The best I can say at this point is to accept the sense of regret that I feel. It shouldn’t have surprised me to learn that you’d eventually get sick of the lifestyle your mother and I had. It’s not the kind of life any teenager would want. It was a sad day when we looked up and saw that you’d gone. I feared something had happened to you, but your mother knew differently. She could see something in her son’s eyes that told her he wasn’t happy and would never be happy that way. But I was naïve. I didn’t understand. It wasn’t until I saw your stuff gone in addition to your backpack that I realized that you had taken off.
By the time you will read this, I’ll be dead. And you’ll be a grown man, hopefully, a family man of honor.
Reading the letter’s salutation, he grunted out a laugh.
He then noticed a hand on his shoulder, stroking it gently. “What’s so funny?” Jess asked.
“The Sergeant First Class, that’s what. Nobody but Dad would sign a letter to his son that way.”
“Not the warm-and-compassionate type, huh?”
He turned to his wife. “Come on. You’ve heard the stories.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never met the man. It would have been nice to. It would have been great to see where you came from.”
Hatfield bit his lower lip and nodded. His head swirled with all kinds of thoughts, most of them troubling. “Do you think I’m a man of honor?”
She laughed at the question, then gave him a playful slap. “Of course you are. You work hard, help raise the kids right. Always treat people well. If you’re not a man of honor, I don’t know who is.”
As she stepped away, he brought his eyes back to the letter and mumbled an answer his wife couldn’t hear. “I do. Sergeant First Class Earnest Hatfield, that was a man of honor. A man I’ll never be.”
18
The morning air was calm and eerily quiet as Hatfield stepped out of the compound. When he heard steps come up behind him, he turned to see a homesteader whose name he didn’t know, rifle strapped to his back.
“Didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that. Just coming out a little early to do my guard duty,” the young guy said. “Thought I’d get some target practice before my rounds.”
“No, that’s fine. I’m Trevor, by the way. Trevor Hatfield.” He reached for a handshake.
“I’m Jespersen. Cody Jesper—” he started to say, giving his hand a firm shake.
But Hatfield had to pull his hand away, mid-shake. “Ow. Keep forgetting about that!”
“Hand still bothering you?”
“Yeah,” he said, staring at the palm. “Maybe I need to join you for target practice, make sure I can still shoot.” He pulled the pistol from its holster and did his best to clamp his fingers around the gun’s butt. With a pained grunt, he was able to hold it—barely.
As Cody squatted next to him, firing at a haystack roughly fifty yards away, Hatfield raised his gun and aimed at the same target. But even the act of squeezing the trigger was beyond him. When he tried, the bullet flew astray, and the gun flew from his grip, landing in the tall grass.
He tried again and did no better the second time, unable to even hold it steady this time.
Cody sent him a soft and sympathetic look, saying, “You know, maybe you’d be better off trying a rifle.”
“Yeah,” Hatfield said, forcing about a laugh. “That might be a better idea.”
He shouldered the rifle, squatted into position, and reached his hand toward the trigger. But clamping his fingers around the trigger guard and on the trigger was something he couldn’t handle no matter how he tried to angle his hand. With a long grunt, he surrendered, then pulled back from the rifle and stared at it.
The homesteader sent his eyes to the ground, seeming to avoid uneasy eye contact. “I’m sure your hand will get better soon anyway.”
Hatfield nodded, then took a look at his fingers, noticing his forefinger had started to darken a little. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before—”
Cody held up a hand, nodding toward a figure in the distance barely visible in the tall weeds. “You see that, Mr. Hatfield?”
“Looks like something out there. Not sure what it is. You know if there are wolves in any part of this area?”
The young man shook his head, not daring to pull his gaze away from whatever it was in the distance.
Hatfield saw the figure duck, then disappear in the weeds. Cody reached for his rifle, then shouldered it. After a glance through the scope, he pulled away, searching for something. When he spotted a table five feet away, he turned it to its side and perched himself behind it. “Might be a wolf, might be something else.”
Before too long, both men had found barriers to get behind. They watched the seemingly empty landscape and waited. Minutes passed with no movement. Cody came out of the crouch, looked across the field. He stepped closer, leaned against the fence. “If there’s something out there, it must be—”
A shot clapped through the air. Cody reached down, grabbed his ankle. “Ahh!” he groaned.
Hatfield reflexively started out from behind his barrier, then stopped himself and gave the landscape a scan. He spotted a shooter ten feet before the fence, loading his rifle for the next shot.
Hobbling, Cody lay there, clutching his ankle, a pained grunt coming through his gritted teeth. Hatfield quickly added things up, tried to figure out his next move. He could run after Cody, try to pull him behind a barrier. But the shooter would get away.
So he chose another plan, slowly raising his pistol to the shooter who clearly couldn’t see him. With his right hand wounded, he used both hands, gripping tightly and using the forefinger on his left hand to place on the trigger. After locking the shooter in his view, he gave himself a mental pep talk. You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.
Then he squeezed the trigger.
The gun clumsily snapped out of his hand. A split second later, the shooter took another shot that ended with a geyser of blood and Cody screaming.
Hatfield scooped the gun from the ground and tried again.
The shooter took three more shots. They all connected and splattered blood over Cody’s chest and belly as his body curled into a disaster, limbs flailing, spine arched. He then tried another shot but only produced dry clicks.
As Hatfield kept fumbling with his gun, the shooter raced away. It was too late to save Cody. As footsteps raced toward him from behind, he heard his wife’s frantic voice. “Oh, no! Please, please, please! What happened, honey?”
He turned, saw three or four homesteaders, most of them in bandages around Jess, rifles drawn. Shattered, he couldn’t find the words at first. Instead, he just lifted his hand. After swallowing hard, he said, “I couldn’t shoot.” He dropped his head, not wanting anyone to see his eyes water.
NATHAN STOOD in the doorway of the barn, watching bedlam unfold. Inside, there was fighting, screaming, guys throwing haymakers, and guys pulling guns on each other. The gang leader just stood there, shaking his head and wondering how long this kind of madness had to continue.
He turned to the three former homesteaders and said, “Real colorful bunch, wouldn’t you say?”
Andy nodded. The other two kept their eyes down, afraid of saying the wrong thing.
Grace asked, “You think you could maybe undo our shackles? My wrists are starting to hurt.”
“Mine too,” Gary added.