The Man They Called Gallows

Of all the men on this red world, nobody ever put the fear of God into a man's heart quite so much as him. The man they called Gallows Sullivan.

Gallows and his hardcase coyotes would ride all over Sanguine. A dozen silhouettes in the eternal crimson twilight. Twelve black Stetsons pulled low, twelve engines growling, twelve men prowling like vultures round a dying mule. Most folks who heard them engines never lived to hear anything else. Them that did were the unlucky one, left their tongues only so they could spread the legend.

There was Eli Stannard, the one they called Cackling Eli, who'd throw back his fetid sprout of hair and giggle as he made his mischief. There was Cold-Eyed Clyde, whose dead albino stare reflected in his knife as he bled his victims dry. But of all them devil's own dancers, Gallows were the worst.

A gaunt fella, thin, he stood a foot taller than any man who faced him. A grey face hewn and sand-blasted, but with eyes as sharp as a buzzsaw tooth. The old vulture could ride a motor like no man alive, his long coat blowing like a black flag in his wake. He carried a hand-cannon so rusted it could fire only three shots, but the way he told it, he could still outshoot any man what raised a gun. They said Gallows had sent near four-hundred souls on to their maker; he liked to joke that he was the one kept the coffin makers rich since the plague had passed. Under Gallows Sullivan's iron, Sanguine had run as red as her sun for close to twenty orbits. Every man, woman and child knew the name of their tormentor, and every one feared to speak his name, for fear the engines would come.

It were a warm day, dry and weary, when Gallows Sullivan and his gang rolled into the town of Tranquillity. A small town sucking life off of freeway traffic, she had no means to stop such men. As the motors announced their fear's coming on, all us folk could do was to sit tight and pray they'd pass by. For what it's worth, God In The Stars wasn't listening that day.

No one rightly knows why Gallows came riding into Tranquillity that day. Some say it was to take fuel or water. Others he thought to sack the town for sport, and yet others that he was tired of the road and was sniffing out a rest. Whatever the reason, with his banditos in tow, he powered his desert hog down main street and hitched up right by the saloon. I still remember the moment he walked in. First man through the doors, a silhouette in black and red. A long tall devil come striding to our world. Blind Jem the pianist stopped playing soon as the engines were heard, so when ol' Gallows entered he did so to graveyard silence. A room full of folks. All you could hear was their breathing, and the insistent ticking of some fella's timepiece.

Gallows grinned. I remember that clear. He had a mouth of skull-white teeth, cleaner than any rough-rider's ought to be, "Well now, ain't that polite of y'all, going hushsome case I gots summit to say."

His desperados laughed, I'll remember Cackling Eli's cackling until I die. But no soul in the saloon were in a laughing mood, you can be sure of that.

Gallows kept on smiling, "Alright folks, this is how it's gonna work. Y'all do exactly what we tells you. You behave, and I'll be mighty grateful. Any one of you tries anything agitating like, well then everyone pays the blood price, y'understand?"

The silence in the room seemed to satisfy him. Clapping his hands like a merry-go child, he said all sing-song like, "Alrighty then boys, let's make ourselves at home."

"We'll be taking your drink barkeep," said Eli, slamming his elbows on the bar, "All of it. I want me some honest whiskey. Pronto-quick."

Cold-Eyed Clyde scanned the crowd, "I want me some volunteers fancy their chance to escape," He drew his crusty six-shooter, and flashed a gap-toothed grin, "Been a mite too long since I've had any moving targets, see?"