Free Justice by Larry Watson

fire and hunched his tall frame down so he could look directly at Lester’s nose.
“Tell me if I’m hurtin’ you.” After a moment of careful examination, Len said to Sheriff Hayden. “I don’t know. Could be broke.”
    â€œWho had the pistol?” Sheriff Hayden asked the boys.
    Neither Frank nor Wesley said anything but Lester spoke up. “It was Tommy’s.”
    Sheriff Hayden nodded knowingly. “Where is it now?”
    Frank answered, “Cooke confiscated all our guns. Rifles. Shotguns. Everyone.”
    â€œHe say anything about you getting them back?”
    â€œWe didn’t even know he had ’em at first. They packed us up and we were down the road a good piece before we thought to look.”
    Len and Lester came back to the car. “That’s too much,” Len said. “Keeping the guns.”
    Sheriff Hayden shrugged. “His jurisdiction.”
    â€œI could see taking the pistol—” said Frank.
    â€œâ€”that was what got you in trouble. That more than anything. Boys waving a pistol around. That was stupid. Disrespectful and stupid.”
    â€œIt was that Indian girl,” Tommy said, his voice too loud for the still night. Then Tommy must have seen something in Sheriff Hayden’s eyes—something glinting in the firelight—and he fell silent.
    â€œLen, you want to take Lester and Tommy home?”
    â€œShould I wake their folks?”
    â€œMight just as well. With you telling the story maybe there’ll be fewer versions floating around.”

    â€œHow about a doctor for Lester?”
    The sheriff gazed for a moment at Lester’s swollen, discolored face. “No, let his folks decide about that.”
    Wesley watched Len lead Tommy and Lester to Len’s car, and he felt again the separation from his two friends—his brother’s friends—that he had felt when they walked out of that alley in McCoy, and he knew that he was privileged, his father’s son, protected from some of the blows the world would inevitably offer.
    His father stepped closer to the fire, took his hands from his pockets, and warmed them over the flames. “I suppose you two would like to get back home to your own beds.”
    â€œIt wasn’t us, Pop,” Frank said. “It wasn’t us that started any of it.”
    His father spit into the fire. “Doesn’t matter. You’re the only ones was Haydens. If it’s just those two spreading trash around somebody else’s territory, that’s one thing. But you were there. And you had your name with you. You’ve got it everywhere you go. You can’t take it off and put it on like a pair of boots. You’re a Hayden. Like it or not. And you damn well better start thinking about what that means. Because you sure as hell don’t seem to know now.”
    While his father was talking Wesley stepped away from the fire and looked back down the road in the direction from which they had come. It always surprised him, looking at snowy fields on a moonless night like this one, how briefly the snow’s whiteness lasted in the dark. It seemed as though its pale glow should shine for miles, lighting up the path they had driven that night.

    By now Frank was arguing with their father. “What were we supposed to do, goddammit. Why don’t you tell us that?”
    â€œIf you don’t know,” his father said to Frank, “it’s not going to do a damn bit of good for me to tell you. Now get back in your car and head for home. I’ll be right behind you.”
    It took a few tries to get the Model T started, and while the boys cranked the car, their father scattered the fire and kicked snow on its remains. Soon they were heading west again. Once out of the firelight, Wesley could see into the distance. An occasional light from a farm or ranch had come on. It was time for predawn chores to begin.
    â€œI wonder how long he’s