The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,114

Lord forever.”

Suddenly it was silent. Kiowa Bill flinched as if he’d been slapped. He looked to his right. A hangman stood—waiting. The black hood over his face was an ominous sign of what was to come.

The sheriff pushed Kiowa Bill backward until he was standing directly underneath the noose. He flinched when they slid it over his head and then down beneath his ears. The rope was new and stiff which was bad news for him. When the floor went out from under him, the noose would not tighten so easily, which mean it would take longer to die. Shit.

Sheriff Wells began to say his piece, as he had at every hanging he’d attended since he’d come into office.

“Kiowa Bill Handlin, for all the crimes you have committed over the past thirty years, you have been sentenced to hang by the neck until dead. May God have mercy on your soul.”

The crowd was silent now. Watching. Waiting.

Kiowa Bill hated them for the fact that when this was over, they would still be breathing and he would not. He stared at the preacher again. The rage on the man’s face was impossible to ignore.

Sheriff Wells gave the noose a quick tug, just to make sure it was safely in place.

“Do you have any last words?” he asked.

Fear mingled with frustration as Kiowa Bill stared out across the crowd. Last words? What a joke. Then his gaze moved from the sheriff to the man with the bible.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Fixing Eulis with a cold, angry stare, his voice lowered to little more than a whisper. “Who the hell are you?”

Eulis leaned forward, just enough so that his voice wouldn’t carry.

“I’m the man who gave you that scar.”

Kiowa Bill’s eyes widened in shock. He stared at the pale, fleshy face of the preacher, trying to find the tow-headed kid who’d thrown an axe in his face. Then something thumped and the floor beneath his feet disappeared.

Bill Handlin’s last sight on earth was the preacher’s satisfied smile.

Letty woke up to find she was alone in the hotel. Panicked that Eulis had somehow skipped out of town without her, it had been all she could do to get dressed. It wasn’t until she’d come running out onto the sidewalk that she’d seen the crowd at the other end of the street. The hanging! They were having the hanging! In the distance, she thought she could see Eulis standing on the platform, his bible held close to his chest. At that point, she started running.

Moments later, she was pushing her way through the crowd. Only after she saw Eulis’s face clearly, did she start to relax. He hadn’t left her after all. He was just performing his Christian duties as a minister of the faith.

There was a sudden thump and then the floor fell out from beneath the outlaw’s feet. He commenced to swaying and jerking like a chicken with its head wrung off. Letty looked at Eulis and frowned. He was smiling. She’d have to talk to him some about that. Preachers were supposed to stay solemn.

Satisfied that her shaky new world was still centered, she took out her handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. Not because she cared a whit for the outlaw who had just peed his pants, but in relief that Eulis hadn’t let her down.

Silence held sway over the crowd until the hangman cut the rope and Bill Handlin’s body dropped through the hole in the platform to the undertaker’s wagon beneath. A collective cheer went up and a few moments later, people began to disperse.

Letty waited. Not because she was afraid any longer, but because it was her duty as the preacher’s sister to stand at his side.

“I see you’re awake,” Eulis said, as he joined her in the street. “Did you pass a good night?”

Letty stared. For a man who’d just witnessed a hanging up close, he was in an awful good mood.

“Uh… yes, that I did.”

“That’s good,” Eulis said, and offered her his arm. “How about some breakfast, sister?”

She glanced back at the scaffold and then up at Eulis. “What was that all about?” she asked.

“Just fulfilling my duties.”

She lowered her voice, anxious that no one overhear her berating a man of the cloth. “You should not have smiled.”

Eulis frowned, as if considering her criticism. “You’re probably right. If there’s ever a next time, I’ll take better care.”

Satisfied that she’d done her sisterly duties, she took Eulis’s arm. “About that breakfast you promised.”

Eulis settled his hat a