Gun Play at Cross Creek by Bill Dugan Read Free Book Online Page B

“Oh, Morgan. You have a funny sense of time, you do. It’s not been a long time, it’s been a lifetime, Tom’s lifetime. My lifetime, dammit. And in some ways it seems like yesterday. I can still see you on that black horse, riding away like you’d be back in an hour. Why, Morgan? Was I so bad? Was it so bad having a family, is that why you left?”
    Atwater stared down at his hands crawling restlessly across the bare wood of the table. When he spoke, he didn’t look up. “No, Katie, it wasn’t so bad.”
    Kate barely heard him. He knew it, but he wasn’t going to say it again unless she asked. As he knew she would. “I didn’t hear that,” she said.
    â€œI said no. It wasn’t that.”
    He looked up at her now, fearful of what he might see. He knew she hated him, and believed she was right to hate him. But he wanted her to understand. He had only just come to understand it himself, and he wasn’t yet comfortable with the knowledge. Never very good at explaining things, he knew he had to try, because this was his one chance.
    â€œI want to understand, you know. I think I have that right.”
    â€œYou do. I don’t know if I can . . . hell . . .”
    â€œTalk to me, Morgan. I’m the mother of your son.”
    He took another sip of the coffee, already growing cold where it sat in the big mug. “Maybe that’s why, Katie. Maybe I . . .”
    She blew up then. “That’s not why and you know it.”
    â€œGive me a chance. You want to know, and I want to tell you.”
    â€œYou had fifteen years to rehearse, Morgan. I should think you’d have it all set by now.”
    He smashed a big fist on the table. “Damn it!” The mugs jumped an inch or so, and hers, untouched, sloshed coffee over its lip. The warm coffee lay there in a small dark pool, still steaming a little. They both watched the tiny coils of mist. “I never liked myself much, didn’t like what I was turning into. I wanted to be something different, something you and the boy could be proud of. But that wasn’t possible. Not then.”
    â€œYou could have changed. You just didn’t want to.”
    â€œThey wouldn’t let me.”
    â€œThey. Who’s they, Morgan? Who do you want to blame it on?”
    â€œI blame myself, no one else. But it wasn’t just me. You don’t wake up one morning and say, ‘It’s a beautiful day. I think I’ll pretend I never owned a gun.’ You can’t do that, Katie. I couldn’t, anyway. Because there’s always someone out there who won’t let you forget. Sure, I could have stayed here. But one day, maybe in a week, maybe a month, somebody would have ridden up to the front door with one thing on his mind.”
    â€œOh, you’re a mind reader now, too, are you? You can read the minds of people you never even met. Read them before they even got here. Is that how it is?”
    â€œI . . .”
    He stopped when he heard a footstep on the porch. His hand was on his gun before he realized what he was doing. Kate saw it, and he saw that she did. She shook her head. “You haven’t changed at all, have you?”
    â€œYes, I have.”
    â€œSo, you think your own son is going to shoot you?”
    Morgan was stunned. She had said the boy was coming back, but not when. He hadn’t expected him so soon. He wasn’t ready. His eyes darted to her face. He hoped she would understand and offer him something, some way out. Katie smiled a bitter smile.
    â€œThe gunfighter.” There was such contempt in her voice he wondered that it didn’t sear the flesh from her lips as she spoke. “I won’t let you hide, I won’t let you run away. Not this time. Not until you’ve done what you came for, whatever that is.”
    Atwater stood, but his knees were like liquid. He tottered and was worried she