonna do?”he wailed.The gun dropped to his side.“I got no kin left.No place to go.I got nothing.And Billy’s gone.”
The words hit Caleb harder than they should have.Because once upon a time, he’d felt exactly the same things.
Just then, a gate creaked open in the fenced enclosure outside, and the voices of Gabriel and his father could be heard.
When the boy turned his head, Caleb stepped toward him and took the pistol from his hand.Paddy gave it up willingly.
As he decocked the hammer of the Dragoon and slid the weapon into the pocket of his coat, he saw that the baling hook lay on the ground.Dusty was just disappearing through the doors to the street and moving faster than a cougar with his tail on fire.
Malachi Rogers and his son came into the stable, and the livery owner smiled in recognition.
“Gabriel told me you had some trouble out at your place last night.We’re keeping those fellows’ horses and saddles here for the time being.”He glanced at Caleb’s ragged companion.“Brought a friend along, Mr.Marlowe?”
The elder Rogers was a sharp-eyed, dark-skinned man of medium height with the broad shoulders and massive arms of a man who’d put in his years muscling livestock and hammering hot iron into horseshoes and other necessities.He was wearing a well-brushed black stovepipe hat and a gray wool coat over a black waistcoat and black cotton shirt, open at the neck.He’d retired his pants with the army stripes down the side a few months ago—a nod to his increasing prosperity—and wore heavy wool pants of a darker gray tucked into well-worn boots.
Malachi Rogers was a former Buffalo Soldier.When Caleb first brought his horse in to be boarded, he spotted the blue cap of the 9th Cavalry hanging from a nail above the desk in the livery office.When the man noticed him eyeing it, they had a short but interesting conversation about the Indian Wars.Malachi had served as a corporal in a unit stationed at Fort Stockton.While he was there, he’d seen more action than he cared to remember.When his regiment was sent to Fort Union in New Mexico in ’75, he’d decided it was time to hang up his spurs and settle in Colorado.At the time, Elkhorn was little more than a ragtag community of tents, log cabins, and knee-deep mud.The son of a blacksmith himself, Malachi knew his trade, and the fledgling town needed him.
“We’re a new acquaintance,” Caleb replied somberly, putting one hand on the boy’s shoulder.“Lost his brother last night.”
The stable owner’s eyes widened as the meaning sank in.He nodded, a frown creasing his face.“So what now?”
“That’s what we were just chewing over.”
Malachi glanced at his son and then back at Paddy.“You got any place to sleep, young fella?”
Paddy shook his head.
“Well, there’s room in that loft.You’ll be warm and snug up there.”He and Caleb exchanged glances.“When’s the last time you ate?”
A shrug.
