Ride With the Devil Read Free

of paper to Culpepper.
    “Thank you, Deputy Bates,” Culpepper said as he took the paper from him.
    Culpepper, Vox, Bates, and all of the other deputies were mounted. So was the condemned man, who was now sitting on his horse with his hands tied behind his back.
    By Culpepper’s order, no one else from the town could be mounted, so more than one hundred people had walked the half mile to the hanging tree to watch.
    Clearing his throat, Culpepper began reading from the judge’s order for execution.
    “‘Edward Delaney, having been found guilty of horse stealing and other crimes, this court sentences you to be hanged by the neck until you are dead.’”
    The rope had already been thrown over a convenient horizontal branch of the tree, and now the noose hung but inches from Delaney’s head.
    “Do you have any last words?” Culpepper asked.
    Delaney stared at Culpepper.
    “I don’t have nothin’ to say to these folks,” he said. “I forgive them, because they are innocent people who don’t know what they are doin’.”
    “Well, that’s might righteous of you, forgiving us like that,” Culpepper said sarcastically.
    “I said I forgive them, not you. To you, I do have something to say.”
    “Well, I expect you better say what you’ve got to say, then,” Culpepper said as he placed the noose around Delaney’s neck. “Because you’ve got about thirty seconds left to live.”
    “I know what you done durin’ the war, Culpepper. I didn’t find out until it was too late to do anything about it, but I know it was you. And I’ll be waiting for you in hell.”
    “Really?” Culpepper said. He chuckled. “Well, when you get there, kick the devil in the ass for me, will you?”
    Without waiting for a reply, Culpepper slapped the rump of Delaney’s mount.
    The horse bolted forward and the rope tightened, pulling Delaney from the saddle. The tree limb sagged a bit under Delaney’s weight, but the fall did not break his neck. Delaney was slowly strangling, and he kicked his legs and made gagging sounds as he swung back and forth, describing a wide arc. His eyes were open and bulging, his tongue ran out, and his face turned dark red, then blue.
    Many of the people in the crowd, unable to look at his suffering, turned their faces away. A few, shocked by the unexpected dreadfulness of what they were watching, began to throw up. The mounted deputies, though, to a man, watched with barely concealed glee. Finally Delaney’s struggles stopped and he grew still, save for the continuing but now gentle pendulum swing of his body.
    By the time the townspeople started back into town, Delaney’s body was hanging perfectly still.

Chapter 2
    SMALL BROWN PUFFS HUNG IN THE AIR JUST BEHIND the rider as the horse’s hooves stirred up dust from the low, sun-baked grass. From the perspective of an eagle circling overhead, the solitary rider was moving slowly but inexorably across a long, unbroken plain.
    The morning sun was to his back.
    Mason Hawke was tired. It was a saddle-sore, sleeping-on-the-ground, bone-deep, butt-weary kind of tired, brought on by dusty trails, people he couldn’t remember, and towns he wanted to forget.
    Like Puxico.
    It had been five days since his hearing in Puxico. After listening to four witnesses attest to Hawke’s innocence, and with a dozen more ready to testify to the same thing, the judge released Mason Hawke without charges. Hawke had not been asked to leave town, but decided, on his own, that it would be better for him to move on.
    Charley had asked him to come back to work for him, playing the piano, but Hawke turned him down. People who played the piano in saloons tended to fade into the background, like a potted plant or a painting on the wall. Hawkeliked that anonymity, but after the incident with Tucker and the two men who turned out to be his cousins, continued anonymity in the town of Puxico was impossible.
    Hawke did not hunt for trouble, but trouble had a way of finding him. One