The Hanged Man

Back to Utah
If you go to a town called Winter, somewhere out west, you can ask around and hear a few versions of their local legend.
An old timer with a twinkle in his eye will sit you down and give you some advice about your time in town, different advice depending on how he reads you:
If a tall and handsome stranger asks you if you’d like to see a trick, you best politely drink your drink and get the hell out of town, you don’t want to see what he’ll show you.
Maybe you come into town on a motorcycle. If you did, you be sure you don’t look left nor right when you’re idlin’ at a red light. You look to your side and you see a good lookin’ country boy with a stetson instead of a helmet shoot you a smile and glance at the next set of lights to see if you want to race… you best kill your engine and close your eyes until you don’t hear the sound of his bike no more, then you get out of town and you try not to think about the things you thought you heard inside the growl of that engine.
You come here to hunt? Well, if you’re huntin’ out to the south of the town…well. If you think you’re gonna be out after dark, you make sure you’re alone. A lot of fellas together with guns out in that country, the wrong man could might take you for a posse, or could be you just might even remind him of one. You break away from your friends and you sit the night through alone. If a man comes to your campfire, you don’t hear him til he’s standin’ over you askin’ to share the fire… you extend hospitality. You share your food and your beer and you be a good host, you’ll find him a real engaging guest, but come time to bunk down if he asks if you’d like to maybe have a little friendly competition hunting tomorrow, you just put some more wood on the fire and tell him you’re leavin’ town in the morning. Make sure he knows you ain’t local.
***
Some others tell different versions of the story.
“You came into town off the interstate, I think? You use the same road when you’re leaving town. That, and when you do leave town, try to do it in the daytime. Don’t take the road that leads south out of town, even if you’ve noticed it’s a little shorter going south. That road takes you past The Hanging Tree. Lot of accidents out that way, particularly at night. Sometimes local kids will dare one another to drive out that way and it often ends badly. Times where they walk away from the wreck, they’ve all said the same thing: when they got close to the tree they swore they saw a man hanging there, though it was dark they swore they had to look him in the eye and when they did…”
And on, sometimes they’ll tell you not to play cards with a stranger in this town, or make sure you don’t linger to talk to the fiddle player if there’s bluegrass playing in any of the bars.
If you keep asking past the surface details they might tell you a little more. Some parts of what they’ll tell you will contradict, depending on who you talk to.
This town was raided by five gunslingers a few years after the Civil War, they killed a dozen marshals and several local militia men. When the firefight was over, four of the men rode out of town but the fifth stayed in the saloon, playing the fiddle and drinking for two days until he finally passed out. There was no trial, a crowd bound him and by the time he woke he was sitting on a horse with a noose around his neck. Though there are different tellings of the story, many agree that he spoke a few words before they hanged him:
“I ain’t the murderer here. Y’all are.”
***
Lilian Desmarais was born in 1847 in the southwest corner of Utah. His mother died in childbirth and his father, Armand Desmarais never spoke much of her. His unfortunate name was a tribute to his French grandfather, ‘who never made no fortune but was one hell of a duelist’ according to his father.
Lilian and his father ran the family ranch together. Lilian was a natural horseman, he had an incredible aptitude for roping and taming steers. His father taught him how to shoot and hunt, by the time he was ten he could put a bullet in a migrating bird when it was little more than a speck in the sky.
In 1862 his father left him with the neighbour woman to manage the farm alone while he went to do his part in the Civil War, fighting for the North. Towards the end of the summer of 1863 they got word that Armand had died in the battle of Gettysburg.
Lilian was sad at the loss of his father, a distant figure he had never truly come to know. He decided to go to war like his old man and ran away to the Nevada Territory to find the Army and join up.
On the way he ran across a medicine show and carnival, a man called Flagstaff the knife thrower took a liking to the boy and talked him into travelling with them, at least until they got to an Army base.
He liked the carnival crowd, they were rough and tumble people who lived their own way, enjoying life even in these hard times, bringing a little joy to downtrodden and often traumatised strangers from town to town.
Flagstaff the knife thrower introduced him to everyone, the ringmaster was skeptical that the boy would be any use, asked if he could do anything beyond sit straight on a horse, as they’d met him on horseback. Lilian said he could ride, shoot, rope as well as any cowboy and the old man laughed. 
“Well, Lillian,” - The old man intentionally pronouncing the name in the feminine form rather than the French masculine form with one L - “where’d you learn all that?”
“My daddy taught me, he and me was partners on our ranch in Utah.”
“Show me,” The old man said with exaggerated disinterest.
Lilian borrowed a pistol, told The Memory Man to watch six different tree branches in sequence, then he rode off. He galloped along, putting a bullet through the first bough, roping another and swinging from it to put a bullet through a third, finally coming to stand on his saddle, putting a bullet clean through the fourth, fifth and sixth branches in turn.
The circus folk ranged from quietly impressed to slack jawed amazement in their reactions but all waited for the old man to speak.
“Well Utah, you may not look like much but at least you can Cowboy,” He pronounced, which was enough for all to understand he had been accepted.
He never did make it to that Army base, he rode with Doctor Lazarus Miller’s Medicine Show and Carnival for the next five years.
He learned to throw knives or pretty much anything with remarkable accuracy, learned many forms of gambling, both honest and dishonest, even learned to play the fiddle.
He lost his virginity to the trapeze artist who doubled as the knife thrower’s assistant, a beautiful, tired woman several years his senior, though only after her explaining to him with difficulty that she was not attached to Flagstaff because he preferred the company of men. Utah - as by now he was known- was quite puzzled by this but not in the slightest concerned.
The Old Man billed him as “Utah, The Cowboy Prodigy” and always found plenty for him to do.
***
In 1867 when he was twenty he fell for a saloon girl, Constance of the Four Aces Saloon. His friends warned him she was no good and she was principally interested in finding a rich man to look after her but he had no interest in listening and said he’d stop a spell in Winter, maybe take her with him to catch up with them in a couple of months.
Winter had a silver mine and it was something of a boom town. They lived in fear of bandits and hired Starr’s Outriders to watch the town.
Starr’s Outriders were ‘law for hire’, they were a squad of experienced gunfighters and Civil War veterans who would set up a marshal service in your territory for a hefty fee and the run of the land.
When Starr’s Outriders first came to town, Utah paid them little mind. He was twenty years old now, a man by any standard and he was enjoying life. Living off his modest savings and his gambling winnings, getting into fistfights, associating with drunks, gamblers and whores, and romancing Constance the saloon girl of the Four-Ace Saloon.
First nobody could carry guns in town. This was fine with Utah, in fact it made his poker games a little less stressful, less likely to lead to men gunning each other down or trying to.
A curfew was next, but Utah never had much cause to leave the Saloon after dark or before dawn, so that was fine with him too.
An old drunk named Redbush Steve was beaten to death one night. The story was that he’d gotten out of hand and attacked an Outrider, the Outrider defended himself and the man fell, cracking his skull. In those times things like that happened, it was sad but no-one thought too much of it.
A couple of nights later Utah sat down to play some poker and saw one of the players had his hand all wrapped up. He explained his fingers had been broken when he talked back to an Outrider.
Utah wasn’t so crazy about this but he resolved to keep himself to himself, he was determined to win enough at the gambling tables to convince Constance to ride out of town with him.
A young girl went missing, she was only sixteen and everyone went searching. After two days Starr, the leader of the Outriders announced she’d been found but in deference to the family they would not be showing the body, the poor girl must have drowned in the river and the remains were in no state to view. Utah was more suspicious of this than most but told himself he was thinking too much, it was just a tragedy like a thousand others.
The incidents got harder and harder to ignore, life became more brutal in town. A whore that Utah liked to play friendly cards with by the name of Tulip was killed. She’d liked to patch him up when he got a little ambitious and outnumbered in saloon brawls, sometimes she’d bring him bacon and coffee when he was coming off a couple of days hard drinking and gambling. He knew she was in love with him, though perhaps he didn’t know until he heard she was dead. No-one cared it seemed, he went to Starr’s Outriders and even as he was asking that the crime be looked into, he saw in Starr’s eyes and those of his men the confidence of the guilty who believe themselves beyond retribution.
Around then the town started to buzz with word that The Four Horsemen were coming. A band of outlaws who were known to ride through towns, taking what they want and laying waste to all in their path.
Utah did some asking around and started to get the idea that The Four Horsemen weren’t just coming here to rob the mine’s payroll, they had some old business with Starr’s Outriders and meant to settle it.
One night Utah walked into the Marshal’s office, beat up the deputy keeping guard, got his guns out of the lockup and rode out of town. He knew The Four Horsemen would come in from the south and he waited for them at The Hanging Tree.
When they arrived he was sitting on his horse with his hands empty and in the air. He told them he’d like to ride with them, he didn’t want a cut of the mine’s payroll, he just wanted to put an end to Starr’s Outriders in this town.
Their leader looked in his eyes, it reminded Utah of how the old man Dr Lazarus Miller had eyed him that day he met the carnival. The man smiled. 
“You’ve never taken a life, have you.”
Utah replied that he had not.
“You think we’re going in there to serve a writ and have these fellows cease and desist their behaviour, ah - what’s your name, anyway?”
“Utah.”
“Utaahhhhhh… can you kill if you have to?”
Utah didn’t know the answer but he nodded anyway. Later he thought about it and reckoned that Death had known the answer well enough.
He rode with The Four Horsemen into Winter.
They hit town an hour before dawn and by dawn every Outrider was dead.
The last to go was Welby, Starr’s right hand man. He had a way of looking at the girls around the town and Utah knew he was his man. 
Utah got to him in the saloon, shot him in the hand even as Welby reached for his pistol.
He advanced on him while Welby alternated between cradling his ruined hand and debating reaching for the fallen pistol with his remaining good hand.
“Why the hell did you even ride with those sons of bitches?” Welby said helplessly, almost a whine.
“Did you know Tulip was a hell of a cardplayer?” Utah asked and those present in the saloon said his voice was as cool and calm and absent of mercy as could be.
Utah paused long enough to let Welby fasten on the idea, and as Welby’s good hand gripped the pistol, he put a bullet through the man’s forehead.
“ ‘Course you didn’t,” He finished, shaking his head and walking out.
He met with The Four Horsemen, by now he’d proven himself to them several times over as they rode through the town gunning down the twenty one Outriders gathered. 
He wasn’t even that surprised to see that The Four Horsemen didn’t have a cart full of money or silver, just a couple of bulging saddlebags. He knew these were dark men indeed, the money they took was to finance their next raid on whoever got their attention.
“Utaahhhh… you’re a natural. He did us proud, didn’t he boys? Ride on with us a spell.”
Utah was sorely tempted, he’d felt good when he rode with them, in control, utterly alive. 
In the end though, he turned them down, he couldn’t leave Constance.
He shook all their hands except the leader’s, who instead tipped his hat, then they were gone and he was walking back into The Four Aces saloon.
He started drinking, everyone giving him a wide berth. Nobody was forthcoming to play cards so he just drank, played a little fiddle. Constance didn’t take the stage to sing and dance, so he just drank, played a little fiddle.
The town left him alone until he finally passed out after two days drinking. Constance had refused to talk to him throughout the couple of days. When he passed out, she went to the Mayor’s office and told them. The Mayor led a mob of men that bound Utah and took him out to The Hanging Tree.
He woke to find himself bound and with a noose around his neck, sitting on a horse -not his own, and he knew why: his own horse wouldn’t panic and gallop out from under him.
The Mayor delivered a short but still somehow pompous speech and asked if Utah had anything to say for himself.
“You know what happened to the Foster girl and those others and my friend, my only friend in this god-forsaken town, Tulip. Y’all are the murderers here, even if I’m the one hanging.”
No-one had anything much to say to that so they struck the horse with the whip and that was the end of him on this earth.
He’d been given enough religion by his father that he went to Hell. What he endured there at the hands of the torturers of the circle of Wrath was terrible indeed and would not bear reading about. After some uncertain period of time, his story somehow came to the attention of Belphegor Prince of Sloth, who asked Satan to release him to his realm.
Utah was taken there and fell into a sleep as the realm’s power took him. It would be over a hundred years before he woke in a very different Hell.
Back to Utah