“Say what you have to,” Shipley commanded her. She nodded and moved in to hug her son. Dovie forced a smile and caressed his face.

“What’s going on?” Pritchard asked, confused.

“You have to go, Samuel,” Dovie said, tears streaking down her own face in stark contrast to her smile. “You must leave Atherton and never come back.”

“I ain’t going nowhere without you and Idelle.”

“Yes,” she contradicted him, “you are.”

“If I don’t?” Pritchard challenged.

“You’ll hang,” Shipley spoke up. “Today at dawn. Which, by my estimation, is less than an hour away.”

“Okay,” Pritchard said to his mother. “I’ll go. But you and Idelle are coming with me.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Dovie said. “I have to stay here. Idelle and I have been taken in by the Nettleses.” She glanced sideways at Shipley. “At least for now.”

“You don’t have to stay,” Pritchard argued. “There’s nothing left for us in Atherton. That murderin’ bastard Burnell Shipley,” he thrust his chin at Atherton’s mayor, “saw to that. Let’s go, Mama. We can leave together.”

“I can’t,” she said softly.

“Why not?”

“She’s the reason you’re not swingin’ from a rope already, boy,” Shipley said.

Pritchard looked from his mother, who suddenly wouldn’t look him in the eye, to Shipley’s arrogant, satisfied face. Comprehension hit him like a punch in the gut.

“No, Mama,” Pritchard pleaded, unable to hide his revulsion. “You can’t do it. I just put Pa into the ground last night. What would he think about you takin’ up with Shipley? Pa’s—”

“—dead!” Dovie snapped, finishing her son’s sentence for him. “He’s dead and gone. You’re my only son, and you’re still alive. I’m going to do whatever it takes to see you stay that way.”

“I won’t let you become Burnell Shipley’s whore,” Pritchard said. “I don’t care what they do to me.”

Dovie slapped him across the face. “You’re still my little boy,” she scolded, her tears falling freely, “and you’ll do what you’re told. I have Idelle to think of, or didn’t you consider her? Do you think Idelle’s life is worth any more than yours? Or mine?”

Pritchard was stunned by his mother’s outburst, but not so shocked that he couldn’t understand her meaning. A man like Burnell Shipley, who thought nothing of murdering his father and forcing his mother to consort with him under penalty of her son’s death, wouldn’t hesitate to kill Idelle to accomplish his ends, or kill Dovie herself, if he couldn’t have her. Pritchard faced the fact that he had no more choice regarding his fate than his mother did.