“I need an answer, son. Now.”
Black Jack Hacksaw growled, close enough for Tommy to see the beads of sweat just starting to climb over top of the older man’s pushbroom of a mustache.
Tommy wanted to give Hacksaw what he needed, but there was a problem -- he didn’t have the answer Jack Black wanted to hear.
And that was a tough spot to be in.
Growing up in the Snakeheel River basin, Tommy had heard all about Hacksaw and how he handled those he considered fools, those who couldn’t answer his questions in a satisfactory manner.
Now, in person, the man was even more intimidating than his legend, and Tommy was scared.
Scared to answer, scared not to answer … scared to blink.
“I said … tell me now!” Hacksaw was fully agitated, and he rubbed the palms of his hands over the butts of twin six-shooters in his side holsters.
Tommy was out of time.
“Um … six?”
In a flash, Hacksaw drew both weapons, firing one to the sky and one to the ground.
A plastery powder rained down on him and turned his salt-and-pepper hair a ghostly off-white.
He pivoted on a boot heel to face Matt Duncan.
“Duncan … what’s two plus three?”
From across the room, Tommy could see Matt swallow hard. He didn’t have the answer, either.
Hacksaw squared up on the boy, hands on his pistols again.
And so the tense dance resumed, but this time it was Matt’s burden to bear. Tommy almost felt guilty for the relief that flooded his chest.
Such was life in a schoolhouse run by the man who was once the baddest lawman west of Flathead Range.
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