A month before.
The day after the hanging, Vin decided to ride out of town for a while. He'd had enough of the trial and the verdict, the sentence and the execution. Let somebody else watch the town and the people and their possessions. He'd only told the truth, that was all. He'd seen Patrick McIntyre shoot George Wagner in the back. The boy even confessed to it - but he kept insisting he did it because his older brother told him to.
Then a slick lawyer crawled out of the woodwork with a different brother, and the short trial revolved mostly around whether he was guilty or only following orders, and should a boy be hung for only following orders?
Well, the jury figured he should.
And he did, with his brother and slick lawyer at the foot of the gallows to claim the body.
They left town the same night, now Vin intended to do the very same thing. He walked his horse to the boardwalk in front of the saloon where Chris and Buck played checkers.
"Headin' out?" Larabee asked.
"Yep. Sooner the better, gettin' too much a'this town in my craw. Gotta get away from it."
"Vin - you did the right thing." Buck told him again.
"I know." Vin said, though he shook his head. "Just don't feel right. He weren't no more'n JD's age. Just not right..." his voice trailed off.
"Watch your back...they can't have got very far."
"Yeah Chris. But all the time and trouble that lawyer took to make sure we reckoned the older brother guilty as sin, and the stack of Wanted Posters got his description on 'em, don't reckon he'll be showin' his face around here anytime soon...I'll be fine." he slipped the folded end of the reins back and forth through his fingers. That 'just not right' nagged at the back of his mind. "Seen the lawyer 'round about the livery...probably waitin' on his bank draft t'clear, hunh? Ezra gets him in a card game, he ain't gonna keep his pay real long anyway..." Vin tried to clear his thoughts, but the nagging kept on.
"I'll see you fellas. Won't be but a few days..." he swung up on his horse and turned to the closest way out of town. He passed the livery, and thought of the lawyer again as the nagging became a solid image.
The lawyer was the other brother.
Damn, why didn't anybody see that before? Vin spun his horse back toward Chris and Buck. He was halfway there when the shot rang out and whalloped him in the back as hard as a sledge hammer. His horse reared as he yanked the reins, trying to stay in the saddle, and he pitched backward into the hardpacked street. The impact knocked the breath right out of him and it seemed to take forever before he could pull it back in.
Human feet and horses' hooves were the last things he saw.
