I look over the townies’ faces. Spot someone trying to pretend none of this is happening. His hands are in his pockets. I can see their outline as he moves them around.
I walk over.
“What’s in your pockets?”
“Nothing,” he croaks.
I grab him by the collar and rip off a pocket. A collection of doll heads, large and small, falls onto the ground. He begins to shake. There’s something else. A small pocketknife. I squat down, pretending to examine the doll heads as I slip the knife into my boot. Then I drag the guy back to the Magistrate.
“Him,” I say.
“I’ve already picked the volunteers,” he says.
“You told me to choose. I chose.”
The Magistrate looks at his watch, then at me.
Traven shouts, “What are you doing? Let them take me.”
The Magistrate turns to him.
“You never volunteered before, Father. Are you embarrassed now that you have a friend here? Does it make you afraid that God can see you, too?” He turns to the city council. In several languages he says, “Do you understand what is happening? Will one of you take his place?”
None of them makes a peep.
The Magistrate comes closer to me and says quietly, “Why him?”
“He kicked my dog.”
The Magistrate grins.
“Then by all means let us rectify this atrocity. Bring him,” he tells to the crew on the gallows truck. They climb down and drag the doll man over.
“What are you doing?” says Traven. “Why him over me?”
I show him a couple of doll heads I picked up.
He says, “You think he hurts children.”
“He did something to get damned.”
“But you don’t know. They could belong to his own children.”
“They don’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Completely.”
I get close enough to whisper to him. Daja pushes the knife into his throat hard enough to draw a bead of blood, and it takes a lot to ignore that.
I say, “You’re the one who told me that when things happen not to try and stop them.”
“Not like this,” he says.
I step back.
“Then you should have been more specific.”