Clive Kensington's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Clive lay awake all night in his rented room. Dorothea's secret sat in his chest like a stone. Scofield's men would watch him now. He owned no gun. He had never fired one. If they came for him in the street, he could not protect her or himself. By dawn he knew he needed help from the only man in town paid to give it. He found the sheriff at the open booth near the edge of town, where new arrivals first stopped. Sheriff Harlan Jones sat on a low stool, a worn guitar across his knee. He wore two pistols and did not look up when Clive approached. Jones was the grizzled lawman who had shot two of Scofield's drifters dead in the saloon. Clive had always kept clear of trouble. Now he walked straight into it. "Sheriff," Clive said. "I need a gun. And I need to know how to use it." Jones plucked one string. It hummed and died. "A bank teller wants iron," he said. "Now there's a thing." He set the guitar aside slow, like it pained him. "Who put the fear in you, son?" Clive kept his mouth shut about Dorothea. "Scofield's people. They think I know something." The old man studied him a long moment. His blue eyes missed nothing. "Scofield," he said, and the name came out like a curse. "That man's mine to settle. But he won't waste a bullet on you himself. He'll send a boy with a grudge." He stood, joints creaking. "I can't guard you day and night. I got a whole town." "Then teach me," Clive said. Jones weighed it. Then he reached behind the booth's counter and pulled out a spare revolver, plain and heavy. He pressed it into Clive's hand. The weight surprised him. His fingers did not know where to sit. "Grip it like you mean it," Jones said. He turned Clive's hand, set the thumb, squared his stance. "Elbow soft. You jerk the trigger, you'll shoot dirt." He walked him behind the booth, propped an empty bottle on a barrel, and stepped back. "Now." Clive fired. The gun kicked. The bottle stood untouched. He fired again, and again, until his ears rang and his wrist ached. On the sixth shot the bottle burst. Jones grunted. "That'll do for a start." He reloaded the cylinder and handed it back. "Keep it loaded. Keep it close. A man who's scared and armed lives longer than a man who's just scared." Clive holstered the revolver under his coat. For the first time since the alley, he could step outside without feeling naked. "One thing," Jones said as Clive turned to go. "You carry that iron now, folks will notice. Scofield's people will know you're expecting them." He picked up his guitar again. "You just told the whole town you got something worth defending."