One wore a black waistcoat and a silver deputy's badge pinned crookedly over his chest. He had a thick red mustache, pale eyes, and the swollen confidence of a man who had never faced consequences for anything he did while wearing that badge. His right hand rested near the revolver on his hip.
"Keep moving, stranger!" he shouted. "This doesn't concern you."
I looked at the women again.
The younger one turned her head toward me. It was a difficult movement in her position, but she managed it. Her eyes widened when she saw my horse. For an instant, she seemed to be searching my face for something. Mercy, perhaps. Or simply an indication that I wasn't another man who had come to watch her suffer.
The older woman didn't beg.
She studied me with an expression I would come to recognize over the following months: fear held beneath fierce determination.
I rode closer.
"What in God's name are you doing?"
The deputy stepped forward.
"I told you to keep moving."
I dismounted about thirty feet from the tree, keeping Chester beside me.
"My hearing's fine," I said. "My question stands."
A heavyset man with flour on his boots answered before the deputy could speak.
"Those are two Apache brides. Their husbands rejected them. Couldn't produce children. Neither one."
I stared at him.
"And?"
He looked confused.
"And their husbands don't want them."
I turned toward the women.
The younger one's breathing was ragged. The older woman was trying to keep her body still, but her arms trembled from the effort.
I looked back at the heavyset man.
"So you decided to hang them from a tree?"
The deputy stepped closer.
"They've been accused of fraud. Their families accepted marriage payments under false pretenses."
I let the silence stretch.
Then I asked, "Where's the judge?"
The deputy frowned.
"What?"
"The judge. The man who heard the evidence and handed down this punishment."
"This is a local matter."
"Where's the written order?"
He shifted.
"You don't understand how things work here."
"Then explain it."
The deputy's face reddened.
He pointed toward the women.
"Those two have caused enough trouble. Their husbands demanded restitution. The women refused to cooperate."
I looked toward the younger woman.
She was trembling so badly that the rope above her swayed.
"How long have they been hanging there?"
Nobody answered.
I repeated the question.
One of the men near the cart looked down.
"Maybe twenty minutes."
My stomach tightened.
Twenty minutes.
I had seen men suffer from being suspended in unnatural positions. I knew that the longer this continued, the greater the danger became. The women needed to be lowered immediately, not after some argument about a sheriff's authority.
I removed my hat.