The seven men were marched from their cells into the front square near the gate of Golgotha where a crowd gathered for witness. Boss Maron and his subordinates had each of the men tied to the next so they were like a chain gang connected by thick rope around their wrists and ankles; each pair of hands tied high behind their backs. All of the men in line dared not look up from their collected feet as they were trickled into the square where the crowd was silent save for sudden outcries of righteousness; it was a punishment not given often but their crimes were too severe for anything less it seemed. I was there too, watching from behind a pair of young women. For the men’s sake at least the sky was clear and bluish and I’d not seen any birds.
Several of the Bosses had shown for the event (a makeshift stage of blocks and timber elevated them above the crowd), and Boss Harold out front of them all, imbibing on a cruel humor in the face of the men that had kidnapped him over the water scandal. Though his face was puffed and bruised and his elderly features stood exaggerated in the morning glow of the sun which crested the high walls, he grinned at some joke another Boss told—the playful gestures of the rulers of Golgotha were like a group of children—and still the crowd was silent half in reverence, half in anticipation. The crowd opened like a crescent moon round the line of criminals, leaving open air between the forefront of onlookers and the men which would carry out the punishment.
Maron took the lead on the rope. “These men here have committed the crimes of burglary, thievery, kidnapping, torture, alongside attempts to escape these past few nights.” The Sheriff Boss was scrawny, but his eyes were dangerous looking and he took pleasure in his deeds, whatever they be. He pivoted on a boot heel and looked on at the tired starved faces of the men tied by rope. “Don’t you understand your transgressions?”
The response that came to him was little more than affirmative grumbles. Certainly, from the gauntness of the men, they could barely shamble given the way they’d been collected. The youngest among them was assuredly no older than fourteen and yet there he stood alongside his conspirators, undoubtedly thirsted, starved, sleep deprived.
The first man they took from the line was gray-headed and teetered on his skinny legs; as they disconnected him from the others, he almost tripped and fell, but Maron caught him, brought the man in close and whispered something to him (perhaps words of comfort or maybe even one last admonishment). They sat the man in a stool, arms remaining cinched behind him, and without hesitation, Boss Maron’s guild of wall men took mallets and hooks to the man’s feet. The screams erupted from the sitting man’s throat dry and awful. Blood pooled in the spot beneath him and when the wall men removed themselves from before him, it was plain to see they’d skewered his ankles with iron hooks which were connected to chains which ascended to the high parapets of the wall where several more of Maron’s cronies began pulling the chains taut. All at once, they ripped the old man from his seat where his head met ground with a hard crack and he was expertly hoisted by his ankles, into the air, against the wall where they pulled him thirty feet high. There he hung against the surface, struggling, screaming still. Hushed murmurs weaved through the crowd like ghosts and one of the women standing in front of me caught a gasp in her hand.
Looking on the stage of Bosses, not one seemed to acknowledge the punishment besides a glance. Wine sloshed from a clay cup in Boss Harold’s hand and coagulated in the silty earth beneath the platform.
The next in line for punishment was the youngest, a boy with gold hair brought dirty, and dark circles which shaped his unresponsive eyes. Boss Maron pulled the boy forward and they detached him from the others in line; he followed without protest. The woman in front of me, the one that let go of the gasp, stepped forward and I wanted to reach out and stop her; the tension was physical and as my hand grasped for her clothing, it met air. How I wish I’d stopped her.
The woman spilled into the open square and Boss Maron froze, surprised, but unafraid. She’d withdrawn a semi-automatic rifle from her robes and angled the barrel first at Maron then waved the thing around; onlookers pushed themselves from her way and even the Bosses took notice, yelling obscenities.
Maron tipped the cowboy hat on his head back to expose his wrinkled forehead. “If you intend on shootin’ me then do it, bitch.”
Seconds ran like infinity where there was only quiet, and I could not hear even the screams of the hanging man on the wall. She pointed the gun at the bound boy, the youngest of criminals. Her shouting was crying. “Henry, my boy, I’m sorry! God, please forgive me!” The end of her gun barrel erupted. The boy’s body danced till it was dead, his torso exploded across the ground and his blood hung like mist. Another anguished cry and she put the gun to use in firing at the other men, still in line, still awaiting execution. All fell but the man on the end. Blood ran wild in the square till the bullets were spent; the last man was brought to his knees for the others met the ground dead and he looked on in wonder at the gore before him then at the crazed woman in the square. Upon understanding the mercy she’d attempted to pay him, he guffawed with his face brushed in red.
Boss Maron removed a club from his belt and approached the woman whose hands unclenched the gun, sending it clattering to the ground. The sheriff and his men detained the woman, clubbed her arms so that bone shone through skin and then she was dragged away, and the punishment continued, and some of the crowd stepped into the blood for a better look and how I wished I’d stopped her.
The last man was brought forth, tall, large and broad shouldered, stepping deep in the red pools without shoes. Maron remarked plainly how tall the man was, and the man spat at the ground.
They took him up the wall like the first and their dual cries echoed. Some of the wall men took ladders and created incisions across the men’s lower abdomen, pulled the skin down so a flap hung off their torsos and covered their faces like a great tongue. Blood marked the wall beneath them.
Although the sky was clear of birds, birds came later in the evening when the sky was red, and the men had no more struggle; the birds perched on the men’s crotches and prodded at muscle with their beaks till intestines bulged out like sausage concealed by a red net of thin picked muscle. They stopped screaming when it was dark.
The hall of Bosses was at the back of Golgotha, furthest from the gate and taller than any of the other structures except perhaps the hydroponic towers. There it stood with discrete faces carved into its exterior stone walls, each one commissioned by an artist without a name and there on that night there was merriment and drinking too and I’d been invited, and I went to the Bosses at night where even music could be heard echoing from the mouth of that hall that spilled onto the street. The inner sanctum of those foul Bosses stunk of fresh chicken and spices and more wine too and when I came to them, they sat at a long table where Boss Harold sat off to the right side with his fists holding implements to shred his plate of chicken. Upon my arrival, the Bosses hollered and servants were there to refill cups as I approached Harold. He offered me a cup. I sat the cup to the side and another of the Bosses snatched it without recognizing. Harold’s fingers on his left hand had been wrapped and braced with splints of wood.
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“Have a seat!” Cheered Boss Paul; he was the man that oversaw the hydroponic workers.
“Aye!” That was confirmation from Boss Frank; he and his underlings helped in keeping numbers: rations, materials, and the time too.
Harold touched my hand with his mended fingers and fumbled around to stand before pulling me into a great hug; he was a small man and his head rested against his chest for a moment and no longer before he pulled away, keeping his hands on my biceps. His eyes twinkled and he’d been drunk all day. “Look at you! We’ve a hero in front of us, fellas!” A sigh escaped him, and I felt the heat off his breath. “You’ve returned my daughter and I owe you a debt.”
My expression, upon seeing the long table laid with such wealth must’ve betrayed my sullenness to it for I felt Harold’s hand squeeze my own as though to comfort me; his hand was cold, wet.
“Do not let the hero in your soul perish, dear boy! There are few of your kind.” He stifled a dry tear before seating himself at the table once more. “You’ve done me and mine a great service and I’d like for you to have this.” Harold reached beneath the table, near his feet and slid out a wooden, chest-sized crate of miscellaneous objects; he withdrew from its contents a transparent bottle with auburn liquid swishing inside. “This is some of that wizard liquor I know you’re fond of. There’s five bottles for you and a few other things. Some parchment—Mister Maron’s told me you like to write when the inspiration strikes you—and some ink and there’s a few cans of tobacco too. It should never be enough for what you’ve done.” He squeezed my hand again before returning the bottle. A drunkenness escaped him, and he asked, “What is it like out there? To travel yonder? To see what’s not been seen for so long?”
The other Bosses’ utensils stopped moving across their plates and Harold looked up at me from his seat, illuminated in the glow of candlelight. Searching for an answer, I tried, “It’s—
A door slammed open from the far end of the hall and forced me to stop and look on at Boss Maron standing within a threshold leading to some room I’d never seen before; his scrawny frame stood dark against the lights from within the room, framing him first in shadow. He stepped forward, chest heaving, and in the candlelight of the table, I could see he was naked, coated in blood all down his body and without even his hat. From beyond, just before a servant rushed forward to close the door, I could see upon a mattress was the gunwoman from the morning, arms twisted, unmoving. How I wished I’d stopped her. “I am famished,” said Boss Maron, “Nothing quite like it works up a hunger from me!” His voice was filled with delight and the other Bosses took up conversation again while Harold motioned for me to take the crate of goods that he’d bestowed upon me.
Maron moved through the hall without anyone taking notice of his nudity. He craned playfully over the table to one of the dead chickens there and pinched a hunk of meat off with his fingers before plunging it in his mouth and sucking so there was no blood left on his forefinger.
Upon noticing me, Maron moved forward, jovial, bewildering in the glow of the room, and clapped me on the back; copper rolled off him. “You’ve decided to join us, huh?” He hooked his arm around me and leaned in to support most of his weight against mine. “There’s food to be had, for sure, but I’m afraid the party favor’s been dealt already.” A hearty laugh exploded from him. Among the men he was sober alone.
“Sit and eat Mister Maron,” said Harold, “We’ve a feast and you intend to tease the poor boy? And for what?”
Maron waved off the other Boss, “Poor boy indeed. Tell me, is it true what they say about you?”
I took a stone face. “What do they say?”
“I been told that you like speakin’ with devils.” A pause followed where he took up an empty chair alongside Harold. “Or maybe you’ve got certain proclivities.” He shook a meat knife at me. “Ain’t you got more blood on them hands that I’ve got here?” He showed his flat red palms.
“I should go.” My teeth ached as I clenched my jaw and lifted the crate Harold offered.
Laughter followed till I was out in the dark, the crate grappled, pastel squares painting the black buildings in the night (a signature for each night owl). Taking the stairs, I met the street and moved to take the road home when a figure stepped out, bathed in moonlight. My hands clenched around the wooden crate.
“Heya, Harlan. That is you there, isn’t it?” The words blubbered and the face of the man they belonged to was cut blank against the sharp clay of his face. “It’s you.” He was caught in a blue moonlight shaft, and he was crying. A sniff came as he jerked his body and pointed to the hall of the Bosses. “You came from in there. I saw you did.”
“I did,” I said.
“They took my wife in there.” A pause punctuated the night as he took his fist to wipe his face. “I saw them take her in there. You didn’t see her? Did you see her? Tell me please Harlan. Tell me she’s alive in there.”
A chill caught me. “I don’t know her.”
The man laughed a cold laugh. “You don’t know her, huh? She killed our boy this morning. If you didn’t see that I’m sure you’ve heard about it. The wall men took her in there. Tell me Harlan. Tell me now if she’s dead. If you do nothing else with that miserable life, you’d better tell me if you know.”
I sighed and sat the crate at my feet. “It’s like I told you. I don’t know her.”
The man stumbled forward in the dark so there was less than five feet between me and him. “Tell me you sonofabitchin’ bastard!”
His grief was belligerent.
The man caught me in a tackle and we both scrambled to the ground, each of us working for the upper hand in the blackness. My head met hard ground and clapped my teeth against my tongue; blood ran in my mouth and dizzy colors came. I swung a fist out, feeling my knuckles meet something hard I couldn’t see. Sneaky, his hands met my throat and his thumbs pushed into my adam’s apple. I couldn’t breathe as he straddled me. Try as I might, bucking my hips to pitch him, I reached out with a hand and swung my other in a fist to meet him, but my vision was going and my strength left me as he surely tried to crush my windpipe. While I spat through the struggle and lightheadedness took me, I found his eye with my thumb and pushed hard. His grip softened enough and I threw a final punch, pulling my knees beneath him to push him off. He met the dirt to my side and rolled on the ground; I could just make out the form of the man clutching his own face.
I moved to find the crate Harold had given me and lifted it, staggering around on stilts. I took myself to the ground in a place where the moon cut through the buildings and sat there with the box, removing a bottle of liquor to hold in my hand.
First, the cries of the man were moans then he stifled himself, crested the shadow line and moved at me again on his feet.
“Ah,” I held the bottle like a club, and he froze, “If you take another step, I’ll bust this over your fuckin’ head and jam whatever’s left in your neck.”
In the lowlight, I could see his right eye pinched shut and oozing tears even more than before. His bottom lip protruded before he sucked it into his teeth, and he hissed a sigh. “I just wanted to know, mister.” He took to sitting in the dirt opposite me. “Why won’t you tell me? A man deserves to know.”
We sat like that for minutes, focused on one another while I spat blood on the ground beside me. “What’s your name?” I asked him, massaging my throat with my free hand.
“D-dave.” He continuously rubbed his hand into the eye I’d gouged. “Goddamn. I think you’ve blinded me in it.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, well I’m sorry I came at you like that.”
“Ain’t you got any family left?”
The absence of a response stood as one.
I lowered the bottle but kept it in my hand. “Sorry.”
Dave shrugged. “So?” he asked.
I shook my head.
His shoulders slumped and he cried some more.
I undid the top on the bottle and scooted across the ground to offer it to him, but he put up his hand. “Just take it.”
We shared that bottle then another and I learned that Dave was sometimes called Davey by his wife. He’d just started teaching his boy about the growth cycle of cabbages and his boy’s name was Henry. Henry found a lot of joy in the world and liked to joke around, but Dave was never a jokester and so the boy and father didn’t always get along, but the man loved his boy, and he loved his wife too. “I’m a coward,” Dave confessed after the first few drinks. Beyond the first bottle, he spoke about how he’d like to skin the Bosses alive. Then, once the second bottle was empty Dave was confessing cowardice again and crying and he left in the dark and I went home.
The following morning, there was the ringing of large bells, and the wizards came.