Chapter 38 #3
“Hollister Timber was cutting land it did not own. Their maps were false. Their contracts depended on fraud. Dr. Bowering’s expedition documented stumps, damaged soil, flora, boundaries.
Proof. We did not know we were witnessing a crime until the crime came for us.
They came at night. Armed men. Hollister men.
Men hired under orders. They attacked our camp.
They meant to kill all of us and burn what we had gathered. ”
“These men,” Lula says, turning to us, “Boone Maddox and Okee Collins, rode with the party that attacked us.”
The crowd stirs. I feel the old shame rise hot up my neck.
Lula does not spare us. “They rode with them,” she says.
“And then they turned on them. They shot the men who tried to drag us into the dark. They fought their own party. They saved my life when they could have fled. They carried me through winter. Fed me. Taught me to defend myself. Protected me from Hollister’s men, from weather, from fear, and from every consequence they could shoulder in my place.
“They are not innocent men. They have killed. They have stolen. They have done wrong. They will likely do wrong again—”
“Hey,” I say, stopping her. “You’re defending us, remember?”
Lula turns to the crowd fully.
“They did not murder my friends.”
She lifts her chin.
“They loved me when it would have been safer not to. And I love them.”
The street goes silent.
There it is. No place to hide from it now.
Just Lula Clay standing in the mud before God, Goldie, Fort Gibson, and every bastard hungry for a hanging, telling them she loves two outlaws.
Somebody gasps. Somebody says something ugly.
Goldie’s voice cuts from above. “Any man with commentary may bring it to my office and read it aloud while I locate his page.”
That settles that.
God bless that terrifying woman.
Everett starts laughing. Or trying to. It comes out wet, broken, red.
“Well done,” he rasps.
All attention returns to him.
Everett tries to rise. Fails. “But Hollister still owns half this camp.”
Lula kneels beside him.
My heart lurches. “Lula—”
Without looking back, she raises one hand that says Stay.
Damn that woman. Damn us for loving her enough to obey.
She looks down at Everett. “Tell them.”
He bares bloody teeth. “No.”
“I can help you.”
That stirs him. Even dying, men like Everett hear bargains.
Lula’s voice softens, and it chills me worse than a shout. “Tell them who ordered the camp cleared, and I will ease what is happening to you.”
“You,” he whispers.
Lula says nothing.
Everett understands then.
I see it. So does Okee.
Everett coughs blood onto his shirtfront. “You did this. You…poisoned me…”
Lula does not flinch.
“She asked you a question,” I say.
Everett half falls to his side and drags himself back to the crowd. To the men stepping back from him. To Goldie’s ledger. To the wagon bench painted red with what’s coming out of him.
“It’s true,” he chokes. “That was the order. Clear the camp. Burn the notes.”
A long, horrified murmur moves through the street.
“Who gave it?” Lula asks.
Everett’s lips peel back. “I did.”
He laughs once, and blood spills down his chin.
“All this,” Lula says, voice breaking at last, “for timber. For greed.”
He tries to answer, but his body seizes. His back arches against the wagon wheel. Hepburn scrambles away from him like cowardice has finally won over duty. Everett’s boots kick once in the mud, then again.
Lula reaches into her shawl for something.
Maybe whatever mercy she meant to offer is already too late. Or maybe she was never going to offer it at all. I don’t ask. Not then. Maybe not ever.
Everett makes one last terrible sound. Then he stills.
For a moment, nobody moves. The street falls silent, and somehow the Gemini seems to go with it.
“Well,” Goldie says from the balcony, voice carrying clean through the stunned quiet. “I believe Mr. Everett has concluded his remarks.”
Nobody laughs.
Not yet.
But the mob is gone. The beast of it, anyhow. What’s left is people. Frightened people. Guilty people. People who came ready to hang us and now can’t quite meet our eyes.
Lula rises slowly. I holster my pistol and go to her.
She turns just as I reach her, and then she’s in my arms. Okee’s, too. All three of us right there in the street with blood in the mud and a dead man at our feet and half of Fort Gibson watching.
Above us, Goldie addresses the crowd again.
“Any person who came here today out of concern for my daughter has my gratitude. Any person who came for spectacle may find it elsewhere. Any person who came to break my house will be shot by a Gemini girl with excellent aim.”
The crowd scatters slow.
Then Goldie calls from above, “Lula Clay.”
Lula stiffens and looks up.
Goldie stands on the balcony, red silk stirring in the damp wind, ledger tucked under her arm, face unreadable.
For a heartbeat, mother and daughter only stare at each other.
Then Goldie says, “You and your outlaws had better come inside before some fool decides he liked the dead man’s story better.”
Lula wipes her cheek with the heel of her hand.
“Yes, Mother.”