The trial was held in the Lucky Lady saloon at ten o'clock in the morning. The air stank from bad whiskey, cheap beer, and stale tobacco. The plank floor was worn and scarred by years of hard boots, and stained by blood and tobacco juice and spilled whiskey.

The judge stood behind the bar and banged his gavel on a wooden block to get the crowd quiet. Several men were seated in the rows of chairs three deep and the rest stood up behind them. "All right now, let's settle down. This won't take no time at all and we can all get back to our businesses or work or loafin', which is most likely for the majority."

That got some laughter from a crowd that was all men except for the woman at the back. She was nervous, shaking, and kept squeezing a handkerchief. The man next to her, his eyes bloodshot, his thin face white as paper, his chin and neck raw from a dull razor, patted her shoulder and mumbled something that caused her to shake her head.

"All right, Marshal, bring the prisoner to the bar." He paused and pointed his gavel at the crowd: "You all can laugh at that one. I thought it was pretty good myself."

A few forced laughs was the only response.

The marshal, a man of fifty with a gray mustache, stood to the side with his deputy. The deputy held a double-barreled shotgun, and the marshal held the arm of a skinny boy of fourteen. He led the boy in front of the judge. The boy looked down at the floor.

"Your name is Daniel O'Brien? Is that correct? Look up and answer me, boy."

The boy raised his head and stared hard at the judge. "Yes."

"Now you're not denying the facts in this case, are you?"

The boy didn't answer.

"We have witnesses to the whole thing, you know. You did stab, with full intent to do harm, one Charles Cornett. You're not denying that?"

"Nope. I meant to kill him."

"Well, boy, you sure to God succeeded. Now you are fully cognizant that deed was morally and legally wrong, are you not?"

"I don't understand."

"You do know the difference between right and wrong?"

"I guess so."

"You do know killing a man is murder and murder is wrong?"

"He had it comin'."

"Are you claiming it was self defense?"

"Nope. He was bothering Ma."

"You claiming Mr. Cornett assaulted your mother?"

The boy shrugged.

"That is not what witnesses said nor what Marshal Webster saw when he stepped out of his office. Charles Cornett was facing you and had his back to your mother when you stabbed him."

"He was no good. He had it comin'."

A man in gray suit and vest jumped up in the front row. "That's a damn lie! It was that dirty whore that chased him."

The judge banged the gavel. "Easy there, Robert. Just sit down."

"Judge, everybody liked Charlie. He was a decent man and a good son. This son of a whore—"

The boy turned and started for the man, but the marshal grabbed him.

"All right now. That's enough. Don't worry, Robert, your son will get justice."

Robert Cornett sat down but still muttered about his son and that whore.

The judge pointed his gavel at the boy. "What were you going to do, kill the father as well as the son? Now, how do you plead?"

"I don't understand?"

"You saying you're guilty or not guilty?"

The boy didn't answer.

"God damn it, did you kill Charles Cornett?"

"I told you I did. Ain't you been listenin'?"

The judge shook his head and looked up at the ceiling.

"So it's guilty," and he banged the wood block with the gavel. "No need for anything fancy then. It's plain what has to happen. Daniel O'Brien, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until dead."

The saloon was quiet except for the sobs of the woman at the back.

"Well, Daniel, you have anything to say?"

"Nope."

"All right. Marshal, take the prisoner back to jail. We'll hang him tomorrow morning."

"What's wrong with right now?" Robert Cornett asked.

"Yeah? What about right now?" others called out.

"We don't need no gallows. A limb of an old oak will do," someone said.

The judge banged the gavel and said, "Enough of that. We're not lynching him. This whole thing is going to be according to the law. I say tomorrow and tomorrow it'll be, unless there's someone here who thinks he has more authority than I do. He hangs proper and that's that. Now, Marshal Webster, take the prisoner out of here."

Webster latched onto the boy's arm and slowly led him to the door. The deputy walked directly behind the marshal. All eyes followed them.

The boy glanced at his mother and father as he left.

"Now," the judge said, "court is closed and the bar is open. The first drink is on me, the second is on the Lucky Lady, and the third is on you."

Laughter and shouts filled the saloon as the crowd rushed to the bar.

The boy's mother and father quickly went outside.

The deputy gave the boy a spoon and a tin plate full of beans with pieces of ham fat, then set a cup of water on the stool next to the bunk where the boy sat eagerly spooning the beans into his mouth.

"You want anything else just yell or bang on the bars with that cup."

The boy nodded and kept eating.

The deputy closed and locked the cell door and walked down the hall to the office.

Webster sat behind the desk pretending to read a handbill on a pair of gamblers, a man and a woman, wanted for a shooting in Red Ridge. He looked up when the deputy sat down in a chair against the wall. "Tom, he say anything?"

"No. He don't speak much."

"That's the truth."

"It don't even seem to bother him he killed a man and is going to hang."

Webster leaned back and locked his hands behind his head. "He thinks he done right. He did what his old man should've done."

"That drunk? He's about worthless. I can't say much for the woman either. Old Cornett is right, she is a whore."

"No, Tom, she didn't take any money from Charlie. And when you think how her old man has been and everything, you can see how it happened."

"You saying she did right?"

"No. I'm saying I can understand."

"Not me. My Sally did something like that she wouldn't have enough teeth left to chew oatmeal. And the one she was cattin' with would be pushing up daisies."

"Like Charlie Cornett."

Tom was just about to answer when a cloud came over his face. He stood up and went over to the window and looked out at the street. Then he turned around to say: "No wonder the kid thinks he done right."

Around two o'clock Webster walked a block from his office and turned down an alley. Ahead of him were three men watching another man nail a supporting plank to a beam fastened to a tree with spikes. One of the men turned and nodded to Webster. "It's about done, Marshal. It should hold him."

Another said, "Been a long time since we used that tree."

"Near on ten years," the first man said. "Ain't that right?"

Webster said, "Close enough."

"I remember it took Curly Bill two hours to die. His last wish was for a bottle of whiskey and you gave him most of a pint before we strung him up."

Webster turned away and walked back up the alley. When he got to the street two men nodded to him and a woman in a bonnet said, "You going to hang that boy, Del?"

"Yes, I suppose I am."

"Some folks think you're hanging the wrong person."

"Miriam, I don't decide that."

"Well, if she knows what's good for her she'll leave town the first thing."

"Before or after her son's buried?"

"Delmar Webster, you sound like you're on her side. Everybody knows she went after Charlie and what do you expect? He was a decent man . . . but still a man."

"Miriam, I don't want to hear any more. Let your husband deliver the damn sermons."

He walked away from her before she could say anything. He went straight to his office.

Tom said, "She's here. She's in the back with the boy."

"You let her in the cell?"

"No."

"Toss me the keys."

Webster went down the hall, past two cells and stopped next to Mrs. O'Brien. She held her son's hand through the opening in the bars. The marshal unlocked the cell and opened the door.

"You can go inside, ma'am."

She rushed in and took the boy in her arms. She held him as tight as she could. She kissed his face and didn't try to wipe her tears.

Webster left the cell door open and went back to the office. He hung the key ring on a nail and said, "Tom, get yourself something to eat. I'll keep watch."

Tom looked down the hallway. "The cell's open."

"I know that."

"You're not thinking of doing something stupid, are you?"

"What's she going to do, smuggle the boy out under her dress?"

"I didn't mean that."

"Tom, if I was going to do what you're thinking, I sure as hell wouldn't do it in the middle of the day."

"That'd be real stupid and you're not that dumb."

"Thank you for the compliment. Now go . . . and say hello to Sally for me."

When Tom returned he said he'd stopped by the Lucky Lady to see how rowdy it was getting.

"And?"

"Lynching talk was gone but there was quit a bit about 'stripping the whore' and chasing her out of town. I went down to the river to that shack of theirs O'Brien calls a house but nobody was around. I don't know where he is. Probably hiding out with a bottle somewheres."

"I suppose so. Or he already took off."

"She still here?"

Webster nodded.

"She going to stay all night?"

"I expect so. It's the boy's last one."

"I'm surprised the parson hasn't been by to preach at the kid . . . at the mother too."

"He'll be at the hanging. He won't miss that."

"And old Cornett?"

"Oh, you know he'll be there. He'll want to pull the cart out."

"That going to be my job?"

"No, Tom. I'll do it."

The undertaker came by and said the grave was dug in the Paupers Plot. He'd have a plain wood coffin waiting at the gallows. "I'd like to be paid, you know. That's a man-sized coffin and I got to pay the diggers."

Webster said, "See the Judge about that. The town council will pay you."

"I just want to be sure. I'm not burying anybody for free, you know."

Webster was slowly and carefully filling a paper with tobacco from his pouch. He folded the paper, licked the edge, and wrapped it. He twisted one end, struck a match on the corner of the desk, and lit his cigarette. "Brackett," he said, "I should think you would do it for free considering the boy got you a real paying customer in Charlie Cornett . . . or at least the old man Robert."

"I don't see what that's got to do with it. A man has to make a living."

Tom looked up and asked, "What's wrong? Not enough people dying to suit you?"

The undertaker gave Tom a hard look, grunted, and left.

"When I die," Webster said, "throw me out in a field or dump me in a ravine and let the vultures cheat him out of his money."

Tom laughed.

At dusk the deaf mute Henry brought the dinners from the restaurant: one for Webster and one for the prisoner. Webster kept the coffee pot for himself but he took the dinners back to the cell. The mother was pale and worn out, cried out. The boy was quiet, holding her hand.

"Here you go," Webster said.

"I don't want anything," the woman said.

"Lady, you have to eat sometime so you might as well have something now."

"Yeah, Ma," the boy said. "C'mon, eat with me."

Webster started to leave but stopped. "Look, if you or the boy need to use the jakes, it's just out the back door. Me or the deputy will make sure nothing happens."

"Happens?" the woman asked.

Webster shrugged. "Just let me know."

Tom watched Webster closely when he came back.

"It's getting dark," Tom said.

"Yep," and Webster lit the lamp in the hallway and Tom struck a match to light the one on the desk. "Not that one, Tom. The one by the door. I'd make a good target sitting there."

"You think somebody might try that?"

"They get enough liquor in them they're liable to try anything."

"That's the truth."

The boy and the mother came down the hallway. The mother had the dinner plates and spoons. She handed them to Tom. She said to Webster: "Danny needs to go outside."

"Sure. Tom, put that down and take the boy out back."

Tom set the plates and spoons on the desk and took the boy by the arm and left by the back door. The woman stood there looking off to the side, her nervous hands trembling. Webster looked at her there in the lamp light, the soft warm glow on her face and hair. He could see why Charlie Cornett got interested, she had a good clean face, now lined some by work and worry, with large blue eyes and a mouth with a full, puffed-out lower lip. Her shining yellow hair was in a tight bun but he could guess what it looked like when she let it fall loose.

"I would like to stay here with my boy tonight, if that's all right."

"It's all right."

"That's kind of you. I do appreciate it."

"Mrs. O'Brien, if there is anything I can do?"

She looked him straight in the eyes but said nothing.

Tom came back with the boy and the boy and the mother went back to the cell.

Webster said, "All right, Tom, you can go on home. I'll see you in the morning."

"Maybe I better stay."

"No reason. I'll lock the doors, but nobody'll bother me."

"That's not all I mean."

"I'm an old man. I been in some mighty rough places in my time and I got lucky more than once. I need two hands to count the number of men I shot and nearly that for the number of bullets that hit me. I barely escaped hanging during the War. I grew up in Clay County and I ran with those boys. Lucy broke me of all that. This is the last stop for me. My Lucy is buried here, along with our daughter. And, yes, I don't want to do it . . . but he did kill the man."

"See you in the morning," Tom said and left.

Webster bolted both doors, sat down at the desk, and rolled a cigarette. He struck a match on the desk and lit up. He opened a drawer and took out a worn deck of cards. He shuffled and dealt out a hand of solitaire.

A few hours later he went back to check on them. The boy was asleep and the mother sat on the stool next to the bed. She looked at Webster with those large eyes.

"You need anything, ma'am?"

She shook her head.

"I wish I could do something."

"Will you let him go?"

Webster turned around and went back to his desk. He tried to play solitaire but could only stare at the cards. He got up to turn the wick low in the lamp in the hallway. He took the shotgun from the rack, got out a rod and cotton and oil, and cleaned it. He went through the handbills again. He rolled and smoked another cigarette.

He sat there thinking about his life, going over those years with Lucy and Rosemary, both lost to cholera, and he said, "I suppose I'm just waiting to die."

It was a gray dawn, the sun barely shining through the clouds. By the time there was knocking on the door it had started to drizzle.

Webster let in Tom, who carried a pot of fresh coffee, and took the pot of coffee to pour himself a cup.

"Sally?"

"Yep," Tom said. "How was your night?"

"Probably about as good as yours."

"Yes, I didn't sleep either. I couldn't even eat breakfast. How's the kid and the mother?"

"Last I looked he was asleep but she wasn't."

"You going to wake him?"

"I'll let you have that privilege."

Tom went down the hallway to the cell.

Webster refilled his cup and drank. When Tom came back Webster said, "I'm going out back. Is he up?"

"Yes."

"And her?"

"Sitting there like a ghost."

"Did you knock on the Judge's door?"

"Yep. He was with one of the whores from the Lucky Lady. He cursed and said he'd be along soon enough."

Webster went to the outhouse and looked around as he came back. Already, even in the increasing rain, people were stirring on the main street. A hanging was a big event.

When he got back to the office the clerk from the general store was there with a length of rope and a short flour sack. He said, "Cornett paid for the rope. He said you wouldn't mind. We couldn't find a hood. Will this do?"

Webster nodded and the clerk set the rope and sack on the desk and left.

"Damn," Tom said. "Cornett says you won't mind."

"I'm not surprised. It doesn't make much difference, I suppose. One rope is as good as another for this." He held up the sack with the writing: "Diamond Brand Whole Wheat Flour."

Tom said, "I don't think the boy'll care about that."

"No. The hood isn't for him anyway. It's for us watching. You never want to see what a hanged man's face is like. You'll never forget it."

"And you have?"

"I come on a man just lynched before they set him afire. It was too late to stop them."

Henry brought over a bowl of cooked oats for the prisoner. The boy ate it quickly, sitting on the bunk next to his mother. She was pale and looked ready to collapse as she sat there holding herself as if she wanted to shrink.

The Judge didn't bother to knock. The minister, Melvin Foster, carrying a bible, followed.

Foster said, "I'm going to try to save that boy's soul, Marshal."

Webster pointed down the hallway.

The Judge looked around, picked up the flour sack, and shook his head. "Say, Del, you got anything to drink here?"

"Might be some coffee left."

"Del, it's not friendly not to have a serious drink around for guests."

"If the town council will pay for it I'll keep a bottle here for you."

"You don't touch it yourself, do you?"

"Not for years, not since I hanged Curly Bill."

The minister came back and said, "The prisoner is ready, Marshal. He shows no remorse at all. He says that Charlie deserved killing. That boy is on his way to Hell. Of course, it's easy to understand with a father and mother like he has. I hate to lose a soul, but it's no use trying to save him now."

Webster took out a thin leather cord from the desk, stuffed it in his pocket, and took his gun and gun belt with holster from a hook on the wall. He walked back to the cell where the boy was sitting on the bunk and the mother had an arm around her son. The empty bowl was on the stool.

"It's time, boy."

Danny stood up and the mother put her fist in her mouth and bit hard.

"Mrs. O'Brien, I think you best stay here. It's not for you to see."

Webster took the boy's arm and started to lead him out of the cell.

The woman made a sound like a choking sob and then: "Marshal?"

He turned around.

"Can you make it so he . . . he won't . . ." Then she had to bite her fist and she looked away.

Webster led the boy down the hallway and through the office and past the Judge and minister and Tom. Tom picked up the rope and flour sack.

The rain was coming down hard and the ground in the alley was turning to mud. Webster and the boy led the way. The others followed and five or six men followed them.

There were fifteen or so men getting soaked standing there by the tree with the gallows beam. Old Cornett was there in a yellow slicker and a broad hat. His face was like stone. Brackett, the undertaker, was over to the side with the coffin, the lid on loose, set in the back of a wagon. The horse was trying to find fresh grass at its feet. The boy only glanced at the men before fixing his gaze on the beam.

The cart was waiting and Tom got on it and threw the rope over the beam. He made a noose in one end and tossed the other end to the ground. He jumped down and picked up the loose end.

Webster led the boy to the cart and the kid jumped on it. Webster had some trouble getting on and the boy reached down and helped him up.

"Put your hands behind your back, Danny."

The boy did and Webster tied the hands with the leather cord. Tom tossed him the flour sack and he put it over the boy's head. He lifted the noose and dropped it over the head and tightened it so it was snug on the boy's neck. Suddenly the boy sneezed. He sneezed again. Webster loosened the noose and lifted the sack. There was flour dust on the boy's face. Webster removed the sack and turned it inside out. He shook it several times. The boy's hair and face were wet from the rain.

Webster let the rain soak the sack, turned it right side out, and put it back over the boy's head. Then he tightened the noose and nodded to Tom. Tom took the loose end and wrapped it around the tree until the rope was taut. He tied it to itself and stepped back.

Webster patted the boy on the back and then jumped down. Two men came forward but he shook his head. He picked up the short wooden tongue and jerked hard and took several fast steps backward. The cart rolled a few feet and Webster slipped and almost fell. Tom ran over and grabbed hold of the tongue and the two men pulled it far enough that the boy's body dropped a half foot or so as the rope stretched tight.

The boy started kicking his feet and tried to break free as the noose tightened. He twisted and kicked as he strangled. A wind came up and the rain came down hard at a slant. Men turned their backs to the wind.

Webster pulled his revolver and cocked it. He raised it and fired and shot the boy in the chest. He turned to the Judge: "There, he's hung and he's dead. You satisfied?"

The Judge looked at the ground.

Webster went over to Cornett. "And you? You satisfied?"

Cornett tried to look him in the face but couldn't.

Webster put his revolver in the holster and called to Brackett: "Cut the boy down and bury him. Tom, see that he does it."

He walked through the wet grass and heavy rain, his hat and clothes soaked. He had to get a woman safely home, if that shack she lived in could be called a home.