and needed information on its whereabouts. Father Baez had been eager to help, telling them several times that the occurrences had centered around an estate northwest of Denver. The little priest had even offered to consecrate their weapons before they set out. They hadn't needed the blessings renewed, but he had so wanted to give them more than just information that they couldn't bear to disappoint him. He had spoken the prayers in his quiet voice, beseeching Saint Anthony to shield the hunters as they sought to silence the servants of the devil. His prayers were answered a few days later when they found and burned out the vampire lair.
The sound of raised voices pulled Cora out of her reverie. Looking down the street, she could see a group of men milling about near the center of town. They were fingering picks and guns at their belts and pacing as if waiting for some action. Maybe fifty strong, most of them miners, the group tracked over the snow-packed streets like cattle waiting to board a train. More men trickled out from the surrounding saloons, adding to the herd until it filled the square.
Cora made her way down the wooden sidewalk toward the angry mob. As she approached, they began calling in whiskey-slurred voices for somebody named Elkins. She couldn't make out what this Elkins had done to rile such a crowd, but now she was curious. She crawled up on an overturned rain barrel outside a brothel, folded her arms, and settled in to watch.
The grumbling and hollering of the men soon shed some light on what had stirred them up. From what she could make out, two miners named Elkins and Hines had turned violent while settling a card game the night before. Elkins had knifed up Hines pretty good before running out. Duggan's deputies had picked him up just outside of town and locked him up, but that wasn't good enough for Hines's mining buddies. They'd spent the rest of the night drinking themselves into a frenzy, and now they were demanding justice at the end of a rope. She heard the words "darkie" and "nigger" being tossed around, so she figured that Elkins was a black man, which slimmed his chances.
Despite her Southern birth, Cora had never held much against black men. Her family had never been rich enough to afford slaves, but they'd lived close enough to the Yankee states that freed slaves weren't all that unusual in town. Her parents told her to stay well away from them, and she had obeyed out of fear. Since coming west, though, she and Ben had met a good number of black men. They seemed like regular folk to her, saints and sinners just like anyone else, and she couldn't figure out why her parents had been so scared for her. Still, she knew a black man wouldn't have much hope of justice at the hands of a white mob, and Cora found herself hoping that this Elkins was on good terms with his maker.
A voice rose above the crowd. Looking up, Cora saw a heavyset miner with a full beard and thick arms. He waved those arms at the crowd, moving his hands in exaggerated motions.
"Are we going to sit by and let that blackie go unpunished for what he done?"
"No!" the crowd roared.
"Old Hines is laid up in a doctor's bed with a cut that might end him any minute. If we don't string that nigger up for it, he'll ride out of here tomorrow without facing his music. We can't trust the marshal to do justice, so if we want it done, we got to do it our own selves."
The crowd roared again, swirling along after the big miner as he started marching toward the marshal's station. Shutters winked open at the noise, then pulled shut again as the miners passed. Trailing behind the mob, Cora saw the shutters creak open again, and she smirked. The onlookers didn't want to get involved, but they sure weren't going to miss anything, either.
As the mob approached the marshal's station, Cora could make out the solid shape of Mart Duggan standing in the doorway. She could picture his blue eyes watching them, fingers hooked through his belt loops. The mob stopped in front of the station, still chanting their victim's name.
After a few moments, the big miner stepped forward. "Marshal, you let that black boy out so we can do him proper justice." Behind him, the miners yelled