Ralph Compton Face of a Snake

by Bernard Schaffer

  “You calling my daughter trash, Ashford?”

  “I’m calling her what you are, Henry. If she’s an Odell, she’s trash, and I won’t have my boy standing near her and getting any of it on him.”

  “I hope they hang you first, so I get to watch you die, you son of a bitch.”

  “Well, I hope they tie the rope around your neck wrong so it don’t break your neck and you get to hang there a good long while watching me, Odell trash,” Sinclair said.

  The judge told them both to shut up. He looked at the list on his desk and said, “I’ve got the names here of all the men suspected of being in both your gangs. Are there any we haven’t accounted for?”

  “All the Red Trail are dead,” Sheriff Reuben said.

  Ash Sinclair laughed.

  “How about the Venom Snakes?” the judge asked.

  “All of them are dead too.”

  “You all are welcome for that,” Odell said. “I should get me a medal.”

  One of the deputies leaned forward and whispered in the sheriff’s ear. “Wait. Hang on. There’s one we didn’t find. Lorenzo Escalante. The second-in-command.”

  “There’s quite a price on his head. Did you search the area?” the judge asked.

  “We did.”

  “Did you really search, or did you just kind of look? Maybe he got shot and rode off to die in a ditch somewhere or is holed up in a cave waiting for his wounds to bind. Maybe he’s gathering men together right now to come shoot us all to pieces and rescue his boss. Did you ever think about that?”

  “We searched, sir. No blood trails, no tracks, no Lorenzo Escalante,” Reuben said.

  The judge looked at Sinclair. “Where is he?”

  “Never heard of him,” Sinclair said.

  Sheriff Reuben held up his hand. “Your Honor, if it pleases you, just give me and my boys here ten minutes alone with Sinclair and some hot irons and we’ll find out everything you need to know. I promise.”

  The deputies behind Sinclair all nodded.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Judge Gilstrap said. “Mr. Sinclair, this court would be inclined to offer you some leniency for the information about your associate’s whereabouts. You’re facing a heavy sentence. Consider your answer very carefully. I’ll ask you one more time. Where is Escalante?”

  “Oh, him?” Sinclair said. “Lorenzo’s dead. He died a long time ago. I’m surprised you folks didn’t hear about it.”

  “Very well,” Judge Gilstrap said. “I hereby find you both guilty and sentence you to twenty years’ hard labor. Sheriff, prepare these men for transport to prison.” He tapped his gavel on the desk and gathered his robes to stand up.

  There was stunned silence in the crowd. No one moved or spoke until Sheriff Reuben slowly stood up. “Your Honor, did you say you’re sending them to prison?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “You’re not hanging them?”

  “Did you not hear me the first time, Sheriff?”

  “But,” Sheriff Reuben said. He turned and looked at the people behind him. “I mean, we’ve built a stage. There’re dancing girls and everything. Are you sure?”

  “Take these men away and do as I’ve instructed, Sheriff. Right now.”

  Someone shouted, “Hang them! He can’t stop us, Sheriff!”

  Judge Gilstrap leaned forward. “I want to be very clear, and I want you all to hear me on this. The old ways are finished. This town, this county, this state—all the violence and lawlessness that have festered here—are the reason men like Ashford Sinclair and Henry Odell have been able to run rampant for so long. It is a new day for the West. A day of law and order when no one is above it or below it, and so help me, by God, I’ll see that you and your deputies and the people of this town are held to the same standard as the lowest of the low or the highest of the high. Otherwise, I will send the nearest US Army company here to assume control under my direct supervision. Is there anyone who does not understand my ruling?”

  “No,” Sheriff Reuben said. “No, sir. It’s just, well, you see, I realize you aren’t from around here, but everybody knows these men are the baddest of the bad. If they don’t deserve hanging, I reckon nobody does.”

  “The baddest of the bad?” Judge Gilstrap asked.

  “Yes, sir. Gang leaders, the two of them. Responsible for all manner of killings and robberies.”

  “I see. Perhaps I was too hasty. What evidence do you have to present of any of these so-called killings?” The judge looked around the court at the confused faces. “Please, anyone with any evidence of any killings committed by these two men, step forward.”

  “Your Honor, I’m not sure what killings mean where you come from, but as far as I know, anybody with evidence of these two men doing a killing was killed in the process of getting it.”

  “What about any other crimes committed by these two men specifically? Robberies, extortions, horse thievery, anything?”

  The sheriff bunched up his lips, then said, “No, sir. Most of those would have been associated with the killings I mentioned earlier.”

  “So, if I am clear, the only thing you do have direct evidence of is that Mr. Odell shot Mr. Sinclair in the stomach,” Judge Gilstrap said, pointing at Sinclair’s stomach. He moved his finger toward Odell and said, “And that Mr. Sinclair shot Mr. Odell in the hand.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s correct. I saw that directly.”

  “Good,” Gilstrap said. “The sentence for shooting a man but not killing him is twenty years, as I said.” He smacked his gavel and said, “Remove these two prisoners and escort them directly to prison.”

  The deputies looked confused, but they obeyed. From the crowd, Jesse Odell burst through the people between her and her father and tried to throw her arms around him.

  “At least let me say goodbye to my little girl,” Odell said.

  The deputy struck him across the back of the head and shoved him toward the exit. Sinclair threw back his head and laughed. When they walked him past his wife and son, he didn’t look.

  CHAPTER TWO

  On a hot summer afternoon in the fifth year of his sentence, Ashford Sinclair was in the same place he usually was at that time. Chained by the ankle to a heavy metal ball, breaking rocks with a sledgehammer. It was so hot and bright in the canyon, the sun boiled the skin on his shoulders and back and made it bubble. Sweat dripped off his matted beard into the dirt, and his feet swirled the wet dirt into mud.

  A prison guard named Corporal Mitchell sat watching Sinclair and the other prisoners from his horse. Mitchell drank from a canteen. He had so much water, he could afford to be careless with it, and sometimes the water would spill out of his mouth and run down his shirt. He’d wipe it with his sleeve and laugh. He spilled more water than the prisoners drank in a day, and when he spilled it, they all saw, and he knew they saw it, and it made him laugh all the more.

  It would be another two hours before Sinclair would be allowed any water again. Another inmate would come around with a bucket and a ladle, and the inmates were allowed to get one ladle full, and that was all. That was all there was enough for. Sinclair was last in line for the bucket, and by the time it reached him, the water was filthy. He didn’t care.

  He dried up and began to die in between those ladles of water, like all of his insides were some kind of plant left out in a bare desert canyon to turn brown and wither, but every so often a drop of rain would fall down on top of it. Not enough to save the plant. Just enough to keep it alive so it never stopped withering but was never allowed to die.

  It was another two hours before his next ladle, and Sinclair couldn’t manage enough saliva to swallow. He could hear himself wheeze when he breathed. For a second, he stopped swinging the sledgehammer, and his knees wobbled. He felt himself about to collapse.

  Corporal Mitchell unfurled his long leather whip. He was a dead sho
t with the whip, Sinclair knew. He’d whipped Sinclair once in the earlobe and split it in two. Mitchell had said if Sinclair didn’t get back to rock breaking, he’d split the other one next and Sinclair found no reason to doubt it.

  That didn’t matter, though. Sinclair was about to fall, and no whipping would change that. His only hope was that he’d be unconscious or dead before the whip struck.

  Someone was coming, though. The sound of hooves echoed from the stones all around them. Corporal Mitchell let go of his whip and reached for his rifle. Sinclair dropped to one knee and raised his head to see. Through the shimmering heat, he saw a rider coming toward them. Sinclair licked his lips. They were cracked and blistered and his tongue felt like it was stuffed full of cotton and dead.

  “Is this prisoner Ashford Sinclair?” the messenger called out.

  “What of it?” Mitchell asked.

  “I got a message for him. Warden said to ride out here and give it.”

  “Well, go on,” Mitchell said. “Stay on your horse and read it out so we can all hear it.”

  The messenger reached into his pocket. He pulled out a letter and unfolded it to read it aloud. “‘Mr. Ashford Sinclair, we regret to inform you that your wife, Edna Sinclair, is no more. She perished this morning due to an unforeseen illness.’” He folded the letter and said, “It’s signed by a doctor, if you want to see it.”

  Sinclair’s mouth opened, but no words came out. He grunted like a sick animal. He couldn’t get back off his knee.

  Corporal Mitchell slid down from his horse and headed toward him. He took the whip in one hand and his canteen in the other. He crossed in front of the other prisoners and knelt in front of Sinclair. He leaned toward Sinclair and asked, “You heard what the man said?”

  Sinclair grunted.

  “You heard him say your wife’s dead, didn’t ye?” Mitchell asked.

  Mitchell uncorked his canteen and extended it toward Sinclair. Sinclair looked at the clear, cool water inside.

  “Any man who loses his wife while he’s on my watch gets an extra drink,” Mitchell said.

  Sinclair grabbed the canteen and chugged from it as fast as he could.

  Mitchell took the canteen back and rubbed the mouth of it with his shirt. “That’s enough now. Get back to work.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  On the day they let Ashford Sinclair out of prison, every part of his body hurt and he wasn’t sure he’d ever walk right again. Every step he took down the corridor that led him away from his cell sent sharp tweaks through the muscles in his back. All the years he’d spent sleeping on a dirt floor. All the time he’d spent hunched over, swinging a heavy sledgehammer. Now that he was free, it felt like his spine might coil into a ball and leave him misshapen for the rest of his life.

  It was the first time during his imprisonment that he’d walked any distance without heavy irons clamped around his ankles. Even if he healed, he’d carry reminders of the prison for the rest of his days. His left eye was formed into a permanent squint. A guard had broken the bones in his upper cheek and it had healed imperfectly. The bones were knitted, but he still felt pain when he chewed, usually a dull ache, but sometimes a sharp one, and it ran from the back of his teeth up to his temple. Even his scalp and the skin on his neck hurt from being freshly shorn. The guards had shaved his head and beard the night before to make sure he didn’t take any bugs or lice out of the prison home to his family, they said.

  Sinclair knew the truth, though. He was gaunt and sickly looking and not having his hair or beard to cover his face exposed how weak he was to the rest of the world. It was their final victory. The one that said they’d broken him.

  Sinclair walked out of the prison and saw a stagecoach out front and felt so much relief he might have cried. He’d sent his son, William, three letters to let him know what date he was being released and William had answered none of them. Sinclair hadn’t even been sure they’d arrived, or if William was still living at the place where the letters had been sent, but when he saw that fancy stagecoach, he knew not only had William received them. He’d come to rescue his father from the depths of hell after all.

  The stagecoach driver tipped his hat and said, “Mr. Sinclair.” He slid down from the front seat and opened up the coach’s door with a wave of his hand. “In you go, sir. Are you traveling with any bags I may assist you with?”

  Sinclair squinted at him in confusion.

  The driver held out his hand. “Would you like me to assist you getting into the carriage, sir?”

  Sinclair pushed the driver’s hand away and pulled himself up into the coach on his own. He looked in and froze. William wasn’t there. Instead, it was Sheriff Elliot Reuben, and the sheriff smiled at him like a reptile and said, “Welcome back to the world, Mr. Sinclair.”

  Reuben’s hair had turned bright white and now he had a thick mustache that was waxed into smooth curls on either side of his mouth. He puffed on a cigar and turned it between his lips as Sinclair sat down in the seat opposite him.

  The driver climbed into the forward compartment and snapped the reins on his horse, and the stagecoach began to move.

  “Are you surprised to see me, Ash?” Reuben asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Sinclair said.

  “Sir?” Reuben said in surprise. “Well, I guess those prison guards beat some sense into you after all.”

  “I was expecting my boy. Did he send you?”

  “No,” Reuben said. “I haven’t heard from your boy since the day he came to my office and inquired about your guns and personal effects.”

  Sinclair turned his head and looked out the window.

  “That was, let me think, had to be about ten years ago, at least. He’s got to be all grown up by now, I reckon. You know, I have a son. Just a little younger than your boy. He’s one of my deputies. I feel for him, because he’s got a lot to live up to, having me as his father. He just wants to run out and prove himself every chance he gets, you know? I spend half my day having to reel him back in. If I had to guess—at least this is what I hope—your son has done his best to lead a good and decent life. I expect the last thing he wants is for people to associate him with his recently released prison trash of a father. At least that’s what I’d be thinking in his place. Don’t you agree?”

  Sinclair saw that the landscape outside the prison was desolate and bare. Just rocks and dirt with no cover from the overhead sun. If a man escaped, he’d perish of thirst long before he reached civilization.

  The sheriff turned his cigar again to keep it hot and burning all the way around. “In a way, I felt obliged to come get you. Know why?”

  Sinclair’s eyes didn’t turn from the window.

  “You probably didn’t know it, but ever since that day in the jailhouse, our lives have been intertwined. All the newspapermen came to see me, wanting to know how I’d captured two great outlaws single-handedly. There were articles and interviews and books. I even got a medal from the governor himself. For a time, they kept trying to get me to run for public office. My heart’s in serving the law, though. I can’t stand the thought of being cooped up in some damn government building, sitting on committees and such. Men like us, we’re men of action. We weren’t meant to be sitting behind no desk.” The sheriff reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a cigar. “Here you go, Ash. I brought you a little present for your first day of freedom.”

  Sinclair didn’t take the cigar. He listened to the driver’s reins crack as he drove the horse and the sound of the wagon’s wheels turning. Dust clouded the open windows of their carriage and he watched the particles dance in the sunlight.

  “Guess you don’t smoke. Probably been so long since you had a cigar you’d get sick anyway.” Reuben tucked the cigar back in his jacket. “Anyhow. The town is obviously a little concerned about having such a notorious outlaw coming home. The papers have been doing stories on it. Wondering if
bad old Ash Sinclair will return to his ways.” Reuben tapped his cigar out the window. He smirked and blew smoke from the corner of his mouth. “Looking at the state of you, I don’t expect we’ll get much trouble out of you, though. Ain’t that right?”

  “I’m not going to cause any trouble,” Sinclair said. “I’m almost sixty years old. My fighting days are over. All I want now is to find some work that will let me get a place to live and just keep to myself from here on out.”

  Reuben put the cigar in his mouth again and drew on it. “See, that there’s going to be a little bit of a problem, I’m afraid. I spoke to the business owners in town, and it seems they don’t have no work for a former marauder. They— And mind you, this is coming from them and not me. I’m a forgiving soul. They feel like a man with as much blood on his hands as you, who should have been hanged, don’t really deserve to live a life of peace in his later years.”

  The sheriff turned the cigar again and smiled.

  “What is it you want me to do, then, Sheriff? If I can’t work, how am I supposed to earn any money and get a room or eat?”

  “That there is a tragedy if I ever heard one,” Reuben said. “It’s almost like living a life of crime don’t pay in the end, isn’t it?”

  “Where am I supposed to go?” Sinclair asked.

  “Anywhere but the place where I am tasked with protecting the peace and dignity of the people, Mr. Sinclair. Anywhere but there.”

  “Just let me off at the nearest train station, then. I’ll find a way to get on.”

  “Unfortunately, that won’t do you any good either. I already talked to the train people. It seems you are permanently disinvited from riding any trains, being on account of how many you robbed over the years.”