“To give him a chance,” someone else hollered from the trees. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
Joel prayed they were right, but he couldn’t prove it. Not yet. “I understand why you’d think that,” he said, “but I want to do what’s best for the kid. The law says we’ve got to investigate what happened, and if the state decides to have a trial, then that’s what we’ll do.”
Murmurs rose like an angry wind through dry leaves. Horses shifted nervously. Clouds of ill will were forming over the group. Again Joel held out his hand. “Let’s say I let you take him. Then what?”
“Then he’d be free and wouldn’t be accountable to those men who know nothing about what’s happening here.”
The city lawmen were getting a sharp education if they were still watching out the window. But this wasn’t the lesson Joel wanted them to learn. He was surprised to find that he wanted them to respect these mountaineers. He wanted them to see that, although acting against the letter of the law, these men cared about their community and their neighbors. That was what they were doing this for. And if Joel could appeal to that care, then maybe he had a chance of convincing them to disperse without bloodshed.
“Yes, you could spirit Scott away—away from his home, his family—and then what? Would he really be free? Knowing that his name was besmirched and that somewhere on the trail behind him he was considered guilty, would that be free?”
“It’s better than being locked up or hung.” The slender man’s hood moved over his mouth, muffling his words. “And we won’t let that happen to him. He’s innocent. We’re the ones who went after Bullard, not Scott. If Sheriff insists on pointing a finger at Fowler, then let Fowler take the blame. And those are Fowler’s words. We won’t let this boy hang when we were the ones hunting for revenge.”
Brave words from a masked man. Joel stepped out toward the edge of the porch, leaving the protection of the shadows. “If you truly believe he’s innocent, then why are you afraid of a trial?”
“Because we’ve seen how these courts run,” hollered a man next to Betsy. She shied away as he continued. “Enough talking. Bring him out. We’ve lived here long enough to know there’s no justice but what you find for yourself.”
A handful of men began to dismount. Joel was running out of time. If they breached the door, Detective Cleveland and Officer Harrison would open fire. And then what about Fred and Mr. and Mrs. Huckabee inside? He had to convince the gang that no matter what they feared, hiding Scott away would not solve their problems.
“Stop right there.” This time Joel forgot he was outnumbered. His words carried all the authority he’d ever earned, borrowed, or pretended to have during his six paltry years of law enforcement. “You can’t take Scott. You can’t hide him, because the day will come when he regrets leaving without clearing his name. Every day he’ll regret it. I know, because that’s what I live with.”
He threw a nervous glance toward Betsy. He hadn’t expected his shameful story to reach her, but it had, and she hadn’t given up on him. She was there, head tilted, listening closely. He’d rather broach this subject with her alone, minus the burlap sack over her face, but right now the telling might make a difference to more than Betsy and him.
“Y’all have asked why in the world I’d leave Texas to come to Pine Gap. Well, it’s not because I wanted to. It’s because I had to. You see, I got accused by a young woman of being too familiar. It wasn’t true, not a bit of it, but everyone figured that the easiest thing to do was for me to just marry her, and that’d be the end of it. No one wanted me to make a fuss. They just wanted the whole question to go away. So that was my choice—either marry her and by doing so forever be branded guilty, or leave so I could avoid the penalty of the accusations. I only wished someone would’ve counseled me that there was another choice. That I could fight the charges. I could stand tall and dispute her account and clear my name. But that was risky. I was promised safety and another chance at being a sheriff if I would go. So I fled.”
Talking to a row of gunny sacks wasn’t inspiring. Still, his story rolled out of his heart and echoed off the hills. Soon he’d feel relieved that it’d been released, but the shame hadn’t lifted yet. “Every day I regret not defending myself. Every day I wish I had stood at the town square and let everyone know that I was not the man that woman accused me of being. Instead I left. I abandoned my home. It’s lost to me. My friends know I’m innocent, but besides my parents, I couldn’t even tell people where I had gone.”
He searched the crowd. Their guns were lowered. Several scratched at their hoods. The tone had cooled.