“Who can actually say it—or will just be willing to say it?” Guthrie asked.
“What difference does that make? One is as good as another. Now, are you going to build the gallows? Or am I going to have to get someone else to do it?”
“No need for you to get anyone else,” Guthrie said. “You pay me the money, I’ll build anything you want, anywhere you want.”
Quentin took one hundred dollars from his billfold. “Is this enough to get it built?”
Guthrie smiled broadly, then picked up the money, folded it over, and stuck it in his pocket.
“Mr. Quentin, for this much money, I’ll build a gallows that anyone would be proud to swing from.”
“Get started on it,” he said.
Guthrie got a significant part of the gallows built in one day, and when Kathleen York walked by it just before supper that evening, she was unable to suppress an involuntary shiver. Someone had already printed a sign, and the sign was prominently posted on the base of the gallows being built.
In one more week
On the 17th, instant
The Murderer of
POGUE QUINLIN
will be hung on These Gallows.
The Public is invited.
“Check that there trapdoor, Jude,” Guthrie called. “We need to make sure it don’t hang up none.”
The carpenter named Jude pulled a handle, and the trapdoor fell open with a loud clatter.
Kathleen jumped.
“Ha! Scare you did it, Miz York?” Jude called to the woman, who was headed toward the jail, carrying a cloth-covered tray.
Without answering, Kathleen stepped up onto the porch, then pushed the door open to step into the jailhouse.
“Miz York, you got no business bein’ here,” Marshal Dawson said as Kathleen York let herself in through the front door of the marshal’s office.
“Your prisoner has to eat, Marshal Dawson,” Kathleen said, holding up the tray to emphasize her comment.
“Yes, ma’am, I reckon so, but you didn’t have to bring it over yourself. I could’a sent my deputy over to get the food.”
“Yes, well, there is a little problem with you sending your deputy for the food.”
“Really? And what problem would that be?” Dawson asked.
“It seems that not all the food makes it back to the jail when Mr. Wilson comes for it,” Kathleen explained.
Dawson laughed out loud. “Well, now, you have to admit that that is your own fault there, Miz York,” he said. “Truth to tell, if you wasn’t such a good cook, Wilson wouldn’t be pilferin’ the food as he brings it over. What are you feedin’ him tonight?”
Kathleen neither answered, nor offered to show him what she was bringing, so Dawson removed the cloth cover himself. When he did, he saw two pieces of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, and biscuits. There was also a piece of apple pie, upon which had been melted a slice of cheese.
“Well, now, Miz York,” Dawson said. “That is some dinner.”
“This is leftovers from my special over at the café tonight,” Kathleen said.
“That may be,” Dawson said. “But I know damn well the town ain’t payin’ you enough meal money for a prisoner to eat like that. What are you plannin’ on doin’? Stickin’ us with a higher bill later on?”
“No need. The city pays ten cents for the meal, I won’t charge you a penny more,” Kathleen said.
“Then I don’t understand. Why the feast?”
“From what I understand, the poor man is going to be hung when the judge arrives,” Kathleen said.
“Yes, ma’am, you understand that right,” he said. “Soon as Judge McCabe gets here, we’ll hold the trial, then we’ll hang him, prob’ly that same day.” Marshal Dawson chuckled. “I reckon you seen that they are buildin’ gallows out front.”
“Yes, I saw it as I walked by,” Kathleen replied. “I don’t know why you decided to build it right in the middle of Front Street. That is a little gruesome, if you ask me.”
“It may be, but that’s where Mr. Quentin wanted it built.”
“And you do everything Quentin tells you to do?”
“Well, let’s be fair here, Miz York,” Marshal Dawson replied. “After all, it was Quentin’s boy who was murdered. And he’s the one paying for the scaffold, not the town. So I reckon he can have the prisoner hung just about anywhere he wants to.”
“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? The jury hasn’t found the young man guilty.”
Dawson laughed out loud. “The jury ain’t found him guilty, you say?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Well, the thing is, Miz York, that’s just what you might call a technicality. I know you didn’t come to Billy Ray’s buryin’, but iffen you had come, why, you would of heard Pogue warn ever’one that might serve on the jury that they better find this murder guilty.”
“That isn’t right,” Kathleen said. “You can’t order someone to find a person guilty. There has to be a trial, the jury has to listen to the case and weigh all the evidence, before they can decide guilt or innocence.”
Dawson laughed. “You know all about juries, do you?”
“I know what is right and what is wrong,” Kathleen replied.
“Yeah, well, don’t worry about it. This fella is as guilty as sin and ever’one in town knows that, so there ain’t no way the jury won’t find him guilty, no matter whether Quentin ordered them to or not.”
“I know two people who say that Billy Ray fired first.”
“Oh, yeah? Who?”
“My son for one,” Kathleen said. “And Mary Lou Culpepper for another.”
Dawson laughed. “Mary Lou Culpepper? The whore? And you believe her?”
“I do. Especially when my son tells the same story.”
“Yes, ma’am, well, that don’t mean much, seein’ as ever’one in town knows your son is stuck on that whore. But I reckon, when you get right down to it, we’re goin’ to have to go with the evidence, the other eyewitness accounts, and the prisoner’s own confession.”
“Confession?”
“Yes, ma’am. When I asked if he was the one that kilt him, why, he said, flat out, that he was. And there wasn’t nobody in the saloon what didn’t hear him say that.”
“But that isn’t an admission of guilt. Didn’t he also say that Billy Ray shot first? That it was in self-defense?”
“He may have,” Marshal Dawson admitted. “But the thing is, Miz York, that kind of thing ain’t mine to decide. That’s for the court to decide. All I got to go on is the man who said he kilt him, which is my prisoner, and Billy Ray’s body, which is dead.”
“Marshal Dawson reached for the biscuit, but Kathleen pulled it back.
“This food is for the prisoner,” she said.
“Well, then, you better get it to him before it gets all cold,” Dawson said.
Kathleen took the tray back to the cell.
“Lenny asked me to make certain you get enough to eat.” As Lenny had before, she handed each dish through the bars to him before turning the tray on its side and sliding it through.
“Whoowee, I tell you the truth,” Pearlie said as he first looked at, then smelled, the food. He took a bite of chicken, then smiled. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “It’s almost worth bein’ put in jail here if I’m goin’ to get to eat like this.”
Kathleen laughed nervously. “Don’t be foolish, young man,” she said. “I appreciate the compliment, but nothing is worth being in jail for.”
“You must be Lenny’s sister,” Pearlie said.
Kathleen smiled, then blushed slightly. “I’m his mother,” she said.
“You don’t say,” Pearlie said. “Well, all I can say is, you must’a had him when you was about twelve or somethin’. You sure don’t look old enough to be his mother.”
“That’s very kind of you.”