The Hearing, The Hanging

It was a cold winter day, mid-January, in a small town just south of San Francisco. The sky was overcast and a slight drizzle covered the streets in a slick composite of grime and moisture, rendering them a dull grey color that seemed to personify the sense of gloom that permeated the settlement. Outside the town, a dense forest, coniferous in nature, stretched for miles indeterminable, just barely held at bay by the threat of civilization. Tall, lush hemlocks and spruces dominate the sky, soaring ever upward, towards the heavens. Sparse clumps of redwoods dot the horizon, the king of the conifer. A single highway, winding and wild, for the railroad had not yet reached this part of the country, snakes from the town, trekking through the forest and onward towards the sea.
   
In the small town, there lived a man by the name of William Crane, the owner of Crane’s General Store, which happened to be the only general store in 50 miles. William Crane was a man of frequent suspicious speculation, due to the fact that he was not a native citizen of the town. He had moved from New York City in the east to San Fransisco before taking up residence in his current abode. Upon his arrival in the town, he proceeded to purchase the general store from it’s sickly, dying owner, taking over the business. As time meandered slowly on, dragging it’s heels as it influenced the small town, the occupants’ distrust of Mr. Crane faded, only a sliver of doubt now lingering. William Crane only hastened his gradual acceptance with the fair manner with which he conducted his business, contrasting drastically with the previous owner’s practices.
   
It was the continuance of these practices that William undertook on such a day as this, bustling through his shop, the epitome of neatness. As the bell above the doorway rang, announcing the entrance of a patron, he hurried behind his counter. Upon seeing that the customer was the newly-wedded Mrs. Emily Alcott, William’s countenance brightened immediately. “However may I assist you Mrs. Alcott?”, he asked in his most amiable tone. “I was wondering whether you might have canvas for painting in your inventory.” she replied. Moving out from behind the counter with the most possible haste, he accompanied Mrs. Alcott towards the corner of the store dedicated to textiles and cloth. Hearing the bell again, he noticed the arrival of his junior shopkeeper, a small, wiry boy of around 17 with sandy blond hair and light blue eyes, who was his apprentice of a sorts. With barely a glance in his direction, Mr. Crane called to the apprentice, “Take that basket on the counter to Widow Anderson if you don’t mind, she’s bedridden with the ague.” Nodding in affirmation, the apprentice gathered the compiled merchandise and left the store. Mrs. Alcott purchased the canvas she requested, as well as a tin washtub, then left. It was in a similar fashion that the rest of the day drudged on, with the occasional customer drifting in and out of the shop. When closing time came around, Crane closed up shop, a methodical procedure he had repeated a thousand times before that consisted of sweeping the floors and counters, locking up his more valuable merchandise, and bolting the door shut, then departed, a look of somber disposition reflected in his visage.
 
When William awoke the subsequent morning, he dressed, ate a hearty breakfast, and prepared for another day at the general store. On the way there, he couldn’t help but notice the subdued behavior of those individuals he passed on the street, their appearance tense and uneasy, indicating something in the town was amiss. This, along with the perpetually bleak atmosphere in the town, set quite a dismal mold for the remainder of the day.
   
Upon his arrival at the general store, he found his junior shopkeeper already there. Noticing his employers entrance, the apprentice promptly called out to him, saying, “Mr. Crane, have you heard? Mr. Alcott was found dead this morning!” William Crane’s expression was oddly devoid of emotion at the revelation, the perfect image of impassivity. He responded in an inflection of neutrality, asking, “Under what circumstance? How was he killed?” “They say Mrs. Alcott went to the well this morning to draw up water to boil, and when she brought up the pail, it was tinged red with blood! She went to the sheriff after she noticed her husband was missing. Someone went and pushed Mr. Alcott down the well!” “How terrible indeed!” exclaimed Mr. Crane, finally permitting an iota of emotion on his features. I suppose Mrs. Alcott is quite distraught!” “I would imagine so! She announced the funeral will be around noon tomorrow”, the apprentice answered. Acknowledging his apprentice’s statement with a nod, William went back to work recording the store’s inventory.
 
The remainder of the day drew on in a similar manner to the day before, filled with the tedious and often monotonous chores ever inherent in the running of a business. The only incongruity was the unhappy mood derived from the death of Mr. Alcott that seemed present in everyone who visited the store on some errand or another. As the day came to a close, Mr. Crane once again closed the shop, right before the rosy dusk faded into dim twilight, and headed home. News that a new general store had opened up the previous day, threatening to steal his business, only added to his overall ill-humor.

The following day, after concluding some ventures and business obligations he had out and about the town, William returned home and put on his best suit, in preparation of the funeral which was to be held at noon. Hailing a coach off the street, Mr. Crane got in and took a seat. A brief flash of pure astonishment, quick as lightning, flashed across his face as he recognized the other person in the coach. Adorned all in black, there sat the wife of the late Mr. Alcott, whose very funeral he was now attending! “Mrs. Alcott, I offer you my most sincere condolences for your loss”, he began graciously. “I appreciate your sympathy William, but I find it best not to dwell on such matters”, she interjected, cutting his half-formed sentence in half. “I see”, Crane lied, not comprehending the general direction of their dialog. “Are you going remain at your current residence or will you be moving away now?” he inquired, trying to keep his tone free of implications. “I haven’t decide yet”, she replied, gazing out the coach window. After a short moment, in which William pondered the meaning of her response, he too peered outside. They were just leaving the outskirts of the town, into the wilderness without. As they traveled deeper into the depths of the heavy forest, now in silence, William examined the wild, yet dark beauty of the vast timberland enveloping the coach, casting flickering shadows on the path as light struggled to break through the majestic canopy. He spoke absentmindedly, an effort to subdue the heavy quiet, “Truly, I resent the necessity of cities, corrupt and filthy; how I would like to live here, in the deepest reaches of the forest, under it’s needled ceiling.”

William immediately observed the point were the site of the funeral and burial began, for it was a meadow in which the light shone freely through. As the coach eased to a stand-still, he helped Mrs. Alcott down and out onto the well-groomed grass that seemed so alien inside the depths such a forest. As they both joined the congregation that had assembled in the meadow, the procession started, beginning with a fiery sermon from the local clergymen, Reverend John Guillotine. As the service continued, William stole quick glances at Mrs. Alcott, who seemed oddly at ease for someone who’s spouse had been decease but a day. A sudden thought must have interrupted his attentive observations, for he looked around the congregation in search of his apprentice, who was nowhere to be found. Once more, he returned to contemplating Mrs. Alcott's plight, till his reverie was broken by the sound of men scuffling, and shouts burst the relatively respectful silence that was accompanied by Reverend Guillotine’s invocations. Over all the commotion and indignant shouts, a voice rang clearly out, “Thomas Reed, the new shopkeeper has been found dead in a creek just north of here!” Utter chaos ensued and it took a span of time to get the congregation back to it’s previous state of tranquility. Reverend Guillotine aided much in the settling of his audience, his voice blatantly booming and boisterous. The funeral procession, interruption finally at an end, concluded, and the congregation began to disperse. Mr. Crane looked about a second time, trying to locate his apprentice but finding him not, he returned to the coach.

Like many others who had been present at the funeral, William headed north, towards Pine Creek, seeking to observe the scene at which the other general store owner had been found dead. When he had arrived, a crowd had formed around a roped-in square. Inside the square, a couple policemen, in addition to the town’s sheriff, were examining the body of the shopkeeper. As his gaze raked across the scene before him, William identified a familiar face, on of the very reaches of his peripheral vision. Turning to the figure, he realized why the face was familiar; it was his apprentice, who hadn’t been in attendance of the funeral. As he turned to approach him and reprimand him for his absence, he felt a firm grip latch onto his shoulder. Recoiling in indignance, he spun around to see who dared to harass him in such a manner and came face to face with the sheriff, flanked by two stout policemen. “Mr. Crane, you’re under arrest for the murder of Richard Alcott and Thomas Reed.”

The rest of the day and all of the next he spent in the cold, dark cell of the town’s prison. He was brought a trough of water and a dry crust of bread twice, for the standards pertaining to how criminals were to be treated were quite dismal in the small town. On the dawn of the second day of his incarceration, he was informed that his hearing would be later on that day and that the outlook of his survival was rather bleak. More than once, William asked of the evidence behind his arrest, to which the sheriff promptly responded, “Come now, don’t play us to be fools! You’re affection for Mrs. Alcott is quite well-known and that shopkeeper was obvious competition!”

Crane was removed from the cheerless cell. The policemen consented to let him bathe and change clothes, then he was shackled with iron manacles and transported to the court room where his trial was to take place. As he surveyed the gathering onlookers, he couldn’t help but notice the increasingly habitual lack of his junior shopkeeper’s presence.

It was just as the jury, court officials, and spectators had taken their seats and the trial was about to proceed when the door of the court room banged open and Ernest Faulkner, the town’s newspaper editor, strode in. “There’s been another killin’!” he announced boldly, certain that every soul inside the room stood, their attention riveted upon his every word. “Judge McCreed’s wife was just found under Mr. Heron’s corn grist mill’s waterwheel, drowned and beat to death!” It is needless to say that the ruckus caused by those few short sentences was nothing less than tumultuous. Even Judge McCreed, who presided over the hearing, was reduced to tears and cursing of the most obscene nature. It was in this moment that William Crane took advantage of the crowd, exploiting the rage and overall lack of sense generally present in a mob. Standing up, he shouted, “It must have been that apprentice of mine, he was off on some venture about the time of every killing!” This served to enrage the crowd to an even greater extent, for the Judge’s wife was well liked about the town and seen as a sort of role model by many. It took no time at all before the junior shopkeeper was found and dragged back to the court room. He was given an impromptu trial, and was sentenced to hanging the following morn.

Relief obviously etched on his features, Mr. Crane left the court room, heading back to the little apartment that was his singular abode. Along the way, he passed Mrs. Alcott’s house, a two-story structure with vaguely Greek architecture, and heard what sounded like two people in a struggle. Intrigued, he opened the small gate at the entrance to her yard and went around to the rear of the house. It was there that he was confronted with the most horrific image he had ever had the misfortune to experience; Mrs. Alcott, wooden cudgel in hand, was proceeding to strike who appeared to be the widowed mother of his junior shopkeeper about the neck while simultaneously holding her head beneath the water of a washtub. He watched, stunned and horrified as the flailing of Mrs. Alcott’s quarry slowed, then stopped altogether, finally going sickeningly limp.

The following day, citizens of the town noted the sudden disappearance of both Mr. William Crane and Mrs. Emily Alcott. People were dismayed to find Crane’s general store abandoned, without a trace of the former shopkeeper. Later that evening, the apprentice was hung, death taking it’s final toll on the town, blanketing it in darkness reminiscent of the eternal twilight of the forest outside. Years crawled slowly on in the town, yet no one ever forgot the strange occurrences of that week. Though many searched for the disappearing pair, Mr. Crane and Mrs. Alcott were never seen again.