He fetched him a ladder and climbed up to the crossbar and slung the rope over it.
“Now that boy’s about five seven or eight, right?”
“I guess that’s right.”
“I’ll fix it for a four-foot drop. That’s enough. Too long a drop, and it pulls the head clear off. That’s not being respectful of the deceased, even though the spectators like to see it. You get a hanging where the head comes off, and them schoolchildren talk about it for a week. So a shorter drop, that’s better. Too short, though, and it doesn’t snap the neck. So it’s got to be done just right.”
“We don’t need the mailbags,” Clegg said. “My boy Barter, he’s the same size as King Bragg, and he can just step in here.”
“You sure you know what’s what?” I asked.
“Oh, sure,” Clegg said. “Barter, you fetch yourself up here and stand right on that trap there. Right smack in the middle.”
The boy, a grinning fool, just hopped up there and stood on that trap.
“Now, Sheriff,” Clegg said, “This here trap will drop when you pull that lever over there. It’s nothing but a stick on a pivot, but when that stick clears, the old trap will drop right smart. Go pull her slow and steady.”
“But your boy’s standing on it.”
“He’s not connected to a rope. Just pull her.”
“Are you set, Barter?” I asked.
“Good as gold,” he said.
“All right then.” I yanked the stick, and sure enough, the trap swung down and the boy dropped straight through that hole in the deck and landed in a heap on the new green grass of the courthouse square. He laughed, and got himself up. There was lots of whistling and cheering around there. I hadn’t realized that there was plumb fifty people watching.
“All right, I’ll push that trap up and swing the lever back,” Lem Clegg said. “It sure works good. That kid of mine dropped like a ton of bricks.”
He put the trap up and the lever in place and ducked out from under the platform.
“All right, Barter, you stand here on the trap and let Deputy DeGraff fit the noose to you. You and the condemned is just about a perfect match,” Clegg said.
The boy stepped out on the trap, and DeGraff was about to drop that big old noose over his head, but I didn’t like it.
“Whoa up. Barter, boy, you get off that trap. The deputy can fit you out with a noose without you standing there.”
“Nobody’s pulling any levers,” the boy said. “I ain’t afraid.”
“Well, I am.”
I guess he took me serious, because he did step back off that trap onto solid platform, and DeGraff dropped that noose over his neck and then began adjusting the length of the rope from the crosspiece. He had simply wrapped the rope three or four times from the crosspiece, and now he pulled the coils tighter until he’d taken some of the slack out. He left two or three feet of slack in there, so I’d have some wiggle room when I laid that noose over King Bragg, but pretty soon he had it all rigged up, and the rope tied down tight on the crosspiece.
“All right, Barter, you can pull that thing off now,” his father said. “And let that be a lesson to you. Make an honest living and you’ll never wear a necktie.”
Barter smiled like some fool, and did a little jig, dancing real close to the trap, and then doffed the noose. It sort of swung there, in the wind, twisting and turning with the spring breezes. I thought it was a mighty fine job.
That’s when Smythe returned with a couple of mail sacks.
“I guess we won’t be needing ’em, Alphonse,” I said.
Smythe sure looked disappointed. “I was hoping to see one drop,” he said.
“Well, if you want to see a mailbag drop, we’ll just do her,” I said.
We hunted around for some rock. There wasn’t much on the square, but a bunch of fellers did come up with a few dozen stones after scouting things out, and we filled the mailbag and drew the strings shut.
“Weighs a good hundred pounds, Alphonse,” I said.
The postmaster eagerly dragged the bag onto the trap and centered it precisely.
“You want to pull that lever, Alphonse?”
“Sure do,” he said. “I’ll send the U. S. Mail to Eternity.”
By now there was some crowd, all right, taking it all in. I seen some rotten boys whistling and cheering. There were half a dozen ladies too, in summer bonnets and straw hats.
“Now this here’s serious business,” I said. “We’re making sure justice is done, so you mind your manners.”
Them brats just grinned at me. I knew half of them and told them I’d be talking to their pa if they didn’t behave. But they just snickered like it was the funniest thing they ever heard.
Smythe took hold of the lever and looked around real solemn. He was pretending that the mail bag full of rocks was the real thing. He stared at the rocks, and then at everyone hanging around there, and then slowly, majestically, he inched that lever along until suddenly that trap dropped and that bag of rocks hit the turf. He
