Fallen-Angels (8 page)

Chapter Six

           
Steel had
clearly left her to rot.
 
After her brief
meeting with a court appointed attorney who seemed to have a problem speaking
to anything but her breasts, Justice’s hope was completely gone.
 
She knew that the jury and the judge already
had their minds made up and the trial was only for show.
 
She could hear and see the workers erecting
the gallows from her cell. The lazy bastards obviously didn’t want to walk far
to carry out her sentence.
 
She slammed
her open hand against the cold stone wall and growled in anger.
 
This only accomplished making her hand sting
and drawing unwanted attention from the lecher in the next cell over.

           
“Hey, baby,
if you lean that nice little ass against the bars I can give you one last good
fuck before you die.”

           
“Thanks
again for the offer, asshole, but I think the first fifteen times I told you to
shut up might have been enough.”

           
He laughed
as if she had said the funniest thing in history and went back to sitting on
his bunk and talking to himself. Justice went back to the window and resumed
watching them building the gallows, wondering morbidly if they had a lot of experience.
 
Would they knot it right and break her neck
quickly, or would she suffer and choke, strangled slowly for a crowd?
 
A loud sobbing near her cell door interrupted
her terrible thoughts, it sounded familiar.
 

           
She turned
and found herself knocked speechless.
 
How
had Purity found out about her arrest?
 
News traveled fast, but not that fast.
 

           
Justice
walked over to her sister, wondering if their last conversation would end in
reconciliation or more angry blame.
 

           
“I’m so
sorry, Justice.
 
I’ve been so terrible to
you!
 
I don’t want you to die.
 
I’ve hired a private lawyer, from
El Paso
.
 
He’ll be here tomorrow.
 
I’m not going to let them hurt you.
 
Can you ever forgive me?” Purity’s words
gushed out like a fountain of emotion.

           
Justice held
back her own tears.
 
Later when it was
dark and quiet she would let herself cry, but not now, not
 
in front of her already upset sister.

           
“There’s
nothing to forgive, Purity.
 
I love you
and I’ve always loved you.
 
Don’t worry,
if they hang me at least I won’t be gun slinging anymore.” She tried to joke
with her sister but the words just caused Purity to cry harder and louder.
 
Her obnoxious neighbor shouted out at Purity.

           
“Shut up
lady, I can’t hear the voices in my head talking!”

           
Purity
shuddered and looked at her sister.
 
Justice winked and tried to present an air of false bravo.

           
“He’s got
the right idea—plead insanity.
 
Do you
think I should try that one?”

           
Purity sucked
her sob back in, and spoke shakily, “The lawyer I hired has a plan.
 
He thinks we can use the fact that you’re
female to shed doubt that you actually committed the crimes.”

           
Justice
frowned and shook her head. “I don’t like that defense.”

           
Purity narrowed
her eyes in disagreement.
 
“If it will
save your life, just be willing to be a girl for once!”

           
Justice
sighed and nodded her head in agreement.
 
She was just about to speak when the sound of footsteps running down the
hall caused both she and Purity to turn and look.
 
Justice wasn’t sure if she was really seeing
what she thought she was seeing.
 
She and
Purity exchanged a look of stunned shock.

           
Grace was
running toward them, dressed in expensive and very respectable clothing.
 
She threw her arms around Purity and then
reached through the bars trying to hug Justice.

           
“I came as
soon as I heard that you’d been arrested!”

           
Justice couldn’t
think of a reply, and Grace continued on as a tall well-dressed man walked up
behind her, “This is my husband, Ricardo.
 
He is going to use all of his connections to help get you out of this.”

           
Justice was
torn between joy and anger.
 
She had been
searching, obsessively, for years, thinking that the worst must have happened
to her sister alone in the desert.
  
And
here Grace was—married to a crime boss, wealthy, safe, and obviously keeping
tabs on her.
 
How else would she have
known about the arrest?

           
Purity
seemed to have decided on anger. “Where have you been?
 
Why didn’t you contact one of us?
 
You ran away and left us, but I see you’ve
done well for yourself.
 
So glad to see you
haven’t gone through hell too.”

           
Grace spoke
quietly, clearly taken aback and hurt, “When Ricardo found me, more dead than
alive, he took care of me.
 
By the time I
was well enough to try and find you, the trail was cold.
 
For months, he did what he could to find you
for me, but by then Purity was working at Martha’s Watering Hole and you were a
wanted woman.
 
He asked me to marry him,
and I loved him, so I said yes.
 
He is a
respectable man in the community.
 
I
thought you’d both understand.”

           
Justice
noticed his hand and snatched it through the bars.
 
She studied the tattoo above his wrist for a
moment and then dropped his hand in disgust.

           
“Respectable
my ass! He’s part of The Family!”

           
“Shh,”
Grace hushed her, looking around the jail. “Don’t say that so loud.
 
I certainly don’t need the lawmen to overhear
us.
 
As far as our social circle knows or
cares, he runs a respectable business.
 
My husband isn’t going around robbing trains for goodness sake.”

           
Grace
pinned her sister with a self-righteous look.
 
If only she knew that Justice had wanted the money to find her, to save
her.
 
She would have never agreed to the
robbery if she had known her sister was living the good life with her mobster
husband.
 
Justice turned so Grace
wouldn’t see the tears building in her eyes. When she finally spoke, her voice
was hard.

           
“I don’t want
your ‘respectable’ help.
 
I’d hate for
your sewing circle or church ladies group to know that you were helping your
criminal sister.
 
Just go. I don’t want
to see you right now.”

           
An angry,
indignant sound erupted from Grace, and Justice heard her well made shoes
clicking as she and her husband left without another word.
 
Fleetingly, Justice wondered if they planned
to watch her hang.
 
Justice pulled turned
to see Purity, still standing next to her cell, tears shining in her eyes.

           
“I can’t
believe her!
 
She ran from us.
 
When we needed her, she left—ashamed of us no
less.”

           
“At least I
can die in peace now, knowing she’s alright.” Justice dropped her voice to a
whisper, so that only Purity could hear her words, “After I’m dead, I want you
to find Steel Wall and tell him that he owes you my share of the money.
 
If I’m going to die for that money, I want to
leave it to you as your inheritance.
 
I
want you to leave Jimmy, go north, start a life as a respectable widow and find
your own happiness.”

           
Purity began
to cry again.
 
When she spoke, her words were
stilted between sobs, “I…don’t…want…you…to…die.”

           
“I know,”
Justice managed, “but I probably will.
 
I
want you to promise me that you’ll find happiness.
 
I want you to promise me that you won’t let
Jimmy hurt you anymore.”

           
Purity just
nodded and kept on sobbing.
 
Justice
reached out between the bars and squeezed her shoulders reassuringly.

           
When Purity
had calmed down a little, she spoke again, “Thank you for sticking by me,
Justice.
 
I never should have blamed
you.
 
You could’ve been like Grace and
just walked away.
 
I know you only did
what you did to survive, just like me.
 
I
never should have blamed you.
 
I just
hated you for not being hurt like Hugh hurt me.
 
It wasn’t fair.”

           
“No, it
wasn’t fair, but I understand.
 
I love
you Purity.
 
You will always be my
sister.
 
We’ve been through a lot, but
we’re survivors.
 
You’re going to do
great.
 
Go get that money and don’t look
back.”

           
 
“You’ll get out of here to get what you’re due,”
Purity told her.
 
“I paid that lawyer
half his fee and he’ll get the other half when you walk out of court a free
woman.”

           
“Don’t hold
your breath.
 
That jury will be full of
men who think a woman with a gun is akin to Satan.
 
The only place I’m going to be walking to is
the gallows.”

           
Purity
shuddered at the words.

Chapter Seven

           
Justice’s
trial had only lasted three days.
 
Purity’s lawyer had done what he could, but just like Justice had
predicted, the men in the jury looked at her as if she was some kind of succubus
ready to drag them to Hell.
 
The list of
men she had killed in gunfights and her longer list of crimes committed hadn’t
left them much room for mercy.
 
When the
judge’s gavel hit, reverberating through the court, Purity had burst into loud,
uncontrollable sobbing.
 
Several of the
girls from Martha’s, women who respected Justice, had come to support the
sisters.
 
Their presence probably hadn’t
helped matters.
 
Justice had heard the
rumble in the courtroom every day, when the strippers walked in wearing their
corsets and miniskirts.
 
The newspapers
had had a field day with her, gleefully trying to convict her themselves.
 
As far as Justice was concerned, those
piranhas could fry in the depths of Hell with her.
 
They were no better than vultures picking at
her bones.
 
           
She had shaken when the judge
ordered her hanged by the neck until dead, but she was proud of the bravery she
had shown, she hadn’t fainted.
 
Several
local church ladies groups in the area had come out to support her, begging the
judge to lighten his sentence, claiming she was a poor stray lamb who had been
led down a dark path.
 
They hadn’t swayed
the man either.
 
He spoke about fairness
and stated that he would have given a man the same punishment.
 
The jury had recommended the death sentence
and she saw the gleam in the supervisor’s eyes when the gavel had hit.
 

           
She was
only a little surprised that Grace hadn’t been at her sentencing.
 
She wondered if Grace had even known, or
cared, that the trial had gone badly for her sister.
 
Deep down she wondered if, for spite, Grace’s
husband had paid the judge to see her hanged.
 
Justice had always known her life would be short, but she had hoped her
death would be quick too. That she would die quickly and bravely in a shoot out.
Not like this, caged and humiliated in front of an entire town.

           
Justice sat
in her cell on the last night of her life.
 
Purity hadn’t come to see her after the trial and it hurt her a
little.
 
She knew that her sister wasn’t
handling the news well, and that Purity might not be able to face her, knowing
that she suddenly had a clear expiration date.
 
One of the church ladies had brought her a lovely picnic basket full of
food.
 
It was a sumptuous last meal and
she was honestly grateful.
 
Part of her
had been hoping to find a key or a gun when she had bitten into the pie, but
unfortunately, it was only full of delicious cherries.
 
There was so much food that she had shared
with the crazy man who was constantly shouting obscenities at her.
 
He must have felt a bit sorry about her
sentence because she noticed that after the trial he stuck to just talking to
himself and left her alone.