HE FED HER DINNER TO HIS DOG—THREE DAYS LATER, FIVE MEN WERE FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES…

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Chapter 5

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Clayton’s jaw worked, tears of pure, unadulterated terror leaking from the corners of his yellowed eyes.

"Arrest her..." Clayton croaked, blood bubbling faintly at the corner of his cracked lips. "Ward... you're a peace officer... arrest her for murder... she... she killed us..."

Silas Ward closed his notebook with a slow, deliberate snap.

"Arrest her for what, Clayton?"

Clayton stared, his chest heaving.

"The ramekins are gone," Ward said softly. "The dishes were washed in boiling lye water seventy-two hours ago. There is not a scrap of that tallow left on this ranch. There is no arsenic in her house; I sent two deputies out to search her kitchen yesterday while she was down at the creek. They found a sack of white flour, half a side of bacon, a barrel of oats, and a pot of winter apple butter. Nothing else."

"She poisoned... five men!" Clayton shrieked, the effort bringing a gush of dark, bile-stained fluid up his throat.

"Five men who, according to a formal complaint filed with the territorial circuit judge two weeks ago, rode onto her deeded land under cover of darkness, assaulted a female homesteader, and deliberately crushed her hand to extort an unrecorded conveyance," Ward answered, his voice dropping into iron. "A complaint that you paid the county sheriff fifty dollars to lose in the courthouse furnace."

Ward stepped to the foot of the bed and leaned his hands on the carved mahogany rail.

"The law in this territory is a thin, frail thing, Clayton. You spent ten years buying the pieces of it that suited you, and setting fire to the pieces that didn't. You taught every squatter, every dirt farmer, and every homesteader in this valley that there was no court higher than Clayton Cole’s branding iron. And Kate Hayes learned your lesson. She learned it better than you did."

Ward turned toward the door. "Alcott, do what you can for his comfort. Though from what I understand, comfort isn't something that comes with the fourth day."

"Ward!" Clayton screamed, a thin, pathetic sound that broke into a wet sob. "Don't leave me... Silas! I'll give her the spring! I'll sign the water rights over to her! Tell her I'll give her the valley! Just make her give me the cure! Ask her for the cure!"

Ward stopped in the doorway, his hand on the brass latch. He looked back at the ruined creature shivering in the massive bed.

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Table of Contents
HE FED HER DINNER TO HIS DOG—THREE DAYS LATER, FIVE MEN WERE FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES…
TABLE OF CONTENTS 8
01 Chapter 1 02 Chapter 2 03 Chapter 3 04 Chapter 4 05 Chapter 5 06 Chapter 6 07 Chapter 7 08 Chapter 8

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