Last Hanging at Paradise Meadow by Stephen Bly

Author:Stephen Bly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: town council, faith based, vigilantes, law and order, spunky heroine, the wild west, crisis control, past memories, mob justice, race prejudice
Publisher: Bly Books

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Rose Creek talked to a sleepy Hawthorne Miller when she heard the first gunfire from the Gold Palace. “All I’m asking is that you keep a gun on this man until the matter is settled.” Her head spun with the second blast. “Jeremiah, will you hold a gun on this man?”

“Miss Rose, I… eh…” He glanced at Miller. “Yes, ma’am, I will.”

She shoved the shotgun into Gilmore’s hands.

“We’ll keep him here under one condition,” Miller said.

“Oh?” Creek peered at the photographer.

“A sitting with you in your buckskins and Brannon at your side.”

“Here, Jeremy can hold the buckskin.” She handed the dress to Gilmore and turned to leave. Several more shots rang out.

“I get the picture?” Miller said.

“If Brannon’s alive,” she called back. Lifting her long dress above her ankles, she ran across the footbridge and circled the smoking remnants of the jail.

Dawn finally opened in the eastern sky. Winds blew from the west.

If he’s alive?

Brannon, you’d better be alive.

She reached the Gold Palace in time to see Mr. Highsmith standing over a slain gunman. A short man with a big mustache held a gun on another of Rutherford’s men. “Where’s Brannon?”

“Inside.”

“What happened? What are you doing here?”

“We joined up to help Brannon, but I don’t know what happened in there. From the sounds of it, he’s been hit.”

Rose grabbed the slain gunman’s pistol and hurried toward the front of the saloon. A crowd of men stood twenty feet from the door out in the street.

“Don’t go in there, Miss Rose,” one man cautioned. “Bullets is flyin’ ever’where.”

She didn’t hesitate. As she barged through the door, the bystanders scurried behind her to look from the safety of the wooden sidewalk. Several armed men stood around Rutherford. He was down, but seemed to stir. Two other men sprawled across the floor and one man bent over Brannon.

“Is he dead?” she called out as she ran to his side.

“Miss Rose,” the man started. “What are you doing here?”

She straddled Brannon and lifted up his head. She spied a pool of blood on the floor by his left arm. “Brannon, don’t you go dying on me! You hear? I’ve got plans, and they don’t include you dying.” Her vision began to blur, and she barely heard herself rant, “Jimmy, don’t go down there. Please, Jimmy.”

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