Saved By The Outlaws

Chapter Nineteen: Knowing The Truth

Chapter 19: Knowing the truth

I rode as fast as I could, the wind tearing at my face and my clothes whipping against my skin. I rode to save Carly.

How had her brother found her so fast? We were meant to have more time. The Sheriff was meant to be looking out for more information on him. But I guess even that was too much to ask.

As I got closer to the town I noticed that it seemed abandoned and there was no one in site. I jumped off the horse and tied it to the nearest fence, not really caring if it was the best place to leave it or whose property it was currently on. I was too occupied with finding Carly.

I needed to find her.

The first place that I decided to look was with the Sheriff. If Carly had any sense then that would be the first place she would go. Yes, they had all trained her just yesterday but I knew that she was no where near ready to actually put her skills to use.

I crept around the Sheriff's building as a sinking feeling entered my body and I looked through the window into the entrance of the building. There they were.

I looked around to find where the Sheriff was as I noticed Carly's brother with his gun pointed at Carly's face.

One wrong move and the consequences weren't even worth considering. I had to play this game properly.

I glanced around the room and found the Sheriff against the wall, two bullet wounds, one in each arm. He looked pale and his eyes were closed. He looked unconsciousness but I could still see his chest moving and as long as he was breathing, there was still hope.

But the Sheriff didn't manage to keep my attention for long. As a conversation started up between the two siblings and I pushed myself through the window whilst hiding behind a desk, closer to Carly and in ear shot of the conversation that they were having.

“Why Aleck?”

“Stop bloody asking me why Carly because I getting round to telling ya. I hate you so much, I really do and yer questions are getting on my nerves!”

“Can you not just put the gun down please and talk to me normally Aleck? I don't understand? You're my brother, how can you hate me? I haven't done anything wrong!”

“But you have! Everything that you've done has been wrong. You're very existence is what makes this all wrong Carly!”

“Aleck you're not making any sense! What would mother and father think if they could see you being this way?”

“He's not my father Carly so I doubt he'd really care about me right now. He certainly proved that before he died. As for that bitch that we both call mother, she went right along with him, so she'd probably not care about me either!”

“Not your father? What are you talking about Aleck? Father loved you! Everybody saw it! You were his son, why wouldn't he love you?”

“Did you not hear anything that I just said Carly or didn't you choose to ignore it? He. Is. Not. My. Father. Is that simple enough for you?”

“But how?”

“Ned loved me for sure. I never though of any other man as my father and he treated me as his own.”

I looked between the two siblings feeling the tension, but at that comment Carly smiled and seemed to want to interrupt before Aleck continued.

“But I wasn't one of his own. Not through blood anyway. He adopted me, but I wasn't his son. I was Ruth's son and she'd stupidly had a relationship with another man before Ned and he'd abandoned our mother without leaving a single penny for us both. Ned took us in and fell in love with our mother. They got married, and everything was going great. Until they had you.”

With that I saw Carly's smile fall. This was not what she was expecting to hear and I wanted to run to her and hold her close. I wanted to protect her from this, but I knew that it was something that she had to hear. Aleck went on ranting at Carly as I listened in.

“You came along and ruined it all! I know that Ned loved me like a son but I was nothing compared to you. You were his blood. You were his. And there was no way that I could compete with that! No way at all! But still, they kept it so that the will was to have me inherit the business and the money for when they died, but one night, quite recently actually I heard them arguing when you'd gone to bed and I wanted to go and see what was going on. There I heard our mother and your father arguing about changing the will. You see, Ned had stated on the will that the first born would receive all the inheritance, and I was currently listed as that first born. Yet Ned wanted to change it to you and our mother wanted to share it between the both of us but Ned wasn't having any of it. He told our mother that I needed to make a name for myself and that he had no worries about my future but you needed to inheritance more. Nothing that mother said could change his mind and the next day I followed them as they went to change the will.”

“If it's about the will and the inheritance then you can have it all Aleck! I don't care! I don't want it to come between us Aleck!” Carly cried out.

“It's too late” Aleck yelled “I couldn't handle it, so when they got home I confronted them both about it, asking them if they really had changed the will. And do you know what? Ned never even tried to hide it. He came straight out with it and told me how I would never get my hands on the money and that he said he always thought that I was a greedy little boy. I was outraged. Mother didn't even try to defend me, she stood there in the corner as quiet as a mouse and refused to even look me in the eyes. It wasn't until I questioned her that she said 'it's for your own good Aleck!'”

Aleck waved the gun about as he continued “I tried to make them see sense and when they didn't I grabbed the gun. I told them that they had to go and change it but Ned just laughed at me and said that even if they died I would never get it and even if I blackmailed you into signing it over, there was nothing that I could do because they made sure that no matter what the money went to you. So I shot him, straight in the head.”

Carly gasped, tears running down her face and she brought her hand up to cover her mouth as the held in a sob.

“Then as our mother ran towards her dead husband she looked up at me and told me what a monster I was and that I was just like my father. She said that before screaming for help and so I shot her too. Then I ran, only coming back after making up some story about someone else coming in to kill them and you getting kidnapped. I was going to let you go too, until I went to collect the inheritance and was told that even though you were missing I couldn't receive any of it. I took the will and spent days reading over it before I noticed the small writing at the end. A loop hole.”

Aleck held the gun firmly towards Carly once more as she looked straight into his eyes “and what would that be Aleck?” She bravely asked.

“As I was adopted legally by Ned, I am still a Sanders and in the event of the death of the named person in the will, the inheritance shall go to the last living relative. So dear sister, don't you see? You have to die.”

As he said those words I stood from behind the desk and made myself known. “Not today” I said as both Aleck and Carly turned to me in surprise.