waiting out there for you.”
“Yeah,” Jubal said, “we can’t keep them waitin’, can we?”
“No, we can’t. Get up.”
Jubal swung his feet to the floor and the deputy backed up, his hand on his gun.
“What are you, nervous?” he asked.
“You’re Sam McCall’s brother, ain’t you?”
“So?”
The deputy wet his lips.
“So, that’d make anybody nervous.”
Jubal laughed.
“You think big brother’s gonna come ridin’ in here to save me?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“It come to anyone else’s mind?”
Now it was the deputy’s turn to laugh.
“Not hardly. Folk County is so secure Folk and Flanagan aren’t even worried about Sam McCall.”
“So don’t you worry, either,” Jubal said. “I ain’t seen my big brother in years, and I don’t expect to.”
“Let’s go,” the deputy said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll keep my hand on my gun anyway.”
Jubal stood up and said, “As if that would help you against Sam McCall.”
The deputy took Jubal out to the office, where the sheriff was waiting. Sheriff Ernie Watt had been hired personally by Seth Folk and Darby Flanagan, and was firmly in the Folk/Flanagan pocket. When Flanagan and Folk said to hang somebody, he hanged them. That was what he was paid to do.
“You ready, McCall?” Watt asked.
“Who’s ready to be hanged?”
“Well, ready or not…” Watt said, and tied his hands behind him. “Let’s go.”
Both the sheriff and the deputy walked behind him as they pushed him out the door. In the center of the square stood the scaffold. Only that morning, at first light, he had heard them testing the trapdoor with sandbags. The first sound of the door opening had jerked him awake. After that the sounds merely made him wince. Even when the sounds stopped, he was still able to hear them in his head.
He wondered now if he’d be able to hear the sound of the door opening beneath his feet.
Sam and Evan McCall stood together on the fringe of the crowd. They had arrived early that morning, the morning of the hanging.
“As usual,” Evan had said to Sam, “your timing is impeccable.”
“Whatever that means,” Sam said.
Now they searched the crowd, trying to match the descriptions they had obtained for Darby Flanagan and Seth Folk.
“We’re makin’ a mistake,” Sam said, suddenly.
“How?”
“If you owned the county, would you stand out here among the…the rabble to watch a hangin’?”
“You’re right.”
From that point on they elevated their sights, and then they saw them. On a balcony, above a sign that said “Flanagan House Hotel,” they saw a fat, bearded man who matched the description of Darby Flanagan. Standing next to him was a tall, beautiful, redheaded woman.
“At least little brother has good taste in ladies,” Evan said.
There was another man with them, a tall, white-haired man wearing a derby hat and a black suit. He matched the description of Seth Folk.
“Here’s what we have to do…” Sam said, and Evan listened, because this was Sam’s kind of situation.
Jubal frowned at the intense sunlight. From his cell he’d only been able to get patches of light on the floor. Now the sun beat down mercilessly on his head and shoulders. Sweat rolled down his face and dripped off his chin. It might have been the perspiration of fear, but no one would ever know that. He was grateful for the heat.
When they reached the stairway to the scaffold he stopped.
“Keep goin’,” Watt said, giving him a push. Jubal stumbled, then started up the steps.
At the top Watt swung him around to face the hotel, and for the first time since his arrest Jubal saw Erin Flanagan. Jesus, she was beautiful. Even in the fix he was in he couldn’t help but react to her beauty.
They stood that way for what seemed like a long time, and then Jubal saw her father, Darby, nod his head. That seemed to be the signal.
The sheriff brought the noose over and placed it around Jubal’s neck. Jubal was still looking at Erin, but suddenly his attention was attracted by something behind her, and he couldn’t believe his eyes.
In a hail of glass, small shards that reflected the sun like dozens of tiny fire flies, Sam McCall burst through the window behind her.…
Sam McCall had made his way easily up the stairs to the room with the balcony. The security had been lax because Flanagan and Folk never expected anyone to try and stop the hanging.
He entered the room and saw the backs of the people on the balcony. As he approached the window, beyond them, he could see Jubal on the scaffold. The sheriff was putting the noose around his neck.
Sam ran the rest of the way and hurled himself through the window. His momentum carried him into Seth Folk, knocking the man over the railing. McCall slipped his left arm around the throat of the fat man, Darby Flanagan, and pressed the barrel of the gun to the man’s head. He was taller than Flanagan and had no problem holding the man fast.
“That’s enough!” he shouted.
Everyone froze, including the sheriff on the scaffold.
“Tell the sheriff to let him go.”
“Who are you?” Flanagan demanded. “You’ll never get away with this.”
“The name’s Sam McCall, Flanagan, and that’s my brother down there.”
“McCall—” Flanagan started, but Sam tightened his arm on the man’s windpipe, causing him to choke, and then eased the pressure. As fat men will, Flanagan was sweating profusely, and Sam could smell the sour scent of him.
“Tell the sheriff to let him go.”
“No,” Flanagan said.
“Your friend is lyin’ on the ground, Flanagan. You want to be next?”
He felt the big man shake, and then heard the rumble of laughter that rose up out of him.
“It was time to dissolve the partnership, anyway. I think I’ll change the name to Flanagan County.”
“You’re as good as dead, Flanagan.”
“And then you will be, too, McCall,” Flanagan said. “It sounds like a mexican standoff, to me.”
On the scaffold, and on the street, everyone was watching the tableau, waiting for it to be resolved.
Sam McCall did some fast thinking. It didn’t look as if Darby Flanagan was not afraid for his life. Sam was going to have to try another tack. He turned his head to his left and saw Erin Flanagan watching him. Up close her beauty was stunning, and she was presently rather excited by the turn of events, her nostrils flaring, her white teeth biting her lush lower lip.
Abruptly, Sam pushed the fat man away from him, took a step to his left, and pressed the barrel of his gun against Erin Flanagan’s head. As an afterthought, he slid his left arm around her chest, feeling the firmness of her breasts.
She was sweating, but her scent was hardly as offensive as her father’s.
“Now tell him to let Jubal go.”
Flanagan studied Sam for a few moments, obviously trying to figure out how willing the man was to shoot a woman if he didn’t get his way.
“I think you’re bluffing,” the fat man finally said.
“That’s my little brother down there, Flanagan,” McCall said. “My family against your family. Where do you think my concerns lie?”
Flanagan chewed on the end of his mustache while he tried to make up his mind.
“Come on, Flanagan,” Sam said, “it’s gettin’ hotter and hotter out here.” To bring his point across, Sam
