The boy gave a little twitch, and his lips parted, but he recovered quickly, returning to his tough guy routine. He sipped his beer, pretending not to care. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Conn left it at that for a second, giving the kid a moment to think.
Junior took another sip of beer and looked away from Conn, staring at the back of the bar. “How?”
“Some men killed him. Tried to kill me, too. Your father was helping me hunt men who killed my brother. We went into a mine looking for them, but they were waiting on us and threw in some dynamite. Your father was killed in the blast. I doubt he ever knew what hit him.”
Conn didn’t know if that was true, but he hoped it was, and he thought maybe it would make the kid feel better.
But if Junior was struggling with the news, he did a good job hiding it. He merely nodded. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Your father was a good man, Junior. He helped me when no one else would. He had sand.”
Junior stared into the mirror at the back of the bar and sipped his beer.
“Your father was a good man,” Conn said again. For some reason, the boy’s muted acceptance of his father’s death rankled Conn. He knew Sheffield and his son had parted on bad terms, but he wanted Junior to understand that his father had been a good man, a man worth mourning. “He cared about you.”
A bitter smile curled one corner of Junior’s mouth. “My father was many things. Caring wasn’t one of them. Him and me didn’t see eye to eye. He said some pretty hard things, and then he left. I hadn’t seen him in two years.”
“He was coming back. That was his plan. He was gonna come back and check on you.”
“But then he died.”
“Yes.”
Junior went back to staring into the mirror and sipping his beer.
Conn said, “But I wanted you to know he died trying to help me and that he meant to come back.”
“So you say.”
“You calling me a liar?”
Junior turned toward Conn and must have seen something in his eyes that gave him pause. “I don’t know you. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I rode a long way to tell you this.”
“Much obliged. Message received. Now you can ride off again.”
Conn didn’t like Junior Sheffield, but he felt indebted to him. Not because of Junior but because of his father, who had, despite what Junior thought, cared for him and who had given his life helping Conn.
If Conn didn’t owe Bill Sheffield, he guessed he’d never owed anybody anything ever.
So he didn’t swat the kid across the chops and tell him to have a little respect. Instead, he kept his voice level and said, “You haven’t heard the whole message yet. Before I ride off, there was something else he wanted me to tell you.”
“Oh yeah?” Junior said with a smarmy smirk. “What’s that? That he wished he’d been a better father? Some nonsense like that?”
Conn ignored the boy’s attitude. “To tell you the truth, I have no idea what he meant. But he was very particular with the phrasing and made me memorize it word-for-word. Maybe you’ll know what he meant.”
Junior rolled his eyes. “Are you gonna tell me or not? I’m an important man in this town. I got business to attend to.”
“Your father said to tell you,” Conn said and paused, making sure he had the exact wording, which had seemed so importantto Sheffield, even though it had sounded nonsensical to Conn. “He said to tell you that the yellow bird is on the gate.”
Junior Sheffield snapped his head around and gaped at Conn with obvious shock. “What?”
“That’s what he said. He said the yellow bird is on the gate.”
Something strange happened then.
