299 Days: The Visitors

Chapter 155 Chip’s Horse (June 7)

The collapse of a society is nothing to wish for, no matter how corrupt the old society was. In his heart, Grant believed the new society would eventually be better than the old, but it would undoubtedly take lots and lots of hard work and years of trial and error for a better society to take hold. Long-range optimism about the new society was possible because it wouldn’t be difficult to do better than the old society. Just come up with a new system that didn’t worship government, enslave people with taxes, destroy free enterprise, and divide people along racial and regional lines. It wasn’t too hard to beat that.

In almost the next thought, the doubt set in. Grant wondered if the new society would make it through this terrible period. So many people were dying. He started wondering who would be next.

Grant looked around him at the cabin and realized what was truly important. He was glad to be home with his family. He needed to be there to protect them. Forget the rest of society. Forget rebuilding a government that protects liberty. Liberty? What makes anyone think that’s possible? America had it and pissed it away.

Grant laughed out loud at the thought of fighting for “liberty.” His family was all that mattered. He needed to make sure they made it. Oh, and him, too. But them first. He would start with his family and make it strong. Then he’d branch out to Pierce Point and hopefully make it strong, too.

Then beyond.

He was hearing from the outside thought a lot lately. Grant assumed this must be a critical period when he needed some encouragement and guidance.

He hadn’t slept last night because he couldn’t stop thinking about the trial and the death of the mother and older man. He normally slept like a log out there, given how much physical activity he did all day long, but he kept thinking about the hanging coming up that morning. He was envisioning the people with ropes around their necks. The horse walking forward. The person falling. The rope catching. The crunching sound of broken neck bones. The person swinging. The look on the crowd’s face.

Throughout last night, this series of images and sounds kept replaying in Grant’s mind. Finally he fell asleep, only to be awakened too soon by the early light coming through the windows. It was the opposite of the previous morning when he’d waken up refreshed and jubilant. This morning he was tired and horrified.

Grant skipped the pancake breakfast. He didn’t want to spoil the joy of making pancakes with what was on his mind, and he especially didn’t want to think of the hangings the next time he made pancakes.

He got his AR and kit and put on his pistol belt. It was too early for the Team to be up. He would go up to the Grange alone, which was better. He wanted to be alone.

He rode the moped up to the Grange. Then he saw it.

A rope and noose dangling from a strong tree branch in the Grange parking lot. Under the noose, a horse was grazing on some grass without any idea of what part she would have in the killing of a human being. The noose in the tree turned the Grange, which had been a happy place, into a place of death.

Stop. Quit whining, Grant told himself. Stop being a baby. Sure, it’s awful that people are going to be hung, but they deserve it. He thought about what Frankie said to receive Rich’s, “I doubt it” and the resulting blow from Rich’s pistol. He recalled Ronnie’s testimony about what Josie had done to Crystal just to make Frankie happy. She had done that just to keep a piece of shit as her “boyfriend.” That wasn’t a human being who had done that. That was an animal, and an animal who can hurt people needs to be killed.

No, Grant thought, he should be happy that this was happening. That they had pulled the raid off without losing any of their own, that they hadn’t shot any innocent people, and that Crystal didn’t have to spend one more night in the meth house with Frankie. Finally, he should be happy that the community saw a fair trial and that Pierce Point dealt with these problems in a civilized, albeit violent, way.

“Never thought I’d see one of those,” Chip said as he pointed to the noose in the tree. He had walked up behind Grant, but Grant had been so heavy in thought that he hadn’t heard him. “Never thought I’d have to do this,” Chip said.

“Do what?” Grant asked.

“I’m the one who is going to shoo the horse. I’m the executioner,” Chip said.

They didn’t say anything for a while. Then Grant said, “Well, get used to it. That’s how things are out here. You hurt a child, you get to ride Chip’s horse.” Saying that helped Grant feel more sure of what they were about to do.

“Yep,” Chip said. He drew in a deep breath. “Yep.”

Grant was hungry; his appetite was slowly returning. He had thrown up last night and not wanted to eat dinner, and now he was starving.

He went into the Grange and the ladies were cooking breakfast. It smelled great. He poured a cup of coffee, amazed that they still had coffee out there. They only made a little each day now. Grant hoped coffee was on someone’s FCard list. There. He was back to thinking about things like FCards. He was back to normal.

He ate a huge breakfast. Biscuits, canned fruit, and deer sausage. Delicious. As he was finishing up, Pastor Pete came in with a Bible in his hand.

“You, uh, officiating?” Grant asked him. Grant didn’t know what word to use for overseeing a hanging. “Officiating” seemed to work.

Pastor Pete nodded. He never thought he’d be doing this.

People started coming into the Grange. A small, very quiet, crowd was gathering outside near the tree. There were not nearly as many people as had been to the trial. Most people didn’t want to see this. Good for them. They were still humans. Not animals.

Grant went outside. As the judge of the trial, he felt obligated to watch. People expected him to. Besides, if he couldn’t watch the sentences he allowed to be handed down, how could people trust him to do the right thing?

Josie was first. She had on the same borrowed “Princess” t-shirt and sweat pants from the trial. She was cuffed with her hands behind her back, and her ankles were cuffed because she had been kicking the guards that morning. She was being carried by four jail guards. Pastor Pete asked her if she wanted to pray. She kept screaming. He tried to pray for her but she was screaming too loudly. He kept praying despite her. When he was done, the guards cut the zip ties on her legs and hoisted her onto the horse.

A volunteer held onto the bridle so the horse wouldn’t move.

Chip asked Josie if she wanted a blindfold. More screaming. He shrugged, realizing it would be too hard to put a blindfold on her, anyway.

Chip got on a ladder and put the noose around her neck. All of a sudden, she stopped screaming. She finally realized that it was going to happen. She looked around and started saying in a soft voice, “I’m sorry Crystal. I’m sorry…”

Chip got down from the ladder and someone handed him a horse whip. He smacked the horse’s hind end. The horse lurched forward, and Josie instantly fell off the horse. There was a “snap” sound. The crowd winced. Josie swung on the rope. No one said a word. A few were crying.

Without missing a beat, Chip and the guards got Josie down. They were careful and respectful. It didn’t seem odd at all for them to be reverent and respectful of a woman they had hanged. Everyone felt sorry for her at one level or another. She had thrown her life away, but hurt little Crystal in the process.

Grant realized he needed to appear to be emotionless and businesslike. It was actually easier to do so than he’d thought. In the past day he’d gotten over some of the shock of hanging people.

“Bring in the next prisoner,” he said.

Frankie was handcuffed, but walking on his own power. He was very deliberate in his steps, as they were the last steps he’d ever take. And he was fine with that. He wasn’t going to give the people in the crowd any satisfaction. He’d just get it over with.

Pastor Pete asked him if he had any last words. Frankie just said, “Nope.”

Pete asked if he could pray for Frankie. “Whatever,” Frankie said. Pete prayed softly. He wasn’t making a speech out of this or giving a sermon. This was a prayer he was making on Frankie’s behalf.

Chip asked Frankie, “Do you want a blindfold?”

“No,” Frankie said. He paused. “I want to look you assholes in the eye when you do this.”

“OK, then,” Chip said and smiled.

The guards put Frankie on the horse. Chip went back up on the ladder and put the noose around Frankie’s neck, came back down and nonchalantly smacked the horse.

Two seconds later, Franklin Jeremiah Richardson went to hell.