I dash across the street, dodging the folks gathering in the road. The drovers are bunched up in front of the sheriff’s office shouting and waving guns. From snippets of conversation I gather that they want the sheriff to open the door, tell them what’s happening. They still can’t see that it’s time to cut bait and hotfoot it out of town.
“Move,” I yell, pushing through the drovers, throwing my sharp elbow into soft bits when a few of the men refuse to budge. A particularly large man looms before me, an impassable wall, so I change my trajectory, moving parallel to the boardwalk until I find an opening. All the while a little voice in my head is urging me to hurry to the sheriff’s office. How long does it take for a man to strangle a woman? My brain runs through a million violent tableaus, and still I haven’t made it to Katherine’s side.
“That’s it,” I mutter. I grab the man in front of me, boosting myself up onto his shoulders. He’s barely had time to react before I’ve hopped to the next man, using the drovers as stepping-stones. I lose my balance before the sheriff’s door, tumbling against it. It bangs open and I half fall into the office.
“Now, Jane, that’s what I call an entrance,” the sheriff drawls. “We were just coming to find you.” He gestures with his pistol, the business end pointed right at me, and I crawl the rest of the way in, the door closing behind me. I try to climb to my feet, but before I can, a boot lodges itself in my side, digging into the soft spot just below my ribs. I instinctively curl into a ball.
“Boys. Boys! There will be plenty of time for that later. Get her on her feet.”
“Elias, this is highly unnecessary. Kill them and be done with it.” The pastor’s voice is ice water on my soul, and the wave of fear I’ve been fighting to hold back threatens to drown me.
“Not now, Pop. Let me deal with this in my own way.”
I’m hauled up by hands on my upper arms, my breath still a bit ragged from getting kicked.
“Kate, you okay?” I ask. I can barely see her in the gloom of the office. The window was boarded up sometime between last night and today, and the furniture is all pushed around, almost like the sheriff is planning on hunkering down in his office rather than facing the nightmare that’s about to greet the town.
“Oh, I’m fine, Jane. But I do believe the good sheriff has lost his mind.” Her voice is just as matter of fact as ever, and my relief bubbles up in ill-advised laughter, which I swallow back down.
“Well, good to know.” I shift my weight, and address the sheriff. “You do realize there’s a horde on the way.”
“Gideon may have mentioned it.”
I keep my voice even. “There’s no way a place like Summerland will survive a pack of that magnitude. Your big pretty wall didn’t save your sorry hide, what do you think a few boards on the window will do?”
“The Lord will see us through this trial the same way he saw the Israelites through the desert. I’ve sent the patrols out to put down the approaching pack, after which those men out there will repair the wall, and things will be as they were.”
“The Lord helps those who help themselves, Sheriff. We need to hightail it out of here. Get that father of yours to pray for us along the way. Otherwise none of us are going to see the sunset.”
There’s a long pause and then a wheezing sound, like someone is choking on a hard candy.
“What the hell is that?”
“Language, Jane,” Katherine says. “And I do believe that sound is the sheriff laughing.”
“I am indeed having a good chuckle. I figure that the only way this is actually happening is if someone is having a go at me. Because there is no way that some random darkie girl is telling me how to run my town.” The sheriff grabs Katherine, Bob and Bill taking that as a cue to raise their guns as well. I can feel the weight of their regard, but I stand my ground.
From his chair, the pastor sighs. “It’s about time.”
Outside, the clamor grows as people begin to pound the door. The number of folks in the streets must be increasing as word of the approaching horde begins to make its way through the town. At this rate we’ll have mass hysteria before too long, and when that happens we’re all goners.
“Sheriff, the horde on its way is of remarkable size. We need to leave, not try to save this godforsaken place. Why can’t you see that?”
“Summerland is a city on the hill,” the pastor says, raising his hands in supplication, as though he’s appealing to a higher power.
I ignore the man and direct my words to the sheriff. “This town was built by Mayor Carr and his politician cronies. You willing to give your life for some rich man’s delusions?”
“Delusions? Summerland ain’t no delusion. This place is the foundation of a new America, one that embraces the promise of greatness our founding fathers once made. Don’t you see? Darkies, they got their place, and it ain’t brushing elbows with respectable folk!” He yells this last bit at Katherine. Spittle flies from the sheriff’s lips as he speaks, and as she fights to maintain her sense of calm she still flinches away from the sheriff’s crazed words.
Even in the low light, I can see an unholy gleam in the sheriff’s eyes. Plenty of folks share his attitude, but something fundamental has snapped in him. I wonder what pushed him over the edge, what made a man so coldly reasonable sink into what very much looks like madness.
Maybe he truly did fall in love with Katherine. And maybe the knowledge that she was playing him broke his heart as
