Alex Cross's Trial

both barrels of my shotgun now pointed. This was none other than Henry Wadsworth North, former defendant, murderer.

    In my mind I squeezed the trigger and watched his limited supply of brains spatter all over the screen door behind him. I felt a jolt of pleasure at the prospect of being the one to end Henry North’s life.

    But I couldn’t shoot the man like this. It just wasn’t in me.

    His mouth twisted up into a smile. “What you gonna do, Corbett, have me arrested again?”

    From out of nowhere he brought up a small pistol.

    My finger tightened on the trigger. “Drop it or I’ll blow your head off,” I said. “Do not doubt me for a second! I want to shoot you!”

    He let the pistol drop to the floor. All at once hands seized him and dragged him over backwards—

    Here they were, the people of the Quarters, bearing guns and knives, pitchforks and sharpened sticks, clublike lengths of straight iron. A dozen men swarmed in from the porch, seizing the Raiders and dragging them outside.

    Gunfire echoed, and I heard more horses—a second wave of Raiders. But here came our reinforcements too, pouring out of nearly every door in the Quarters, bearing weapons or no weapons at all, swarming down the street and around Abraham’s house. They dragged Raiders down off their horses and set upon them with clubs, rocks, and farm implements.

    Every blow they struck was violent payback for a lynching, a hanging, a beating, a murder. I heard the thud of club against flesh, the crack of rock striking bone. Terrible cries erupted as the colored men overwhelmed the Raiders, avenging the lynchings of their brothers, the oppression and torture and murder of fathers and friends.

    I saw Doc Conover swinging a long rifle like a club at a woman who was down on her knees, covering her head with both arms. Then I saw a man knock Conover senseless with a fireplace poker to his skull.

    Lyman Tripp, the undertaker, was on the ground, surrounded by men kicking him in the ribs. I remembered how happy he had been to hang a Jew, so I didn’t feel sorry for him. Not for any of them.

    But then, over the racket of punches and shouts, I heard more horses approaching. There were many horses, bearing reinforcements for the other side.

    Chapter 133

    “CORBETT!” A MAN SHOUTED at the top of his lungs.

    I stepped out onto the porch to see none other than Phineas Eversman on a fine black mare, wearing his black cowboy hat with the badge pinned to the brim. “You are under arrest,” he said, “and that nigger girlfriend of yours.”

    The fight was swirling all around us, defenders chasing and shouting, new waves of attackers coming in from the woods. It seemed unbelievable that Eversman would be trying to make an arrest in such a setting.

    I trained my shotgun on his chest. “Get your ass down off that horse, Phineas.”

    “You put your gun down, Ben,” said a voice behind me.

    I turned to find a revived Doc Conover with a nasty twelve-gauge shotgun leveled at me.

    “Hey, Ben,” Doc said. “I meant to bring your oil of winter-green, but I forgot.” He chuckled.

    A shot rang out and the gun flew from his hands. Conover screamed and grabbed his elbow. Ricky ran up and scrambled after his gun.

    I glanced around to see who had fired the shot. Good God!—It was ancient Aunt Henry in the doorway of Abraham’s shack, blowing smoke from the long barrel of a Colt revolver. She nodded at me and went back inside.

    I heard a loud crack and turned to find Eversman down off his horse with a big bullwhip in his hand, a whip straight out of Uncle Tom’s Cabin . It had a black leather-wrapped stick for a handle and three little stinger-tips at the end of the whipcord. Eversman cracked it again, with a report louder than a pistol shot.

    His arm swept around, and the whip shot out and wrapped around my ankles with a sting as fierce as yellowjackets. It snatched me off my feet, and I landed hard on my back in the dirt. I felt blood running down where the whip was cutting into flesh and then Eversman was on me, hitting with both fists at once. But I was stronger, and angrier too. I managed to roll over and fling him on his back. Seizing the slack end of the whip, I wrapped it around his neck so tight that with one hard tug I could break his windpipe. He gurgled and coughed like the two men I had seen lynched—like the sound I must have made when they lynched me.

    Eversman’s eyes bugged out horribly. The leather cord bit into his neck, making a deep red