A Legend

A Legend

By: Kell Myers


    Oklahoma, 1878, in a dusty little town called Sunday, whose greatest claim to fame is that it rested between two important cities that lie elsewhere, sits a roguishly handsome man alone in the jail. A smile crosses his face as he listens to the excited murmurings coming from the crowd of people that had gathered outside for today’s spectacle. The man laughed, knowing that he, and he alone was going to put this town on the map. From now on Sunday Oklahoma will be known as the place where legendary outlaw, Tom “The Killer” Kirkley was hanged.
  The door to the brick jailhouse opened. A large burly man stood in the doorway looking upon the cheerful condemned prisoner.
  “Hidey sheriff. How ya doin this morning?”
  “I’m fine.” Sheriff Armstrong replied in a bass voice. “You ready for your last meal?”
  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” he replied as he stood up and walked to the bars.
  The sheriff stepped to the side to allow a young, pretty girl wearing a plain green dress to come in. She carried a covered tray in both hands and a basket in the crook of her arm. Nervously she made her way to the cell and handed them to Tom.
  “Thank ya much, miss.”
  “You’re welcome, sir” she replied shyly.
  “How about giving a condemned man his last kiss too?” he said with the roguish grin that made most of the saloon girls swoon or blush, as long as the money kept coming.
  “Damn it Tom! You stop that right now! Sally, go home and wait for me. Tell Ma that I’ll be back before dinner.” Despite having turned a bright shade of red he had managed to keep his voice under control, at least to his daughter.
  ”Yes sir.” Sally replied before turning to leave.
  “C’mon sheriff, can’t ya give a man a lil bit of happiness before you hang him?”
  “Not when it’s my little girl.”
  “I hate to have to be the one to tell you this sheriff,” Tom said with a cocky grin on his face. “but she ain’t such a lil girl no more.”
  Armstrong gave Tom a stone cold stare for a few moments before letting it go. The sheriff saw no point in loosening his temper on a condemned man.
  “My sincerest apologies sheriff.” He said with the usual smirk.
  Tom took his tray and basket and set them on a small table in his cell. His last meal sat before him, steak and mashed potatoes with green beans on the side. The basket contained some bread, butter, and a bottle of red wine to wash it down. Tom sat, unfolded the napkin, and stuffed it into his shirt like a bib. He proceeded to eat his last meal with deliberate and over-precise table manners.
  Sheriff Armstrong watched as the outlaw ate his last meal. A knot of disgust and bewilderment pulled at his gut. “Don’t you give a damn bout what’s gonna happen to you? You are gonna die, son! Your neck’s gonna have a rope around it in less than an hour and you’re goin straight to hell after it’s all over! Do you even understand what’s happenin?”
  Tom swallowed his last bite of steak and downed his last sip of wine. After wiping his hands and the corners of his mouth he looked the sheriff in the eye. A serious expression was fixed upon the condemned man’s face. “I ain’t gonna die sheriff. Nuh uh. Not me. I’m gonna live forever.”
  “And how do you plan to do that six feet in the dirt?” the sheriff asked suspiciously.
  “Hell, I’m Tom “The Killer” Kirkley. I killed some sixteen men in gun and knife fights. After that rope snaps my neck I’ll be a legend. People will be talking bout me till Jesus Christ himself sees fit to come back and walk with us worldly folk.” He said with a grin so ingratiating that it seemed he wouldn’t have been prouder if he had been the savior himself. “I’ve seen the bright sunset I’ll ride into. It’ll be forever and I’ll always be here, a legend.” 
  Sheriff Armstrong shook his head and stood up to leave. “I’ll give you a few moments alone so as you can make your peace with God. If you want I’ll send in Brother Greene. Maybe you’ll want to talk to him before you…………..go.”
  “Naw, I won’t be needin none of that.”
  “Suit yourself”
  “Hey sheriff.”
  Sheriff Armstrong turned and looked wordlessly at Tom.
  “Since I’m gonna put this town on the map hows about havin the mayor name a street after me.”
  The sheriff sighed and resigned himself to the fact that there was just no getting through to some people. As he left he was followed by Tom’s carefree laughter.

***** 

  A crowd had gathered around the gallows in quiet anticipation. Almost everyone in the town and the surrounding farms came to see the macabre event. A friendly chatter permeated the still air. It was gossip, mostly, concerning the usual small town happenings. Betty was pregnant with her second child, Mr. Null got tossed in jail, again, last Tuesday, for being drunk in public, the Marsdon’s cattle got loose again last week. No one spoke of Tom Kirkley or the upcoming event though. The gallows may as well not have been there at all.
  Judge John Hooper walked up the stairs and stood on the platform before the crowd. They fell instantly silent.  He stood for a few moments gazing at his fellow citizens who, like him, were dressed in all black like they were attending a funeral. It was a funeral of sorts the judge thought to himself. Clearing his throat he addressed the crowd. “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Today we are going to hang a murder, rapist, and thief all in the persona of one man, Thomas Abraham Kirkley. I know that all of you have gathered here to see a vile human being pay for his crimes, but I feel I must warn you. To watch a man die is a horrid spectacle under any circumstances and hanging can be one of the most brutal and heinous ways for it to happen. If there is anyone here who does not wish to view this you should leave now. No one that stays will think ill of you for it. The judge paused awaiting a response. Not a soul moved. It was as if their feet had grown roots into the hard, cracked earth. “Very well, let us proceed.”
  Judge Hooper gave a signal to Sheriff Armstrong. From the jail house, a shackled Tom Kirkley emerged, escorted on either side by a pair of deputies. Following behind them was Brother Robert Greene giving a heartfelt recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. All the while Tom bore the look of a grand marshal in the Mardi Gras parade. He was led up the stairs and made to stand on the trap door under the noose. The sheriff slipped the rope around the outlaw’s neck and tightened it.
  Judge Hooper stepped forward and recited the litany of crimes that Thomas Abraham Kirkley a.k.a. Tom “The Killer” Kirkley had been convicted of and condemned to hang for. After finishing he turned to the condemned and asked. “Do you wish to make any last statements?”
  Tom looked over the crowd with the roguish grin once more appearing on his face. “Ya’ll just remember to spell Kirkley right when you name that street after me. It’s l-e-y not l-y.”
  The crowd just stared back at him expressionless, silent, waiting.
  “Very well,” Replied the judge, “let us be done with this then.”
  Brother Greene started his final attempt to save a lost soul as Tom stood defiantly in the noose. The roguish grin never left his face. One would think the man believed the prayer was to him, not for him by the look on his face. “May the Lord have mercy on your soul.”
  The words had barely left the preacher’s mouth when Sheriff Armstrong pulled the lever making the trap door give way. Tom fell through and the rope pulled tight around his neck, jerking his head back. It felt as if someone hit him in the face with an axe handle wrapped in a thick quilt. He struggled violently to free his tightly bound arms as his legs began a panicked kicking, futilely searching for ground that was no longer there. His bowels relaxed and his bladder released. Sheer terror had overcome Tom. His legacy and ego were totally forgotten.
  As his thrashing became more and more desperate something grabbed his leg and pulled, forcing it to slowly cease its movement. The smell of rancid oily smoke and burning flesh assailed his nostrils as an intense heat wafted upon him. He forced his head to the side as far as the noose would allow and shifted his eyes downward. His victims swam below in pools of flame.
  They screamed for him with faces twisted grotesquely in rage. They crawled over each other reaching and grasping for his legs with gnarled and clawed hands. Their lust for revenge was raw and unfettered. Out of these pits of hell they came, men with gaping rotting holes where they had been shot or stabbed and young women, nude with their womanhood torn and bloody. They all came for him, putting their eternal rest on hold until justice was finally done by their hands.
  The hands pulling his legs.
  The hands pulling his dreams of legend away and forcing upon him his true legacy.
  The hands pulling him into hell.
 
The End