Tymber Dalton Read Online Free

it!”
    Prescott turned to flee, but one of the disgusted mob stuck out his leg and Prescott went sprawling into the sand, sending up a cloud of dust. The deputies were on him, and a struggle ensued. Finally, after Mallory and his rider got into the fray, Prescott was shackled, arms behind him, facedown in the dirt.
    Jake stepped forward. “What’s goin’ on here? You got your man. Don’t need no trial either.”
    The sheriff turned. “I’ll overlook that comment, Jake, because maybe you’re too stupid to remember what I said about talkin’ a minute ago.” Jake stepped back, and the sheriff addressed the crowd. “Mrs. Prescott started talkin’ this afternoon, after she found out about Caleb. She said her husband had something to do with the disappearance. Didn’t know what, but he went out with the little girl in his arms one night and come back alone. She watched him do it, and when he come back, he threatened to kill her if she talked. She said he’s lost his mind over the last several months.”
    “She’s crazy!” Prescott yelled from the ground. “I didn’t do nothin’ to that girl!”
    One of the deputies put a boot to the back of Prescott’s head and shoved his face into the dirt. “Quiet, you.”
    Two men quickly turned from the group and raced to the tree line, where they retched. Others started talking about lynching Prescott, and Jake, too.
    The sheriff pulled his gun and fired a shot in the air, the immediate silence deafening. “There ain’t gonna be no more lynchings today as long as I’m sheriff.” He cast his steely gaze on the now-subdued mob. “I hope y’all have learned your lessons. You just hung an innocent boy.”
    A few of the mob members stepped forward and helped load Caleb’s body into the back of the wagon, covering him with an old blanket.
    “Get that loony into the wagon, too.” Even bound, Prescott fought like a wildcat. Finally, Babbitt pulled his gun.
    Prescott leered up at the sheriff. “Go ahead, do it. Shoot me like a dog.”
    The sheriff spit into the dirt. “Don’t I wish I could.” He reversed the pistol and cracked Prescott on the back of the head with the butt, knocking him unconscious.
    They tossed Prescott into the back of the wagon with less care than was shown for the dead boy. The sheriff nodded to Mallory. “We’ll get them back to town. Maybe I can get Prescott to talk.” He called to his men to mount up, and Mallory stopped Jake before he could climb up on the wagon seat.
    “Where do you think you’re going?”
    Jake refused to meet his eyes. “Gonna drive the wagon to town. That’s my job.”
    “Not anymore. You’re fired.”
    “But I live five miles from here!”
    “Then I suggest you start walking. I have a feeling people aren’t going to want you living around here much longer.” Mallory tied his horse to the back of the wagon, climbed onto the seat, and followed the sheriff to town.
     
    * * * *
     
    After a few hours of questioning, Prescott admitted he molested and strangled his daughter before dumping her body down an old well he’d found in the woods near the house. After several hours, searchers located it. When they lowered a man down by rope, he received a ghastly surprise.
    Little Lisa had landed on top of the nearly skeletal remains of a man. They brought up Lisa’s body—there were quite a few wet eyes at that pitiable sight—and went back down to find out the identity of the other body. Immediate speculation suggested George Simpson. The inscription on the shotgun found with the remains backed that theory.
    Thus one old mystery answered, in part.
    One of the searchers suggested they bury Simpson and Ben Caleb in a nearby clearing, where small stone cairns sat unmolested. One man remembered that’s where they’d found the remains of a fire during the original search for the Simpson family. A small, blackened child’s shoe haunted his nightmares, and he secretly believed it was the final resting place of Evelyn