title: The Branch and the Scaffold: The True Story of the West's Hanging Judge
author:  Loren D. Estleman 
description: Estleman (<i>Billy Gashade</i>) turns in a sharp, funny and exciting western centering on Isaac C. Parker (18381896), the notorious federal Hanging Judge for Arkansas and the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) from 1875 until his death. Aided by his malevolent and ruthlessly efficient executioner, George Maledon, and a small army of deputy marshals, Estleman's Parker crusades to rid his jurisdiction of murderers, rapists, thieves and other unfragrant owlhoots. Without using fictional characters, Estleman loads his entertaining yarn with colorful anecdotes of notorious criminals like Belle Starr, Ned Christie, Rufus Buck and Bill Doolin, as well as tenacious and famous lawmen like the legendary Three GuardsmenHeck Thomas, Chris Madsen and Bill Tilghman. Parker's liberal application of the gallows took a terrible toll on his health and family life, and earned him many enemies: while outlaws feared and respected him, lawyers and politicians hated him. (I'd as soon hang a Republican as a Democrat, Parker once said.) There is no mystery or surprise; Estleman sticks to fictionalized history throughout. This is a vivid, fast-paced western adventure brilliantly presented by a masterful storyteller. <i>(Oct.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text:  
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  No longer at Ease  
  Chinua Achebe 
  
   
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   No Longer at Ease  
   
   
  First published in 1960  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
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  For Christie  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
   
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  We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,  
   
  But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,  
   
  With an alien people clutching their gods.  
   
  I should be glad of another death.  
   
  T. S. Eliot : 'The Journey of the Magi'.  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
   
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  CHAPTER ONE  
  For three or four weeks Obi Okonkwo had been steeling himself against this 
  moment. And when he walked into the dock that morning he thought he was fully 
  prepared. He wore a smart palm-beach suit and appeared unruffled and 
  indifferent. The proceeding seemed to be of little interest to him. Except for one 
  brief moment at the very beginning when one of the counsel had got into trouble 
  with the judge. 
  'This court begins at nine o'clock. Why are you late?' 
  Whenever Mr Justice William Galloway, Judge of the High Court 