Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
Teaser chapter
A Hell of a Way To Travel . . .
Clint had less than a second to keep his head from being blown completely off his shoulders. He used that time to grab on to the rail that ran along the top of the stage and swing himself over the edge. His fingers locked around the rail with every ounce of strength he could muster. When his arms reached their limit, his entire body slapped against the side of the stage with an impact he felt all the way down to his toes. Clint’s shoulders screamed for mercy, but he somehow managed to hang on as the shotgun blast tore a chunk from the section of roof where he’d just been.
Clint dangled from the stage like a flag at half-mast. His fingers burned, but he couldn’t tell if they’d been hit by some buckshot or if they were simply about to snap from the pressure of keeping the rest of him off the ground. It didn’t really matter either way. Between the sweat from his hands and blood possibly added to the mix, Clint wasn’t going to stay on the coach for long. Every jostling bump that rattled the stage caused him to slip a little farther . . .
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
PARIAH
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Jove edition / January 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Randisi.
All rights reserved.
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eISBN : 978-1-101-15961-3
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ONE
Clint Adams was always amazed by how far a little kindness could stretch. He’d been riding through the Arizona Territories, Tombstone being no more than a day behind him, when he’d stopped in a little town to get a bite to eat. Since he hadn’t planned on staying for more than an hour or so, he hadn’t even bothered to learn the name of the town. It had a restaurant for him and a trough of water for Eclipse, which were the only two things he was after.
The restaurant was a small establishment run by a family that must have been used to some pretty horrific food because the owner’s wife didn’t seem to know her way around the kitchen. Clint gnawed on his tough cut of steak, washed it down with some bitter coffee, and was about to pay the damages when he heard a commotion outside in the street.
“What was that?” the middle-aged man asked while his hands were still full of Clint’s dirty dishes.
Clint stood up and took some money from his pocket. “I don’t know, but it sounded like someone shouting. Maybe I should have a look.”
“Aww, you don’t have to do that. We got some law around here and I was just about to offer you some pie that the wife whipped up earlier this afternoon.”
So that explained the acrid scent of burnt sugar and blackened dough.
“No,” Clint said while doing his best to keep the mix of panic and disgust from showing on his face. “I should definitely go have a look. Someone may be in trouble.”
“Are you a lawman?”
Desperate for an excuse to get out of there before the commotion resolved itself and he was forced to sample some poorly made dessert, Clint said, “Yeah. You might say that. This should settle up my bill,” he added while tossing some money onto the table. “Keep the rest
.”
That brightened the owner’s face well enough. “Much obliged. I can put it toward the purchase of some spices being brought in by a man who has ’em exported all the way from England.”
Or he could pay to hire a real cook. Rather than make that particular suggestion, Clint tipped his hat and hurried out the door. As luck would have it, he wouldn’t even need to avoid walking past the restaurant’s front window. The shouting was still going on and it was coming from a pair of children being escorted across the street by a tall blonde woman. Clint might have stretched the truth about being a lawman, but he wasn’t about to let a lady and two young ones keep screaming until official help arrived.
The blonde woman wore a simple brown dress that was tattered along the hemline and covered in dust. She had a child grasping each of her hands, one of whom was a boy who looked to be around the age of nine, and the other a girl who appeared at least four years younger. The boy had dark skin and short hair, while the girl had the complexion and facial features that hinted at Chinese or some other kind of Asian heritage.
A man in his fifties tugged at the blonde woman’s skirts while two more watched and laughed from a few feet away. All three of the men were covered in enough filth to make it seem as if they’d been dragged from the back of a wagon, and Clint doubted they could pool their resources to form one full set of teeth between them.
“Tell that little bitch to stop screamin’ or I’ll put my foot in her mouth!” the man tugging the blonde’s skirt said.
The blonde swatted at the man’s hand and did her best to keep the children away from him. “Don’t call her that!” she snapped.
“Then what should I call her? Somethin’ tells me we’ll be seein’ a whole lot of each other.”
The other two men chuckled at that, but they didn’t take their eyes off the blonde. She was a handsome woman and was unable to hide that fact no matter how high she buttoned her collar or how many shawls she wrapped around her shoulders. Since it wasn’t nearly cool enough to warrant so many layers, it seemed she’d been doing her best to avoid this very situation.
After she’d transferred the boy’s hand to the same one holding the girl’s, the blonde turned so her body was between the men and the children. Without an ounce of fear in her eyes, she turned toward the men and declared, “You won’t be seeing us at all!”
“Is that a fact, now?”
“It is. You’ll go your way and we’ll go ours.”
Hooking his thumbs in his gun belt, the man asked, “And what if my way just happens to lead under them pretty skirts of yers?”
“That’ll be enough of that,” Clint said as he walked up to stand between the woman and all three men.
The blonde looked toward him with relief, but then gathered the children closer and eased away. “Thank you, but we’ll be just fine. The sheriff will be along shortly.”
“I’m sure he will, ma’am,” Clint said. “Why don’t you just go along and get him or do whatever it is you need to do. I’ll stay and have a word with these three.”
The blonde backed away, but was hesitant to do so. Once she made it down the boardwalk a little farther, she sat the children down on a low bench and knelt so she was at their eye level when talking to them.
“Move along, asshole,” the first dirty-faced man snarled.
Clint looked at that man and then at the other two. “What’s the matter? Can only one of you talk at a time?”
“What if I told you I was her husband and this ain’t none of your concern?” the first man asked. The other two remained silent, but they took up a position on either side of him while glaring at Clint.
One quick glance over his shoulder was enough for Clint to see the look on the blonde woman’s face. “Seems like the lady is about to hack up her breakfast just from hearing that claim. Makes me think it’s not true.”
“It don’t matter what you think. Step aside and let us pass.”
“I’m not wide enough to take up this whole street,” Clint said. “If you want to pass, you can surely get around me.” Waiting until the men took their first steps in his direction, Clint added, “You might want to give the lady and those children a wide berth.”
The three men stopped. Two of them looked at the spokesman for the group, prompting that one to ask, “Or what?”
Shifting his gaze into a cold, hateful stare, Clint replied, “Take another step toward her and find out for yourselves.”
The spokesman thought it over for all of two seconds before backing up. When he bumped into his two companions, he straightened his posture and faced Clint much like a rat that just realized it had been forced into a corner. Putting on an unconvincing scowl, he strode toward the blonde.
Clint stepped to one side and placed his hand flat against the man’s chest to stop him in his tracks. “Is this man your husband, ma’am?” he called out.
“I don’t have a husband,” she replied.
Clint smirked and cracked his knuckles. “Well then,” he said to the spokesman. “Seems like a bit of bad luck for you.”
TWO
The first man to charge at Clint did so without warning. In fact, he seemed to take the spokesman by surprise as well when he rushed forward with his fist swinging at Clint’s jaw. Although he was a little surprised by the timing, Clint wasn’t shocked to see that one make a run at him before the others. While the other two had been posturing and talking tough, his attacker had been tensing like a bowstring being drawn taut.
Fortunately, the first one to charge also had the most ground to cover. By the time he got close enough to reach Clint, he no longer had a target for his punch. Clint had stepped aside into a wide stance, leaving one foot planted where it was and sliding his other out a few feet. When he felt the man’s boot snag against his leg, Clint snapped a quick jab across his face and then pushed him over. The man stumbled and dropped as if he’d accidentally found a half-buried log while charging through a mess of bushes.
The spokesman stayed put while his second companion rushed forward to try his luck with Clint. He was met by a stiff, straight punch to his gut that doubled him over and drove all the wind from his lungs. While he was bent over like that, he left his chin wide open for a straight, upward knee. Clint was more than happy to oblige and used his knee to send the second man staggering away to trip over the first.
“Mister,” the spokesman said, “you just called down a whole mess of trouble.”
Clint let the man talk, simply because it gave him a few seconds to step away from the other two and square his shoulders with the last upright man.
The spokesman wore a pistol strapped around his waist, but moved slower than molasses in winter when he tried to skin it. Before that man’s fingers closed around the grip of his revolver, Clint had already cleared leather and was pointing his modified Colt at him.
“You sure you want to take it this far?” Clint asked. “You and your men can still walk away.”
The spokesman gritted his teeth and glared at Clint, but there was no real conviction in his eyes. He was defeated and he knew it. All that remained was for him to hide his fear, and he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Finally, he sputtered, “We’ll go . . . but just because we wanna go.”
“Of course,” Clint replied.
Shifting his eyes to the blonde, the spokesman added, “And when we feel like comin’ back, we’ll—”
“Think real hard before you finish that sentence,” Clint warned.
The spokesman froze with his mouth hanging open. If the words had been physical things, they might have dribbled from the corner of his lip and spilled onto the front of his shirt. Slowly, he turned away from Clint and walked past his two companions. “Come on,” he grumbled. “You gonna lay in the street all damn day?”
While the spokesman kept from walking anywhere near Clint, the other two seemed incapable of even meeting his eye. They dragged themselves up by the bootstraps and hobbled away, trying to ignore whatever bumps and bruises they’
d been given.
As much as he’d wanted to give them a few parting digs, Clint refrained from letting out so much as a chuckle. The children with the blonde, however, weren’t so restrained. The young ones giggled to each other and the boy started to say something to the men before he was stopped by the woman.
The blonde was still putting the children in their places when Clint walked over to get a closer look at them. “Everyone all right?” he asked.
Still wound up tighter than a watch spring, the boy jumped off the bench and stood directly in front of Clint. Looking up at him with wide, bright blue eyes, he said, “That was great what you did, mister! You really showed those two!”
“It was not great,” the woman said sternly. “It was violent and uncivilized. We should never resolve our differences that way.”
“She’s right,” Clint said. “But any man that bothers good folks like you in such an uncivilized manner deserves a whole lot worse. Maybe next time someone should tan their hides and toss ’em into a pig sty where they belong.”
The little girl had been doing her best to maintain her resolve, but cracked a little smile when she heard that.
The blonde woman sighed and stood up straight so she was on a more adult level when she whispered, “Thank you for that. I just don’t want these two to think they can—”
“No need for an explanation, ma’am,” Clint gently interrupted.
Just then, a meek little voice drifted up from the bench. “I think we should invite him to supper,” the little girl said. When the blonde looked down at her, the girl added, “It would be civilized that way.”
“Yes,” the blonde said. “I suppose it would. That is, unless this man has any other plans for the evening?”
Pariah Page 1
