A Time For Hanging

by Bill Crider

  "What do you mean they're doing the wrong thing? What are they going to do?"

  "I think they want to hang that boy," Willie said. "And he didn't have anything to do with killin' Liz Randall."

  "How do you know that?" Lucille said.

  Willie's face twisted as if he were in pain. "I don't know how I know it. I just do. It seems like I was there, like there's somethin' I oughta know, but that I just can't think of somehow."

  "Did . . . did you kill her?" Lucille asked.

  "That's the worst part," Willie said. "I don't think I did, but I can't swear I didn't."

  "And you let them go after that boy? What kind of a man are you?"

  "The kind that thinks too much of his own worthless hide," Willie said. "I know that prob'ly sounds to you. It sounds the same way to me. I know how worthless I am, and I've thought more than once that I oughta kill myself to put myself out of my misery; but I've never had the guts to do it. Maybe I shoulda told 'em that I was the one. That way they'd've had somebody to kill and I --"

  "Don't be stupid," Lucille said. Her sense of justice was aroused. "Try to think about last night. Did you see that Randall girl? Did you see what happened to her?"

  Willie put both hands to his head and wagged it from side to side. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know. I don't know."

  "Stop it!" Lucille said. She did not have much patience with self-pitying drunks. "You must know something, or you wouldn't be acting this way. Now try to think."

  Willie shut up and tried to think. He could remember seeing Liz's body, and he could remember seeing the Morales boy, but not both at the same time. He could remember --

  "That's it!" he said. "I was stumblin' around, and that boy come up on the body. He got scared and started in to runnin', and I went after him, to tell him it was all right, but he just started to run faster. Then I got scared. I thought, what if somebody came along and found me there? So I left. I thought the boy'd gone on home until this mornin', when I heard 'em talkin' in the saloon."

  Lucille tried to make sense of what he had told her. "So you were there before the boy was?"

  "Yeah, that's right," Willie said. More of it was coming back to him now. "He was comin' along from town, and I hid in the brush so he wouldn't see me. I thought he'd go right on by, but he didn't."

  Lucille was exasperated with him. "And knowing all that, you let those men to after him?"

  Willie could not meet her eyes. "I didn't know all that. I didn't remember it till just now."

  "You knew the boy was innocent all along," she accused him.

  "I thought he was, but I couldn't say so. Nobody'd listen to an old drunk."

  "What is my father doing mixed up in this?" Lucille said.

  "I don't know," Willie said. "That Davis fella came in, tellin' about the boy's mama lettin' him out, and then your daddy came. I guess they just thought goin' after him was the right thing to do."

  There was more to it than that, Lucille thought, though she was not sure exactly what.

  "We've got to stop them," she said.

  "Stop 'em? How're we gonna do that?"

  "We're going after them."

  "But I don't have any horse." Willie had sold his horse along with everything else. He hadn't had occasion to ride for years.

  "Let me worry about that. Come on." Lucille grabbed his arm. "We'll go down to the livery. My horse is there, and I'll get you one."

  Willie tried to pull his arm away. "I don't think that's a good idea. They won't listen to me. You don't know how they are. They're all worked up to get somebody, and they don't want any interference."

  Lucille wasn't going to let that stop her. "I don't care what they want. We're going to stop them."

  Willie thought she was wrong about that, but he couldn't get his arm out of her grip. She was damn strong for a girl, he thought. She half dragged him all the way to the livery stable.

  "It won't do any good," he protested along the way. "Besides, they might decide to kill me if they don't get their chance at the boy."

  "Why would they do that?" Lucille asked.

  "Because I was there. They might think I --"

  Lucille stopped in her tracks. "You said you didn't kill her. Now make up your mind. Did you or didn't you."

  "No," Willie said. "I didn't kill her." He looked thoughtful. "At least I don't think I killed her."

  Lucille was exasperated. "Don't you even know whether you killed her or not?"

  "No," Willie said. "I don't guess I do."

  24.

  Jack Simkins heard the men ride past the jail. He got up from the chair behind the desk and walked slowly over to the door, reaching it just in time to see the last of Benteen's riders go by. Turley Ross and the other men from the saloon were right behind, but they didn't even give a look in Jack's direction as they rode on down the street.

  Jack had a pretty good idea where they were going, all right, but the sheriff had ordered him to stay in the jail and that's what he was going to do. He had never yet failed to do anything the sheriff told him to do, and he wasn't going to start now.

  There was a little breeze blowing, and Jack thought it would be a good idea to bring his chair out on the porch. There was a spot of shade that he could set it in, and it would be somewhat cooler out there than in the stuffy office. He got the chair, brought it out, sat down in it, and tipped it back against the wall, hooking his boot heels on the rung that ran between the two front legs. He slanted his hat down over his eyes and had almost drifted off to sleep when he heard someone calling him.

  He brought the chair down with a thump that jarred his spine and pulled his hat off to see who was talking. It was Willie Turner and Lucille Benteen.

  Now there was a pair for you, he thought, getting out of the chair and standing up. "Howdy," he said. "What can I do for you?"

  "Where's the sheriff?" Lucille said. She did not have much confidence in either man, but she thought that Vincent had more sand than his deputy.

  "He's off on official sheriff's business," Jack said. He didn't like the young woman's tone of voice. "You can tell me what you want, and I'll let him know."

  "We want to talk to him about that bunch of riders that went by here a while ago," Lucille said. "They're headed for the Morales place, and they might have the idea that they're going to lynch the Morales boy."

  "The sheriff, he might have other ideas about that. He's headed that way himself," Jack said. "What's all this to you, anyhow?"

  "I don't like to see an innocent boy killed, that's what, and if you had any decency, you'd feel the same."

  "Now you just wait a minute," Jack said. "How do you know he's so all-fired innocent?"

  "Mr. Turner told me."

  "Mr. Turner?" Jack looked at Willie skeptically. "What's your part in all this, Willie?"

  Willie didn't say anything, so Lucille answered for him.

  "He was there last night. He saw what happened."

  "Is that right, Willie?" Jack said. "You were there?"

  Willie nodded, but he still didn't say anything.

  "What did you see, Willie?" Jack said.

  "N-n-nothin'," Willie said. "I didn't see nothin'."

  "That's not what you told me," Lucille said. "Tell him the truth."

  "I saw that Morales boy," Willie said.

  Lucille was disgusted with Willie's performance. "You're only making things worse. Tell him what you told me, and don't worry so much about your own skin."

  Willie was ashamed of himself for being such a coward, but he couldn't help it. He didn't want to die, not even if he deserved it. All these years since he'd lost his wife and little girl, and he'd thought he wanted to die himself. Now he knew that wasn't so. He wanted to keep on living, even if it meant living like a drunk.

  "Like I said, I saw the Morales boy there. But he didn't kill that girl. He didn't come along till she'd been dead awhile."

  "How do you know that?" Jack asked. He seemed more interested now. "Did you see who killed her?"


  "I . . . I don't think so," Willie said. "I can't remember that part so good."

  "But you're sure it wasn't the Morales kid."

  "Yeah," Willie said. "I'm sure of that."

  "Would you be willing to testify to that in court?"

  Willie shook his head. "I don't know about that, now."

  "Of course he would," Lucille said. "Now what are you going to do about this?"

  "Like I said, the sheriff is on his way out there now. That gang'll run into him before they get there, most likely."

  "Do you think one man's going to be able to stop them?" Lucille asked. Especially the sheriff, she thought. He couldn't stop a lame hog. "I'm going after them, and if you were any kind of a lawman, you'd come too."

  "The sheriff told me to stay here and watch the jail," Jack said.

  "How much good is that going to do the sheriff if he's dead?" Lucille asked. "Well, never mind. We don't need your help."

  "Yes we do," Willie said. "Come on, Jack. Don't make us do this by ourselves. The sheriff won't mind. Not just this one time."

  "I guess maybe he wouldn't," Jack said. He was thinking about all those men he had seen. There had been a lot of them. The sheriff wouldn't stand a chance if they didn't listen to reason. Maybe another gun would help, but he didn't see that a drunk, a woman, and a one-eyed deputy would do all that much good.

  However, he also remembered what had happened to Paco last night. If Jack hadn't been there, they would have killed the boy right on the spot. Maybe that was what they had in mind to do this time, only this time there were a lot more of them.

  He looked at his chair and his little spot of shade. He wished he'd never brought that chair out there; if he'd been inside, maybe they'd've ridden right on by and not bothered him. Then again, maybe they wouldn't've.

  "I'm comin'," he said. "Just let me get my rifle."

  #

  Like Jack Simkins and Willie Turner, Charley Davis was wondering how he'd ever gotten himself into this mess.

  He'd started courtin' Liz Randall because she was just about the prettiest girl in Dry Springs, if you didn't count Lucille, and the fact that they had to sneak around about it didn't bother him. He never dreamed he would have a chance with Lucille, and Liz Randall wasn't like any other girl he'd ever known.

  She was a "nice" girl, the preacher's daughter, and Charley had associated mostly with women he met in saloons, many of whom were interested in sex mainly for the money or else were there because there wasn't much chance of them finding a man any other place. They were counting on finding them somebody who'd had so much bad liquor to drink that even a range cow would've looked good to him.

  Liz Randall, on the other hand, had been interested in sex because she liked it, and while Charley had thought at first he would be teaching her a trick or two, he soon found out that he was going to be more like the student than the teacher.

  That was all right with him, for a while, but eventually she began to scare him a little. It somehow didn't seem right to him that a woman ought to talk the way she did and make the kind of demands she made.

  A woman ought to have a little modesty, but she'd just as soon shuck out of her clothes right in front of him as not.

  At first, that had been fine. It even excited him. At first, he had been so caught up in the sight of her, the fine round breasts, the red hair between her legs like spun gold, the light sprinkling of freckles across her belly, that whatever she did was all right with him. He'd never had a woman who could make him feel the way she did.

  But after that, things changed.

  Or maybe they didn't change at all. Charley had to admit that maybe he was the one who changed. But some of the things Liz did began to bother him, like the way she'd just reach out and grab him down there sometimes without warning, or the way she was getting bolder about being seen with him.

  "I thought you didn't want your daddy to know about us," he said. "You didn't want anybody to know you were even out of the house."

  Liz laughed. "My daddy's a crazy man. He treats me like I was still a little girl, and it's time he knew I was all grown up. He'll know, all right, soon enough."

  She hadn't explained what she meant that time, and Charley hadn't pushed it. By then he had already become involved with Lucille Benteen.

  Lucille was a lot different from Liz, more refined, he guessed, but he liked her a lot. Besides, she was Roger Benteen's girl, and if the old man liked Charley, well, there was no telling what might come of it.

  The old man did like Charley, as it turned out, and Charley began to see Lucille more and more and Liz less and less.

  The night he told Liz he couldn't be seeing her anymore at all was when she told him.

  "I'm going to have a baby, Charley. Your baby."

  Charley didn't doubt that she was telling the truth, especially considering what they'd been doing together, but he said, "You sure?"

  "Of course I'm sure. But you don't have to believe me. Ask Doc Bigby. Ask Mrs. Morales. They know."

  Charley was hard put to know what to do, but he'd heard things. "Ain't there something they can do about it?"

  "No. I asked them both, believe me. I don't want to have any baby. I thought at first I might, that it would be a good lesson for my father, but now I know it would be a big mistake. My father's already crazy. No telling what me having a baby would do to him."

  "But there's gotta be somethin' -- "

  "We could get married," Liz said. She didn't sound too happy about the idea, though.

  "Is that what you want to do?" Charley hoped she didn't. He couldn't let himself get caught in that trap, not when he was doing so well with Lucille. Liz was all right, it wasn't that, but she didn't have much to offer compared to Roger Benteen's ranch.

  "No, I don't want to do it," Liz said. "But we might have to. I don't want to have a baby with no father."

  Charley talked to her for a long time. He finally persuaded her to go back to the meskin woman to see if there was anything that she could do if Charley paid her. Liz didn't have much money, and Charley thought maybe if they offered more the woman would change her mind.

  "I'll try," Liz said. "I don't hold out much hope of her doing anything, I may as well tell you."

  Charley gave her some money and told her to do what she could. He agonized for a week about it, hardly sleeping at all, not being able to eat, getting as jumpy as some old cat. He was sure people had noticed, but nobody ever said anything, not even Lucille until right there at the last, after somebody told her that he'd been seeing Liz.

  "Now I know why you've been acting funny," Lucille said. "You think you can have me and some other woman, too. Well, you can't."

  She'd slapped his face and ridden off to town, and of course he'd gone after her with his tail between his legs. Now here he was, off to hang some poor meskin kid for killin' Liz.

  He hadn't seen the kid last night, but he'd seen Liz. He was there to find out what she'd learned about her condition. It hadn't been good.

  "It's too late," she said. "Even if there'd been something they could do sooner, it's too late now. I'm going to have the baby. I've got to."

  Well, she was wrong about that, as it turned out, Charley thought. She wasn't ever going to have the baby now, and he was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to marry Lucille Benteen. Maybe it had been too much to hope for in the first place. Maybe he should've been happy just to wrangle horses and punch cows.

  He looked around at the other cowboys as they rode, laughing and talking about what they were going to do to Paco Morales. They were happy, he thought, and they weren't ever going to marry the boss's daughter. Why couldn't he have been satisfied?

  If he had been, maybe Liz would still be alive and maybe Paco Morales wouldn't be about to die.

  It was too bad that things worked out like they did sometimes, but that was just the way it was. He didn't have anything against the Morales boy, but he had to think about himself. If somebody had to die, it might as we
ll be the meskin.

  He sneaked another look at Randall, sitting rigid in the saddle, his hard belly sticking out past the sides of his black coat, his eyes staring straight ahead, his hand never far from the butt of the pistol on his hip.

  It was scary to see a preacher like that, real scary, and Charley looked away quick, but not before the preacher caught him looking and smiled at him.

  It was a smile Charley wished he hadn't seen, like seeing a dead man smile.

  Charley didn't smile back.

  25.

  The Morales place looked deserted. There were a few scrawny rust-colored chickens pecking in the dirt around on the shady side of the house, and there was a dog sleeping under the porch. Aside from that, there wasn't any sign of life.

  Sheriff Vincent stopped his horse a few yards from the front door. "Hello, the house," he called out, standing up in the stirrups.

  The dog lifted its head from its paws, opened its eyes, and looked at him incuriously. It scratched its neck with its back leg and then settled back down to sleep again. There was no answer from the house.

  "Now, then, Miz Morales, I know you're there," Vincent said. "You might's well come out here and talk to me."

  The front door opened, and Consuela Morales stepped out on the porch. The dog pricked up its ears for a second, but not for long.

  "Yes, Sheriff?" she said.

  "I've come for your boy," Vincent said, settling himself back in the saddle. "It was because of my carelessness he got out of the jail, and I don't blame you for it, but you know I've got to take him back."

  "He is not here," Mrs. Morales said. "As you can see."

  "I can't see anything like that," Vincent said. "I don't know what's in your house."

  "You may look if it pleases you, but you will not find my son. He was here, it is true, but he is gone now. He took the mule and rode away."

  "I don't think so," Vincent said, shifting his weight in the saddle. "He wasn't in any shape to do much ridin' when I last saw him."