by Bobbi Smith
"How does a man become that savage?" Emily wondered aloud.
"What if he really isn't as bad as they say?" Alyssa asked quietly. Her torment had been unrelenting all afternoon.
Both women looked up at her, stunned. "What are you talking about?"
"Braxton... What if he isn't as terrible as everyone believes he is?"
"Alyssa," Emily began, remembering the night at the dance and how her sister, a woman who had never shown any great interest in romance, had fallen so completely under his spell. "Think about what you're saying. Braxton shot Papa."
"What if he didn't shoot him? What if Les Anderson was wrong? Remember at the hearing how he first said he wasn't sure who'd killed Papa, but then he changed his testimony?"
"Braxton had just robbed the bank! He was riding out of town and he was firing his gun! Anderson was right there!"
"But did he really see him shoot Papa or does he just want Braxton to hang?"
"Does it matter?" Emily demanded angrily.
Alyssa stiffened as she lifted her troubled gaze to her sister. "The truth would matter to Papa. Braxton might not be the one who killed him."
For the first time, Emily realized the depth of Alyssa's misery. "How can you still feel this way about him?" she asked in a low, disbelieving voice.
"I don't know. All I do know is that I believe he's not as cold-blooded as everyone thinks he is." She told them how he'd saved her life in the escape attempt and how he could have tried to take her gun when they were out in the wilderness alone, but didn't. "During the Kid's jailbreak attempt, I heard Slade arguing with Nash and Johnson, trying to convince them not to shoot Sheriff Jones. The others wanted the lawman dead, but Slade convinced them not to kill him. If Slade really was that vicious, do you think he would have cared about saving Jones's life?"
"But Alyssa.. .Braxton's going to die."
"I know." She drew a ragged breath, finally understanding what she had to do. She headed for the door. "I have to be there ...I can't let him die alone."
After she'd gone, Emily and Loretta stared at the closed door in silence. They finally understood the truth-Alyssa had fallen tragically in love with the handsome, deadly stranger, and there was nothing they could do to help her. They could only be there to comfort her when it was over. And it would be over soon....
Alyssa left the hotel and went straight to the telegraph office, only to find what she had feared the most-there had been no response to her wire. With that news, her last, desperate hope of proving Slade innocent died.
Making her way down the street, she neared the site where the executions would take place and stood on the edge of the crowd, watching and listening. The others' comments seemed ghoulish to her as she heard them say how they hoped the gang members would suffer.
Crazy thoughts assailed Alyssa as she kept her silent, hopeless vigil. She imagined a stranger riding into town at top speed at the last minute with proof that Slade was, indeed, an undercover Pinkerton operative.... She imagined the Kid attacking with a gang of gunmen, setting Slade free just in time... She fantasized what it would have been like if the robbery and murder had never happened-how she would have gone on with her life, enchanted by the memory of the mystery man who'd so charmed her with a dance and a forbidden kiss one sweet summer night.
Alyssa bit her lip as she fought to master her runaway heart. She had to bring her traitorous emotions under control. She could not give in to the hysteria that threatened. She had to be brave.
But logic could not overcome the truth of what she was feeling-she did not want Slade to die.
The thought that she should try to rescue him jolted her. Before she could even react to the electrifying, wild possibility, Ken's voice sounded close beside her. She jumped nervously at his intrusion, fearing the reporter might have been perceptive enough to have read her thoughts somehow.
"Are your sister and mother going to come down to watch?" Ken asked as he stood with her.
"No. They were satisfied enough that things had turned out as they'd hoped. They had no need to see the hangings."
"And you?" he asked, his regard penetrating.
"I had to come," she answered honestly.
Ken sensed the unspoken tension in her. He'd gotten a coded wire from Denver informing him of her inquiry about Slade's status as an operative. To protect Slade, he'd ordered them not to respond to her in any way-to neither confirm nor deny his association with the office. It was important to maintain his cover. They could take no chances with his life-not even by revealing the truth to the justice of the peace from Black Springs.
"I'm glad Sheriff Jones stationed the deputies around town again. I'm worried about the Kid. There's no telling what he might do today to save his men."
"I hope the sheriffs precautions will be enough," she said, remembering the other night. With the hanging just minutes away, she knew it was a very dangerous time.
"Short of asking the governor to bring in troops, there isn't much more he could do."
Alyssa nodded and looked back toward the gallows. They had just finished hanging a heavy drape around the bottom of the platform, to shield the bodies from public view after the executions.
It will be over soon, she realized painfully.
Too soon! her heart cried out.
Before the sun set in the next hour or two, her father's killer would have paid for his crime with his life, and she would be free to go on with hers. Her mother and sister were going to feel some sense of peace, but Alyssa would not. For her, there would only be devastation and heartbreak.
A low murmur ran through the crowd as the door to the jail opened and the sheriff walked out with Johnson. The outlaw's hands were cuffed behind him. The gunman glanced around at those gathered for the hanging and sneered at them with open hatred. The sheriff urged him on, and they moved together to the steps and mounted them slowly.
Johnson looked up at the noose that awaited him, and for an instant, the terror he'd been fighting showed on his face. He was expecting the Kid to save him, and now was the time. But where was he?
With each step he took, Johnson knew he was moving closer and closer to his death, and he had no intention of dying that day. He'd told himself over and over again that the Kid would rescue him, but there was no sound of shots, no ambush, no one coming to his aid. He was alone.
Terror and fury tore at him. He refused to believe that this could really be happening. Surely, he wasn't really going to hang! He paused at the top step.
"Move it, Johnson," Jones ordered, digging him in the back with his rifle.
"Go to hell!" he snarled. He would have made a run for it, but there was nowhere to run to, and he refused to be shot down like a mad dog.
"You're going first, my friend," Jones said tersely, pushing him toward the spot where the hangman waited for him. "Do you need a blindfold?"
"No."
The noose was slipped over his head.
"You got any last words?"
"The Kid'll see you pay for this! All of you!" he shouted to the crowd.
Then the time for talk was over.
"I have to do something!" the Kid said fiercely as he watched the noose being placed around Johnson's neck.
He was crouched down, hiding in an alley with Zeke within view of the gallows. He started to draw his gun. He wanted to get up and shoot anyone and everyone who got in his way. He had to stop his friend's hanging! But Zeke grabbed his arm when he would have charged forward.
"Don't!" he told him in a harsh, low voice. "There's no way we can save them!"
"I can't just watch them die!"
The Kid turned on Zeke. There was a fire of madness shining in his eyes. He was usually a cold, calculating man, who carefully thought out his every action, but standing by watching his friends die while he could do nothing to stop it left him enraged.
"Then leave. Now. It's suicide to try to stop the hangings. There are guards everywhere, just watching for us. We're lucky we got this close without getting
caught. You try to shoot your way out of here and save them, and we're dead men."
The Kid valued his own skin more than anything else in the world. Zeke knew that by appealing to his innate sense of self-preservation, he'd be able to get the Kid to control his fury.
"I want them all to die for what they've done!"
"Then I know what we should do," Zeke told him with a cold smile.
"What?"
"We can't stop them from hanging the boys, but we can make them suffer just as good. We'll kidnap that lady justice of the peace, the one who ruined the jail break. That shouldn't be too hard. We'll make them sorry they ever messed with the Dakota Kid's gang."
The Kid looked back toward the gallows just as the trap door was sprung. His friend dropped heavily through it. Johnson was dead almost instantly, his neck broken in the fall.
Pain stabbed at the Kid. It was an ugly way to die, and there had been nothing he could do to stop it. He swore to himself then and there that if the time ever came when the law was closing in on him, he would never allow himself to be taken in and hanged. When he looked back at Zeke, there was hatred in his eyes.
"Johnson was right. They are going to pay."
The Kid turned back toward the scene in the street just as Nash was led out, kicking and screaming and fighting all the way. He could hear Nash yelling about how the Kid was going to save him, about how he wouldn't let him die like this. The Kid's cold hatred grew even stronger as he witnessed Nash meet the same fate as Johnson.
"It's your turn, Braxton. Are you ready?" Rob asked as Jones returned to get his last prisoner.
"Is any man ever ready to hang?" Slade asked with a pained half-smile.
"There's been no sighting of the Kid, so it looks like everything's going to go smoothly."
Slade's smile twisted even more. "That's easy for you to say."
"Ready?"
"Yes." He grew solemn as they led him from the cell.
When they left the jail, a wild murmur ran through the crowd. Slade remained stoic. He showed no emotion whatsoever as they made their way to the steps. But just as he started up the steps to where the noose awaited him, he caught sight of Alyssa standing in the back of the crowd with Ken at her side.
Her presence shocked him. He would have thought that she would be celebrating his demise, but instead, he saw no joy in her expression, only dark pain, anguish and torment.
For an instant, Slade relived the moment when he'd first seen her at the dance. He remembered how her innocence and purity had touched him. He wanted to go to her and tell her everything, to let her know that it would be all right.
But there was no time.
Later, once the Kid had been brought in and the express office informant's identity was uncovered, Slade vowed to himself that he would go to Alyssa and try to explain. Until then, he had to continue with the charade of his death. He silently prayed that at some time in the future, she would forgive him for the deception and come to understood their need for secrecy.
"Let's go, Braxton! Move it!" Jones ordered, playing his role to the hilt, forcing Slade to climb the stairs to his "death."
The shouts of the crowd grew even louder as he mounted the steps one by one. He walked straight to the noose and waited. The hangman put the noose around his neck and, with a sleight of hand, did what had to be done with the secret harness Slade was wearing.
"Any last words?" Jones asked.
Slade glanced at him, fighting down the fear that Ken's harness contraption might fail. "No."
He turned back to the crowd, seeking out Alyssa. His gaze found her where she stood with Ken, and it was her tearstained face he held in his thoughts as he felt the trap door give way beneath his feet.
Alyssa cried out when the door was sprung, and she swayed as if she were about to faint.
"Are you all right?" Ken asked, putting a supportive arm around her.
She had tried to stay in control, but the horror of knowing Slade was dead tore at her. She clutched at Ken's arm, fighting the terrifying blackness that spun around her, fighting the tears that came from the depths of her soul.
"Let me get you back to the hotel," he offered, and he led her away.
Around them, the townspeople looked on with sympathy. They thought she was distraught because her memories of her father's death had been too painful.
"Braxton will never hurt anyone again, Miss Mason," one well-intentioned soul said, trying to cheer. Alyssa as she passed by on Ken's arm.
The words only increased her misery.
"Do you want to go to your mother's room, so you'll have someone with you?"
"No! No...I need to be alone for a while. I'll go on up to my own room. Thank you," she said, drawing away from him when they reached the hotel.
"If you need anything-anything at all-just let me know."
"What I need, no one can give me."
With that, she left him and disappeared up the stairway to her room.
Ken watched her go and then hurried back outside. He wasted no time in heading for their prearranged meeting place-the undertaker's parlor. They had a lot to do and little time.
Alyssa had been alone in her room for over an hour when her mother and sister came for her.
"You haven't had much to eat all day, young lady, so you're going down to dinner," Loretta insisted.
"I'm not hungry." She resisted, not wanting to talk to anyone tonight.
"I don't care. You're going," Loretta ordered in a strict motherly tone.
"You heard her," Emily said.
Outnumbered, Alyssa gave in, but she had no appetite. She was numb, emotionally and physically. She left a lamp burning low on the dresser, for she knew it would be dark when she returned.
The dining room was quiet that evening. Alyssa ate sparingly of the hot meal set before her. The food seemed tasteless as her mind kept offering up a torturous vision of Slade standing on the gallows, the noose being put around his neck.
"May I join you?" Rob asked, approaching their table.
"Of course, Rob. How good to see you," Loretta said, smiling at him. "Sit down."
"Thanks."
"Have you eaten yet?"
"No, I haven't. I was helping the sheriff over at the jail," he told them.
When the waitress appeared, he ordered a meal of his own.
They spoke of general things for a while, and then Emily and Loretta excused themselves, having already finished eating. Alyssa remained behind to talk with Rob about the plans to bring in the rest of the Kid's gang.
"Do you have any idea where the Kid's hiding?" she asked.
"No, and we were really lucky he didn't try to stop the hangings today. It could have been deadly and disastrous with all the people there."
"So no one's seen or heard from him since the night of the breakout attempt?"
"That's right. There's been no word at all, and that bothers me. You should have seen how certain Johnson and Nash were that he was going to bust them out. Even up to the last minute, I don't think Johnson really believed he was going to hang-not until the noose was around his neck."
Alyssa shivered at the gruesome memory.
Rob saw her reaction and reached across the table to take her hand. He said fiercely, "I promise you, Alyssa, I'm going to bring in the Kid and the rest of his gang, or I'm going to die trying."
"Don't talk like that! There's been enough death already!"
"It's the way I feel. I want the Kid, and I want Zeke. I want the killing to stop, and I'm going to do everything I can to put an end to it."
Rob was more than tempted to tell her the truth. She deserved to know that Slade had not been lying, that he really was a Pinkerton, but Ken had sworn him to secrecy. Rob was going to continue the hunt for the Kid, but he was going to be working in cooperation with the Pinkertons this time.
"You're a brave man, Rob."
"Determined is more like it," he said with a wry grin. His thoughts turned to another hunt he was onthe hunt to capture
Alyssa's heart. "When are you returning home?"
"On tomorrow's stage," she answered, for she had just discussed the arrangements with her mother before he'd joined them.
"I'll be heading back the day after. Alyssa-" His tone turned more serious, and he tightened his grip on her hand a bit. "I know you're still in mourning, but now that the danger is behind us, I'd like to see you more often, if that's all right?" His expression was earnest as he gazed at her across the table.
His ardency surprised her and she wasn't quite sure what to say. Her emotions were shattered from the shock and sorrow of Slade's death. "Rob ...I...I do care about you, but it's just too soon for me..."
He thought she was referring to her father's death, and that it was too soon for her to think about seeing anyone socially. "I understand, Alyssa. Just know that I'm here and I care about you-deeply."
"We can talk about this more later," she responded, caught off guard by his serious declaration. "I'd better go upstairs and start packing for the trip home."
"I'll walk you up to your room."
"No, that's all right. I'll be fine. But thank you for everything, Rob." She stood up, ready to go.
Rob stood, too. "Good night, Alyssa. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Good night, Rob."
He remained standing by the table, watching her until she'd disappeared from sight upstairs. Then he walked back to the sheriff's office. They still had some planning to do.
Alyssa returned to her room and closed and locked the door behind her. Leaning back against it, she sighed and closed her eyes. It took her a moment to regroup. She was exhausted and felt completely drained emotionally.
Rob's declaration had been sweet, and while she did like him a lot, it would be some time before she could deal with any kind of romantic involvement. True, in all the time she'd known Rob, he had been nothing but good to her. She did hold him in the highest regard, and perhaps she could have come to love him-if Slade hadn't come into her life.
The dangerous gunman had devastated her with his lies and deceit. It would be a long time before she could trust her own judgment again-a very long time.
