A Time For Hanging

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As Jack MacLane

Goodnight MooM

Just Before Dark

Keepers of the Beast

Rest In Peace

As Bill Crider

The Nighttime is the Right Time – Short stories.

A Time for Hanging

Ryan Rides Back

Medicine Show

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Paco Morales had seen the woman before, had seen her often in fact, at least for the past month or so, despite the fact that his mother would always send him out of the shack when the woman was there.

"Paco," his mother would say.
 
"Go and draw up a bucket of water and give it to the mule."

Paco would dutifully go outside and lower the wooden bucket into the old well, the pulley creaking as the rope slid through it.
 
When the bucket hit bottom with a splash, he always waited a long time for it to fill, longer than really necessary.
 
Then he pulled it slowly back up, reached across the rim of the well, and pulled the bucket to him, hardly ever spilling a drop.
 
Then he poured that water into another bucket and took that one to the mule.

The mule hardly ever wanted to drink.
 
The woman never came except late in the evenings, and by then most of the heat of the day was gone.
 
Paco's bare feet could still feel it in the hard-packed dirt, but the night air was cool and there was nearly always a slight breeze.

Still, it was Paco's job to make the mule drink, or to wait until it did.
 
By the time he got back to the house the woman was always gone.
 
Paco's mother never said what it was that the woman had wanted, and Paco never asked.
 
There were some things his mother never discussed, and her visitors were one of those things.

They often gave her money, which Paco knew was important to the family, especially so since his father had been killed by a gringo in a card game.
 
The gringo had accused Paco's father of cheating, though Paco knew that his father would never have done such a thing.

It didn't matter what Paco thought, however.
 
Everyone else was quite ready to believe that the gringo was telling the truth and that Paco's father had died the way a cheater should -- shot through the heart with a .44 caliber slug.

Paco had tried to be a man for his mother and sisters since that time.
 
He was, after all, fifteen years old now and could do as much work as any man.
 
His shoulders were wide, and they strained at the seams of his father's old shirts.
 
The frayed legs of the stained and faded levi's stopped far above his ankles, and his hands were broad and strong.

His mother had not let him go out into the world, though.
 
He had been forced to stay around the little farm, plowing with the mule, doing the planting, fetching the water.
 
They had a cow, too, and some chickens, so with what they could grow and take in from the visitors they managed to get by.

This was one visitor that would not be coming again, Paco thought as he gazed down at her.
 
He hardly recognized her now.

Her dress was ripped and torn, and it bunched about her waist.
 
Her legs were twisted back under her, and her head was lying at a very strange angle.
 
There was blood on her face.

In the moonlight, her legs were pale and white, and Paco suddenly wished that he had taken some other way home that evening.
 
Fear stabbed at him, churning his stomach, yet he could not tear himself away from the sight.

He had gone to town for a little salt and a bit of sugar from Tomkins' Store, but he had long since forgotten that he held the twists of paper in his hand.

He had never seen a dead woman before, not like this.

He had been late because he had stopped to talk to Juanito Garcia for a few minutes, and dusk had crept up on them unnoticed.
 
So he had taken a short cut home, off the main road and over a little-used trail through a thick grove of trees.

He could no longer even remember what he and Juanito Garcia had said to one another.

All he could think of was the dead woman.

She had been beautiful when she visited his mother, or so she had seemed to Paco, her red hair shining in the lamplight of the shack.

It was not shining now.

Go home, Paco thought.
 
I must go home.

But he couldn't move.
 
His feet seemed rooted to the ground as he stood in the grove of trees, looking at the body lying in front of him.

He might not have seen her if it hadn't been for the noise.
 
She wasn't exactly right on the trail, but off a little way, hidden in the brush.

Paco had heard something as he walked along, something like the cry a small animal might make if it was trapped or afraid.
 
He liked animals, and he thought he might help it if he could.
 
There was nothing to be afraid of this close to town, nothing more than a squirrel, he thought.
 
Perhaps a deer.

The sound came from somewhere down the trail, and when he got to the spot he thought was about right he began looking for the source of the noise, peering through the gloom of tangled branches and thick leaves.

He wasn't thinking about how late it was, or that his mother would be worried about him.
 
He was thinking about some poor animal in distress.

He caught sight of the woman's dress, and he realized that it was not an animal that he had heard.
 
There was no animal of that color in all the country.
 
He made his way to the bundle of color that had caught his attention and found the woman.

He didn't even know her name, he realized.
 
His mother never mentioned the names of her visitors.

He wondered who he should tell.

Then he wondered if the killer was still around.
 
He looked over his shoulder so quickly that his neck popped but there was no one there.
 
Whoever had killed the woman was long gone.

Another thought came to him, the most frightening thought of all.
 
What if they thought he killed her?

They would, of course.

"They" were the ones who had stood by when his father was murdered and said nothing.
 
Nothing good, that is.

They said things like, "That'll teach the greaser to cheat a white man at cards."

Or, "How many men you killed, Hank?" -- Hank being the offended gambler's name -- "not countin' meskins, o'course."

Or, "Hell, Hank, you had to kill him.
 
He was cheatin'.
 
Hell, yes.
 
That's just what comes of lettin' a meskin play cards with white men.
 
We shoulda known better."

They were the same ones who would say that Paco had killed the woman, if they got the chance.

Well, he wasn't going to give them the chance.
 
He was going to get out of there.
 
Right now.
 
He willed his feet to move, and this time they obeyed him.

He turned back to the trail, and now the noises of the evening that were normally so un;threatening became magnified and frightening to him.

From far off in the grove there came the cry of an owl, and that call was echoed by the voice of some other night bird that Paco could not identify.

Or perhaps it was not a bird.

Something scurried through the brush at his feet, making a sudden rush from one place of concealment to another.

Paco began to run.

The trail, when he came to it, was rough and hard.
 
It had not rained for several weeks, and the ground had been churned by horses' hooves when it was last muddy, making it very uneven.
 
He stumbled along as fast as he could, the hard ground bruising his feet.

He thought he heard something at his back, and he veered off the trail into the trees, panic causing his heart to pump faster.
 
What if there was someone behind him?

He was almost too afraid to look back.

The tree branches lashed at his face, and he put out his hands to keep them away.
 
He had dropped the sugar and salt long ago, but he did not remember doing it.

He was sure there was someone behind him now, and his fear and panic increased.
 
What if they caught him?
 
Thee would show him no mercy, no more mercy than his father had received.

He conquered his fear momentarily and looked back over his shoulder, a mistake.
 
He should have kept his eyes to the front.
 
He ran headlong into a tree.

For a few seconds he felt nothing; then he felt only the throbbing of his head as pain washed through it like a fast-moving stream.

He could no long hear the hoofbeats, if he had ever heard them.
 
He could not hear anything.