The Price of Silence

Ms. Elwood is not one to put up with foolishness. Writer's Cramp Entry.

In the town of Deadwood, where secrets lie deep,
And the hills cradle shadows that never sleep,
Lived Mrs. Elwood, a widow aged and wise,
With sharp steel in her stare and fire in her eyes.

She ran a small inn on the edge of the glade,
Where cowboys and killers and miners all stayed.
But behind her sweet tea and her lavender scent,
She kept a dark ledger of where money went.

One day came a man in a velvet cravat,
With a smile like a snake and a belly grown fat.
A corrupt state senator, name of Clyde McRee,
Who'd sold half the state for a fee and a spree.

He offered her cash 7000 dollars in gold,
To keep her from speaking of things that she’d told.
For she’d seen too much through her curtain one night,
When the moon turned the trees into teeth in the light.

Two men by the stables, one dragged like a sack,
The other just whistled, then shot him in back.
Mrs. Elwood had watched, her eyes wide with dread,
As McRee wiped his hands on the coat of the dead.

But Elwood was not one to tremble or quake;
She’d buried three husbands and shot a few snakes.
She took the man's bribe with a sweet little grin,
Then handed him tea as he settled within.

But she’d called for the law with a whisper and code
To the pigs, she had said, "Let the ledger explode."
They came with a warrant, with fury and haste,
And dragged McRee out like a hog from the waste.

The headlines all screamed of the scandal and shame,
Of bribery, murder, and blood in his name.
And Mrs. Elwood, with poise in her grace,
Just swept off her porch with a calm on her face.

“Seven thousand’s a pittance,” she said with a nod,
“For a man who plays governor, banker, and God.
But justice, my dear, has a price of its own,
And it don’t take a bribe to tear down a throne.”

Now, Deadwood still whispers when twilight is near,
Of a widow who stared down the face of her fear.
And though she grows older, she’s still feared the most,
By the pigs, by the law, and by every damned ghost.


Line Count: 40
Written for: "The Writer's Cramp" 
Prompt: Use in your poem or story the following - bold for tomorrow's judge:

Mrs Elwood
7000 dollars
a corrupt state senator
to the pigs
Deadwood