My Own Personal Gallows

He sits on the bench inside the town jailhouse, rotting away, hoping he'll die before he stands on the platform, and wait his turn in line for the gallows.

As he sits he hears the now familiar sound of a rope pulling taut and the strangled, attempted breathing of a man on death row. He sighs.

He wonders why he is here, what series of events, what circumstances led him to this spot, this exact spot. He would weep, but the time for weeping was long past. He had spent all his tears wetting the dirt floor of his too-small cell. He recalls the circumstances. Murder.

As he sits and ponders and thinks about his crime, he hears another rope, another life leaving behind a notorious legacy of wanton murder, and he knows that he's not so far back in line, not so far back that he can't make amends. But he's tried already. He is sorry.

He thinks back on his crime.

It was a warm day, unseasonably warm. A slight breeze rolled around and whipped up small dust devils. The General Store stands silent, no one coming in, no one leaving it. The buildings to the left and right, mostly boardinghouses, also stood silent. It was one of those days. It was one of the days where the only activity is across the street in the saloon.

Men, fresh from the mines or just off work, all gather around telling each other stories over beer. They tell of indians and attacks and murderers being strung up. They tell tales of justice and lawlessness, and their hearers take it in

Other men are in there swallowing down their pain. They drink to forget because remembering hurts and pain is the one thing they can't help. Except to drink. He was one of them.

He drank to forget the offences met out against him who knows how long ago. His only love had left him. Left him for a deacon (and son of the pastor) from the little churchhouse around the corner. They ran off only He knows where.

He orders another shot of whiskey and downs it, and the more he downs it, the more he remembers. He doesn't forget, but remembers. And the more he remembers the angrier he gets. And the angrier he gets, the more he wants to track down that low-life, scum of a deacon, and take back what was rightfully his.

He downs another one. He listens to the raucous laughter of the men behind him, now telling coarse jokes. For all he knows, they could be telling the story of ol' what's-his-name's wife who ran off with what's-his-name the deacon. More laughter. And the more he hears the laughter, and the more he downs the whiskey, the more he wants revenge. Yes, that's what he wants. He can feel it in his gut. It's a cold, hard feeling that screams for death. He drinks even more. Finally, when he can no longer drink another, he leaves.

The laughter follows him through the swinging doors and he stands in the middle of the street, remembering, remembering and hating. He walks and stumbles down the street. The street, barely lit now by the moon because he has been in there for hours and didn't quite realize it, stretches off before him. Beckoning to him to follow, to follow and to kill.

He walks back to his room at the boardinghouse. He walks and crawls his way up the stairs to his room and passes out on his bed. It's morning when he wakes. HE has a headache but he's still determined. He remembers last night, and that cold, hard feeling in his gut has not left. So he straps on his gun. He roots through the drawers of the little table by his bed until he finds what he's looking for.

A note. A note from her, from that no good hussy who ran off with what's-his-name the deacon. He almost laughs. It tells him right on the envelope where the note came from. A little town only about thirty miles from where he is now. He crumples it up and throws it on the floor. He leaves.

He grimaces as he walks down the stares. He has a killer headache from his evening at the saloon, and every step down he takes it sends a jolt of pain through his head. Finally, he reaches the ground floor and walks out in the street. He winces then too, for the light is bright and doesn't help.

He wastes no time saddling his horse and setting off. He didn't even buy provisions for the trip. Maybe he knew then that he wouldn't be coming back. Maybe he didn't care what happened to him as long as he killed that low life deacon.

He reaches the little town after dark. He ties his horse to the hitching post and enters this towns saloon. It's just like the last one. Raucous laughter, filthy language, and stench of cigarettes and alchohol permeate the room. He walks through a cloud of cigarette smoke and sits in a stool at the bar. He orders a shot and some information. He inquires after ol' what's-his-name the deacon. He asks about newcomers. Anyone who may have come in the past two weeks. He rewards the bartender well, and ponders the information he has been given. A place, a name, and a room number, more then he ever could have wished for.

The place wasn't hard to find. It was just down the street from the saloon. It was nestled between the general store and a church. Figures, he thinks. He walks into the boardinghouse and up the stairs. He enters the room quietly. It's dark, but he can see who occupies the bed. He recognizes both of them. He draws his gun, but he wants that deacon to see just what's gonna happen. He wants him to stare down his barrel and taste the fear in his mouth. He wants him to know how it feel when he loses everything.

So he wakes them up. He speaks, "Hello."

The figures bolt up in bed and turn the light on. The man in bed gasps because not two feet from his head is a barrel, a dark orb of death that seems to howl out the words "I'VE COME FOR YOU!"

Then an explosions shatters the night air. The peace has been broken. A scream, shrill and feminine, accompanies the following silence, which wasn't so silent.

The man leaves. He doesn't make it far before he's picked up. Three months later he sits on a bench in the jailhouse, listening to the sound of life after life being ended, and he is sorry. He's not sorry because he wants to live, he truly is sorry, remorseful, penitent, because he knows he did wrong.

Then, it is his turn. He stands up on the platform. It seems like a stage to him, and, in some ways, it is. There is a jeering crowd in front of him, screaming for his death. He closes his eyes. He ignores the voices of the crowd, the voices of the judge, and then he hears a new voice.

"Wait," it calls, "Don't hang him."

He opens his eyes and gasps. It's the pastor. The father of the deacon who ran off with his wife. He thinks the man has come to prolong his life, to make him live in agony over the decisions he made. But he hasn't.

The pastor walks over to the judge, the man who had the power to kill, the power to say a word and cut off his breath for eternity. The pastor whispers in his ear for sometime. The judge looks shocked. They argue for a few moments, and then stop.

The pastor walks up the steps to the gallows, and removes the rope from around the neck of his sons killer.

"You are free now," he says, "Go and sin no more."

The man stares at him in astonishment. What had he said to the judge to convince him to let him go? He was about to die, but now he was free. What had happened? He is silent though. He doesn't ask. He simply walks off the platform with tears in his eyes. And as he is walking away he hears the sound, the sound of a rope pulling taut, the sound of a life ending, and he stops. He turns around slowly.

The pastors body sways. His life has gone out of him. He no longer lives. The man wept. An innocent man had died in his place so that he could go free. The father of the man he killed had given his life, so that his son's killer could live.

He wept, and then he went and sinned no more.