Written April 2020
Somewhere out west, 1891
Delmore and Brent were a couple of lanky guys in their mid-30s who knew they were pretty much no-account varmints, drifting from directionless jobs in different towns and supplementing that with some minor thievery and other things their fathers would not approve of. They were riding some backtrails on a sunny day looking for something Brent saw a couple of days ago. They rode about an hour before they came upon the site. Brent hadn't told Delmore what it was, so when he saw it, it about knocked him off his horse. Out in the middle of nowhere, a few miles from the nearest house that they saw, a tree stood with a noose dangling from a low branch -– a whole gallows set-up all ready to go. “What the hell...” was all Delmore could say. There was no hangman or anyone else there, but there was a sign.
“Brent, you read that, I never did learn my letters,” Delmore said. Brent dismounted and walked to the sign, squinted, and started to read aloud.
Sometimes a man comes to realize that he needs hanging. If that's your situation, feel free to use this noose. Don't matter why, just slip the noose around your neck and swing. Be sure to make the loop snug so you don't suffer more than you have to. Mr. H. Williams will make sure your remains are handled in a respectful way.
“Who wants to do that?” Delmore said. “Most varmints I know, they's trying to run from the noose, not towards it.”
“Wait, there's a footnote,” Brent said, pointing at the second paragraph. “ 'Gentlemen, if there's one among you what could use a noose to fix his ways, you may use this gallows to do so.' “ Brent looked at Delmore with a grin after reading that line.
“Don't lookit me like that,” Delmore growled.
“I'm just jokin'.”
They both looked over the scene. The noose ran up over the foot-thick branch and back down to where the long end of the rope was tied around the trunk. Under the noose was a piece of a log a couple of feet long, stood up on end. There was a wooden platform, resting on the ground, on which the log stood. The sign was posted to the right, and to the left on the platform was a box with a label reading Clothes & Personal Effects. “Look, Del, they thought of everything,” Brent said as he pointed at a pair of handcuffs dangling from a hook sunk into the tree. Brent could see Del thought the whole thing was a damn-fool idea.
It was quiet except for occasional noises from the two horses and the breeze in the trees. The two varmints looked around, partly to make sure there wasn't any posse coming up on them, which had come to be a useful habit for them. Partly, being this close to a gallows made them both feel a bit strange.
“I'm gon' do it,” Brent said.
“Gon' do what?”
“Gon' hang.”
“What the fuck, you outta your mind?”
“Delmore, you know the shit we've done over the last few years. Maybe you don't feel anythin' 'bout it, but I ain't gonna be able to keep runnin' from it. I been thinking, it's time to pay up.” Brent was unbuttoning his shirt and when he was done he took it off and tossed it into the box. “Besides, it's a nice setup. Beats being strung up 'front of a crowd in a town somewhere with 'em jeering at ya.”
“So that's why you drug me out here,” Delmore said, “to watch you hang yourself?”
Brent had his left boot off and was taking off the right one. “A man don't wanna die alone, Del,” he said as he put the boots in the box, then even removed his hat and put it in the box. Then he started unbuckling his pants.
Delmore was pretty much beside himself. Brent shucked his dungarees, folded them so the stuff wouldn't fall out of the pockets, not that there was money in them, and put them in the box.
“OK, but why you gotta do it naked?” Del whined as Brent stuck his thumbs in the waistband of his long johns and slid them off his ass.
“Maybe someone could use these clothes, well, not these, but the other stuff,” Brent said. “I ain't gonna need 'em.” With the underwear and socks in the box, Brent was buck naked in the afternoon sunshine.
“Look, Del, you said las' night you wanted to light out for Texas. Just stay till I'm gone, and then head out. You get my horse and saddle. Do what you need to with 'em, the money'll help if you sell 'em.”
“Well, I appreciate that, Brent,” Delmore said hesitantly. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he just sat on his horse looking resigned. They both eyed the noose.
Brent moved over to the log and put a foot up on it. “You forgetting something?” Delmore asked.
“Oh yeah,” Brent grinned and went for the handcuffs. He put one cuff on the left wrist. “Ain't had cuffs on me in a couple of years. Didn't think I'd missed 'em.”
“Once a varmint, always a varmint,” Delmore said.
“ 'Cept I'll be a dead varmint by sundown,” Brent said. He went back to the log and put a foot up on it, and Delmore could see more than he wanted to of Brent's crotch. It looked like his buddy kind of liked this process. Brent got both feet up on the log gingerly. “This ain't steady,” Brent said.
“Careful, you might hurt yerself,” Del replied.
“Wouldn't want that.” Brent got his feet spread out as much as he could to be stable, and then he was looking straight through the loop of the noose. He grasped it with both hands and slipped it over his shaggy head. When the noose cleared his chin, he adjusted it so the loop was high enough on his neck to clear his Adam's apple, then pulled the seven-turn knot close to the back of his head.
“Make sure it's snug, so's you don' suffer,” Delmore said. “Like the sign says.”
Brent pulled it again, maybe a little tighter than he needed to. The rough rope dug into the skin of his neck.
Brent stood a moment, and then decided he needed to pull on his cock and balls. “Pardon me,” he said to Delmore. Brent's equipment was pretty loose.
“Yer crossin' the line between comfort and perv,” Delmore said. Brent just grinned. Before Delmore realized it, Brent had put his hands behind his back and the second cuff clicked closed around his right wrist.
“That better?” Brent asked. But with his hands restrained solidly behind his back, Brent's cock got stiffer.
“Yer pecker seems to like this . . . yer a varmint AND a pervert,” Delmore said.
Brent looked down and blushed a little. “Yeah, I guess I might be,” he agreed sheepishly. He stood carefully on the log, no way to hide anything now. Delmore mostly looked at Brent's face, when he wasn't scouting the landscape for intruders.
“You gon' change your mind?”
“Naw … I'm good,” Brent replied. “ 'Less you wanna give me a tug, maybe.”
“It's bad luck to touch a guy's pecker when he's standin' on a gallows,” Delmore said.
“Shitbird,” Brent called him. They both chuckled.
A moment passed. “You gon' get this over with so I can make tracks 'fore sunset?”
“Yeah, I s'pose. Thanks for . . . for everything, Delmore.”
Delmore just tipped his hat.
Brent adjusted his feet so his toes were on the edge of the log. “Here goes,” he said. Then he pushed and the log easily tipped over behind him. Brent dropped, well, kinda sagged actually, and dangled from the rope, his feet a few inches off the platform. His naked body swung slightly forward and back, then a little side-to-side. Brent's head was forced down by the knot behind his head but he was just able to look up and catch Delmore's eyes. Brent tried to breathe in but only managed a gagging noise. Delmore couldn't help but see Brent's cock grow even stiffer and he recalled that some guys managed to shoot when they were hanged. He had to shift his position in the saddle, as he realized his own cock was getting uncomfortably cramped while he watched Brent hanging with almost a full hard-on.
Brent kicked a little, and his eyes got wide in surprise for a moment. Then his face relaxed again and Delmore saw that maybe his friend had passed out. Brent was still swinging, though otherwise he didn't move much. Wait – then he stiffened, and relaxed. And then a big twitch shuddered through his body. There were a couple more of those, and then Brent seemed to go still and stay that way. Soon the rope no longer swung him and the naked man dangled over the platform, dead or close enough.
Delmore removed his hat. He sidled his horse so that he could see better. Brent's pupils were dilated as he stared blankly at the ground. His eyes weren't closed but otherwise he looked like he was just asleep. This close, Del could smell Brent's sweat from his final struggle. Brent's still-fat cock dripped a little; he hadn't shot but he had gotten close.
Delmore noticed something by the sign. It was a small pad of paper with a charcoal pencil resting on it. There was a note that, as much as he could tell, read “If you want, sign your name here” and Delmore gave it a thought, then he dismounted and picked up the pencil.
Brent Harbaugh
Born 1858
Died 1891
A varmint, but not to bad a guy anyways
Delmore put the pencil down, grabbed the reins to Brent's horse, mounted his own, and, with one last look back at his dead friend, headed out across the prairie for Texas.
Brent stayed put as the sun set and dark fell over the land. In the morning Harv Williams came by and found Brent waiting for him, looking kind of pale and maybe stiff. By noon, Harv had a hole dug and soon Brent was in it, getting dirt shoveled on him. When Harv was finished, he put the cuffs back on the hook, collected all Brent's clothes in a sack, and headed back to town, leaving the gallows set up for the next guy who needed hanging.
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