A Congregation of Jackals (36 page)

“Mayor Jeffries,” Goodstead said.

“Come in, Sheriff,” T.W. replied.

The door opened; Meredith and the Jeffries looked toward the sunlit portal. Sheriff Goodstead, wearing a dark blue shirt, matching trousers and a silver vest, upon which he had pinned his badge, entered the house; he removed his gray hat. Deputy Kenneth John, wearing black, followed shortly after; he had thinned out and trimmed his beard since the tragedy.

“Good morning, folks,” Goodstead said.

“Good morning, Sheriff. Good morning, Deputy,” Beatrice replied.

“Good morning,” Meredith said.

Kenneth John said, “Hello.”

T.W. grimaced and nodded.

The Texan looked at Beatrice and Meredith and said, “The mayor’s hoarding all the pretty ones in here.” He looked at T.W. and said, “You selfish.”

“How is your mother doing?” T.W. asked Kenneth John.

“She ate something,” he said without elaboration.

“I’m glad to hear that,” T.W. replied. The woman had never recovered from her elder son’s death three years
ago and was now a widow as well. If she fell ill again, the mayor doubted that she would fight to stay alive, though Kenneth John was doing his best to make her proud.

“Do you like my new vest?” Goodstead asked Beatrice. “Look at the tassels on the back.” He turned around to display the ten small pendants of silver thread that hung there. He shook himself; the tassels swung pendulously and glinted.

“It definitely suits you,” Beatrice said.

“Thanks,” he replied, and turned back around.

Meredith said to the Texan, “You have a cheerful attitude, considering what you are about to do.”

“You ever have a cold where you get better—it’s almost all gone—but there’s just this little bit you have left, botherin’ you? Like a cough or some phlegm?”

“I have.”

“That’s what Oswell Danford is.”

T.W. slapped his palms to the table and stood up; the legs of his chair scraped across the wooden floor. Meredith handed him his cane. He kissed her and then pressed his lips to his daughter’s forehead.

The mayor looked at Goodstead and said, “Let’s get it over with.”

They walked to the door; the three men put on their hats the moment they crossed the threshold and were struck by the sun.

Mayor Jeffries and Sheriff Goodstead sat upon mares outside of the town jail, a squat stone edifice with four barred windows. The building was currently being expanded to accommodate the influx of strangers that the tragedy had attracted.

Seventy people were gathered on the sides of the
avenue, including Big Abe and his wife, Judge Higgins, Rita, Wilfreda (whose arm was in a sling), Roland and Vanessa Taylor (who had lost both of their children and looked wrathful), Snappy Fa (who had been caught in the collapse, survived, but lost a leg), the Sallys, a dozen other wedding guests with painful souvenirs, and more than a score of strangers. Ed the barber and a customer with a half-lathered face walked out of his shop to join the assemblage.

The door to the jail opened; Deputy Kenneth John escorted Oswell Danford outside. The rancher wore brown trousers and a beige shirt that had been cleaned yesterday for today’s event; his wrists were manacled. He squinted in the bright sunlight, his face covered with a prickly beard as red as Godfrey’s had been. The throng silently watched the deputy escort the man toward a saddled white horse.

An egg struck Oswell’s face and cracked; clear and yellow mucoidal strands dangled from his right cheek. Kenneth John continued to walk the prisoner forward. A rock cracked against Oswell’s forehead, leaving behind a red mark T.W. saw from ten yards off.

The mayor fired a pistol into the air; the report eddied through the crowd and to the plains.

T.W. yelled, “That isn’t what happens in Trailspur!”

“Look what he did! Look what he did,” Tara’s mother Vanessa yelled, her voice raw with rage.

T.W. cantered his horse directly toward the woman and said, “He’s going to pay for what he did, Mrs. Taylor, I promise you. But the Montana Territory is going be a state soon—we must be civilized. This man should and will be hanged as is proper by the laws of this country.”

An onion smacked Oswell’s swollen ear; the rancher winced but said nothing.

“That’s enough folks,” Sheriff Goodstead said. “From this moment forward, I will lock up anyone who throws somethin’ solider than a dirty look.”

From his wheelchair, Grandpa Sally yelled, “He should be strung up in public! We should get to see him choke!”

“That isn’t the kind of town I’m the mayor of,” T.W. said.

“Then we shoulda voted somebody else!”

“Maybe. But you have me for now.”

Deputy Kenneth John led Oswell to the white steed; the prisoner jammed his left foot into the stirrup, grabbed the pommel with his manacled hands and hoisted himself up. A gunshot cracked the silence; everyone but T.W. and Oswell flinched. The mayor surveyed the crowd and the storefronts; he saw no shooter or smoke.

T.W. looked at Goodstead and the deputy and said, “Let’s ride out.”

Kenneth swung himself onto his mare; the moment he was mounted, Goodstead snapped his reins and led the way. T.W. took the tether to Oswell’s horse and rode alongside him, behind the lawmen.

Several people yelled out obscenities, a handful threw vegetables and a few others anonymously discharged their guns into the air to scare the prisoner (which never even caused the man to blink), but the ride to the southwestern edge of town occurred without serious incident. Most townsfolk silently watched the quartet pass by from their porches or through their windows.

They rode past James’s house toward the unsettled hills.

“What happened to Lingham’s coydogs?” Oswell asked T.W.

“Beatrice tried to take them in, but they kept running back here. I suppose they’re wild now.”

The horses climbed a low hill; the wet grass squeaked like mice beneath the beasts’ hooves.

In a quiet voice, Oswell inquired, “Mayor Jeffries?”

“Yes?”

“Did my wife get the letter?”

“She did. I confirmed it with a telegram.”

“Did she wire anything back, or ask for my body?”

“No.”

Oswell nodded his head, but said nothing; T.W. found it hard to look at him.

The horses descended the rise; the mayor and the rancher leaned forward as if a hand pressed upon their backs; hooves squeaked.

“Thank you for checking,” Oswell said.

“You’re welcome.”

The horses continued forward; a leafless oak tree with three perpendicular branches rose from the earth ahead of them. Sheriff Goodstead withdrew a noose from his saddlebag, snapped his reins and galloped ahead.

Oswell asked, “Would you send me where you sent my brother’s remains?”

“Pineville?”

“Yeah.”

“I will.”

The horses climbed another hill; T.W. and Oswell were pushed back in their saddles by the invisible hand. Ahead of them, Goodstead threw the noose over the highest branch of the black tree and wrapped the tether around its trunk.

T.W. and Oswell tipped forward as their horses descended the hill.

The mayor looked at the prisoner and said, “Thank you. For catching her. For saving her.”

Oswell nodded.

The horses climbed the final hill; upon the azure canvas of the western horizon jutted the leafless black tree and the noose. The two men watched the loop grow larger and larger as they rode toward it; three distant trees, a mountaintop and an entire cloud were ensnared within its perimeter.

T.W. led Oswell’s horse beneath the branch. Kenneth John jumped off of his stallion and unlocked the prisoner’s manacles. Oswell put his arms behind his back; the deputy refastened the cuffs. Goodstead cantered his beast alongside the rancher, slid the noose over the man’s head, past his ears, down his cheeks (where it crackled against his beard) and around his neck. The Texan tightened the loop.

“Back away,” T.W. said to the lawmen.

Kenneth John swung atop his stallion; he and Goodstead rode down the hill and up the adjacent rise.

T.W. slapped the hindquarters of the white steed upon which Oswell sat. The horse bolted forward with a whinny; the rancher was yanked from the saddle. The noose cracked his neck; he swung backward and then forward, his face bright red with agony. He made no noise.

The mayor looked away from the asphyxiation. Deputy Kenneth John and Sheriff Goodstead watched. The creaking of the tree branch behind T.W. slowed and then stopped.

“Ship him to Pineville,” the mayor said to the lawmen.

“We will,” Goodstead replied.

Mayor Theodore William Jeffries wiped tears from his eyes, snapped his reins and rode directly at the glaring sun. For the duration of one heartbeat, his long shadow was a shroud upon Oswell Danford’s body.