The Scaffold

He stood higher than the rest, his chin lifted as his eyes looked over the crowd, but he wasn't giving them a scrutinizing glare that came from a pompous rise. He had no other position to put his head other than where it rested, for there was a noose circling his neck. Unlike his hands, clasped together with the kind of manacles that often dangled out of a lawman's hip pocket, his feet had the freedom to move. But since he had been stopped over the square that was the doorway of death, his left didn't drift any further than his right, and what was between them stayed only a slight spread.

He never thought he would die like this. A gun would have made more sense in taking him to his final breath, not a rope. Crashing out of the saddle trying to tame a wild mustang had more logic, not a rope. Lying abed with a fever draining away his life with every drop of sweat would have been more believable, not a rope. Wearing a star for a friend and then meeting a face printed on a wanted poster that refused to be taken into custody would have been easier to read in the newspapers, not a rope. But it was the rope that was going to end his life. He was only waiting for the preacher to say, "Amen".

The scripture being read aloud could have been done with more reverence to the Word, but he knew it wasn't the crowd's fault for breaking the solemnity that resided in the Psalms. He was a sight to behold, there on the scaffold, and not even what was written in the pages of the Bible could stop the tongues from murmuring his name, the reason why they all were gathered, and what was being witnessed on this chilly morning in Laramie. Even as the familier verse was being recited behind him, the talk continued below him, and maybe it was because he was living his last moments that his ears had the ability to pick up the tiniest fragments of their whispers, for he could hear every word.

"I can't believe I've lived to see this day." A graying woman shared into her grandson's ear, now a teenager, he would bear witness to his first hanging.

"Not him, anyone but him," said the girl from the store as she lowered her lashes, the moisture quick to seep through them.

"It's a hard time, all right, but the verdict is just," an old-timer bent over his cane said, finishing with a wilted shake of his head.

"I thought that we all knew him so well." The barkeep crossed his arms over his chest, the blow that he felt in a repeated slap where his heart throbbed unable to subside at its hugging. "But to kill a girl. One of my girls."

"After what he's done, he's getting what he deserves," snapped a stronger voice, a man without a name, but not without a significant glare of hatred. "He's a killer."

"He's going down with dignity, though," the owner of the newspaper said, his hand jotting notes as his eyes flicked upward to the head held high. "I wish I could capture that image."

"I wouldn't want to see it again," the girl from the store spoke again, the tears in her eyes dripping more freely now. "I don't even want to see it now."

"There, there," her brother said, pulling her close to his side. "None of us do. But we have to. Because of who it is."

"What is his name?" A newcomer asked, his horse underneath him barely stilled as he realized too late that he entered Front Street at the wrong hour.

"Slim Sherman." The reply came from a dozen mouths, but it seemed to be voiced as one.

He tried to swallow the lump that had grown to its largest at the sound of his name, but with the rope's loop pressing into his Adam's apple the attempt was futile. Its removal would be coming soon anyway, when he no longer had breath, but until then, the ball of emotion would remain stuck in Slim's throat. It had been there for a week now, the thickness developed with the turning of an iron key in a lock, pushing down when there was a signal of hope, only to be formed again later when the same hope met its death. Slim could have said he killed that glimmer himself, like he had been accused of doing to another.

The facts were all against him. Entering the Stockmen's Palace after a solo trip selling cattle with a sturdy roll in his pocket, Slim only intended on downing one drink before taking on the twelve mile stretch that would lead him home. When a pretty gal purred in his ear for a second, however, that second quickly became a third, and then he lost count. He wasn't drunk. The occurrence of Slim being inebriated was few and very far in between, but even if the sensation that made his steps tottery wasn't one of complete familiarity, Slim would have known it close enough to call it what it was. It bore repeating. Slim wasn't drunk.

Yet that was the claim when he stepped out of the saloon to go home, and that was why he didn't remember when Trish followed him out of the saloon and got him to chase her swishing skirt to an alleyway with more on her mind than a simple kiss. The eyewitness said it was Slim that had his hands on her waist, pressing her body into the saloon's back wall, their mouths working with the kind of abandon that often led to something more. But instead of loosening each others' clothes, it would be a tongue that became loosened first.

She wanted him, so it had been murmured throughout the town for weeks, and now that she was going to have all of him, she couldn't allow their soon-to-be-union to be held in secret. The eyewitness stood still long enough to hear his response to her declaration that she would be proud to tell everyone of their intimate venture, expecting to hear an announcement that would lead to wedding bells. He could see it even then, folks lined up for miles dressed in their finest to see the groom happily take his bride, but in an astonishing twist, his hands changed positions and went around her neck. The scream was lost with her gasp for air as the eyewitness' legs ran for the sheriff, the return with the lawman with gun in readied position too late for Trish lay crumpled on the ground in a raspberry puddle of satin and sequins, her neck broke, and the killer was nowhere in sight. He was found by a posse riding to his ranch, and since he was never the kind of man to run, Slim surrendered, the jail cell now has final home.

No one believed the story at first. Slim Sherman wouldn't do such a thing, he was too kind, too clean, too honest. But with the scent of whiskey on his breath to back them up, the accounts were told by more than one of how Slim had entertained the woman by his side with several glasses full, their bodies separating only long enough for him to leave through the batwings with her quickly to follow. That wouldn't have been enough evidence for a conviction if it wasn't for the eyewitness. He had known Slim Sherman his whole life, even worked for the same stage company and despite the evening shadows, he knew the tall line that was his frame, the way he spoke without accent or the broken dialect that belonged to an uneducated man. What was more, he knew how passion could ignite something in a man not normally seen but also how quickly such passion could die with a simple threat of tarnishing a spotless reputation.

No, no one believed it at first, but in the five day wait for the judge to arrive in town, the more the story was shared. In the middle of its swapping were the perennial wagging tongues that helped shift the tale far enough that even Slim was convinced he was to blame when he heard the talk outside of his barred window. But there was one major flaw to it all. Slim wasn't guilty. The whiskey that night gave him a headache, nothing further, and he was in the saddle before Trish had ever come after him and even if she would have called to him to come back, Slim would have kept on riding.

She was a pretty little thing, all right, pale blonde hair, young, with fragrance like a rose and her proper proportions accentuated by the cut of her dress. It wasn't just his eyes that absorbed her image, and when she came near, his mouth couldn't help but twist up into a smile. But despite the few moments of pleasure she caused while hanging from his arm, if Slim had been searching for long time love or a one-time lover, it wouldn't be with a girl that wore a sordid reputation as long as his arm.

Yet none of that mattered when his lawyer spelled out her past flings in front of the jury for the facts covered up every one. There was no other man that night that her eyes were set on, there was no other man that she followed and then in turn followed her, and from an onlooker's view, there was no other man that had been wrapped in her embrace. Slim Sherman was them all. Once the evidence was revealed in court, there weren't many left in town that wasn't ready to point their finger at Slim, and nod instead of cry when the guilty verdict was read. The kind of verdict that would have only one kind of sentence. Death by hanging.

And the moment of that sentencing was now.

"Amen." The preacher closed the Book, its thud sounding to the last row of people that lingered as far back as the livery stable.

The slow-moving steps of the sheriff were approaching, and Slim straightened his frame even further, his eyes unable to look anywhere else other than its perpetual direction that was forward. There were more of his friends and neighbors that had gathered in the last few moments, but they were quiet now, as their whispers had been reduced to shudders. There were a few in the crowd that lowered their lashes, present, but not wanting to actually see the gut-wrenching sight, but the majority had their gazes lifted to his, and Slim returned their stare. Starting from his left, his blue spread across the faces, the sweep made complete with the last body to his right. But it was a man in the middle that was reserved for the final connecting line.

Jonesy.

Standing with hands in his pockets, his face a look of pure sorrow, yet the full depth of his grief was held behinsld a mask. He wouldn't show the immense pain that was pressing heavily from every direction against his body. It was a gesture of love to protect Slim from seeing what wanted to overflow from his insides and only later, after the burial was performed could he unleash the torrent that flooded the backside of his eyes. Slim knew he needed to offer something in return, but with his hands held behind his back, his body at its most rigid, he had very little. It caused the strain to tighten against his throat, but Slim gave a simple note, the nod of his head, his mouth curling into a smile of thanks, and one, just one tear slipped down his cheek. Message received.

If Slim could sigh, at that moment it would have been rushing out of his lips, for as he blinked away the moisture, he saw another image, the one that he could see no other way than in his memory. The face that was missing was the youngest and dearest of his heart. Staying with Aunt Ella during the trial and what would follow, Andy would mercifully miss this gruesome event. But Slim couldn't help but wonder if he would see it anyway. Wasn't the newspaperman writing it down, word for word? Wasn't over half the town standing in attendance? In some way, this day would get relayed to Andy, but at least he had a comforting shoulder to press into if the created scene was too hard to bear.

Perhaps his brother would have done better if another man was there to be in charge, the one that Slim would have been glad to see stand in that rightful place, but he was gone. Jess had left without word shortly after Slim's arrest, and Slim would have admitted if anyone asked that he had waited for Jess' return every day since. But the man he had called his best friend remained out of sight. If there had been a last strand of hope that Slim would have clung to, it was that in this instant, during his glance over the crowd in his final moments that he would see that familiar face, but it was still absent.

It hurt, but Slim didn't blame him for not showing. After all, despite their bonding, they had only known each other a short time. Why should he stay around just to watch him hang? Jess had been in and out of so many scrapes in his time that watching Slim go through one with no way out could have stirred up too many emotions that were still so raw that they needed a bandage to cover them. It was probably better for Jess to move on before Slim breathed his last. In a way that was only Jess Harper, perhaps that was his gift for Slim so that the goodbye would never be said, because like the drifter that had worked his way into the heart of Slim's family, this time, Slim wouldn't have been able to say that parting word to him either.

"Any last words?" Asked the sheriff, and then with Slim's head shaking his reply, the lawman's hands, not without tremble, held up a solid black neckerchief, but this too, was refused. With nothing left to say, the sheriff removed the handcuffs, and although he wanted to give the upper arm a squeeze, he just let the cuffs find his rear pocket.

The air came into Slim's lungs in a short burst through his nose, intending to hold it there until it was no more, and with the sound of the sheriff's boots going to Slim's side, his fate would be sealed. A hand on the bar that would release the trapdoor brought a gasp throughout the crowd, and at its pull, air was under Slim's feet, the dangle stopped by a blast that severed the rope before it took a life.

"Hold it!"

Just like the perfect aim of the bullet, the shout was unmistakable. Jess Harper. He stood on the outer line of bystanders, his gun poised to explode a second time, his steely blue not for those that gaped at him, but for the one that lay on the ground. His presence fully established, Jess began a slow walk toward the scaffold, the weapon's barrel moving from one body to the other, daring anyone to try to halt him, but no one would take that challenge, as everyone he passed there was a foot stretching a large span in reverse. The final alignment went toward the badge, still atop the menacing structure, and as the lawman's hands began to rise, Jess' stride came to a stop alongside a friend.

"You all right?" Jess looked at Slim only long enough to receive the nod that came with a hand rubbing along his neck and then the sparks in his eyes turned to flames as they sought the dark hue that belonged to the lawman. "You ain't gonna hang Slim!"

"Well you did stop it," said the sheriff, his eyes leaving Jess' long enough to view the frayed piece of rope. "But it seems you've only delayed the process."

"No," Jess barked his return, and those that were watching for the lawman's response noticed that he physically jumped at the sharp pitch that came from Jess' throat. "You ain't gonna hang Slim at all."

"Jess, what're you doing?" Slim asked, half expecting that his friend was going to toss him onto the nearest saddle and then lead him on a run that would last to the end of his life, but the other half, and perhaps the strongest half, feared that Jess was only making a permanent place beside him on the scaffold.

"Saving your neck," Jess replied, and even though it only lasted a moment, the glimmer of a smile was seen.

"How?" Slim asked, and the question mark was echoed by several voices in the crowd.

"I knew better than to believe that cockamamie story about you and that saloon girl," Jess said, his eyes first held onto the puzzled blue below him, and then quickly shifted to pass over the group with a pronounced glare, "and so shoulda all of you. Maybe if I had some help hunting down the real culprit, then this hanging wouldn't have come this far."

"The real culprit?" The barkeep took a step forward, his finger going toward Slim. "Then he really isn't..."

"No, he really ain't."

"Then who did it?" The sheriff asked, the steps of the scaffold shaking as he descended to ground level.

He dropped the gun back into its holster, letting his eyes be threat's main replacement, and then Jess' stride took him to the rear of the jailhouse. With a tug on a set of reins, he pulled a horse away from the back wall, the man astride wearing several loops of rope from his chest down to his waist and a bandana wad stuck between his teeth. Taking the horse all the way to the base of the gallows before bringing it to a stop, Jess reached both hands to the man's waist and the haul to the ground was done without a gentle touch, his body crashing to the dirt with a groaning thud.

"Get up," Jess commanded, the iron returning to his hand to point to the lump on the ground. "I said get up!"

The push upward began with his knees, and then as a foot found the surface, the man gained his height, and with a flip of sandy hair to remove a messy lock from his eyes, a gasp went around the crowd, followed by a dramatic hush, but at least one voice found volume and uttered a rasping, "holy cow."

"What do you say, Alby?" Jess turned to find the eyewitness in a slow walk to where the man in question stood. "Is this the man that strangled the girl?"

"It is," he said, his fingers coming up to rest against his gaping mouth before lowering them again. "He's tall and lean, blonde just like Slim, but it's not Slim. I can't believe the mistake I made. I just can't believe it."

"It wasn't just you," Jess said, the growl loud enough to shake the ground everyone stood on, "it was all of you."

"How did you find him, Jess?" The sheriff asked, his handcuffs coming out of his pocket, but with the rope still tight, that added hold was unnecessary, yet when they clapped onto his wrists, the significance was there. The man was in custody.

"Followed a trail, although I didn't know it was the killer's until I caught up with him. I noticed the height resemblance and figured I had a good chance that I'd nailed the right man. I'll say this much for him..." Jess paused to rub his fist, and the bruises on the man's cheeks seemed to suddenly be more noticeable, "...it took some persuading to get him to talk. But he confessed to killing her, all right."

"Why did he do it?" The bartender asked, the angry lines of his face finally aiming at the right man.

"Maybe she had her eyes set on Slim while the whiskey flowed, but any further desire was directed at the other. And I reckon he couldn't let the girl tell anyone about their cozy quarters considering he's a married man."

"All right, you," the sheriff said, giving the killer a push toward the jail. "Your cot waits. But take a long look at the gallows, because that's where it'll really get final."

"Thanks for saving my hide, Jess," Slim said, the raising of his body not able to come to full completion without his eyes trailing upward to the scaffold's top.

"I reckon you'd do the same for me," Jess said, his palm connecting with Slim's shoulder in a hearty slap.

"You're right there."

"Well, Slim, unless you've got a fondness for wearing necklaces that I didn't know about, why don't you take that thing off and we'll head for home.

"I'll be glad to take it off," Slim said, the rope sliding over his head, but instead of landing on the ground, Slim touched the frayed tip. "Thanks again for cutting it first."

Jess lifted his head toward the rope's other end and smiled. "You know I wouldn't leave you hanging."

"I suppose I should've known it all the way." Slim started the slow walk away from the scaffold with Jess on his right and Jonesy on his left, but it was toward his right where his eyes turned. "But I definitely do now."