Something Blue

Chapter 38

Gabe

The night was alive with sound.

Crickets chirped and frogs croaked, and the wind was a steady pull on the spindly branches of the pines. The distant hum of an angry mob, just out of sight down the road, was like a booming drumroll that set his skin to prickling.

After so many hours spent guarding the saloon under cover of darkness, Gabe had grown used to quiet nights. This noise was a jarring dissonance.

He stood in the road leading to the saloon. He could hear the distant thrum of the approaching mob, just as he could feel the weight of their combined steps rattling up through the earth. Behind him, the saloon stood like a fortress. There were two girls on the roof with rifles, and seven of Josh's men patrolled the forest surrounding it. Chrissie and Caroline were on the porch, and all the rest were huddled in the barroom, armed to the teeth and shooting whiskey to keep up their courage.

All he could do was pray their bravery was wasted and not a single gun was fired.

The evening wasn't particularly cold, but he crossed his arms over his chest against the chill that had crept over him the second Reverend Peters's body had hit the floor of the sanctuary.

"It's not too late," Josh said from his right, bristling with unease and an arsenal of firearms. "My men and I will look after the girls. I give you my word. You know these woods better than the sheriff and those children he calls deputies. You could be in Mexico by the time they put together a wanted ad."

Up near the bend, Gabe could see the beginnings of a glow as the cumulative light of the mob's torches and lanterns limned the trees in a dusky, faded orange.

"Would you go?" he asked, not looking at his friend but instead watching as the glow grew brighter. "If it were Amelia and Rebecca in there? If the alternative was to watch these fools hunt down your family and make them pay for what you'd done?"

Josh sighed, and that was answer enough.

"Please go inside," Gabe told him, casting a glance at the man he considered a brother, although they didn't share a drop of blood. Then again, maybe they did in a way. After all, it was the muddiness, the uncertainty, of their blood that had brought them together in the first place.

Damn, but the looming specter of death was making him maudlin.

"I'm not about to leave you out here to face them alone," Josh retorted, his voice sharp and decisive.

"Yes you are. Please, Josh." The crowd was getting closer. In a few moments the sheriff would round the bend, and then the rest of the posse. They had already discussed this. If Josh kept his face out of this mess, the ranch would remain a haven. Katherine could heal there, safe and hidden, before taking Isobel and boarding a train as far from this town as she wanted to go. "Just take care of them, would you?"

A hand clapped on his shoulder. "You know I will. I truly am sorry, Gabe. It shouldn't have come to this."

"I think it had to," he admitted. Up ahead, a dark figure rounded the bend. Then two more. Too far to make out faces, but close enough that a cold finger ran down his spine. "You need to go, now."

The hand on his shoulder tightened, and Gabe heard the silent goodbye as Josh turned and strode back to the building, skirting around to the side door to Gabe's quarters. He and Mel would stay with Katherine and Isobel as they had discussed, prepared to hide them away beneath the floorboards if things escalated.

But somehow, Gabe knew, they wouldn't. This inane conflict had always been a war of symbols. The crowd wasn't coming for any one person. They were coming for a scapegoat. Once they had him—once they watched him hang—they would settle. Things in the town would go back to a semblance of normal. The girls would still be outcasts, but they wouldn't be terrorized. This nascent suspicion of the Tuckers would fade into forgotten history. Hell, maybe the next preacher in town would be the kind who preached all the love and forgiveness that Katherine swore was the backbone of her faith.