He had only a few hours before he would be escorted out of the old rock jailhouse, his hands bound behind him, into the street. He would smell the fresh, pine stairs as he ascended to the pulpit. He would have one last prayer said for him by the preacher, but he wouldn’t hear the words. His head would be covered by a black hood. He would feel the prickling hairs of the new rope as it tightened around his throat. He would feel it pulling him upward, onto his tiptoes. He would hear the murmurs from the crowd gathered, there to witness. He wouldn’t see as the hangman raised, then, dropped his arm, signaling the man below to pull the lever that would drop him through the gallows, straight to hell, or maybe heaven…

*

He only had a short time to reflect back on his life. He was glad his beloved mother had already passed on and wasn’t around to see how he was to die.

He remembered as a young boy on their Oklahoma farm, watching her being swept away by raging flood waters while trying to save a struggling calf from drowning in a fast rising creek. He remembered the fear in her eyes as she moved away from him, downstream, grasping for every passing bush, every tree, every rock, a root, anything. Then she disappeared from sight. He wanted to jump in the water after her, but he couldn’t move.

He was only a boy, surely too young to be left to survive the world alone. His father had left the family to their dusty, cattle farm for bigger adventures out west. He remembered the crude photograph of his mother and father on their wedding day, looking young and happy. She wore a fine, white dress, decorated with lace around the collar and sleeves; her honey colored hair long and curled, framing her youthful, glowing face. His father stood above her, hair slicked back, dark skinned and strong, grasping his tailored suit with his strong right hand at the lapel, his other hand resting softly on her shoulder. It was the only reminder he had of them, and he carried it with him throughout his troubled life.

He remembered as his Uncle Jude lifted him onto the back of his wagon after his mother’s funeral. He wanted to stay, to be with his mother, even if she really wasn’t there. From the back of the wagon, he watched as the workers shoveled fresh dirt onto the wooden box that held the only person he’d ever loved, the only one who had ever really loved him.

He thought back to the years with Uncle Jude. He remembered the beatings he took from him; being tied up in the back stall in the barn and whipped for no other reason than a bottle of whiskey turning a man into an animal. He remembered the day he had grown big; strong enough to grab the hidden, waiting pick axe deep into his Uncle Jude’s back before he could render him another beating. That night he ran as fast as he could, as far away as he could get. He never stopped running.

*

Everywhere he went he saw the posters.

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE.

He carried on, hiding, from one town to the next, looking back over his shoulder at every turn, hoping no one recognized the face on the poster. But someone did. High in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where he’d found a place he thought surely no one would find him.

His life had finally taken a turn for the better. He’d found work on a cattle ranch, and did well there using the ranching skills he’d learned early on from his mother. He’d even begun to teach the younger boys on the ranch how to ride, rope, and brand. He’d found a woman, young and beautiful; unaware of his past. At night they would ride to a place overlooking an Aspen filled valley, the mountains rising proudly behind. There they would talk and make love, sometimes until dawn. He couldn’t remember life being better.

Then came that September morning. The dew had moved back to the sky, turning it to white-gray, puffy, morning clouds. The snow had already fallen in the upper range, leaving a glow as it slowly melted away.

He could still see the strange rider, shotgun aimed in on his skull as he knelt over a calf, lying helpless, bleeding, barely alive over a broken, barb wired fence.

The nearer to him the rider got the more familiar he became. One arm was gone, the other held the gun.

The pick axe had missed its mark.

Uncle Jude.

He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even Uncle Jude. He was someone new, wearing a badge.

“I knew I’d find ya boy. I’d prefer to kill you now, but I’d get more pleasure watching you dangle from a hangman’s noose. Then with a blow from a shotgun stock, he fell.

He woke in a jail cell, shackled and sore.

Beat again, but alive, if only for a while……….

Keith J. Palmer
2002

Keith Palmer is a 45 year old free-lance writer living in Osceola Mo. He is a veteran of the U.S.M.C. He graduated from Univ. Of Mo. K.C. with a B.A. in coummuniction studies. He has one son 20 years old. He is single, and enjoy many outdoor activities, camping, fishing, and outdoor photography. He is a colon cancer survivor going on 4 years now.