The Devil's Laugh--A Short Story

            “Then it’s settled,” Sheriff Cole announced. “Tomorrow at dawn this man is to be hanged for murder of his brother and the rape of his sister.”

            Mitch didn’t even bother to look the sheriff in the eye at this point. The trial was—what—two hours long and full of lies. The only time Mitch had ever raised a hand to his brother was when they were children, but now that they were full-grown adults, the thought had never crossed Mitch’s mind. And to violate his sister-in-law was absurd. It was despicable.

            “Mister Gus and I will be dealing with the proceedings accordingly,” Cole said.

            The crowd remained abuzz with discussion. Mitch picked up only on some of it, and that little some was about if they would bother attending the hanging. Town hadn’t had one in a few weeks, they said, may as well see a murderer and rapist get what’s his.

            “In the meantime, Mitch here is gonna be having a nice stay at the county prison where I’ll be keeping a close eye on him,” Cole said. “I certainly would not want him around any of ya’ll, ‘specially none of you ladies. No sir.”

            Mitch, disgusted, stood up from his small box next to the judge. He looked around the room, where most of the people in the small town now resided, then shook his head, speechless.

            “Nothing to say, really?” asked Cole. “You’ve been defending yourself all trial long, son, and now you’re all out of words?”

            “I won’t accept my sentencing, because I know as well as you, and Ms. Mary, that I am an innocent man,” Mitch said. “I’m a man of faith, as you all know. Faith and morals. I believe in a God that brings justice and retribution to those who bring harm to His children. So I’m not going to say anything, because just as you’ve sentenced me, I believe you’ve sentenced yourselves.”

            Mitch looked up to the presiding judge. While Sheriff Cole had been the one to do most of the talking for the prosecution, it was indeed the judge who had to be the one to make the final call. Mitch knew, though, that the evidence was purposefully stacked against him, that Cole and Mary wanted him to be sentenced to death.

            “You can take me, now,” he said. His voice, for the first time, was not determined but somber, as if in defeat.

            Cole smirked, looking over to Mary, who was sitting in the front row. She seemed very stoic the entire trial, even when she was giving her piece on what had supposedly happened to her the other day. Her brown eyes remained unwavering and she barely shed a tear, as if to show the emotional damage she had taken.

            From there Cole looked over to Gus, who was unofficially the town big man. He handled the dirty work for most people if they paid him enough money. Gus, too, had never quite taken a liking to neither Mary’s husband nor Mitch.

            Gus stood up, striding over to Mitch. His stride tried to impress and almost intimidate the townsfolk, as his muscles were large and his shoulders broad. He smirked at Mitch as if victorious, even though he had nothing to with the trial.

            “I’ll be taking you over to your temporary home, Mitch,” he said. His voice was deep and gruff, just a big stupid man in the West would have.

            “Thank you,” Mitch said.

            Gus opened the flap of the door and guided Mitch out the back-door of the courthouse. There was nothing but silence in the courthouse as the duo left the room, and there was nothing but silence as they moved across the lawn to the small county prison. Only one man and his musket were guarding the prison at the time of arrival.

            “Got one for ya,” Gus said as they entered the smelly county prison. He was gripping the sweaty back of Mitch’s shirt tightly, as if Mitch wanted to really get away from him. Gus was just being manly, was all.

            The prisoner and the brute stood in front of a slew of cells. It was eerily quiet in the prison, contrary to Mitch’s belief of how most prisons worked in this era. The amount of cowboys and Indians being thrown in jail was unbelievable, yet here he was about to be thrown in with what seemed like only one other prisoner.

            “Well since this one here’s all alone, you may as well share a nice little cell together,” Gus said. “And you, over there, you come on with me to get a drink. Bet you’ve been bored all day, haven’t you?”

            “Like you wouldn’t believe,” the guard muttered. He took his keys off the desk and followed Gus out of the door, leaving Mitch with the other man.

            The other man looked quite calm in the setting, though. He hadn’t cracked, yet, and was not being very cold to Mitch…yet. Mitch had a bad impression of prisoners ever since he visited one a few years ago to visit his uncle. He never wanted to enter one again.

            It was the smell that turned him off, really. The smell encompassed everything bad about a prison. It smelled not only rotten but just foul. The only places to relieve oneself were in the corner with a piss-pot or a small spot that was humid and gross. Not only that, but prisons didn’t have windows for men to escape out of quickly, so the stench lingered and almost melded with the walls. Mixed with the sweat because of the great heat, particularly in the Western territories where the Sun was relentless, the rotten, sweaty smell was nothing anyone wanted to be fond of.

            Perhaps dying won’t be so bad, at least I won’t have to smell anything this bad ever again, Mitch thought. Humor on the doorstep of death, eh? He really had lost it in the trial.

            “Well then,” the other man said.

            Mitch, surprised and forgetting that he had a cellmate, turned to face the man who just spoke. He was older, but dressed in cowboy attire. His gun pouch was empty, and looked worn. He also had a bad case of hat-hair, it would seem. He was missing a few yellow teeth and had small arms and legs. How long had he been in here?

            “Well then what?” Mitch asked.        

            “I haven’t gotten company in quite some time,” the man said. His accent was thick like the Sheriff’s. “Most of the time, the people who would be sentenced to prison are just sent straight to the hanging post in this town. No time to lose, right?”

            “I suppose,” Mitch muttered.

            “Well then why spare you the relief of dying so quickly?” the other man asked again. “They like you out there, or something?”

            “It depends who ‘they’ are, but if you’re referring to my prosecutor’s then no, not particularly,” Mitch said. “Not that man who was just with me, not the sheriff, not my sister-in-law, hell, not even the tavern man Butch likes me.”

            “Ah yeah? I heard of them. Ain’t they the richest in the town, or something?”

            “Yes, they are,” Mitch said. Curious, seeing as how that had only been established recently. It only further begged the question of how long this older man had been in the prison. Mitch hadn’t heard anything about someone going to prison, and news like that spread like wildfire in a town of only one hundred and thirty six.

            “Figures they would try to keep an honest looking man like yourself out of their way,” the older man said.            

            “That’s what I was thinking when I was told I raped my sister-in-law and murdered my brother,” Mitch said. “It was certainly news to me. But I really didn’t think I posed much of a threat to them outside of the mayoral race.”

            “Well that certainly sounds important,” the older man said. “Surprised they didn’t just kill you on the spot. Maybe this little prison stunt was a good idea on their end. Who were you running against?”

            “The sheriff,” Mitch replied. “We hadn’t even gotten to the first debate yet and here I am having a good old time in here.”

            “Ah, may as well make the best of it,” the other man said. “We don’t have drinks in here like your buddies, but, at least we don’t have to worry about anyone in here trying to kill us. Leave that for the morning, eh?”

            “Yeah,” Mitch mumbled.

            The older man chuckled, then scooted over some and patted Mitch on the back, as if to comfort him. Mitch still wondered about this man, and how he knew so much yet was still alone in here. Had the other guard really kept him that up to date? Possibly, but, those were such trivial things to discuss.           

            “Hey, how do you know all of this?” Mitch decided to ask.

            “Small town, young man,” the man said. He kept on chuckling, then took a break in his chuckle to say, “Small town.”

            Mitch nodded, questioning the true sanity of this little cellmate that at first seemed quiet and maybe even intelligent. Mitch felt that the man’s laugh was enough for others outside to hear it.

            That was not the case; however, as Gus and the prison guard continued on their walk, hearing nothing but the small talk of the town about the trial, and how a good man like Mitch would do such terrible deeds. Gus snickered at the accusations, and equally at the result. Hopefully he would be the one to hang Mitch.

            Mitch’s brother managed to keep a close enough eye on Mitch to the point where Gus was not allowed to touch him. With him dead, Gus could give him the beating of a lifetime now. With his death sentence, though, Gus could be the one to do it. The last time there was an execution, a few months ago, Cole allowed Gus to be the one to do it.

            The tavern was not too far from the prison. In fact, nothing in the town was very far from anything. The farthest one had to walk was about five or so minutes to get from one end to another. They weren’t too far from a secretly-known goldmine, too, which allowed them to make good money whenever they pleased.

            They, though, were an exclusive group, and Gus was aware of this. Used to be five, now there were only four of them. Gus was part of that exclusive group, as were Mary, Cole, and the tavern man Butch.

            Gus opened the door for he and the prison guard. The place was pretty quiet, and there were only about five people in it. It was the only tavern in town and some nights the place could get quite chaotic. Perhaps this evening would be one such night, as the town hadn’t had an execution for a few months, now.

            Butch was in the back polishing some glasses. Lots of time to kill and money to make in town. Gus and the prison guard walked straight to the back. Gus slammed his hand down on the counter, forcing Butch to look up to him and his new friend.         
            “Hey, Gus,” he said. “Bring a friend, for once?”

            “A drinking buddy, yeah!” he exclaimed.

            “Eh, the sun is preparing to set rather soon, may as well get the drinking started,” Butch said, then shrugged. “What’ll it be, friend?”

            Butch already had Gus’s drink prepared and handed to him by the time the guard managed to stumble with what he wanted to say. Gus took a swig.

            “Oh, lighten up!” Gus exclaimed. He slammed his hand on the prison guard’s back. “You’re finally out of that damned prison and enjoying a drink. Free drink, mind you. So don’t forget that if I ever find myself in trouble.”
            “Seem fine to me,” the guard said. “Don’t think we’ll have much trouble if you keep pulling me out of that place. Should be empty by tomorrow morning.”

            “There was another guy in there, wasn’t there?” asked Gus.

            “Another guy?” asked Butch. “Thought the only person in there was supposed to be Mitch, wasn’t that the point?”           

            “The point?” asked the guard.

            Gus took another swig, this one much larger, nearly emptying the glass. He took a deep breath, as if coming up from underwater, before explaining.

            “You don’t think Mitch really did anything, do you?” he asked. He laughed as the prison guard shook his head. “That girl Mary’s got a lot less in her than her husband did.” He looked around for a second, thinking. “Well, shouldn’t say that. She has a lot in the bedroom, I can tell you that, and she’s the one with all the money.”

            “She’s got more motivation than her husband did,” Butch said easily.

            Gus pointed at him, and Butch replenished his drink. When he received his drink, Gus continued to talk. “Motivation and money are nice things to have. That’s why a husband who doesn’t know how to spend the money isn’t an entirely good thing to have.”

            “I’m not following,” the guard said.

            “Man they’ll throw anyone up at a guard post, won’t they?” asked Gus. “Ah, well, I don’t mind talking about it. You won’t tell anybody, right? Nah.”

            “And you’ll tell anybody anything, won’t you?” asked Butch. “Dumbass.”

            Gus took a moment to turn and face Butch. His face read irritation and his fist was clenched in definite irritation. “Alright, Butch, then why don’t you explain to our friend what the trial was all about?”

            Butch nodded. “I think I will.” He poured himself a small drink, and had a sip before explaining. “This is a small town, so, it’s pretty easy to let money get around. It’s pretty tough to keep it…in one place. So when one man tells us that he would like to spread it around the town, well, we’re not very happy about it. Neither’s his wife, who was originally in it with him for the small goldmine he discovered a little while back.”

            “Goldmine?” asked the guard, rather loudly.

            The other patrons turned to look. They almost looked hungry for something, as if to jump on any opportunity for gold. One man appeared actually ready to jump out of his seat.

            Gus groaned. He pulled out his pistol and put it in the gut of the prison guard. The guard gulped, realizing his mistake.

            “We’re sharing this nice little story because there’s nobody in this town that’s going to be able to hold a candle to us once Mitch is hanging from that post over there, got it?” asked Gus. “Sheriff’s gonna be mayor and he’ll be running the show. It’s in your best interest to keep your mouth shut or you’ll end up like Mitch and his brother.”

             “You sound like you’ve really got something against Mitch,” the prison guard said, this time very quietly to be just barely audible.

            “Well I don’t really have something against him, I just can’t stand the sight of him,” Gus replied. He cocked his head toward Butch. “He’s got something against him, ‘specially considering how Mitch always calls Butch’s little tavern here a little hellhole at night and is nothing more than a glorified brothel. I find that insulting to my friend here, don’t you?”

            “So you just want to see him dead?” asked the guard.

            Gus pushed the pistol in a little further. “I do.”

            “As do Mary and the sheriff,” Butch said.

            Almost on cue for the statement of Mitch’s insults, two women scantily dressed walked into the room. The three men in the tavern instantly looked up at them, in awe at what they were seeing. They were striding right up the bar.

            Gus placed his hand on the guard’s shoulders. “Ladies this man has been holed up in the prison watching some old man all day and needs something to do. See to it that he finds it, and I’ll pay you based on what he’s got to say about your performance.”

            The leading woman giggled, then walked up to the prison guard and yanked him out of his seat. Gus knew that the girls knew how well he would pay if they gave the guard a good time. Hopefully this little favor, along with the free drinks, would be enough to allow him to forget about the little story Butch was telling.

            “Speaking of performances, how do you think Mary is holding up with the judge at her house?” asked Butch.

            “Ah, I forgot about that,” Gus said.

            As he pushed up with his left shoulder, he winced. He gripped his left shoulder as he stood up straight, and breathed a little heavier.

            “You alright?” asked Butch.

            “Yeah, it’s nothing a little walk won’t help,” Gus said.

            Butch nodded. “Been feeling a little sick myself, might turn in early. I don’t want to miss out on the morning’s activities, you know?”

            “Yeah, that’s fine,” Gus said. “Might come back with Mary after I check on her, so, might see you then.”

            Butch acknowledged that by leaving his glass there, then took to cleaning and inspecting the other ones. The slight pain in Gus’s shoulder seemed to leave him as he strode out of the tavern, looking east in the direction of Mary’s home.

            The sun was getting ready to set and as such was getting larger in the sky. The temperature had managed to drop but not by much, Gus noticed. There were more people out and about, probably trying to meet up and discuss the trial and its sentencing before the night would begin and nobody would remember a thing about it. That or they just would be too drunk to care.

            Mary’s house wasn’t too far from the tavern, of course, and was the only legitimate house within the town. Everyone else lived above their stores, so every building was two stories high. The largest building in the whole town was the courthouse, though the judge did not live there, he lived with his family above their small shop. Everyone owned some kind of a store, be it of various foods or even guns.

            Dust and sand blew into his face, forcing him to draw up his mask from around his neck to place it over his mouth. Normally he would only put this on when he was going to go into a duel and did not want the debris getting into his face, or when he was going to kill someone who was literally close to him, and didn’t want their blood on his face.

            He approached Mary’s place. She and her husband shared a bed in a room on the second floor, but when Gus was over while her husband was away the two shared a bed on the first floor. Mary kept spare sheets underneath the bed to constantly switch around every time they did it so her husband would never notice anything. Besides, it was apparently the guest room, so nobody would pay enough attention to notice.

            Mary’s house sometimes served as an inn of sorts for those just passing through. That was originally how her husband managed to make money, then he managed to find the small goldmine and make his fortune there not telling anybody. His worst fears were realized when that information turned out to be the reason behind his death.

            Gus laughed for a moment at that thought as well as seeing Mary kill her husband. He knew that Butch was the one that helped her do it, since he gave her a drink to pretty much lull him into death and then she just had to slip the knife and pin the blame on her brother in law, who was staying in town. And with Cole as the prosecutor of the whole trial, it was almost too easy to get away with.

            He stopped laughing and knew he had to put on a serious façade. Gus entered the building, walking straight through the entryway and into the kitchen area where Mary and the judge were standing across from each other at the dinner table, talking. Mary had something brewing over a fire outside, he noticed as he looked out the window. He licked his lips in anticipation to get a taste of that, and when he looked at Mary, he licked his lips again. To get a taste of that.

            “Talking business, eh?” asked Gus.

            “Oh, Gus, didn’t hear you come in,” Mary said. She looked from him to the judge, then patted her legs. “Yes, we were, in fact. Discussing what to do with my husband’s body.”

            “Yes, having it up there must be quite a nuisance,” the judge said. “I’m sorry for keeping it up there for so long. We would have had it all sorted it out before but my wife, well she’s kind of been on my case about…”

            “We don’t need to hear it, judge,” Gus said. “Come to any decisions about what to do with it?”

            “None yet, but Cole is up there trying to do away with the big scene it made,” Mary said. “I haven’t been able to go up there yet, it’s still quite early.”

            “Yes, it must be hard,” the judge muttered.

            He pulled a watch out of his jacket pocket, and examined it for a moment. Mary looked up to Gus and winked at him. Gus smiled and nodded.

            “Oh my, it would seem it is well past my curfew,” the judge said.  

            “Your curfew?” asked Gus.   

            “Yes, my wife, she set up a curfew for me,” the judge replied. “She’s quite strict you know, and well…”

            “It’s okay, judge, you can go along, we’ll be fine here,” Mary said.

            “Then you have a good evening, madam, sir,” the judge said. He tipped his hat and strode out of the house, mumbling things to himself.

            Mary waited for the judge to be out before springing to life and dashing across the room to Gus, who held out his right arm, feeling pain once again in his left arm. He breathed deeply once more.

            “Got some pain?” asked Mary, bringing her hand up his side.          

            “Thinking I might need another drink,” Gus said. “But none of Butch’s stuff, I’ll take whatever you’ve got here. Go check and see what Cole’s doing up there.”

            Mary lightly slapped his face, kissed him on the cheek, and bounced up the stairs gleefully. The skip in her step came from the joy that she was now free to be with the true love of her life, Butch. Not only did she manage to get all of her husband’s money, but Butch also garnered up loads of money after her husband blabbed about the small goldmine to her. They would be the richest couple in town and would definitely make sure their figurehead Cole did exactly as they asked of them.

            She entered the room still with a bit of skip in her step. There, in the middle of the room, lay the dead body of her husband. His eyes were closed and his arms were flailed out. He still had that black hole in his neck where Mary stabbed him while he was unconscious. The rivulet of dried blood that came out of the wound was also on the ground around him.

            Cole was sitting on a chest next to it. It smelled rather horrid in the room but the glee Mary felt was enabling her to get over the stench easily. Cole did not feel the same, rather he was anxious to get this stage of the plan over with. Especially since he would have to do the heavy lifting.

            “Took you long enough with that judge down there,” Cole muttered. He stood up, instinctively putting his hand to his gun on his belt for just a second before letting it drop.

            “Well, he wouldn’t stop talking about his wife,” Mary said. She put her hands on her hips and surveyed the mess.

            The room itself was hardly a big deal, it was just the matter of getting the body out of there and in a hole that was the problem. Another problem presented itself in that there was yet no hole to place it in, one had to be dug. But Mary would just let Cole deal with that.

            “You eat any potatoes lately?” asked Cole.

            Mary’s face turned red. “Excuse me?”

            “I’m asking so we can get him out of here,” Cole said. “You don’t think the townsfolk will think it’s suspicious that we’d be dragging your husband’s body away and not having some undertaker do it for us?”

            “I suppose you’re right,” Mary mumbled. “Still, why’d you ask if I’ve eaten potatoes?”

            “Put him in a sack and that way it looks like we’re just carrying a sack of potatoes,” Cole said.

            Mary nodded. “Yeah, yeah! Good idea!”

            Excitedly, Mary rushed downstairs to find her sack of potatoes. On the wooden rocking chair outside sat Gus, staring out onto the sandy horizon of the United States Western territories. The sun was orange like the dirt on the ground  and was slowing sinking in the sea of sand that was the horizon. Lacking the luxury of time, though, Mary kept on moving past the spectacle to get her husband’s decaying corpse out of her house.

            Mary and Cole struggled a bit to get the body into the sack, having to bend his ligaments in very odd ways in order to do so. They almost got to the point of putting him in the shape of a ball and rolling him into the sack, but then they would have difficulty picking him up, since he was a rather large man.

            Finally, they managed to find a medium, and half-roll him. They left his elbows out and his feet pointed for places to grip the sack so the two of them could lift it together. Mary tied it up, looking at her husband’s face for the last time.

            Good riddance, she thought.

            On the count of three, Mary and Cole hefted up the body bag. Cole stood with his back to the stairs so he could take the brunt of the weight. It took them a few straining minutes to get down the stairs. Mary’s arms became numb quickly under the weight of her husband and she wanted to let him fall but couldn’t, as that could send Cole toppling to either serious injury or his death, and nobody in the house wanted that to happen. He had a mayoral race to win.

            After about five minutes of grueling fussing about the pace Cole moved and how sore Mary’s shoulders were, Mary’s feet finally touched the first floor of the house. Instantly, she dropped her husband on her head. There was a very slight crack coming probably from his head but she hardly cared—he was dead already, what more pain could she bring him?

            The sound did catch the attention of Gus, who looked inside and saw the potato sack turned body bag. He was slow to his feet, either because of the drink or because of the pains he was feeling, but came inside nonetheless.

            “I’ll take it from here,” he said, winking to Mary. Mary blushed. Gus stooped down and picked up the body, slinging it over his right shoulder. He exhaled deeply again.

            “Then I’ll follow you with the shovel,” Cole said. “Don’t mind doing a little digging, haven’t done it in a while.”

            “Thank you, sirs,” Mary said, and curtsied.

            Gus smirked and led Cole out of the house. As soon as they exited, Cole took the lead and looked around the backyard to see if anyone was looking. He couldn’t recall where exactly he dug his last body hole but knew it was somewhere to the east.

            He gave Gus the ‘okay’ and the two moved out, weaving through the houses. When they broke the town’s perimeter, Cole found a small mound of dirt oddly placed among the rest. He dropped his shovel, and pointed three feet to the left of the mound.

            “Right there’s good,” he said. “I can take it from here, see to it that Mary’s taken care of, got it?”

            “I’ll bring her to get some drinks,” Gus replied. “Have fun with him.”

            Cole picked up the shovel again and shoved it into the ground, then flung dirt over his shoulder, away from the body. He looked over to the horizon. He only had a few more minutes until dark would fall and he would be unable to see just how deep his hole got. Oh well, he figured. Just keep on digging.

            When night did fall, the town was fairly normal. Minus two citizens. Mitch and the older man in the jail cell. Mitch grew irritated of the stench of the prison as well as the fact that he was stuck in there for a crime his prosecutors knew he did not commit.

            The older man did not do much talking, just sat against the wall opposite Mitch and stared at the wall. Mitch sat near the door, as if hoping someone would come in and let him out. He wanted to sit down in a chair, not on the rugged floor of the prison cell where the cell bars were making it very awkward to sit down.

            He reached behind him and gripped one of the bars tightly. When he pulled his hand away, he saw the rust of the bars provided a nice orange tint to the palm of his hands. No doubt his shirt and pants were already ruined, but he would be dead soon and that hardly even mattered at this point.

            Mitch sighed and looked to where the prison guard once was. Was he still getting drinks with Gus? Mitch wondered. Were all of the townspeople at that filthy tavern run by that scumbag Butch? Undoubtedly, as the town needed to get in its fill this evening before its first execution, duels notwithstanding, in a while. No, if there was a duel, Mitch was sure he would hear the townspeople going wild about it.

            Mitch felt newfound anger toward the townspeople the more he thought of them. How dare they be so foolish as to actually believe that Mitch was the one who killed his brother and raped his sister? There was literally no evidence except the lying filth that came out of the wealthy quartet of the town.

            Perhaps they could be swayed, though. With a dulled mind after a night of heavy drinking, Mitch felt he could make one last stand, one last plea to the people of the town that he was innocent. Not only that, but that he was framed! Yes, of course.

            Mitch didn’t realize it, but now he grew a lulled expression on his face the more he thought about his plan to overthrow the quartet of criminals that sentenced him to the prison.

            “Getting bored, son?” asked the older man.

            Mitch shifted in his spot a little, wishing desperately he could be more comfortable. A wish that would go unachieved, sadly.

            “Bored is an understatement,” Mitch said in return.

            The older man chuckled. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, boy, and I’m hoping you take no offense to it.”

            “Go right ahead.”       

            “Do you hate them?” the older man asked. Mitch noticed the high level of interest in his voice as he asked the question.

            “Hate who?”

            “You know. Your sister-in-law, the sheriff. Your accusers, if you will. Do you hate them?”

            Mitch was ready to answer with yes almost instantly but stopped the word before it could regretfully leap from his mouth. The older man noticed this, and with the slightest sign of a grin on his face, pressed on with it.

            “It’s alright if you do,” he said. “By tomorrow morning, all of them will be murderers. Three of them already are if you what you’re saying is true. You also seem like an honest man, and I bet an honest man like you can’t stand the sight of them, regardless of your relationship with them.”

            “That’s just who they are—”

            “So it’s okay for them to be murderers and thieves? An honest man like yourself really thinks that? Well I’ll be. Has the prison gotten to you already? Heh, boy you are an interesting case.”

            “I—I most certainly disagree with their decisions,” Mitch said, not falling for the clear goading that the man was trying to put on Mitch. He continued, “They’re wrong in what they are doing, for what they want. Complete control of the town is horrible, and because of it they are tearing down the town and making it a very difficult place to live. But Mary is my sister-in-law and Cole is the sheriff, I can’t hate them, because I’m related to one and I have to have some sort of faith that Cole is going to lead the town to justice.”

            “Then let me ask you this: who deserves to be on that hanging post tomorrow more? The honest man or the four citizens out there?”

            Mitch looked over to the older man. The older man’s grin spread so wide it looked like it was going to fall right off his face. Mitch gritted his teeth. There, he had him right there. If Mitch really was an honest man, then he would have to answer with how he truly felt. He would have to answer like any man in a prison would.

            “Of course the four of them,” Mitch said. “I don’t deserve to be here, I am an innocent man, and my sins are few!”

            “I know, Mitch,” the older man said. “And their sins are plenty. They don’t belong in the same place as you, they belong in the same place as me.”

            Mitch, confused, tried to see what the man was getting at, but simply could not see it. The man’s grin finally reached its peak, so instead he let out another howling laugh that echoed around the prison, filling Mitch’s curious ears. The man’s laugh refused to die down. Was he insane, or just happy that Mitch finally answered the way he wanted him to?

            Unlike the last laugh, though, this second one was heard by someone outside of the prison walls, though very lightly—it was heard by Cole.

            He was still digging even though darkness had replaced the twilight, and he could barely see where he’d dug at this point, or how deep. He was afraid of jumping in the hole again because he didn’t want to keep falling and have no way of getting out. If it really was six feet as it should be, then it would be of hardly any issue for him to get out.

            Cole wiped the sweat off his brow. Weren’t too many animals for him to worry about at this time, luckily. The sheriff looked over to the body when he heard the laugh coming faintly from the town that was all but quiet. Either asleep or at the tavern, he figured. He wasn’t sure if Mary and Gus were still there. He did wish they had come over to help him out with the digging, though, to make things go by quicker so he could head over to get a drink.

            Now came the fun part, though, dragging the body into the hole and covering it back up. Easier than taking out all of the dirt, that was for sure.

            The sheriff decided to be brave and find out just how deep the hole was. When he was last in it, it wasn’t too deep, and it was very narrow. He was on the surface digging on the ground just a moment ago, and figured he may as well just drop the body in. Cole dragged the body over to him to easily plop it in, letting the feet hang off the edge.

            He picked up the shovel and moved ever so slightly toward the hole, poking for the bottom of it with the butt of the shovel. He felt his foot touch the legs of the body. Cole continued to move up, and leaned in to see if he could touch. He felt the dirt beneath.

            Just as he leaned in, though, he realized his mistake. He’d leaned in too far. His upper body weight took hold and the gravity yanked him toward the hole. With nothing to hold onto, Cole plummeted into the hole. The shovel toppled onto him.

            Cole caught his breath and tried to stand up but found that he couldn’t. The hole was too tight—he was stuck in the hole.

            “Help!” he exclaimed. “H—!”

            The body bag slammed right onto Cole, stopping him from yelling out once again. Cole grunted as the man’s knees rammed into his stomach, and panicked as the man’s elbow was shoved into his opened mouth and his head was covering his nose.

            Sheriff Cole tried calling out with all of his might but it was no use. He tried moving but the dirt was too compact underground for him to move. He felt the air inside him building up as if he were going to explode. He began to see more stars in the night sky, and could once again hear that laugh from just a few moments ago.

            One of the things he was wondering about—Mary—turned out to be false. Mary and Gus were not at the tavern. Mary was out looking for Cole. When she’d looked over by the hole, she saw the mounds of dirt and the body missing, so she figured that he had to be somewhere around the town. He wasn’t at his house, and after looking through some of the other spots Cole liked to meet up with his women, she figured he had to be at the tavern like the rest of the town.

            Mary walked into, and was greeted with a series of, “I’m sorry’s” and “He’ll get his dues, ma’am’s.” She was flattered by all of the fame. She could get used to something like this for a while, especially with all of the money she would be inheriting from her husband.

            The guilty widow walked straight up the bar, where Butch was talking to some prison guard who had a woman in both arms. Their hair was frazzled and the prison guard had make up all over his face and parts of his arms. Mary shook her head at the sight but couldn’t help let out a slight laugh.

            “Something amuse you, Ms. Mary?” Butch asked, then coughed. He shook his head angrily.

            “Something with you, Mr. Butch?” asked Mary.

            “No, just feeling a little sick is all,” Butch said. He coughed again, hiding his sleeve. “Probably just need a little whisky. Would you like some?”

            “Yes, I would,” she said after a moment. She downed it quickly, and asked for another, downing that in an instant, hoping to feel its effects come on soon. “Sort of like a victory drink, you know?” 

            “Yes, yes I do. That can’t be all that you wanted here, is it?” Butch asked. He flicked his head at the prison guard, who was dragged away by the women to the back room, or the brothel as Mitch referred to it.      

            “Looking for Cole, you see him?” Mary asked.

            Butch coughed again, and again hid his sleeve from her. “Naw. Can’t say I have. Thought you were with him last?”

            “He got up and left and I wasn’t sure where,” Mary admitted. “Maybe at the prison, haven’t checked there.”

            “May—kuff—be—kuff,” Butch sputtered.

            Mary went to continue, but Butch could not stop coughing. He leaned over the bar, seemingly coughing his lungs out.

            “Butch!” Mary exclaimed, flipping him over.

            As he coughed, blood shot out of his mouth. Butch’s breathing also became very spermatic as he struggled greatly with it. Mary quick took hold of the whisky bottle.

            It was old, about two years, and the alcohol content was very high. Had Butch been drinking this consistently? No time to ask him, as Mary panicked and helplessly flailed her hands about.

            Suddenly, Butch turned over and blood poured out of his mouth, among other vile puke from his stomach. Butch puked instantly after.

            Mary screamed in horror as her friend began to die right in front of her eyes. She dropped straight to her knees in utter horror. Would she suffer the same fate? She thought she felt something creeping up from her stomach, and her hand instantly fell there, hoping she would be able to stop it if the throw-up where to arrive.

            A pair of hands tightly grabbed her arms and began to drag her away. She screamed in denial, begging to be let go. Were these the hands of the devil, taking her to Hell?

            “Mary, come on, you need to get out of here,” Gus said.

            Oh thank God, Mary thought. Gus, my savior.

            Gus swooped Mary up quickly and they bolted out of the bar. Why was Gus afraid though? Was he afraid for her? What a gentleman. Mary felt the effects slowly start to leave as her love whisked her to her house.

            Rather oddly did Gus let Mary fall, though, in front of the house. He was gripping his shoulder and breathing heavily. He managed to pick himself up.

            “It’s okay, Gus, it’s okay,” Mary said. “I’m fine.”

            “I just—I just didn’t want you to see that,” Gus said, his breathing heavily. He reached down and grabbed Mary’s hand, helping her stand up.

            The two of them calmed down, they walked the rest of the way to Mary’s place. Mary shut the door behind her, looking intently toward Gus. Perhaps that drink was kicking in.

            “Feeling okay, Gus?” she asked.

            “Left shoulder’s been bothering me,” Gus said. “Some pain, you know?”
            “Then let’s forget about that,” Mary said, and flung herself at him. 

            Gus slammed back further in the chair as Mary mounted him and began to kiss him fiercely. Her breath wreaked of old alcohol and her body of sweat from anxiety of the trial and of the heat. Perhaps too from her husband’s stench that still lingered within the home slightly.

            Gus, getting intimate as well, tightly gripped his lover as he would when Mary’s husband was away. But this time would be different. This time they could go into her husband’s bed, they could shame him for being a fool!

            Excited, Gus stood up, but immediately sat back down. His breathing, instead of heavy, was now quick. He stopped kissing Mary and began to scream.

            “Gus, Gus what’s wrong?” shrieked Mary, still on top of him.

            Her lover’s hand shot for his chest, then with his free hand he pushed Mary off of him. Mary flung to the ground, hurt physically and emotionally.

            Gus fell to the ground, writhing in pain as the heart attack set in and struck him. The pain had been around all day but when he kissed Mary it exploded out of nowhere and now he knew that there was not stopping it before, that he was a dead man no matter what.

            Matching Gus, Mary began to scream, too, loudly so that the whole of the town could hear her. She didn’t know what to do but scream. All she wanted was to take Gus upstairs to her husband’s room…

            Her husband.

            “You bastard!” she screamed over Gus’s painful shouts. “You bastard, you killed Butch and you’re killing my love all over your damned brother!”

            She began to weep and scream as a horrible mess of a woman fell to the floor absolutely helpless and absolutely insane. The only living member of the wealthy quartet had finally snapped.

            “I hate you!” she exclaimed. “Why would you take him from me?”

            Gus finally stopped screaming. Stopped moving. Stopped living. Mary was not done though, not yet. There was one final act left.

            Working on the influence of the tainted alcohol, Mary knew what she had to do to make things right with her damned husband.

            “You think you can take everything from me, huh?” she asked nobody. She stood up and marched toward the stairs where her husband’s body once lay. “Like I did with you, even though you would have taken everything from me and given it to the idiot townsfolk?”

            She barged into the room, standing in the doorway and scanning for the weapon of retribution against her husband. When she saw it, she began to laugh.

            “Well I won’t let you win,” she said through a hideous cackle. “I won’t let some dead man steal my life away from me! I’ll join Gus and we’ll be together forever and force you to watch us!”

            She continued to cackle while she picked up what would bring justice to her husband. She laughed all the way through the bullet passing through her brain, but could no longer laugh as her body lay where her husband’s once did.

            The gunshot rang throughout the town, the only truly audible noise of the night. The defining noise of the night. Mitch, even in the prison, heard it and looked in its direction. Perhaps it was just the tavern, nothing really major about it.

            The older man looked over to Mitch as Mitch refocused on the wall across from him. He snickered.

            “What’s so funny?” asked Mitch.

            “Nothing,” he laughed. “Just that I’ll be getting company soon is all. Night’s passing, Mitch, may as well sleep some.”

            Mitch, very warily, nodded and allowed his body to lank over to the side as he pretended to sleep. He didn’t want the older man to do anything to him while he slept, as he grew increasingly suspicious as their stay continued. Perhaps it was just the mentality of being caged with another person that was getting to him. They’d been alone the entire time, so cabin fever was a very plausible outcome.

            Without realizing it, Mitch did indeed fall asleep. When he roused he was unsure if it was still night or if the following day, hanging day, started. He sat up, quickly running through what he would say to the townspeople when Gus would come barging in telling Mitch he was gonna die. Mitch clenched a fist in anger at the thought of Gus.

            He released the tension in his hand. No, no need to show anger, as that would not make him look good to the townspeople. He had to remain the Mitch they knew, the honest one that was running for mayor and that did not belong in prison.

            Mitch shifted and sat up, looking over to where the older man was. He blinked, then blinked again and shot to his feet, walking over to the now empty spot.

            “What the hell?” he whispered to himself.

            The older man was gone, with no sign of him at all present. Mitch looked around at the remaining cells, not seeing or hearing him. He was all alone in the prison.

            Had he, perhaps, imagined the older man? He didn’t do much talking and did seem to serve as Mitch’s darker thoughts. Mitch hadn’t drunk any cactus juice lately or had any drinks slipped to him to make him hallucinate, though, so who was that older man and where did he go?

            The doors to the prison opened up, startling Mitch. The man who walked in, though, was not Gus, not at all. It was the judge.

            “Ah, Mitch, you’re awake,” he said.

            “Judge, you’re going to take me to the post?” asked Mitch, still dumbfounded about the older man and the sight of the judge.

            “Heavens no,” the judge said. “My wife would never allow that, I doubt she would even condone my being here. No, I’m here to let you go.”

            “Let me…go?” Mitch echoed.

            “Yes, yes,” the judge said. He pulled a ring of keys off his belt, fiddling through them for a master prison key. As he did, he spoke. “Last night there was a quartet of mysterious deaths, all four of your accusers, imagine that. When we found them all, we instantly figured that you were the one that did it, but realized that you were still in here. That’s when we knew who was really behind it.”

            Mitch raised an eyebrow. Mary, right?
            “It was the man stationed here,” the judge said.

            Mitch raised the other eyebrow. “Oh. Uh, may I ask how you figured that?”

            The judge’s face lit up as he found the right key. “It was rather odd that Gus would suddenly take him in and try to cover him with women and drinks, as well as take him away from you. Undoubtedly, Gus planted you in here so that he could finish you off just as he finished off your brother, and even killed Mary last night.”

            “Mary’s dead?” asked Mitch, shocked.

            “Like I said, all four of them,” the judge said. “Surprising, I know.”

            “Yes, very,” Mitch muttered.            

            The judge opened up the door. It creaked open quickly. He stepped aside to give Mitch room to walk out, to be a free, honest man again. To be the mayor and to be innocent.

            Mitch slowly moved out of the cell, all of the new developments overwhelming him. The wealthy quartet was dead and the older man was missing. Did he…could he have? Mitch would have heard him slip out, given how close he was to the door.

            As Mitch walked out of the cell, he could have sworn he faintly heard that laugh, that howl, the older man gave mere moments before that gunshot.

            “Something wrong, Mitch?” asked the judge. He patted Mitch on the back.

            “No, nothing,” Mitch said. “Just thinking about innocence and guilt is all. Sir, if you had to choose, who would you have hanged? Me, or the wealthy quartet?”

            The judge chuckled, and continued patting Mitch on the back. “I’m not the one who makes that choice, son, and I’m the judge. I believe that’s the work of God.”

            “Right,” Mitch said.

            The judge opened the door for them, allowing sunlight to pour out unto them. Mitch shielded his eyes. Beneath him the dirt crunched and around him a slight breeze appeared. To be out of that hot, smelly, dark area was a great relief. To be in the light, in the breeze with people who smiled and people who were free, that was where he knew he belonged. In the prison, he was not himself, he was transformed. He was himself.

            “The work of God,” Mitch repeated. “And the laugh of a Devil.”

--Written by Sean Donovan, 2014.