and he let off another string of curses. "The devil will have his day with you, Luke Fontaine!" he shouted. "Piss on you, you rich, greedy bastard! Piss on your whole family! I wish I'd have kilt them all! All your pampered sons and that bitch of a wife and your prissy, ugly daughters!"
Lettie put a hand to her chest, glancing back at Katie, who had surely heard the words through the open window. She continued knitting feverishly, never looking up.
"Mama, Father just punched that awful Walker man!" Pearl spoke up. "And Ty is in there, too!"
Lettie looked back to see a tumble of men around Zack Walker, who was yelling with pain. A few women screamed and moved farther away, and finally several men managed to pull Luke away from Walker. Tex had hold of Ty, and Robbie stood nearby looking ready to cry. Luke was holding his arm, and Lettie knew he had lost his temper over Walker's cruel, ugly words. Luke bent over for a moment, holding his shoulder, and Ty and Robbie went to stand next to him while the sheriff and his deputies managed to get the still-cursing Walker up the platform and into position under his noose. The crowd was in an uproar of gossip now because of the scuffle, and some began shouting, "Hang them! Hang them high!" in a kind of chant.
Reverend Gooding climbed onto the platform then to talk to each man. Jim cried harder, but Ben just stood silent. Zack continued his curses, screaming so loudly that Lettie could hear some of the words above the crowd. He shouted to the reverend that the devil would get him someday, too, just like he'd get Luke Fontaine. The reverend ignored the man's swearing and turned to raise his arms, finally managing to quiet the crowd. Then he began reading from the Bible. When he finished, those who had been singing hymns began another song, "In the Sweet Bye and Bye." The rest of the crowd quieted as black hoods were placed over each man's head, then each noose put in place and tightened. The singers finished their hymn, and Reverend Gooding said a prayer for the souls of those about to die. He led the entire crowd then in singing "Shall We Gather at the River," after which Sheriff Tracy read each man's name and the charges for which he was being hanged, "murder, kidnaping, extortion, rape, and cattle rustling." He pulled a watch from his vest and announced that in just two minutes the hanging would take place.
The crowd was nearly silent then. A few of them began singing "Shall We Gather by the River" again, and Reverend Gooding and Sheriff Tracy stepped down from the platform. The two minutes seemed to take forever. Sheriff Tracy walked behind the scaffold with the hangman the town had hired, and people stared silently.
"I hope you all burn in hell!" Zack Walker suddenly shouted from under his black hood, just before the trapdoor beneath his two nephews and him was sprung, silencing all three of them.
Lettie gasped, as did just about every person in the crowd below. The sound moved through the street almost in unison so that the "Ohs!" went up almost in a roar. Pearl and Lettie stared; both the young Walker men seemed to have died right away, their necks snapping and their heads hanging oddly to the side. Zack Walker continued to kick for several seconds before finally hanging still. Everyone waited breathlessly as each body was dropped under the scaffold, where Dr. Manning waited to check each one. After several minutes Sheriff Tracy came out to climb up onto the scaffold.
"Ben Walker, Jim Walker, and their uncle, Zack Walker, are officially dead," he announced. A cheer went up from the crowd, which began mingling and celebrating again. Luke looked up at Lettie once more, then she turned away from the window, putting her arm around Pearl, who was holding her stomach.
"I'm glad they're dead," the girl told her mother, "but I don't think I want to see something like that again."
"Nor do I," Lettie answered. She left Pearl for a moment to walk over to Katie, who had dropped the knitting in her lap and was just staring at it. "They're dead, Katie. Are you all right?"
The girl shook her head and began sobbing. "They took... part of me with them," she wept.
Lettie knelt beside her and put an arm around her. "Katie, no man can take what