“No need for a trial,” Shipley said. “Your son admitted to killing two men, one of them a deputy sheriff, in front of those very same witnesses you speak of. Besides, as district provost marshal, operating under duly declared martial law, I have the authority to convene a tribunal and dispense justice as I see fit. For your information, I just convened the tribunal with Sheriff Foster, before you arrived. I’ll be dispensing the justice tomorrow at dawn.”

“You son of a bitch,” Dovie said. “You had Thomas killed, just as my son said. Now you’re going to kill him, too.”

Shipley shrugged. “I most certainly did not have your husband killed,” he lied. “He died, it appears, at the hand of Confederate brigands.”

“Samuel says differently.”

“It makes no difference what he says. I have a duty to enforce the law, which means hanging your son. He killed two men. He must be punished. Order must be maintained. We’re at war, you know.”

Dovie put her face in her hands and began to sob. Shipley retrieved a clean glass from his desk and poured three fingers of whiskey into it. Then he topped off his own. She continued to weep.

“Your son doesn’t have to hang, you know,” Shipley said.

Dovie parted her hands and looked up. Her crystal blue eyes, a feature she passed on to both her son and daughter, were red from crying.

“What did you say?” she asked hesitantly.

“You heard me. Your son doesn’t have to perish at the end of a rope.”

“I’m listening,” Dovie said.

“If Samuel were to escape,” he said, “and go off and enlist in the Federal army, perhaps under an assumed name, who’d be the wiser? He’d have to serve in the war, naturally, and it would mean he could never, ever, return to Atherton. But at least he wouldn’t get his neck stretched.”

“You’d allow that?”

“I could be persuaded.”

Dovie was no fool. “What do I have to do?”

“You’re a very beautiful woman,” Shipley said, his eyes moving up and down her. “But as of tonight, you’re a widow. This is hard country for a woman alone, Mrs. Pritchard. If what your son says is true—”

“You know it is,” she cut in.

“—you’re also without a home. And you, with a young daughter to support. Unfortunately, it would seem you’re now without means as well. Since the sawmill is a critical military resource, and in light of the recent Confederate partisan activity in the area, I’ve had to commandeer it. For the war effort, of course.”

“Of course,” Dovie said bitterly. “Just say it plain, Burnell. Quit dancing around and tell me what you want?”