Monday, October 28, 1878

The sun burned in the high in the sky, passing a judgment all its own. The prisoner, led out by Sheriff Bonjure, shuffled in black leg irons, dry dust from his dragging feet dulling their sheen. The assembled crowd waited, air thick with unwashed bodies and roiling anger that spiced the tongue of all who assembled.

“Keep moving, scum,” The sheriff’s deep brogue, framed by his bushy mustache, brooked no opposition. “You have an appointment with Sunset Hills Cemetery after the hangman's noose.” Bozeman was a growing town, one that brought in its fair share of rustlers, gamblers, gun fighters and human refuse. Larry “Snakebite” Finnigan was one such piece of refuse.

The sheriff oversaw his capture, conviction and now execution of the man who shot and killed Adam Nelson, leading citizen and banker. It was Larry who lay in the street passed out next to the murdered man, the gun which fired the fatal shot lying next to him. His fellow members of the Merick Holden Gang even testified to his dastardly deed. The entire town had turned out to witness justice being done here, as Larry had terrorized Bozeman for months.

They first came to Mr. John Corbin and his family as they walked to the gallows. Corbin spat into the dust at Larry’s feet, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He had known Nelson, and even had an argument over a faro game a fortnight ago with him. He wasn’t here to watch Larry hang for that. No, his sour look was over Larry thieving three barrels of flour from his general store at gun point so he could have fresh bread in the mornings out at their hideout.

Larry didn’t stop. He passed Ms. Emilie Lugar. She had come to Bozeman to teach children at the school. She scowled at him, turning up her nose, filling it with her latest Parisian perfume rather than the sour stench of her fellow townsfolk. She knew neither Nelson nor cared for him. But Larry needed to hang for an incident that took place nearly two months ago. Drunk and wild, he accosted her on the streets of Bozeman, touching her in a manner that was unbecoming of a man. Fortunately, Sheriff Bonjure clubbed him on the back of the head, and threw him in the jail for the evening. She hadn’t seen Larry since then.

He didn’t notice her grave look, but caught a whiff of her tantalizing scent. Lemon and lavender, caressing his nostrils and filling him with a warm feeling. He nearly ran into Bobby Krill, the carpenter’s boy. “Mister, watch it!” Bobby wanted to throw a punch, but the stern eyes of Sheriff Bonjure under his wide brimmed stetson said no. Bobby still bristled from the beating Larry gave him three weeks ago, tanning his hide raw when Bobby accused him of cheating at poker. Bobby smiled, feeling retribution at hand.

Ms. Victoria Marvel stepped in front of Larry, halting the procession to the platform. “You bastard! I hope you choke on the rope!” She slapped him hard, the sound echoing off the windows of the undertaker. It was assumed that the slap was for cattle rustlin, the theft of fifty head from her husband’s herd causing them no small measure of hardship not two weeks after Larry arrived in Bozeman.

It was not for cattle that Mrs. Marvel stung the cheek of Larry. It was for the encounter at the Marvel ranch two weeks after that, when Larry came calling while Mr. Marvel was away to Cheyenne for business. She drifted through the ranch for weeks after that, only to be dragged back to ground when she spied Larry with Ms. Clover Hash, one of the girls over at the Steer Inn.

She let them pass, without a word from the sheriff. Mr. Paul Trager grinned at the exchange. This was for the cattle. Larry had caused his herd to stampede with a stolen load of fireworks not eight days ago, during a drunken rampage. Trager had only gotten back to town yesterday, having spent that time out in the wilderness, corralling those beasts back. Grime caked every article of clothing Trager had. The fine fragrance of cow shit mixed with salty sweat pervaded every inch of him. Larry needed to pay for each and every moment.

Mr. Ross Glinch puffed his cigar next to Paul. He got them from San Francisco, a fine box that each draw brought vitality to his barrel chest. Larry had defecated in his rose garden, in full view of his neighbors. Until then, it had been the pride of Bozeman, the finest garden in all the West. And now, it was just an outhouse for a criminal.

“You gonna stretch Snakebite!” yelled Mr. Holden Plig, the brewer, whose life’s work Larry spit out at the Main Saloon, and then proceeded to crack open the his prized barrel with an axe. His drunken laughter while he defiled his beer haunted Plig, and he watched with no small satisfaction Larry’s march to his doom.

“Burn in hell, you vile dog!” Mr. Edgar Trink shifted his jaw, which inexplicably got sore today. The pain emanated from the very spot Larry had struck him. He played the harpsichord at the Steer Inn, and a visibly intoxicated Larry had requested Camptown Races, a request Trink refused.

“You scoundrel, justice is being done today!” Mr. Michael F. Weinstien, proprietor of the ladies’ dress shop along the main street of Bozeman gritted his teeth at Larry. It was Larry, in a intoxicated fog, who entered his store not four weeks ago. He proceeded to befoul a number of garments by urinating on them. Furthermore, he ruined much of the groundwork Weinstien had done to entice Ulysses Marder into working at the store and perhaps being amenable to a fine evening in Weinstien’s apartment. Larry cajoled the boy and his budding association with what Larry called at the time a “prissy dandy”. Marder had laughed at Weinstien, and left the store, never to return.

Mr. Carson Huld and Mr. Zachariah Moses both grinned at Larry and his leg irons. They both testified to Larry’s guilt at the shooting, when neither of them had been present for the crime. It had been Larry who had taken their share of a fine bubbling champagne that they all had ripped off last Wednesday’s stagecoach. They both had grown tired of Larry, and after Mr. Josephus Brant, the leader of the Holden Gang when Merick wasn’t around had told them to teach him a lesson. They went and did just that.

Ms. Pauline Gregor, turned around to show her back to him as Larry approached, her displeasure at him evident to all. She discovered Larry once in her store when she opened, having broken a window and passed out on her Best in County quilt, after soiling it while he slept. It didn’t help that he was a nude as the day as he was born lying on the pride of Bozeman.

Mrs. Beatrice Fraber, judged him openly. Larry and his gang had stolen her fine apple pies she had made for the Women’s Temperance League off her window sill while they cooled. It fried her beans that she could hear them laughing in the meadows beyond her home as they consumed the pilfered pastries. Larry even had the audacity to thank her for the pies the next day as he passed her as she went to church.

Mr. Umber Brix twirled his cane in front of Larry, the scorpion embedded in amber at its top a reminder to everyone that he shouldn’t be trifled with. Larry had held him at gun point during a faro game years ago in Dodge City, a slight Brix never forgot. Apparently Larry had, because three months ago he sat at Brix’s table at the Oriental, and pulled the same stunt when the cards didn’t agree with him. Brix yanked his own, but before he could get to work, Larry had hit him in the face with the butt of his revolver. A knocked out tooth and a split lip had ruined Brix’s rogueish good looks, and now the girls of the Steer were charging him two pennies more for entertainment. “Here, here. Beautiful day for a hanging. Beautiful.”

Mr. Lucas Moore, driver of the Radaway Stage, hated Larry most of all. Standing at the foot of the platform, he had his Colt revolver ready to stop any who would come to the rescue of Larry. He had been robbed by Larry almost dozen times in the six months since the Merick Holden Gang had come to Bozeman. More than once Mr. Radaway called him into his office, the air thick with suspicion that Moore collaborated with Larry, and only the fact the Lucas offered to cover the losses for several of the robberies himself did he avoid losing his job and even joining Larry on the gallows himself.

His blood red eyes dripped anger, but it was the presence of Mr. Tom Johnson, the hangman, which stayed his hand. He wanted to watch Larry strangle on the rope, and Johnson had promised a close in view last night. Each step echoing off the stairs loosened the grip on his heart, and he put a grin on his face. “You gonna stretch Larry! Devil’s gonna claim his own today.”

With Larry at the top of the platform, Judge Morris Fern cleared his throat. “Larry Finnigan, also known as Snakebite, you have been found guilty of the crime of murder, by the good people of Bozeman. The sentence is death, by hanging, here at the town square, at the stroke of noon. Do you have any last words before sentence is carried out?”

Larry Finnigan looked out over the crowd, their collective stares stealing the breath out of him, and the only words out of his mouth were mumbled, “It’s my birthday today.” He looked down at his feet, and felt the rope being placed around his neck. The first chime sounded at the bell tower, and Larry looked up. A man in a white robe, long brown hair, and a kind face was standing at the foot of the platform, next to Moore.

“Happy Birthday Larry.”

“Mister, thank you, but it doesn’t look too happy to me,” The rest of the crowd grew restless as the clock chimed again, and some began braying for Johnson to pull the switch early. “Wait, I know you.”

The man smiled. “Of course you do, Larry Finnigan. I was there when you were baptized in St. Michael’s almost thirty five years ago. I was there when your father died of the pox in 1854. I was there when you lay bleeding on the fields of Antietam. You called my name as your life dripped out of you, and it was my face that you saw when Father Gregor proclaimed the Last Rites over you. You might have forgotten me, but I never forgot you.”

A tear welled up in the corner of Larry’s left eye. “I suppose its too late to apologize for that. I’ve been a bad man. I’ve been up to no good, and I don’t deserve you, or your help.”

“Deserving has got nothing to do with it. Nobody deserves it. You’ve done bad things, yes, but even so, I can save you.”

Another tear joined the first. “Why me, why now? Let Satan claim me, I’ve done enough to earn that.”

The man smiled, and closed his eyes for a moment. A chime sounded in the distance. “You have earned that, but you didn’t earn this. You are an innocent man, both of us know this. You have murdered no man. You have wronged many people in your life, Larry Finnigan, but there is no one’s blood on your hands.”

Larry began to openly sob. “I know. I know that many of those who witnessed what happened out there on the street bore false witness in my trial. I might have been drunk, but it was not my gun which killed that man. It was not my finger that pulled the trigger. Merick is the true guilty man.”

The man nodded. “Its not time to proclaim the truth. Our Father knows, as do I. Why do you think I am here, right now?”

“My birthday?”

The man chuckled. Another distant chime. “No, but it is a nice coincidence. I am here to offer you one last chance. You have done bad, yes, but do to this injustice being done to you, I’m here to plead for you. Ask forgiveness of our Father, with contrition in you heart, and pledge to free yourself from sin for the rest of your days, and His mercy shall be yours.”

Larry laughed through the tears. “That's not much of deal. I don’t have many days left.”

“True, but it is the action that matters. The willingness to live as the Father intended.”

Another chime. Larry bit his lip. “I don’t know. I want to, I really do. But there are some things that I ain’t sorry for, not yet anyway. I also wish I could stay on the straight and narrow, but I’m rotten. Always have been. I don’t want to lie to you, so I won’t.”

The man nodded his head slightly. “Do you wish to reconsider? Time is nearly out.”

Hot tears streamed down Larry’s face. “I wish I could. I just can’t do that. I could with your help, but I couldn’t be in indebted to you like that. I don’t deserve such.”

The man smiled. “I offer it freely. You aren’t taking advantage of me, or putting me out. Larry Finnigan, you are deserving of my love, and at this moment, the only thing that is stopping you from accepting it is your greatest evil, your pride. Let it go, and let me save you.”

Another chime, and the jeering of the crowd came back with a roar, many cursing him, others laughing at the tears on his cheeks. Another chime, and he felt Johnson shift behind him, ready to pull the switch.

Let it go. Let it all go. Larry Finnigan smiled. In that moment, he asked for forgiveness, and in his heart he felt truly sorry. “Thank you, for saving me. I commend myself into your hands. I have been a wicked man, and I give myself over to you. Save me, Lord.”

At the chime of noon, Mr. Tom Johnson pulled the lever, and the bottom of the gallows fell away. The rope grew taught, and the crowd gasped. He had done his work well, as Larry Finnigan hadn’t squirmed, and died immediately. He said a small prayer after pulling, asking for forgiveness to kill a man on his birthday. Such a shame really.