Chapter 1
The Winze County Courthouse
The Winze County Courthouse weren’t much to look at. Just a plain two-story building with white clapboards, a wide front porch, and a bell hanging up in a little cupola on the roof. But sooner or later, ever’body in Winze found themselves climbing them front steps. Some come to record a deed. Some come to settle an argument. Others come because the law had finally caught up with ’em.
Folks still talk about the great courthouse fire of 1878, though nobody ever proved who set it. Most everybody had already made up their minds on that question anyhow.
Back then Judge Roy Collins rode the circuit. He’d spend a few days in Winze, then be off tending the business of neighboring counties before making his way back again three or four weeks later. Truth be told, that wandering schedule likely saved his life. Had he been sleeping in his room above the courthouse the night the fire broke out, he’d have burned right along with the building.
That would’ve suited Devil Eye Sosbee just fine.
Most folks reckoned the old mountain man had been aiming to do more than burn courthouse papers. Judge Collins was fixing to spend three days in Winze hearing cases, and ever’body knew Devil Eye blamed him for sending his youngest boy off to prison six weeks before.
The whole town, along with half the miners in the hills, had crowded into the courtroom that morning just to see if the judge would live up to his reputation.
He surely did.
Now, Yancy Sosbee hadn’t set out to hurt nobody. He’d simply got himself a mite too deep in the whiskey. Somewhere along the evening he’d decided his pearl-handled six-shooter belonged in a poker pot. The hair trigger on that old pistol took offense to being slammed down on the table and sent a bullet clean through the saloon door.
By the cruelest luck imaginable, that ball found the left ear of the judge’s favorite mule tied outside.
Judge Collins didn’t even blink.
“Six months,” he said. “And you’ll pay for the mule.”
You could’ve heard a pine needle hit the floor.
“He’s just a boy!” Devil Eye barked.
Judge Collins never raised his voice.
“Then he ought not be playing a man’s game.”
Before the last word had left the judge’s mouth, Devil Eye had his pistol out and pointed straight at him.
Click.
Something cold settled against the back of Devil Eye’s neck.
He knew that feel.
Slowly, the barrel of his own pistol sagged toward the floor.
“I’ll go peaceful,” Yancy called out. “Pa, it’s only six months. I’ll be all right.”
“I hear you, boy.” Devil Eye never moved. “Tell me who’s holdin’ the gun.”
“That’s Chance Dockery.”
A little grin crept across Devil Eye’s face.
“Chance? You ain’t near foolish enough.”
“I reckon not,” Chance answered. “Matter of fact, I done told the judge he best not count on me backing him if you pulled something foolish.”
Devil Eye let out a low chuckle.
“Seeing as how I owe you one, I’ll holster mine.”
The sheriff eased the hammer down but didn’t move the pistol.
“You reckon you and me’s gonna have trouble?”
Devil Eye finally turned around.
“Seeing as I stole sweet Betsy out from under your nose all them years ago, I reckon we’ll call it even. That’s what she’d have wanted.”
There’d been a time when Betsy could’ve had her pick of near ever’ mountain man in three counties. Chance had admired her from afar but never fooled himself into thinking he’d stand…well…much of a chance. Turned out Lucifer “Devil Eye” Sosbee had been telling a different story all along.
“She still pretty as a sunrise?” Chance asked.
Devil Eye looked away.
“Passed last fall.”
For a heartbeat, the whole room fell quiet.
Judge Collins tipped his head.
“I surely hate to hear that.”
“I reckon that’s the way of this world.”
Devil Eye crossed the room, wrapped his youngest boy in a hug, and whispered something only Yancy could hear.
Then he stepped back.
“Stay ready, son. Me and your brothers’ll come fetch you.”
Now, there weren’t no state prison no more. That’d been shut down years before. Convicts got leased out to the mines and other businesses. The companies fed ’em, housed ’em, and kept ’em under lock and key. Yancy was serving his sentence down at the Little Load Mine along the Nottely River, just south of Winze.
Word spread mighty fast after the courthouse burned.
Most folks figured the fire was never meant for the courthouse at all. It was meant for the judge. The blaze just happened to make a mighty fine distraction while Devil Eye’s boys rode to the Little Load Mine and busted Yancy loose.
Nobody ever proved it.
Didn’t matter much.
The Sosbee clan disappeared back through Old Ben Jack’s Gap into country rough enough to swallow a dozen posses whole. Beyond Bald Mountain, a body could hide till Judgment Day if he knew where to lay low.
There was some talk of raising a posse.
Talk was about as far as it got.
Seeing as Yancy hadn’t actually killed nobody, and seeing as the Sosbees had kinfolk scattered through them mountains, there wasn’t many men eager to leave a widow over a six-month sentence.
Judge Collins, though…
He never forgot.
He knew any man that crossed Devil Eye Sosbee had better sleep with one eye open. Didn’t matter none to him. Judge Collins wasn’t built to bend. Folks said he feared God Almighty and little else.
Even so, he knew the good Lord Himself had spared him that night.
Truth was, he’d been called over into Lumpkin County.
Claim jumpers had stirred up enough trouble over there that the townsfolk were fixing to hang a man before sunrise. They’d sent a rider to fetch the judge.
Well…
Not exactly a rider.
Sam carried the message.
Short for Samantha.
She knew every game trail, creek crossing, and hidden pass between the counties better than most grown mountain men. If there was a quicker way through the woods, Sam already knew it.
She was Old Ben Jack’s granddaughter—the very man they’d named the gap after.
Her mama, a full-blooded Cherokee woman, died bringing her into this world. Ben Jack’s son had taken the girl in and raised her much like he’d have raised a boy. She hunted, fished, trapped, fought when she had to, and had been known to leave more than one card game with somebody else’s money in her pocket.
But we’ll get back to Sam soon enough.
For the next several weeks miners poured down from the hills toward the little church in town. Every claim on record had gone up in smoke with the courthouse, and every man wanted to be first in line to file his again.
The town hadn’t yet raised the money for another courthouse, so the church would have to do.
Leastways for a spell.
Pastor Big Jim Turner made that plain.
Big Jim stood six-foot-seven if he stood an inch, broad as a barn door and hard as hickory. His eyes were black as coal, and his hair matched ’em.
When Big Jim said, “Six months,” six months it was.
No more.
No less.
Nobody argued with Big Jim.
Truth be told, folks had even heard Judge Collins call him “Sir.”
So that’s where we’ll leave things for now.
A judge with one eye over his shoulder.
A mountain clan hiding deep in the hills.
A sheriff still wondering what possessed him to stand against Devil Eye.
And a whole mountain full of miners racing to reclaim what they swore was theirs.