It’s the rainy season. Down beneath the city I can hear raindrops scattershot against the ground. I have to keep attention behind me,

Francis Bacon

on the small opening through the rotted wall leading into the maze of tunnels beneath Old Sacramento. Water’s beginning to flow. Rats have already tried to come through the passage but I’ve stomped them away, stuffed a few canvas sacks full of dirt and rocks and stacked them knee high in front of the hole. There’ll be small streams of mud coming in at first, but if the weather keeps on, I’ll have to move to higher ground.

         The cellar door leading up to what used to be Fool’s Gold Saloon opens. Torch light flickers off the faded brick wall next to the stairwell. There’s a wild bunch up there tonight. Even if the saloon hasn’t been open for legal business during the last ten years, it’s still the biggest money maker this town’s got.

         Whiskey and piss drips through the floor, has been for hours now. I had to move my workstation from the growing puddle of mud. Everybody’s here for the same reason, I know. I can hear their anxious footsteps and voices as if I were standing right among them.

         Tom Shiftlet walks halfway down the stairs. He’s nothing more than shiny boots and pressed jeans.

         “Harry?” he says. “You almost—”

         Someone whispers behind him, stopping him mid-sentence. More weight buckles the entire staircase.

         “Yeah,” I say.

         The whispering stops. The light disappears. There’s a loud thump against the stairs and something rolls down, settles on the bottom step.

         “Thirty minutes,” Shiftlet says, and stomps back up. I never see Tom’s face anymore. I never see nobody much. Used to be they were proud of what they wanted done. Now it seems this is the way they want it. No one looks at me full on beforehand.

         When the door shuts I’m left with the unsteady glow of my lantern hanging from a knot on the wall. The constant breath of wind seeping through the tunnels dances the flame.

         “Thirty minutes,” I say, and sprawl the last forty years of my life across the work bench. Twenty feet of rope, strips of rawhide for my hands, and a rusted trough to catch whatever stinking fluids might rush out.

         In the shadow by the stairs, the pig Shiftlet rolled down looks green. I know it’s not, just looks that way. It’s big, about 200 pounds from my calculations of sight. Bending down to grab its front legs, I know my eyes are one of the few things not yet leaving me.

         I drag it to the edge of the workbench, lift its upper half to the edge of the bench and pry open its mouth. The mouth is still warm, the tongue. Reaching to the wall and grabbing my lantern, I can see the thin slit carved at the base of the animal’s neck. The slice is deep, neat. Tom’s always been a good slaughterer.

         I set the lantern on the bench, clamp the pig’s top and bottom teeth to the wood. This is the only way I figure to get the rope around its neck without too much trouble. So much has changed over the years, it’s not like the old days anymore. Back then I used live pigs, sometimes calves when the folks upstairs wanted me to sacrifice a fat sonofabitch. I never asked no questions. I had assistants do that sort of thing, conditions and whatnot. But no longer. Now I’m both the helper and master of ceremonies.

         The hind legs begin slipping along the mud, and I straddle the hog to keep it from slapping flat down to the earth. I reach around its belly and hike the body up. Sharp cackles of hair poke my arms, blood and something yellow seeps from the slit when I bear hug the beast. Amazing we eat these creatures. Even more amazing these people waste a perfectly good dinner to try and better their own survival.

         I pull the rope from the table, keeping the pig steady with my knees. Certain men can’t tie a Gallows knot with two good hands and a whore helping them, but I can. Biting onto one end of the rope, I wrap the other behind the bight, lean my face to my hand and use a couple of fingers to pull that end around to form a loop. A few times over and a foot long section looks like a neck of corded knuckles.

         I lift the hog’s head up and slide the loop over its snout, along its face. Minding its ears, I yank once on the length of rope and the loop tightens as if made just for this beast’s neck. Whoever they drag down in the next twenty minutes or so, the knot’ll work the same way.

         The pig weighs more than I thought. I can’t lift it a foot off the ground and have to hunch over while carrying it to the gallows. If my back slips out one more time, I’m out of a job. Aging, it’s a wonder any of us want to continue living at all.

         Next to the gallows I lay the animal down. The ground is firmer here. With the way the rain sounds, the flow of water beginning to echo through the tunnels, it won’t be for long.

         From the table I grab my rawhide and put it in my pocket. Then I stretch the rope from the pig’s neck and step back, eye it from a distance. With the knot, a good eighteen feet remains available. One foot is twelve inches, and unless a ten foot tall man comes down those steps, I should be in business.

         My gallows is simple. Up above, in the main square or down by the waterfront, fancy craftsmen have constructed overhead platforms, legs thick as elephant legs, and three or four trapdoors adding to the shock value. Some say it’s mercy, the way men have their lives pulled out from under them. But not me. I think it’s just plain insensitive to let a man die without ever knowing when it’s going to come.

         Forty years and my construction is solid as ever. What makes it work is the simplicity. An eight foot tall, thick square beam driven deep into the ground. Another beam is attached at the top, forming an upside down L shape from the support. Spikes as long as my forearm secures the wood together. I’d wager my design against the newest gallows this town’s got, and I’d win too. Mine never has to deal with the constant ship shape talk of the new city dwellers.

         Collecting the rope, I run a length of it into the rattlesnake thin notch carved into the top of the inverted L until it tiger tails off the back of the gallows. Then I stand behind the support beam, straighten my back against the wall. Holding my breath, I stiffen my legs to the ground and pull the rope hand over hand until the hog’s head lifts off the ground, followed by its shoulders. Then its rounded body rises and eventually brings with it the back hooves. I breathe through my nose, hold the weight of the animal for thirty seconds. Forty-five. After a few minutes I let go and the pig slaps hard to the ground.

         I do the same thing again and again until the weight becomes manageable. I’ve been doing this for too long to expect that it’ll get any easier. But this is what I’ve chosen to do. It may seem queer, but this is what I’m good at. The cellar door opens again. The torchlight. The faded, crumbling look of the bricks. All noise has stopped upstairs. Not so much as a footstep loosens a particle of dust or drip of whiskey. I could hear a rat fart if I didn’t take extra lengths to keep them out of my workspace.

         I see the shine of the boots first, then the pressed jeans, and the whole of Shiftlet comes into view. The old sheriff’s badge pinned to his shirt catches the flicker of the torchlight, gleams a dull metallic sheen. Before he comes all the way down, he takes off the badge and stuffs it in his shirt pocket.

         His hat’s pulled low, and I wouldn’t be able to tell if he was looking at me even if he was. But he’s not. Tom reaches up and grabs onto a length of chain someone from above tosses down.

         “Step,” he says. The stairs creak. “Step, step.”

         Shiftlet says only the one word until a man stands next to him.

         The man’s taller than him even without shoes on. His shirt’s untucked and splotched with dried blood. I consider him handsome though I can’t see his face under the black, pointed hood they make them wear. I think of all that come before me as good looking. For whatever reason, it makes me believe they might’ve had a good life leading up to this point.

         “Walk,” Shiftlet says. He steps ahead of the man, tugs at the length of the chain wrapped around the man’s throat. A few yards away, Shiftlet unlocks the chain and pushes the man to the floor. With the manacles around his ankles, his wrists, the man falls easily.

         “Stay here,” Shiftlet says. He points to the ground beneath the swaying noose as if the man can see it. Then Tom hurries away.

         Dozens of people walk down the stairs, stand in the shadows beneath them. Most of their heads are covered with black lace, the thin material hanging down below their noses, cutting off half their faces. They’ve been wearing these things for years and I’ve never questioned why. Is it because I know them, faces that have grown and aged like mine, children becoming adults and adults becoming old? I don’t think so. It’s just some things are better left unexplained.

         “Okay,” Shiftlet says. With two fingers gripping onto the brim of his hat, he nods towards me and mixes in with the crowd. Everybody locks hands and bows their heads. They rock back and forth as one and begin speaking low to themselves.

         I wrap the back tail of the rope around a couple of large nails I hammered into the support post years earlier. Secured to one bent up nail, one down, the rope won’t slip. This makes it easier to not have to restring it along the crossbar again should the man slip out.

         After loosening the noose from the pig’s neck, dragging the animal into the opening in the brick wall behind me, I help the chained man to his feet. There must be four or five other pigs somewhere along the tunnels from the previous months, unless the rats have already taken care of them.

         Grabbing the trough off the workbench, I set it in front of him.

         “Now don’t kick this over,” I say, sliding the trough against his toes so he knows it’s there.

         I take hold of both his shoulders, spinning him a bit so he’s directly under the noose. He’s quiet, most are. But he’s trembling. He makes me do the same, a quick flutter down the length of my spine.

         “Back a step,” I say. The mask puffs in and out of his mouth, outlining the shape of his lips, the point of his nose. The sides of his shirt and pants are muddied, the length of dirt he was pushed onto roughed up with wetness. He starts whispering to himself. God this, God that. In the past I’ve asked certain people to tell me what they’re saying, but not anymore. It’s always the same.

         I slip the noose around his neck. His entire body shudders when I tighten it. Someone in the crowd gasps, but they’re still rocking back and forth. Quicker now.

         Taking position behind the gallows, I unravel the slack from the nails and begin to yank back, slowly, until the rope is tight enough to make the man step backwards. He’s talking louder, but it’s just noise against the low chants of the crowd.

         With one hand I take a strip of rawhide out from my pocket, wrap it best as I can around my right hand. I can’t afford burns any longer. My skin’s become so sensitive, it peels away like an overripe peach.

         My back against the wall, legs stiff and already aching, I pull, hand over hand until his weight snaps the smallest fibers along the rope. The man chokes out a cry, fluid gurgles in his throat. Some of the women under the stairs break hands and hurry up the steps. Dresses are lifted above shins, smooth faces of children buried to bosoms as they escape to the saloon.

         I slide my entire weight down. The rope’s taut as can be, and I tug a bit more to wrap what’s left of the slack around the nails.

         The man’s off the ground, toes scraping the dirt. He spins a little, squirms, but the noose holds tight. He begins scraping at his neck like a dog trying to dislodge a tick. Choking sounds scratch out of him. This one won’t be giving up.

         While this is happening, a good size of the group flees upstairs. Only the old timers and Shiftlet stay, waiting.

         I come from behind the gallows, running a hand along the crossbeam to check for weakness. Over a hundred hangings now and it’s strong as ever. Could last a hundred more. Pulling the other strip of rawhide from my pocket, I force the man’s arms behind his back and tie them together at the wrist. He doesn’t have much fight left, but what he has is admirable.

         “Shh,” I say, and get in front of him.

         Arms wrapped high around his thighs, I hug him as if he’s my brother who has just traveled back from the war twenty years too late. His breath shoots out from the hood in thin bursts of air. His eyes are hard to find, but I can always make the whites out beneath the tiny holes in the fabric. This man’s are no different.

         “It’s okay,” I say.

         Before I take one last breath, lean into the man and pull down with my entire weight, even before I hear the man take his last ditch effort at life prior to me snapping his neck, I say a few words.

         “I am going to send you to a better place.”

         I jerk down on his legs and he goes motionless. I hold on to him, say the words again. My voice loud enough so only the man can hear.