The Ballad of Emma O'Toole Read Online Free PDF

walked in and ended it all.
    What had happened to his winnings? Probably snatched up and pocketed by some bystander when no one was looking. And that was a pity. If the verdict went against him, which seemed likely, he would have wanted the girl to have the cash and mining stock certificates. No matter how much her bullheaded refusal to listen to the truth irked him, it would be the least he could do for her and for the child his bullet had orphaned.
    Was this the end fate had decreed for him? Logan did his best to scoff at notions of destiny, but as the son of a French Creole father and a half-breed Cherokee mother, superstition was bred into his very bones. On his twentieth birthday his grandmother had read his tarot and predicted a violent life. Three years later, he’d fled New Orleans with blood on his hands. Now it had happened again. Maybe he was fated to meet death at the end of a rope. If so, he would face the scaffold with his head held high. The only thing that shook his confidence was the thought of rotting away in a prison cell, instead… .
    But never mind that, he wasn’t going down without a fight. His lawyer might be an unassuming little toad of a man, but Logan had detected a glint of intelligence in those pale blue eyes. The next time they met, Logan swore, he’d be ready with a plan and insist that the lawyer follow it. He would find a way out of this mess or die at the end of a rope. Prison was not an option.
    The trial of Logan Devereaux was the nearest thing to a circus the small county seat of Coalville had ever seen. The ten days it had taken to arrange for the judge, appoint the lawyers and select the jury had given Hector Armitage time to wire his story to papers all over the country. As for the notorious ballad, it had taken on a life of its own, spreading like the germ of some vile plague.
    The defendant had been spirited from Park City to Coalville under cover of darkness to avoid any chance of vigilante justice on the way. There, in the plain rock building that served as jail and meetinghouse, he was locked in a cell with a view of the gallows out back. His punishment, if merited, would be swift and sure.
    Emma was now living in Billy John’s old mining shanty. She’d filed the papers for transferof his claim, but lacked the strength to work it. And with no money to buy healthy food, she knew she would only get weaker. She needed a job, but given her condition and the scandal, who would hire her? The only thing that gave her any strength at all was the thought of the trial, and the justice that would soon be served.
    She’d despaired of finding a ride to Coalville on the trial date. But she needn’t have worried. Abel Hansen, the prosecutor, had called her as a witness and offered her a seat in the back of his buggy.
    Thus it was she found herself seated in the second row of the spectator section, waiting for the trial to begin. Dressed in her drab gray frock, with her hair pulled back in a knot, she was aware of how haggard she looked. She’d scarcely slept in days and had eaten little more than the dried pinto beans she’d found in an old Arbuckles’ coffee tin. Soaked and boiled over a tiny campfire, the beans were barely edible. Soon even those would be gone.
    The courtroom overflowed with people. Those who couldn’t get in waited outside in a sea of buggies, where a carnival atmosphere had taken over. Clearly, the picnicking, drinking revelers hoped to cap off the day’s festivities with a hanging. Earlier, as the prosecutorled Emma through the clamoring crowd, a man with a guitar had struck up the infamous ballad. Raucous voices had joined in the song. By the time she entered the courthouse and reached her seat, Emma had been on the verge of fainting.
    Now she sat clutching her shawl, just wanting the nightmare to end. Glancing over her shoulder she saw Hector Armitage sitting three rows back. He flashed her a grin and a cheery wave. Emma willed herself to ignore him as the