Hard Ride to Wichita by Ralph Compton, Marcus Galloway Page B

sir. Ma’am.”
    Accepting his gratitude with a warm smile, Red’s mother busied herself by collecting dirty dishes and scooping up knives and forks. She’d used to have a lot more to say, but that was before Red’s brother, Matt, went off to join the Union army last year. Since then, she’d become quiet as a sheep and twice as complacent.
    After all he and Luke had been through together, Red never wanted him to know what a mean drunk his father was or how it made him sick to his stomach that his mother had given up on stepping in when things between him and the old man had gotten rough. Even before Matt had gone off to war, things had been strained in the Connover household. When Luke was around, everyone was on their best behavior. Red was often grateful for that. Other times, he resented the fact that an outsider was needed to buy him some peace inside his own home.
    Red stepped outside to find his father pulling on the gloves he wore when chopping wood. A spot in the fence near the back of the property needed to be mended, and today was the day when that job would be finished. Like a cat responding to the slightest scrape of a mouse’s foot against a floor, the old man wheeled around to find his son.
    â€œGit your lazy hide over here and help me carry these rails!”
    Red nodded at his father’s words but didn’t take another step in his direction. “Luke needs help with some things,” he said. “We gotta ride over to his place and—”
    â€œDo whatever you like,” his father said with an exasperated wave. “I stopped thinking you’d serve any purpose years ago. If your brother was here, this fence would’ve been done by now.”
    That was normally the time when Red would fire back with a spiteful remark about how Matt would have been appreciated for his labor because he was the only one who was treated better than a stray dog in that family. He held his tongue, however. Knowing he was leaving town in a matter of minutes made such things easier to bear.
    â€œGood-bye, Daddy,” Red said.
    The old man grunted to himself without bothering to look over his shoulder.
    Red went back inside, where his mother was fussing over Luke, headed to his room, and threw some clothes into his brother’s old saddlebags. No longer caring about leaving things the way they should be, he stripped his bed of sheets and pulled up the old, paper-thin mattress to find a gun belt wrapped in a dirty pillowcase. The holster had belonged to his father’s brother and had been a gift to Matt on his thirteenth birthday. It had been left behind so Red could learn to shoot and protect the house if trouble rode in when their father was passed out drunk in a saloon somewhere.
    The pistol was a Smith & Wesson revolver with a polished barrel and cylinder. The wooden grip was smooth as silk and stained to a rich black. Red opened the cylinder and turned it to confirm that three of the seven chambers were filled with.22-caliber rounds. Compared to the old Colt Luke had been working on, Matt’s pistol felt more like a cork gun. It would get the job done well enough as long as it was used properly, and the holster fit comfortably around his waist. Before buckling it there, he reminded himself that he still had to walk past his parents and didn’t want to explain why he was doing so while heeled. After bundling the gun belt, pistol, and the spare ammunition he had inside an old shirt, Red held the package under his arm and left the room that had been wrapped around him for most of his childhood.
    â€œYou still want to tend to them matters you told me about?” Red asked as he turned toward the kitchen.
    Luke was eager to get moving, but not so eager to leave the company of Red’s mother. He looked at her with a genuine smile and said, “Thanks for everything, ma’am. It really means a lot.”
    She patted his cheek. “You’re part of this