“Let me do it,” Boudroy mumbled through his split and busted mouth. He got shakily to his feet and picked up the revolver he’d dropped when Pritchard kicked him.

“Not a chance,” Gaines said. “You couldn’t hit the side of a barn in your condition. Get on your horse before you fall again. This’ll only take a minute.”

Gaines moved off five paces from the kneeling Pritchard and cocked his revolver. Crittenden dropped the shovel and dashed hastily out of the line of fire. Gaines made an elaborate production of raising his gun over his head, then lowered it directly at Pritchard.

“You got any last words, Samuel Pritchard?”

“I’ll see you in hell,” Pritchard said, as he stared without expression into the cold, black eye of the revolver’s barrel. His last, tortured thoughts were of his mother and sister in Shipley’s filthy hands.

“You surely will,” Gaines said as he shot Pritchard in the forehead.

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Ditch watched helplessly as his best friend was executed with a pistol shot to the head. He was out of breath from running through the woods, trying to keep up with the quartet of horses on the road. He’d snuck as close as he dared to the river’s edge, where the three deputies held Pritchard. He was near enough to observe the group, but not so near he could hear what was being said, or get a clear shot with the Hawken through the heavy brush.

He saw the muzzle blast and smoke from Gaines’s revolver and heard the report a split second later. Pritchard fell forward on his face and didn’t move. Ditch hung his head.

Ditch could barely bring himself to look up, through tear-filled eyes, as Gaines and Crittenden unshackled Pritchard’s limp hands and roughly dragged him into the shallow grave. He desperately wanted to rise from where he was concealed, cock the Hawken, and charge, but realized it was futile. He knew he could get only one of the murderous lawmen with the single-shot rifle, at best, before the other two cut him down.

Gaines languidly rolled a cigarette. By the time he was finished smoking it, Crittenden had scraped dirt over Pritchard and covered him up. He brushed leaves and twigs over the mound, blending it in with the surrounding terrain as best he could.

The emaciated deputy tossed his cigarette butt onto the mound. He and Crittenden mounted up, joined the bloodied Boudroy, and rode off.

Once the trio had gone, Ditch walked with stooped shoulders over to the mound. He dropped his bedroll and rifle. Then he knelt at his friend’s grave and began to cry as he slowly scooped the dirt away. Gaines’s cigarette butt was still smoldering.