Sunday's Execution - Pt. 2

“He was s-sentenced to hang in Oriental Springs, where he’s from. They just couldn’t do it. He didn’t die. They shipped him off to Oakwood to be hung there and they couldn’t do it neither.” The sheriff was trembling with all manner of superstition.

“What do you mean they couldn’t?” Logan prodded.

“I mean they hung him alright, dropped the floor out, saw the noose tighten, but they didn’t hear…um…they d-didn’t hear the, um…” the sheriff fumbled.

“The snap?”

The sheriff winced again and nodded. That was his least favorite part of the execution. As the sheriff, he had to be up on the platform when it went down. He always closed his eyes when the condemned dropped.

“Why don’t they just keep him locked up in Oriental Springs, then?” Logan asked.

“The people were clamoring for his head. He killed his mother, Winslow. You don’t just sit in a cell for that. After he wouldn’t die, they all were too afraid to try again. Same in Oakwood. We’re the next closest town and Thorndike agreed to give it a shot.”

“You mean let me give it a shot?” Logan sneered.

Why should I have to finish someone else’s job? Logan thought to himself. How can an execution be mucked up twice in a row? It was the simplest thing in the world. Strong rope. Tight noose. High platform. Done and done. He didn’t personally know the hangmen from the other towns, but he assumed they must be simpletons.

“Ayup. If you can’t do it, we’ll ship him off somewhere else.”

Logan didn’t enjoy killing but, as far as he knew, he hung more men in the state (hell, maybe the country) than any of his peers. He’d heard about botched executions. Unclean hangings. Accidental decapitations. His record was clean. Maybe another reason Thorndike liked him so much. A spark of challenge leaped into Logan’s stomach.

“Oh, I can do it.” Logan blurted unconsciously. The sheriff went back to staring at his feet.

“Alright…” Logan thought out loud. “It’s possible that they did something wrong in those other towns. The noose wasn’t taught enough, or the rope wasn’t strong enough…platform wasn’t high enough or something.” Logan tapped his foot against the ground, biting his lip and folding his arms. A tense itching creeped onto his scalp. His Sunday morning was already ruined. He didn’t even think a ride on his horse would cheer him up. A sick thought occurred to him.

Why not ask the bastard himself? Logan turned to Ephraim, who was still silently staring at him.

“Well, Ephraim,” Logan asked, “what do you think went wrong?”

To Logan and sheriff Watson’s surprise, the condemned spoke.

“Can’t die.” Ephraim croaked.

Logan couldn’t suppress a laugh. He’d killed men twice Ephraim’s size in a matter of seconds. The sheriff, however, let out an audible moan of terror at the proclamation. Logan eyed the prisoner over again. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but there must be some reason that the man could survive two hangings. He was too skinny, but a lot of poor folks were. If he was slipping out of nooses with his chicken neck, they would have just tightened the noose. The boy was young; couldn’t have been older than twenty or so. To Logan, there was nothing outwardly odd about this fellow but...

Has he been blinking? Logan wondered. He continued staring at Ephraim when he addressed the sheriff again.

“Have the gallows been built up?”

“No. Thorndike wants it totally private. G-gallows will attract a crowd and the day’s just about to get started”

Logan rolled his eyes. “How in the hell do you expect me to hang him?” Logan chided.

The sheriff began stuttering. Logan cut him off. It seems no one had thought of that. Goddamn idiots, Logan thought. “No hanging, so…”, Logan muttered. There seemed to be only one solution. “Sheriff, can I see your gun a moment?”

The sheriff’s mouth dropped open. “Logan…Logan…I can’t just g-give you my g-gun. I can’t – “

“Well, if we can’t hang him, we’ll have to shoot him.” Logan declared. He studied Ephraim for any sign of fear or protest. There was none.

“Couldn’t we h-hang him from a tree, or something?” the sheriff butted in.

“Sure. Sure, we could. It’d be messier. Less of a chance of it working, too. When you hang from a tree, the man doesn’t die from his neck getting snapped. It’s not quick. It strangles the sonofabitch. You think the snap is bad? You ever hear a man gurgle for his life, sheriff?”

“I wouldn’t be there.”

“Of course you would. Big fella like you needs to help me string him up.”

The sheriff shook his head with a vehemence that caused all the folds in his face and neck to jiggle.

“That’s what I thought. So, gimme your gun. Let me shoot him.”

“Ain’t that inhumane?” the sheriff asked.

“Just as quick as a hanging. Maybe quicker.”

“The mess…” worried the sheriff.

“I’ll clean up.”

The sheriff scratched his neck in thought. “Should we get him a hood?” said the sheriff, conceding.

“Fine.” Logan sighed.

Logan crossed back into his house, slamming the door behind him. While it normally wasn’t at risk, Logan wanted to keep his privacy. As Logan searched for something in his home that would be a suitable execution hood, he thought of what sheriff Watson imagined the inside of the hangman’s home to be like. Prize nooses dangling from the ceiling, a selection of execution hoods for each day of the week, human skulls lining the floorboards: an absolutely macabre dimension, not the average, single room ode to humbleness in which Logan actually lived. He didn’t need much in here, what with his true passion being out in the stable. His mind switched to Fresh Air. While his job certainly othered him, it occurred to him in that moment that were it not for his job, he wouldn’t have ever known Fresh.

Fresh Air was a gift. Not a gift to Logan, of course, but to Judge Thorndike. He had sentenced a child murderer to death some two years ago. Not a difficult decision to do so. Logan couldn’t remember the face of that murderer, he probably looked like anyone else despite his crimes, but he could remember the number. Fifty-one. Well into Logan’s career, well past the time when Logan may have stopped to wonder why someone would murder a child. Thorndike, not bearing any love for horses, regifted the young foal to Logan in exchange for his years of service. He had never known such purity, such unabashed goodness, before the young horse nuzzled into his hand for the first time. He knew exactly what to name her.

It was after about twenty hangings when Logan was able to block out the faces of his victims. He had plenty of chances to get close to the condemned, memorize them, in the days and moments leading up to their deaths. In truth, his nightmares from early on were often the faces of these men, eyes bulging, tongues out, popping out from shadows in the corner. Through sheer exposure, he learned to block them out, to keep the faces of the condemned out of focus while he put on the hoods, to hold his breath so he wouldn’t have to smell them.

Most men, at least in Logan’s experience, cried as he put the hood on. Some cried the whole time, but the real break came when Logan was sliding the hood down their face.  Tears would often get hisses and boos from the crowd. Shouts of “coward”. Logan knew that any of the hecklers in the crowd would be blubbering if they were being put to death. Hypocrites and idiots, the lot of them.

There were a few prisoners that held their grit, told a joke as their last words, made the crowd laugh. Didn’t matter, they died too, no matter how funny. He often heard even these lockjawed folks sputter out a sob once the hood was over their mouth. That’s the perfect time to start weeping after all, he figured. If he was ever put to death, he wouldn’t know how he would react, but he knew that he should wait for the hood before anything. Hell, he thought as he found an empty potato sack in a cupboard, if I ever get sentenced, they should just let me do my own hanging. He smiled briefly at this thought, sickening as it was.

He stood there, potato sack in hand, staring at it for a moment. His smile faded. He imagined himself hanging. Alone. His horse the only one in the crowd.

He slid the potato sack over his own head. Only the faintest light was coming in through small holes in the fabric.

“I’ve never shot a man.” Logan whispered to himself.

He didn’t know how long he was standing there, lost in his own ideations.

“Winslow…what are you doing?” The sheriff called from outside.

Logan ripped the sack off his head.

“Testing the hood. Don’t want him to see out of it. Think I found something.” Logan called, just a bit breathless.

As Logan stepped back out into the dry heat of the prairie, the sheriff fumbled his six-shooter out of its holster and was checking the chamber. Fully loaded. Logan moved right past him to Ephraim. “Ready?” Logan asked.

Ephraim nodded slightly. Logan began lowering the sack over Ephraim’s head when the sheriff butted in.

“Wait!”

“What?”

“Shouldn’t we let him have his last words?”

“He already had his last words. Twice probably.”

“Still…isn’t it the r-right thing to do?”

Logan backed up and pinched the bridge of his nose. He thought briefly of the prairie, the mountain pass, the horse underneath him. He gestured for the sheriff to speak.

“Ephraim Johannsen, you are b-being sentenced to h-hang for the murder of your m-mother. Do you have any last words?” It was a pitiful attempt to sound like an authority.

Logan didn’t expect anything but was surprised again when the prisoner spoke.

“I had a plum shit life. Been try’na end it rather than livin’ it. Just couldn’t do it. Figured the law could do it. They couldn’t do it.” Then, he looked straight to Logan. “You can’t do it neither.”

He turned his gaze to the sky.

“That’s all I got.”

Logan and the sheriff exchanged a glance. The sheriff nodded for him to continue, and Logan placed the hood over Ephraim’s face. He stood for a moment, close to Ephraim, to see if he would start sobbing. Nothing.

Logan crossed back to the sheriff, holding out his hand for the gun. The sheriff reluctantly handed it to him and immediately turned around to stare off back towards town. Logan took a few paces back, but not too many. He didn’t know himself to be an ace shot. He steadied and aimed the six-shooter right between where he figured the eyes were behind the sack.

Right through his brain. Won’t feel a thing, Logan thought.

He hesitated; his finger depressed the trigger just slightly. There wasn’t a sound or a shrinking flinch from Ephraim. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he mused, I can’t do it. The gun was heavy in his hands; he struggled to keep it level. A ticklish bead of sweat made it down from his forehead to his thicketed beard. The air seemed still. Logan became hyper-focused on the man in front of him. The scarecrow waiting patiently for obliteration. Why isn’t he crying or nothing?

“You have to pull all the way down on the trig-“ the sheriff started.

Startled, Logan squeezed the trigger. The pistol went off with a resounding BANG!

The sheriff winced and covered his ears. Logan’s wrist launched back with the violent recoil. He could hear Fresh Air’s startled whinnying, actually hear her, through his own ringing ears. Logan blinked through the clearing smoke from the shot and stared curiously at what he saw.

Ephraim was flat on his ass, sitting upright in the dirt. A large, bullet hole was torn through the center of the sack. Gunsmoke leaked from the hole and drifted upwards, as if Ephraim was concealing a tiny lit pipe behind it. Logan stared, dazed.

“Did you get him?” Watson squeaked, his back still turned.

Logan didn’t respond. He just kept on staring at Ephraim. Eventually the sheriff turned, staring in equal disbelief, despite all the papers he read about the unkillable man. After a moment, Ephraim Johannsen managed to shamble to his feet, chains jangling noisily as he did. Then, he stood, sack on head, silent as ever.

The sheriff performed the sign of the cross on himself reflexively. Ephraim made no attempt to run, barely moved at all. Logan, trepid himself, walked to Ephraim and removed the hood. The slug had hit its mark and was planted firmly in his forehead just above the bridge of his nose. Ephraim blinked as the sun hit his eyes again.

“Didn’t even break the skin.” Logan said, unbelieving.

He picked the bullet out of the indent it had left on Ephraim’s forehead and let it drop to the dirt. Logan backed up to get a whole look at Ephraim. He was completely fine. Even the indent in his forehead began to reinflate slowly. It was as if he had never been shot.

Logan held out the six-shooter for the sheriff to take back. The sheriff cringed away from it.

“I d-don’t want that thing back. Y-you can k-keep it.”

Logan dropped his arm, standing with the pistol at his side. He and Ephraim were caught again in deadlocked eye contact. Finally, Logan conceded. He sniffed and spit on the ground.

“Let’s get him shipped off to Wentworth.”

“What?”

“Send him to the next town. Maybe they can do it. Don’t know what they’d do, but it’s not my problem anymore. I tried.”

“J-judge Thorndike told those other towns that you could do it.”

“And what? Just keep him here while I try to kill this man over and over?”

“I don’t –“ the sheriff started.

“Would we keep him at the jail and parade him to my house every day?”

“I don’t know.”

“Get him out of here. I don’t run a torture dungeon”

“I don’t want to be around him.” The sheriff whined.

“Well, he’s not my responsibility anymore. You don’t want to be around him, get some of the deputies to ship him out. I don’t care.”

“Okay. Okay…Judge Thorndike won’t be happy.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“Um…Winslow?”

Logan didn’t respond right away. He was getting hot. The frustrating itch from his scalp was spreading across his whole head.

This is the only thing I’m good at, goddammit. Why today? Why on a Sunday?

“Logan.” the sheriff piped up.

“What?”

“Can you keep him here while I grab the deputies?”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to be alone with him.”

“Watson, goddammit, he’s not gonna do anything to you!”

“I just – “ The sheriff squirmed.

“Fine! Just go on and get out of here. Make it quick.”

The sheriff scurried to his horse and rode off back towards town, thankful as Logan was to leave. The two remaining men stood in silence. The sun was over the mountain pass at this point. Logan squinted towards the horizon a bit before turning back to his prisoner. Ephraim continued staring directly at him with that same dead expression.

-- Cont. in Pt. 3 --