In the silence, he could feel the slow, harsh pounding of his heart, the gathering of nerves as he waited for a possible attack.
“Okay, Prewitt,” he called out finally. “I’m here. Now what?”
A group of shadows peeled away from the hill to his right. He counted four riders, but he suspected there were more.
Prewitt wasn’t one of them, he saw as they approached him cautiously, pistols and rifles down. He recognized Bob Blackwood, and one of the Weston ranch hands whom Reed had hired recently, a kid by the name of Calvin Stapp. That hurt, knowing a man he had worked with had turned on him.
“Put your hands on your hat,” Blackwood ordered as they came to a halt, half surrounding him.
“Where’s Prewitt?” Lance asked, keeping his hands right where they were.
A disembodied voice came at him from the darkness to his left. “Here, Calder.” Will Prewitt slowly rode his horse into view, followed by some half dozen other silhouettes. “What’d I tell you, boys? I said he’d show.”
No one answered the rhetorical question.
Prewitt halted his horse behind Blackwood, out of range. “Do as Bob says, breed. Raise your hands.”
Lance casually rested an arm on his pommel. “I thought I’d find you here.”
He raised his rifle menacingly. “You red bastard, get your hands up!”
“Why should I?”
“Because you’re under arrest for thieving stock. We caught you in the act.”
“That so?” Lance’s mouth curled. “How do you figure?”
“You’re here, ain’t you?”
“And so are you. You set this whole thing up.”
Prewitt smirked. “You’ll never prove it.”
“And you’ll never prove I had anything to do with stealing Fisk’s livestock.”
“We don’t need to. We got all the evidence we need right here.” He waved his arm in the direction of the herd of long-horns.
“I’m supposed to have herded all these beeves here by myself?”
“Your stinkin’ Injun friends helped. And you’ll hang for it, breed.”
“I don’t think so,” Lance said in a low, deadly voice.
“Maybe we better get Fisk,” somebody said nervously—the kid named Stapp, Lance thought.
“Yeah, get Fisk here,” Lance said aloud. “Make it look all legal-like when you do murder.”
“It won’t be murder,” Prewitt retorted as he moved his horse closer. “Stealing stock’s a hangin’ offense.”
Blackwood glanced at Prewitt. “Maybe we should. Have Fisk here, I mean. It won’t take long to fetch him. We should have a trial.”
“There’s no need for a trial!”
“I don’t like this,” someone else said. “Maybe a trial’s best.”
A tense moment followed before Prewitt shrugged. “I can wait. Calvin, you ride for Fisk. In the meantime we’ll ready the rope.”
“You’re planning to take the law into your own hands, Prewitt?” Lance drawled.