Page 154 of The Widow and the Wanted

He bares bloody teeth. “No.”

“I can help you.”

That stirs him. Even dying, men like Everett hear bargains.

Lula’s voice softens, and it chills me worse than a shout. “Tell them who ordered the camp cleared, and I will ease what is happening to you.”

“You,” he whispers.

Lula says nothing.

Everett understands then.

I see it. So does Okee.

Everett coughs blood onto his shirtfront. “You did this. You…poisoned me…”

Lula does not flinch.

“She asked you a question,” I say.

Everett half falls to his side and drags himself back to the crowd. To the men stepping back from him. To Goldie’s ledger. To the wagon bench painted red with what’s coming out of him.

“It’s true,” he chokes. “That was the order. Clear the camp. Burn the notes.”

A long, horrified murmur moves through the street.

“Who gave it?” Lula asks.

Everett’s lips peel back. “I did.”

He laughs once, and blood spills down his chin.

“All this,” Lula says, voice breaking at last, “for timber. For greed.”

He tries to answer, but his body seizes. His back arches against the wagon wheel. Hepburn scrambles away from him like cowardice has finally won over duty. Everett’s boots kick once in the mud, then again.

Lula reaches into her shawl for something.

Maybe whatever mercy she meant to offer is already too late. Or maybe she was never going to offer it at all. I don’t ask. Not then. Maybe not ever.

Everett makes one last terrible sound. Then he stills.

For a moment, nobody moves. The street falls silent, and somehow the Gemini seems to go with it.

“Well,” Goldie says from the balcony, voice carrying clean through the stunned quiet. “I believe Mr. Everett has concluded his remarks.”

Nobody laughs.

Not yet.

But the mob is gone. The beast of it, anyhow. What’s left is people. Frightened people. Guilty people. People who came ready to hang us and now can’t quite meet our eyes.

Lula rises slowly. I holster my pistol and go to her.

She turns just as I reach her, and then she’s in my arms. Okee’s, too. All three of us right there in the street with blood in the mud and a dead man at our feet and half of Fort Gibson watching.

Above us, Goldie addresses the crowd again.