James looked up rather startled, for the man suddenly sounded so different. "Sorry..." James muttered, a little scared.

Elijah shook his head. "No no.. I'm sorry, you couldn't know. It's just.. I was there at the time so it's.. very personal for me."

"Did you hang 'im?" James asked, not helpfully.

Elijah shook his head quickly. "They have someone special for that, and I wouldn't have been able to. He was a friend of mine. It was a painful shock, he never showed any violent tendencies before. It's like.." He thought a moment. "Think of a friend, someone who would never harm a soul. And one day you find out they had an entire different side where they were being bullied and killed their bully. "

James thought but he didn't have any real friends, and certainly none that weren't violent or mean. He couldn't really relate. "Why didn't you know he was bullied?"

Elijah sat down and looked away sadly. "I had my hunch that he was. I mean, I knew his father was really harsh on him and he could bully him a little though he meant well. I didn't have a clue what was really going on though, he kept a huge part of his life a secret from everyone that wasn't a part of it.'

"But he didn't kill, Mr. Ward." said James, getting more and more confused.

He shook his head. "There are worse people out there and he was trapped in a bad situation with someone worse than his father."

James looked at him with big eyes and was quiet while he thought. "His mother?" he whispered.

Elijah rubbed the back of his neck. "No..he.. made friends with someone who turned out to be quite bad."