Silence did not fall all at once. It spread. Men near the back turned first, then those in front, then the whole mass of Blackstone seemed to part around the figure striding toward the platform.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and weathered by mountain wind into something that looked half human, half granite. A scar ran from the corner of his right eye down toward his beard, whitening the skin in a jagged stroke. He wore a worn buckskin coat, a revolver low on his hip, and the expression of a man who had seen worse than this and therefore had no patience left for it.
Everyone knew him by sight, if not by friendship.
Gideon Hale.
The mountain trapper from the upper ridges. Former Union scout. Widower. A man who came to town only when salt, nails, or lamp oil forced him out of the hills. He dealt fairly, spoke little, and had a reputation for ending arguments with one look.
He climbed the platform steps without hurry, but each footfall seemed to strike the mockery out of the air.
Rufus Bell blinked through his drunkenness. “What’s this to you, Hale?”
Gideon did not answer immediately. He looked first at Clara and Naomi, and in that look there was no pity sharpened into insult, no curiosity, no greasy appraisal. He saw them fully. That was almost worse than kindness. It made Clara’s throat ache.
