Creation Ranch 10

Chapter 10:  Murder Trial

 

 

When Fancy came to, he was alone with Uriah Hapner lying under him.  He did not know at first what had gone down.  He only remembered the boy, Hap, being tripped and then to wake up lying atop the gambler he had been surprised to find was a homosexual too and wanted to run away with him in the morning. 

It had been a good plan too Fancy had thought until that boy, who turned out to be the gambler’s son came in ready to kill them both.  He had considered it might be a ruse as he huddled with the quilt in front of him until the kid hit his own dad with a gun butt so hard it would kill a young bull with his large …  but one thing was for sure it had been no ruse!

Just then the old woman, Agnes Robbins, came back to the tent realizing he might leave with her money and never come back and needing reassurance from Fancy she was not just having a nightmare.  But, when she knocked at the back of the wagon and pulled back the curtain a moment later when she heard no reply, she caught Fancy scrambling toward the front of the wagon naked as her nest egg had seemed when she handed it to him just hours before; and with a dead man even more naked if that is possible lying right in front of her nose; the gambler with the nice wife and twelve year old son.

It was all more than Agnes Robbins could handle.  She shrieked and shrieked until lights came on all over as she saw Hap and his mother leaving on the way to Dacica, realizing as she did those on that wagon may have her money since the dead man … the gambler was not where he should be at all; there was definitely something wrong, but she knew somehow that she had been taken as a part of it.

Sheriff Fom was first on the spot and when Agnes saw him, she began crying and screaming, “My God!  My God!  Where is my God?”

Now if I don’t believe I am a Deag, why would I assume to be God?  I just took in the scene the same way you would had you been able.

Fom had his arm around Agnes as she cried in a very few moments, only taking them off from around her ancient shoulders to look inside the wagon when she motioned that way with her cane and began again to Shriek.

When the sheriff raised the curtain he saw Fancy about to put a quilt back about his fully naked body, and at closer examination the naked corpse of the latest gambler to come into Hey’s Inn in a very long time.  He had suspected that Hey fancied the gambler’s wife a little too much was why he never chased him off in the first place.  But what the …?  Was the gambler queer, or was this some new kind of con?  The sheriff had never seen the likes of it.

“Sir?” said the sheriff, “You better start explaining this,” while he covered the corpse with a kimono that looked more like a very long shawl but which came down to just above the knees of the gambler’s corpse.  Then he looked at the man at the front of the wagon with a full length quilt wrapped about him.  “Do you mean you would rather not?” he asked and looked into the man’s frightened eyes.  “Well … let’s see here?  It looks like the gambler came to visit you tonight alright (?) and you hit him over the head when he opened the floorboard to take your stash of cash, but there ain’t no cash and the you had a gun in possession judging by where it is lying on the floor … for the sake of the Deag put some damn clothes on you, moron … so it looks like a lovers’ quarrel to me (?) yep, that’s what it looks like alright  … now that you’ve got some duds on come on down here … but do you have anything to offer that might change my diagnosis of your problem Mr. … uh?”

“Percival Ewodo.”

The sheriff’s left eye raised in amazement I presume.

“Yes, I was the Ewodo’s relative,” he said and then leaning in to the sheriff managed to say, “But don’t tell anyone please?” as the sheriff stepped back away from him as if he couldn’t stand the smell of the man.  “Uriah guessed too!  He thought it was endearing,” he more batted an eye than winked.

The sheriff stepped to the man’s side and grabbed his thin arm and said, “This way, Fancy!”

Percival Ewodo smiled and walked beside the sheriff in the direction of the jail.

“Do you have more than one cell, Sheriff Fom?” he asked.

The sheriff nodded.

“And are there any other’s … in them cells?”

“I don’t know.  I mind my business, but yes Hey’s drunken brother is always in one.  You’ll be in the other.”

The flaming Ewodo asked as he chuckled, “Even if I were to defecate in it?”

“You do that you won’t need to worry about being queer any longer!” the sheriff assured him.

“Won’t I?” the gay man said.   “Would you, a man of the Law, actually kill me?”

“I don’t know about that but if you want whatever that is between your legs you had better not …”

“Oooh!” Fancy said.

“Yes, oooh,” the sheriff repeated as if he were repeating the charges to the court, which he was the next time Percival’s cell slammed shut that time behind him.

“Yes, your honor, it appears to be a lovers’ quarrel of some queerer sort,” Fom said then.

“Is that right, Mr. Ewodo?” the judge said.

“No, your honor, and by the way how is your wife’s son?”

“Dead,” the judge said.

“Really and I thought you might just believe the truth if I told it to you.”

“That is what we are here for Mister … uh … whatever is appropriate?” the judge said.

The sheriff chuckled, the bailiff looked surprised, and Percival snickered.

“I was being made love to by a very handsome stranger when his son … when ‘it’ came into my wagon and the horrible fight between him and ‘that’ took place.  It killed his own dad with the gun that was found on me, stole all his dad’s winnings, and even poor Mrs. Robbins’ and my money … It was ours, we had papers drawn up and all … everything is legal I assure you,” but he winked when it was clear nobody believed him.  “What if I was to demand a jury trial?” he added and smiled smugly.

The judge said, “Under the name Percival Ewodo?  You were lucky to get a closed court trial!”

“Touché,” he said and sat down despondent.

“Guilty!” the judge said and tapped his gavel lightly.

The sheriff sighed.

“What, what’s the punishment?  It was a crime of passion perhaps?” the sheriff said.

“Hang him,” the judge said, “We don’t need to waste the gallows because of that and nobody said he didn’t do it on purpose.”

An hour later and Agnes Robbins mumbled curse words to herself as she read from the agreement she signed with Fancy D. Canter’s signature as phony as his intention to honor the agreement had been, even as they pulled the lever and Percival Ewodo plunged to his death and even I turned a blind eye for what he had done to the old woman.