Prairie Fire by William W. Johnstone
Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2021-11-10T00:00:00+00:00
CHAPTER 18
The crowd outside of Golgotha Rock was hungry for blood.
Golgotha Rock was in the fading glory of its boom. What had started as a river of copper had, over several years, dwindled to streams. The town hadnât given up the ghost and died yet, but it seemed the vultures were circling.
Luke slowed his horse to a walk as he saw the mob standing on the flats outside of the town proper. A big tamarack pine stood at the center of a small clearing. A rope was tied to a stout branch and the rope came down in a noose around the neck of a sullen-looking man with a bushy mustache and haystack hair.
The crowd was arrayed in a half-circle around the hanging tree and a preacher man stood in the back of a buckboard. Black, flat-brimmed hat, black trousers, black coat. White, collarless shirt buttoned all the way up to the throat. In one hand he held a Bible and in the other a whip. As Luke drew nearer, he could hear the fire-and-brimstone sermon erupting from the manâs throat. The crowd shouted choruses of Amens! and Hallelujahs! to punctuate his points.
He stopped to listen, pulling his horse up at the edge of the crowd. The preacher had a deep, clear voice. Luke had no trouble hearing the sermon. The manâs voice carried.
âA dark door has opened in Golgotha Rock, I tell you, friends! A door has opened and Satan has walked through!â
The preacher was so bombastic, it was hard to ignore the manâs voice, but Luke did his best. He studied the man about to hang. He assumed it wasnât a lynching when he got a glimpse of several men with tin stars on their shirts in the congregation.
And thatâs what it is, he thought. A congregation. Not a crowd or a mob, but a congregation.
He realized he recognized the criminal. It wasnât one of Goldsmithâs outfit, but a hardcase from the New Mexico Territory, John Hamilton Little. Sometimes called Short Little because his brother stood six and a half feet tall. Horse rustler, bank robber, an owlhoot with eleven deaths on his gun. At least. Stringing him up was no injustice.
âAnd this man turned his eyes away from God,â the preacher was shouting, âand took the hand of the devil!â
Luke, whoâd seen his share of hangings, was just about to guide his horse around the congregation, when the preacher reached the pinnacle of his sermon.
âMeet your maker, sinner!â
The bullwhip in the preacherâs hand cracked hard. The lash stung the outlawâs horse on the rump, and it bolted forward. The outlawâs eyes grew wide in startled shock at the sudden action. He went up as he was jostled from his saddle and then dropped hard.
The crowd had held its breath at the preacherâs motion, but despite the moment of quiet, Luke didnât hear the telltale crack of John Littleâs neck snapping. Theyâd mis-tied the knot, he realized. The devout citizenry of Golgotha Rock was going to have to watch the condemned man strangle.
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