Straker smiled.
“You’re most cooperative, young lady. You can co-operate even more by stepping further inside—else you’ll see this man die.” He gestured at Kenton.
“Don’t do it—run!” Kenton directed.
She did not seem to know whom to obey. She hesitated, then came inside. Meanwhile, flame was spreading all around the stall into which the footpad had thrown the shattered lantern. Choking smoke billowed.
Straker grabbed Roxanne when she drew close. “You’re hurting me!” she protested, struggling in his arms.
Kenton, meanwhile, was still pinned by Straker’s remaining crony. Gunnison, though unrestrained, could do nothing as long as Straker threatened Kenton. Perk Starlin still hung by his dislocated arm in the center of the stable. Now he groaned, beginning to stir back toward painful consciousness.
“I seem to have the advantage here,” Straker said.
“I don’t think so,” Kenton replied. “What are you going to do with us? Kill us all? You can’t afford that kind of risk, and you know it. The stable is burning—one man has already run out of here with his legs afire. You think we’re not going to draw attention within moments?”
Straker was angered. “Shut up!”
“Not until I tell you something you need to know. George Currell lived long enough to give a full report on the murder of Jimmy Rhoder and all your subsequent doings.” At first, Gunnison was surprised Kenton had revealed that information to Straker, but his next words made clear the bluff he was pulling. “He talked to Marshal Kelly before he died—he knows everything now. They’ll be looking for you. You’ve worked yourself into a corner you can’t get out of. Give it up.”
“I said shut up!” Straker yelled. “I’ll kill you here and now!”
“No you won’t. It would only make it worse for you.”
“I will kill you—the girl too!” Straker returned. He was obviously losing control of his temper and common sense.
The footpad holding Kenton suddenly let him go. “You ain’t paying me enough to step into something this deep,” he said to Straker. “I’m getting out.”
Straker’s eyes were wild. Without a word, he lifted his pistol and shot the footpad through the head. The man fell in a dead heap. Roxanne struggled harder.
“Brilliant—a gunshot!” Kenton said. “Now I know we’ll get lots of attention. And look—the flames are climbing the wall. Fire fighters and police will be here at any moment. You’re through, Straker. Give up and they’ll go easier on you.”
Straker swore and waved his pistol about. “Burn! All of you burn! I’m taking this one and getting out while I can!”
He dragged Roxanne on her heels to the outside, then swung the door closed. The fire had spread into two more empty stalls and now was crawling along the underside of the roof. Horses kicked and struggled as the heat grew more unbearable.
Kenton bolted for the door Straker had just closed and found it jammed tightly shut from the outside. Suddenly Perk Starlin fell to the dirt floor, the rope trailing after him. The end of it had been tied to a wall post in one of the stalls that had caught fire, and the flames had eaten through the hemp.
The jolt of the fall knocked Perk awake and popped his dislocated shoulder back into place at the same time. He let out a fearsome yell, grabbed the shoulder, then rose to his knees, looking around in incomprehension.
“Alex, come help me with this door!” Kenton yelled. The smoke was growing thick. Horses stamped and screamed louder than before, pounding themselves against the sides and doors of their stalls.
Gunnison joined Kenton, and together they pounded the jammed door. It began to yield. Whatever Straker had jammed it with cracked and broke. The door swung open.
On the other side of it stood Straker, his expression that of a man who had just looked his own death in the eye. He stumbled forward toward Kenton. “Help me,” he said. “Help me.”
Into his back was deeply thrust a broken-handled three-tine pitchfork. The handle bobbed up and down each time he moved. He collapsed facedown, the broken end of the handle pointing straight up.
“Kenton…” The voice was Perk’s and sounded weak.
Kenton and Gunnison ran back and helped Perk to his feet. Through the black smoke they made it out of the stable. Then Kenton turned and disappeared into the hot murk again.
Perk collapsed outside. “Save the horses,” he said. “Get somebody…pull down the back wall and save the horses!”
But Gunnison did not respond. He was waiting for Kenton to emerge with Straker from the smoke-filled doorway. Suddenly a terrible crash came from inside the building, and an explosion of flame. The ceiling was beginning to fall in.
“Kenton! Oh, Lord, no…”
Others were there now. Perk, still worrying over the horses, led several men around to the back of the burning structure where they began pulling away wall boards to get at the stalls from behind. Gunnison remained oblivious to it all, even to the touch of a feminine hand to his as Roxanne walked up to his side.
“I’m so sorry,” she said softly.
Only then was Gunnison aware of her. “Roxanne…”
A figure emerged from the smoke, coughing, staggering, but still on his feet. “Kenton!” Gunnison yelled joyously. “You’re alive!”
He went forward. His big partner put a hand on Gunnison’s shoulder to steady himself. “Couldn’t save…Straker,” he gasped. “He was pinned under the roof timbers.”
“You tried, Kenton. That’s a lot more than Straker would have done for you or anyone else.”
Kenton turned and watched the flames eat away the big wooden building. The firemen had arrived now, coming straight from the fire at Deverell’s. As the firemen went to work, Kenton noticed Roxanne.
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” he said.
Gunnison said, “Kenton, meet Roxanne Chrisman. Roxanne, meet Brady Kenton.”
Roxanne extended a slender hand. Kenton’s muscled dirty paw closed over it. “Was it you who put the pitchfork into Straker?” he asked.
“Yes. He pushed me down and told me to stay there while he jammed the door shut. He said he would shoot me if I moved. I moved anyway. The pitchfork was leaned against that tree—I just grabbed it and ran at him.”
“You’re a brave young woman. Your mother should be very proud of you.”
Roxanne’s eyes widened. “Mother! Oh, no, Mr. Kenton—in all that’s happened I’ve forgotten why I came after you in the first place. Hurry—we’ve got to get back to the house before it’s too late!”
“What’s happening?”
“I think Mother is going to kill Squire Deverell. Oh, please do hurry!”
“Kill Deverell…why?”
“After you and Alex left the house, Gableman brought Mother a broadside he found posted on the street. It says that Deverell is Garrett, and Mother believes you wrote it. She said you must have written it and that you must have lied to her when you told her Deverell wasn’t really Garrett.”
“We know about the broadside,” Gunnison said. “But why does Ella care?”
“Because of Jerome! Jerome was one of the bridge burners Briggs Garrett hanged and burned!”
“Jerome…Jerome Marchbanks?” Kenton asked.
“Yes!”
“I remember the poor boy…I had no idea he was Ella’s son.”
“Come back to the house, quickly!” Roxanne urged again. “It may be too late already!”
As they ran up to the Chrisman house, the door opened as if by magic. A very frightened Fiona appeared. “Hurry—she and Gableman have got him in the backyard, and if you don’t stop her, it’s going to be terrible!”
“Where is Mrs. Deverell?” Kenton asked.
“Asleep in her room—please hurry! The Missus has a rope and coal oil, and she’s going to do to Deverell what she says he did to her son!”
They bolted through the house and into the backyard. There they stopped, staring at a most unusual scene.
Deverell stood on a barrel, a noose around his neck. The rope was tied to a branch of the lone tree in the yard. Deverell’s hands were bound behind him. Gableman, looking very uncertain, stood nearby, a torch in one hand and a pistol in the other. At his feet was a capped coal oil jug.
Beyond, Lundy and Kate O’Donovan stood in the doorway of the guest cottage, watching the scene in horror. Lundy was clinging to his mother, his face half buried in the folds of her nightgown.
Ella Chrisman, who had been standing and staring silently at the pitiful Deverell, wheeled when the group entered the yard. She lifted her arm and pointed at them. “Stay away!” she demanded. “Stay away unless you’ve come to witness the settling of accounts after seventeen years!”
“Mother, you can’t do it!” Roxanne said. “It would be murder!”
“No worse a murder than the one that stole my son from me! A murder of the murderer himself—that’s justice. The vengeance of the sufferers!”
Kenton stepped forward. “Squire Deverell is not Briggs Garrett,” he said.
Ella Chrisman shook her head violently. “So you say in your spoken words, but I’ve read your written ones. Why you withheld the truth from me I don’t know, but now I have the one I’ve wanted so many years!”
“I didn’t write that broadside. It was written by the nephew of Mary Deverell so that Deverell would be wrongly identified as Garrett and killed. Then, after some covert murder of Mrs. Deverell, Squire Deverell’s inheritance would pass to the nephew. It was a clever, evil scheme, but it’s over now.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I can prove that Deverell is not Garrett. Garrett should have a scar across his chest, the mark of a saber slash I gave him the very day your son died. Open his shirt, Gableman. I think you’ll find not a scar upon him.”
Gableman looked at Ella. She glared at Kenton but nodded curtly.
The tall black man stepped forward. The entire group drew near. It was almost dawn; the eastern sky was growing milky and light.
Gableman reached up and ripped open Deverell’s shirt. The light of the torch revealed a long scar running diagonally down the exposed chest.
Kenton was so stunned, he stumbled back two steps. “Garrett!” he said in a whisper.
Deverell’s jaw trembled. Tears brimmed in his eyes. “I’m not Garrett,” he said. “That scar has been on my chest since childhood. I fell from a barn loft and cut myself on a nail—it’s no saber slash.”
His words had no vigor. He spoke them obviously believing they would make no difference.
Kenton was speechless. Finding the scar on Deverell’s chest was the biggest surprise yet handed him in a week overflowing with surprises.
“Now you see!” Ella declared joyfully. “He is Garrett!”
Kenton stepped forward again, looking into Deverell’s face. “No,” he said. “Scar or no scar, I can’t believe this man is Briggs Garrett.”
But Ella Chrisman had stopped listening. She walked forward and looked with a perversely delighted hatred at Deverell. “You will die as my son died, Briggs Garrett. I thank the heavens for delivering you into my hands. Gableman, bring the coal oil.”
“No! In the name of the Virgin, no!” It was Kate O’Donovan. She was running across from the cottage, sobbing and crying out. “You must not, Mrs. Chrisman. You cannot do this to an innocent man!”
Ella, completely taken aback by this development, stared at Kate O’Donovan for several moments. “This is not an innocent man—he’s plagued your life as well as mine. You should want to see him die, Mrs. O’Donovan.”
Kate was frantic. “No!” she screamed. “No!” She stopped, collected herself, and wiped her tear-stained face. “I feared this day would come,” she said. “Sometimes I let myself hope it would not…but now I can hope that no longer.” Then to Ella: “If it’s Briggs Garrett you must have, then have him you shall, and if the hate in you is so great that you can bear to hurt him more than God already has, then into your hands I give him. May God forgive me if what I do is wrong.”
She turned and walked slowly back into the cottage. Lundy fell back against the wall and sank until he was sitting on his heels. He buried his face in his hands as she passed him.
The watching group was confused. Only Kenton seemed to have a glimmering comprehension of what was happening. He had gone pale in the rising morning light.
Kate O’Donovan rolled out the old man in the wheelchair, bumping across the lawn until he sat directly before Ella Chrisman. “Here he is. Do with him what you will, if you have it in you to punish a man heaven has already stricken.”
Kenton walked forward. All were silent as he stooped and opened the old man’s shirt and revealed the long ugly scar that ran like a frozen lightning bolt down his chest, much more pronounced than the scar on the chest of Deverell.
Kenton looked at the scar, then lifted the old man’s chin and peered intently into his face. After several moments he closed his eyes and turned away, nodding.
The sun was above the horizon now, spilling down the light of a new day.