A Time For Hanging

by Bill Crider

  The anxiety in Mrs. Morales's changed to something else. "Why is he in the jail."

  "He killed -- " Vincent caught himself. "He might have killed a girl tonight. I ain't sure."

  Mrs. Morales seemed to shrink a little, somehow. It was probably just that her shoulders sagged, but it seemed to Vincent that she actually grew smaller.

  "Killed a girl? Paco would never kill anyone. I sent him to the store for salt and sugar, and he has not returned. But he would not kill anyone."

  Vincent felt immensely uncomfortable. He had the feeling that he had heard all this before, three years ago, when her husband had been killed. She couldn't believe he had cheated anyone, either.

  "Maybe he didn't kill anyone," Vincent said. "But it looks bad for him. He was caught pretty close to the body."

  "And who was this person Paco is supposed to have killed?"

  "Lizzie Randall. The preacher's daughter."

  Mrs. Morales did it again, shrank up even smaller in the doorway. "Miss Randall," she said.

  "You know her?" Vincent said, surprised.

  "No," Mrs. Morales said quickly, too quickly it seemed to the sheriff. "I did not know her. And Paco did not kill her."

  "Well, it'll be up to the judge and jury to decide that," Vincent said.

  "Paco, he is all right? He is safe in the jail?"

  Vincent decided to answer the second question. "He's safe. I won't let anything happen to him."

  "I can see him? Now?"

  Vincent didn't think that would be a good idea. "Better wait till mornin'. You can come in then."

  Maybe Bigby would have looked the boy over by that time, cleaned him up. Even if Paco was a killer, his mother shouldn't have to see him looking the way he did now.

  "I will be there in the morning, then. Paco killed no one, Sheriff. Whoever says he did is a liar."

  And with that she closed the door in Vincent's face.

  8.

  The jail was hot and still, and Paco Morales lay sweating on the cot in one of the tiny cells. Luckily, he was still not conscious. Doc Bigby was cheerfully putting the boy's broken arm in a sling, having already bound his ribs.

  "What do you think, Doc?" Vincent asked.

  "He'll live," Bigby said. "They must've beat the hell out of him, though."

  "What about the girl?"

  "Haven't had time to look at her yet. Got to get to it though. In this heat . . . . "

  He didn't need to finish the sentence.

  When he had left, Vincent sent Jack on home. The night was almost over anyhow, and the sheriff had decided that he might as well be the one to sit it out. He wanted to be there when Paco Morales woke up so he could ask him a few questions.

  #

  Paco woke in a haze of pain. There wasn't a part of his body that didn't hurt, and for a moment he thought that he must still be in the grove, still taking the kicks being dealt out to him by the men.

  After a while he knew that he was not lying on the ground but on something softer, though not much softer. He opened his eyes, and even that was painful. He tried to raise his hand to his face, but he found that he could not.

  It was too dark to see much, but he could tell that he was in some kind of small room. There was a square of lighter darkness above him which he assumed was a window.

  A door opened at the end of a hall somewhere.

  "You awake, boy?"

  "Yes," Paco croaked. "I am awake." His throat was dry and very sore. Someone had kicked him even in the throat.

  He heard footsteps and then the sound of a key in a lock. There was a squeak of a door opening very near him.

  "I'm the sheriff," a voice near him said. "Can you sit up?"

  Paco tried, but he could not raise himself. The pain was too much.

  He felt a hand go under his head and lift it.

  "Try to drink some of this water." A dipper was pressed to his parched lips.

  Paco managed to take a few sips. The water felt cold and sweet as it trickled down his throat.

  "Where am I?" he said.

  "In the jail. Looks like you're in a little trouble, boy."

  "The men, they beat me. They --"

  "I know about that. Question is, what did you do?"

  "Nothing. I did nothing. I was going home from the store, and I found the woman . . . . " The sentence ended with a soft groan of pain. Vincent did not know whether Paco was groaning because he was hurt or because of the woman.

  "Found her, huh? You didn't have anything to do with her bein' there in the first place?"

  "No! No! I bought some salt and sugar at the store, and then I talked to Juanito Garcia. When I was going home, I found her in the trees."

  "What did you kill her with, son?"

  "I did not kill her! I found her there!"

  Vincent thought about it. There was the sound of truth in the boy's voice, and his mother had said something about the salt and sugar.

  "Where's the sugar and salt, then?" he asked.

  Paco could not remember. "I . . . I lost it. I was afraid when I found her, and I ran."

  Well, that was possible. But it was possible that he lost it when he attacked the girl, too. Vincent would have to go give the place the once over when it got light. There was more than the salt and sugar worrying him. If Paco had killed the girl, maybe stabbed her, the doc said, what had he done it with? Paco didn't have a knife, and there hadn't been one lying in the trees, not that Vincent could see. He'd have to have a talk with Juanito Garcia, too.

  Vincent gave Paco another sip of the water. "You try to rest son. I've told your mother that you're here. She'll probably come in to see you. You'll be all right."

  With that he left the cell. Paco, trying not to twist with the pain, fought his fear as he lay on the cot and thought about being all right. He knew by now that there was something very wrong with his ribs and that his arm was almost certainly broken since it was caught up in some kind of sling.

  He was pretty sure that he would never be all right again.

  #

  Sheriff Vincent put the worn heels of his boots up on the desk top and leaned back in the old wooden chair, balancing it delicately on two legs. It was still a long time to daylight, but he wasn't going to be able to sleep. His stomach was churning around and all kinds of thought were spinning in his head.

  He thought about the Randalls, and the way they'd acted, or the way the preacher had acted, mostly. Leaving his wife just lyin' there like that. Vincent had never seen anything quite like it.

  And Miz Morales and her quite assurrance that her son had not done anything. It seemed like that family was doomed to trouble. First the father, now the son.

  But what worried him most was that he believed Paco and his mother. He was almost convinced that the boy was innocent.

  And what was wrong with that? he thought.

  Nothing, except that there were four or five others who were equally sure Paco was guilty and who were spoiling for trouble, the kind of trouble that Vincent had done his best to avoid, the kind of trouble that could get people killed.

  He swung his legs off the desk and the chair hit the wood floor with a thump. He would just have to mosey on over to Bigby's and see what the doc had found out about the way the girl had died. He hated to leave his prisoner, but he figured that the boy would be safe that night. If anyone got worked up enough for a necktie party, it wouldn't be until later. At least he hoped so.

  Meantime, maybe Bigby could tell him something. Like that it had all been a mistake and the girl died in a fall.

  He locked the front door of the jail as he left.

  9.

  Hank Moran had drifted into Sharpsville a couple of days before, not on his way to anywhere in particular, just looking for a place to hang his hat and play cards for a day or two. Sharpsville was close to a place called Dry Springs, a place where he'd had a spot of bad luck a few years back, but that didn't bother him. He was superstitious about a lot of things, but not about killing a Mexican.
/>
  There were only three other men left in the saloon, the bartender and the two men at Moran's table. The bartender was ready to close the place up, and he stood behind his long bar, polishing and repolishing it with a greasy rag.

  The other two were not as eager to leave. There was a pile of their money in front of Moran, and they wanted to get it back. It seemed to both of them that something was slightly wrong with the way the game was going, but neither could figure out just exactly what it might be.

  There had been others in the game earlier, but they had all cut their losses and left at a decent hour. Before too long the roosters would be crowing and it would be time to go to work.

  Moran was cheerfully dealing one more hand. He was a thin, pale man with cadaverous cheeks, and he looked like a smiling corpse. He carefully avoided what he thought to be common failing of some other gamblers he knew, taking great care never to appear too flashy. He wore faded levi's, a white cotton shirt, a tan vest, and suspenders.

  Strapped to his leg was the .44 that had killed Roberto Morales. That had been an unfortunate event brought about by Morales catching on to Moran's habit of marking the cards, something that no one else had ever done, before or since, though of course he had often been accused of cheating and had been involved in more than one powerful dust-up, the kind of thing that he regarded as merely an occupational hazard.

  Moran was not greedy, however, and he did not like to take risks. To keep his troubles to a minimum, he never resorted to fancy devices like holdouts or shiners. He never dealt from the bottom or got fancy with cutting the deck, and he never tried to ring in a cold deck. In fact he never offered to provide the cards for any game. He always had a fresh deck or two on him, but he used them only when asked.

  What he did was simple. He marked the deck he was using, whoever it belonged to, during the course of the game.

  His hands were long and soft, his fingers supple and quick, his fingernails sharp, especially the nail of his right thumb, which was filed to razor keenness. All it took was a nick on the edge of the important cards -- the aces, a few of the faces -- to give Moran all the advantage he needed. The nick was so small as to be undetectable to any cursory examination, or even to a fairly careful one, but it was easily recognized by Moran's talented fingers.

  It was not the kind of trick that would go unnoticed for very long by any sophisticated gambler, not the kind of thing that Moran could get away with for very long in a town of any size, but it worked like a charm as long as he limited himself to small-stakes games in small towns, or it had except for the one incident that Moran would just as soon have forgotten.

  How the Mex had ever figured out that the cards were nicked was something Moran had been able to guess. The Mex's hands had been work-hardened and calloused, the kind of hands Moran liked to see in a game, and it just didn't seem possible that he had been able to feel the slight cuts in the cards.

  He didn't regret killing the man; he had been forced into it. But he did regret the fact that his activites had been limited for a good while afterward. Word got out, and people were suspicious.

  All that was behind him now, though, and he was having an easy time of it, taking money from folks in backwaters like Sharpsville and drifting along as he pleased.

  He had just about worn out his welcome there, he reckoned as he dealt the hand. Time to move on down the road, maybe pay another call on Dry Springs. Probably there was hardly anyone there who even remembered his last visit.

  First he had to get though this hand, however. The two men held their cards close, looking them over.

  One of them, a farmer by the look of him, glowered at Moran over the rim of the cards. His flat-topped straw hat with its broad black band sat squarely on the middle of his square head, and his jaw jutted out defiantly.

  The other, the town dandy Moran guessed, wore a tie and a gray suit. He had sweated through his shirt, and Moran was sure that he had lost more than he could afford. So had the farmer, for that matter. Otherwise they would have quit long ago instead of trying to win it back.

  Neither of the men had a very good hand as far as Moran could tell. No more than one face card each. He, on the other hand, was holding a couple of aces and a king.

  The farmer bet two dollars, and the dandy matched him. Moran tossed in two as well.

  "Three cards," the farmer said sullenly. Moran slid them across the table with a smile.

  "Three for me, too," the dandy said, and Moran cheerfully supplied them, especially since his educated thumb told him that an ace was the next card.

  He decided to take only two cards, and getting the second king along with the ace was pure luck. He appreciated that, being an admirer of luck in any form.

  "Five dollars," the farmer said. It was all he had left.

  The dandy went along reluctantly.

  "Since that seems to be about all you gentlemen have on you tonight, I'll call," Moran said.

  The farmer put down three eights, the dandy had two pair. Moran's full house beat them easily.

  The farmer's face turned brick red. "You sonofabitch cheater," he said.

  The dandy reached out and put a hand on his friend's tensed arm. "Now, Joe, we don't know --"

  "Don't you tell me 'bout what I know. That sonofabitch is cheatin', and I'm gonna make him give me my money back."

  Moran retained his smile. Under cover of the table, his hand slipped to the smooth butt of the .44. "I don't return money that I've won fair and square, gentlemen."

  The farmer was not satisfied. "Fair and square, my ass. I don't know how you done it, but you done it. That's for sure."

  Moran shoved the table against the farmer's chest, making it difficult for the man to get out of the chair with any speed. "I'm sorry that you feel that way," he said. "Maybe you'd better go on home now."

  "He's right," the dandy said. We'd better go on home."

  The farmer shook off his friend's hand. "All right, we'll go. But the sonofabitch is still a cheater."

  They pushed back their chairs and stood up.

  Moran kept his hand on the handle of the pistol in his lap until they had left the saloon. Then he holstered the gun and gathered in his winnings.

  He walked over to the bar and had one last drink, then stepped through the batwings. The full moon was sinking low in the sky, but it silvered the silent buildings and the dirt of the street.

  Moran did not pause to admire the view. He moved down the boardwalk, his boot heels striking hollowly and the sound echoing off the walls. There was no one else in sight.

  He stepped off the walk at the end of the block, and that was when they got him, coming at him out of the alley in a rush, their fists swinging before he had a chance to react.

  It was the dandy and the farmer, and they had been both smarter than he had given them credit for and more bitter than he had thought. They had left, but they had not given up on getting their money back.

  One of them hit him in the face and he reached out, grabbing a handful of shirt that ripped as he went down. He rolled over, avoiding a kick, and swung out his legs, tangling them with the legs of the dandy and causing him to fall heavily.

  He drew his .44, but the farmer kicked it out of his hand. It landed somewhere in the dark of the alley.

  Moran got to his feet, dodged a blow, and hammered his fist into the chest of the farmer, directly over his heart.

  The farmer staggered back into the wall of the nearest building, sucking for breath, his eyes bugging out and his mouth working like that of a fish thrown on the bank of a river.

  Moran moved in on the man, smashing him again and again in the chest and stomach. If the wall had not been holding him up, the farmer would have collapsed to the ground.

  He did fall when the dandy jumped on Moran's back, dragging the gambler backward.

  Moran kept going back until he hit the building on the other side of the alley, or rather the dandy hit it. All the breath went out of him, and he dropped off Moran's back.
/>   He tried to get up, but Moran kicked him under the chin. The dandy's teeth slapped together with a loud click and his eyes rolled up in his head.

  Goddamn sore losers, Moran thought as he was going through their pockets to see if there was any money in there that he hadn't already taken from them.

  There wasn't, which was just as well. He wasn't really a thief, and he had never robbed anyone before, at least not unless they had been sitting at a poker table together, and that didn't really count in Moran's book. Any man who got into a game of chance was fair game. If he let himself be taken, that was too damn bad.

  He wasn't fond of trouble, and it was time that he was leaving Sharpsville anyway. These two wouldn't have anything good to say about him when they woke up, and it was for sure they wouldn't tell anyone the truth of the matter. Most likely they would lie and say that he had been the one who attacked them and took all their money. It would be easier for them to admit that than to say they had lost it all gambling.

  He'd just go over to the livery and get his horse, head on down the road. It was late, but that didn't make much difference. He'd gone without sleep before.

  He'd move on down to Dry Springs, trim a few suckers, and maybe ride down into Mexico for a spell. He'd heard the Mexicans were big gamblers, and it was high time he found out for himself.

  He whistled tunelessly as he walked on down the street, not looking back to the two who lay in the alley.

  He had forgotten them already.

  10.

  The sun woke Willie Turner, shining under the brim of his hat and hitting him right in the eyes.

  It had been doing that a lot more lately, and he was a little worried about it. A man of his age ought not to be sleeping outside all night without even a blanket. Wasn't good for the bones.

  It took Willie a while to get accustomed to the light and to get his eyes open, but when he did he looked around him. He was behind Danton's saloon, sort of leaned up against the wall. There was a rain barrel propping him up on one side, and he could see the outhouse a few yards away, not far from the shacks where one or two of the saloon girls lived, the ones Danton didn't allow to have rooms upstairs.