Kid Nobody stood, warily on the gallows, noose around his neck, hands tied behind his back, peering down at the crowd of laughing faces. The man wearing his boots, held them up, lifting his right leg by his right calf, laughing. They were all elbowing and poking each other, having a real good time. The round old man, galloped awkwardly around a corner on Leroy and smiled a broad smile, staring at the Kid. Laughing.
The only face he saw that wasn’t laughing, was the woman who took his money, and she was sneering.
“Do you, Kid Nobody,” the Sheriff stated grandly, from the gallows, “have any last statements or requests you’d like to make to the people of Creighton, before we, the people of the town, execute your sentence for the crime of Stealing the Boots Off a Dead Man? Maybe make an apology?”
Kid Nobody could taste his bile rise, his testicles ascended and shrivelled. He was too scared to be outraged. He did have one request:
“The horse,” he said, through tight vocal chords, “let him go.”
The people of the town began laughing before he could finish.
“Let him run free.”
When everybody gathered had stopped laughing, the Sheriff said, haughtily, “Boy, we’re a hungry town, cut off from our neighbors by the hills. Ain’t a horse that’s left Creighton in the past several months.”
“Don’t I at least get a trial,” Kid Nobody asked desperately.
“No trial,” the Sheriff said, mock surprised, “ain’t no need for a trial. I saw you do it.” He patted his deputy on the chest behind him, “we both saw you do it, didn’t we?”
“Yup,” the deputy said.
“Alright,” the Sheriff said, ushering the deputy down the platform, “let’s get this thing over with. Let's get a fire going, put him on the rotisserie once the hanging's finished.”
The Sheriff ambled, rocking back and forth, down the steps.
From the platform, Kid Nobody saw the shape of a man, stumbling toward the crowd.
“Look,” he cried, “he ain’t dead!”
“You stupid son of a bitch,” the Sheriff said, “I ain’t going to fall for that.”
The Sheriff grabbed the release for the trap door that would kill Kid Nobody, when someone from the back of the crowd shouted, “he’s right.”
The Sheriff made his way through the crowd, bewildered.
“It’s him,” someone else said.
The Sheriff walked right up to the man who’s boots Kid Nobody tried to steal and said, “now how in tarnation--”
And the man bit off the sheriff’s nose. No one moved to try and help him, not even the deputy.
The skinny ranting man, who Kid Nobody had only just realized was not among the crowd, ran top speed around the corner, shouting, “It’s them! They’re here! The Indians!”
The crowd, already shocked, turned to each other, confused.
“The Indians?”
“What, new Indians?”
“I thought we already killed them all.”
The vomiting man continued to tear giant chunks of flesh from the sheriff as he screamed, a high pitched pulse, one short yelp after another, followed by a long sustained one.
***
The vomiting man was just a warm-up, the Indians were in the thick of the crowd, gouging, biting, tearing. They had everybody from the town all gathered up into one neat little crowd, like cattle in a pen. And they were quite dead, too, the Indians. Some of them were missing ears, noses and whole faces. Their sickly bodies had been emaciated and bored through by itchy little maggots and worms. Ribs jutted out of most of their chests, and Kid Nobody was up there on the platform, watching it all go down. He was too frightened to feel a sense of justice, though. His hands were tied behind his back and the noose was still tight around his neck, after all.
ONE MORE SMOKE FOR THE ROAD
15 years ago
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