Cowards Justice

A Thomas Sanguine Tale

“We’ve been walking for hours, if you’re going to kill me just do it.” 

“You’ve been walking for hours.” corrected the hunchback on his black stallion, holding a leash, tied to his prisoner. “The sheriff paid good money to keep you alive till the trial tomorrow morning. Some folk are real anxious to get you lynched before trial.” Thomas Sanguine’s yellow face darkened in the evening twilight. Putting a flask of crimson malt liquor to his purplish lips, he drank deep, and spit a stream of frothy booze at his captive. 

“You could’ve protected me at the jail.” protested his prisoner, Alastair Meeks. Whose boots were worn even before their days long travel, leaving the jailhouse by the cover of the previous night, they trekked all day to hideout in the abandoned church cemetery. Through each mile a bit of Alastair’s sole came off, littering the snow, which crunched under his nearly bare feet. 

“I don’t think so.” Thomas drank more from his flask. “If the townsfolk don’t lynch you, your cousins would break you out, this far out, I can hold up, and have it out with anyone who is willing to come this far to kill you. Vengeance makes a man duller than a half-wit donkey.” 

Dragging along his captive to the old church, Thomas dismounted, keeping his shotgun tucked in his belt holster, as he looked out the way they came, and saw wisps floating in the trees. 

“They followed us.”

“Who?” Alastair perked up. 

“Not your cousin's fool, they gave up a couple miles back, get your head down and follow!” Together they encircled the church, Thomas made sure to step on the dirt patches as much as possible to hide their tracks. “It’ll be hard enough to deal with them while having to watch after you, so I’m gonna keep you somewhere safe.” 

Alastair wanted to ask, ‘where?’ but the sounds of the mob baying for his blood became more audible. Leading his captive into a crypt, Thomas undid the rusted vault doors with a tight twist, and steadily opened it, keeping the rusty screech to a minimum. 

“In here,” he whispered. Pulling Alastair into the darkness, there in the gloom a high glassless window above let in the last bit of sunlight onto a stone casket. Alastair squealed in terror at realizing what his captor suggested, but the rough hands of the gunfighter muffled his voice. “If you’re not careful, you’ll be staying here for longer than tonight.” silenced by the threat of his own gruesome lynching, Alastair stayed silent, as Thomas lifted open the casket lid, and placed him inside. 

Binding his arms and ankles together he stuffed a scarlet handkerchief in his mouth to keep him silent, before closing shut the casket, despite the muffled protests of his prisoner. By the time he left the crypt Thomas could hear the half-drunken caterwauling of the murderous posse. 

“Come out gunfighter! We want Meeks, hand him over and you can walk away!” 

“Let us have him, or you’ll join him!” 

The threats continued getting more vindictive and heated their blood more than bloodlust and gut burning whisky could manage alone. So hot was their hate their breath came out their mouths in the now black night like smoke from a furnace. 

Their lanterns only lit part of the night, but not enough to see too far into the darkness of the church or outside, where the air got colder, and the coyotes started to chatter in the not too far off wilderness. Echoes of the night time predators made the men gathered nervous, some wanted to go as the thrill of the chase had ended in isolation and gloom. 

“Let’s get out of here, he’ll be taken to trial soon enough.” said a member of the mob who lost all courage as the night deepened. 

“You leave, you die.'' A sharp threat came from Devil Eyes, a sinister man who lived in the Town of Coldwater, he was a gunfighter for the ranchers, who had enough with the Meeks clan, miners whose rival started with the founding of town, and would end with the extinction of one or the other. Already his hand was down to his hips, tapping the grip of his long barrel revolver, a foreign pistol that gleamed evilly even in the moonless night. 

“Please, Benny, I’m tired and…I don’t want to get involved.'' The man found himself singled out further when the others he came with moved away from him, giving Devil Eyes a wide berth. 

“Alastair killed before, and you people—” his eyes reflected the fire of the lanterns as if the fires of hell burned in them, “—always acquitted him at trial, always. And for what reason? Fear, the Meeks scare you, you’re all led by fear, without a drop of courage in your guts.” 

“Please…Benny I just want to go—” BLAM! BLAM! Two powerful shots, strong enough to puncture the skull of an elephant ripped open the man’s stomach, and all his guts fell from his stomach. He fell to the ground struggling to breathe, as the posse watched as he quickly began still, as vapors rose from his spilled intestines. 

“For now on, fear is what we’ll do, either we kill Meeks or no one is leaving here alive.” 

“If you don’t leave, you won’t leave here alive. Damned either way you look at it.” The voice from the dark startled everyone, except Devil Eyes who held his gun out, tracing it across the darkness. 

“You’re in the church gunfighter.” Devil Eyes had that condescending voice branded on his mind, he wanted to kill him yesterday, but his employer told him not in town, he had to wait for tonight. “Is Alastair in there with you or did you let him go?” 

“That is none of your concern.” the voice repeated, and still Devil Eyes couldn’t pinpoint the voice. The men he brought with him were scared, the hard drink had made them paranoid, and some had moonshine that addled their minds; to many of them the voice from the dark was a ghostly apparition, and after Benny Devil Eyes killed one of them, many wanted to leave. 

The unwillingness to risk their lives almost outweighed the fear of having their insides leak from a bullet hole in their bellies. 

“It is my concern. Alastair killed a child, and I mean to see he doesn’t ride out of Coldwater free as a sinner let loose from the gates of hell.” The cold fury was soft spoken as a lullaby, but as harsh as condemnation of Jonah to the wicked souls of Nineveh.

“Doesn’t matter, if you people can’t do justice right, you have no right to expect it at the end of a noose.” 

BLAM! BLAM!

Devil Eyes shot through the glassless windows of the Church, following his example everyman in the posse fired into the Church. Bullets shredding into the aged wood, colliding with whatever was in the darkness. After they spent everything they had, they took the pause of silence to reload, as their horses became disgruntled, threatening to break their leashes and gallop away. 

As they all reloaded, Devil Eyes saw something in the church, a flicker of light, as if a lone matchstick was struck. From that tiny flame came a sparkling, as it floated in the darkness as if held by some phantasm's hand. Suspended in the air, it floated in the darkness, till it flew out the window, and landed in the center of the group of men. 

“Holy shit! It's a stick of dynamite!” scared beyond the power to stay, most of the posse ran, as Benny struggled to load his gun. 

“Cowards!” he wanted to shoot them all in the back, but in his rush he fumbled his bullets, till he heard the hissing of the fuse, flustered he grabbed it, and just as it reached the end he flung it into the church. 

The posse mounted their horses, and fled as Benny leapt away from the expected explosion, his hands on his head. After sometime he lifted his head, and realized the dynamite stick was a dud. 

“Damn it! Come back! The dynamite was a dud, come back!” but all he heard was the hooves of their horses disappearing in the distance. Calmed down he started to load his revolver, when he heard the deathly snap of a freshly loaded shotgun. Back turned to Thomas Sanguine, Benny Devil Eyes didn’t even have his first bullet loaded. “You’re not gonna shoot me in the back are—” KABLAM!

Cinders and shrapnel propelled from the double barrel embedding itself in his back, and after tearing through his intestines, exploded out his front. Dropping his gun he held his insides in his hands, feeling the blood and throbbing organs moisten his cold hands. Unable to breathe, he saw his lungs were tangling out his split abdomen, they were limp and flappy. Blood foamed from his mouth, as he went into violent convulsions, falling to his back he contorted as he convulsed before going still. 

“I told you, if you stay, you won’t leave here alive.” 

During the rest of the night Sanguine Thomas fetched a spade from his saddlebag and began digging homes for the graveyard's two new occupants. From sundown to early sunrise he worked with the frozen soil, managing to shift the stiff soil, till they were deep enough to put the bodies into, and cover them with dirt. He covered the graves with rocks so the coyotes couldn’t dig them up, then he went to the casket of his prisoner. 

Opening it to allow the dawn light to blind his sun deprived eyes. 

“Morning, time to head to town.” the Gunfighter said, with a large crimson stained smile. 

***

“Yahoo!” Alastair Meeks shouted as he walked out the courthouse a freeman. With his cousins in the gallery, the jury didn’t have the nerve to convict, they didn’t even spend a moment in the jury room. 

“Not Guilty.” That verdict tormented the minds of the Ranchers who swore vengeance on the Meeks family, but wouldn’t turn the town into a battleground, yet. 

Outside the courthouse a yellow faced gunslinger drank from a jug of water, feeling the winter cool liquid soothe his dry throat. He observed as his former prisoner walked out a free man, surrounded by his kin, but for a moment their eyes met, and a mix of emotions came upon Alastair’s face. 

At first it seemed he might cause trouble, but a rare moment of humility just had his savior his freedom, as he mounted up, and he and his cousins rode out of Coldwater. 

“Might’ve not been so bad if you let Benny lynch him.” the Sheriff came up to Thomas, with a wad of cash. Three hundred dollars, to fulfill the contract he made with the Hired Gun. “Figured if the town was given a chance, they’d do the right thing, the right way.” 

Thomas snatched the money, counted it greedily, and pocketed it. “This town’s justice is a coward’s justice. They won’t do it there, but in a mob liquored up, and led by a fast enough gun, they’ll imitate savages.” 

“You want to stay on? I would use a skilled gunman, I’ll get the mayor to double your pay, I expect there is going to be more trouble.” The Sheriff looked on to the Ranchers who gave Thomas and the Sheriff dirty looks before they were going to ride out, and prepare for war with the Meeks. “I suppose the Meeks inherited the Earth that day.” The Sheriff’s pun didn’t land well with Thomas who swished the water in his mouth. “So will you stay on?” 

Thomas spit out the water darkened by his blackish-red saliva. “Nope. This town’s water has a sour taste.” Dropping the jug to the snow covered ground, he went to his horse, mounted up, and rode out of town, leaving Coldwater to whatever mayhem they brought upon themselves.