The sun bore down relentlessly on Felchville, the roughest, toughest town in all of Urea County, Texas. It was hot enough to fry the scabs off a leper. But, in spite of the indescribable heat, the streets were thronged with happy townsfolk (or Felchers as the inhabitants of Felchville called themselves) for this was Carnival Day, and Mayor Billy “No Teeth” Blackbeard, the least washed mayor in Wild Western history, had promised everyone that Judge Derek Doombringer, the famous Hanging Judge, would soon be arriving to hear the cases of the four criminals that Sheriff Basil “Butch” Sweetlove and his gallant deputy Richard “Little Dick” Hampton were holding in the foetid squalor of the town gaol. An eager gang of men had been building the gallows all morning in front of the pretty little church in preparation for the event.
‘What if those varmints are not guilty?’ queried old Henrietta Prepuce, the wife of the undertaker, old Pedro Prepuce, as she helped her husband put the finishing touches to the four cheapest coffins he had ever supplied.
‘The day Judge Doombringer finds any man inny-cent, sure is the day when Hell itself gonna freeeeeeeze plumb over!’ declared Prepuce as he gobbed out a lump of tobacco-stained lung-lining on the dusty street.
‘Yeeeehaaaa!’ chorused the happy crowd of townsfolk.
‘Here comes da judge! Here comes da judge!’ went up the cry as a cloud of dust at the end of the street indicated the arrival of the stagecoach containing the infamous Judge Derek Doombringer. The battered old coach skidded to a halt in front of the town meeting hall and the mayor, the sheriff and the parson shook the smiling justice of the peace by the hand and escorted him into the nearby courthouse. Sheriff Basil “Butch” Sweetlove, a terrifyingly debonair man famed for his manliness and unbelievable sense of duty, ordered his totally incredibly good-looking deputy, "Little Dick" Hampton, to fetch the prisoners in immediately, warning him to wear a gas mask as a protection against their foul reek (after all, four weeks in the gaol without access to even a tin can as a toilet had left its mark on the accused men).
‘What these filthy varmits done, Sheriff?’ enquired the famous Hanging Judge as he settled himself in his ceremonial high chair to observe the four wretches being dragged into his presence.
‘The first three’s accused o’ rustling cattle, your honour.’
‘Any witnesses, Sheriff?’
‘Sure are, your honour.’
‘That’s good enough for me, Mister Sweetlove! Guilty! Sentenced to death by hanging! Sentence to be carried out forthwith!
‘We didn’t do it, Judge, we been framed!’
‘We wuz only patting them cows!’
‘I wuz sleeping at the time, your honour!’
‘Hang ‘em! Hang ‘em! Hang ‘em! Hang em’’ chanted the happy crowd out in the street and the town band struck up a jaunty mariachi melody to keep everyone's spirits high.
‘Sheriff, go tell those good folks out there they surely must not try to infloo-ence mah dee-cisions!’ And, as Butch leaned out of the window and told the waiting crowd to shut it, the good judge turned to the three rustlers and bellowed, ‘Shut your mouths boys and prepare to meet your maker! Ah’ll be along with mah rope just as soon as Ah’ve heard the fourth case.’
And without further ado, the three condemned men were hauled screaming out of the courtroom to the delirious carnival atmosphere out in the sun-baked street.
‘What’s this doggone ruffian been accused of, Sheriff?’ enquired the smiling Judge Doombringer of the manly sheriff when the final prisoner was kicked to his feet to show respect. The judge scratched his butt-cleft, trying to dislodge a lump from his anal hairs.
‘He strangled the schoolma’ms pet cat, Mozart, your honour, ‘cuz the bastard bit him on the private parts when he wuz a-takin’ a piss in the bushes!’ declared the Deputy Sheriff, as Sheriff Sweetlove himself was too pre-occupied with mining a particularly recalcitrant piece of snot from his left nostril to pay much attention to the proceedings of the court.
‘That true boy? You strangled a poor dumb innocent creature?’
‘That cat wuz wild, your honour. I wuz just taking a piss and the critter leaped out and sunk his fangs in mah manhood!’
‘Ah done never heard anything so vicious in all mah years on the bench!’ shrieked Doombringer. ’I do declare hanging’s too good for the likes o’ you, y'all nuthin' but a sinful pussy-killer! But Ah’ll show leniency and sentence y’all to death by hanging, sentence to be carried out right now! Clear the court and pass me mah noose!’
The famous hanging judge swept out of the courtroom, pausing only to drink a bottle of whiskey provided by the proprietor of the “Old Whorehouse Saloon” in return for a promise by the judge to allow a short promotional statement on behalf of the saloon in between hangings. The four criminals were hauled to the rickety gallows in front of the church, the parson said a few short words, barely audible over the terrible screams of the condemned men and the jeers and happy yeehas of the crowd and, one by one, they were despatched to eternity with the incredible sadistic clumsiness for which Judge Doombringer was renowned in every county north of the Rio Grande.
After the exciting ceremony was over (during which the town band played “The Yellow Rose of Texas” repeatedly), the crowd dispersed to their homes to get ready for the carnival barn dance to be held that evening in the "Old Whorehouse Saloon", leaving the four miscreants still struggling hopelessly from their ropes. Deputy Sheriff Little Dick, probably the best-looking junior lawman in Texan history, spent a couple of hours standing guard over the swaying bodies to prevent looters from stealing their boots and, as soon as the quartet had stopped twitching, sashayed off to the house he shared with his dear old Mom. He then spent half an hour easing himself into his tightest pair of pre-shrunk jeans. When he checked himself out in the looking glass he was overwhelmed with admiration, as was his doting mother.
‘You sure are a good-lookin’ boy, Dickie,’ she declared, ‘Ah’d fuck you mahself if you wasn’t mah own son!’
‘Gee, Mom, y’all sure are a tease!’ he simpered.
Notwithstanding these events, Sheriff Basil “Butch” Sweetlove decided he would not be outdone by his utterly gorgeous deputy and accordingly looked out his most masculine checked shirt, the one with the patented built-in underarm sweat patches, guaranteed to make the town‘s women wet themselves with one whiff. On the lower half of his fabulously manly body, Basil wore his very favourite pale green levis and his treasured “Dodge City” winklepickers with matching two-tone (pink-grey) spats. He had his eye on the undertaker's daughter, Plump Petronella Prepuce, as he knew she was a total and utter slut.
Both the brave lawmen feared their reputations as the town’s two greatest cocksmen and men-about-town would be challenged that evening as Judge Doombringer was sure to have brought a really neat and sophisticated outfit with him from the big city in order to try and pull a bird. Which was why they had persuaded the owner of the “Old Whorehouse Saloon” to spike the judge’s drink with cowdip disinfectant and, sure enough, the famed dispenser of rough justice’s bowels gave way utterly when he was halfway through a hectic, drunken polka with Fat Florrie, the town courtesan and woman of low repute.
‘Now that is what Ah call ungentlemanly behaviour,’ declared the Mayor as the shamefaced judge was thrown out of the saloon into the dusty street, to land with a shitty squelch.
‘Carnival night is always fraught with temptation,’ intoned Parson Phipps piously as his hand slipped up Fat Florrie’s frock to fondle her foetid fanny. ‘Praise the Lord’ he murmured as he reached his digital target.
‘Yeeha!’ exclaimed Fat Florrie in cowgirl ecstasy.
And, needless to say, the band played on.
(Florrie)
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