Fred nodded and motioned the boy inside. Once they’d stepped across the threshold, Joel closed the door and came around to sit on his desk in front of them.
Scott looked over his shoulder for his pa and shivered. He crammed one fist into his pocket and stood with a shoulder raised while he scuffed his foot. After what seemed to Joel an eternity, his voice squalled. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”
“Kill who?” Joel blurted.
“I don’t know,” Scott answered.
A hundred questions buzzed in Joel’s head, but they would wait. He needed to hear how the boy told the story without any prompting.
“Go on,” he said.
“I wanted to help Fowler. I wanted to ride with the Bald Knobbers, but they sent me home. They didn’t think I could be any help.” He tossed another pleading look over his shoulder and this time met his uncle’s unwavering gaze. “I went back to Uncle Calbert’s, but I took the long way around. I figured that if Bullard knew they were hunting for him, he wouldn’t stick to the main roads, so I took the trail. I didn’t have a single notion what I was going to do with him when I found him. Just thought it’d be exciting to be involved.” His chest caved. “I should’ve realized when I came upon the tree that I’d walked into a trap. I had to get off my horse, and that should’ve warned me, but I was too fired up about finding someone. I just wanted to get past there and ride hard again. I never thought about a Bald Knobber being in the thicket until he had me by the coat.”
“Wait,” Joel said. “Are you talking about the night that the Bald Knobbers rode? The night I saw you up on Dewey Bald?”
“That’s it,” Calbert Huckabee said. “He came home telling me what’d happened. We weren’t sure what to make of his story, but it sounded like something that needed to be told, so here we are.”
“Days later. If it was important, don’t you think you should’ve come sooner?”
“He was hurt, and we had some thinking to do,” Calbert said.
Fred studied the ground. “I didn’t know until this morning.”
There’d be no apologizing from Calbert, Joel could see that right off. He’d done what was right eventually, and any person who couldn’t understand why he had to agonize over his choice didn’t deserve an apology.
Joel’s mouth tightened. “He had you by the coat . . .”
“He had me by the coat, and I just laughed. Why would I have anything to fear from a Bald Knobber? I haven’t run afoul of them.”
“How’d you know he was a member of the gang?”
“He had a mask,” Scott said. “Kinda hard to miss that clue.”
Was it Bullard? Joel paused long enough to let the thought grow. Bullard disguised as a Bald Knobber, committing crimes that would incriminate his old foes? The theory had some merit.
“Your attacker had you by the coat,” Joel said. “And then what happened?”
“I thought he was fooling around. I said, ‘Did you find Bullard?’ But he brought out a knife. That’s when I started thinking hard. I mean, I’d just left the gang back on the mountain. How did this fellow get ahead of me? Once he put that knife to my throat, I knew I was in trouble. At first I just went limp. I let him push me to the edge of the drop-off because I was so afraid. He said, ‘Are they behind you, boy? Are they coming this way? Well, you ain’t gonna have a story to tell if they are.’
“My neck was stinging and I could feel the warmth running down to my shirt. Then I knew what he had in mind. No matter how I tried talking sense to him, he was going to kill me. Being afraid of him wasn’t going to save my life. So I pulled out my pistol, just like a real deputy. I pulled it out fast and shot him in the chest.” His face paled and contorted. He closed his mouth, then with a shake of his head, he continued. “His eyes. I could see them through the mask. Suddenly he was more afraid than I was. He was still holding onto my coat, but he’d dropped the knife and was holding his chest. The blood coming through his fingers . . .” Scott dropped his chin. “He started yanking to get his mask off, and then he disappeared. Down the cliff.”
Happy shouts from the schoolyard could be heard as Scott’s peers waited for their instruction to begin. Joel finally swallowed the lump that’d been caught in his throat ever since they’d arrived. He wanted to believe Scott, but his story wasn’t adding up with what they already knew.
“You mean to say you were on the trail where the pine tree had been hacked down? That’s where Sheriff Taney was attacked, too. And he says that it was Fowler who attacked him.”
“It wasn’t Fowler that had my boy,” said Fred.
“Do you think the boy could get a shot off if Fowler had him by the neck?” said Calbert Huckabee.
“Let me see your neck,” Joel said.
With awkward tugs, Scott loosened the scarf that shielded his throat. Beneath it was a bandage. He fumbled with the knot, but it stayed secure. Joel reached for his own knife, but at the sight of it, Scott recoiled. Sweat beaded on his lip along with the beginnings of thin whiskers. Leaning backwards, he held out both hands.