Chapter 1 – Convicted
"Don't I get a last meal?"
"Nah, we don't believe in coddling condemned men in this town, my town. It's bad enough you tried to kill my son Jasper and chased him all the way from Dodge City just 'cause he saw you murder my hand Kyle Watkins. He was well liked in these parts. Here in Cheyenne County folks avenge the death of folks like him and Jasper. You're lucky they only roughed you up some, but they felt you should be left to the law as it's carried out in Quinton. Part of that law is keepin' a prisoner chained in his cell even after he's sentenced to hang. If doin' that is painful, so much the better. We sure don't give him a fine meal."
His speech ended, sheriff and judge and biggest rancher in the county, Holden Quinton, turned on his heel and walked away from the cell. Once the door closed behind the retreating back of the man responsible for his predicament, the prisoner was left in near darkness. There was a slit high on one wall that emitted a faint amount of light, a bit brighter for the short time, or so it seemed to the man confined within, the sun shone directly through the opening. Now, with his hands cuffed behind him in such a way that the manacles pulled on both shoulders, but particularly on his already dislocated right shoulder, and his legs shackled to the narrow, bare cot restricting him to a seated position on it, he had no way to see out. The condemned man tried to block out the general discomfort that had become agonizing pain in his right shoulder but his surroundings left him little to focus on except all that he was leaving behind and the irony of the end he faced.
Prior to his conviction, from the time he first awakened in the cell, the prisoner was able to move about within the small confines of the six by four barred room. Back then the leg irons merely ensured a shuffling gate and he could eat and drink what little they allowed him after a fashion with his hands cuffed in front of him. When he stood and faced that slot on the wall behind the cot, the large man was more than tall enough to see out it, but all he saw was a bit of nothing. There was no way he could stand behind the cot and even his six-foot seven-inch height was too short for him to see more out of it while kneeling on that excuse for a bed. He'd tried to hop up on it so he could stand by the so-called window, but the irons and lack of anything to grab hold of prevented him from jumping high enough or, if he did, balancing enough to not fall back off it. His attempts had only aggravated his injuries and probably given him a few new bumps and bruises, especially at the back of his head.
The trial had ended not an hour ago and had lasted barely that long. It was the only time the prisoner had seen anything of the world outside his cell since he'd first come to he couldn't say how many days ago. Jasper Quinton had given his testimony, but the only truth in it was what had occurred at the Long Branch and that was only partially true. He'd shot at Jasper, but Quinton had been the one caught out, not him. Judge Quinton did give him an opportunity to state his version of events back home in Ford County, but neither judge nor jury believed any of it. To them he was a killer and a spoiler, a drifter by the name of Harley Fitznoble, not who he really was – US Marshal, Matt Dillon. The jury took less than five minutes to convict him. Now he sat in his cell listening to the sounds of the gallows being built on which they'd hang him tomorrow at noon when the most people would be available to watch.
