Vengeance Road Read Online Free PDF

you tell me yer name,” Jesse adds.
    â€œNate,” I says. It’s the first thing to pop into my head. “Nate Thompson.”
    â€œThompson?” Jesse’s squinty eyes go even narrower.
    â€œI were to come see Abe if anything happened to my pa. Well, something happened, so here I am.”
    But Jesse’s not even listening no more. He’s waving for the other boy in the field like a madman flagging down a stagecoach. “Leave the horses,” he shouts to him. “Meet me inside.”
    What a waste of time. Abe dead, Wickenburg pointless. I click my tongue, and Jesse vaults over the fence, putting his hands up to stop me and Silver.
    â€œWhat was yer pa’s name?” he says.
    â€œHenry.”
    â€œHenry
Thompson?
”
    â€œThat’s what I said, weren’t it?”
    Jesse rubs his jaw. “Why don’t you come in and sit awhile. Sarah’s making biscuits and it won’t be no trouble if you join.”
    â€œI ain’t got time for biscuits or sitting,” I says. “If Abe ain’t here, I got places to be.”
    â€œNate.” Jesse grabs Silver’s bridle and looks me dead in the eye. “Abe always said a young Thompson might come calling. We got something for you, something of yer pa’s. We been holding it for ages.”

    Inside, the farmhouse smells of fresh bread and burnt coffee. The table’s covered in mismatched plates and silverware, and I don’t think there’s a single mug that ain’t chipped.
    I smear honey on a biscuit and shovel it down ’longside some eggs. I know I’m eating like a heathen, but I can’t tell if the quiet’s ’cus of my lack of manners or just the very fact that I’m here.
    â€œYer real,” says the boy ’cross the way. He’s so small, his chin barely clears the table. Maybe five years old. “Will said it were all horseshit.”
    â€œJake, you watch yer mouth,” Sarah snaps, smacking the back of his head for added emphasis. She’s pretty—pale hair and pale skin and a slender neck accented by the buttoned collar of her periwinkle dress. She looks like one of them porcelain dolls. I reckon she’s Jesse’s wife, but no one’s introduced me proper, and frankly, I don’t give two hoots. I’m eating, getting whatever they’re holding for me, and making for town. Trails run cold pretty fast when you ain’t riding ’em.
    â€œYou were mentioned by Abe nearly once a week when he were still alive,” Sarah says to me by way of apology. “It was always,
Henry’s kid’ll come through one day, don’t yous forget it,
but sometimes it were hard to believe. More coffee?”
    She sloshes some into my mug before I can answer.
    â€œAnd what do you know, Will?” Jesse says, elbowing the boy he was saddling horses with earlier. “I was right like always.”
    â€œAnd the day yer finally wrong, I’m gonna let you know it for a decade,” Will mutters back. Theys got the same nose and jaw, only Will don’t squint constantly.
    Jake stuffs some biscuit in his mouth and keeps his eyes rooted on me.
    â€œDidn’t nobody tell you it’s rude to stare?” I says.
    The boy wipes his nose with his sleeve and keeps at it.
    â€œUse a napkin, Jake,” Jesse says.
    â€œYou don’t gotta pretend to be his father,” Sarah says to Jesse.
    â€œWell, when’s Roy getting back, Sarah? He were due two days ago, and we ain’t heard a word. I told you I never trusted that miner. I don’t know why you went and married him.”
    â€œYou don’t trust no one, Jesse. Not even yer own sister!”
    Not married, then.
    I keep my head down, eating while they argue ’bout Roy and someone named Clara. I ain’t got the energy to try and figure the relationships or follow the argument.
    When there’s a brief lull, Will cuts in. “What happened to