As he rode he kept turning over the options in his mind. Maybe he would not shoot York at all but instead force him to confess, then stand back and let the law hang him. Hanging was a more fitting death under the circumstances. A bullet ended things too quickly. Still, there was always the chance that the law would not mete out the punishment York deserved. After all, Mike had been a union sympathizer, and the community was strongly pro-Confederacy.

The longer Rusty pondered, the less sure he was about what he would do. But he felt that when he got there he would know. Mike had always said that when the time came to act, most men knew instinctively what to do.

“Trust me,” he had advised, “and if I ain’t there, trust yourself. You’ll know what’s right.”

Rusty went suddenly short of breath as he rounded the winter-bared cotton field and saw the cabin ahead. Trembling, he reined up and drew Mike’s old pistol from its scabbard to recheck the load. He had never fired the pistol much and did not fully trust it. He liked a rifle, for he could hit anything he saw over its sights. A pistol, extended at arm’s length, seemed unwieldy and felt heavier than a rifle, though it was not.

He started for the cabin but changed course when he saw York seated on a wooden stool beside the door of a log shed, soaking up the meager winter sunshine. York raised a jug on the crook of his arm and drank.

Drunk, like as not, Rusty thought, disappointed. He had hoped to find York sober and able to understand fully what was happening. On the other hand, if he was drunk he might not have his guard up. It might be easier to draw a confession out of him.

Rusty dismounted twenty feet from York and drew the pistol. York blinked, trying to clear his eyes. “Who are you?”

“You know me. I’m Rusty Shannon.”

“I can’t quite make you out.” York kept blinking. He was too drunk to see straight.

Rusty seethed. “You were seein’ all right when you shot Mike Shannon. I’m here to make you pay for it.”

The slave Shanty stepped out of the shed, staring with wide eyes at the pistol. “Please, boy, put that thing away.”

York pushed to his feet but swayed and braced one hand against the shed wall. “You sayin’ I shot Mike? How could I? I been drunk for three, four days.”

“Not too drunk to shoot him in the back. And you’ll admit it, or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

A firm voice said, “No you won’t.”

Rusty turned quickly. Preacher Webb and Tom Blessing stood behind him. Webb reached out. “Give me the pistol. You’re too young to get yourself in this kind of trouble.”