“Either that or shoot you if you try to interfere,” Smoke told him.
“The man has not been tried!”
“Yeah, he has. He admitted to me what he done,” Smoke told the marshal.
“Lots of smoke to the southeast,” Crowell observed. “’bout gone now.”
“House fire,” Preacher said. “Poor feller lost ever’thing.”
“Two men in the back of the house,” Smoke said. “Shot in the back. Casey and his men did that. One died hard.”
“That does not excuse what you’re about to do,” the marshal said. He looked around him. “Is anybody goin’ to help me stop this lynchin’?”
No one stepped forward. Casey spat in the direction of the crowd. He cursed them.
“No matter what you call this,” Crowell said, “I still intend to file a report callin’ it murder.”
“Halp!” Casey hollered.
“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord!” said the local minister. “Lord, hear my prayer for this poor wretch of a man.” He began intoning a prayer, his eyes lifted upward.
Casey soiled himself as the noose was slipped around his neck. He tried to twist off the saddle.
The minister prayed.
“That ain’t much of a prayer,” Preacher opined sourly. “I had you beat hands down when them Injuns was fixin’ to skin me on Platte. Put some feelin’ in it, man!”
The minister began to shout and sweat, warming up to his task. The crowd swelled; some had brought a portion of their supper with them. A hanging was always an interesting sight to behold. There just wasn’t that much to do in small western towns. Some men began betting as to how long it would take Casey to die, if his neck was not broken when his butt left the saddle.
The minister had assembled a small choir, made up of stern-faced matronly ladies. Their voices lifted in ragged harmony to the skies.
“Shall We Gather At The River,” they intoned.
“I personally think ‘Swing Low’ would be more like it,” Preacher opined.
“He owes me sixty-five dollars,” a merchant said.
“Hell with you!” Casey tried to kick the man.
“I want my money,” the merchant said.
“You got anything to say before you go to hell?” Smoke asked him.
Casey screamed at him. “You won’t get away with this. If Potter or Stratton don’t git you, Richards will.”
“What’s he talkin’ about?” Marshal Crowell said.
“Casey was with the Gray — same as my Pa and brother. Casey and some others like him waylaid a patrol bringing a load of gold into Georgia. They shot my brother in the back and left him to die.”
Crowell met the young man’s hard eyes. “That was war.”
“It was murder.”
“Hurry up!” a man shouted. “My supper’s gittin’ cold.”
“I’ll see you hang for this,” the marshal promised Smoke.
“You go to hell!” Smoke told him. He slapped the horse on the rump and Casey swung in the cool, late afternoon air.
“I’m notifying the territorial governor of this,” Crowell said.
Casey’s boot heels drummed a final rhythm.
“Shout, man!” Preacher told the minister. “Sing, sisters!” he urged on the choir.
“What about my sixty-five dollars?” the merchant shouted.
Eight
The men rode up the east side of the Wet Mountains, camping near the slopes of Greenhorn Mountain.
“Way I see it, Smoke,” Preacher said, “you got some choices. That marshal is gonna see to it a flyer is put out on you for murder.”
Smoke said nothing.
“Son, you got nothin’ left to prove. I can’t believe your Pa would want you kilt for something happened years back.”
“I won’t change my name, I won’t hide out, and I won’t run,” Smoke said. “I aim to see this thing through and finished.”
“Or get finished,” Preacher said glumly.
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“I head to Canon City.”
