Adeline groaned, stirring in his arms. “You’re miles away,” she said.
Blinking, hauling himself back to the present, he looked down into Adeline’s face. “You ain’t gonna make it.”
“No. I know it. Pleased?”
“Some.”
“I thought as much,” she said and smiled.
He felt her grow heavy in his arms and he knew the end was drawing near. “You shouldn’t have done what you did. That family, they deserve justice.”
“You’re so high and mighty. The way you let that renegade go. He’ll tell the whole world about you.”
“Maybe so.”
“And that family. What sort of justice? Seeing me hang from up there in heaven?”
“Something like that.”
“Better than letting me bleed out here in the sun, I’ll bet.”
He looked up and breathed a sigh, no longer certain what justice was or how it could be delivered. “One th
