“These men are going to release you,” she said, regaining her composure. She brusquely wiped away her tears on a forearm. “You’re going to get on a horse and ride. Keep riding and never come back to Atherton.”

“Or Jackson County,” Sheriff Foster added. “You ever set foot across the county line, you’ll be shot on sight. I’ll be glad to do it.”

“You’re a bright young fellow,” Shipley said. “I shouldn’t have to tell you what’s going to happen to your mother and sister if you ever decide to grace Jackson County with your presence again. You can figure that out for yourself.”

Shipley lit a cigar and turned to the marshal. “Cut him loose and send him on his way.”

Veins bulged in Pritchard’s neck and forehead as his shackles and leg-irons were unlocked. Sheriff Foster, Marshal Stacy, and both town marshals drew their pistols. The deputy marshal who’d saddled the horse handed over the reins, doing so gingerly, with his gun leveled, as if Pritchard were a rattler about to strike.

“My men will escort you out,” Marshal Stacy said. “Don’t come back.”

“Good-bye, Mama,” Pritchard said. “Tell Idelle I’m sorry for not saying good-bye.”

“Go, Samuel,” she said. “If you love your sister and me, you’ll never come back.”

“I won’t be back,” Pritchard said. “I hope God forgives you for what you’ve done, Mama, because I can’t.”

Pritchard glared at Shipley as he rode out. The last thing he heard was the fading sound of his mother’s sobs.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

From the loft’s window, Ditch watched the two marshals mount and escort Pritchard off. He waited until Dovie Pritchard, Burnell Shipley, Sheriff Foster, and Marshal Stacy extinguished the lantern and departed, before grabbing his rifle and bedroll and scampering down.

The livery stables were situated at the edge of town. Ditch made his way, again unseen, back into the woods. He began paralleling the road, following the horses on foot.

The first glint of the coming dawn crept over the horizon. It wasn’t difficult to keep the riders in sight. He knew there was a sharp curve farther down the road. Ditch raced ahead through the woods, hoping to intercept Pritchard and the marshals.

* * *

“This is as far as we go,” one of the town marshals said to Pritchard when they’d rounded a curve a couple of miles from Atherton.

“And as far as you go,” Eli Gaines said, emerging from the woods to block Pritchard’s path. He leveled both his revolvers, the hammers back, at Pritchard. Two more sheriff’s deputies appeared behind him, their guns also at the ready.

The town marshals gave Gaines a nod, then wordlessly turned their horses and headed back toward town.