Chapter Text
El Paso , Texas
June, 1881
When the clamor of saws and hammers die away there’s only a short period of silence before the air fills with the murmur of voices. The day had dawned warm and cloudless and despite the rising heat a crowd gathers during the early morning hours. Women herd curious children while vaqueros wander in idly from the edges of town. Peasants prod sleepy burros laden with baskets filled with vegetables. The shopkeeper emerges from his store to watch the commotion, and from the saloon next door a slurred voice calls “Poor Dale Guthrie!”
“Bad luck!” The same man crows. “Hangin’s are bad luck. Always avoided ‘em myself.”
Big, raw boned Ellie Johnson steps out of the boarding house and smooths her skirts with work roughened fingers. “Had to build a new scaffolding,” she proclaims to the timid school marm beside her. “Old one burnt. I could hear ‘em hammerin’ on it all night long. The Marshal is real nervous, and some folks think Guthrie’s old gang will come for him.”
At Miss Ava’s alarmed gasp, Ellie nods. “You mark my words. There’ll be trouble before they drop ‘im.”
Miss Ava, playing hooky like her students, goes pale.
Almost as one the crowd of fifty or so that had gathered during the morning hours, waiting with a mixture of curiosity and impatience, turn and stare at the Marshal's office as it slowly opens.
“Ten o’clock,” Mr Andrews of Andrews Hardware remarks. He snaps his watch closed. “I always thought they hung ‘em at dawn.” Beside him, Mrs Andrews makes a disapproving noise. She turns on a heel and retreats inside the store. The door slams behind her.
Ellie elbows Miss Ava. “It’s all because of him.” She gestures to the well dressed man who stands on the boardwalk nearby but apart from the crowd.
“Now what would a gentleman like that have to do with the likes of Guthrie, I wonder? Been stayin’ at my place. I tried to find out what his business is here, but he wouldn’t say nothin’. And the Marshal ain’t been talkative about it either.”
“Wouldn’t say anything,” Miss Ava corrects her as she turns to glance in the stranger’s direction.
“That’s what I said,” Ellie grouches.
If the gentleman in question feels the weight of their gazes, he shows no sign. Like the rest of the spectators his eyes follow the heavily armed Marshal and his deputies as they escort their prisoner to the hangman’s scaffolding. The crowd slowly parts to let them pass.
As the Marshal and his prisoner approach the steps of the scaffold a heavy set man stumbles into their path. His clothes, hair, and beard suggest that he has a very distant relationship with soap and water. “Damn fine hangin’!” the man compliments as he weaves back and forth on his feet.
“We ain’t hung him yet,” the Marshal snaps. He gestures angrily at one of his men. “Get him outta here! Somewhere he can sleep it off!”
The Marshal gives the rest of his deputies a hard look as the town drunk is removed. Then he gives Guthrie a shove up the steps to the platform. “Keep everyone back,” he calls to his men. “I don’t want trouble. Let’s just get this over with. Where’s the priest?”
“Aquí. Here, señor.” The priest emerges from the crowd, and the sun glints off the sweat beading his brow. He wheezes as he makes his way up onto the scaffolding, clutching his thick brown robes at the front with one hand, and a bible and crucifix in the other.
He begins to pray, the plea for atonement and forgiveness spoken in Latin. Before he gets out barely a handful of words, Guthrie’s head jerks up and spits at the portly little man.
“I don’t want none of your holy words, priest. God’s mercy ain’t waiting for me. Save your gibberish for someone else.”
The priest stares up at Guthrie in horror over the blasphemy and crosses himself with trembling fingers. “May God have mercy on your soul,” he whispers before shrinking away, shaking his head gravely.
Guthrie laughs, a chilling sound that cuts through the blazing heat. When the noose is pulled down and tightened around his neck his laughter trails off, but he grins widely at the watching crowd. There’s no fear in his eyes, only a burning madness.
The Marshal stands back and nods at the inconspicuous figure who waits at the far end of the scaffolding with his hand resting on an unweathered wooden lever. Guthrie sees the gesture and smirks at the man. Then his head snaps around and cold eyes latch onto the finely dressed gentleman at the back of the crowd. Many people will later gossip about how his eyes turn black as sin, and others argue that it’s only a trick of the light. “I’ll see you in Hell!” Guthrie snarls.
The mechanism is released. The noose cinches around Guthrie’s throat as the door falls open below his feet.
If anyone were paying attention to the fancy man at the back of the crowd, they’d see him flinch and go pale. His lips move, shaping another ancient Latin prayer with far more power than the priest's. But all eyes are on the spectacle before them. The rope pulls tight, and sways as Guthrie’s body twitches and jerks. His eyes bulge from their sockets, turning red as blood vessels burst open within them.
Despite the clear sky a shadow seems to spread over the crowd.
Gasps and soft curses rise up from the crowd that had gathered to witness the moment. Women shield the eyes of their children and mutter prayers. In front of the hardware store Mr Andrews wipes beads of cold sweat from his upper lip with the sleeve of his shirt.
“You satisfied?” Mrs Andrews asks sharply from the door behind him where she’s reappeared. She seizes him by the arm and jerks him back into the store.
“Well, I never would’a believed it,” Ellie mutters with disappointment. “I thought sure we’d have us a gunfight on our hands.”
Her gaze fixes briefly on the elegantly dressed stranger and she dips her head toward the ashen-faced school marm at her side. “Seein’ a man hang sure don’t seem to bother him none. I sure would like to know what a fancy man like him has to do with Guthrie.
“Them’s some mighty fine threads,” she adds thoughtfully. Guess that’s what a fancy city gentleman wears to a hangin’.” She snorts a laugh, but Miss Ava doesn’t seem to share her humor. She’s still staring at the slowly swinging rope, a handkerchief pressed against her mouth, her eyes wide and horror-stricken.
Seeing her distress, Ellie decides to intervene. “C’mon honey, I got something over at my place that’ll fix you right up. Fancy tea, ordered from a catalogue. Just arrived on the train last week.” She wraps a thick arm around the small woman and guides her toward the boarding house.
The Marshal nods to one of his men. “Tell Purdy we got a customer for him. Just a plain box’ll do. Let’s get him buried--no marker. Don’t want no trouble.”
His deputies disperse the remaining spectators and the Marshal turns to approach the visiting gentleman.
“Damn fine hangin’!” the drunk roars in vague approval from the barred window of his cell in the Marshal’s office.
The Marshal stops at the bottom step of the boardwalk that lines the storefronts at the side of the street. He squints against the glare of the sun and adjusts his wide-brimmed hat as he looks up at the man. “You satisfied?”
The man had arrived in El Paso ten days ago, and the Marshal still doesn’t know anything about him other than what he can observe. The man is tall and fit. And probably rich to boot if the fine cloth and cut of his suit is any indication. Somehow the man’s clothing is still immaculate, without a spec of the dust that clings to everything in the desert town. His dark hair is combed neatly, his jaw clean shaven. And he’s got a stare that can cut a man down to size. Everything about the man says he’s a pampered city slicker, but that hard stare tells another story.
Dark blue eyes flick down to meet the Marshal’s gaze briefly before going back to watching Guthrie’s body being lowered from the scaffolding. “Yes, Marshal. I’m satisfied.”
For several long moments they simply stand there. After a while the Marshal clears his throat. “There’s paperwork to do. You’ll need a signed affidavit about Guthrie.”
At first there’s no response, and he’s not sure the man had heard a word he’d said. “Sir?”
The weight of the man’s gaze fastens on him once more and the Marshal realizes he’d heard every word. “Yes of course,” he says softly, almost as an afterthought.
“And there’s also the reward,” the Marshal adds. It’s the first time he’s ever had to remind someone about reward money. He thinks back to his original impression of the gentleman when he’d first walked into his office over a week ago--that it was something more than merely supplying Dale Guthrie’s location, more than seeing a man wanted for a laundry list of atrocities brought to justice, more than money.
The man’s head jerks toward him, his expression thunderous. “No.”
The anger sets the Marshal back. It reminds him of something else he’d noticed on their first meeting. All the fancy clothing and refined manners were a facade, carefully put up around a pillar of blazing hot anger. He’d witnessed it when he’d been reluctant to go after Guthrie, and it had surprised him then. More so now. Nobody walks away from that much money.
Taking a deep breath, the man visibly pulls himself together. His expression is a mask of control despite the smile now curving his lips. “I don’t accept blood money,” he explains softly. “And it’s against company policy. Please donate it on my behalf. I’m sure the school could benefit. And the mission; the priest is collecting for the town’s orphans.”
Nodding, the Marshal decides to let the matter go. He knows a few good ways to use the money that would be appreciated by the residents of the little town. “You leaving soon, then?” he asks.
“Yes,” the man responds with a more natural smile. “On today’s train. My work here is finished”
“Just what sorta work…?” the Marshal prods.
The man denies him with a tiny shake of his head. “Thank you, Marshal. For everything.”
With that, he turns and disappears into Ellie Johnson’s boardinghouse.
Upstairs in the sparsely furnished room that overlooks the street, he packs his small trunk. His shaving kit, and a small notebook, pen, and inkwell are shut into a wooden box and tucked away at the bottom. He carefully folds his extra clothing before putting it away.
A breeze from the open window lifts the curtains and brings relief from the searing heat. It brushes a badly wrinkled piece of paper from the top of the dressing table to the floor.
He bends to pick it up. Large, block print boldly spells out WANTED--DEAD OR ALIVE across the top. Below that were once the likeness and names of four men, along with the chilling account of their crimes. The paper is torn, the images of two men ripped away. He stares down at it for a long moment before carefully tearing away the likeness of Dale Guthrie.
He smooths the wrinkles as he stares down at he remaining picture. “And then there was only one,” he whispers.
The silence is split by the train whistle, announcing that it is time for him to finish up and leave. He folds the wanted poster and slips it into the inner pocket of his jacket.
A knock at the door brings his head up, and a small voice calls from the other side. “The train is here, señor.”
He opens the door to find the small orphan boy Ellie employs waiting for him. “I can take your trunk,” the boy offers excitedly, anticipating the pesos to be earned.
“Yes, I’m ready.” He smiles down at the boy and steps back from the door. The trunk is almost as large as the boy, and he suppresses a smile at the sight.
When the boy disappears through the door, he returns to the depths of the room and opens the small side table near the bed. At the back of the drawer his fingers brush over cool steel. The pistol fits snugly in his hand. He checks the small, short barrelled revolver to make sure it’s loaded then slips it into the special holster under his sleeve, then he turns to leave.
He pauses to glance out the window. The scaffolding he’d watched the town’s carpenters build through the long hours of the night and morning stands abandoned, but in his mind he can still picture Dale Guthrie’s body hanging from the rope. He remembers the darkness of the moment, the shadows seeming to bleed from Guthrie’s mouth, and he shivers in the rising heat.
He only has one thought. Dale Guthrie has finally paid for his sins.
Castiel Jameson gives the room one more sweeping glance to make sure he’d left nothing behind. Then he slips out of the room, closing the door behind him.