Support Your Local Deputy: A Cotton Pickens Western (19 page)

Hanging Day would be hot and sunny, I thought, eyeing the cloudless sky. That’s fine; better to hang twenty-one in sunshine rather than rain or overcast. Everybody would see well if there was plenty of sun.

The first hanging was scheduled for ten in the morning. After lunch, and the first match race, the second hanging would be held at two, followed by another match race, and the third hanging would be at four, and any leftovers would be hanged at six.

There wasn’t much shade at the gallows, but some nice cottonwoods lined the square and people could collect there in good shade, for the big events.

Rusty and I were all set. I’d tie the wrists of the hangee, put a noose over his head, and pull the lever whenever we got one bunch ready. Rusty, he would cut the noose free and cart the corpse to Maxwell’s wagon. Then Rusty would build another noose and we’d dangle it from the crossbar. We didn’t know how many would show up for their croaking, but we’d be prepared. I’d gotten plenty of rope from the Mercantile, and some thong to tie up wrists. Enough to hang all twenty-one, if need be.

There were a couple of preachers around, just in case the condemned wanted a last rite, and these fellows lounged in canvas chairs, waiting to be called upon.

Hanging Judge Earwig would be on hand to conduct the ceremonies.

By the time I got to the town square, crowds were already collecting. Many brought blankets to sit on, and wicker baskets filled with chilled sandwiches and iced tea. The ladies were all in summery white gauze, and their daughters wore white pinafores or cream-colored little dresses. The town’s gents tended to stand, and waited solemnly for the day’s events to roll.

It was a noisy crowd, with little boys and dogs circling in packs through the mob, and a few horses shying from all the ruckus. But finally ten o’clock did roll around, chimed by the courthouse clock, and Judge Earwig, wearing his judicial robes and a silk stovepipe hat, promptly emerged from his chambers, stepped up on the gallows with a borrowed megaphone, and began the show.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we will now hang the malefactors who trashed Sammy Upward’s Last Chance Saloon a few days ago, a crime unspeakable, and unequaled in the history of Wyoming. Will the following criminals please step forward to meet your moment of destiny with the noose.

“Silvan Boot, Max Dell, Parson McCullough, Wagner Wick, Delbert Battles, and Jocko Mortensen.”

I waited for the culprits, but no one emerged from the crowd.

“I repeat, yonder villains, step forward and take your medicine like men.”

But blamed if anyone stepped up.

Earwig pulled his giant timepiece from somewhere in the interior of his cloth tent, eyed the hands, and stuffed it under his robes again.

“All right. Since no one among them is man enough to take his medicine, I will require that they be hanged in absentia. The sheriff will drop the trap, in token of which the criminals will be dispatched in absentia, and the first lot of criminals will be carted off to the undertaker, in absentia.”

It sure was entertaining. I had the attention of the mob, all right. I climbed the little wooden stair, stood at the lever until Earwig dropped his arm, and I pulled the lever. The floor underneath the row of nooses suddenly swung down, and the crowd stared, and then cheered.

“A shameful lot,” Earwig said. “Not a real man among them. But they can restore their tarnished reputations by contributing to the Charity Jar, the proceeds to go to Sammy Upward.”

Maxwell drove the bodies, removed in absentia, to the funeral parlor, where they would be on display, in absentia.

“All right,” Judge Earwig said. “Eat your lunches. The next recreation is at two. And there is a match race scheduled at one.”

The Charity Jar rested prominently on the gallows, and pretty soon I saw some of those miscreants slide up and drop some greenery into it. They were all ruined men, marked forever by their cowardice. They sure were smiling a lot. Max Dell, he had pulled a cheroot and was firing up. Lots of fellas were patting his back.

A few wandered off to the funeral parlor, where Maxwell had arranged for the absentees to lie in state, a block-printed name at the head of each bier. A few folks studied the list of the shamed, and a few tossed pennies onto the bier, which Maxwell snapped up as his rightful fee.

By the time lunch rolled around, some youthful entrepreneurs had set up a lemonade stand, and I debated arresting them because they didn’t have a city business license. But my ma used to say, there’s a proper time and place, and maybe I’d arrest them late in the afternoon, so I could confiscate their profits and put the cash in the Charity Jar.

“Hey, sheriff,” Reggie Thimble said. “This sure is fine.”

“Maybe I should hang you,” I said. “You want to volunteer? Confess to countless crimes in office first?”

“I’ll see you fired one of these days,” he said.

It sure was a fine August day, even if hot. A mess of people were digging into their box lunches. Children were playing hangman on the gallows, and I had to chase off a little squirt who got his neck into a noose. Then a mess of ten-year-old boys tried to hang a red-haired girl, and I got to roaring, and for the moment, I scared them off. Trouble was, the girl was egging them on, and I finally had to take her by the hand and lead her back to her ma. But her ma got mad at me for being a bully.

A little after noon, the crowd drifted along Wyoming Street to the improvised race course that Limp had setup there. The horsemen in town had all drifted that way earlier, and were standing around, gauging the nags, making sage comments about how one or another was built for racing, and muscled up in the chest and flanks, and had a wild look in the eye, and all that. I’d heard it all before, mostly from a lot of males who thought they knew more about horses than anyone else. These sages had all acquired their followers out there as they preached their message one way or another.

There were a mess of them who thought that Limp’s quarter gelding, Booth, would triumph. But there were plenty of others who’d gathered around Bark’s ranch horse, named Sherman, and eyeing his hooves and flanks and the look in his eye.

Limp knew what he was doing, naming his nag after Lincoln’s assassin, just to stir up some passions, and some heavy betting. Wyoming was northern turf, even if most of those cowboys on the ranches had drifted up from the old Confederacy. Limp, he just stood quietly, letting nature take its course, but his bookmaker had a little blackboard and chalk that he was using to take bets. Every time he made a bet, he put the bills in a little black bag that he tucked into his pocket.

He wasn’t bleating, either. Limp’s outfit was simply standing around, taking money from bettors, while shrewd observers studied the two nags. Limp’s other horses were on display, but in rope corrals a bit away. There was his bay half-miler Robert E. Lee, and his black one-mile thoroughbred, Jefferson Davis, both of them prime horseflesh, lean, nervous, wild of eye, and restless. There were plenty of cowboys studying those two, professing to know their bloodlines, plumbing their ancestry, citing hoary records and victories to make their case.

Limp had run a chalk starting line along the path, and a quarter mile down a chalk finish line. The match race would begin when the starter fired a shot. If either horse broke early, the judge would blow a whistle and the horses would return to start once again. Bark had got a crazy ranch kid to jockey for him, but Limp had put his mad Swede in purple silks, so that the Limp horse looked like a serious racer and the ranch horse, Sherman, and his jean-clad rider, looked like something cobbled up locally.

I watched the good citizens of Doubtful lay bets with the bookie. I watched Mayor Waller squander three dollars on Bark’s horse, Sherman. But then I watched Turk, the liveryman, who knew a thing or two about nags, push a ten-spot to Boston Bill, that bought him an additional eleven if Booth won.

“You like the looks of that palomino, do you?” I asked.

“It’s no contest,” Turk said. “That quarter gelding’s got heat in him, and I’d guess he’ll cop it by a length and a half.”

“You’re the man who should know,” I said.

For once, he didn’t take it as an insult.

Hubert Sanders, our banker, was hesitating, and finally came to me. “You got any idea how this’ll play out?”

“Nope, I hardly know a horse’s molars from his incisors.”

“Well, I’m leaning slightly toward Limp’s fine steed, but his name puts me off. I am a devotee of Abraham Lincoln, and naming a horse after Booth is scurrilous. Which is why I’m inclined to bet on him.”

I wasn’t quite following the logic, but I let her lay.

I sure as the dickens didn’t know which nag would win, so I focused on keeping the peace. With all them nooses dangling back there, some loser might take the notion to hang a winner, or maybe hang Limp or his bookie or Swede jockey. I hoped Rusty was keeping an eye on the nooses back on the square, so a bunch of bratty boys wouldn’t hang a dog or something like that.

Denver Sally, my favorite madam, slid up. She was wearing gauzy scarlet, as befitted her station.

“You got one picked?” I asked her.

“It won’t be Booth,” she said. “He’s rank. I can tell. He’ll throw his jockey and lose. A horse needs to be ridden hard.”

“I guess you know a thing or two about that,” I said.

She laughed and patted me on the thigh. I’ve been thinking about marrying her ever since she came to town, but I keep getting diverted. One of these days I’ll get around to trying it out. My ma, she always said we should try the fit before we buy.

It was getting along toward one, time to run the match race on the Hanging Day, and the rest of Doubtful drifted out. I wondered who was manning the stores. Some unlucky clerk, I supposed. Even Maxwell was out, maybe hoping a horse would drop dead or break a leg, and he could offer a horse funeral for its bereaved master.

Well, that crowd knew where to go. Pretty near everyone in town kept going past the starting line, and began collecting around the finish, where the finish-line judges were eyeing the chalk, and studying the course. The judges for this race were King Glad, off his ranch, and Cronk, the faro dealer at Mrs. Gladstone’s Sampling Room. Doc Harrison was appointed tie-breaker in case the two judges couldn’t agree. And now the three were making learned examinations of the track, the noon light, the wind, the sun, and the condition of the heavens.

The calmest man around was Limp, who seemed a little bored by it all, He stood around, wearing his morning coat, silk stovepipe hat, and white gloves. He carried a small riding crop, and I thought that was to beat off angry people if their bets failed.

“Who you betting on?” I asked, shrewdly. There were always some owners who bet against their own nag.

“I don’t bet,” he said. “If I win, my profit’s the purse.”

He pulled out his turnip watch, eyed it, and sighed.

“Race time,” he said.

Just about then, a shot fired a quarter mile distant echoed, and a hoarse cry lifted into the blue sky. The horses were running.

It wasn’t even close. Bark’s nag, Sherman, sailed in half a length ahead of Booth, with the kid riding it flapping around like he couldn’t hang on. Booth, ridden by that Swede in purple silks, seemed half awake, even though the Swede was popping his butt with the crop. The judges hardly needed to debate it. The match race man, Limp, was out the stake. Now we’d see if he paid up.

The jockeys slowed their mounts, turned them, and trotted them back to the finish line. Bark’s horse looked like it had barely worked up a sweat, while the matchmaker’s nag was lathered through the flanks.

“Well,” said Limp, “you’ve some fine, fine horseflesh here, Bark, and my fine little gelding’s been properly whomped.” He pulled out his little black bag, slowly extracted a mess of twenties, and paid them out, one at a time, to Bark, who watched the bills collect in his horny hand. Bark allowed himself a little smile.

The bookie, Boston Bill, was paying off some wagers, too, less cheerfully but, even so, it got done. Lot of fellers from Puma County walked off with a few more greenbacks in their britches than they started with, and the day was uncommonly cheerful for them. A good Hanging Day and winning a bet on some nags, that made a memorable day if one was in from the ranches, where life was dull and no one could think of anything to do except target practice and practical jokes.

There were a mess of people around the nags, eyeing them, gaining knowledge, turning themselves into racing experts, and priming themselves for the next match race, scheduled at four that afternoon after another hanging. I sure knew the feeling. I could see how Bark’s horse was better built, had more chest and lung, than Limp’s horse, and I could see how Bark had trained it up real fine, so that it could run a short race better than anyone else’s nag, at least in Puma County. Maybe it’d not be so fine down in Laramie, where there were fancy horsemen calculating how to win races.

People sure were having a fine day. Bark collected his friends and headed for the Last Chance Saloon to have a lick at the bar before going to the next hanging. The matchmaker and the judges were laying out a half-mile racetrack, this time a big oval with the four corners marked, so people wouldn’t have to walk far out of town to see the finish. I didn’t know who was running against Limp and his Robert E. Lee, which was one sleek bay that looked like it could whip anything in three states.

It got along toward the hanging time, and all the town collected at the gallows. Rusty had chased off the brats who were playing hangman, and he was operating the trapdoor so it dropped proper. Old Whiskers himself, Hanging Judge Earwig, was impatiently waiting to condemn anyone who showed up. The crowd slowly gathered. I saw the Ukrainian twins, rosy and fresh from their honeymoon, watching the proceedings along with Riley, who was bug-eyed at the thought of hanging anyone, and kept feeling his neck to see if it was still there. Belle was there, too, itching to see some criminal croak.

It had gotten pretty hot, and the businessmen had doffed their suit coats, and the cowboys had big black stains under their armpits. If it wasn’t for Hanging Day, most everyone would be having a siesta. My ma used to say that a nap in the middle of the day made the evenings better, but I never saw it. Evenings were one and the same, usually cooler and welcome in the summer.

Earwig pulled out his giant timepiece, decided the moment had come, and climbed up onto the gallows with a megaphone.

“All right, step right up, see justice done. We’ll hang the next batch. When I call your name, step forward and take your medicine, or forever be branded as a craven coward.” He eyed the growing crowd. “It’s five minutes ahead of the hour, but I’ve elected to get on with it. What’s five minutes to the condemned? A blink of the eye. All, right, all right. Here are the deceased:

“Randy Packer, Mulligan Meyers, Dinty Stepovich, Walker Wayne, Joe Popper, and Big Nose George.”

There were little gasps of pleasure as the crowd took the measure of the condemned. Most of them were Flying D men, but a couple were Admiral Ranch men, including Big Nose.

“Packer, step forward,” the judge called, but there was no Packer anywhere around.

“Meyers, take your medicine,” he bawled, but no Meyers threaded through the crowd.

“Stepovich, step up!” But that didn’t yield a hangee.

“Wayne, you lily-livered coward, step into the noose.” But the lily-livered didn’t.

“Popper, you come up here and face the music.” Earwig peered around, seeing no cowhand of that description.

“And you, Big Nose, you come forward and pay for your crimes.”

Big Nose George moved slowly through the crowd, headed for the gallows, while the crowd watched, electrified. He seemed somehow alone, separated from the hundreds of people surrounding him.

It suddenly occurred to me that Big Nose was going to be hanged, and I was going to do the hanging.

Big Nose, formidable and heavy, walked slowly to the front of the gallows.

“All right, hang me,” he said. “Hang me for a little brawling in a saloon. That’s a hanging offense.”

Hanging Judge Earwig seemed to expand. His wattles ballooned. His bosom grew. His ears reddened. “Hanged by the neck until dead,” he snarled.

The crowd of merrymakers suddenly turned silent. The game was over. Big Nose was calling Earwig’s bluff. Earwig could not call Big Nose a coward or a craven criminal, not now, not ever again.

“Go ahead, hang me, you little fart,” Big Nose said softly.

The crowd stirred. This was new and unexpected. This might ruin Hanging Day. This might turn Hanging Judge Earwig into a monster. It had all been fun, fun to call all the condemned cowards for not showing up for their appointment with the noose. But now the fun stopped cold.

I saw a few of those mothers suddenly send their daughters home, and I watched the girls retreat, scared, in their bright summer whites, into the crowd, and off the square.

Judge Earwig began to redden. He bloated up like a bullfrog, staring at Big Nose, licking his lips, pinking up until I thought he’d burst a blood vessel.

“Hang him, hang him right now,” Earwig said.

Big Nose, he calmly stepped onto the trap and fitted a noose over his neck, and even drew it up, and twisted the knot so it would snap his neck. He held out his hands to me to tie behind his back. I stared at him. He was calling the game, and he held the aces and twos.

The mob down there, they turned so silent that the breeze seemed noisy. I watched George Waller, the mayor, looking rapt and discomfited. And Reggie Thimble, swallowing hard. And Delphinium Sanders, the banker’s wife who approved of hanging everyone, on principle, looking mighty solemn.

And I was looking into my own heart, knowing the act of killing a man would be mine alone, and that there was no justice in it, and that Big Nose didn’t even deserve an hour in my jail, much less a grave in the little cemetery just outside the city limits.

“Do it,” Earwig said, jamming his finger at me.

“Tell me the law,” I said. Let him show me book and verse that said that the Territory of Wyoming had the lawful right to hang a man for getting into a saloon fight.

“You’ll be next if you don’t get busy,” Earwig said, all bloated up and glaring at me, the instrument of the will of the court.

That mob down there, it sure was quiet. All the ladies at the sandwich stand, they were crying. Time had stopped. That’s the only way I could put it. The clocks all quit.

“Hang him,” yelled Cronk, the faro dealer.

“Hang him,” yelled Manilla Twining, the grand dame of Doubtful.

Lawyer Stokes stepped forward. “You must do as the court directs, young man. Do it promptly, as required.”

But Denver Sally had a different view. “Cotton, don’t be a jerk,” she said.

Big Nose, he was staring at me, his eyes mocking. He was the winner, in a way. No one would ever call him a coward.

I scratched my ear, which is what I do when my brain quits on me. Riley was watching me; so were the Siamese twins. Rusty was quietly waiting. The judge’s glare was so fierce it bored right through me. He stood there, a rock of wrath, waiting to hang me, too if I didn’t comply.

I knew pretty much what I had to do, and wondered what it might mean for me. I had to do what was right. And damn the consequences. There were a lot of people down there, their gazes riveted on me, and on my old friend Big Nose George, and even as they watched me, I made up my mind.

I unpinned the brass badge I wore on my shirt. It came loose easily, slid out of the gray fabric of my shirt, and into my hand.

I dropped the badge into Earwig’s hand. He seemed to bloat up, and then he started laughing. I couldn’t believe it. There he was, laughing like some old geezer who’d just told a knee-slapper.

I am not bright, everyone likes to tell me, and I was even less bright trying to figure this one out. There he was, wheezing away, and pretty soon the crowd, they were hooting and cackling, and there was Big Nose, still solemn, but he had won, and no bullying judge would ever call a cowboy a coward or a craven criminal again. Me, I didn’t mind the laughter. Let them call me a coward, or slow, or whatever they wanted. I’d done what I thought was the right thing.

Big Nose, he came up to me, and threw an arm around my shoulder, and smiled.

“Here’s a man,” he said. “A real man.”

I confess, I didn’t know the difference between a man and any other male, but if he wanted to jabber at me, that was fine.

Earwig, he slapped the badge into my hand, and laughed, and wandered away, leaving an odd hole in the crowd, because no one wanted to come close to him.

I didn’t know whether to pin the badge back on, and decided that if I’d resigned, maybe the supervisors needed to appoint me. But then the blamedest thing happened. Reggie Thimble himself, he made his way through the throng, took that brass star out of my hand, and poked the needle part of it through my gray shirt, stabbing me only twice before he got it hooked in proper. So I was sheriff again, but I couldn’t figure why. A feller always has to do what’s right, and that was clear. I never did argue in my head about whether the hanging was right; it wasn’t. Not for that. All I worried about was whether I’d lose the job. I don’t mind being sheriff, but there are times I’d just as soon climb onto Critter and go work cattle somewhere as far from people as I could get. California or some awful place like that.

But no one was coming up to me. I had a little space around me, same as Judge Earwig, and I felt real alone in the midst of all those people who were staring at me like I was a two-headed calf.

Hanging Day was rescued, seems like. Pretty soon the ladies were peddling sarsaparilla and fried chicken, and the brats were up on the gallows, playing hangman again.

“Rusty, cut them nooses off,” I said, pointing to a dozen little devils who were running the nooses around necks.

He hollered at the brats, and pretty quick he sawed through all that rope, and then pulled the handle of the trap, which fell down on its hinge. I’d get the county workmen to take the thing down and store it once again. Maybe someday I’d need it for a real hanging of a real bad man. But not this August day.