Kansas, Bloody Kansas (The Lawmen Western #2) by J.B. Dancer

Author:J.B. Dancer [Dancer, J.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: action hero, gunfighters, rontier Fiction, western, westerns, wild west
Publisher: Piccadilly
Published: 2023-05-31T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

THERE WAS A long silence, and Fisher took a deep breath.

The silence got broken by the sound of a rope dropping over a tree. Fisher looked towards the noise. A noose of good hemp was swinging from the branch of an old pine. The tree looked solid and aged, as though it had seen a lot happen in this sleepy hollow. The rope looked new and strong. As strong as the bough from which it hung.

Hung …

The word stuck in Fisher’s mind.

Hung … Hung: Vickers was going to force him into hanging Jethro Marsh. And if he backed out, he would be dead.

Most likely, Emma, too.

He swung out of the saddle, looking towards Vickers.

“Get it done,” said the thin man, his pale face splitting into a cadaverous smile. “Hang him.”

Fisher glanced around. Twenty, maybe more, men were watching him. Waiting. Like vultures, he thought. Like carrion eaters hungry for prey.

He moved towards Marsh.

That cold, uncompromising part of his mind that came into action when danger threatened was working at full pace. There was no way, no way at all, that he could back off from this killing. He had five shots in his pistol, one more in the Sharps buffalo gun sheathed along his saddle. Too few shots for the men watching him.

And if he tried to break away, Emma was in danger. McGarry too, perhaps.

A break—whatever the outcome—would boil the lid right off his cover story. Most likely leaving him dead with his body full of holes while the outlaws rode free.

There was only one way to go.

He had to hang Jethro Marsh.

“Sure,” he said, walking towards the farmer. “Sure.”

He hoped that his voice sounded normal.

He took the rope and set it over Marsh’s head. The farmer was numb with shock and took the rope with seemingly casual ease, even turning his head over to the side so that it was easier to fit the hemp about his neck. Fisher pulled the noose tight, dragging the loop up against Marsh’s neck.

Maybe that way the man would die fast; the rope might snap his spine, rather than strangling him.

He felt sweat break out on his hands and back. Then he hiked the farmer up on to the waiting horse. Someone had brought it out from the corral behind the homestead, a fat-bellied plough horse that stood quiet, oblivious to what was going on.

Marsh climbed astride the bare back like he didn’t care.

Or didn’t know.

Fisher stepped back.

The tail end of the rope was looped around the bole of the tree. The man on the horse was outlined against the ridge by the flames of his burning home. There was a sickly sweet smell of roasting flesh, overlayed by the thicker odor of smoldering timber.

Fisher drew his gun.

For a moment he thought about using it on Vickers and James. Then three more of the renegades But he knew it wouldn’t work.

Couldn’t work.

It was a dead end path.

Either way.

He thumbed back the hammer and backed off from the horse.

He squeezed the trigger, scorching a bullet along the plough horse’s withers.

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