The Hanging
Apologizing don’t come easy for me. It never has. That night we fought again, and for me it was one time too many. What I said I said in anger, but I’ve never been one to say I’m sorry. I walked out of the house, and I never looked back. The thing that hurt worst was seeing my kids standing in the doorway to their room, staring at me with the hurt in their eyes as I slammed the door.
One of the blackest nights I can remember lay like a tarpaulin over our ranch house. I could hardly see our old shed even from ten yards away, and Duke, my buckskin, was a misty ghost in the pasture. Rain pattered like mouse feet on the back of my coat and on the brim of my hat. It touched my face and cooled my anger, but like forged steel it also hardened my resolve. Rachel had hurt me, and had hurt her in turn. I swore I would never go back to her.
The shed smelled of the hay and straw, must and horse sweat of years. Smelled of oats and sugar cubes and oiled leather. Smelled of the old pine wood boards that kept the rain off my back for a couple of minutes while I picked up the heavy Cheyenne saddle and horse hair bridle and pulled a Navajo saddle blanket from the rail by the door.
Then once more I walked into the night, my boot soles straining for traction against the mud of the yard. I went between the bars of the gate and spoke Duke’s name, and he came to me like the faithful horse he had always been. I saddled him there in the middle of the grassy, muddy pasture. Then I rode from there and left the gate hanging open.
On the way into town I had to trust to Duke’s instinct to find the road. It was so dark it would have given some folks the jeepers, dark like the river bottoms on a moonless night or like the inside of a midnight hayloft full of new summer hay. I was riding hunched in the saddle, hiding my face against the rain, hoping the saloon would still be open in Heron. I had no desire to rustle shelter on a night like this, and I sure didn’t intend to ride the whole night soaking wet. Even if Fred Lee was at the saloon, a man I couldn’t stand, I had every intention of spending the entire night there in that barroom.
Suddenly, I heard a horse whinny, and my own answered back as he jerked to a stop. I looked up to see a dark shadow through the falling rain, then a flash of light accompanied by an explosion. Whoever it was then fired once more.
I struggled against my coat to draw my Merwin and Hulbert from its holster. I didn’t know who I was shooting at, but I knew he was shooting at me. Even if I had been in a good mood that was enough reason to shoot back.
Three times I fired, then four. I couldn’t tell if I hit the man. It was so dark, and with the flashes of light from my gun barrel I was soon blinded. But in moments I heard a whinny and the thunder of hooves, and then the road, as far as I could see, was empty again.
I could have gotten off my horse to check the road, to see if I had dropped the stranger from his saddle. But I wasn’t about to go lumbering in the dark and the rain looking for a hulk of shadow that might be lying there with a gun cocked and ready. With a curse, I put spurs to Duke, and he galloped off down the road, his hooves making sucking noises in the mud.
It was half an hour before I made out the lights of town through the rain, which now was falling harder and was starting to feel like it had some texture to it. It was cold enough it wouldn’t have surprised me to see it turn to snow.
At the Night Tower Saloon I pulled up, soaked and weary and a little scared about my recent encounter. I lashed Duke to the rail there in the rain and left him standing while I climbed onto the soggy porch and shoved inside the big main room, frowsty with the stale odors of alcohol and smoke. There was only one patron in there, a quiet shadow on the far side of the room, slouched over a dark table.
The bartender, to my poor luck, was Fred Lee. Fred and I had decided when I first moved to Heron half a year back that we didn’t like each other. He was a man who liked to be in charge, but not the type other folks liked to have lord it over them. He swaggered a lot, threw a lot of knowing comments and lies aroundI was sorry to see him there, because I had wanted to tell someone about my encounter on the road, but it wasn’t going to be Fred.
I ordered a bottle of whisky and a glass and took it to a far corner of the room to nurse it, the opposite corner from the other patron at his lonely table. I had no more than sat down and felt the warmth of the first shot trickling down my throat than I heard a flurry of galloping hoofbeats enter the street. I looked up curiously, pouring my next round as I watched the door to see if the riders would stop here. They sounded to be in a powerful hurry, probably to get out of that miserable mushy rain.
Sure enough, the horses stopped in front, and other than voices in the storm there was no sound for a few moments until boots tromped across the porch and the door slammed open. I was surprised to see three men shoving through the door almost as one, all armed with either rifle or shotgun. I warily lowered my glass as they fanned out from the door, and three more came in between them, scanning the room. All eyes lit on me.
One mustached man with a white hat darkened by rain, its edges glowing a dull yellow in the lamplight, leveled his shotgun straight at me, and I know my jaw dropped. "Get up out of that chair real slow."
I had no words. A man looking down the twin bores of a shotgun finds little to say, at least in those first moments of surprise. In the back of my mind I was aware that some of the men had crossed to Fred Lee, the bartender, but the man in the fore of my mind was this gent in a long, wet duster holding the shotgun at my chest.
"That your buckskin out there?" the man asked. His voice was a course drawl.
"Yeah, sure." My eyes flickered toward the door. Questions were bouncing around inside my head, but I was still too stunned to out with them.
The man’s head moved in a slight nod. "Take off your coat, real slow. And take off any guns you’re wearin’."
"What’s this about?" I finally managed.
"Damnit, move!" His voice had raised. I don’t know if he was only mad or if there was fear in that voice, too. It sounded like both.
"All right, I’m movin’," I said. "Take it easy. I’m not lookin’ for trouble."
By now several of the other men had formed a half circle around me. Only my back was uncovered by guns, being against the wall.
I was vaguely aware of Fred Lee telling some of the other men that I had just ridden in and that he didn’t know me very well. He was telling them I’d always been a surly sort.
I carefully took off my coat and laid it on the table. I took off my gun belt with my left hand and laid it over the top of the coat. My belt knife was hooked on it, and the only thing I had left that could be considered a weapon was a little jackknife in my left pants pocket. Again, with my eyes staring right into the man with the shotgun, I said, "What’s goin’ on here? Who are you?"
"We’re the rest of the boys from the Rafter K, the ones you didn’t kill."
I stared hard. My mind raced back. The man in the road! "You talkin’ about that fellow out on the road? Hell, he fired first! I was only defending myself."
The shotgun man peered at me queerly, but then his face hardened again. "Get his gun, Luke," he said out of the corner of his mouth. A thin man with wrinkle gashes beneath both cheekbones and a mustache that seemed to cover his face came warily around and shucked my gun from the holster. Then he backed away, his own pistol in his fist.
The shotgun man stared me down. "I’m Tick Hollister. Old man Sheets was my boss."
That didn’t mean much to me, except that I had heard the name Sheets down at the Cattleman’s Saloon. He was one of the more prosperous ranchers around and seemed to be well thought of by locals. Rachel and me hadn’t been in Heron long enough to know much about anyone other than some of the folks in town like Fred Lee.
Hollister held his shotgun out to Luke when he got backed up to him. "Here, hold onto this, will yuh?"
Luke just nodded and took the shotgun. He raised it up to his shoulder and trained it on my face. He looked like he was about to shoot a rattlesnake.
Hollister opened up the Merwin and Hulbert and peered closer. Then his face hardened, and he looked back up at me, his eyes narrow and full of hate. "There were four shots fired out of a forty-four when Mike Sheets died," he said, talking to the room. "This gent has four spent shells in his gun. And it’s a forty-four."
My innards churned. I had never reloaded after exchanging shots with the man in the road! It had been too wet and dark, and I had wanted nothing but to get away from there and get to town.
"I told you, I shot at a man on the road on the way into town. He came out of nowhere and took a couple shots at me."
Hollister scoffed. "My hell, mister! Do we look like a pack of fools? It’s darker than the inside of a gut out there. You didn’t shoot at no man on no road. Mike Sheets was sittin’ at his kitchen table when you shot ’im."
"I’m tellin’ you the truth!" I said, my fear making my voice come out sounding hoarse and high. "Yeah, it was dark. He looked like just a shadow, but he shot at me and I shot back."
I glanced quickly around the room, trying to see what lay in all their faces. In a couple of them I thought I might have seen a hint of doubt. Most of them were hard as ice.
"Let’s hang ’im now an’ be done with it," one younger man said, taking a step forward. "I’ll go get a rope."
"I say we get the sheriff an’ let him handle this!" one of them said from the back. He sounded almost scared to say the words, so I had a feeling he stood alone in his notions of justice. He pushed his way through to the front. "What if he’s tellin’ us the truth?"
"He’s lyin’!" Hollister snarled. "His story don’t add up."
"I seen this man around town," said another man, a pudgy fellow with big dark pockets under his eyes and the incongruous look of a hardened drover about his build. "He’s got ’im a wife an’ kids. I’d sure feel better about waitin’ for the sheriff, too."
"Sure, Jim. The sheriff’s half a day’s ride from here!" Luke barked. "What are we waitin’ for?"
Hollister was staring at me. He was listening to the others, but I could see the wheels of his mind churning. "You got a wife and young’uns? Where at?"
"South of town," I replied, feeling the first surge of hope I had felt all night. "Rachel’s her name."
Hollister’s mouth twitched. After studying him and all of those with him I had come to the conclusion that he was the leader of this flock. In the first place, he had to be a good fifteen years older than his nearest contender, and in the second place it was plain they all listened to him and watched to see how he would act. He was the man I would have to convince.
"A lot of killers have wives," Luke growled. "Do we let ’im go because of that? Old Mike had a wife, too."
"Hang ’im!" shouted the man who had been eager to find a rope.
"Simmer down, Cole," Hollister said. "We gotta be sure."
"How?" Cole growled. "Let a court handle it? I’ve seen the way they handle things!"
"Hush! What time is it? Luke, you got a watch? How long till daylight?"
Luke watched me while he dug inside his coat. His eyes held mine while the shotgun rested across his forearm. He had never bothered to take the hammers off cock, and I half expected to hear it go off. He flicked open the watch and peered at it in the dim light. "It’s only a quarter to midnight, Tick. If these clouds hang on it ain’t gonna be light for maybe eight hours. What’re you figurin’ on?"
Hollister looked cross. "I don’t know. I think we got our man, but what if we don’t? What if Tobe and Jim are right? That’s a hell of a load to haul around on your conscience the rest of your life."
"You ain’t gonna prove nothin,’ Tick," said the hot puncher, Cole. "Any tracks left around the place has sure washed out by now, his or his horse’s. That Merwin of his is a forty-four, an’ what’s more common than a forty-four? That’s what a lawyer would argue. We waste time an’ let him live till the sheriff gets here he’s likely to ride away scot-free. There ain’t enough evidence to hold a man on in court. But we know the truth!"
I stared at Cole. How could a man be so full of hate? He didn’t even know me.
"What if we go look around on the road, see if we can find any sign that he mighta really had a run-in with some stranger?"
Luke jerked his eyes over at him. "You gotta be kiddin’, Tick! I’d never call you a fool, but you know there ain’t gonna be no sign on the road. Cole’s right. The only thing we’re gonna get by waitin’ around is Mike’s killer goin’ free. It’s pretty dang coincidental four shots was fired into Mike an’ now this here galoot has four fired rounds in his gun. That’s proof enough for me."
Hollister turned suddenly to Fred Lee. "Hey, Fred! Did he tell you when he come in here about havin’ a problem on the road with anybody?"
"No way. He came in all surly, got his whisky, and sat down there. He didn’t hardly say nothin’."
I could see Tick Hollister’s face settling into hard lines as he turned back to face me. I think that was the turning point for him, the point where he made up his mind I was guilty.
"You can’t tell me a man would have a fight like that on the road to town an’ not come in an’ tell nobody about it. That just ain’t human nature, bucko. Cole, go get the rope!"
The pudgy-faced puncher, Jim, jumped forward, looking quickly from me to Hollister. "Wait! Let me an’ Tobe go ride the road, see if we can find a sign. Maybe he actually hit this other feller. Or maybe he hit his horse an’ it’s lyin’ around there dead. We’re all gonna feel pretty sick about this if we find out he wasn’t lyin’."
I could see Hollister waver again, and he looked over at Luke. "He’s right, Luke. I ain’t gonna take that one chance away from him. All right, Jim. You an’ Tobe, Frank and Cole go ride the road on both sides an’ look around. Take some lanterns from the livery with you. We’ll look tonight, an’ we’ll keep lookin’ for two hours after daylight. Then if nothin’ turns up we take him down by the river and decorate a tree. I’ll be damned if I’ll let a man kill a boss as fine as Mike Sheets an’ then just ride free."
I was still stunned. I stood there cold now on the outside and in, shaking like I had the ague. My breath was coming short, and my heart was pounding fast. I was going to die. They would find nothing on the road. I didn’t think I had hit the man, and his horse sure never gave any indication of being hit. I had no more than ten hours to live.
It’s funny what goes through a man’s head when he knows he going to die. Here I had just had that hellacious fight with Rachel, here I had planned on never going back there, and suddenly I knew that was all I wanted to do. Everything I had in life that mattered was back on that little ranch, between Rachel and those three little kids. We had argued, a few too many times, I had been stubborn, and because of that I was here and I was going to die. And Rachel wouldn’t even know until it was too late. What was she going to do? How would she make a living out there? Would she have to remarry? Would she have to move herself and the kids to town?
"I’ve never begged for anything, mister," I said to Hollister when only he and Luke were left standing there. "And I hope you won’t consider this beggin’ now. But just in case you’re wrong, just on that one chance . . . I’ve gotta see my wife again?"
Luke flexed his jaws and spat. He looked over at Hollister. Hollister’s face was hard, but in his eyes there was an uncertainty I knew he couldn’t shake. It was the one thread of mercy I knew I could count on.
"How do we find her?"
I released a breath. A flicker of hope ran through me from my toes clear up through the top of my hat. I might die, but at least I could tell Rachel some things. I could tell her I was . . . I was sorry. I could even tell her I loved her, and the children too. Half an hour ago that hadn’t made one bit of difference to me, but now it meant everything. It was the only important thing in my whole world. Not my pride. Not my stubbornness. Only to let Rachel know I had been wrong. To let her know it for the first time in my mule-headed life.
After Luke left to fetch Rachel, I sat there at that table, staring at the floor, at the tabletop, at my coat, my hat, the ceiling. I looked at everything but Hollister, and he probably thought I was guilty just because I couldn’t meet his eyes. But looking at him took Rachel out of my mind, and the kids, and right now they were all I wanted to think of. I didn’t want to think of that rope around my neck. I’d seen plenty of men hang, legally and illegally. One way didn’t look as painful, but neither way looked pretty.
Luke came back long before the other punchers did. But I didn’t think it could be long until dawn. He came back in, and he was alone. My throat seemed to close over. Rachel had refused to come.
Luke looked at me, then finally over at Hollister. His eyes returned to me. "Your wife’s outside. She said she wanted a minute to prepare herself."
Rachel appeared in the doorway. She came around the corner of the doorframe with her chin held high, her riding hat and coat all soaked, but her face proud. She looked at me, and her eyes were cool as ice. "Can we talk in private?" she asked Luke.
Luke turned to look at Hollister. After a moment, Hollister said, "Well, I guess we could tie him up somewhere so he couldn’t try to get away."
Rachel’s attention had turned to the older man. "Are you in charge here?"
"I’m the foreman on the Rafter K, yes. I’m Tick Hollister, ma’am."
I could see Rachel flexing her jaws. She pushed back a strand of her honey-colored hair and took a few steps forward, holding out a steady hand. "I’m Rachel Morgan. Dan is my husband."
Hollister was openly taken aback by Rachel’s outstretched hand, but he hastily removed his hat and took it. "Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry about all this, but . . . everything looks pretty plain."
"You’ve made a mistake, Mr. Hollister. I promise you my husband would never kill anyone." Her face and her voice were both as cool as could be.
"Yes, ma’am," Hollister replied, dropping his hand away and swiping at his mustache. "Luke, get some piggin strings, would you? Tie his hands up."
"I got no piggin strings."
"Well . . ." Hollister looked around helplessly, avoiding Rachel’s eyes. Finally, he met her steady gaze. "Ma’am, I’m afraid we can’t leave you alone with your husband if we can’t find some way to secure him."
"Then it must be that way," she said instantly.
From across the room I heard something slide across the bar top, and I looked over to see Fred Lee with his hand on a shotgun lying on its side with its barrels pointed toward me.
"I’ll make sure he don’t leave, boys. If that counts with you."
"Shotgun counts for a lot." Hollister looked over at me. "You an’ the barkeep friends?"
"Not hardly," I replied.
"I can’t stand the man," Fred put in. "I’m just tryin’ to help out. And I don’t ever miss anything I shoot at, neither."
Hollister looked at Luke, as if for approval, and Luke just shrugged. Hollister looked around the room, toward the door, then around the room again. It was obvious he didn’t want to go outside.
"There’s my bedroom right there," Fred said, pointing to a door at the far end of the bar. "You can sit in there while you wait if you want."
Hollister nodded thanks, and the two of them went and disappeared behind that door. The room fell silent. The man at the other table had long since left in the excitement, and that left only me, Rachel, and Fred.
Rachel sat down across from me. Her eyes searched mine, and I could see no vestige of anger in hers. But I didn’t know what she was looking for, and with her eyes on me this way I didn’t know if I could still say what I wanted to. But it didn’t matter. I had to force myself to say it. For Rachel’s coming here had changed nothing with these hard cowpunchers. In a few hours I would be dead, a cottonwood blossom, to be blunt.
I felt my hand reaching across the table as if it had a mind of its own. It lay across Rachel’s hand that rested on the table. She met my eyes, and mine held. Knowing I would soon be dead gave me a strength in my words that I had never known. "I’ve always been stupid, Rachel. But I’ve always loved you. I couldn’t ever say it. I’ve always loved you. I always will love you. I’m sorry. I can never tell you how sorry I am for everything."
Rachel was strong, and I was so proud of her. I saw her chest rise with a deep breath, and for a moment I saw her eyes glitter. Then she looked away, her jaw clamped. She didn’t speak, but I understood.
She pulled her hand away and got up, pacing the floor. She came back and sat down, staring at the top of the table. But me, I stared at Rachel. I wanted to keep every detail of her in my brain. I wanted her to be the last thing in my thoughts when my horse went out from under me.
"Who’s with the children?"
Rachel didn’t raise her eyes. "They left one of the cowboys there. They were all asleep. They cried themselves to sleep after you left."
"Jack will be strong for you, Rachel. He’ll be a man for you. Stand by him while he fights with this. Let him work it through. He’ll think the world took his pa away."
Again, she just flexed her jaws. She looked up, then quickly back down.
We sat there for what seemed an eternity. Every time I looked at Fred he was staring at me over the top of that shotgun, that smug look on his face, his lips smirking beneath his bristly brown mustache.
I saw daylight begin to creep into the room, a diffused, gray daylight coming through clouds that probably would not let this day see the sun. I was still wet, and it was deathly cold in the room. My feet were numb, my mind too. I heard a lone horse gallop down the street and stop in front.
Soon, Cole came inside. He looked around, surprised, then looked over at Fred. Fred jerked his thumb. "They’re in there." Cole went into Fred’s bedroom and shut the door.
Rachel suddenly got up and went to the door, walking right in. When she came back out she was holding her chin high again, her cheeks white. Instead of walking to my table, she walked to the window, and putting her fingers up on the sill she stared out.
My throat ached dully like my chest. My whole body was numb, perhaps more with fear than with the cold. Finally, I stood up and walked toward her. I stopped at her left shoulder.
"They’ve scoured the road with lanterns and torches," she said, not even turning to look at me. "They found no evidence of what you told them."
I had no answer. I grimaced, turned and went back to the table. I sat down and for the first time since the cowboys had shown up I downed a glass of whisky and poured another, staring at it there on the table before me.
An hour later, another horse came in. The man came through the door, and it was the man I assumed to be Frank, who I had never heard speak that night. He gave me a hard, hateful look across the room, and that said all I needed to hear from him. After getting the word from Fred, he also went to the bedroom and disappeared.
The next half hour dragged by. Rachel wouldn’t come back to the table. She wouldn’t even look at me. Her face was as unmoved as a dead woman’s. She just stared out the window, and once in a while she would remove her hat and brush aimlessly at it, straighten her hair a little and put the hat back on her head.
I sat at the table and felt the noose tighten around my neck. I kept my poker face intact as well, but with every moment I could feel my life slipping away. Images kept coming to my mind, images I had to throw away. Jack, Alyssa, little Danny. Their faces kept coming to me, smiling at me sometimes, sad others. At last I let them come to me and stay, because I knew I would never see them in real life again. These punchers would not wait that long, and they would not let that kind of emotion enter into the job they figured they were chosen to perform. If they saw my children later they could feel sad for them, but they wouldn’t take the chance of their sad faces clouding their judgment now.
I would never see my kids again.
I bit my lip and took another swallow of whisky, thinking about that big year-old stud running with the wild herd that I had been wanting to catch and geld for my own remuda. The spring on the south side of the property was looking like a fountain last I checked it, and the herd on that side was sleek and healthy going into winter. I had a saddle sitting in the shed that I had wanted to repair for . . . Jack. A young, strong, stubborn face like his father’s jumped into my mind, and I clung to it for a moment, then took another swig of whisky. I grimaced, looked down at my shaking hands.
The light coming through the window was not sunlight, but it was the kind of light you know comes from a sun hiding only behind clouds, not one hiding below the horizon. And then I heard the sound of two horses plodding quietly. That would be Jim and Tobe.
I got up woodenly and walked the length of the room to Rachel, where she was staring out the window, fidgeting with her reticule. Through the raindrops on the window I could see a dusting of white on the mountains, but none had stayed on the street. It was just a mass of mud. Tobe and Jim were walking their horses, and they drew in at the hitch racks in front of the saloon. They looked at each other and then glanced up to see us staring at them. Both of them looked quickly away. They got off their horses, and Tobe came up onto the porch, then paused to wait for Jim, who was fussing with his cinch. Tobe said something, and Jim looked up at him, then came up onto the porch slowly, forcing himself not to look our way. They came inside, and both glanced toward us, then scanned the room.
Their faces were confused. "Where’re the others?" Tobe asked.
"In my room," Fred replied smugly. "Don’t worry." He gave the shotgun a couple of taps. "I’ve been watchin’ the killer."
Jim frowned, and he and Tobe walked toward the door.
I hurriedly looked back at Rachel. She was frowning, tugging at a loose thread in one seam of her reticule, a thread that weakened the reticule in no way whatsoever.
I placed shaky hands on both of Rachel’s shoulders, and she turned around. She still didn’t look up at me. "I have to make the most of this. You know this is the last time we’ll ever see each other."
A picture of the times we’d shared together, of the children who had come to grace our home, of the land we’d cleared together came running into my head, and for the first time in many minutes our eyes met, and both of us had to fight back the tears. I was losing my Rachel, my children, my everything. How was she going to live? I had ruined her life. Mine didn’t matter. She would have to stay here and fight for her every meal, for her dignity, for her soul. What had I done? God, what had I done?
Tears trickled down my cheeks, and Rachel fell into my arms. Her breathing told me she was doing everything she could not to break down. She was clutching me around the middle like she meant to break my ribs.
The door opened across the room, and all was silent, but then one set of boots tromped across the floor and out the door, and once he was outside I saw the wearer of them was Cole. He went to tug a coiled rope off his saddle, his face grim.
Someone walked over and stood beside us for a moment, and then I heard Tick Hollister’s voice. "Sorry, ma’am. But we’ve gotta go. Best you stay here."
Only a man who is about to be executed could ever know what was going through my head. I was going to show these men how strong I could be. I believed in God, and he was going to be there waiting for me, knowing innocent blood had been shed. My stomach was only filled with sick fear for those I left behind.
Hollister and Luke grasped me by the arms, and it took two of the others to pry Rachel away. I heard her finally start to sob as we cleared the front door.
The sun was streaming light through one tiny hole in the clouds when we stepped onto the soggy porch, and that one ray of light was for me.
We heard a wagon splashing up the road at a good clip, and when it came into view I saw one of my neighbors driving it, a man named Jeb Peters. He saw us and hit his horses with the ribbons, making one more burst of speed before he pulled up in front of the saloon.
"Somebody help me get this gent out of the back of my wagon! He’s shot up."
Peters jumped down and splashed around the wagon through the mud, letting down the tailgate of his wagon. Jim and Tobe and Frank followed him to the wagon while the rest of us looked on, Cole with the lasso poised in his fist.
They all looked into the back of the wagon, then back at us. "Tick, get over here!" Jim yelled.
Hollister let go of my arm and hurried down the steps. He got to the back of the wagon and looked in at what the rest of us couldn’t see. Cole had followed them too, and it was just me and Luke alone on the porch now.
Peters looked over and happened to notice me, and he waved a preoccupied greeting. "Howdy, Dan."
Then he returned his eyes to Hollister, who looked up. "He’s dead," Hollister said.
Peters nodded. "Well, I didn’t figure he’d make it all the way to town. He was bleedin’ bad. Out of his mind, he was. He kept talkin’ about some old man he had to kill. An’ some feller he ran into on the dark road that shot him for no reason. Didn’t make no sense."
Hollister’s face had gone white, and he looked up at me. I was standing alone on the porch because Luke had stepped away from me and also stood staring dumbly at the wagon bed. Fred Lee was standing in the street, and when he turned and stumbled past me back into the saloon he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I heard my woman sobbing then, and I turned and looked into her eyes. She was standing on the porch and staring at me. She tilted her head to one side. When she threw up her arms to come to me it was like she had been holding my life there, and she offered it back to me. I took her against my chest, and we both cried while I whispered how I loved her. I didn’t care who heard.
THE END
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