Pursuit. Maim.

His preacher father sold him when he was about 10 years old. The buyer was a 16 year old female who paid for the boy with a month of full body submission to the father.
The agreement was for the itinerant father to use him a few years - for maintaining the camp, hunting for camp food, running errands, be available when the father got drunk (often). The boy did not know he was sold.
Custody was to be delivered on the day of the boy's 13th birthday.
During the three years the father had custody, at the suggestion of the buyer, Maude, the father instilled a morbid psychological fear of killing a human person, even by accident. Maude assumed the boy would be upset with her and his father. The block was to prevent him from killing his nemeses. Years of repetitive demonstration of the pain of heat and admonishment of the for-sure hell destination of any person who kills another did its work.
The boy could not kill. But he could maim.
He suddenly got fed up with his perceived mistreatment and did exactly that. He maimed. He shot and destroyed most of his fathers joints - elbows, knees, .... He and his horse disappeared from camp with the intent to never return.
Maude did not take kindly to her property disappearing just when she was ready to collect. She had paid dearly for that boy, the worst month of her life she later declared.
She took out after him.
The boy soon found out he was sold. But he did not get caught. Not then.
To escape, he went West. Sometimes he had human company, but mostly not.
The inability to kill proved to be a dangerous thing in those old West days. But the boy survived.
He survived, not by killing but by so thoroughly maiming opponents that they would be unable to follow up for revenge.
This book talks about the first part of the ten years he avoided Maude.
(The second book talks about Maude's adventures trying to catch her property. The third book describes the events that lead to the catch.)