Alex Cross’s Trial

Lyman Tripp, the undertaker, was on the ground, surrounded by men kicking him in the ribs. I remembered how happy he had been to hang a Jew, so I didn’t feel sorry for him. Not for any of them.

But then, over the racket of punches and shouts, I heard more horses approaching. There were many horses, bearing reinforcements for the other side.

Chapter 133

“CORBETT!” A MAN SHOUTED at the top of his lungs.

I stepped out onto the porch to see none other than Phineas Eversman on a fine black mare, wearing his black cowboy hat with the badge pinned to the brim. “You are under arrest,” he said, “and that nigger girlfriend of yours.”

The fight was swirling all around us, defenders chasing and shouting, new waves of attackers coming in from the woods. It seemed unbelievable that Eversman would be trying to make an arrest in such a setting.

I trained my shotgun on his chest. “Get your ass down off that horse, Phineas.”

“You put your gun down, Ben,” said a voice behind me.

I turned to find a revived Doc Conover with a nasty twelve-gauge shotgun leveled at me.

“Hey, Ben,” Doc said. “I meant to bring your oil of winter-green, but I forgot.” He chuckled.

A shot rang out and the gun flew from his hands. Conover screamed and grabbed his elbow. Ricky ran up and scrambled after his gun.

I glanced around to see who had fired the shot. Good God!-It was ancient Aunt Henry in the doorway of Abraham’s shack, blowing smoke from the long barrel of a Colt revolver. She nodded at me and went back inside.

I heard a loud crack and turned to find Eversman down off his horse with a big bullwhip in his hand, a whip straight out of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It had a black leather-wrapped stick for a handle and three little stinger-tips at the end of the whipcord. Eversman cracked it again, with a report louder than a pistol shot.

His arm swept around, and the whip shot out and wrapped around my ankles with a sting as fierce as yellowjackets. It snatched me off my feet, and I landed hard on my back in the dirt. I felt blood running down where the whip was cutting into flesh and then Eversman was on me, hitting with both fists at once. But I was stronger, and angrier too. I managed to roll over and fling him on his back. Seizing the slack end of the whip, I wrapped it around his neck so tight that with one hard tug I could break his windpipe. He gurgled and coughed like the two men I had seen lynched-like the sound I must have made when they lynched me.

Eversman’s eyes bugged out horribly. The leather cord bit into his neck, making a deep red indentation.

And then…

I let go of him. He would kill me if he could, but I couldn’t kill him.

He fell into the mud. Somehow I had opened a big cut on his cheek just above his mouth. Blood oozed out. I began unwinding the whipcord from my ankles.

I stood over him, breathing hard. “You’ve cut your face, Phineas. Ask Doc if he’s got any wintergreen for that.”

Chapter 134

IN THE BACKYARD I FOUND the old checker players from Hemple’s store tying up Byram Chaney, the retired teacher in whose wagon I’d been taken to the Klan rally. That rally and the lynching that followed seemed to have taken place a hundred years ago.

I heard an odd glunking sound behind me and turned to see two men with kerosene cans working their way along the side of Abraham’s house, splashing fuel on the foundation.

The one nearest me was the renowned legislator Senator Richard Nottingham, Elizabeth ’s husband. The military jacket he wore for this night’s action was too small for him; the fabric gaped open around the buttons.

“Bring a match to that fuel,” I called out, “and I’ll shoot you dead. Be my pleasure.”

The other man was bent over, facing away from me. He whirled and pulled a handgun. To my horror, it was Jacob Gill.

“Drop your gun, Ben,” he said. “I would shoot you dead too.”

Around us swirled a madness of yelling, fighting, and dust, screaming, cursing, and gunfire. Yet at that moment it felt as if Jacob and I were facing off all alone in the middle of a giant, empty room.

“Why, Ben?” he croaked. “Why’d you have to come back and ruin our nice little town?”

Chapter 135

JACOB JUST KEPT walking toward me.

Finally, my face hovered inches from his, so close I could smell whiskey and bacon grease on his breath. His face was covered with stubble, the skin on his nose peppered with gin blossoms.

I lashed out and grabbed his gun hand and twisted it hard until the weapon dropped. Jacob had always been smaller, but he could whip me at least half the time when we were boys. He was wiry and strong, and not afraid to fight dirty. I remembered the venom he could turn on our enemies when we got together in a schoolyard scrap.

“Goddamn you, Ben!” he yelled. Then I saw he had a knife. I took his arm and held it with all my strength. It felt as if we stayed that way for hours, grappling, neither of us gaining an advantage, the razor edge suspended between us. My arms ached.