Vignette

Written 13 December 1996. It might have been on the old blog, I don't remember.

The man on the horse has five pairs of eyes on him, hard unforgiving eyes shaded by cowboy hats. His own cowboy hat lies on the ground over there. The breeze brushes his bare chest, ruffling the fur there. His hands are tied behind his back with rough hemp rope. Another rope circles his neck and runs up to and over the branch over his head, down to the tree trunk where it's tied off with a solid knot. The posse surrounding him glares, waiting. The five of them are in leather chaps, dusty boots, work shirts and dusters. They've stripped the man of his shirt and chaps, leaving him in his jeans and boots.

The horse shifts under the man's weight. The man has his head bowed a little, sometimes looking up into the eyes of the posse that had captured him. He fought them at first but there were too many, they were too strong, and they had him on the ground and tied up fairly quickly. The rifles that they held on him helped convince him that there wasn't much he could do now. Well, he knew they'd be coming for him someday, and he'd die an outlaw's death on the end of the posse's rope.

So he sits and waits. His heart thumps loudly. Even though he knew it was coming, dying isn't something that's easy to meet calmly. Still, he's not begging for mercy. He's silent, knowing that whatever he has to say now would be wasted on the ears of the posse. He notices the warmth and hardness in the crotch of his jeans. He'd heard that getting hanged could excite a man. So far, strangely enough, it looked to be true. He'd seen a hanging once, a judicial one in town, and he remembered the sight of the victim dangling limp at the end of the rope for a long time.

The leader of the posse comes up and asks for any last words. The outlaw is silent. The leader waits a moment, then with his hat swats the horse on the rump and yells. The horse bolts. The man instinctively squeezes the flanks of the horse in an effort to stay on. But the rope pulls him off the back of the horse. He swings wildly back and forth in wide arcs. The swinging serves to set the knot tighter around the outlaw's neck. His pendulum motions wane. He's trying not to kick or struggle much, because his throat is almost closed off now with only a little air getting through his tortured windpipe. But panic finally grips him, and the dance starts. He stretches for the ground, kicking a little. He tries to pull his hands free from the ungiving rope holding his wrists behind him. His mouth opens wider but he only gags. His face reddens and his eyes bulge. Soon he's not making any sound—the noose has closed tightly around his neck, admitting no air to his straining lungs. His struggles are more frantic now. The posse just watches from about 10 feet away, most still mounted on their horses. One surreptitiously rubs his own crotch with the stock of his rifle once or twice.

The man does a fine rope dance, his dusty boots kicking at the air while he jerks and spasms trying to get free. His motions change slightly, and soon the posse sees a dark spot grow on the man's jeans around where the bulge in his crotch is. At about the same time, his eyes turn glassy and he loses consciousness. He's still fighting though, boots still dancing, but his efforts are ineffective and losing momentum. After a few more minutes, his spasms subside into twitches, then one more twitch and he sags limp on the noose-rope. A bigger dark stain grows now on his jeans as his bladder lets go and he pisses himself.

The leader of the posse motions and they ride away, satisfied that the man they leave hanging from the tree will no longer rustle their herds. In the quiet of the late afternoon, the only noise is an occasional creak of the rope as the outlaw hangs nearly still. His face is frozen with mouth slack, head canted to one side by the rope. He almost looks peaceful now, dangling from the noose. The toes of his boots point downward toward the grass; their only movement now comes when the wind comes up.

Tomorrow the sheriff will ride this way and find the outlaw, who'll be cold and stiff by morning. The sheriff will have his deputies dig a grave right there. They'll cut the outlaw down and dump him in the grave, still wearing the rope around his wrists and his noose. He'll be face down, and they'll shovel the dirt onto his back. When they finish, they'll ride away, leaving the outlaw to his unmarked grave in the middle of the prairie.