52

HIS CLOTHES WERE dry and he was no longer so terribly cold by the time he heard them outside coming for him. They were noisy enough about it. Their voices were shrill and some of them sounded already drunk—or still drunk—even though it was early.

Once there was daylight outside he’d been able to see. It wasn’t bright inside the shed but it wasn’t completely dark either. Wherever he was, they must have cleaned it out to make sure he couldn’t find anything to use for a tool or a weapon. The place was stripped so there was nothing left inside it but walls, floor, and ceiling. No bunk to lie on nor so much as an empty gunny sack to use for a blanket.

He’d spent the night alternately sitting and lying, leaning up against the wall opposite the doorway so if they came he would be facing them. Damned if he would present his back to them. He hadn’t done anything to be ashamed of no matter what they thought.

When he heard them outside—quite a crowd of them it sounded like—he stood and brushed himself off. His face still hurt but it was a dull ache now. Apart from that, he wasn’t too bad off. He did wish his boots would dry as quick as his clothes had, but the leather held the water so that his feet felt clammy and uncomfortable.

And he was hungry. Not that he expected to be served breakfast.

He heard the rattle of a chain—they’d really gone to some trouble to make sure he wouldn’t get out, hadn’t they?—and shortly afterward the door swung open.

The sudden rush of daylight hurt his eyes.

“You can come out any way you want. Kicking, punching, biting, if you please.” Jug couldn’t tell who said that but he sounded hopeful that one of those suggestions would be taken. They just wanted an excuse—some of them did anyway—to beat on him again.

Jug wouldn’t give the bastards the pleasure. He held his head high and marched out into the midst of them and looked slowly around. His intention was to meet every man in this crowd eye to eye for he knew each and every one of them. Had ridden with some of them. Played with them. Drank with them.

Now . . . now Simon Beck was holding a coil of rope in his hands. New rope, it was. They hadn’t yet tied it into a noose. But that was what the rope was surely for. Simon. Simon Beck. Jug had known him eight, ten years. Traded at Beck’s store every month of that time, ever since he first came to Bonner. Now the man was carrying a hangman’s rope.

Jug found himself wondering how it’d come to be a tradition that you hanged a man with a new rope even if it was a lynching and not a proper hanging.

It struck him that his mind was wandering off into odd places. Avoiding thinking about what was happening here, he supposed. Not that he wanted to do that. But unconsciously he was pretending that this wasn’t really and truly taking place.

Except, of course, it was. Really and truly. And he damn sure better pay close attention if he wanted any hope of being able to walk away from here on his own hind legs.

“I got to tell you something, all of you,” he said in a voice that was as loud and as strong as he could make it. Well, as loud anyway. He wasn’t all that capable of strong just at that moment. “I got to tell you why I came back here and what’s behind the lies that’ve been told on me.”

He got those words out but no more.

Saying “lies” set the Elevens off, he realized after, and they poured over him like corn syrup on a johnnycake.

Jug got a couple decent punches in and buried the toe of his right boot in some SOB’s cojones, but the odds were about twenty’leven to one and he hadn’t a chance to succeed. Didn’t ask for one either. He just concentrated on getting back what little he could and the hell with the rest of it.