Page 149 of The Widow and the Wanted

“But grief,” Everett continues, “must not make us reckless. The law demands proof. The law demands order. And proof, I am sorry to say, has led us here.”

He points toward the Gemini. Every face turns up. Heat crawls over my skin like flame.

“To this house. To two men known throughout the territory by a name once earned in war and now stained by butchery. Boone Maddox and Okee Collins. The Aces.”

A growl moves through the crowd.

Beside me, Okee’s hand tightens on my arm.

I whisper, “I could shoot him from here.”

“No.”

“I could.”

“That will only prove to the town that he was right.”

That shuts my mouth but don’t cool the blood.

Everett removes a folded paper from inside his coat. His hand trembles when he opens it.

“This testimony,” Everett says, “places these men with the Hollister clearing party sent to investigate trespass near the Verdigris.”

“Investigate,” I spit under my breath.

“Witnesses attest that Maddox and Collins turned their weapons upon their own company. That they left honest men dead in the snow. That they fled with the sole survivor, Mrs. Lula Clay, whose grief and distress have since been used as cover by those who would confuse the matter.”

Lula moves inside the wagon. Deputy Hepburn shifts, blocking her.

My teeth grind so hard my jaw aches.

“Ask yourselves,” Everett calls, voice swelling, “why these men did not go to the law if they were innocent. Ask yourselves why they hid in a woman’s house. Ask yourselves why Goldie Eld, whom I believe to be placed in an impossible position, has not yet surrendered them.”

Goldie’s mouth quirks.

Placed in an impossible position.

He’s still offering her the road.

Poor Goldie. Poor Lula. Poor women under outlaw menace.

I glance at Goldie, and for one sick second I think she might take it. Why wouldn’t she? All she has to do is step back and let us fall. Everett is giving her rope, soap, and a clean dress besides.

Okee sees it too. I know because his face goes empty.

The crowd starts shouting again.

“Bring ’em out!”

“Justice for Verdigris!”

“Let the law have ’em!”

A woman sobs through ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee’.

Oh, I’m nearer all right. Nearer to pissing myself in public.

Everett lifts both hands. “Please. Please. We must not descend into mob judgment.” He says it while building a case against us, one brick at a time.