Chapter 39
“What are you doing, Clint?” Abel’s eyes reflected pure horror.
“I’m gonna tie you both up. Now do as I say,” Clint waved his gun in the direction that he wanted Abel to go.
Abel walked to where Joe was still leaned up against the mesa wall and sat down beside him. Clint put his fingers in his mouth and let out a shrill whistle. His horse came running up to him and Clint grabbed the rope from his pommel and walked toward his brothers, gun in hand.
“What are you going to do with us?” Joe asked as Clint began to tie their hands together.
“I’m gonna send you to Plateau. I’m sure the local sheriff will be plenty happy to see you,” Clint explained.
“You’d do that to your own brothers?” Joe yanked against the roped. “Slades stick together, Clint.”
“No, you’re wrong. You two might stick together, but I don’t. I stick with the people who care about me and mine. That excludes any blood kin I ever had,” Clint tied off the roped binding his brothers.
“Let me guess, you like those people down there on that ranch?” Joe rolled his eyes.
Clint pressed his lips into a thin line and took his time answering, sitting back on his heels.
“They might not be blood, but they treated me a whole lot better than any of you ever have,” he told them.
Joe rolled his eyes. “How were we supposed to take care of you when we didn’t know where you were?”
“I’m Clint Slade, I’m not hard to find,” Clint stood up and walked back to his horse.
“We were busy too, ya know. We had a life to get on with,” Joe defended.
“Yeah, you were real busy ruining Bliss’ life, weren’t you?” Clint put his foot into the stirrup of his saddle and mounted his horse. “Get up, you two.”
“What? Are you gonna make up walk all the way back to the Dottie Belle?” Abel’s eyes widened.
“Bliss and I did it in the mud. You can do it now.”
His brothers struggled to their feet with their hands tied behind their backs. He directed his gun at them.
“Start walking, and don’t even think about trying anything. I’ve killed men for a lot less than what you’ve done.”
His brothers started walking toward the ranch, and Clint decided to get a few more answers out of them while he had them where he wanted them.
“So, I think you two have some explaining to do about Damian Jeremiah?” he said plainly.
Joe looked back at him with a grin. “Quite a skittish little man, ain’t he?”
“Why did you hire him to get information out of me?” Clint pressed.
“Like I was going to march into the Dottie Belle and demand where my money was? Sherman would’a blowed me away,” Joe twisted slightly to look at him while still walking forward.
“Then why Damian? You could have easily bribed one of the cowboys,” Clint asked.
“Damian was the only one we could find dumb enough to trust us to really give him a third of that money. We were never really going to give it to him. Guess that little lady running him off kinda saved his life,” Joe explained.
Clint gripped the reins harder. His brother had turned into truly heartless men… just like he had used to be.
“You boys know that you can turn back now, don’t you?” Clint asked them.
“Turn back? Why would we want to do that?” Joe smirked.
“You know you’ll be tried and convicted. Joe, you might even hang. I’d be thinking about the afterlife if I were you,” Clint suggested.
“So that’s what’s gotten into you? Religion? It’s worse than I thought,” Joe shook his head.
“You can shake it off now, Joe, but when you’re watching that noose dangle from the gallows, you might be singing to a different tune,” Clint sighed.
Truth be told, he wasn’t ready to face his brother’s death himself. He would hand him over to the sheriff in Plateau, but he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to stay around for longer than that. Abel wouldn’t hang, but he would most likely spend the next many years in prison.
Joe laughed. “You really are serious about this God thing now, aren’t you?”
“I am. I’m asking you to consider it. When we get back to the Dottie Belle, I can let you know all that you want to know about God and what He’s done for us. It’s really fascinating,” Clint offered.
Joe shook his head. “That stuff ain’t for me, little brother. You can do all of that you want to, but don’t try to shove it at me.”
Clint heaved a sigh. He didn’t have the power to argue with his brother, but it broke his heart to think of Joe burning in hell forever.
“You won’t even think about it?” Clint asked.
Joe stopped walking and turned to fully face him. “Will it save me from a hanging?”
Clint shook his head.
“Then no,” Joe continued walking.
Clint pressed his lips into a thin line and looked over at Abel, praying that he wasn’t swayed by Joe’s opinion.
“What about you, Abel?”
Abel looked back at him and didn’t speak for a moment. Finally, he shook his head. “I don’t think I will, Clint.”
Clint stifled a groan. His brothers really didn’t care anything about what might happen to them after they were gone. All they cared about was the money that they still hadn’t found.
Eventually, the ranch came into view and it hit Clint that he would be able to see Bliss again. His heartbeat quickened and his grip on the reins grew tighter.
A smile tugged at his lips and he looked down at his brothers.
Lord, I want to know that I’m doing the right thing. I feel like I’m condemning my brothers to prison and possibly a noose. I don’t see that I have a choice, though. God, I give this entire situation over to you. Whatever I lose or gain in the process, I give it over to you. I’m placing my happiness and the life of my brothers in your hands.
He pulled up in front of the familiar front door and dismounted. He placed his barrel in his brother’s direction.
“You two stay put. Sherman!” he yelled.
The front door swung open and Sherman popped his shocked face out.
“What are you doing back here, Slade? I though Bliss made it clear that you were to never come back here?”
Joe leaned his head back and laughed. “The little lady ran you off?” Joe spent the next few annoying moments laughing himself breathless. “That’s a good one,” he said as he wiped his eyes.
Clint rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.
“Seth? What are you doing here? What is the meaning of this, Clint?” Sherman stepped out onto the front porch.
“Clint!” Grace screeched behind him.
Clint smiled as the woman rushed down the steps and wrapped her arms around his neck. He hugged her and she beamed up at him.
“What brings you back?” she asked.
Clint looked toward his brothers. “Not good news, I’m afraid. I overheard my bothers here. I found out their whole plan.”
“Wait. How did you hear it? You were supposed to be back in Tennessee by now,” Sherman narrowed his eyes at him.
“I… um… I never left,” Clint rubbed the back of his neck. “I camped out on top of Almighty for the past four days so I could watch out for things down here.”
Grace rubbed his arm and smiled. “I knew you’d never abandon us when we needed you most.”
“Clint?” The three of them whirled toward the doorway, knowing whose voice called out to him.
*****
Bliss couldn’t believe her eyes. He was actually there, standing in front of her in all of his tall, broad, handsome glory. He turned to her and his eyes reflected trepidation that they both felt. She rushed past her father and down the porch steps until she collided with him and his arms encircled her.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed into his shoulder, letting tears of joy mingle with tears of regret.
He rubbed her hair and held her tight, not saying a word. She pulled back, wiping her eyes.
“I never should have been so narrow-minded. I was so wrapped up in hiding from what I thought would hurt me further that I shoved all possibilities of anything else out of my mind. I hurt you in the process, and I can’t convey how sorry I am…” she continued to bash herself until Clint shook his head hard enough to stop her.
“It’s alright,” he whispered, taking her head in his hands and kissing her forehead.
He turned to her father. “I’m gonna need a couple of your cowboys to help me cart these two into town to the sheriff.”
Daddy’s eyes shifted over to some point behind Clint and didn’t say a word.
Both Clint and Bliss turned around at the same time to look straight down the barrel of a six-shooter, brandished by none other than Joe Slade himself.
“How did you get untied?” Clint spoke to his brother as he would a child, looking around to gun to his brother’s free hands.
Bliss hadn’t even seen them once her eyes had landed on Clint.
Joe laughed. “Oh, Clint. You out to know better than to leave your gun unattended while you get distracted. You two? Ha! I never would have guessed it.”
Clint pushed her to stand behind him and protected her from the barrel of his own gun. Bliss recognized the smooth, pearled handle the moment she saw it.
“Put the gun down, Joe,” Clint warned.
“Or? You’re unarmed. You’re in no position to be making orders, little brother,” Joe spat out the last words as if they put a bad taste in his mouth. He turned to Sherman. “You. You’re gonna tell me where exactly your wife hid that money, or your daughter gets a bullet.”
Bliss tensed as her hand grabbed the shirt fabric that surrounded Clint’s shoulder. Her mother had hidden the money? Why?
Clint moved his hand behind him and took her free hand in his.
*****
Clint squeezed Bliss’ hand to reassure her that he would protect her. There was no way that Joe would land a bullet on her unless he cut him down first.
“I don’t know anything about the money,” Sherman told Joe.
“What is he talking about, Clint?” Bliss asked him.
Clint squeezed her hand again. He wasn’t in a position to answer her questions at the moment.
“You’re a liar, Cooper,” Joe pulled the hammer back on the gun and aimed it straight at Clint’s head. “All I have to do pull this trigger one time to get Clint out of the way and your daughter’s all mine.”
Clint watched as Sherman squirmed slightly. “You’re bluffing.”
Clint rolled his eyes at the man’s stupidity. Joe didn’t bluff. He was terrible at it.
“You don’t think I’ll do it? Oh, I will. I have more reasons to shoot Clint than you know. Let’s go over them, shall we? First, he held this gun on my back all the way here from that mesa over yonder. A man doesn’t get away with pulling a gun on Joe Slade. Second, it appears like he’s stolen Bliss from me. We both know that doesn’t bode well.” Clint sneaked a peek over at Sherman, whose eyes widened at Joe’s words. “Thirdly, he ruined my chances of doing this whole thing without killing someone. I’ll have an even bigger price on my head now, thanks to him. Fourthly, if it hadn’t been for his silly boyish fears, we might not have been stuck in that bank all those years ago. I might not have had to break out of jail, and I might not even be here in this situation right now. Lastly, it would give me great pleasure to get rid of the whelp. It irks me how Abel and I have had to work so hard to carve out enough money to keep ourselves fed while he lives high on the hog. So tell me again how I’m bluffing, Sherman Cooper. Tell me where that money is.”
“The map was a fake?” Bliss asked Clint.
Clint nodded. He should have suspected as much. If the boss - her Mrs. Cooper - had really made a change for the better, she would have returned the money to the good people of Destin, Virginia.
There was no money.
“I don’t know where the money is, Ryder,” Sherman admitted.
Joe looked at Clint. “He doesn’t know?”
“Know what?” Sherman narrowed his eyes.
“I’m not Seth Ryder like I claimed to be. My real name is Joe Slade,” Joe explained.
“So you really are brothers?” Sherman fixed his accusing eyes on Clint.
Clint nodded.
“For the last time, Cooper. Where is the money!” Joe yelled threateningly.
“I don’t know,” Sherman told him.
Clint believed him.
Joe shrugged. “Fine.”
His grip tightened on the gun, and Clint felt panic surge through him. He squeezed Bliss’ hand harder; as if that could protect her if Joe was really going to follow through.
The man’s grip kept tightening until suddenly…
Bang!
Gosh, I just love cliffys! Hope you guys liked this chapter! Don't kill me!