Malachi came around the bar. He looked closely at the aranger. He started to laugh. "Matthew! Matthew McCahy! How are you?"

Matthew stepped forward. "Well, Malachi!" Matthew pumped his hand firmly. "What in God's name is going on? I've been following a trail of the most absurd stories to get here. Red Legs and bushwhackers, corpses all over. I've got friends investigating Fitz, but I don't seem to be able to get to my sisters. What the hell is going on? I hear tell that they arrested Shannon today, too, for murder."

"It's all right," Malachi said. "We've got a plan."

Cole and Jamie stepped out of the shadows. Cindy sighed with relief. "Well, I think that this calls for drinks all around," she murmured.

"Drinks, then we've got to get out of here before we cause Cindy any trouble," Cole said.

He took a seat at the round table. The other men followed him. Matthew McCahy looked hard at Malachi. "All right What's the plan?"

"It's dangerous, Matthew. We might get ourselves shot up."

"They're my sisters," Matthew said. "My flesh and blood. I'll darned well get shot up for them if I feel like it." He narrowed his eyes. "Kristin is Cole's wife. But I've got more of a stake in this thing than either of you have, Malachi and Jamie."

Malachi shook his head. "Shannon is my wife," he said, finding with surprise that breaking this news got easier with practice.

"What?" Matthew said incredulously.

"Malachi married Shannon," Jamie answered, smiling with amusement.

"Yes, I married Shannon!" Malachi said dryly. "Now, if you all don't mind, think we could get on with this?"

"Sure," Matthew said.

Malachi leaned across the table and started talking. Matthew listened gravely. When Malachi was done, he sat back, nodding. "Think we'll have any help on it?" he asked.

"Jamie's got a couple of friends from Texas here," Malachi said.

"And I've met some people in the area," Cole added. "Maybe they won't take a stand against Fitz alone, but if we give them half a chance, they'll help us."

"It doesn't matter what we do or don't have," Malachi said. "As far as I see it, it's our best shot. Are we agreed?"

All around the table, they nodded to him one by one. Jamie lifted his whiskey glass. "What the hell. A man's gotta die sometime," he said cheerfully.

Malachi stood. "Let's get out of here. Cindy, you'll keep us up on everything that happens. Everything."

"Of course, Malachi. You know that."

An hour later, the Slaters and Matthew McCahy had slipped away into the night.

When Fitz's men came to the house, there was no sign that they had ever been near.


The only benefit to being held was that she was with her sister.

For the first day, Shannon nervously paced the room, but she was grateful that they had at least been kept together. She hadn't really meant to say much about her own strained relationship with Malachi, but the hours dragged on and Shannon found herself telling her sister almost everything.

Almost…

She didn't tell her how easily she had fallen into her old enemy's arms, or how she had longed for him to touch her again and again. She didn't tell her that even as they waited now, prisoners in the room, she thought of her husband, longing to be with him, aching to see his slow, lazy grin and the spark it ignited in his eyes. She didn't speak about that longing…

But watching Kristin's smile, she thought that her sister read her mind, and her heart, and that she knew.

"Actually," Kristin said mischievously, "I think you just might be perfect for one another."

Shannon shook her head. "Kristin, I don't know. I should let him out of the marriage. But Iris says that I'm a fool if I don't fight for him."

"I agree with Iris," Kristin said. She took Shannon's hands. "I'll never forget how miserable I was about Cole! I was tied up in knots, hating him, loving him. But it worked out for us, Shannon. I didn't think that he would ever forget his first wife, but he did fall in love with me. Shannon, even when I gave birth to Gabe, I was so afraid that Cole would never, never love me. You have to fight sometimes, for anything in life that is good. Look at the two of us now. Things have worked out—"

She broke off and Shannon bit her lip, watching her sister. Nothing had worked out for any of them. They were in the midst of disaster.

"I'm so scared!" Kristin said softly.

Shannon threw her arms around her. "It's all right. It's going to be all right!"

The two sisters hugged one another, shivering. They didn't know if it would be all right at all.

The next day was the mock trial, which took place in the town courthouse. Hayden Fitz sat on the bench as judge; the jurors were selected from among his men. Shannon was accused of murder. She stood at the witness stand and listened silently to the charge, then turned scornfully upon Fitz.

"I didn't murder anyone. You shot down your friend, Mr. Fitz. You shot him down in cold blood because he was protesting your cruelty to me. You may own this town, Mr. Fitz, but I can't really believe that you own everyone in it. Someone will get to you. The war is over, Hayden Fitz. No one will let you do murder endlessly!"

There was a murmur among the crowd. Fitz stood, pointing his gavel at her. "You murdered Fulton. I saw you with my own eyes. You murdered him to free your outlaw sister. You shot down men in Missouri, too. You're in league with your husband, and the two of you rode around the country in Cole Slater's gang, bushwhacking, murdering innocent Union women and children."

"Never," Shannon said quietly.

Fitz slammed his gavel against his desk. "You may step down, Mrs. Slater."

She didn't step down; she was dragged down. Kristin was brought up. Kristin denied everything, and threw at Fitz his brother's activities as a jayhawker. She described graphically how Cole's first wife had died.

A murmur rose in the courtroom, but Fitz ignored it. Kristin was handcuffed and led back to Shannon. They were both returned to the room with the barred windows at Fitz's home while the carefully selected jury came to their decision.

By night, the verdict was brought back to them. They were both convicted of murder and conspiracy against the Union.

They were to be hanged one week from that night at dawn.

"One week," Kristin told Shannon bitterly. "They want to make sure to give Cole and Malachi and Jamie a chance to show up."

Shannon nodded. One week. She looked at her sister. It had already been three days since she had been captured.

"Kristin?"

"Yes?"

"Where do you suppose they are? I'm scared, too, Kristin. They were in town. And now it's so silent! What if they've already been caught, and been taken…" Her voice trailed away miserably.

"They haven't been taken," Kristin told her dryly. "Fitz would have men walking through the streets with their heads on stakes if he'd caught them."

That was true, Shannon thought.

But as the days passed, they still heard nothing. An ominous silence had settled over the town. A harsh, brooding silence, as if even the air and the earth waited…

And prayed.

Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, the week passed. Finally, the night before the scheduled hanging came. Kristin sat in the room's one chair; Shannon stood by the window.

The scaffold had been built beneath the window, right in the center of the street, because Fitz had wanted them to watch its building. Shannon stared at it with growing horror.

It was a long night.

Morning finally came. "I—I can't believe that they haven't tried to rescue us!" Shannon told Kristin.

Kristin stared at the ceiling. "I was wrong. They must be dead already," she said softly.

Shannon felt as if icy waters settled over her heart and her body. She had endured too much. If Malachi was dead, then so be it. She wanted no more of this earth, of the awful pain and suffering. He had just taught her how to live…

And now, it was over.

When Bear came for them, he tied their hands behind thier backs and led them out. Kristin smiled at her sister as they walked into the pearly gray dawn. It was going to be an absurdly beautiful summer's day. "Pa will be there, I'm certain," she said. "It won't be so hard to die. Mother will be there, too. And Robert Ellsworth. Oh, Shannon! What about Gabe, what will happen to him?"

"Delilah will love him. Matthew will come home, and he will raise him like his own."

"Shannon, I love you."

"Courage!" Shannon whispered. She was going to start to cry. Courage was easy in the midst of safety. But as they walked up the steps of the scaffold and beneath the dangling nooses, it was much harder to find.

Fitz sat in front of the scaffold on his horse. "Have you any last words, ladies?" he asked them.

Shannon looked over the crowd. The people weren't smiling or cheerful; they looked troubled. "Yes!" she called out "We're innocent! Your hatred and your vengeance have made a mockery of justice, Hayden Fitz. And if you do not pay, sir, in this lifetime, I am certain that you will pay in the next, in the bowels of hell forever!"

Fitz's cold eyes narrowed. "Hang them!" he ordered.

The ropes were fitted over their heads and around their necks.

Shannon bit back tears as she felt the rope chafe the tender flesh of her neck. In a second, it would be pulled taut. She would dangle and choke. If God were merciful, her neck would snap. And if he were not merciful, she would die slowly of suffocation. Her tongue would swell and protrude and she would die hideously…

Hayden Fitz lifted his hand. The executioner walked over to the lever that would snap open the trapdoor.

Hayden Fitz read off the charges, and the order that Kristin and Shannon Slater be hanged by the necks until dead.

He lifted his hand…

And let it fall.

The executioner flipped the lever, and the floor gave beneath them.

Suddenly, the street was alive with explosions.

Shannon was falling, but the rope did not tighten around her neck. Someone had cut it. She kept falling, and crashed hard upon the ground. Cindy was there, slitting the rope that bound her wrists. Shannon twisted around in the dust.

"Get up! Get out of here!" Cindy cried.

"Kristin—"

"I'm freeing Kristin. Get up, go! Both of you!"

Kristin did not ask questions. She grabbed Shannon's hand and the two of them crawled out from beneath the scaffold. Shannon peered through the rain of gunfire. The streets had gone mad. People were screaming and running.

And a group of horsemen was bearing down on them.

She raised her hand over her eyes to shade them from the sun.

Malachi rode straight at her on his bay mare, his cavalry sword glinting in the sun, a Rebel cry upon his lips. He wore his plumed hat, and his full gray and gold Confederate cavalry dress.

He was coming for her, fighting his way down the street.

Any man fool enough to block his way was cut down. As he neared her, she saw his teal-blue eyes blazing.

"Shannon! Get ready!" he yelled, striking down the last of Fitz's men to stand between them. He was a golden hero, riding to save her.

The bay was rearing over her. He reached down and swept her up onto the saddle before him, and they thundered down the street together.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The morning had burst into madness as they fled the town. There were explosions of gunfire. Women were screaming; men were shouting. Held tight against Malachi on his bay, Shannon was dimly aware of a number of horses riding beside them. Her hair kept whipping against her face, blinding her, but she managed to see at last. Cole was to her left with Kristin, her brother Matthew was to her right, and numerous men she'd never seen before were riding behind her. Some of them were in tattered remnants of uniforms, both blue and gray. Some were dressed as ranchers.

They all rode grimly, not stopping until they were miles from the town. Then Malachi reined in, shouting over Shannon's head to Cole. "We'll kill the horses if we keep this up. Think we've come far enough?''

Cole shrugged, his arms tight around his wife, and looked back along the trail they had just taken. "Here's Jamie," he said.

Jamie Slater, on a huge dapple gray stallion, raced up be-hind them. He waved his hat in the air, a look of triumph on his face.