Law West Of The Pecos River In The Late 1800's

A young farmer and his wife, Justice and Chastity Martyr, lived with their 6 year old son, Tex, in the hardscrabble, dry land country of West Texas. They eked out a living from the stony ground there and even had a wild, Chickasaw plum tree thicket on their property. They were barely getting by but were very frugal and happy working 14 hour days. They even went, in their wagon, to the little "once a month" church, ten miles away on first Sundays.

A well known rogue thief, marauder and suspected murderer, Hassle Ruckus, who just got out of Huntsville prison, moved in to a vacant shack on a small spring fed creek about a mile away. There he was making moonshine with corn he had stolen, by the light of the moon, from farmers living on more fertile soil a few miles away.

Hassle had come to "borrow" various tools from the Martyrs several times, but couldn't hide his brooding, intimidating disposition. He never returned the tools and Justice had to go after them to do his own work. Each time Hassle would ask Justice how a no account dirt farmer ever managed to hook on to such a beautiful and desirable little wife. Then he would bust out in raucous laughter. Chastity was scared to death of him and and Justice assured her he would protect her, but he knew he couldn't stay around the house all the time, never knowing when Hassle might appear. Justice worried secretly about what this brutish, slovenly lout might do. Chastity, having been taught to love your enemies and not judge others, but to forgive them, decided to have Justice take this worrisome neighbor one of her prized quart jars of plum jelly. Maybe that would neutralize and soften Hassle's mean spirit. Justice didn't like the idea but finally agreed and took the jelly over to the man he most disliked of all the men he knew. It made Justice feel like a mouse, it made Chastity feel like a rabbit, and it made Hassle feel like a wolf, and he showed it, and sneered when he told it.

Two weeks had passed when Hassle showed up at the Martyr's door with the empty jar and brazenly wanted to trade it in on another jar of  "Cuddly Chastity's sweet jelly". Justice stepped toward Hassle and growled that they didn't have another jar for him and for him to get off his property and stay off.
To this, Hassle began to curse and swear that he would go anywhere he liked and do what he pleased and no stuck up, high hat, farmer could tell him what to do. With that, he slammed Chastity's jar on the floor shattering it into a thousand pieces. He roared out at Justice that he would soon die of lead poisoning and Chastity would be making jelly and buttered biscuits for him.

A sleepless week passed for Justice and Chastity. There was no official law, back then, in that part of Texas and Hassle Ruckus could not be arrested for empty threats anyway. There is no law against threats, filth, and scumbaggery.

Another week passed and Justice awoke one morning and went out to do his chores, when he saw smoke arising from the direction of Hassle's shack. When Justice got there, four other farmers stood looking at the smoldering shell of Hassle's shack with the door still on its leather strap hinges, and three cedar fence posts braced against the door ... on the outside. They all agreed that Hassle Ruckus must have been careless in fixing his morning coffee ... and they reported that to the Texas Rangers in Waco. Self appointed Judge Roy Bean, in Langtry on the Pecos, two hundred miles away, verified that that is exactly what had happened. Nobody in Texas challenged it.

Another week passed before Chastity asked Justice what happened to those three cedar posts he had cut to finish the fence around her garden.

A story of virtual reality before fake news became fact and common sense ruled... by Rayburn Blair