Page 19 of Charlotte's Reckoning
A few of the others murmured their agreement.
“Why are we listening to this whiney-ass pretty boy?”Thorn, one of the newcomers asked. “Just find him a wet nurse. She can rock him and change his nappies while the rest of us go about business like men.”
The man was goading him, but Seth was tired of being called a kid and, worse, being treated like one. He charged at him. It wasn’t very smart. Thorn had thirty pounds on him, most of it in his belly, and he didn’t know him or how he reacted when threatened. But after losing his father, the emotions, especially the anger, simmering inside him needed an outlet, and a fight would do him good.
Before he could land the first punch, Ike and the other men jumped in to hold him back.
The man laughed as he struggled to get free, revealing missing and rotting teeth and subjecting him to a blast of the worst-smelling breath he’d ever had the misfortune to encounter.
“Fucking bastard,” Seth growled.
“Enough!”Judd ordered sharply. “Either shut the fuck up, Thorn, or the deal is off, and you can haul your ass outta here.”
“I was just teasing the kid. Sheesh,”the disgustingson of a bitchreplied, but his laughter ended. He glanced at Seth. “No harm, no foul, right, son?”
“I’m not a kid, asshole,”he replied angrily. “And I sure as hell am not your son.”He threw off the hands restraining him and turned to face his brother. “Who is this guy, and what deal did you make with him?”
“That same deal as everyone else who joins up with us—an even split of the haul.”
Far from convinced, Seth persisted, “You trust a bunch of strangers to have our backs?”
“Your pa trusted me,”Thorn stated, drawing several surprised looks. “We’re friends from way back.”
“How come I don’t know you, then?”Ike asked, his skeptical gaze sizing up the other man.
“You were off fighting,”he explained with a shrug. “Me and Deadeye did a few jobs together. We made a good team.”
“Got a last name?” Ike persisted, still staring at the man as if trying to place him.
“Thorn is my last name, and all you need to know,” he snapped then rounded on Judd. “What’s with the interrogation?”
“They’re just cautious.” His brother glared at him and Ike. “Back off, you two. Our numbers were getting low. You know most of our jobs call for at least six. This will be a trial run. We can go our separate ways if it isn’t to our liking.”Judd strode toward the table, big enough for ten, as if the matter of the new men joining up with them had been settled. “What’s to eat? I’m starving.”
“There’s stew keeping warm on the fire,”Ike grumbled, not looking happy about the newcomers, either.
“Help yourselves,”Judd told the others as he ladled hot beef stew into a bowl.
Seth moved beside his brother and reiterated his opinion, not bothering to keep his voice down. “I don’t like the looks of him. We can do this with five if you let me do something other than stand as a lookout.”
Judd shot him a glare. “As leader, it’s my call, and I won’t put up with any lip outta you.”
“Is this how it’s gonna go? You calling all the shots with no one else having a say? Including Ike?”
“That’s lip, little brother,”he warned, pulling out a chair and having a seat. “And I’m just following in Pa’s footsteps.”
“He earned the respect of the men because he knew what he was doing,”Seth challenged.
His brother shot to his feet and leaned in, bumping him in the chest. To meet his gaze, he had to tip his head back and look up at his little brother, which was a fact that always galled him.
“You don’t have to hang around if you don’t like it,”Judd ground out between his teeth. “But if you do, it goes how I say. You got that? It’s how Pa wanted it.”
Judd had it wrong. His father always welcomed a different opinion. He didn’t always agree, but he let every man have his say. Seth didn’t argue further, however. The room had gone quiet, every eye upon the two brothers. He held his tongue, too, but he also grabbed his hat and left.
He was halfway across the yard when the door slammed, his uncle Ike following.
***
Lounging with one hip propped against the hitching rail, Seth tried to appear as though he didn’t have a care in the world on this near-perfect summer day. But pulling off an air of nonchalance was a tall order when inside, he was a twisted coil of tension. Mainly because of what was happening behind the double-hung set of doors less than fifty feet away, butalso because a week had passed and things remained strained between him and his brother.
