OUTLAW SEDUCTION (Women of the West) by Kathryn Hockett

Author:Kathryn Hockett [Hockett, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2013-12-05T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lying lethargically on his cot, Travis contemplated a great many things he'd hoped not to have to think about until he was into old age. Life. Death. Heaven. Hell. It looked as if he was going to find out sooner than he had expected just what happened when a man's breath was stilled. Just a few more hours. The rays of the early morning sun peeking through the window were an ominous greeting and although he had spent the late night hours preparing for what was to come, Travis knew he wasn't ready. Not yet. He had only tasted of life. There was so much more enjoy.

"Hanging day, La Mont," Jake Heath announced cheerily, eyeing Travis's discarded hat as if already laying his claim.

"Yeah, hanging day," Travis answered. As if he had to be told.

At high noon today when the handle of the gibbet was pulled and the trap door dropped, he would be plummeted to his death, dangling like a side of beef for all to see. Would the fall through the trap break his neck or would he suffer a slow strangulation, a grisly end even for the most deserving outlaw. He could only hope that God in his mercy would make his death quick.

Travis had hoped until the last for a miracle, but now as the hours dwindled so did his faith. He suspected that his execution, just like his trial, would be a muddled nightmare. Oh, he had had a trial all right. Even Taggart had been forced to give a prisoner that, but it had been a foregone conclusion. No one had testified for Travis, yet a parade of people he didn't even know had pointed in his direction and insisted that he had done things he knew he never did. Was it any wonder that the harsh sentence had been handed down?

Hanging. It would be the culmination of the low point in his life, the time spent in a cramped jail cell for doing nothing but taking a damning photograph while a robbery was going on. Even now he had trouble realizing it wasn't all just a horrible dream. Oh, that he would wake up and find it was.

"You didn't eat your last meal, Mr. La Mont" At least Ellis Jones looked sympathetic.

"I've lost my appetite." Food was the last thing on Travis's mind at a time like this. Besides, where he was going he wouldn't need it.

"Are you sure you aren't hungry?" The little man was always anxious to please. "I can bring you something else.”

“How about a gun?”

“Pancakes and sausage or...."

"He said he isn't hungry you little monkey!" Coming up behind Ellis, Jake Heath roughly pushed him aside, sending the little man toppling to the floor.

"Leave him alone, you bastard! Don't take your dislike of me out on him. He hasn't done you any harm." Travis wanted to beat Heath’s smirking face to a pulp. If, after he died, something went wrong and he ended up in hell, he knew the devil would look just like Jake Heath.

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