Summary: He had done the right thing, the only thing he could do to protect his family and his country. As he lay dying, he had no idea that year's later, his eldest son and his family would pay the price for his honor.
Amid the turmoil of events, gossips and violence, Slim and Jess fight for Matthew Sherman's honor in the streets of Laramie and on their ranch.
Awareness came in infinitely slow moments. He was lying on something hard and unforgiving. He lifted his head slowly but froze when the stampeding cattle inside his brain caught up to him. One eye was definitely swollen shut and the other could only make out blurry objects in front of him. It was dark and quiet but he heard in the distance music and raucous laughter. "Ok then" he thought to himself, "I'm not on the prairie. I must be in town."
His arms were tied behind his back with rope and his wrists were bound with leather strips. His gloves were gone and he tried to flex his fingers but they were numb. His legs were free though and he had this incredible thought that if he could just stand up he would be fine.
He opened his one good working eye and saw the building to the right of him. There was a puddle of something he did not want to guess what it was so that left the building on his left. As he squinted in the darkness, he could just about make out the fence. It looked sturdy enough. 'If I could just roll towards the fence and stand up,' he thought as he took a deep breath. He instantly groaned. "Bent or broken ribs" he thought irritability.
He had been in a lot of fights these past few years but this one was so out of the ordinary. For one thing, his attackers (and he seemed to think there were five) had draped a hood over his head and beat him. He had tried to defend himself but he couldn't see where to strike back and when he fell onto his knees they pushed him down,(comma needed) continuing their taunts and fists. As he slipped into oblivion, he thought he heard one of them say in his ear "your brother is next."
'I can't stay here' he thought to himself and so slowly he swallowed back the bile in his throat and rolled to his left. It was a small movement, but he ached all over. The fence looked about a mile away but he gritted his teeth and rolled again.
Finally, he reached the first rung. He shivered. The cold dirt-packed alley was seeping into his bones. Using the fence pole to prop himself up, he managed to raise one knee and gagged. The world around him swung in dizzying circles. He pushed and pulled his other leg up and finally he found his feet and leaned heavily against the fence. Success was short-lived. His back was bleeding and the blood seeped down his arms and spilled over his wrists. He was loosing his grip and in one gigantic desperate move he heaved himself over the top rung.
"Oh, God!" he moaned. "No one will ever find me!" As he swung precariously, he ran his tongue over his teeth (all of them, thank goodness) and his parched lips and in one last coherent moment, in a voice strangled with pain he yelled, "Jess!"