Jesse comes to from the black hole of drunken stupor with no grace, no repentance, and in the holding cell of the Rumrun sheriff's department. He squints as his vision unblurs, almost certainly still drunk, looking around the cell and blinded by electric lights their circuitry whirring there.
“Oh, God.” He moans, attempting to sit upright and failing. He smells vaguely the medlied aromas of piss, gunpowder, and blood.
“Wake up.” He hears a familiar voice say.
“What?” He croaks.
“Jesse, wake up now.” Jesse opens his eyes with great difficulty, hand held there to block the light, and looks about his environs. There sitting on the opposite cot of the holding cell with dark ringed eyes and stupored faces Morgan Black, Duncan Briar, and Giles LeClerc, expressions grave and bare of any of their weaponry. Jesse checks his body and realizes too that his possessions have been confiscated.
“Shit, they took our guns.” Jesse says, sitting upright and blinking hard with wide eyes.
“No shit they took our guns. We got thrown in the goddamn jailhouse.” Duncan says, in his voice anger.
“What’d they do that for?”
“One count of murder, public drunkenness, public indecency. Gross destruction of public property too.”
“Public indecency?”
“Well.” Duncan says, coughs into his hand.
“Ah, shit, Duncan.”
“At least I didn't goddamn kill someone.” Jesse runs a hand through his hair, moans.
“It was an accident. I swear to God it was an accident. I only mean to.”
“It doesn't matter now, Jesse. The Sheriff said they plan to hang us all.”
“Don’t we got protection from The Crown?”
“Shit. They don't seem to care.” Duncan says with a shrug. Giles meets his eyes sheepishly and averts his gaze, Morgan watches his brother coldly.
“And Sunny?”
“We got no clue. He disappeared. For all we know dead somewhere.”
“Now don't say that.”
“It could be. He’s bound to get himself killed sometime or another.”
“That man’ll never die and you know that. Ain't in his nature.”
“Everyone dies.”
“Us soon, evidently.” Giles says. Jesse rises stiffly and shambles to the steel barred front wall of the cell, runs his hand there along the door and onto its enormous padlock. He peers down the hallway and sees four cells in total, only one other occupied with a snoring and wiry drunk like some overgrown rodent. Along the floor true rodents scurry, huge and black and beady eyed with pink tails sweeping among the detritus and fragmented contraband there littered across the dirt floor. Swinging from the center of the hallway a single electric light abuzz with flies clattering against it dumbly, black shapes casting oversized shades up and down the walls and the knights like insectoid shadow puppets. On the front end of the jailhouse is a rusted steel door looking impenetrable in build and with a single slit window where a pair of deep brown eyes watches them suspiciously.
Those brown eyes make contact with Jesse’s gaze and there is an unclicking of deadbolts and padlocks numerous in count from the other side of the door before it swings open, the flare of dawnlight coming brief and golden through the windows of the adjacent sheriff's office before it is shut out completely like a shutter has been thrown over the sun as The Sheriff walks in.
He stands an abnormally tall and worn looking man, wiry and lean with brown hair beginning to gray and eyes of a shade to match, faded and intelligent there as they observe the knights. His form dressed in a long coat of brown leather, dusty boots speckled at their steel ends with blood, a silver star sheriffs badge, and on his head a huge brimmed and studded hat of a color a shade darker than his eyes.
“Yer awake.” The Sheriff says. Jesse notices an enormous double barreled pistol swinging from his hip, of makeshift construction and wrapped in cloth of gunpowder stained white.
“That I am.” Jesse says. He sits back down on his cot and tilts his head up as The Sheriff walks with long and slow stride to the bars, swaying there as he looks him up and down.
“Yer the murderer.”
“I confess to nothing.” Jesse says. The Sheriff laughs, an almost unnervingly charming sound bringing wrinkle lines forth on his sun darkened face.
“It don't matter what you do or do not confess to. This ain't Dullwater, friend.”
“It's still under crown jurisdiction, ain't it?”
“Yer, yer. I’ve already been over this with yer friends while you were strung out just there. You ain't got no proof of your knighthood. For all I know yer just some quick handed charlatans.”
“Well. We are quick handed, and we’re most certainly knights.”
“Won't matter if yer knights or not if yer swinging from the rope just outside this here office.”
“And who’ll try us?”
“Judge Tremblay, our local prosecutor. He’ll have ye tried by noon and hung by sundown.”
“And what time is it now?” The Sheriff reaches into the pocket of his vest and produces a pocket watch on a gold chain.
“Bout eight in the morning.”
“We got time to get an attorney?”
“Don't reckon so, though I'm all for a fair trial. Unlike you get back in Dullwater.”
“You a rebel or something?” The Sheriff laughs.
“I'm no such thing. Our politics out here dont work quite the same as yours do back in the city, and it's best you remember that. This ain't yer land, knight.” He says, almost slurring the last word. Just then a banging at the door to the jailhouse, sound metallic and echoing in the enclosure.
“Who is it?” The Sheriff calls, not taking his eyes from the knights.
“It's Sunny Miller goddamnit.” Sunny calls from behind the door before he is pushed against it with a rough shove.
“Carlisle.”
“Well Sunny Miller Deputy Carlisle whoever the fuck get in here.” The Sheriff yells, his tanned face twitching then. The door swings open and in comes a thrashing and cursing Sunny Miller, dragged by a huffing deputy named Carlisle. As Sunny is thrown into the cell roughly and hits his head against the cot Jesse can see he is covered in blood, soaked through his fine linens from head to toe in crimson gore and with a necklace of ivory glimmering on his neck. As Sunny stands Jesse realizes with horror the beads on the necklace are not of ivory, but rather of human teeth.
“Oh, Christ.” Jesse says. Something wild in Sunny’s eyes as he spits at The Sheriff.
“You bastards. Goddamn rebels.”
“Make that two counts of murder.” Deputy Carlisle says, rubbing at his brow where sweat is dripping and second hand blood from Sunny sits crusting in the brittsommar autumn heat of this godforsaken prairie.
“Sunny.” Jesse says. Sunny runs to the bars like a wildman and clangs against them there, thrashing like a serpent with the rusted edges cutting into his skin.
“Sunny!” Jesse calls. Sunny looks at him like someone awoken fresh out of a dream and jerks his head.
“What.”
“Did you kill someone?”
“What if I did? Didn't you?”
“Sunny who did you kill?” The Sheriff and his Deputy looking between each other with weary amusement.
“I’d recommend you two boys to not talk until the trial.” The Sheriff says, reaching into his coat pocket and fetching there a cigarette which he puts into his mouth and lights with a match he strikes on the wedding band on his left hand.
“We’ll do as we please.” Sunny hisses. The Sheriff laughs that unnerving laugh and walks back to the jailhouse door with a wave over his shoulder, his deputy following close behind.
“Fine morning, boys. It’ll likely be yer last.” He says, and the door is shut, there on the other side the sounds of the deadbolts and locks clicking and sliding shut metallically. Sunny stands there eyeing up his fellows with something decidedly insane in his eyes.
“What you staring at me for?” He says.
“Whose teeth are those, Sunny?” Duncan says.
“Who the fuck do you think?”
“The prisoner?”
“Well. Not legally a prisoner. Now legally a dead man.”
“Jesus.”
“He bit my locket. Look here.” Sunny says, reaching under his shirt and producing his lover's locket, shaped as a golden heart. Sure enough there on its edge bite marks, jagged and curved around the edge.
“Well, why’d he do that?”
“Why the fuck would I know?”
“I don't know. How’d you even get close enough to where he could bite it?”
“Well.”
“Well what I asked how’d you even get close enough to where he could bite it?”
“Does that matter?”
“Yes it does.”
“Well.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I don’t think it matters.”
“Good God. God save us.” Duncan moans, puts his head in his hands.
“We’ll all be hung by the end of the day anyways.” Duncan says.
“This ain't the end of the road. We’ll make it out.” Sunny says, already looking around the cell for vain hope of an exit.
“How?” Giles asks, eyes dissonant.
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“I don't know. We’ll find a way.”
“Do we deserve to make it out?” Jesse asks. Sunny gives Jesse a strange glare.
“What?”
“We killed two men, Sunny. One of them innocent.”
“And?” Jesse doesn't respond, only looks Sunny up and down that smiling skeleton with the crimson grin.
“We got a mission, Jesse. For The Crown.”
“Yes the goddamn dispatch I know that. It's a ranching dispute, Sunny.”
“And what of that?”
“I didn't anticipate it would result in a trail of dead bodies.”
“Well, it did.”
“And will there be more?” Sunny only laughs and shakes his head, doesn’t respond.
The day wasted away in the death dread of the hanging man, each tick of the clocks sweeping hands more painful than the last, gone entirely too fast. The clocktower rings nine, and then ten, and eleven. That last hour they are fed by an apish faced deputy a gruelish meal of hog fat soaked grits on a tray which Jesse takes one bite of and promptly vomits into the cells shitting hole. Sunny pacing up and down the cell the whole while, his face twisted into a mad grin growing wider and wider by the minute, the spectacle of this scarlet ghoul almost too much for Jesse to bear. When he looks into Sunny's face he sees less humanity there than he'd care for.
Finally, the toll of twelve bells and the door is slid open. There walking in a contingent of The Sheriff and his three deputies, one bearing a rifle and the other two wicked looking shortswords. The Sheriff rattles his gun against the bars and Deputy Carlisle steps forward there with the key and unlocks the door.
“Don't try nothing now. Especially yer crazy friend there.” The Sheriff says, clicking the hammer down as the gun is aimed at Sunny. Sunny spits at him and The Sheriff only smiles behind the smokey veil of his cigarette. The Knights walk out with hands up, faces grave and hope beginning to drain away as they are corralled and cuffed and paraded out there into the street in their shackles.
There watching them from the porches and windows, lined up in wagon beds and on picnic blankets and standing three, four rows deep, like the spectators at some absurd gladiatorial match the people of Rumrun watch. As The Knights are paraded out they boo and spit, throw out cans and rags stinking of urine and other debris, among it even a brick which Duncan shrugs off of his back like it was the fall of a napkin instead. Out and down a bend in the road in the shadow of The Grand Fortuner and Gods Pearl where a man was murdered at the end of the boulevard to the courthouse, standing there almost satirical in construction with enormous wooden pillars, dark mahogany facade, and grand double doors there which they are pushed through and into the blaring electric light of the room where they will be tried.
Sitting among the long rows of pews there lining out like the gateways of hell itself are perhaps a hundred faces in total, on the balconies lining the room and crammed into the margins and stuffed there at the door even more faces of mixed humanity, aristocrats and distant lords and ladies and monocled barons, laborers in overalls and subsistence farmers of enormous and dirty faced families, whores and ex-soldiers and buffalo hunters all stuffed in there and sweat stenches rising in the Indian heat. There at the front of the courtroom the judge in powdered wig and face, in his hand an enormous wooden gavel and his nametag there reading “Judge Tremblay.”
Only silence now as The Knights are brought up the rows watched by every set of eyes in the room, the only sounds the exhaling of cigarettes and whirring of electric lights and thrumming of moths up in the rafters. They are led there to the defendant bench and shackled five in a row and, Sunny still soaked in gore, chained to the bench. There on the plaintiffs bench the sheriff and his deputies sit besides a grieving mother in fine black clothes, The Sheriff ashing his cigarette there in the glass ashtray and lighting up a new one. Judge Tremblay looks around the room and smacks his gavel down once, twice, three times and the newly murmuring voices are stopped just as they are born and all eyes turn to the front of the courtroom. The Judge clears his jowled throat and bares tobacco darkened teeth like rows of stained dominos as he begins to speak.
“We gather here for the trial of one Mister Jesse Black, one Mister Morgan Black, one Mister Duncan Briar, one Mister Giles LeClerc, and one Mister Sunny Miller.” A series of hissings at the last words and Sunny turns back to the crowd and bares his bloodstained grin to which the crowd gasps.
“With the plaintiffs operating Sheriff Franklin Cole, Deputy Alfred Carlisle, Deputy Austin Gray, Deputy Beau Jasper, Mrs.”
“Miss.” The Grieving Woman corrects through her tears.
“Miss Abbie Westminster, and The Kingdom.” The Judge coughs.
“The charges are as follows, and each defendant is to be charged with all if found guilty. Two counts of murder.” A murmuring amongst the crowd.
“Liar!” Sunny spits, straining against his chains. The Judge taps his gavel once and Sunny falls back into the bench.
“Five counts of public indecency, five counts of gross destruction of public property, five counts of public drunkenness.” The Judge coughs again, looks up to the crowd gravely.
“And one count of sodomy with a corpse.” A shocking of gasps from the crowd, Jesse turns to Sunny aghast.
“Sunny.”
“He’s lying. I swear to God he’s lying.” Sunny yells.
“The plaintiff attorney one Mister Isaiah Brown. The defendant attorney, none.” The Judge says. Just then, a coughing from one of the back pews. The Judge looks that way, squinting and raising a pair of golden eyeglasses to see. There up the pews, with Jesse craning his neck to see, comes Elijah Cain The Drifter. His hair is combed fine and freshly washed, his normal outfit of dusty patchwork replaced by a fine tuxedo of almost obscene luxury, midnight black and sparkling with the dusting of some purplish-blue gemstone like the residue of some strange cosmic star long dead, there hanging from one pocket a boutonniere of purest french violet and from the other an enormous black opal hanging on pendant of silver and white diamonds. Tucked in The Drifters hair a clip of silver shining there amidst the black. He walks up the dusty floorboards with long and slow stride, coming all the way to the gate of the judges box and putting his hands there on the chipped wooden fence. Jesse looks to his fellows with grave expression, says not a word.
“I propose myself, Mister Elijah Cain, as the acting attorney for all of the five defendants.” Elijah says. The Judge frowns and before he can respond The Drifter lays before him on the attorneys pew a finely bound lawbook of leather, ancient looking and sending up a cloud of dust with emphatic sound.
“And you are of what relation?” The Judge says.
“None.”
“Well, alright. Do the defendants accept Mister. What was it?”
“Elijah Cain The First, of Dullwater.”
“Right. Do the defendants accept Mister Elijah Cain as their acting attorney.”
“Yes.” Jesse says, before he even casts a glance to his fellow knights. Morgan casts him a strange glance and clears his throat. Sunny agrees next, then Duncan, then Giles, and finally after a long pause.
“Yer.” Morgan says. The Judge nods slowly, cleary off put by the change of events. The plaintiffs shuffle in their seats and crane their necks to get a look at this bizarre and unknown attorney, even The Plaintiff Attorney, a stout and combed hair man with a pair of enormous round spectacles, frowning at the sight. On The Drifter’s face the look of a poker player in the last throes of a game of unreasonable stakes, nothing at all.
“Then, we shall begin. Court is in session.” The Judge says, coughing as he reaches from below his desk and pulls forth a stack of three papers paperclipped with two photographs, leaning back for a clearer view.
“The five defendants departed from The Grand Fortuner last night at approximately nine o clock in the eve, sighted by the hotels saloon keeper downing each a small glass of absinthe as they left.” A murmuring from the crowd, a shuffling of seats.
“After that, their whereabouts are unknown for about four hours, until they came to a cantina named.” The Judge clears his throat.
“Sawyer’s Drinking Hole.” He says. From the back of the courtroom an unknown voice yells.
“Sawyers Drinkin Hole.” The Judge peers out to the crowd for the source and its owner stands, the red-silver haired barkeep from the previous night. On his face a beaming expression of pride, perhaps grateful for the free advertising.
“What?” The Judge says.
“Sawyers Drinkin Hole. You said it wrong.”
“How?”
“Drop the G. We don't say it proper like.”
“Well. Alright then. Sit back down good gentleman, I'll not have disorder here.”
“Alright. Just a good natured correction.”
“Alright. Sit down.” The Barkeep obeys, his teeth wide in a grin like a burros.
“Well. They were seen there at Sawyers. Drinkin. Hole at around midnight, as verified by The Barkeep Thomas Montclair. There was also a local prostitute present with The Knights but she refused to testify.”
“Bitch.” The Grieving Old Lady hisses. Jesse leans over the table.
“Hey now. She's a good lady she is.” The Grieving Old Lady meets his eyes with cold fire in her gaze, and Jesse sits back in the pew with flushed cheek. On Morgan’s face a gallows smile creeps in.
“Order now.” The Judge says, baring his brown teeth and hovering his gallow over its wooden rest. He clears his throat.
“Roughly fifteen minutes after entering Sawyers. Drinkin. Hole the five defendants left it, crawling then to several cantinas and saloons, dealing with several back alley moonshine dealers who refused to testify with the remark.” The Judge clears his throat again, coughs into his hand.
“Get yer honky ass back to the sheriffs before we shoot you where we stand you pasty faced sons of bitches.” The Judge coughs again, a silence among the crowd.
“Of course, those remarks were said to the good sheriff Franklin Cole and his deputized contingent. The saloons, we know, were seven in number-The Golden Wheelhouse, The Deserts Edge, Ma Poe’s Drinking Spot, The Grand Oriental, The White Thunderhead, back to The Grand Fortuner, and then finally to the scene of the first murder, our very own and very treasured God’s Pearl. In between these drinking spots the defendants engaged in several account of hooliganry and indecency, including opening fire on the Rumrun Baptist Church’s Bell, an antique of over two hundred years now ruined by their gunfire.”
“Jesus, Seven. That's every bar in town!” A voice from the crowd says.
“Them boys was drunk as skunks they was.” A gap toothed youth drawls from the back. The Judge taps his gavel and there falls dead silence.
“Mister Jesse Black led the contingent into the hotel's lobby where they worked their way through the dance floor and then to the hotel's lobby bar, manned by one Atticus Westminster in the last hour of his shift.” Miss Abbie Westminster begins to wail, a drop of sweat falls long down Jesse’s face.
“And it was there where the first murder occurred via blunt force administration of the butt of Mister Jesse Black's pistol. After this incident the whereabouts of Mister Jesse Black are unknown for around four hours, before he was found unconscious in the town's catholic graveyard, alongside defendant Giles LeClerc. The two were taken to the town jailhouse by Sheriff Franklin Cole and his deputies upon reports of a disturbance, and Mister Morgan Black and Mister Duncan Briar were found in similar states of delirium within the hour.” The Judge clears his throat.
“That brings us to the final defendant and the final murder, that located at The Grand Fortuner and by the hand of one Mister Sunny Miller.” Sunny grins in his chains, eyes darting about the courthouse. Several outraged murmurs and gossips from the pews.
“Upon learning the whereabouts of the defending contingents lodging, Sheriff Franklin Cole dispatched two deputies, Deputy Alfred Carlisle and Deputy Beau Jasper, to The Grand Fortuner with license for the arrest of said Mister Sunny Miller. Upon entering the hotel, the two deputies report hearing male screams from the third floor.”
“His teeth was gone at that point so they must’ve sounded funny.” Sunny murmurs. A gasping from the crowd, someone throws a cigarette butt which connects with Sunny's hair and bounces off below his boots.
“Order!” The Judge shouts, bringing down the gavel thrice and raising a hand like some comic depiction of lady justice herself, weighing the scales there with gavel and spectacles instead of truth and lie. The Judge clears his throat.
“Upon entering the defendants room the deputies discovered there a gruesome scene, The Victim still unidentified found disemboweled.” Another series of gasps.
“And with his limbs separated from his body, arranged there on the floor.”
“In neat order.” Sunny says.
“And with his teeth also removed, some worn and still worn around the neck of Mister Sunny Miller himself.” Sunny grabs his necklace of The Spooky-Eyed Man's teeth and raises it in his own teeth, flaunting it to the crowd amidst his bloody grin. Shocked yells and curses, several families get up and leave on the spot. One man vomits with a sound much like a cats.
“And, Sunny Miller atop the corpse there, presumably mounting it and engaging in coitus.” The Crowd now wild as a pigsty, a mob held back only by The Sheriff and his deputies rising with guns and swords raised and making a shield around Sunny. The Sheriff raises his pistol to the sky and drops the hammer and The Crowd sits back down, still hissing at Sunny.
“And therefore are the charges presented. Here are photos of the two corpses for examination by The Defendants and Plaintiffs both.” The Judge says, laying there on the opposite side of the pew two photographs, one depicting a close up of the knocked in skull of Atticus Westminster and the second a strewing of limbs and intestines all painted by blood of which Jesse can make no sense, arranged almost as some absurd butchers puzzle. A shiver goes down his spine and when he looks to Sunny the murderer is only smiling.
“First, the case of the plaintiffs. Would the attorney like to speak?” The Attorney steps forward with hands clasped behind his back, clears his throat.
“I think the pictures speak for themselves. These are murderers, and sadistic ones at that.” The Attorney looks them over coldly, a surprising ferocity behind his portly face.
“The rope should be a mercy for these devils.” He says, and sits. Abbie Westminster steps forward to the pew, sobbing, her dark makeup running down her pale face in great black rivulets like trailing arachnid limbs.
“Atticus was a good boy. Only twenty-one turned so just yesterday. He loves his rose garden, he does.”
“Loved his rose garden.” Sunny corrects. The Woman wails.
“You bastards. You heartless devils, you. May you go straight to hell and may it be hot! May it be hot!” She hisses, raising her arms in a motion like a preaching evangelist. Sunny spits in her direction and she is held back by The Sheriff. In Jesse’s eye a tear rising which he blinks away.
“Order.” The Judge says halfheartedly, and clears his throat.
“And now, the case of the defendants. Would the attorney like to speak?” The Judge asks, eyeing Elijah up strangely.
“I would.” Elijah says. The Knights look among themselves uneasily, rustle on their pew.
“What do your clients plead, Mr.Cain?”
“Not guilty.” A murmuring among the crowd, Sunny smiles.
“And what is your case in favor of such?” Elijah opens his ledger without a word, produces from his pocket an almost absurd pair of golden reading glasses which he raises to his eyes and nestles amongst his hair. Jesse can see from this angle they are entirely frameless.
“My clients, all five as presented here, are on dispatch and under authority by the power of The Crown, authorized by The Good King Peter himself.” Elijah says. A dead silence amongst the crowd.
“In other words, they are knights.” He says, meeting eyes with the judge and smiling. The Judge raises his knitted brow and in his eyes a visible surprise.
“You say?” The Judge says.
“And what proof have you of such?” The Plaintiff Attorney calls. Elijah meets eyes with the attorney as he reaches into the folds of his coat, pulls from there five pieces of silver each fashioned into the shapes of crowns, and lays them there on the prosecutors pew where The Judge reaches over and inspects them. On their forms, each perhaps the size of one's palm, is visible river brine and detritus, emanating from them faintly the smell of river water and as well the stench of gunsmoke. The Knights look among each other gravely.
“These here are the badges of each of the five knights, proof of their loyalty to The Crown. They were lost when our dispatch was ambushed on The Little Greenhorn steaming towards Rumrun, tooken upon by a band of perhaps two dozen anti-monarchy rebels. In the ambush the ship was sunk and the mules carrying the badges killed alongside.” Elijah says calmly, not mincing a single word.
“Are they authentic?” Sheriff Franklin Cole calls. The Judge looks amongst the crowd.
“They are authentic.” Another chorus of gasps.
“These are our knights?” A woman says outragedly.
“That they are, I’m afraid to say.” The Judge says, holding his hands to his eyes in a look of defeat.
“Any knight who carries these badges, as a judge would know, is pardoned automatically for any killing they commit in the field they deem necessary. Do The Knights agree these killings were necessary?” Elijah says without turning to them.
“Yes.” Jesse says softly.
“What?” The Judge says.
“Yes. Yes they were.” Jesse says. Miss Abbie Westminster wails, rises and is held down by The Sheriff in her eyes raw and unfiltered venom, the purest form of hatred that of the grieving.
“Well. For the murders then.” The Judge sighs.
“The Knights must be pardoned. Effective immediately.” A grim silence.
“But, the other charges are unpardoned, the most serious of which is sodomy of a corpse.” Another man vomits. Elijah nods, runs a hand along his hair.
“May we examine the photo of the unidentified corpse?”
“That you may.” Elijah steps to the prosecutor's pew and plucks the photo, bringing it back to the defendants. He leans in to Sunny and whispers.
“Real nice work you did there.” Before turning to The Judge and tapping at the photo emphatically.
“The corpse's pants are not undone.” Elijah says. The Judge furrows his brow.
“And what of it?”
“A sodomization would be impossible, clearly.” The Plaintiff Attorney coughs, stands.
“Not necessarily. The legal definition of sodomy in this kingdom includes.” He clears his throat, flushes slightly.
“Oral sex.”
“And if I’m correct Sunny Miller’s pants were also not undone?” Elijah says, turning to The Deputies as they sit there.
“May the arresting deputies confirm?” The Deputies cough.
“Well, I don't know. I wasn’t really looking.” Deputy Beau Sage says softly.
“And then how did you know sodomy of a corpse was occurring?”
“Well, he was on top of the goddamned thing and. Well, he was kissing it.” A woman screams from the back of the crowd, several bible passages are repeated.
“And that does not legally count as sodomy, nor as homosexual indecency via the legal code 13:112. Homosexual indecency only covers living subjects.” The Judge rubs at his eyes again, hangs his head.
“Oh come on now. I don't even give a damn about the homosexuality, he was kissing a goddamned corpse!” Sheriff Cole yells. A murmuring of agreement.
“But the act was not technically illegal.” Judge Tremblay moans slightly.
“No, it wasn't.”
“And that leaves only five counts each of public indecency, gross destruction of public property, and public drunkenness. All of which are only subject to fines and of which those fines can be forwarded via telegram to The Crown.” Elijah says. The Judge nods slowly.
“I suppose.” The Judge looks out at The Knights spitefully.
“Yer lucky, you know.”
“Ain't lucky, we just got a good lawyer.” Sunny says. Elijah tilts his head. The Judge makes eye contact with Elijah.
“Who are you, Mister Cain?”
“Just a well meaning wanderer.” He says. The Judge shakes his head slowly then brings down his gavel emphatically three times.
“Court is ended. The fines will be forwarded to the King’s Castle in Dullwater and The Knights are. Well, The Knights are free to go.
“Your honor!” Sheriff Franklin Cole calls, standing up with arms wide. The Judge shrugs and The Deputies take about unlocking The Knights shackles.
With the crowd standing that medlied vestige of humanity all outraged and red faced in similarity black and white, rich and poor, The Knights walk up the aisle. They are led by The Drifter as he lights on his teeth a match then a cigarette and gets to smoking, walking as free men now and slipping the noose, in their eyes no celebration but only a thin sort of high, a thin sort of fever. The fever of the near death, of those who have bargained with The Reaper and played his game and have survived, have checked him for yet another day. It is in that fashion and cascaded by cigarette butts, rubble and detritus, that they walk out into the clear sunshine of a town named Rumrun.
When they are out the door and with the sounds of an outraged mob still fresh inside the courthouse Elijah Cain turns and produces from the pocket of his coat a clear glass bottle of purest moonshine, grabbing then his boutonniere and undoing the cap of the bottle and shoving the boutonniere there instead. Using his lit cigarette he alights the boutonniere and looks to the flaming concoction there with The Knights at his back.
“You can't go back now, you know.” He says, then tosses the bootleg molotov onto the courthouse doors. There the flame spreads quick along the dry wood, leaping like a devilish hand along the dry tinder. Jesse looks back in shock as the heat rises and is turned about by Sunny and the contingent of six walk up the main boulevard of Rumrun to a chorus of screams and a smell like burnt pig flesh.