“But even in the beginning, you knew there were at least two, isn’t that so?”
“Sir?”
“Because you heard voices. You heard more than one voice.”
“Yes, sir. Right,” Lester said.
“So you knew there were at least two men out there.”
“Yes.”
“Or possibly more.”
“Well, I...”
“And possibly armed.”
“Well, I took a rifle with me, sir, just in case.”
“Mm,” Orliac said. “Are you following all this, Henri?” he asked Sebilleau, who seemed to be dozing again now that Bonnie Sue had gone back to sit against the wall.
“I am listening,” Sebilleau said, and nodded gravely.
“You say these men later captured you, eh?” Orliac asked.
“Yes, they were waiting up ahead. They ambushed me.”
“And took you with them?”
“Yes, sir.”
“To Illinois?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where later they released you.”
“No, I escaped.”
“Mr. Hackett, why did these men take you with them?”
“I’m not sure. I suppose—”
“Mr. Hackett, why didn’t they simply shoot you?”
“Well, as I said before, I never really learned much about them. I don’t know why they—”
“I think they should have shot you,” Orliac said.
“Sir?”
“It would have saved us the trouble of hanging you. Mr. Hackett,” he said, “I think you stole the horse, eh? I would like to recommend now—”
“Now wait just a minute,” Lester said.
“—that you be hanged by the neck till dead. Mr. Schwarzenbacher—”
“The goddamn girl just told you—”
“What is your opinion?”
“I think he’s guilty and should be hanged,” Schwarzenbacher said.
“Mr. Sebilleau?”
“Oui,” Sebilleau said. “Pendez-lui.”
There was stout timber by the river above the fort, but Sebilleau suggested justice might best be served by hanging Hackett in the courtyard. The other judges agreed this might be a good idea, and together they marched about trying to find a beam suitable to the purpose. They were followed by a dozen or more Indians who murmured among themselves, more curious as to how the hanging would take place than where. In the end, it was decided that a tree would do better than any of the beams supporting the gallery around the court. Besides, if a man could not be hanged in the center of the court for all to see, what purpose would it serve to hang him inside the fort at all? Convinced, Sebilleau and the others withdrew for their noonday meal, ordering Hackett to be bound and locked in the factor’s empty apartment till 2 p. m., at which time he would be taken to the river and hanged. At ten minutes to two, the judges, a half-dozen other company men, and a large contingent of Indians dragged Hackett out of the apartment to lead him to his execution.
Sebilleau, who could neither read nor write, seemed possessed nonetheless of a fine sense of poetic justice, and suggested that Hackett be set astride the horse he’d been convicted of stealing. Will refused them the use of the raindrop gelding. His attitude about the hanging was pretty much akin to what all the family save Bonnie Sue felt. Lester Hacket had stolen a horse, and had to be punished for the crime as prescribed by law. They went down to the river to witness the hanging not because they were curious — they’d seen hangings aplenty in Virginia — and not because they felt vengeful or angry or indeed anything but dutiful; it was a Chisholm horse had been stolen, and a man was now to be hanged for the theft, and they felt it was their responsibility to be there.
A company man named Bertaut knew how to fashion a hangman’s noose, having learned the intricacies of it as a boy, when someone taught him how to do it as a sort of game. The Indians lining the river and surrounding the huge cottonwood that had been selected as the hanging tree watched as Bertaut coiled the heavy rope around itself. He explained that the purpose of the noose was not to choke off the man’s breath and therefore kill him by strangulation. Instead, when the condemned was jerked off the horse upon which he was sitting — a gray stallion belonging to the company cook — the huge knot behind his head would snap upward and break his neck, killing him instantly. Or so Bertaut hoped. He had never made a hangman’s noose for use in a real hanging. An Indian who’d been listening to this explanation in French now turned to several other Indians and began explaining it in the Siouan tongue. The others nodded gravely. They understood completely the solemnity of this occasion by the river, and they watched now in awed silence.
The stallion would not stand still, foiling their efforts to loop the noose over Lester’s head. Each time another horse came alongside, the stallion tried to rear away from the man holding its bridle. They finally put Lester on a more docile horse, and got the noose around his neck. Somebody asked him would he like to say a prayer, and he said, “Go to hell, man,” not knowing to whom he was addressing the words because they’d blindfolded him as an act of mercy. Sebilleau somewhat gleefully brought the whip down on the horse’s left buttock, shouting “Allez!” at the moment of contact. The horse leaped forward and Lester was jerked from the saddle — only to begin choking.
The Indians, who’d understood Lester would be killed instantly, now thought they’d heard incorrectly and turned for explanation to the one among them who spoke French. Schwarzenbacher recognized the trouble at once; Bertaut’s damn knot hadn’t worked and Hackett was choking to death. “The man’s choking!” he shouted, more to himself in realization than to anyone else present. Leaping upon the back of the gray stallion that had earlier balked, he drew a dagger from a sheath at his belt and rode to where Lester was kicking and coughing and twisting at the end of the rope. Standing in the stirrups, he hacked at the thick hemp, virtually fiber by fiber, till at last it began to unravel and finally tore asunder, dropping Lester to the ground.
Orliac asked Schwarzenbacher why he had interrupted the hanging, and Schwarzenbacher replied somewhat testily, “The man stole a horse, he didn’t murder a sleeping babe!” Orliac then ordered Bertaut to fashion another noose, a better one this time, a noose that would break the condemned man’s neck as it was supposed to. Bertaut suggested that he was not equal to such an awesome responsibility, but then changed his mind at once, perhaps sensing the impatience and the mounting anger of his superior. He ran up to the fort to fetch a new hanging rope, and soon they were ready to try it another time.
Will didn’t know what she was saying at first.
Sounded like she was babbling. Came rushing out of the woods to where he was sitting apart from the others on the knoll above the river. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, her nose was red and running, she said something about hiding, watching, couldn’t bear to see it, prayers answered, God answered her prayers. “You’ve got to save him for good now, Will, please.” She was on her knees, squeezing both his hands between her own. He shook one gently loose, and brushed wet hair back from her cheeks.
“It’s your horse, Will,” she said. “You could stop em if you wanted. They’ve put the rope on him again, Will. You got to go down there and stop em.”
“Bonnie Sue...”
“Will, I love him. Please do what I ask. I beg you.”
“I can’t,” he said, and shook his head. “The man stole—”
“I’m carryin his child,” Bonnie Sue said.
“No,” Will said.
“Will, I’m pregnant by him. I’m two months—”