Gabe

The night was alive with sound.

Crickets chirped and frogs croaked, and the wind was a steady pull on the spindly branches of the pines. The distant hum of an angry mob, just out of sight down the road, was like a booming drumroll that set his skin to prickling.

After so many hours spent guarding the saloon under cover of darkness, Gabe had grown used to quiet nights. This noise was a jarring dissonance.

He stood in the road leading to the saloon. He could hear the distant thrum of the approaching mob, just as he could feel the weight of their combined steps rattling up through the earth. Behind him, the saloon stood like a fortress. There were two girls on the roof with rifles, and seven of Josh's men patrolled the forest surrounding it. Chrissie and Caroline were on the porch, and all the rest were huddled in the barroom, armed to the teeth and shooting whiskey to keep up their courage.

All he could do was pray their bravery was wasted and not a single gun was fired.

The evening wasn't particularly cold, but he crossed his arms over his chest against the chill that had crept over him the second Reverend Peters's body had hit the floor of the sanctuary.

"It's not too late," Josh said from his right, bristling with unease and an arsenal of firearms. "My men and I will look after the girls. I give you my word. You know these woods better than the sheriff and those children he calls deputies. You could be in Mexico by the time they put together a wanted ad."

Up near the bend, Gabe could see the beginnings of a glow as the cumulative light of the mob's torches and lanterns limned the trees in a dusky, faded orange.

"Would you go?" he asked, not looking at his friend but instead watching as the glow grew brighter. "If it were Amelia and Rebecca in there? If the alternative was to watch these fools hunt down your family and make them pay for what you'd done?"

Josh sighed, and that was answer enough.

"Please go inside," Gabe told him, casting a glance at the man he considered a brother, although they didn't share a drop of blood. Then again, maybe they did in a way. After all, it was the muddiness, the uncertainty, of their blood that had brought them together in the first place.

Damn, but the looming specter of death was making him maudlin.

"I'm not about to leave you out here to face them alone," Josh retorted, his voice sharp and decisive.

"Yes you are. Please, Josh." The crowd was getting closer. In a few moments the sheriff would round the bend, and then the rest of the posse. They had already discussed this. If Josh kept his face out of this mess, the ranch would remain a haven. Katherine could heal there, safe and hidden, before taking Isobel and boarding a train as far from this town as she wanted to go. "Just take care of them, would you?"

A hand clapped on his shoulder. "You know I will. I truly am sorry, Gabe. It shouldn't have come to this."

"I think it had to," he admitted. Up ahead, a dark figure rounded the bend. Then two more. Too far to make out faces, but close enough that a cold finger ran down his spine. "You need to go, now."

The hand on his shoulder tightened, and Gabe heard the silent goodbye as Josh turned and strode back to the building, skirting around to the side door to Gabe's quarters. He and Mel would stay with Katherine and Isobel as they had discussed, prepared to hide them away beneath the floorboards if things escalated.

But somehow, Gabe knew, they wouldn't. This inane conflict had always been a war of symbols. The crowd wasn't coming for any one person. They were coming for a scapegoat. Once they had him—once they watched him hang—they would settle. Things in the town would go back to a semblance of normal. The girls would still be outcasts, but they wouldn't be terrorized. This nascent suspicion of the Tuckers would fade into forgotten history. Hell, maybe the next preacher in town would be the kind who preached all the love and forgiveness that Katherine swore was the backbone of her faith.

The town wouldn't forget this vendetta, but once the fervor had faded they wouldn't remember more than the parts that make good stories. A preacher, hell-bent on salvation-- martyr for a cause. The spawn of Satan, strung up by the righteous in the name of justice and divinity. The innocents, trampled in the rush of war. Sweet, quiet Katherine and the child she bore to the hero preacher. Such a shame that they were lost forever...

Smiling to himself, Gabe crossed his arms and waited as the crowd grew closer. He saw Sheriff Lee, there at the front of the pack, his white hair glowing in the light of twenty torches. Beside him were his deputies. Behind him were three dozen of the town's angriest, most ardent followers of God.

A note of fear hit Gabe deep in his belly. What if they beat him to death and strung him up right here? He'd talked Josh and the girls into the abstract concept of his execution, but he doubted they'd stand by and watch as it happened in the front lawn. They would fight back.

The crowd had guns.

The girls would be outnumbered, two to one at least.

It would be a massacre.

Cold sweat sprang up on the back of his neck, and he raised his hands up into the air, even as the sheriff's own hand went to his pistol.

If Sheriff Lee was surprised by the surrender, he didn't show it. The crowd drew to a shifting, eerily quiet halt.

"Gabe," the older man said, lifting his chin and wrapping his fingers around the pearl handle of his pistol.

"Sheriff Lee."

"I've got witnesses say you slaughtered half a dozen men and shot down Reverend Peters in cold blood."

Gabe looked up at the sky and wished the damn torches weren't drowning out the stars. He should've taken one last good look before they got close. They'd hang him at dawn, and he'd spend whatever time remained between now and his execution in a cell. Funny how he'd never thought much about the night sky, but now that he'd never see it again it felt terribly important.

"Reckon you're here to arrest me, then," he said.

"You gonna put up a fuss?"

"No, sir."

"Good. That's for the best. Why don't you turn around now, son. Keep your hands up where we can see 'em."

Slowly, Gabe turned around, keeping his hands high in the air. He heard heavy footsteps behind him, and then there were several sets of hands, pushing him to the ground and none-too-gently searching his body for weapons. His arms were bound behind his back with half a mile of rope, lashed together from wrist to elbow. His ankles were tied with a second length of rope just long enough to allow him to walk, but not to run. Then he was dragged to his feet.

He didn't look back at the saloon, not wanting to call attention to what the crowd had thankfully deemed unimportant. With a pink-cheeked deputy at each elbow and the sheriff just ahead of him, Gabe faced the gathered crowd. Half of them he could name, and half he couldn't. Their faces, already drawn down into twisted, harsh masks of hatred, were made all the more vicious by the shadows of the torchlight.

"Make room, now," the sheriff said, and the crowd parted reluctantly, leaving a narrow path. At the deputies' prodding, Gabe stepped forward. The walls of the gathered mob seemed to shudder and and draw together, pulling back on instinct as he approached. He heard a few whispered curses, and their hatred was as tangible as a harsh winter wind. But otherwise, they were unnervingly still. They stood like soldiers as he passed, the only movement their shifting eyes and the flicker and whip of the torches and lanterns. Even as they closed in behind him, they seemed to move as one—not individuals but a massive, grinding body, carried forth by gears of fear and anger.

He walked as fast as the rope tying his feet would allow. His shoulders ached, but with every throb of the strained joints all he could think of was Katherine—bound by her wrists for hours on end. She had been so pale when he found her—the livid outline of her bruises and the trickle of blood from her lip the only color on her. He hadn't asked what the reverend had done to her. If they'd had more time, he would have. But it didn't seem right, to spend what minutes they had left together in some nauseated discussion of what she had suffered. He wanted to spend a lifetime with her, holding her as she healed, but he couldn't. It had to be enough that she was alive. Safe.

A half mile down the road, they came upon three hobbled horses. The sheriff took one, his deputies the others. Yet another length of rope was produced, and Gabe was tethered by his bound wrists to the sheriff's saddle. Part of him wanted to laugh at the drama of it, but he knew this was all a calculation. It was the sheriff's job to keep the peace, and he must have been smarter than Gabe ever gave him credit for. He seemed to understand the town's need for a show.

It was a three mile journey back to town, and they could only travel as fast as Gabe could walk. He shuffled along with the sheriff ahead of him, leading him like an errant dog, and a deputy on either side, their eyes glittering in the darkness and their hands on their pistols. The crowd walked behind, and Gabe wished they would make more noise. It was unnerving, having them at his back and so quiet—the weight of their unexpressed fury like a constant, eerie squeal in his ear.

To the sheriff's credit, only once did he allow his restless horse to open into a trot, and it did seem to be an accident. Jolted out of a trance, Gabe stumbled forward as the rope tightened around his wrists. He tried to keep his feet, but the pace was too fast and he was already off balance. He landed hard on his knees, biting out a curse as the rope yanked him sideways and dragged him through the mud. Over the roar of pain in his arms, he heard a gentle murmur of satisfaction pass through the crowd like a wave. The sound faded to a disappointed, rumbling grumble as the sheriff drew his horse to a halt just long enough for Gabe to drag himself back to his feet.

The crowd grew as they neared down. People came out of their houses, carrying lanterns and guns and torches, glaring as the procession approached and stepping noiselessly into the back of the throng as it passed. Some brought their children, and for some reason that bothered him. Their wide, frightened eyes and pale faces, hands clutching at their parents' coats, made him think of Isobel. They made him wonder if she would hear the stories and remember him the way these children would.

Katherine wouldn't allow that, would she?

The crowd had grown to somewhere north of fifty by the time they finally reached the sheriff's dingy little building in the center of town. The sheriff untied the rope from his saddle and dismounted, coiling it as he approached. With the deputies close behind, he took Gabe's arm and led him up the steps to the small porch that spanned the front of the building. Then he turned them both around to address the crowd.

"It's been a trying day," he said, his voice booming out over the shadows and the lanterns and hundreds of beady eyes, sparkling with bloodlust. "Some of you have lost sons. Brothers. Husbands." Somewhere in the midst of a crowd, a woman bit back a sob, and Gabe's gut twisted. "The town lost a leader. Now, I know you all are angry." A low hum of agreement. "I know you want to see justice." The hum grew louder and separated into fifty-some individual voices, all calling for Gabe's head. The sheriff's hand tightened around his arm.

"I give you my word, as the elected sheriff of this town, that this man will pay for the crimes he has committed. However..." He waited as the crowd fell deadly silent, shifting restlessly. "However," he went on into the hush of anticipation, "I have to demand that you let us do this properly. This is a civilized town. We are a proud and law-abiding people. This is not the time or place for vigilante justice."

Though it felt unnatural to take his eyes off the crowd, Gabe glanced at Sheriff Lee. The man's hairline shone with a gleam of nervous sweat, and he seemed to be hanging onto Gabe's arm as much to hold himself steady as to restrain him. Yes, he thought. This man understands.

"Tomorrow is a Sunday," the sheriff said. "By ordnance, as many of you know, all public hangings are to be held on Saturday at dawn in the courtyard behind city hall. I will see this man tried and I will see him hanged. But until such time as he is convicted and put to death, he is under my protection as much as he is under my guard. I hope I have made myself clear."

The sheriff didn't give his audience time to voice their displeasure. With those last ringing words, he jerked Gabe around and dragged him through the front door. One of the deputies followed, barring the door behind him. The other unfortunate man was left outside to see to the dispersal of the crowd.

As befitting a town so small, the sheriff's office was little more than a front office and a back hallway to the holding cell. There was a narrow set of stairs in the left corner of the office, which Gabe assumed led to the sheriff's personal living quarters, on the second floor. The whole building had a weary, lived-in feel-- the walls bare clapboard and the floors faded by the constant press of mud and dust beneath booted feet.

The holding cell was actually three—equipped with bars between each for those nights of exceptional revelry when more than one drunken fool found himself sleeping off too strong an evening. Each cell was just big enough for a narrow cot and a tin bucket, and the bars were as thick as Gabe's forearm. Even if he'd had a mind to escape, he didn't see an avenue by which to do so.

The sheriff pushed him into the middle cell and then stood by, pistol at hand, while the deputy removed the ropes and pulled the metal door shut with a resounding, final clang.

"Your boots," the sheriff said, once Gabe stood alone in his cell. Gabe just stared at him, and he gestured. "Take them off. Your belt, too."

Grimacing, Gabe sank onto the cot, forcing numb, tingling fingers to comply as he tugged off his boots. Pushing to his feet, he unbuckled his belt, pulled it loose from the loops, and bent to place the last of his dignity outside the bars, at the sheriff's feet.

At the older man's pointed look, the deputy huffed and gathered up Gabe's belongings before disappearing into the front office.

"Guess you suppose I owe you thanks?" Gabe asked, crossing his arms over his chest and meeting the sheriff's steady gaze.

The sheriff shook his head. "No, son, I don't. But I do owe you an apology." Gabe could only stare, and he went on, resting a hand on his hip just above the handle of his pistol. "I've spent the last decade watching this town descend into madness, and I didn't do a thing about it. Between you and me, I think I thought it could go on forever without turning into an outright war. Then this thing with your mother, and with Mrs. Peters disappearing—"

"She's dead," Gabe blurted, then raised his chin and met the sheriff's eyes. "Mrs. Peters is dead. I killed her. And the kid. She... I wanted her, but she left me for the reverend, so I killed her. The kid, too. You won't find the bodies."

A long silence passed between them, and then the sheriff nodded, a knowing gleam in his eye. If Gabe didn't know better, he'd say he saw the flicker of a smile tug at one edge of the man's thin lips. "Well, I suppose I should call off the search, then," he said slowly, "seeing as we have a confession."

Relief made Gabe's knees weak, but he locked them and clenched his jaw against the desire to kneel at the man's feet in gratitude.

"But son... you understand what I have to do?"

"I do," he said with a sharp nod. He wished the sheriff was more of a bastard. He didn't have more room for complicated feelings. Not after walking out on Katherine as she lay weak and frightened in his bed. Not after walking out on his daughter, who would grow up into a woman he'd never have the honor of knowing. "They won't settle for anything else."

"It won't be much of a trial."

"I know."

"It's..." For the first time, Sheriff Lee's eyes dropped to the floor as if in shame. When he lifted them they were glassy with tears. He stepped up close to the bars of the cell and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Your mother was a good woman, Mr. Townsend. I am truly sorry for your loss, just as I am sorry for what I have to do for the sake of this town. For what it's worth, I'll make it as dignified for you as I can manage."

Gabe sighed and let his arms drop to his sides. "Sheriff, I don't give a damn if it's dignified. Just promise me one thing." The man raised his eyebrows, and Gabe continued. "Don't let this happen again. Those girls out there are just trying to make a living. You've got sway with the leaders of this town. Whatever preacher you bring in to replace the one I killed... make sure he understands that."

Sheriff Lee nodded once, slowly, then turned to leave.

"Sheriff Lee?" Gabe called him back, and he turned in the doorway.

"Katherine and Isobel Peters are dead."

At that, the man did smile. It was strained but genuine, and his crisp nod took the strength out of Gabe's legs. He dropped to his cot and rested his face in his hands, listening to the sheriff's bootsteps carry him away.

* * *

The sheriff was right.

It wasn't much of a trial.

For reasons of security, it was a private affair, held on Monday morning in the sheriff's office to avoid the spectacle of a parade to city hall. The jury consisted of twelve faces Gabe recognized from the crowd that had escorted him from the saloon. The judge was an old friend of the reverend's. Even if there had been a lawyer in town willing to represent him, Gabe wouldn't have used one. He represented himself, by way of stony silence, as the charges against him were rattled off. After ten minutes of deliberation, he was convicted of eleven counts of first degree murder and sentenced to death by hanging.

The sheriff held true to his word, and protected Gabe from the massing fervor of the public. He was allowed no visitors and was watched twenty four hours by at least one armed guard. Unfortunately, there wasn't much the sheriff could do to protect him from his own deputies.The week leading up to his execution passed by in a slow blur of boredom and discomfort. The deputies were ordered to feed him, but they made such a show of pissing in the soup and stirring horseshit into the gruel, that even at his hungriest he couldn't make himself consume what they brought. What was the point, anyway? His corpse wouldn't care if it was hungry.

Likewise, he was given just enough water to survive. He wasn't permitted to wash, and his muddy, sweaty clothes grew steadily more rank as the week passed. The bucket in the corner was emptied twice in the entire duration of his stay, and he supposed he should count himself lucky that they were giving him so little food and water. When they entered his cell to leave food or take the bucket away, he was ordered to stand with his back to the bars, and his hands were drawn through and lashed to the cold metal to prevent him from escaping or attacking while the door was open. His two young jailkeepers conceived a fun game of forgetting to untie him and leaving him there until the sheriff finally came around and released him. The longest stretch was on Wednesday, and lasted from dawn to well after dusk.

He thought a lot of Katherine and Isobel in the beginning. It was a pleasant way to pass the interminable hours, imagining them free and happy, on a train to some idyllic destination. He pictured Katherine as a schoolteacher, stern but sunny as she coached the children into reciting their letters and adding up figures. He envisioned Isobel as a taciturn teenager, blossoming into the same fierce womanhood that had transformed her mother before his eyes.

After the first few days, however, he did his best to put love out of his mind. The bullet track across his shoulders itched like hell as it healed, but the one on his arm grew hot and sore, and the heat spread throughout his body. The pleasant musings of his girls were transformed into terrible fever dreams. Every time he drifted, he found himself on that sunny cobblestone street in some city he had never seen. Again and again, he watched Katherine and Isobel shop in the colorful market. Over and over, his body sank into the stones, which held him hostage as he watched a faceless stranger approach them. Embrace Katherine. Heft Isobel into his arms. Always, the man finally turned and showed his face.

The reverend-- visage twisted into a death mask, eyes glassy and blood dripping from his gaping mouth.

The deputies took to tossing buckets of water over him when the dreams set him to thrashing on the narrow cot. They probably did it to be cruel, but he was grateful for the wave of cold, jolting him loose from the dreams.

By the time Saturday arrived, there wasn't much Sheriff Lee could do to fabricate a dignified affair. But, again to his credit, he tried. A few hours before dawn, a grumbling deputy brought a tub of clean water, a sliver of soap, and a clean set of clothes. Gabe did his best to wash up, but he wasn't permitted to shave and all the soap in the world couldn't wash away the defeat that had carved itself into every muscle of his body. The sheriff himself delivered a cup of black coffee and a slice of fresh bread, unmolested and still hot from the oven. Gabe took one bite of the bread, one sip of the coffee, and vomited both onto the floor beside the cot because he didn't have the energy to walk to the bucket.

There was a small, barred window high up in the wall beside the door, which he had been using to mark the passage of the days. The sky beyond it was just shifting from the pitch of night to the deep blue of coming dawn when the sheriff came back and passed Gabe's boots and belt through the bars.

Under the watchful eye of his captors, Gabe shoved his feet into the boots and tightened the belt around his waist. Then he stood, wavering, with his back to the bars, and let them tie his wrists and ankles as they had the day he'd arrived.

Funny, he thought numbly as he was led out the front door and into the chill morning air. Nothing's changed.

It seemed to him as if time outside the office had simply stopped during the week of his captivity. It had been dark when he went in, and was dark when he came out. The same deputies flanked him. The same crowd waited to escort him to his execution.

His knees didn't want to lock, but somewhere beneath the apathetic veil of hunger and fever, he knew that his last remaining wish was that his own feet should carry him to his death. The haze of his mind could conjure no greater insult than to be dragged onto the platform like a recalcitrant child.

So he mustered what was left of his strength and his manhood and he walked himself the half mile from the sheriff's office to city hall. The courtyard had been set up for the spectacle, with a raised platform and a scaffold, bearing a single noose that hung in silhouette against the dark blue of the sky.

He stopped at the base of the stairs onto the platform, not from fear but because those four wooden steps loomed like a jagged white-capped peak before him—insurmountable.

"Let's go, son," the sheriff said quietly, prodding him in the back. He lifted one foot and set it on the step, and his muscles burned from the effort. Another step. Another. Another, and he stood swaying on the platform, staring out over the sea of faces that had come to celebrate his defeat.

He smiled.

There was a comfort in knowing that time would make fools of them all.

The affair seemed to drag on for an age of drama and ceremony, and he wondered if he was the first prisoner who wished they'd just be done with it and kill him. First the mayor gave a speech—some lachrymose oratory about the reverend's guiding hand and the strength of the community and the steady scales of God's wrath and mercy. By the time he stepped away, the crowd was in a fervor and the coming sun had begun to turn the distant horizon a dusky grayish pink. Gabe tipped his head back and was glad to see that there were still a few stars, twinkling against the velvet blue overhead.

After the mayor, the widow of one of Gabe's victims stepped up, covered from head to toe in black lace, and sobbed her way through a self-indulgent prayer for Gabe's eternal soul. "... may God have mercy on you," she concluded, her puffy red eyes meeting his, and he wanted to laugh. In truth, he hadn't made her a widow. Her husband, Pat Weston, had been dead by the time Gabe arrived. A sheep, shot through the throat by his shepherd.

The widow's impassioned, disingenuous message of pity roused the crowd from an uneasy eagerness to a feverish excitement. The yelling and jeering rose up overhead like a storm cloud, and in the rising light Gabe found himself searching their faces. He didn't know what he was expecting, or wanting, to find. He'd explicitly told Caroline not to let any of the girls come to this charade, had begged Josh not to involve himself, and knew that Katherine would be hiding away somewhere safe with Isobel.

So what was he looking for? Why was he disappointed when every set of eyes he met was filled with hatred? He didn't want loyalty anywhere in that crowd. He didn't want people he loved to watch him die. He'd seen men hanged. It wasn't pretty.

So why was he still searching? Why did his haughty amusement give way to an aching, hollow loneliness when his search met with not a single friendly face?

Finally, it was time. He shifted his gaze from the crowd to the horizon as he was led to stand beneath the noose. The sun was just peeking up over the distant hills, and a band of gold was pushing the layer of pink up, where it blended from pale green into a washed out navy. One star still winked at him, and that was the last thing he saw before a heavy burlap sack was dropped over his head. He closed his eyes and conjured Katherine's voice. Her kiss. Isobel's messy braids and the weight of her head on his shoulder.

Somewhere far, far away the judge was reciting his crimes and the loop of the nose was fitted around his neck, resting heavily on his shoulders for a fraction of a second before it was drawn tight enough to secure the burlap sack but not so tight that he couldn't breathe.

"Step up, now, son," the sheriff's voice said quietly in his ear. "'Bout knee height. I removed the rope, so you'll be able to reach."

He stepped up onto the stool, surprised at how strong his legs felt beneath him. His tingling fingers, still bound behind him, twitched around an imaginary lock of Katherine's hair. He pulled in a deep breath and told himself it smelled, not of musty burlap, but of earth and pine and desperate, worshipful sex.

He wondered, then, if she was really waiting by the Bridge like she had said. He pictured her there, sitting on a dew-stained rock with Isobel in her lap. They were smiling, faces awash in golden light. Was it sunrise or sunset? He couldn't tell. He didn't care. Isobel's smile widened to a grin and she threw her arms wide, launching herself from her mother's lap and running toward him.

He was just bending to catch her when he felt the barb of the mayor's voice in his ear, giving the order, and the stool disappeared from beneath him. Isobel vanished. Katherine was gone. The river, the Bridge, the woods, and any hope he'd harbored that his death would come quick all dissolved into reality.

His body lurched and dropped, and the rope drew so tight he felt as if it would slice right through his neck.

If only he were so lucky.

His ears were filled with the nauseating, suffocating sound of his own choked efforts to breathe. His body flailed in the air, fighting the ropes with every fading ounce of his strength, even as his blood turned to acid in his vein. There's no air. No air. He was back at the Bridge. Deep, deep under the rushing water of the river. Strange that the water was hot. It burned as it buried him.

There's no air. Just pain. Everywhere. Around him, in him. A thousand knives stabbed into his chest. Scalding water filled his mouth, his throat, his nose.

He heard her then. He'd hoped she would come. He'd imagined her in white, her face serene and her voice a soothing lullaby as she escorted him into some kind of afterlife they could share. Instead, she came to him screaming. Furious. He couldn't see, but the fire in his body outlined her existence in black and colored the heart of her a deep, vengeful scarlet. She wasn't an angel but a demoness, all rage and hate.

Maybe they were right, he thought as even the pain faded and all that remained was a rising darkness and this flame-shrouded, curse-spitting Katherine. Maybe hell is real. 

*** 

The End

Hahaha, just kidding. There's a bit more.

Cheerio <3 

Liz

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