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.

"Fitz is dead. And there isn't the first sign of pursuit. I think we can take it easier now."

"Not too easy!" A woman called. Shannon gasped as she saw Iris on a dark roan, riding up behind Jamie. "Fitz may not have been tremendously popular, but someone may seek to avenge him."

"Iris!" Shannon gasped when the redhead looked her way.

She was, as always, impeccably dressed, and her hair was unrumpled. She looked unscathed by her imprisonment, except for the large blue circle beneath her right eye.

"I'm all right, honey," Iris said softly. "Thanks to Jamie. He pulled me away from Fitz."

"Jamie, bless you!" Kristin said.

"Always willing to oblige," Jamie drawled softly.

Shannon leaped down from in front of Malachi and ran over to Jamie, who also hopped down off his horse to meet her. "Hey, brat!" He laughed, sweeping her up in a fast hug. Matthew and Kristin dismounted as well, and they all hugged one another with laughter and relief.

"Shannon, get back over here!" Malachi commanded sharply. She glanced at him and saw that his features had become as threatening as a winter storm. She stiffened. Cole wasn't yelling that way. She stared at Malachi, defiant and hurt at once. Safe in the warmth of his arms, she had felt that the war between them was over. But now it seemed that nothing had changed. Did he still hate her?