The story's entitled The Mission in Purgatory. Right now, its pretty rough and unrefined, but give it a look-see nonetheless. Comments and/or critiques are welcome. Thanks :)
<center><font size=3>1.</font>
<font size=7><b>Of Saints and Killers</b></font></center>
Sunday morning rose across the dusty expanse of New Mexico, painting the drab sand and pink sandstone in the hues of sunrise. Shadows appeared as tall, gaunt ghosts, foreboding spirits guarding the quiet of daybreak. Perhaps they were ghosts indeed. The land they haunted was full of aimless men, it was true; tumbleweeds who called no house their home. Such men died young on the frontier, and their spirits in turn became rolling stones. Somewhere through the Sunday morning sunrise, they were surely out there, wandering the trails between Heaven and Hell, but never finding either for all eternity. As the sun grew fierce across a turquoise sky, the shadows retreated in reverence. Were the spirits of the night refusing to entreat upon the day and the living, or did they hear the call from Purgatory?
On the day the Good Lord rested, Justice labored obliviously to her God. She’d often turned a blind eye. Today, she’d earned a hard heart. Purgatory, New Mexico was a town living on a knife’s edge. Law and Lawlessness, she knew them well. Dapper entrepreneurs from the east coast peddled their wares. Prospectors toiled in silver mines. Killers and thieves circled them all like wolves. Outside of the shadow of a gun, townspeople embraced the illusion of normalcy. When they found themselves under the gun, a pandemic of normalcy existed that spoke volumes of Purgatory’s demons. No matter how many dollars changed hands, and no matter how much finery lined the shop windows, it couldn’t glitter away the blood in the dusty streets. More the pity to the folks of Purgatory, blood begets blood.
There would be a hanging this Sunday. Instead of scripture and hymns at the mission, the townsfolk put their Sunday best on to gather around the town square, and the white pine gallows that stood at the side of the county courthouse, like a giant skeleton picked clean by the sun. The scant bits of flesh that remained on the bones were soon to be committed to Eternity. Four condemned men marched up the unfinished plank-board steps, and were fitted by a hooded hangman. The crowd beneath the damned began to buzz with all the potential energy of a mob. Rumors of their ill deeds spread as whispered wildfire, quickly fanned into the flames of tall tales. An occasional jeer cut through the rumblings, piercing the dry desert air.
As the hangman drew fast the prisoners’ nooses and bindings, two figures emerged through the thick oak doors of the courthouse, and onto the broad steps below. One man stepped to the side, relinquishing the center of attention to Jacob Tecumseh Prentice, town judge of Purgatory. He was a grey-haired gentleman whose eyes were sharp and relinquished none of the intensity he no doubt held as a younger man. The judge stood directly across from the gallows trap door, and waited for the crowd’s attention before speaking.
“People of the township of Purgatory, I promised you a fair shake. A chance to make your riches in the manner the Good Lord deemed fair. I promised you a town without violence; a town without lawlessness. I promised a town without the miscreants and rabble that infest every cattle-town from here to El Paso like so many fleas!”
The Judge paused, and the crowd began a small crescendo of voiced approval. “I intend to make good on my promises in full.” At this, the crowd outright cheered. Prentice allowed their cheers to die down, and continued again.
“These four that stand atop the gallows are the curs of the frontier. They have no respect for the law, or for your lives and livelihoods!” The judge roared with a minister’s panache for hellfire and brimstone, fueling the anger of the crowd. “They’d see Purgatory become a den of thieves, and a debutante’s ball of whores!”
Prentice scowled, and waggled a defiant finger. “Well, not on my watch, they won’t! I’ve assembled before you the dregs of our town, so that they may confess their wicked deeds by their own tongue, before feeling the grip of the Law around their neck. You’ll bear witness to their confession, and spread this example far and wide to the evil-doers that wish to rape and pillage our little hamlet.”
The judge pointed out the man nearest him on the gallows. “Jeremiah Flint!”
A broad-shouldered black man turned his eyes to the firebrand judge. “Yessuh.”
“You stand accused of one grievous act of murder, multiple acts of thievery against the coffers of the Union Pacific railroad, fifteen acts of horse thievery, and of being a listless and surly negro, unappreciative of the gifts of emancipation bestowed upon you. How do you plead?”
Flint considered the judge’s floral accusations for the slightest of moments, and replied, “I did all those things, and I don’t never regret it.”
The crowd gasped at Flint’s brazen defiance, and the judge cast him a look that would blanch eggshells. He let his ire rest on Flint for a moment longer, then turned his attention to the man at Flint’s left. “Cody Buckner!”
A tawny-haired head snapped toward the judge, and an angry retort followed. “That’s Lieutenant Buckner, suh!”
Prentice accosted the blonde-haired man with a furious shout, “You have no army to fight for, you goddamned rebel! While Lee’s ink was long dry at Appomattox, you rode with Quantrill’s murderin’ band across Missouruh and all hell’s creation. I accuse you of treason you cur, and you’ll get all the hangin’ cure that ails it!”
Buckner smiled bitterly. “If sendin’ them bluecoat carpetbaggin’ scoundrels back to the Devil that spawned ‘em is yuh definition of treason, then I’ll confess with a smile, suh.”
Considering further tirades against a condemned man to be beneath his concern, the judge let the rebel’s plea meet silence. The crowd, however, roared their ill will at Buckner. Stones and spoiled food pelted him from all directions.
“Johnny Reb gonna hang now!”
“Goddamned murderin’ Missouruh scum!”
“Can’t fight the Union with that rope ‘round your neck, hayseed!”
Prentice intervened with a wave of his hand, “ENOUGH!” Eventually, the crowd’s angry shouts died down to angry murmurs. He then pointed a finger at the man left of Buckner.
“You!” He yelled, as if calling a dog. “What’s your name, savage?”
The Comanche warrior looked to the judge for a moment, and then looked away once more. This infuriated the judge.
“I ASKED YOUR NAME!” He bellowed, waving an accosting fist in the air.
“Three Feathers, of the Comanche Nation” came the warrior’s well-metered response in English.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Prentice queried, and regrouped again. “You stand accused of multiple counts of cold-blooded murder, scalping the heads of good Christian men, and contributing to the ruination of the peace between Indian nations and the Federal government of the United States! How do you plead?”
Three Feathers seemed to stiffen, and stand fully upright as he addressed the crowd below him. “Three Feathers has done these things. As long as the white man refuses to honor a promise, Three Feathers will do these things forever. You can not kill Three Feathers with hanging rope. The spirit of Three Feathers will return with the coyote’s cry, and you will know justice only then.”
“We’ll see how well you hold up against hangin’ rope, Indian.” Prentice retorted, to the crowd’s cheers for vengeance. He finally turned his attention to the last man on the gallows. “You! Tell the townsfolk your name!”
A hanging head tilted up to regard the crowd and the judge from beneath its wide-brimmed hat. As the face beneath the hat met the eyes in the crowd, it elicited gasps.
“Its him!”
“Scourge of the Gila River!”
“It’s Henry Blalock!”
“He’s killed fourteen men!”
“I counted forty!”
“He killed my baby!”
“Mine too!”
“Damn you, Henry Blalock! You’ll burn for this!”
The eyes that fell on the crowd cowed their rage into silence. They were black and depthless, like bullet holes shot straight through the man’s brain to burn away his conscience. His face was hard and decorated with the trophies of a killer’s trade. Scars adorned his face like craters on the moon, and amid the jungle of his unkempt five o’clock shadow rested a perpetual hateful scowl.
He lingered his scornful eyes on the crowd a moment longer, as if daring them to speak ill of him, lest he shoot them dead with a glance. His dark orbs then slowly traced along the throng of townsfolk until they arrived at Judge Prentice.
“I think you know my name.” He spoke in a gravelly voice, forever in want of redemption or water. The Sunday morning desert air seemed to attract an unearthly chill.
The judge seemed to almost hesitate in the midst of eyes as fiery as his own. He regained his train of thought quickly enough, however “Henry Blalock, what crime can I name that you shouldn’t now confess to? You were born on a black day, and every step you’ve walked across God’s creation has desecrated it. Your name is synonymous with murder, and your life’s story is written on tombstones. Is there anything you could possibly say now to assuage the horror your life has afflicted upon the world, before I send you to Hell as the Devil’s own?”
A silence followed, punctuated by a screaming crow perched on a distant rooftop. Blalock leaned forward, and spat a mouthful of tobacco across the white pine gallows, staining them dark. He kept his eyes on the judge, and a moment later, gave his statement. “I did it all. I ain’t sorry for a bit of it. I reckon if you don’t kill me today, I’ll keep on fillin’ up caskets. Maybe one of ‘em will be yours, judge.”
“You’ll be in Hell before high noon, Henry Blalock!” Prentice stormed angrily.
“I don’t think the Devil wants me in his house.” Blalock replied in his eerie rasp, “I reckon I’ve knocked enough on the door to be let in by now.”
“Hang him!” The crowd screamed. “Hang ‘em all!”
“Murderers!”
“Killers, the lot of you!”
The crowd’s fury reached its peak, and the roar around the gallows grew. Prentice allowed them to work their vexations out for a moment, and then cowed them.
“That’ll be enough!” The crowd’s anger died down, and the judge spoke again, this time to the condemned. “You four unrepentant souls have admitted your crimes. You damned murderers refuse to even ask forgiveness on the gallows, so I am left with no recourse. You will all hang from the neck until you are pronounced dead. May God have mercy on your souls.”
“May God have mercy on YOUR soul, judge!” A voice rose above the din, at the back of the crowd. The mob collectively turned their attention to the rear, as did Judge Prentice.
Father Miguel Pacheros approached the gallows, livid as a lightning strike across a midnight sky. A morning wind cut through the town, flapping at the priest’s black garb. His dark silhouette cut a sharp contrast across the sun-baked sand. He spread his arms wide, so the contents of his hands could be clearly seen by all. In his right hand, he carried the good book, the Holy Bible.
In his left, he carried a gun.
<center><font size=3>1.</font>
<font size=7><b>Of Saints and Killers</b></font></center>
Sunday morning rose across the dusty expanse of New Mexico, painting the drab sand and pink sandstone in the hues of sunrise. Shadows appeared as tall, gaunt ghosts, foreboding spirits guarding the quiet of daybreak. Perhaps they were ghosts indeed. The land they haunted was full of aimless men, it was true; tumbleweeds who called no house their home. Such men died young on the frontier, and their spirits in turn became rolling stones. Somewhere through the Sunday morning sunrise, they were surely out there, wandering the trails between Heaven and Hell, but never finding either for all eternity. As the sun grew fierce across a turquoise sky, the shadows retreated in reverence. Were the spirits of the night refusing to entreat upon the day and the living, or did they hear the call from Purgatory?
On the day the Good Lord rested, Justice labored obliviously to her God. She’d often turned a blind eye. Today, she’d earned a hard heart. Purgatory, New Mexico was a town living on a knife’s edge. Law and Lawlessness, she knew them well. Dapper entrepreneurs from the east coast peddled their wares. Prospectors toiled in silver mines. Killers and thieves circled them all like wolves. Outside of the shadow of a gun, townspeople embraced the illusion of normalcy. When they found themselves under the gun, a pandemic of normalcy existed that spoke volumes of Purgatory’s demons. No matter how many dollars changed hands, and no matter how much finery lined the shop windows, it couldn’t glitter away the blood in the dusty streets. More the pity to the folks of Purgatory, blood begets blood.
There would be a hanging this Sunday. Instead of scripture and hymns at the mission, the townsfolk put their Sunday best on to gather around the town square, and the white pine gallows that stood at the side of the county courthouse, like a giant skeleton picked clean by the sun. The scant bits of flesh that remained on the bones were soon to be committed to Eternity. Four condemned men marched up the unfinished plank-board steps, and were fitted by a hooded hangman. The crowd beneath the damned began to buzz with all the potential energy of a mob. Rumors of their ill deeds spread as whispered wildfire, quickly fanned into the flames of tall tales. An occasional jeer cut through the rumblings, piercing the dry desert air.
As the hangman drew fast the prisoners’ nooses and bindings, two figures emerged through the thick oak doors of the courthouse, and onto the broad steps below. One man stepped to the side, relinquishing the center of attention to Jacob Tecumseh Prentice, town judge of Purgatory. He was a grey-haired gentleman whose eyes were sharp and relinquished none of the intensity he no doubt held as a younger man. The judge stood directly across from the gallows trap door, and waited for the crowd’s attention before speaking.
“People of the township of Purgatory, I promised you a fair shake. A chance to make your riches in the manner the Good Lord deemed fair. I promised you a town without violence; a town without lawlessness. I promised a town without the miscreants and rabble that infest every cattle-town from here to El Paso like so many fleas!”
The Judge paused, and the crowd began a small crescendo of voiced approval. “I intend to make good on my promises in full.” At this, the crowd outright cheered. Prentice allowed their cheers to die down, and continued again.
“These four that stand atop the gallows are the curs of the frontier. They have no respect for the law, or for your lives and livelihoods!” The judge roared with a minister’s panache for hellfire and brimstone, fueling the anger of the crowd. “They’d see Purgatory become a den of thieves, and a debutante’s ball of whores!”
Prentice scowled, and waggled a defiant finger. “Well, not on my watch, they won’t! I’ve assembled before you the dregs of our town, so that they may confess their wicked deeds by their own tongue, before feeling the grip of the Law around their neck. You’ll bear witness to their confession, and spread this example far and wide to the evil-doers that wish to rape and pillage our little hamlet.”
The judge pointed out the man nearest him on the gallows. “Jeremiah Flint!”
A broad-shouldered black man turned his eyes to the firebrand judge. “Yessuh.”
“You stand accused of one grievous act of murder, multiple acts of thievery against the coffers of the Union Pacific railroad, fifteen acts of horse thievery, and of being a listless and surly negro, unappreciative of the gifts of emancipation bestowed upon you. How do you plead?”
Flint considered the judge’s floral accusations for the slightest of moments, and replied, “I did all those things, and I don’t never regret it.”
The crowd gasped at Flint’s brazen defiance, and the judge cast him a look that would blanch eggshells. He let his ire rest on Flint for a moment longer, then turned his attention to the man at Flint’s left. “Cody Buckner!”
A tawny-haired head snapped toward the judge, and an angry retort followed. “That’s Lieutenant Buckner, suh!”
Prentice accosted the blonde-haired man with a furious shout, “You have no army to fight for, you goddamned rebel! While Lee’s ink was long dry at Appomattox, you rode with Quantrill’s murderin’ band across Missouruh and all hell’s creation. I accuse you of treason you cur, and you’ll get all the hangin’ cure that ails it!”
Buckner smiled bitterly. “If sendin’ them bluecoat carpetbaggin’ scoundrels back to the Devil that spawned ‘em is yuh definition of treason, then I’ll confess with a smile, suh.”
Considering further tirades against a condemned man to be beneath his concern, the judge let the rebel’s plea meet silence. The crowd, however, roared their ill will at Buckner. Stones and spoiled food pelted him from all directions.
“Johnny Reb gonna hang now!”
“Goddamned murderin’ Missouruh scum!”
“Can’t fight the Union with that rope ‘round your neck, hayseed!”
Prentice intervened with a wave of his hand, “ENOUGH!” Eventually, the crowd’s angry shouts died down to angry murmurs. He then pointed a finger at the man left of Buckner.
“You!” He yelled, as if calling a dog. “What’s your name, savage?”
The Comanche warrior looked to the judge for a moment, and then looked away once more. This infuriated the judge.
“I ASKED YOUR NAME!” He bellowed, waving an accosting fist in the air.
“Three Feathers, of the Comanche Nation” came the warrior’s well-metered response in English.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Prentice queried, and regrouped again. “You stand accused of multiple counts of cold-blooded murder, scalping the heads of good Christian men, and contributing to the ruination of the peace between Indian nations and the Federal government of the United States! How do you plead?”
Three Feathers seemed to stiffen, and stand fully upright as he addressed the crowd below him. “Three Feathers has done these things. As long as the white man refuses to honor a promise, Three Feathers will do these things forever. You can not kill Three Feathers with hanging rope. The spirit of Three Feathers will return with the coyote’s cry, and you will know justice only then.”
“We’ll see how well you hold up against hangin’ rope, Indian.” Prentice retorted, to the crowd’s cheers for vengeance. He finally turned his attention to the last man on the gallows. “You! Tell the townsfolk your name!”
A hanging head tilted up to regard the crowd and the judge from beneath its wide-brimmed hat. As the face beneath the hat met the eyes in the crowd, it elicited gasps.
“Its him!”
“Scourge of the Gila River!”
“It’s Henry Blalock!”
“He’s killed fourteen men!”
“I counted forty!”
“He killed my baby!”
“Mine too!”
“Damn you, Henry Blalock! You’ll burn for this!”
The eyes that fell on the crowd cowed their rage into silence. They were black and depthless, like bullet holes shot straight through the man’s brain to burn away his conscience. His face was hard and decorated with the trophies of a killer’s trade. Scars adorned his face like craters on the moon, and amid the jungle of his unkempt five o’clock shadow rested a perpetual hateful scowl.
He lingered his scornful eyes on the crowd a moment longer, as if daring them to speak ill of him, lest he shoot them dead with a glance. His dark orbs then slowly traced along the throng of townsfolk until they arrived at Judge Prentice.
“I think you know my name.” He spoke in a gravelly voice, forever in want of redemption or water. The Sunday morning desert air seemed to attract an unearthly chill.
The judge seemed to almost hesitate in the midst of eyes as fiery as his own. He regained his train of thought quickly enough, however “Henry Blalock, what crime can I name that you shouldn’t now confess to? You were born on a black day, and every step you’ve walked across God’s creation has desecrated it. Your name is synonymous with murder, and your life’s story is written on tombstones. Is there anything you could possibly say now to assuage the horror your life has afflicted upon the world, before I send you to Hell as the Devil’s own?”
A silence followed, punctuated by a screaming crow perched on a distant rooftop. Blalock leaned forward, and spat a mouthful of tobacco across the white pine gallows, staining them dark. He kept his eyes on the judge, and a moment later, gave his statement. “I did it all. I ain’t sorry for a bit of it. I reckon if you don’t kill me today, I’ll keep on fillin’ up caskets. Maybe one of ‘em will be yours, judge.”
“You’ll be in Hell before high noon, Henry Blalock!” Prentice stormed angrily.
“I don’t think the Devil wants me in his house.” Blalock replied in his eerie rasp, “I reckon I’ve knocked enough on the door to be let in by now.”
“Hang him!” The crowd screamed. “Hang ‘em all!”
“Murderers!”
“Killers, the lot of you!”
The crowd’s fury reached its peak, and the roar around the gallows grew. Prentice allowed them to work their vexations out for a moment, and then cowed them.
“That’ll be enough!” The crowd’s anger died down, and the judge spoke again, this time to the condemned. “You four unrepentant souls have admitted your crimes. You damned murderers refuse to even ask forgiveness on the gallows, so I am left with no recourse. You will all hang from the neck until you are pronounced dead. May God have mercy on your souls.”
“May God have mercy on YOUR soul, judge!” A voice rose above the din, at the back of the crowd. The mob collectively turned their attention to the rear, as did Judge Prentice.
Father Miguel Pacheros approached the gallows, livid as a lightning strike across a midnight sky. A morning wind cut through the town, flapping at the priest’s black garb. His dark silhouette cut a sharp contrast across the sun-baked sand. He spread his arms wide, so the contents of his hands could be clearly seen by all. In his right hand, he carried the good book, the Holy Bible.
In his left, he carried a gun.
