Blood rushed to the boy’s face, what little there was, “No, Sir, but I know you!” The kid grinned, but saw Cassidy’s confusion, “By your exploits, I love your novels!” His voice rose, and he almost toppled from the wheelchair.

“I think you’ve mistaken me for another,” laughed the bounty hunter charmed, “I can write, sure, but I’m no good with words.”

His face fell, “So, you’re not the famous bounty hunter? You never laid low the infamous Blackhawk and the Blood Soaked Band?”

Cassidy blinked, “I, yes, put him in the bone orchard.”

“I KNEW IT!” he exclaimed. So rapturous was his glee that he nearly toppled from the chair.

“What’s your name?” he smiled at the lad’s joy.

“Bryn Cox, Cass,” he blushed at his boldness, “Sorry.”

“Only my friends ever called me that,” mused Cassidy, and the boy’s head lowered, “So, you’d better call me Cass.”

Bryn smiled, “I knew it was you, when you came in! Mister Cass…I’ve read every novel about you. You took down the Blood Soaked Band, single handed. Over the bodies of twenty men, you stood. You gun dueled Blackhawk, and laid him low with a single bullet, for your accuracy was so fearsome!”

“I don’t know the idiot writing about me,” Cassidy frowned, “but he has the details wrong. How would I kill twenty men with a six shot revolver? The men who comprised his gang all got drunk. So drunk, in fact, I tied them all up, while they were passed out. Now, Blackhawk, he was one tough man. No White man’s gun could slay him, so they said. I shot him six times, and he still came at me. I barely beat him. One of the toughest outlaws, tribes-person or otherwise, I’d ever fought.”

Bryn’s eyes were wide, mouth open. “My mom,” he said but tears welled, “She…likes the one where you brought Daphne Loverdou a rose, and promised to bring her transgressors to justice!”

The bounty hunter burst into laughter, sound rusty from lack of use. He wiped away a tear, “I gave her back the bottle of Two Roses Irish whiskey she’d dropped.” He shook his head, “And, I was lucky to get the bounty. Daphne was a resolute woman, and she nearly stabbed him to death. I saved him…well, until he danced out the last of his life on the hangman’s rope. Never was one for mob justice.”

Jubilant, he shook in the wheelchair, but he leaned in close. With a glance down at the book, Bryn quaked, joy replaced by fear. “What about the Devil’s Preacher?” he asked, all color drained. It was the only one the boy had never finished, for the strange Horse Preacher came to his dreams.

“Refresh my memory,” said Cassidy, eyes of light azure fixed him.

He leaned closer, “Obadiah Mather.”

The bounty hunter jolted as if shot and his countenance hardened. Easy smile turned wolfish. Bryn squirmed at the grin. “I won’t speak of that…man. If the Devil, himself, ever walked the Earth, it was Obadiah,” he managed an even tone. “Now, you should never talk of such men as that false preacher, and run away from him, no matter his words!”

“Oh, okay,” he shuffled, uncertain.

Cassidy rubbed his eyes, sighed, but the name of that man set him on edge. Beside the boy, in a toy holster, was a wooden gun. “You any good with that?” the bounty hunter smiled, and the boy blushed.

“Oh,” he laughed, “I like to read your novels, and pretend…I am hunting outlaws.” He held it up for the bounty hunter to see.

“That is very nice,” he studied it, “certainly better than the one I made my son.”

At this, the boy’s face turned a bright crimson, “I carved it.”

“You’ve done a fine job,” he nodded in respect. “You know a gun is a tool, no better or worse than the man holding it, correct?”

“Yes, Cass Sir,” he vehemently nodded, “A righteous man must protect others from evil men!”

He smiled, nodded, “Something close that, it isn’t the easiest or nicest life, but you’ll never lose sleep over a good deed done.” Cassidy paused, “Sorry about my…reaction, but no book could ever inform one to the depths of…that false preacher’s vileness.”

“It is fine, Cass Sir,” he smiled, once again euphoric.

“Why are you here?’ the bounty hunter asked.

“Well, I got sick,” his joy fell as memory rose, “and then I got sicker. Huckleberry Springs was always rumored to be able to heal people. My Pa said that I would put them in the poor house.” Into himself Bryn shrunk, “Ma wanted to…keep me. They fought, something awful, but Pa got real mad, said that he’d commit her for an unbalance of humors. Pa hurt Ma’s arm.” He stared at his lap, “I never wanted to be a burden, so I told Ma to go. Maybe, if I wasn’t around, Pa would be better to her.” The scrawny boy collapsed in on himself, ashamed, and tears filled large, dark eyes.

“Bryn,” Cassidy commanded, “you are no burden.” The boy nodded. “Look at me,” his voice grew stern, and the lad looked at him. “Your Ma was right, and your father was wrong. A man never abandons his Blood, no matter the inconvenience. None of his actions are your fault, nor does it mean you’re lesser, okay?”

The boy nodded, flushed, and squirmed as he searched about. Befuddled by the bounty hunter’s words, Bryn grasped for anything, “They said you seen something,” ventured the boy, but dark eyes flicked up.

“I see you met our brash and dashing Mister Cox,” she put a file at the foot of Cassidy’s bed. After running a line from a bottle, Huck’s Snake Oil, she checked all the straps. The nurse walked briskly away, though threw a wink back at them.

She looks more thirsty than lustful, mused the bounty hunter. He avoided such places as Thorncrown, as a matter of course. A chill ran down his body, light as cat’s paws, “There is something off.”