They might decide wearing blue is illegal one day and whistling Dixie is a hangin’ offense the next. Being from Texas is alwaysa heinous crime in these horrors’ evil book of the law. Whatever the “charge,” they decide to bring, the judges’ sentences are always death. And death is the judges’ stock in trade. Hangin’ judges are solitary and relentless hunters. Once they’re on someone’s trail, they stay with him until he’s dead or morning comes. If their quarry is killed, they string him up along the Chisholm Trail and paint the victim’s offense on his forehead in blood. The judges never speak except to whisper their prey’s offense over and over.