Noose Jumpers: A Mythological Western

by Trevor H. Cooley

  Gil blinked at the question and when he didn’t respond right away one of the others spoke up, “We’re here to keep you from gettin’ away.”

  “Yeah, but it’s blazing out here. Ain’t you hot?” Estrella asked, his face suddenly etched with concern. He took off his hat and fanned his face as he walked slowly towards them. “You could have waited in the shade in front of the saloon. I wouldn’t have minded.”

  “That’s enough! We know how you are, Bobby, and we ain’t putting up with your jackassery,” Gil snapped and the hands of the Black Spots twitched near their revolvers. “Pablo wants the gold you run off with. Now hand it over.”

  Estrella stopped. “Jackassery?” He let out a charming laugh. “Come on, Gil, I was genuinely worried about your comfort.”

  Gil growled. The street was tight with tension.

  The boys watching from the roof above were riveted, their mouths gaping open in anticipation of the gunfight that would surely ensue, but Luke found his attention drawn to a strange anomaly. A man had appeared on the porch in front of the storefront next to Estrella. Luke could have sworn he hadn’t been there before.

  This new stranger was leaning back against the wall in the shade, placing a lit cigar in his mouth. He was wearing a wide hat and a long black duster and as he lifted his head, Luke saw beneath the brim of his hat. The man’s face was pale and he wore a patch over his right eye. As for his good eye, it was probably just a reflection from the burning ember on the end of the cigar, but to Luke it had a supernatural gleam. There was something oddly familiar about that gleam.

  “Hand over the gold or we’ll fill you with holes,” Gil promised.

  Estrella didn’t respond right away. He had noticed the stranger too. Bobby turned his head to look at the man and the cocky grin slid off of his face.

  “He ain’t smiling now,” mocked one of the Black Spots.

  Bobby paid him no mind. The stranger let out a puff of smoke and mouthed something that Luke could not hear. Bobby cocked his head questioningly and the stranger gave him a slow nod.

  When Estrella turned his attention back to the Black Spots, his smile had returned. “About that gold. I’m afraid I gave most of it away. As for the rest . . .” He spread his arms wide. “I’m wearing it.”

  “Then you’re a dead man,” Gil promised.

  “I doubt you brought enough men for that,” Bobby replied, dropping his arms and hovering his hand over the pearl handle of his shiny revolver.

  Gil drew his gun and the rest of the Black Spots followed.

  Estrella was faster. By the time Gil had raised his weapon to firing position, Bobby’s first shot had struck him in the heart. Bobby held down the trigger and fanned the hammer three more times.

  Two of the other men dropped, but the fourth man was just winged. He was able to squeeze off a shot that went wide. Bobby shot twice more and the man fell over dead.

  Bobby shook his head as he placed his gun back in its holster with a flourish. “I told Pablo that if he was going to come for me he’d have to-.”

  Another shot rang out.

  Estrella jerked and stared down at his right leg. Blood blossomed from a gaping hole in his thigh and ran down over his chaps, streaking the tilted white star red. He slowly turned around.

  The boys gasped. Luke’s eyes immediately searched for the stranger, but the man had disappeared from the shadows. Instead, standing in the street with a dirty pistol in his hand, was Estrella’s informant.

  Bobby’s jaw dropped in shock. “Jeb?”

  “Don’t bother trying to shoot me, Estrella,” Jeb replied with a sneer on his face. “You fired six shots. No bullets left.”

  “But why?” Bobby asked. “Did Pablo get to you?”

  The man didn’t answer, but kept his gun trained on Estrella as he walked onto the porch of the Sheriff’s Office. He kicked the door hard twice. “Sheriff Paul, get out here! I got a bounty to collect.”

  Jeb Wickee, a man who’d never had more than fifty dollars to his name, had just become $1,750 richer.

  “No way,” said Luke. Sandy and Tom couldn’t help but share his disbelief at their hero’s misfortune. The three boys watched in astonished sadness as the sheriff and his deputies apprehended Bobby and took him inside the jailhouse.

  “I can’t believe that Jeb, turning Bobby in,” said Sandy with a glower. “You watch, Estrella ain’t going down this easy.”

  “Yeah!” Tom agreed. “No way Sheriff Paul can keep Bobby behind bars. He’ll escape. Then Jeb will be the one that’s sorry.”

  Luke wasn’t so confident. Something about the way Bobby’s shoulders had drooped as the sheriff had dragged him away gave the whole thing a feeling of permanence.

  The street was soon swarming with people exclaiming over the scene. The boys climbed down from the rooftop and snuck back into Sandy’s room. They arrived just in time, because Sandy’s mother rushed in moments later and shooed his friends home.

  The rest of their day flew by. Their young minds were abuzz with what they had seen and they barely noticed the tedium of chores or the taste of their evening meals. All three of them had difficulty sleeping that night. As for Luke, his dreams were haunted by the pale-faced stranger and the glow of the cigar ember reflected in his one good eye.

  The news of Bobby Estrella’s capture spread quickly through the town. The majority of the locals, still enamored with the charismatic boy that had grown up among them, wished for clemency. After all, he had never done any of them harm and the men he killed had all been outlaws anyway. Some of them even spoke with the sheriff, trying to get him to let Bobby go. But Sheriff Paul, though a man with many faults, was a true man of the law. He refused to do anything with the prisoner until he had heard from the judge.

  Unfortunately for Estrella, Judge Wilson was not one of the town majority. He was relatively new to Luna Gorda and hadn’t known Bobby as a child. The list of Estrella’s alleged crimes was extensive and as a rancher himself, the judge found the crime of cattle rustling particularly damning. He didn’t take long to deliberate over his ruling.

  Bobby Estrella was to be hung.

  The week leading up to the hanging was a busy one in Luna Gorda. The town’s citizens were in an uproar over the ruling. Sandy’s mother herself brought a petition around, gathering signatures urging for a pardon. She handed it to Judge Wilson, but the man wasn’t to be swayed, not even with eighty percent of the people against him. As he reminded her, the rulings of the Judicial Branch of the American Government weren’t up for vote.

  The townsfolk visited Bobby in droves. He was gracious to all of them and they kept him well fed but, despite his sparkling attitude, there was no reprieve. The gallows was built at the edge of town.

  The day of the hanging was a grim one. The sky was filled with dark foreboding clouds and most of the locals, those that loved Bobby best, stayed home. Nevertheless, the area around the gallows was flooded with interested visitors. Some came with morbid curiosity. Others had more personal reasons for attending. There were a great many Black Spots in the crowd.

  Luke, Tom, and Sandy were told to go nowhere near the terrible event. Of course, they ignored their parents’ edicts and snuck to the edge of town. Careful to avoid being seen by anyone they knew, the boys found a proper vantage point where they would miss nothing.

  They watched as Bobby Estrella was marched up to the gallows. He gave the crowd a charming smile as he was led up onto the platform and his crimes were read aloud. Then the preacher took the stage. And since he rarely had the opportunity to preach to such an eager crowd, he made the most of it. The preacher gave a rousing sermon, prancing about and waving his Bible as he first damned Estrella’s actions, then cried to the Lord for mercy on his ever living soul.

  Estrella rolled his eyes at first, but as the sermon went on, his humor left him. His face went grim and he began to stare off into the distance. Some people in the crowd craned their necks to see what he was looking at so intently, but they seemed to find
nothing of note and returned their attention to the preacher.

  Luke saw something different. Standing away from the crowd, next to a ragged oak tree, was the pale-faced stranger that he had seen talking to Bobby before the shootout. He wore the same black hat and duster he had on that day. That’s who Bobby was staring at and the stranger’s one good eye was looking right back at him.

  The dark clouds above churned and their gazes remained locked, the stranger silently smoking his cigar until the preacher ran out of steam. Finally, a bag was pulled over Bobby’s head, cutting off their connection. As the noose was placed around Estrella’s neck, the stranger spat in derision and turned away.

  Up to that point, Tom and Sandy had been certain that a reprieve was coming. Somehow Estrella was going to pull some sort of trick and get away. The grim certainty of the moment hit them as the lever was pulled. The door under Bobby’s feet gave way and they gasped, closing their eyes, unwilling to see their hero die.

  Luke, however, was unable to look away. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his expression was feverish as Estrella fell and jerked to a stop. Later, the scene would replay in his mind and he would throw up, but at the moment it happened, his thoughts were detached and emotionless. Was this real? Was any of it? He turned his eyes from the dead man’s twitching boots and saw that the stranger was gone.

  Lightning crackled and the clouds chose that moment to release their bounty. Rain fell in a torrent and the crowd dispersed, their entertainment over. The three friends, unafraid of getting wet as young boys are, walked sadly forward and stood before the gallows.

  “I can’t believe it really happened,” said Tom.

  Sandy grimaced, looking sick to his stomach. “They ain’t even gonna cut him down?”

  “Maybe they will later. When it stops raining,” Tom replied. A look of determination crossed his face. “When I’m as big and famous as Bobby, they ain’t catching me.”

  “Me neither,” said Luke.

  Sandy scoffed. “You two? As famous as him?”

  “And why not?” Tom asked.

  “You’re just kids,” Sandy said dismissively.

  “Everybody starts out kids,” Tom said. “What? Don’t you wanna be famous when you’re older?”

  “Of course I do!” A smile crossed Sandy’s lips. “I just don’t think you can do it.”

  While the other two continued arguing, Luke watched the body slowly rotating. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the hole in Estrella’s black chaps and the offset star that was still stained red with Bobby’s blood.

  As he stared, the sounds of his friends talking and the falling rain faded. Luke’s eyes widened as, suddenly, the stranger was standing next to him.

  For a moment it seemed as though the man was completely dry, but rain soon poured off of his black wide-brimmed hat. Luke looked up at the stranger’s face and was paralyzed with fear. Up close, the man’s face was terrible to behold. Scars crisscrossed his features, including a long one that started above his eyepatch and ended at his upper lip.

  Luke realized he had been wrong. The gleam in the man eye wasn’t a reflection of the cigar’s ember. His iris gave off an internal glow of its own. Luke had a sudden memory of seeing that glow before, only it had come from two eyes instead of one.

  The stranger with the demonic eye smiled and leaned in close to Luke’s ear. He spoke with a deep throaty voice, “You could be better than Estrella. You could be legends.”

  There was a rumble of thunder and the man was gone. Luke’s fear vanished along with him, replaced by a strange eagerness. He swung around looking for the man. He turned to ask his friends if they had seen him, but they were still arguing.

  “Like you’d shoot a man,” Sandy was saying.

  “You’re the one of us that’s scared of the thought of shooting folks, Sandy,” Tom replied. “You ain’t brave like me and Luke.”

  Sandy snorted. “I’m a way better shot than you.”

  “Yeah. Shootin’ tin cans,” Tom said.

  “And prairie dogs. And rabbits,” Sandy reminded him. “Remember that rattler?”

  Tom shrugged. “So you’re good at that. Whatever. We’re all good at different stuff.” He nodded, an idea forming in his mind. “Hey, I know. We should form our own gang. You know, in Estrella’s memory. We can call it, ‘Tom’s boys.’”

  “We are not choosing that name,” Sandy said. He rubbed his chin. “Still, I like the idea. Three boys from Luna Gorda taking on every crooked gun in the west.”

  “We could be huge,” Tom agreed.

  Luke licked his lips and a feverish grin spread across his face as he echoed the stranger’s words. “We could be legends.”

  3: A Glassful of Worms

  An excerpt from The Tale of Luke Bassett

  “A bit o’ the devil in every bottle!” – Promise made by a horned cherub in an ad for ‘El Diablo Fine Spirits’ placed in the Tombstone Epitaph, June 21, 1886

  The mid-summer sun blazed overhead as Luke reigned in his horse atop a dusty hillside just outside of Luna Gorda. He paused to peer down into the town below and a frown tightened his brow. So much had changed.

  The town, which had already doubled in size in the twelve years since Estrella’s hanging, was quickly growing. The railway station in Luna Gorda had only been complete for just a few short months, but a whole new street of buildings had already been constructed. The builders weren’t finished, either. Luke saw the pale skeletal frames of several structures and could hear the rap of hammers and nail.

  He supposed that the changes were a positive thing for the locals. More people passing through would mean more money brought in. His mother would be busy running the schoolhouse and with all the new construction, his stepfather was likely bringing home a lot of money. What Luke didn’t like was the possibility of Luna Gorda turning into a major town. More people meant more law.

  Luke wiped the back of his arm across his brow and sighed at the muddy streak of sweat he left behind on the sleeve of his duster. The weather on his journey had been hot and windy. Dirt coated him like a gray blanket.

  He slid down from his horse and removed his duster, shaking the road dust off of it. Luke folded it and put it away into his saddlebag, then beat the dirt off of his hat and pulled out a small mirror to examine his image. He saw that the duster had protected his finely-tailored blue suitcoat and vest against the majority of the dirt but, except for the one clean spot in the center of his forehead, his face was filthy.

  Luke untied his waterskin from the saddle and shook it. He had filled it at a creek early that morning and it was still half full. He took a quick swig, then used some of the water to wet down a clean bandana. He began to wipe the grime off of his face, keeping an eye on the mirror to be sure that he was getting all of it.

  The visage that appeared from under the dirt was still as freckled as it had been when he was a boy, though his face had filled out some. A thick red goatee now grew around his lips and prominent jaw. The green eyes that looked back at him had seen a lot in the past few years and there was a hardness in them that Luke noted with satisfaction.

  “Primping?” asked a deep throaty voice.

  A black horse appeared next to Luke’s, forming into existence with an audible whoosh. The Stranger sat astride it on a saddle red as blood. A black mist wafted around him for a brief moment before evaporating into the air. The Stranger wore his familiar black duster and black hat and, unlike Luke’s, both were immaculately clean. He cocked his head and gave Luke a questioning look with his good eye.

  Luke spared the specter’s theatrical arrival little more than a glance. He continued to wipe the dirt and sweat from his neck. “Aren’t you the one who told me how important appearances are?”

  “It’s true folks should see you’re not some common dirty outlaw,” the Stranger conceded. “But no need to polish up standing out here in the open. Anyone in town could look up and see you.”

  “No one’s paying me any mind right now but you,”
Luke replied. Satisfied with his appearance, he put the mirror and damp cloth away. He then reached down with his left hand and drew his revolver.

  It was a well-used Smith and Wesson top break revolver with a smooth action and mahogany grips. It was Luke’s favorite gun, purchased with the money from his first big score. Quickly, he inspected it, wiping a thin coat of road dust off of the metal. He cracked the weapon open to spin the cylinder. He had cleaned and oiled it the night before, but it never hurt to check again.

  Nodding in satisfaction, he slid it back into the holster that hung at his hip. Then he reached his right hand into his suitcoat to withdraw his spare gun from the shoulder holster under his left arm. Luke knew it had probably been protected from the dirt, but he checked it anyway. This one was also a top break revolver, as was his preference, but he wasn’t sure of the manufacturer. It had a short barrel and a five shot-cylinder. The dead man he had taken it from had claimed he’d had it custom made, but there were no markings on it that Luke could find.

  “You expecting trouble?” the Stranger asked, his voice filled with irritation.

  Luke gazed down the hole in the barrel and spun the cylinder again. “You’ve always demanded I be prepared.”

  “Still shouldn’t check your gun so often,” the Stranger said. “Makes you look nervous.”

  “You seem awfully particular today,” Luke replied with a chuckle. He snapped his spare gun closed and put it away. He looked the Stranger in the eye. “Is there a problem I should know about?”

  “Problem?” A cigar appeared in the Stranger’s fingers. He lifted it to his lips and blew on the end. The tip of the cigar burst into flame. He turned his eye to the streets of Luna Gorda below. “It’s this town. I don’t like it when you come back here. It’s a weakness.”

  Luke snorted and climbed back up onto his horse. “It’s just a town, Stranger. No different from any other.”

  The specter took a deep draw from his cigar. Smoke curled around his lips as he said, “Bobby Estrella told me the same thing.” Then he and his horse disappeared in a burst of black mist.