Blindly, hardly knowing what she was doing, Summer drew back her hand and struck Amelia across the face with her open palm. The stinging blow made her sister recoil and elicited a protest from Dusty, but Summer ignored both. “Lance is my life, Amelia! And if he dies…”
She couldn’t continue the thought. Swallowing the burning ache in her throat, she glared at her sister, who was cringing as she held her cheek. “You are coming with us.”
Amelia took a startled step back. “No…I can’t!”
“You can and you will! You devised this plot to incriminate Lance, and you’ll get him out of it.”
She threw a glance over her shoulder at Dusty. “Get Reed, and hurry. And bring Amelia with you. I don’t care if you have to tie her hand and foot, just get her there! I’m taking your horse.”
With grim determination, she turned and swept past Dusty, out into the night. The terror was almost manageable now. A frozen calm had settled over her, numbing her.
She stumbled as she ran down the porch steps, but scarcely noticed. Quickly she caught the reins of Dusty’s horse and hauled herself up into the saddle, cradling the rifle in her lap. He could bring Amelia and Reed in the buckboard. Just now she had to reach Lance before it was too late.
The pain took his mind off his other troubles.
His right side burned like hell; his wounded arm stung; his shoulder sockets ached from when they’d wrenched his arms behind his back to tie them. His balls throbbed from being dragged across a saddle when they’d shoved him onto a horse, and his bruised jaw felt broken from the punches Prewitt had thrown after they’d both survived the gun battle. His lip was split in at least two places, filling his mouth with blood. And his forehead was bleeding, too, making it damned difficult to see. And if that wasn’t enough, the noose around his neck was tight enough to make breathing rough.
His only regret, though, was that he hadn’t hurt Prewitt nearly bad enough. The bastard only had a flesh wound in his thigh, which he’d tied off with a tourniquet.
Lance squinted through a haze of blood and fury, trying to locate Prewitt in the crowd. There was plenty of light—somebody had lit a couple of torches in honor of his lynching—but he found it hard to shift his head with his neck stretched by the rope. The exploding gunfire had stampeded the cattle, a turn of events that had caused more damage than the flying bullets. Two of Prewitt’s boys were lying on the ground with various injuries, neither of them too serious.
Lance blinked when he found Harlan Fisk’s solemn face staring up at him. Oh, yeah. Fisk had arrived minutes ago, he remembered. The older man was trying to get him to answer some questions, while the others wanted to get on with the hanging.
Even as Lance had the thought, Harlan Fisk shook his head sadly. “I didn’t believe it, son. I didn’t believe you’d steal from me, even if you might from Prewitt.”
Lance felt the blood welling in his mouth and tried awkwardly to spit it out.
“Well?” Fisk demanded impatiently. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
What could he say? That he hadn’t done it? That he’d been set up? That he’d been stupid enough to walk into Prewitt’s trap because he’d wanted a fight? All true, but he wouldn’t be believed.
“Go to hell,” he mumbled instead.
“See there?” Prewitt demanded. “That arrogant bastard thinks he’s above the law.” He raised his voice to address the crowd of men. “I say there’s no need for a trial. We got six men who will testify they found Calder with the evidence.”
“Yeah,” a chorus of voices agreed.
“I say finish him,” someone else called out. “One less red hide won’t hurt the world none.”
“The outcome wouldn’t be any different if we waited for a trial.”
“Jerk that rope tight around his neck, boys,” ordered Prewitt, “and tie it off.”
Harlan looked reluctant but resigned. “The evidence against you is mighty strong, son. I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”
The rope was pulled taut over a limb of one of the three oaks, and Lance winced in spite of himself as the abrasive noose dug into his throat.
“You got any last prayers?” Prewitt taunted. “Last chance to cleanse your soul before you meet your Maker.”
He managed to aim a mouthful of spittle in Prewitt’s direction. He would never beg for his life, not from the likes of Prewitt at any rate. Without Summer, he wasn’t sure life was really worth living anyway. And she would be better off without him, for certain.
Lance closed his eyes and said a prayer, not for himself, but for her. He hoped to God that she would be okay without him and get on with her life. That she would forget about how he had ruined her future. That she would remember him without hating him.
When he heard a distant drumming, he thought it was blood pounding in his ears. It took him a second to realize that it wasn’t, that it was hoofbeats instead. He squinted at the sound, and thought he was imagining what he saw: a woman bent low over a heaving horse, her long, dark hair streaming behind her as she raced across the field. Summer, he thought with weary regret. Go away.
She came to a plunging halt at the edge of the crowd, but had eyes only for him. Lance closed his own eyes, wishing she hadn’t come, wishing she’d never found him like this—beaten and battered and at the mercy of white trash like Prewitt. He’d rather die.
She was breathing hard as she urged Dusty’s sweating horse through the group of silent men toward Lance. Her anguished gaze took in the blood on his face, his shirt sleeve, the hem of his vest, then turned contemptuous as it traveled accusingly over the crowd. “Dear God, are you all animals? Treating a wounded man like this?” She lifted the rifle nozzle, aiming it at the crowd. “Cut him down.”