He’d expected resistance, but not from folks like Maybelle Champion. Jackson, Maybelle, and her brother Champ had grown up together; they’d hunted frogs together, swum together, and tipped over privies together. He and Champ had been such good friends, there’d been no question about him being named deputy when Jackson was elected sheriff. Jackson trusted Champ with his life, but now Maybelle treated him like a Reb.How would he get justice for his father in the face of such fear? If she did know her brother’s whereabouts, she’d given one hell of a performance, but the desperation and anger in her voice and eyes seemed too real to be an act. Had Lane really paid Champ to leave town? More than likely he’d threatened Champ or Maybelle’s life to get him to comply. During the height of the killings during Reconstruction, Texas rivers had run red with Black blood, yet he’d come here, one lone Black man trying to bring down single-handedly someone as powerful as Lane Trent. Like Iva said, there’s dreams and then there’s foolishness.Grace watched her husband staring off into the distance and imagined him weighing all that had occurred since his return.
