Redemption

“One hour.” Sheriff Walls sat with his feet on the desk reading the Brady Gazette. The usual drab and familiar reporting did nothing to excite his senses. He scrunched up the paper and threw it at the waste paper basket. It rimmed out and landed on the floor. 

The man to whom the words were spoken said nothing. He paced back and forth in his cell. Ten feet by eight feet. It was a miserly existence and had been for some time, ever since he was arrested, charged with and found guilty of murder. His name doesn’t matter because soon he will be erased from history. Where he came from was as little significance as where he was going. Whatever his future promised was irrelevant, for now he was headed to the gallows. 

The lawman stood, arched his back and groaned before moving to retrieve the paper and drop it in the bin. He stared out the window to his left. A steady stream of onlookers were heading west, to the gallows. They were moving in quick step jostling for prime viewing position. He shook his head. Hangings made him feel strange. It was the part of the job he took no pleasure in. Moving across to his desk, he dragged his chair across to the cell, and sat down. “Smoke?”

The prisoner stopped pacing, and looked at the lawman. His face was pale and sweaty, fear was etched into every nook and cranny on his long face. His whiskers sparse and roaming gave his face a gaunt and unnatural look. His large eyes stared like a rabbit caught in a bright light. It took him a moment to respond. “Sure.” He moved across to the cell and sat on the edge of the bunk. 

Walls rolled a smoke, lit it and handed it to the prisoner. He accepted it in silence. His mind was preoccupied with his manner of execution. He wanted it to be quick. 

“I ain’t a preacher, and I know you don’t think kindly of such men but if you’ve got something to say, then I suppose now is the time to say it.” Walls was a godly man, and possessed a tempered and keen spirit. He was respected by the citizens of Brady, but as of yet the stranger had been quite antagonistic to his approaches for conversation. 

The man inhaled raggedly and exhaled thick blue smoke, and coughed. When he spoke his words were laced with bitterness. “I wish I could turn back time.”

“Don’t we all?” Walls chuffed. His response was met with silence so he decided to push the prisoner’s statement. 

“How far back?”

Nonchalantly he replied. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Walls continued, “do you want to go back in time before you murdered Elsie or to some other moment in your history?”

“Does it matter?”

“Sure does.”

“Why?”

Walls took a moment before he responded. “If you choose the first option then you have learned nothing and deserve to hang. If you choose the second, then there is hope for redemption.”

“I have fifty minutes before my neck is stretched, sheriff. There is no time for redemption.”

“Just as I thought. You haven’t learned a damn thing.”

“Don’t lecture me, sheriff.”

“Someone oughta. Seems to me that you spent your life trying to figure stuff out, and you either haven’t learned anything, or if you have you just don’t care. I think it’s the latter.”

The prisoner stood and paced back and forth along the cell and discarded the smoke into the slop bucket. “Why should I care?”

Walls frowned. “You’re about to hang, son. If that's not motivation to seek redemption then I don’t know what is.”

The prisoner fell to his knees and grabbed hold of the cell bars. Words flowed out of him like water down a dry creek bed. “My life hasn’t been easy, sheriff. I didn’t know my pa, and my ma wasn’t fit to raise a hog. I left home as soon as I was of age, and have been wandering ever since. I tried to live an honest life, but it always made me feel uncomfortable. I worked on the railroad for a while, but I just couldn’t handle the routine that such honest work requires. I took pleasure in whoring, thieving, gambling and taking what I wanted whenever I wanted. I had no problem with it. I had never been caught before and then I rode into this god-forsaken place and met that whore.”

“Her name is Elsie.”

“Well, I don’t care what her name is. She’s dead and I killed her.” 

“You’re going to hell.”

“I wish I never rode into this town.”

“You’ve answered my question.”

“What question?”

He wanted to talk about turning back time, but he didn’t. “Do you feel any remorse?”

“Of course I do.”

“Only because you got caught. That is regret. There is a difference.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“You killed her. Beat her and cut her throat.” Walls pointed to the window. “Across the road. You watched as life drained out of her body. There were witnesses, reliable and true.”

“I didn’t know any better.”

“Lies. You knew better, you just didn’t care.”

The prisoner's voice was pleading. “I was never taught the difference between right and wrong.”

Wall's voice was measured and deliberate. “There is no need to be taught. The laws of nature are here.” He tapped his heart. There is no distinction. You know it's wrong because you feel it so. The difference between people like you and me is a conscience.”

“That's mighty talk coming from a lawman. I bet you have regrets.”

“Plenty. Everyone of them I have been remorseful for. I have sought redemption, not only from those I wronged but from the lord.”

“Spare me the lecture. I don’t want to hear it.”

Walls stood. “No I don’t suppose you do.”

Silence lay heavy in the room. 

Each man was consumed with their thoughts. The prisoner was cursing the world. As far as he was concerned his hand had been forced from an early age. He had no choice but to ride roughshod over others. To pilfer what wasn’t his. He grew to assume that the world owed him something, but he couldn’t articulate what that was. He laid blame at the feet of his contemporaries and his peers. Those organizations and people who had failed him. These were the education and legal system. The former he despised for he was made to attend and the latter he despised because it made him accountable for his actions and limited his attempt to enforce himself on others. He despised his parents, and he extended this hate to others. Elsie wasn’t his first victim, but she would be his last. He was cold and calculating. Mean and pernicious and no amount of ministry from the lawman would save his soul. 

Sheriff Walls considered that life was about choices, actions and consequences. No where was it written that life was easy. That hardship was unavoidable, for such challenges come in many forms, and are not always identifiable. He believed that people needed to be held accountable by those they share their life with, for life was not an individual pursuit. Unfortunately he believed this was a mantra that had infiltrated contemporary discussion. He believed in liberty, freedom and the pursuit of happiness, but not at the expense of others, and that is what the prisoner had done. It is because of people like him that there are laws. The law is reasonable, not always just but reasonable enough to lead one to understand the significance of its nature. Of its need and purpose. Without law, and consequences for actions civilization will descend into anarchy. The law was not perfect but for the most part it held miscreants to account for their moral happenings, and as law is a reflection of the will of the people, then this morality is shared in common with all regardless of race, age, status and wealth. Morality is the glue that holds society together. In the absence of this shared morality society would begin to decay. At the heart of this morality was a belief in the hereafter. Walls shook his head in disbelief that people could exist without believing in something greater than themselves. Time had changed, and he wished he could go back to when life was simpler, but such fancies are mere hopes of regaining the innocence of youth. At no time in the evolution of life, will life be greater than when one was a child. To live is to grow. To grow is to die, but death is not the curse one considers it to be if they live a moral and just life. It was on such thoughts he pondered when the leaden steps of Deputy Wright thudded up the stairs and into the room. 

“It’s time, sheriff.”

“Yep.” He moved across to the prisoner. His voice was rough and uncaring. “Time to meet your maker.”

The man who was pale and gaunt now stood rigid with fear. His hands cuffed, and with Wright’s shotgun aimed at his back the lawmen marched him out of the door toward the gallows. Boys and girls ran along beside them. Their interest in the walking dead was one of pure fascination. He looked mean, and that scared them, but the fact that he was, intrigued them. 

The sun was high, and the air was still and warm. The citizens of Brady waited patiently before the gallows. Some climbed the surrounding buildings, and trees to enhance their viewing positions. Children sat on their fathers shoulders, and the rest scurried to the front so they could watch the macabre scene unfold. 

Deputy Wright was less reflective than the sheriff. He was to the point. “I can’t wait to watch you swing. I’ll take pleasure in it.”

The prisoner didn’t respond.

“Yes sir, the world is better off without scum like you.”

No response.

“That’ll do, deputy.” Walls admonished. 

They walked the rest of the way in silence. When the citizens saw the condemned man they whispered among themselves and silence once fell like a blanket over them. Their steps on the rough hewn steps of the gallows were rhythmic. And on the platform their sound stepped off key as they shuffled for position. The prisoner stood before the crowd. His hands tied behind his back. His face was set in a scowl. Besides the three there was the preacher and the hangman ready to perform their duty as ascribed by the state of Texas, and the citizens of Brady. 

Sheriff Walls stepped forward. His voice was direct and flat. “Willy Peat, you have been found guilty of the murder of Elsie Longmire, and sentenced by the court to hang. It is my duty as Sheriff of Brady to  ensure the sentence is carried out. Do you have any last words?”

Peat screwed up his face in bitterness and spat at the crowd. “Go to hell.”

The onlookers gasped. They hated the man even more now, and they couldn’t wait for him to hang.  

Reverend Jones stepped forward to say a few words. He was a somber and fallow looking man. “Time ill spent in service of the devil makes a fool of us all. The righteous and the tempted, the innocent and the guilty share this world, but we will not all inherit the kingdom of the lord. Move gracefully and with virtue, dignity and honor. Love thy neighbor. Respect yourself and others, honor your vows to self and your duty to those around you.”

Reverend Jones spoke elegantly, and took the opportunity to lecture the crow of sin, regret and shame. Peat recalled the conversation he had with Sheriff Walls about time, and it finally dawned upon him what the sheriff meant. Our view of time is selfish. We shape time to our advantage and interpret the past in words because that is all we have. We regret moments, and wish they could be relived, but interpreting time this way is erroneous. Peat changed his mind and reconsidered the moment in time in which he could change. But…

Before he could gather his thoughts, a black hood was hastily put over his head. He tried to speak but the words were strangled short as the noose was fastened around his neck. He moved from side to side, trying to find someone, but his world was black, and then suddenly his world went blacker. 

The last thought he formed before he was sent to hell consisted of a mere thirteen words “what one does with their time reflects their outlook on life and death.”