In their cottage, Henry, his mother, and Miriama bowed their heads in prayer for the condemned men.
Henry relived it in his mind: the jail, the swinging corpses, the black flag. Once he had imagined it would be romantic to be a dime novelist like Johnny Slick. Not anymore. He would never want to write about this.
He knew he would continue to have nightmares about the gang. Especially Sullivan. Nightmares about the way Burgess had murdered so many men, but also the manner in which Burgess met his own death.
Worse still, Henry had been told what would now happen to the bodies of the three hanged men. They would be handed over to the local phrenologists – men like Chadwick and Luxton, who were convinced the shape of a man’s skull could reveal the secrets of his character. Although most scientists scoffed at their beliefs, the phrenologists had enough followers to fill the meeting halls when they lectured.
And now they had access to the skulls of three infamous highwaymen to showcase their beliefs.
Burgess, Levy and Kelly – reduced to scientific oddities. The thought dismayed Henry.
He tried not to imagine the three macabre plaster cast heads sitting in a row. Eyes shut. Emotionless. Frozen forever at the moment of death.
He knew that forever more, these death masks would be on show at the town museum. They would thrill and horrify thousands of curious visitors, who would ponder, “What kind of men were these? What made them do what they did?”
