Before Noon

The bed was filled with the piss and sweat stains of those who had been here before me. The walls were sweating with the anxiety and dread they had absorbed from the countless men who had sat in the same position as me, waiting for their fate. I knew mine. At noon today, I would be hanged in the center of town, where acquaintances and strangers alike would get to see my final moments. I tried not to think about which way my body would swing or how long it would last. I had asked the sheriff just to shoot me, but he kept telling me, “I’m not wasting a bullet on you.”

I messed up. I know I did. These last couple of days I have spent here thinking about the moment. Thinking about what comes next.

“There is no court. You’re too far in the frontier for that, son.” The sheriff told me that at shotgun point. I was caught red-handed. After I did it, I froze solid. An ice mound that doesn’t melt until May. I remember seeing those back when I was a kid. I wonder how Ma and Pa are doing.

“Son, you got a visitor.” The sheriff came into the room to tell me. His deputy, a Dutch guy I had come into this town with, was sitting at the post outside.

“Are you sure about this?” the Dutch deputy asked the sheriff.

“I don’t really recommend it, but she insisted.”

In walked a young nun, couldn’t be more than twenty-five. She wore an all-black gown with a white hood. I hesitated. Since I had been here, I’d been a bad Catholic. Haven’t made it to church one Sunday, but I’ve been to the saloon more times than I can count.

“Sister, what are you…” I began to ask.

“You shut your mouth right now,” the Dutch deputy barked at me in his thick accent.

“It’s okay. Please let him speak.” The nun nodded to the Dutch deputy. “Please give us some time. I wish to speak to the man.”

“I’ll be right outside the door.” The sheriff and the Dutch deputy shut the door behind them.

She didn’t say anything at first. She just looked at me. I didn’t say anything either. I looked at her, then out my window. The day was getting brighter. I didn’t have too long left.

“Are you here to read my last rites?” I gulped as I said it. Sometimes, words become too hard to say. If you say them, they become real.

I remembered my life. Running in the fields with my brothers. Telling my pa I was going to make it rich. Coming out here and seeing shit. Broken caravans. Skinned Shoshone hanging from trees. Struggling physically and mentally to make it. Spending every last dime on some moonshine.

“I know my time is soon. So, Sister, I don’t mean to be rude, but if you have something for me, or something to say to me, you might want to make it quick. I don’t have much time left.” My throat burned as I said it.

She continued to look at me.

“Look, I know I am not going home. I haven’t been to Mass in a long time. I was more… innocent… the last time I went. I think I would burn if I tried to step foot in there. Not that I… not that I regret the Almighty. But I’ve been a bad man, Sister.”

She walked closer to me.

“Why are you in that cell?” she questioned me.

The tone threw me off. I wasn’t sure if she was being serious. Does she not know?

“Are you trying to get me to confess my sins? I’m here because I drank all night, gambled my money on cards, and spent it on women…” I began to rattle off every sin I had ever committed. That’s not what happened that night. Not the explicit reason I am here, but a portion of it.

She stuck up her hand.

“I know exactly why you’re here,” she replied instantly.

“Then what do you want me to say?” I didn’t know at this point what she wanted me to do. I was guilty. I knew what I did. I knew what price I had to pay.

“I’m here to hear your confession. I am here to absolve you.”

She stood there in the room, holding her Bible in her hand.

My confession?

“Sister, I don’t mean to be rude. I know I said I haven’t been to Mass in a while, but I think I remember that, uh… women can’t hear my sacraments.” I asked her.

“That’s correct.” She smiled back.

“So if I confess, I will carry my sins in the eyes of Christ?”

“That’s correct.” She once again smiled back.

“But you want me to do it anyway?”

In my final hours, I wasn’t in the mood to debate theology. It was never my strong suit, but I didn’t want to waste some of my last breaths on something that wouldn’t matter.

She looked at me for a minute. She didn’t reply right away. She put her head down, took a breath, and said a quick prayer under her breath. Then she pulled out her rosary.

“You’re a dying man who’s not too long before being a dead man. No one is coming to hear you. Yes, I regret to tell you that I can’t absolve you of your sins. But at this minute, at this moment, does that matter? Does it matter to you that I can’t do that? Or, before you meet Him, will it make you feel better to know you tried to correct the sins that sent you to Him?”

She said it without ever taking her eyes off me. She delivered her words with the force of a horse traveling through the valleys at top speed, but with the softness of a gentle breeze in the weeds.

I sat back. I took a deep breath.

“No, I don’t think that matters.”

“So, brother, what do you want to confess?”

She pulled a stool next to the cell. The steel bars acted like our box. She wasn’t too obscure, but if I squinted my eyes hard enough, it was like it could be anyone hearing me out.

This cell. It was more than a cell now.

It was a church.

“Three days ago, I got paid and went to the saloon like I always do. I got some drinks, then another drink, and another drink, and another drink until I lost count. It was moonshine I was drinking. That was my preferred drink…”

I rattled off the first part of the story, and then she said to me, “Slow down.”

I took another breath to slow down my racing heart.

“While drinking, I had some spare money. I went and played cards. I like to do that when I have… sorry, had some extra money. I played a good game. My chips were stacking. It was down to me and this man. Older man. I think he ran one of the stores in town.”

That’s exactly who he was. I had seen him often around town. He ran one of the general stores where I would occasionally go to buy patches for my clothing. He was a fixture at the card table, with a seemingly endless fund since he was there so much.

“The last hand was a good one. He went all in, and I called. He had King-King. I had Ten-Ten. The first three cards were four, six, King. He cheered. I felt something. I didn’t get scared. He was hootin’ and hollerin’. Then the next card came out. A ten. He got a bit quieter. I knew I wasn’t out yet, but the chance was slim. The final card that came out?”

I paused.

“A fuckin’ ten.”

I could still remember the jubilation. I started jumping up. I think I slammed my chair. It got a little blurry there, but I felt like a kid again. I felt like I found the gold.

“In my life, I think back to the happiest moments. That might be one of them.”

I felt like an idiot saying that, but it was true. My life didn’t have too many great memories. Little ones. Being a kid. Finding a dog that was friendly. Things like that.

“The old man punched me square in my face and knocked me out. He took his money and left. When I woke up, through the blurriness, I saw red.”

I looked at the nun.

“Sister, I have never been a violent man. I had to be tough with my brothers, but violence was never my thing. But something that night… something took over me. The moonshine didn’t help. But I bought a bottle, and one of the guys in the bar said he knew where he lived. So I marched with him down that dirt road, maybe a quarter mile. I saw the house. I saw the old man inside. I took the bottle, stuffed my handkerchief inside, and lit that son of a bitch up.”

My teeth began to clench.

“This is where it goes south.”

The sister stayed there like a statue, not blinking.

“I regret this next part. The bottle crashed through the window and hit the old man. He began to scream. Flames. He was covered in flames. I only heard screaming like that when I was in the caravans.”

I swallowed.

“I froze. I couldn’t move. I looked at the other window and there was a small boy in there.”

“Shit.”

The word came out before I could stop it.

“Shit. Shit, shit. I said, shit.”

The guy who was with me took off. I didn’t even know his name.

“I watched the flames creep into the next room and the boy just stood there. He didn’t even move. Why didn’t he move?”

My voice began to crack.

“Why didn’t I move to help him?”

The tears began to come down my face. I couldn’t verbalize this next part. I watched the boy caught in the fire. He began to scream like his father. I just stood there, listening to the screams of a dying family.

By the time I realized it, the sheriff had been behind me, telling me to get on the ground. I don’t know why he didn’t shoot me then and there.

The nun finally moved.

“I forgive you.”

“What?” I said. “That’s not usually how this goes.”

“The old man was my father, and the little boy was my brother.”

The nun said it quietly.

“I forgive you for my father. It wasn’t you that killed my father. It was the vices that killed him. The alcohol. The gambling. The women. I told him years ago to stop. He wouldn’t listen. It killed my mother too.”

“Oh… oh, Sister. Forgive me.”

I was on my knees on the ground.

It doesn’t make it easier, but when there’s no victim, I don’t have to face it. The moment. That moment was a memory in my mind. It happened, but now it was in front of me, a living embodiment of that moment.

“I don’t forgive you for my brother.”

She was looking at me now. Her eyes were red, but her face was made of stone.

“I will pray for you. But your vices killed my brother. Your drinking, your gambling, your hatred. That killed my brother.”

I lowered my head.

“I can’t forgive you. I can’t tell you what He is going to think. But I can try to forgive you.”

“Sister, you don’t need to forgive me. I know what punishment is coming my way. Nothing will change.”

I said it with my head to the ground. Head on the ground where I would be soon.

“No. I don’t need to.”

She paused.

“But I want to.”

At this point, I lost control of my emotions. Everything from that night; the anger, the humiliation, the regret. It all came out. My head hung heavy. I couldn’t even lift it up. Suddenly, I felt a touch come through the bars. The nun reached her hands through them.

“I would like to sing you a song. Would you like that?” she asked.

I couldn’t stop the tears. I reached out my hands. Our hands locked. It was like touching an angel.

“Do you know the hymn Nearer, My God, to Thee?”

I nodded my head. I couldn’t get any words out.

She began to sing.

I thought about my mother at that moment. I remembered her singing hymns when I was a boy. For the first time in years, I could hear her voice again.

The door opened. The sheriff came in and gave me the look. I knew what the look meant. No words needed to be said.

She kept singing.

I joined her.

Together, we sang.