Adam Steele 44 by George G. Gilman

Author:George G. Gilman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: elmore leonard, peter brandvold, louis lamour, james reasoner, terry harknett, spaghetti westerns, peter mccurtin, piccadilly publishing westerns, edge the loner, cormac mcarthy
Publisher: Piccadilly

Chapter Nine

THE WOMAN’S THIN face showed a gamut of expressions during three stretched seconds, as in her racing mind she struggled to make sense of what Steele had said.

Then she decided it had been some kind of unimportant caustic comment, dismissed it as she hurried to explain: ‘Tommy’s gotten to be too protective of me since we’ve been left on our own, mister. He don’t mean no harm. He’s a good boy usually. A fine boy. I didn’t know he had the gun hid behind the seat, honest I didn’t. But—’

The boy, not taking his challenging stare off Steele’s face, broke in grimly: ‘Mom, how d’we know he ain’t the one did that to the little girl?’

‘Shush!’ his mother hissed, sent a warning sidelong glance at the boy. But then she peered long and hard at Steele: finally shook her head, calmed her jangling nerves. ‘No, course he’s not Tommy. He’s a full-grown man and …’

‘You ran into somebody who told you a boy’s wanted for an attack on the Taggart girl, ma’am?’ As he said this Steele could sense an almost palpable pressure of Clavell’s gaze boring into his back.

The woman nodded eagerly, anxious to switch the subject of the talk away from her aggressive son.

Steele built on the foundations of his first impressions of the two. The mother was far enough beyond thirty to be close to forty. Taller than he was himself by some three inches, but weighing little more than ninety pounds. From the way her threadbare coat fit her frame so snugly, she had not undergone any radical weight loss recently. Likewise, if she had ever been anything but plain, there was no sign of former good looks left in her sparsely-fleshed, deeply-wrinkled, yellow-tinged face. Her angular features were dominated by slate gray eyes and were framed by hair that was graying from nondescript brown.

While the boy continued to eye the Virginian with deep suspicion, totally lacking in any degree of contrition, he looked capable of unleashing the same kind of short temper his mother had shown she possessed. This son she had borne late in life was a couple of inches shorter than she right now, but certainly would soon outgrow his mother during adolescence. He had the same color hair as she did when she was younger. The basic bone structure of his blemish-free face was a match for hers. His eyes were blue, a shade darker than those of Davy Clavell. He had on a worse-for-wear knickerbocker suit under an open topcoat that looked to be an altered to fit hand-me-down. A too-large cap sat jauntily on the back of his head.

The woman was saying: ‘That’s right, mister. We met up with a bunch of men huntin’ that monster. Led by the father of the poor child who was attacked.’

From the way in which neither mother nor son shifted their eyes away from him, Steele had to assume he only imagined he heard Clavell’s sharp intake of breath from back in the timber along the trail.

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