Sins of the Father Read Online Free PDF

I’m heading for Abilene myself. I figure I might ride along with you, if you don’t mind?”
You could see a relief come over Jane’s face. “Jess, I would feel so much better if you would. I mean my husband here is no coward and will fight when forced to, but the way you handled those men today, well, I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“You should be proud of your whole family, Jane. You were putting up a good fight in the face of insurmountable odds today. Most people would have just given up, which always ends up being a mistake. Those kind of men have no respect for human life or anything else for that matter.”
Hadley looked over at Jess’ pile of things, the Sharps propped up on the other saddle. “What the hell kind of rifle is that? Sure shoots a hell of a long way and it sounds like cannon.”
“That’s a Sharps rifle. Some of the buffalo hunters use them. It shoots straight and quite a long distance. I used it to kill those rabbits today.”
“They didn’t have any heads on them,” responded Jane.
“No sense messing up the meat and besides, it’s good practice for me.”
“Practice for what?”
“I’m a bounty hunter. I track down the worst of men and collect the reward money on their heads.”
“I’ve heard stories of such things but I’ve never met a real bounty hunter before,” said Hadley.
“So, you hunt men for money?” Jane asked.
“Yes.”
“How many men have you killed so far?”
“I’ve lost count.”
“You are such a young man. What could have possibly happened to you that would make you hunt men for a living?”
“It’s kind of a long story and one that I don’t often like to talk about since it’s not a very happy one. Let’s just say I have my reasons. And I don’t hunt down horse thieves or cattle rustlers or even bank robbers unless they kill some innocent people in the process. I only hunt down the murderers and the men who would rape or kill innocent women.”
Jane laughed a confused laugh. “So, you kill men for money, but you actually have standards and a set of rules that you go by?”
“I’ve never thought of it that way, but, yes, I guess I do.”
“Well, Jess, I’m just thankful that you showed up today when you did. I’m afraid of what would have happened if you hadn’t. I was really worried about the children.”
Jess lowered his head for a moment and then looked back up at her. “You should always be worried about them out here. Some men out here don’t make any distinction between little girls and grown women, and the worst of them can’t even make a distinction between little boys and grown woman if you grasp my meaning.”
Jane looked at her husband and nodded back at Jess. They all turned in and Jess slept extra lightly during the night. He didn’t want to see any harm come to these people. They were a nice family. He was in protective mode.
CHAPTER 4

T
    HE RIDE TO A BILENE WAS SLOW and uneventful. The wagon broke down a few times and on one rainy day, it got stuck and they tried
to push it out and couldn’t. Jess tied Gray and Sharps
to the team and that finally got them moving again.
Jess shot a few rabbits each day and shot a pretty nice
deer on one day. They feasted on the venison until
they couldn’t eat any more. Jess had noticed Jane
looking at him quite a bit with those piercing blue
eyes. He felt somewhat uncomfortable about it,
although he didn’t want to feel that way. He had
already decided that he would not allow himself to
get distracted by any woman, but she was hard not to
look at. He simply kept pushing it from his mind. His
only thought was to get this family to Abilene alive
and safe.
They made camp about four hours from Abilene.
That way, they could arrive in town by noon and that
would allow Hadley to supply up and then get to their
homestead, which was about two hours out of Abilene. Jess watched as the family went about their respective duties exactly as they did every day when they made camp. After