Page 104 of The Hero Within
He wanted to lock it all up forever and throw away the key, but clearly, his mind wasn't having any of that.
"I don't...."
She stroked his hand patiently.
"I can't...."
The memories stole his breath, and with them his thoughts. He wanted to try and explain somehow but didn't know where to start.
"When did you first meet him?"
There.There was a starting point. "When I was fourteen," he managed to say. "He was my mother's brother. I never knew about him. Never even heard his name, but she was always looking over her shoulder for something. And one day that something finally rode into our lives...."
It started to spill from him in a gush as if someone had opened the spillway on the dam outside Cortez City. Pouring through the sluice gates of his soul, as he tried not to let the memories drown him.
His father walking out to meet the stranger. His mother shoving him toward the trails behind his house.
"Whatever you see or hear, don't come back."
But he had, hadn't he?
That single pistol shot ricocheted through his memories again, and somewhere in the sagebrush, a young boy slammed to a halt, his heart leaping into his throat.
Don't look back.
But he looked.
And he saw his mother screaming and fighting as Cane hauled her toward the cabin with contemptuous ease.
Smelled the smoke spiraling into the air as Cane stood there with his cigar and watched flames lick up the side of the cabin.
Heard her screams. Heard her banging on the locked door.
And despite her words, her training, the never-ending litany of what he was supposed to do if someone ever came upon them, a young Johnny's feet turned back toward the cabin.
"You want to save her life, boy?" Cane had demanded, squatting in the dirt, as if to make himself appear unthreatening as Johnny approached, his gaze sidling toward his father's fallen shotgun.
Anything.
"Then hold out your arm. You make a single fucking noise and she burns."
The first hiss of the cigar on his skin.
The scream he somehow trapped within him.
It felt like hours.
Probably only lasted seconds.
He'd stared defiantly into Cane's eyes, letting his uncle see the hate, the rage, and the desire to kill him with his bare hands.
But Cane's eyes lit up in gloating ecstasy as if Johnny had done something that pleased him immensely. And he'd turned and shot the lock off the door to the cabin, before hauling him to his feet.
If you come with me, then she lives.
A thousand threats over the years.
If you run, I'll hunt her down and scalp her myself, and tell her why. I'll tell her you betrayed her.
