The
Two-Legged Mule
Scáth Beorh
Well, it wasn’t ‘til after the
child called Bessie was beaten with a wooden rod ‘til she died of
her wounds that the folk gathered for an airing of the heinous
act—Pastor William McConvile presiding. In the course of one hour
it was discovered, through sufficient believable witnesses, that
Connelly O’Maughnahan did drink his liquor in excess, and did see
himself as a last bastion of an older way of life, and stated that
often when he was in the village, along with Holy Writ to prove his
position. What older way of life none could quite discern, but it
was, he declared, an older way notwithstanding.
O’Maughnahan did, witnesses said,
unmentionable acts with his three daughters, the youngest one now in
her grave next to her mother, thank Holy God. Yet what would be done
about the man and his egregious ways? Not a few of those present at
the town meeting stood outraged now that Bessie lay dead. They vowed
before Heaven and Earth that O’Maughnahan would breathe his last
that very night. But calmer hearts, though disturbed also over the
matter, prevailed, and another thought was broached. An plan was
agreed upon with a quickness, for it was time to plant again, and the
parish had seen hard times of recent, with one draft horse for every
three farms, shared in a cooperative fashion. One objection was
raised, being that the work might kill O’Maughnahan, but it was
reminded that this would be the hoped-for result whilst keeping all
hands clean of his blood.
All agreed that the Widow Maggie Farley
would get O’Maughnahan first, she being the oldest living person of
the parish, and therefore in greatest need, seeing that her husband
and all three of her boys had been killed at Antietam. It was thought
that two good men should bring O’Maughnahan to Miss Maggie and stay
to watch so that he wouldn’t run away, but then it was brought
again to the minds of all that the widow carried a rod of her own,
and owned three hounds obedient to her every command.
So, a stout chain and shackles were
forged by our blacksmith Jack Killian. Then a confederacy of
seventeen men armed with clubs and a few guns walked out to the
soured and unkempt land of Connelly O’Maughnahan. The men were
greeted by the girls Lesa and Mora, being the forlorn sisters of
little dead Bessie, but were told that O'Maughnahan was away to
collect firewood—but he would return home directly. The girls were
ushered inside their ramshackle farmhouse and gently gagged so they
couldn’t warn their father--should they desire to do that. Two of
the men watched over them. The other fifteen men spread out around
the farm and hid themselves as well as any man can hide himself in
land he knows best. O’Maughnahan had not the least idea that had
come his time of reckoning when he pulled himself along his weedy
path. As he headed for the weather-beaten unpainted door of his
disheveled house which hadn’t been whitewashed in anybody’s
memory, five men he recognized appeared from five directions, grabbed
him, and held him fast, yet not without effort, for though
O’Maughnahan was a slight man, he was wiry and tough—lazy enough
by that time of his life, but a farm lad notwithstanding.
“Curse y'all to Hell! All o’ ye! Let
me be, y'all sons o’ guns!”
“Set free them little girls now,”
said Jedediah Flaherty to the guards.
“Ye have me girls tied up, ye
stupid good-for-nothin’ lowlifes? I oughtta...!”
“A far cry better than how ye
treat 'em!” yelled McClure as he yanked a rag from his back pocket
and stuffed it into O’Maughnahan's pie-hole so all present could be
saved his clamorous tongue.
The next day proved an unusually hot
one, and the warmest in anybody's memory so that there came the
whisper that Hell had come to receive O’Maughnahan at long last.
Well, the scoundrel, cursing a blue streak, was harnessed to Widow
Farley's plow, gagged again, and goaded along by the woman herself
unless he had the
idea, which he probably did, to walk around in circles or maybe cut
across her field in a fit of destructive anarchy. Miss Maggie kept
him in line, and the few times he got out of line one of the hounds
got him back in line quick enough. He worked for three hours before
he begged a break for a quick swim in the creek. He was denied that
luxury and
given only a cup of tepid water, which he quaffed down like it was the
sweetest thing he'd ever had in his mouth. Widow Farley then
handed O’Maughnahan a bowl of thick mushroom chowder and another
cup of water. When he was finished eating, she tied his mouth up tighter
than Slewfoot's hatband and goaded him along again
for the next few hours, then the men came and took him in chains to
Terry O'Leary's barn for the night.
The next morning O'Leary and most of
the men went out to get O’Maughnahan to do work on O'Leary's land,
but O’Maughnahan was dead. Seems Miss Maggie had never liked
mushrooms enough to learn the difference between the deadly and the
delicious.
_____
Scath Beorh
is originally from the still-very-conservative Flora-Bama part of the
Deep South, but did his growing up in Hollywood before finally settling
in St. Augustine--to experience the South flavored with a variety of
international ideas, values, languages, and cultural mores. He is the
author of the story collections Children & Other Wicked Things and Jesus Is A Woman as well as a number of novels. More can be found at beorhouse.wordpress.com