office and offers to die in the place of a criminal. Pretty bizarre if you ask me."
Dunagan chuckled softly at the idea, then straightened up quick again, remembering I was sitting across the table.
"The Sheriff thought so too, and he sent that boy packing, laughing at him all the way out. He figured the boy was crazy, or drunk, or just pulling some joke. Even if he had been sincere, there was absolutely no way on earth the sheriff or anyone else in town was going to let you get away with murder and hang some innocent kid. At least, that's what you would think, huh?
“Well, anyway, we didn't know anything about what had happened between Miller and the sheriff. Joshua came back to the saloon and sat there a while longer, without us being any the wiser.
"I went home that night, beat tired. The minute I hit the pillow, I was out cold. Until about three-thirty in the morning that is, when I jerked awake, as if from a nightmare. I sat bolt upright in bed, one solitary thought racing through my mind, over and over and over again. Actually, it was more like a conviction than a thought.
"Joshua shall go in place of Jacob. Joshua shall go in place of Jacob . Joshua shall go in place of Jacob.
“It was like a relentless mantra echoing in my head. The words literally boomed in my mind like a giant voice. It wasn't till I saw my wife asleep next to me that I realized I was the only one who could hear it. After a couple minutes, the mantra slowly quieted until I couldn't hear it anymore.
"I hadn't spoken with Joshua Miller much that evening, didn’t even know his first name yet, but his face was in my mind as clear as day. I'd never heard you called Jacob before either, but I knew who the message was talking about.
“I call it a message because that's what it was, a message. I knew deep in my core, without a doubt, that it was a message from God.
“I tell you, Talbot, I'm a God-fearing man. I know when He's spoken to me or not, and this was a case where there could be no doubt. I felt like He'd taken me and shaken my bones around until I had no choice but to obey.
“I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. After an hour or so, I got up, dressed and headed back into town only to find the rest of the town council waiting for me in the saloon. The sheriff was there too, wide awake and drinking a mug full o’ joe.
“Each of them had the same astonished look on their faces, the same look I imagined would have been on mine if I'd looked in a mirror.
“Sheriff McCraigh had a similar experience to mine, but his message was slightly different. He said the words that filled his thoughts were ‘The Innocent for the Guilty’. Even though his ‘message’ hadn't even mentioned the hanging, he'd understood what it'd meant just as clearly as I had.
“The others had even stronger visions. They, to a man, claimed that the Angel of the Lord had come to them in their sleep and commanded them to hang Joshua in your place. The shocked, frightened looks on their faces convinced me they were telling the truth.
“Now, we had no idea if it was legal or not, or if we even had the right to do it, but we knew we had no choice but to do what we'd been told to do. Only one man voted the other way. He said it had been some kind of mass hallucination and we were crazy to give in to it.
“The rest of us were under no such illusion. We knew it wasn't coincidence that had brought that boy to town and had caused him to request his own death before we ever went to sleep. Reservations filled our hearts and muddled our minds. My goodness, we were considering killing an innocent man. No rationalization we could think of changed that.
"We knew Tom's family would never understand. We knew many in the town might even hate us. Heck, we figured we might even catch some kind of legal problems later, but after all was said and done we couldn't argue our conclusion away.
"A deep conviction
Dunagan chuckled softly at the idea, then straightened up quick again, remembering I was sitting across the table.
"The Sheriff thought so too, and he sent that boy packing, laughing at him all the way out. He figured the boy was crazy, or drunk, or just pulling some joke. Even if he had been sincere, there was absolutely no way on earth the sheriff or anyone else in town was going to let you get away with murder and hang some innocent kid. At least, that's what you would think, huh?
“Well, anyway, we didn't know anything about what had happened between Miller and the sheriff. Joshua came back to the saloon and sat there a while longer, without us being any the wiser.
"I went home that night, beat tired. The minute I hit the pillow, I was out cold. Until about three-thirty in the morning that is, when I jerked awake, as if from a nightmare. I sat bolt upright in bed, one solitary thought racing through my mind, over and over and over again. Actually, it was more like a conviction than a thought.
"Joshua shall go in place of Jacob. Joshua shall go in place of Jacob . Joshua shall go in place of Jacob.
“It was like a relentless mantra echoing in my head. The words literally boomed in my mind like a giant voice. It wasn't till I saw my wife asleep next to me that I realized I was the only one who could hear it. After a couple minutes, the mantra slowly quieted until I couldn't hear it anymore.
"I hadn't spoken with Joshua Miller much that evening, didn’t even know his first name yet, but his face was in my mind as clear as day. I'd never heard you called Jacob before either, but I knew who the message was talking about.
“I call it a message because that's what it was, a message. I knew deep in my core, without a doubt, that it was a message from God.
“I tell you, Talbot, I'm a God-fearing man. I know when He's spoken to me or not, and this was a case where there could be no doubt. I felt like He'd taken me and shaken my bones around until I had no choice but to obey.
“I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. After an hour or so, I got up, dressed and headed back into town only to find the rest of the town council waiting for me in the saloon. The sheriff was there too, wide awake and drinking a mug full o’ joe.
“Each of them had the same astonished look on their faces, the same look I imagined would have been on mine if I'd looked in a mirror.
“Sheriff McCraigh had a similar experience to mine, but his message was slightly different. He said the words that filled his thoughts were ‘The Innocent for the Guilty’. Even though his ‘message’ hadn't even mentioned the hanging, he'd understood what it'd meant just as clearly as I had.
“The others had even stronger visions. They, to a man, claimed that the Angel of the Lord had come to them in their sleep and commanded them to hang Joshua in your place. The shocked, frightened looks on their faces convinced me they were telling the truth.
“Now, we had no idea if it was legal or not, or if we even had the right to do it, but we knew we had no choice but to do what we'd been told to do. Only one man voted the other way. He said it had been some kind of mass hallucination and we were crazy to give in to it.
“The rest of us were under no such illusion. We knew it wasn't coincidence that had brought that boy to town and had caused him to request his own death before we ever went to sleep. Reservations filled our hearts and muddled our minds. My goodness, we were considering killing an innocent man. No rationalization we could think of changed that.
"We knew Tom's family would never understand. We knew many in the town might even hate us. Heck, we figured we might even catch some kind of legal problems later, but after all was said and done we couldn't argue our conclusion away.
"A deep conviction
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