Matt rode toward Clem until he was just a few feet away. He could see the hate and anger in Clem’s eyes.
“Throw his carcass across the back of his horse,” Matt said.
“You’re the one that kilt him. You do it,” Clem said.
“All right, I’ll do it. But if I do, then I may as well take both of you back that way,” Matt said, and he pulled the hammer back on his pistol and aimed it directly at Clem’s head.
“No!” Clem shouted, holding his hands out. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”
“Good thinking,” Matt said.
A few minutes later Zeke was belly-down on his horse, and Clem was mounted, with his hands tied to the saddlehorn. Matt looped his rope around Clem’s neck.
“What? Look here! What are you a-doin’? You ain’t a-fixin’ to hang me, are you?”
“Not here. At least, not as long as you do things my way,” Matt said as, holding on to the other end of the rope, he mounted Spirit. “Let’s go.”
“Where are we a-goin’?”
“We are going to meet the man whose cows you were stealing, and some of the men who were friends of the one you killed,” Matt said.
“You don’t plan for me to ride like this, do you? With a rope around my neck? Don’t you understand? Anythin’ could happen. My horse could step into a gopher hole, I could fall off, my horse might even decide to take off runnin’. If anythin’ like that was to happen, why, my neck would get broke.”
“Yeah, it would, wouldn’t it?” Matt replied.
“This ain’t right!” Clem called as Matt gave Clem’s horse a slap on the rear to send him on.
“If I were you, I’d do less talking and pay more attention to your riding,” Matt said easily. “You don’t want to fall off, do you?”
“No!” Clem said, his answer reflecting his concern.
It took Matt and Clem better than an hour to ride back to Frewen Castle. For the entire time back to the ranch, Clem kept clucking soothingly to his horse.
When Matt returned with one man belly-down across a horse and another with his hands tied to the saddlehorn and a rope around his neck, the arrival generated a lot of attention among the Frewen cowboys. They were especially interested in the fact that the dead man and Matt’s prisoner were both wearing yellow kerchiefs.
“I’ll be damn if Jensen ain’t caught hisself a couple of Yellow Kerchiefs,” one of the cowboys said.
“That’s them!” young Jeff said, pointing to the two men. “That’s the two men that jumped us, and kilt Burt!”
“What the hell did Jensen bring one of ’em back alive for?” one of the other cowboys said. “Hell, let’s just shoot the son of a bitch now!”
“Shootin’ is too good for him. Let’s string ’im up. Hell, it won’t be hard to do. He’s done got the rope around his neck.”
Several gathered around then as Matt rode straight to the barn. Once there, he threw his end of the rope over a beam that extended out over the top of the barn door, then pulled it just tight enough to put pressure on Clem’s neck. After that, he tied his end of the rope off then started toward the big house.
“What? What are you going to do? You can’t leave me like this! I could hang!” Clem called out in fear.
Clem was sitting on his horse right in front of the barn door. The rope around his neck went up and over the protruding beam, then was tied off at the other end, so that it formed an inverted “V.”
“You won’t hang, as long as you can keep your horse still,” Matt called back over his shoulder.
“You can’t do this! You can’t leave me here like this!” Clem called out to him. “It ain’t right!”
“Mister, I would quit yelling if I was you,” one of the cowboys said. “You’re liable to spook your horse. Besides which, if you don’t shut up your cat-erwaulin’ I’ll slap your horse on his ass myself.”
The other cowboys laughed.
“Ahh,” Clem said, realizing then that what the cowboys said was true. “Stay here, horse,” he said as calmly as he could. “Don’t you be tryin’ to go nowhere.”
When Matt came back out a few minutes later, Moreton Frewen and his wife Clara, as well as Jennie Churchill and her son Winnie, followed him out of the house and across the yard toward the barn. There, they saw one horse with a body draped across it and another horse, in the saddle of which sat a man with a rope not only around his neck, but looped over a protruding brace, as if he were about to be hanged.
“What do you want to do with him?” Matt asked.
“This is the feller that kilt Burt! I say hang the son of a bitch!” one of the cowboys shouted, then seeing the reaction of the two ladies, he took off his hat. “Sorry ladies,” he said. “I didn’t mean to go cussin’ in front of you.”
“I think we should take him into town, give him a trial, and then hang him,” Frewen said.
“Do we have a judge in this town?” Matt asked.
“I’m a judge,” Frewen offered.
“All right,” Matt said. “I’ll take him into town and turn him over to Marshal Drew.”
As Jennie watched Matt ride off, she felt a strange mix of emotions. She had never met anyone quite like Matt Jensen. He was the perfect gentleman, kind and sensitive, gentle and patient with her son. But he was also,
