The Mercy Man

Town calls me the Mercy Man.

That's a damned lie—or depending on the night, perhaps it ain't.

Mercy ain't found in this work. God hands out mercies, and He never steers this trail.

I hang men.

That's the size of it.

I build the gallows, pine planed so smooth it feels like I’m shaving the rough edges off my own sins. I anoint the hinges with tallow, keepin' the trapdoor from shriekin'. Squeaks panic men. Panic messes up the fall, meaning no clean drop, no neck snapped the way it should—quick, exact, merciful as a man's hands can make it. Anything else is wicked, and plenty already exists.

The craft lays in the art of the knot. There’s a rhythm. Measure. Knot. Twist. Breathe.

Boys at the tavern soak up my lie that hanging's carpentry made righteous. They laugh, knowing nothing. Truth is, I tell myself I'm the only man in town still believing in justice—but some nights, I can't recall what the word means.

I ain’t cruel. Not by my account.

Cruel are men who cheer and gather for a hanging, as if it were a spring fair. Bringing wives. Bringing sons. The preacher pretends he condemns it while his eyes shine under that his hat brim.

People say, 'Rourke's gallows falls clean every time.'

Like I should be proud of that.

The sheriff don’t like me much. Says I speak too blunt for a man who kills by trade. But he don’t see it right. I don’t kill. I finish things. There’s a difference.

Next hanging is a woman.

That’s new.

Killed her husband with a pickax, they say. Split his skull like a melon and buried him shallow, too drunk or too tired to dig proper. Sheriff dug him out, half his face still grinning.

Name’s Willa Kerr. I don’t need it. Don't want it. Names fall away from this work. Faces don’t.

I’ve seen killers before. Most stink of fear, urine, sweat, and rotgut. Willa smelled of sagebrush and rich earth. Like someone who knew how to plant things, and how to bury them—and something in that unsettled me more than any sin I've seen swing.

When I first saw her, she was quiet as church on weekdays, sitting in the cell. Didn’t glance when I passed. Didn’t beg, didn’t curse. Just asked, 'You're the man what makes 'em, ain't ye?'

I nodded.

"Make it swift, then."

That was all. No tremble, no tear.

Up close, she's all angles and bone, like a winter-starved steer. Too thin for the kind of beauty that gets sung about in river towns. But there's a structure to her. Cheekbone, jaw, the slant of throat drawing the eye, my eye. Makes you glance twice. She’s not soft. Not supposed to be. That’s what got me watching.

She sat small in the cell's dim corner, spine straight, hands loose in her lap. Lamplight hit the side of her face and turned her skin to vellum, thin enough the bones showed through. I should’ve looked away. Instead, I watched. Watched the grind of her jaw, the twitch of muscle near her throat.

Bread is set before her. She breaks it slow. Not like she’s saving. Like she's marking time. I watch her fingers. Knuckles thick and set wrong. A body don't get hands like that from one fine swing of a pickax.

Her eyes found mine. Eyes speak louder than tongues ever did. Hers are gray. Not a fine gray. Labor gray. River-stone gray. Old-scar gray. Cold as mountain ice, but something lived behind them. That something pulled at me. It's not fire, really, not the kind that chars and leaves embers for tales. A small, angry light. Still. Resolute. Shows for a beat, then she shuts it down as if ashamed. That expression stayed with me longer than the scent of gunpowder.

She broke the gaze before I could name it. My eyes held. Couldn’t help it. The rest of her all sharp lines and hollows. Nothing soft left, and the stillness of her silence gripped me.

When she shifted, the lamplight caught her wrists, rope scars dark and deep. She rubbed them unflinching. The scrape of skin too damn loud in the hush of her cage, and I winced.

The stillness she wore wasn't peaceful. It was control, the kind forged by years of need. I've seen plenty meet their end. None ever looked so vital while feigning death.

I've been thinking about her since.

When morning broke, they let me see her in daylight. Same stance. Same quiet. Looking past the wall to somewhere beyond my sight. The under-sheriff brings coffee. Sets it near. She nods her thanks for it like it's a gift. Sips once. Sips again. Steam curls around her face. That face has the kind of lines worn by years of facing the wind.

The sheriff boasts on the porch. Says the trial will be short. Says the town needs to see justice done. Law here means most men swallow it whole. He'll get a jury learning their truth at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. He'll say right. He’ll mean order.

I take noon watch. The midday sun bakes the iron till it smells of blood and dust. She keeps to the shadows. I sit on a crate and repair harness with rawhide thongs. Busy hands keep the devils off my back—or used to. Lately, they keep time till the noise starts again. She observes the motion like she were memorizing it. Like she sees me, knows me the way I am. The way no soul here ever bothered to do.

We don’t talk. Speaking would make it a sham. Words would label it, and then it would be lost. So I let the quiet settle between us.

I’ve seen women hang. Not many. But enough. The worst part is always the gawkers. Men who can't hold their tongues. Women who can't look away but mutter prayers. Children hoisted up to watch. I can change the knot. I can calculate the fall. I can smooth the splinters off the trap. I can't mend a town.

The judgment falls fast. I didn’t go. No call for it. The judge swallows the sheriff's tale whole and serves it up like a tasty meal. Self-defense ain't a plea men allow their wives to make. He names the day. Two dawns hence.

That night, the wind comes draggin', mean and whisperin' specters I've heard too many times. Hurling phantom juries of dust against the windows, all of them handing down their verdicts. I can't sleep, so I stand outside the jail, welcome the cold, numbing breath of that wind. My crow, the ugly survivor I dubbed Skit, follows, perches on the roof edge because death makes him edgy.

She's awake, too. I feel her presence drift through stone and air, threading into my bones slow and aching. Night has a voice if you’ve got the ears for listening. She steps to the window bars. I keep my eyes on the street.

A three-legged chair skitters past, chasing its own shadow down the street. A drunk curses the dark. A sign creaks. The wind finds the gallows and moans through the beams like a cracked hymn, hungry to punish the sinful.

We stand like that a long time. Two bodies sharing a wall in the dark. Something in me eases and something else coils tighter — the part that knows I'll carry her shadow long after morning. Old feelings I don’t have names for. The last time I felt them, I still believed road signs pointed anywhere worth going. Picket fences. Quiet nights and a settled hearth.

That day comes carrying a sunrise she should be standing under.

I keep the ground right. That’s all I can do. I wipe the sand off the steps. I check the lever and the pins — iron cold, hinges oiled just right. I check again — hands shake with the heat, nerves play tricks — and I will not have this one kick and choke. She deserves a clean end if that’s the only clean thing she gets.

Here they come.

The sheriff ambles, chest puffed, hat high. Behind him, two deputies lead the woman. Willa's wrists bound afore her, not behind. My doing. I don’t see sense in tying a person like livestock. Let a soul keep some dignity, even on their way out. The sheriff rolled his eyes at it. I didn’t care.

She walks like she always walked. Head level. Eyes looking through me to the place we found last night in the wind.

The crowd grows with every step. Women in bonnets, kids perched on barrels, men with cheroots clenched between teeth.

Folks call this justice. I call it appetite.

The crowd is a field of faces gone flat. Men who drank with the dead man. Men who borrowed tools. Men who slapped his back and called him fine. Eager to prove they picked the right friend. Their wives tuck their mouths and try on pity like a borrowed shawl, oft ill-fitting.

Sheriff marches her up the steps. Skit offers a single, harsh croak. Folks jump like it’s an omen. Likely it is.

Willa’s calm. Don’t stumble, don’t fight. Just glances at me, eyes steady, mouth set. Too damn calm.

I step where I always step. Close enough to see the pupils. Close enough to smell the scent of lye soap she didn't have. Close enough to see the bruise high on her shoulder. Close enough to feel her quiet settle on me again.

We do not speak. Never will. I lift the noose. It's rough. Hemp's always a coarse thing. It brushes her jaw. She doesn’t flinch. She stares at me. I stare back. She nods once, like we'd struck a bargain.

The sheriff drones. The preacher mutters. I stop listening halfway through. The sun slices a raw gash across the sky, shining between us. Haloing her face, beautiful beyond mercy. I let her hold my gaze. I couldn’t peel my eyes from her even if I wanted to. She had me already.

When the sheriff nodded, I paused too long. The world shrinks to the breath between us. My hand trembles on the lever, the choice already made for me. Her smile undid me. She nods. I pull.

It was fast. Something cracked inside me. Foul, mean, permanent.

The crowd exhaled. Some cross themselves. Others spit. A few clap. I hate the clapping most.

I cut her down. Won’t let the deputies touch her. She feels light, as if the rope took half her with it. I lay her on the pine board and smooth the hair from her brow.

There’s dirt under her nails, and I wonder if that’s her husband’s grave she carries.

They take her from me. I barely managed to stand. Then, I go find out what hell I just did.

Men talk easy when a hanging's dispatched. A chore crossed off. Their tongues loosen. In the saloon, the barkeep buffs a clean glass and says the dead man was a good one. Bought rounds. Helped build the east corral. Laughed big. Calls Willa strange. Says she never smiled right. Says she kept to herself. That's always counted a crime in a place like this.

I go to the blacksmith. He says the dead man paid on time. Says Willa bruised easy, as if that explained her plight. Says maybe she often took a spill.

I go to the feed store. The owner says the husband kept the books. Says Willa carried the sacks herself when he wasn’t around. He says it like it’s proof of stubbornness, not necessity.

I go to the schoolyard. There's a boy throwing rocks at a post and calling his misses ill luck. He saw Willa at the well once. Says she moved slow, careful not to lose a drop. He says the husband laughed and bumped her hip so she spilled, and all the menfolk laughed with him. The boy stops throwing. He doesn’t meet my eyes. He knows what he saw and what he’s been told to say.

I go to the far edge of town where the shacks lean and roofs groan. A woman sells wash and keeps her door bolted. She opens for me because I bring quiet. Tells me Willa would come sometimes at dusk. Brought needles. Brought thread for stitches. Says Willa set her broken finger when her own man slammed it in a door. Says Willa did it with a steady hand. Says Willa had the kind of hands that don't shake, but they trembled after. The washerwoman stares at the pot until the steam hides her face. “He was a popular man,” she says. The way she says it is a judgment on all of us.

I go to the graveyard because there isn’t one for her yet. Skit lands on a headstone and cleans his beak, unconcerned. I stand and let the dust grind between my teeth until it feels like penance. It isn’t.

Back at the jail, I sit in the same chair and watch the same hall she stood in. Empty. Silent. Replacing her warm quiet with a cold, mean silence.

I could say I didn’t know. I could say the law asked and I answered. I could say a lot of things, the way the town does when it pulls a shroud of lies over itself to keep the night from biting. I don’t.

I knew nigh enough. Her eyes told me what the town told me this day with its mouth shut.

He hit her. Hit her until she learned to stand like timber in winter — straight, silent, and waiting for the thaw that never came. Made her hands work until the knuckles swelled. Called his drinking fellowship. They reckoned it fellowship as well. When she planted her feet and swung that pick, marked the first time she took ground. The town took it back from her at noon under the hot sky and laughed because laughter is easier than truth.

I take the ledger from the shelf. The last page’s still blank. I write her name neat. Willa Kerr. Thirty. No last words.

That night I can’t sleep. Crow perches by the window, feathers glossy in lamplight. The air smells of rain coming, sweet and metallic.

I pour whiskey, amber catching lamplight as it slips into the glass. I think about leaving, the thought a hollow wind promising distance that never delivers. Men do that. Ride west when the sky crowds, thinking the next town will be kinder. It isn’t. It’s just a different set of names.

The wind rises. I close my eyes and hear her silence again — aching, threading through the rafters like smoke that won’t lift. It sits inside me like a small fire I won’t dare snuff. It hurts. It warms. It makes breath shallow.

Mercy, I told myself, was the clean edge of a drop set right — the knot true, the neck snapped clean, no thrashing for the crowd to savor. I discovered mercy is not only what you make of the end. It’s also what you notice in the time before it. It’s the noticing I failed to give her, in the larger sense. The town gave her order. I gave her a clean rope. Neither of those is the same as keeping someone from being hurt in the first place.

Thing about this work, it stains in places you can’t scrub. I used to think each hanging was a cleansing, a removal of sin somehow scrubbed my own soul clean. I used to think cutting pain short was mercy, as if pruning a diseased branch could save a dying tree without addressing the blight in its roots. But mercy ain't mine to give, and justice don't keep tally. It just balances sorrow and calls it even.

I stare out the window. The gallows stands black against the sky, rain slicking its beams until they shone like oiled bone. Rope swinging gentle in the wind, and old ghosts whispering my name.

I light another match, watch it burn down to my fingers.

Tomorrow they’ll post another warrant. Crowds will gather. The wood will groan, and I'll listen close for its silence.

Because that’s the only kindness left to me.

I pour another drink, tip it toward the night sky.

“To you, Willa,” I say.

Crow squawked an amen.

I touch the ledger. Not a blessing. Not a curse. Another mark.

That’s all this place leaves. Marks.

I write one more thing. A last line where nobody else will ever read.

Like river stone catching the last light, her eyes were steady.