Posted by Morbidia on March 30, 1999 at 15:03:53:
A Hanging in Deadwood. Part II: To Deadwood.
The jail in Deadwood has five cells, four for men and one separated by
a wooden wall for the occasional woman who had to either sleep it off
or await trial as was my case. Unlike the men's cells which were
separated only by bars from the main room, the women's cell also had a
wooden door with a barred window set into it. That way a woman could
use the commode or sleep in her shift without undue embarrassment. It
also helped separate me some from the stench of the men's' cells which
reeked of urine and vomit. I settled in.
On the second day, the sheriff came in to ask if I wanted to make a
statement before the trial. By now, I was deeply repentant for my
actions, so I agreed. Accompanied by the sheriff and a deputy, I was
taken from my cell to the sheriff's office. There I was seated by his
desk. A few moments later, the mayor of Deadwood, his wife, the
president of the bank, and the banker's wife were led into the office
to act as witnesses that I was confessing of my own free will.
In the end, my relation of the events covered two pages of tightly
written script. I signed my name at the bottom. The witnesses signed
too, each of the men and the mayor's wife giving me a hostile glare
before bending over the papers. The banker's wife, however, touched me
on the arm and muttered, "You poor dear." as she glared at her husband
while signing. Obviously there was something between them. I was then
ushered back to my cell.
The judge took more than a week. In fact, the original circuit judge
never made it at all. News came to town that he had been killed in the
crossfire between two gamblers at a saloon in Reeking Gin. I languished
in that jail cell for three months before a new judge was appointed and
came to town. In the meantime, the town preacher had taken it in his
head to save my soul. I'll be the first to admit that my soul needed
all the help it could get, but this man was strange in the ways of the
Lord.
The first time he came to visit me, he sat outside my cell to read to
me from the bible. He kept repeating over and over how I had given my
soul to Satan and how I needed the devil driven from me. He repeated
this ritual for ten days. Each time he called on me to repent, I would
cry "AMEN!." Then one day he called the sheriff to open the cell. He
declared that I was ready to begin being saved.
When he came into my cell, the preacher told me that if I were truly
penitent for my deeds I should stand before the glory of the Lord. I
was truly penitent, so I stood with my head bowed. Then the preacher
took the bible, a huge volume, screamed "SATAN!! I CALL ON YOU TO
SKEDADDLE," and hit me with it across my forehead. As I staggered with
the blow, he raised the book and hit me again. By now, I figured I'd
been saved enough. When he raised the book to hit me a third time, I
raked my nails across his face. He screeched and ran out of the cell
declaring that I was an unrepentant Jezebel who could die without
benefit of clergy for all he cared. That was the last I saw of the
preacher in the jail.
After I had spent two more months of preacherless monotony in jail, the
new judge finally arrived to start my trial. By now they had decided
that I wasn't all that dangerous, so they allowed me a pair of knitting
needles and some yarn and some thread and needles to keep my one dress
in repair. I was just finishing a row on a shawl when the sheriff told
me that the judge was setting up court in the saloon. I wasn't taken
out of my cell yet because they were busy picking a jury.
In fact, I wasn't taken out that day at all. A drunk, loudly
complaining that it wasn't fair that the saloon wasn't serving liquor
during the trial, was thrown into one of the other cells that night.
When the sheriff told him not to fret, the trial would begin and
probably end tomorrow, I took a deep breath to quiet the sudden
pounding of my heart.
The next morning, I was taken to face the judge. The sheriff and his
deputies walked me into the saloon. Only a faro table, a blackjack
table and a billiards table were in the middle of the room, the rest
were pushed to the walls. On one side of the room were 12 seated men
talking among themselves. The rest of the room was filled with people
sitting on a varied collection of chairs. Seating me behind the faro
table, the sheriff went to sit behind the blackjack table. Puffing out
his chest, one of the deputies announced, "All stand for his Honor
Judge Hosea Smith. Everybody stood up as a wizened older man walked
from the back room to stand behind the billiards table. When he sat,
the deputy announced that we could sit too. We did.
Squinting his eyes at us, the judge called out in a querulous voice,
"What business is brought before the law here this day?"
The sheriff rose and replied, "Anne Coldfield is charged with the
murders of Jacob Coldfield and Kathleen Noxton. She's already confessed
so I don't see that we have to sit here too long."
The judge turned his squint on me and said, "And how do you plead Mrs.
Coldfield? Guilty or not guilty? And who represents you?"
I stood up not sure quite what to say. I thought for a moment and
replied, "I guess I represent myself. I admit I kilt them, but I was
awfully riled."
"Hmmm, " replied the judge, "Kilt them when riled and representing
yourself. Sounds like you're a might crazy. I guess we'll enter a plea
of not guilty by reason of insanity."
"I AM NOT CRAZY!!!" I shouted. But the judge hit the billiards table
with a wooden hammer, an action that caused the bartender to wince, and
told me to sit down.
I don't know how most trials go, but this all seemed very strange to
me. The sheriff read my confession, the witnesses to the confession
said I wasn't coerced. They brought Turkey Pete out from the back room.
He told them about how I came into Horizon with the bodies on the
buckboard. The judge asked him a few questions and then turned to the
jury.
"I hear the sheriff has brought more people in for this, but I just
don't see the point." Turning to me he said, "Annie? You got anything
to say?"
I told him about Sam Noxton and the stares in town, and how I got the
story of it from Old Lady Pell. I told him how I came to poison Jacob
in a jealous rage and then how I shot Kathleen Noxton when she raised
the shotgun at me. It all seemed so long ago and unreal.
The judge questioned me for a long time. He seemed mostly interested in
what I had done when I went to Kathleen's house. Finally, he told me to
sit down and addressed the jury.
"You have heard the testimony of the people closest involved. Normally
I would expect that a lawyer would talk for the lady, but at least this
way we heard the truth. I want you to consider that in the case of
Kathleen Noxton, the deceased reached for a shotgun before the
defendant raised her weapon. So you have to decide whether it was
murder or self defense. As to her husband that she poisoned, you have
to decide if she was completely out of her mind or not. Go talk among
yourselves and figure it out."
The 12 men retired to the back room to consider. They weren't long
about it. About a half hour after they left, they came back. The judge
asked them one by one what they thought about the shooting of Kathleen
Noxton. In turn, each replied "Not guilty - self defense." Then he
repeated the process for what I had done to Jacob. Their answers were
more varied, some hemming and hawing, some looking sheepishly at me,
and one saying "Just look at her sitting there. She don't look crazy
and she ain't." But they all said the crucial word - "Guilty."
When the last juror had sat back down, the judge turned to me and said,
"The prisoner will rise." I stood. "Anne Coldfield. In the matter of
Kathleen Noxton, you are found not guilty. In the matter of Jacob
Coldfield you are guilty as charged. So you only have one murder on
your head. The jury has spoken, and I have no choice in the matter.
Anne Coldfield, you will be returned to the cell from which you were
taken. At the end of two weeks, you are sentenced to be taken from your
cell to a place of public execution. There you will be hanged by your
neck until you are dead. May the Lord have mercy on your soul."
When the jury had found me not guilty of Kathleen's murder, I had been
surprised and found hope. Now my hopes were dashed. As I had known from
the beginning, I would hang for my crimes. I should have been prepared,
but my stomach did a flip flop, my heart started pounding, my head
started feeling light, and I fainted.
As I came to on the cot in my cell, I could hear voices coming from the
sheriff's office. The mayor's voice said, "You can't just take her out,
put her on a horse, and hang her from a tree. The merchants are
counting on this. We can have the word out tomorrow. That gives us two
weeks to set something up for people who'll come from miles around."
The banker's voice chimed in, "Yes. There'll be people staying in the
hotel, buying food and drinks. The town could use the business. Even
Old Rufe's daughter who owns the funeral home said she could nail
together bunches of sticks and put twine nooses on them to make
souvenir gallows with dolls hanging on them to sell. This town needs
the money."
"All right, all right," came the sheriff's voice. "But I insist we do
it right. I ain't strangling no woman in front of a crowd just to save
a few dollars. You telegraph Jules Pratt over to the prison in Yarba
City. He's done a might of hangings so he can do it right."
Hang me? Making souvenir gallows? Money for the town? Hang me right? I
fainted again and didn't wake until the next morning.