Read Online Black Ransom by Stone Wallace - Free Book Online

their feet objecting to the sentence. They felt they had been cheated out of proper justice. They wanted to see Ehron Lee hanged.
    Judge Harrison rapped his gavel several times to restore order, and when the ruckus subsided, he announced, “Court is adjourned. Bar will open once these tables and chairs get put back proper.”
    The shouts of objection quickly changed to hoots and cheers. Men scrambled to put the saloon back in order.
    Judge Harrison disappeared into the saloon office to prepare the papers to deliver to the sheriff, which would be forwarded along with the prisoner to Rockmound.
    A momentary relief washed over Ehron Lee with the realization that his life would be spared. He wished with all his heart that he could rush out, collect Melinda in his arms, and tell her that he would be coming back. Five years was not a long time. He’d been separated from her for nearly as long during the war, and that was much worse, where each day he never knew if it might be his last, lost to her forever, a casualty of battle.
    But he’d be alive these next five years, without the same worry of dying . . . and while it would hurt enormously being apart from her, at least prison set aside days when she could visit him. When, for however briefly, he could see her. Talk to her. Perhaps even touch her.
    But slowly his relief started to fade as the bitter reality set in, the five years they were taking from an innocent man. He hadn’t done anything to deserve that punishment. Nor should he ever have been arrested. He’d never stolen from any man. He’d never harmed another soul except in battle, where it was expected of him, following the rule of war, where it was kill or be killed.
    All he could truly be accused of was trying to provide a better life for his wife and . . . his family.
    The baby, almost forgotten by him during this ordeal. The child he would not get to know during those first years of its life. He would not be there when Melinda delivered the baby. He would never experience the joy of holding his newborn son or daughter in his arms. This realization deeply saddened him.
    Then almost as quickly his sorrow transformed into cold dread as it became clear to him where he would be serving his sentence: Rockmound Prison. It had two other names, which legend had it were fitting to its environment: Cartridge Hill—so given because of the number of prisoners who were shot to death while trying to escape—or more popularly, Hell’s Doorway. He’d heard horrible stories about that place, mostly told in whispers, as if even the mere mention of the prison’s name might bring forth a plague of evil.
    The doorway to hell, where the daily routine hardly varied. Prisoners were locked in leg irons, fed meager, miserable meals. Hard labor was
exactly
what it suggested. Days in the quarry spent crushing rocks into sand under the relentless heat of the searing sun. Trigger-happy guards who would rather shoot an escaping convict than break a sweat bringing him back to his cell. The prisoners were treated worse than dogs and life was held cheaply. If the term “living death” could be defined, it would be by those who served time at Rockmound.
    Men had survived their terms at Hell’s Doorway, but often all that remained was a broken shell of a human being.
    Contemplating the potential horror that awaited him at Rockmound, a reminder of what he’d learned about the inhumane conditions at Andersonville, Ehron Lee suddenly thought that if not for the hope of eventually being reunited with his beloved Melinda, of someday being a father to his child, it might have been a more merciful sentence if the judge had just ordered him to be hanged.
    Ehron Lee suffered another sharp jolt back to reality when he turned his head and saw Abigail wading toward him through the crowd. When she got close enough to his face, her expression twisted into a snarl.
    â€œFive years. Yuh