Prayers the Devil Answers (26 page)

The fellow shrugged. “After the general?”

So that name made the chicken hawk think of the Union general rather than the wanderer in Greek mythology. That squared with what he figured about the fellow's education—or lack of it. “Okay.” He couldn't be bothered to teach a cellmate any lessons in world literature. He wasn't all that bored. “Now how about yourself?”

“Name's Lonnie Var—” He stopped before he said it and grinned. “Just make it Lonnie.”

“Look around you, son. You're not running from something. You're already penned up, and if I don't know your name, I'll be just about the only person in these parts that doesn't.”

“Varden then. Lonnie Varden.”

“Okay. And you're in a world of trouble, aren't you?”

“I didn't say so.”

“I don't hear you denying it.”

Lonnie Varden sighed. “Well, these days who isn't in trouble from something? Between the bank foreclosers, the revenuers, and the tax collectors, I reckon the likes of Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd got nothing on the rest of us when it comes to trying not to get caught for one thing or another. But there's nothing I'd like more than a chance to go home. Well—nothing except not being locked up. I reckon I want my freedom more than I want to go home.”

Ulysses smiled. “Most people in here feel the same. Only most of them don't have homes to go back to anymore. Now a good while back, I believe you said you had two choices, and it doesn't sound like going back home is one of them. What do you reckon your other choice is?”

“Well, like I said, my first choice is to ride some old freight train, and the next one, and the one after that, all the way to south Texas, and then stroll across the border into Me-hee-co.” He shrugged. “Either that, or else I got to learn how to talk to cops and judges without sounding stiff-necked and unrepentant.” He sighed. “Hellfire, General Ulysses, no matter how sorry I really am, acting
stiff-necked and unrepentant
just comes naturally to people from my neck of the woods, but that attitude won't win me any favors with the potentates of this world, will it?”

“Sure won't.” That observation was certainly true; a man in charge usually set store by servility, which meant that unless you ate crow, you weren't likely to get anything else. Still, since life usually came up snake eyes, he'd bet that in the end Lonnie Varden would not be able to do either of those things. If he managed to escape he'd get caught and jailed again, and if he tried to talk his way out of trouble, he'd look weak as well as guilty. The old man didn't point that out, though. People seldom thank you for telling them the truth.

“Well, son, there is a precedent for the freight train option, anyhow, considering who your ancestors were.”

He stiffened, trying to work out the insult, but pretty sure that had been one. “How the devil would you know—”

“I don't know your pedigree, son. I was speaking of your mountain people in general.” If he talked about history, his cellmate might let down his guard about personal matters. “The way I heard it, after the War Between the States, your mountain ancestors—
that is, the ancestor of everybody in these parts—
were about evenly divided between one army and the other, which made for a lot of bitterness both during and after the fighting.”

“We have long memories.”

“You didn't have any big battles up in these mountains, did you? Not like Gettysburg.”

“Not that I ever heard of, no.”

“I thought not. Elsewhere the war meant anonymous armies shooting at one another, but who'd want to stage a big battle in these mountains?”

“Yeah, but there was still a war.”

“Indeed there was.”

“We don't talk much about that war.”

“I don't doubt it. Do you know why? Because around here the war was personal. When the enemy is your neighbors or your cousins, you know exactly who has burned down your house or stolen your cows.”

“They mostly got away with it, too. All the surrendering in the world can't erase the bitterness of that. I can't say I blame folks for feeling like that.”

“That was the general consensus, I believe. It didn't make it any easier to keep living around here, though. Appomattox didn't settle any personal scores. Many a man tried to escape the bitter aftermath by taking off for foreign parts, someplace where nobody knew them, and where kinship ties were not iron shackles.”

Varden shook his head. “
Kinship
 . . .
Iron shackles
 . . . You sure do talk like a teacher, mister.”

Ulysses smiled. “Or someone with too much schooling, perhaps. Sometimes for me another life seeps into this one.”

“What are you doing locked up in here?”

“I was attempting to redistribute the wealth on a small farm not far from here, and in my attempt to evade the farmer who interrupted me in his barn, I pushed him aside as I ran, and he injured himself—not my intention, just an unfortunate mishap.”

“What happened to him?”

“He fell backward onto his pitchfork. I didn't do it, but the authorities have seen fit to blame me anyway.”

The young man whistled and shook his head. “That sounds bad. I'll bet you wish you had stayed in your former life, whatever it was.”

“You're hunting another life, too, aren't you? Seventy years later, you are trying to get away from it all, just like those men who slipped away after the war. People used to say
‘Gone to Texas,'
whether they had or not. It just meant starting a new life without having to die.”

“That would suit me just fine.”

“I suppose they all felt like that, but I wonder how many of them managed to achieve it. A fellow might just possibly get down out of the mountains, change his name, go someplace else, and hope that trouble wouldn't follow him. But that would be unlikely.”

“Why? What's wrong with it?”

“Well, what if the fugitive had no money, damn little education, and no particular skills that would serve him anywhere else?”

Lonnie Varden shrugged. “Then I reckon you're right. Going away would be mighty hard, but for me the other alternative—­explaining yourself to your so-called betters, and sounding humble and sorry—now that would be flat-out impossible.”

“Why? It's just words. Words don't cost you anything.”

“Well, it would stick in my craw to say it because I don't believe
the bosses in this world are any better than me. I did what I did, all right, but it was just two weaknesses coming together and making a tragedy. I didn't mean for any of it to happen. It's not that I'd be lying if I said I was sorry, General, but I'd have trouble begging for mercy and showing how much I regret what I did. Other fellas who felt like I do—maybe they could bare their feelings in front of a bunch of holier-than-thou authorities, but I couldn't.”

“Maybe you'd better start practicing then, because your attitude in court could mean the difference between getting out someday or not.”

“Getting out?” Varden's laugh ended in a sob. “I killed my wife. I murdered her without provocation in front of two witnesses, and I never even bothered to deny it. It doesn't matter what I say in court. I'm a dead man.”

Probably true, but it wouldn't do to agree with the fellow. Living with a distraught cellmate was harder time than anybody deserved. The old tramp shrugged. “Maybe you could tell the court she had it coming.”

“Tell lies about my Celia and sully her name?” The prisoner shook his head. “I've already killed her once, General.”

chapter fourteen

B
runo Hauptmann had kept his appointment with the electric chair in New Jersey on April 3, and, along with the rest of the country, we had promptly forgotten all about him. A few months after that I came into the office a little later than usual. late. The yellow daylilies in the yard were blooming and we had stopped to pick some that morning. Eddie took some to school for his teacher, with the lilies' stems wrapped in wet newspaper, and I brought a few to work for my desk.

Roy said good morning when I came in, taking no more notice of the flowers than I'd expected him to. He wasn't much for small talk either. He held up an open envelope from the stack of morning mail. “Got a letter here that says they're sending Lonnie Varden back to us by the end of the week.”

I just nodded and began putting some water in the Mason jar I used for a vase. “Guess the trial is over then.”

“If you ask me, they should have called us instead of writing a letter. We're lucky that we got word before the newspaper reporters showed up.”

I took the office scissors out of the drawer and started to cut the stems of the lilies so they'd be short enough to fit in the jar without
making it topple over. “About Lonnie Varden?” I was barely listening to him, because I had just noticed a little black spider crawling along one of the lily stems, and it was taking all my concentration to keep from screaming. I was the sheriff, though, and I was at work, so it wouldn't do for me to start squealing like a day-old shoat at the sight of a tiny bug. I held my breath, pinched it between my fingers, and flicked it into the wastebasket. Roy was still talking.

“Why would reporters show up here if the trial's over? Everybody knew he was guilty before he even went to court.”

“That's right.”

“Well, I expect that saved the prosecutor some time at trial. I suppose they wrote it up in the Knoxville paper, but I never saw it, did you?”

“No. Knew he did it. Knew the court would find him guilty. Everything else they wrote would just be . . .” He tapped my flower. “Gilding the lily.”

I smiled. “I should have kept up, since he's from this county.” I should have, but the past few months had left me feeling like a bed sheet in a windstorm. Between cooking and washing and taking care of my sons, and doing my job, so that nobody could say I was taking charity, I barely had a thought to spare for cases we had already disposed of.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof
. “But you said they're sending him back here?”

Roy tapped the letter. “So they say. He's been in Knoxville for trial, but I reckon they're done with him now.”

“Why isn't he going to the penitentiary then?” I should have had a mug of coffee before we started talking. I was barely listening to what Roy was saying, just making the right noises whenever he paused, because I was concentrating too much on my flower arranging and not enough on the realities of state law.

Roy stiffened and made a kind of noise, so I looked up at him to see what was wrong. He blinked uncertainly. “Well, he's not going
to the penitentiary because they found him guilty, ma'am. Of first degree murder.”

“Well, of course they did. They had everything but a movie of him doing it. What of it?” There was one lily that wasn't quite straight in the arrangement: its stem was too long, I decided, and I turned my attention back to that.

Roy watched me fiddle with the flower for a few moments before he said, “Well, you see, a first degree murder conviction means they intend to hang him.”

I looked up then, holding the scissors in one hand and the last lily in the other. “But you said he's coming back . . . They're going to hang him?
Here
?
”

Roy reddened and looked down at the letter, and I could tell that he bitterly regretted having started the conversation in the first place, but it couldn't be helped. I'd have to know sooner rather than later, and it was his duty to tell me. “Well . . . I figured—
I hoped
—you already knew. I guess somebody will be along to talk to you about it. I'm sure they will.”

“About the hanging? Does the state handle it or what?”

Roy sighed. “No. We do. Well, I guess you could say that we represent the state, but what I mean is that executions are the responsibility of the county in which the offense occurred. So the local sheriff's department carries out the sentence. That is, you do. State law says the hanging is performed by the sheriff of the county in which the offense was committed.”

“So I have to decide which one of you performs the execution . . . maybe Tyree?”

“I don't think you can. Not unless they approve a special exemption.” Roy kept looking past me at the door, as if he were hoping that somebody would arrive and save him from this conversation. He groped for words to soften the blow. “And they might grant an exemption, of course. They might. All things considered.”

“You mean because the sheriff is female?”

“Well, yes. It's a special circumstance. Nobody would argue with that. But if for some reason they don't grant an exception . . . the fact is that you would have to perform the hanging. Yourself. Personally.”

“Me? But doesn't it take strength?” I must have had a dozen other objections, but that was the first one that came out.

“To unbolt a trapdoor? Not much. They'll start building the scaffold in a couple of days. Well, somebody will. We may have to get the plans from somewhere and hire local carpenters. Lord knows they could use the work. It will have a trapdoor, so they'll have to work out how to manage that. If that thing got stuck during the execution we'd all look like fools. Anyhow, when the gallows platform gets assembled, you can go and have a look at it, see how it works.”

I tried to picture myself practicing to perform an execution, but the idea made me shiver. Then I remembered something else. “The hanging is supposed to be public, isn't it?” Roy had said we'd all look like fools. That's what he meant: besides a whole crowd of ghouls to watch the grisly spectacle, there'd also be radio and newspaper reporters there to witness the execution on behalf of their audience who couldn't attend in person. It wasn't that any of them cared about seeing justice done for that poor dead woman. Everybody just wanted a chance to see a free spectacle they could brag about in later years. Watching a man die—how many chances did an ordinary person have to do that? Some people liked to watch animals being torn to pieces—coon hunts, cockfights—and for people like that this hanging might provide the same sort of grim thrill, only more intense. I wondered if there was any way to deprive them of their blood feast and to spare myself the ordeal of having to perform the act in public. “So the hanging will be done outdoors somewhere, and anybody that wants to can come and watch?”

“Apparently so. State law says it has to be public.” He blushed a little.

“There'll be fools wanting to bring their kids to see a hanging. There'll be drunks making a party of it. Can't we stop that?”

“Not as far as I can tell, but I could check. We have a book on the state's law-enforcement regulations in the top file drawer, and I read up on executions awhile back. Didn't see any point in bringing it up until now, though. I was hoping you already knew.”

“No. I didn't know. Nobody bothered to tell me. When is it supposed to happen?”

He held up the letter. “According to this, there has to be time to build the scaffold and make the arrangements for an attending physician, figure out who will claim the body, all that. The letter covers a lot of the details. The execution date is in three weeks, it says. They'll be sending him back here by the end of this week, though. He'll stay here in jail until the hanging. But we have a couple of weeks to get ready.”

“What do you mean, ‘get ready'?”

“Well, I told you. Getting the scaffold built is the main thing. We ought to see if we can find somebody who has officiated at an execution before, because there may be things we wouldn't think of on our own, like stretching the rope. We ought to study up on the procedure as much as we can.”

I nodded. “I suppose we will need a preacher in case the condemned man wants one. I hope he does. I'd like him to be at peace with the Lord before he dies.”

“I'd be more at ease knowing we had a doctor there. We will have one, of course, because there has to be a doctor on hand to pronounce the prisoner officially dead, but I hope he can see his way clear to giving the poor devil a sedative before we take him to the gallows. Not on his account, mind you. I don't care if the prisoner suffers or not, after what he did. I just don't want him to go to his death fighting and screaming and making things worse for you than they already will be.”

I wondered what I would do in his place. Could I go to my certain death calmly and with dignity, the way people did in storybooks? I suspected that if I did, it would only be in order not to give the spectators the satisfaction of seeing my terror and grief. Death ought to be a private thing, and if it isn't, at least you ought to try to keep your feelings about it to yourself. I think I'd mind the staring strangers worse than I would the rope. “Maybe you ought to make a list, Roy. The main thing, though, is building the gallows. There isn't one around somewhere already, is there?”

“No. Seems wasteful, doesn't it, to keep rebuilding the same structure instead of just building a sturdy one and keeping it maintained? You'd think there'd be a permanent one in every county, but there aren't too awful many hangings, so they just put one up when they need it and tear it down afterward. I guess that's one benefit of this execution—the local carpenters could do with the work.”

“I wonder how long it takes to build a gallows?”

“I don't suppose you're the right person to speak to, really.” The plain young woman twisted her hands in her lap, shredding a paper handkerchief and looking anywhere but at me. She had on a straw hat, a purple-flowered church dress, and thick cotton stockings, which was probably her going-to-town outfit. It was clear that she was embarrassed about having come—probably never been in a sheriff's department before in her whole blameless life, and I was sure she wouldn't be here now if there hadn't been a woman in charge. I wondered what she wanted.

When I arrived that morning a few minutes before eight I had found her pacing back and forth on the office porch with an expression of such distress that I nearly grinned, picturing her trying to confess to blowing up the
Lusitania
. I couldn't imagine her mixed up in anything more serious than killing a neighbor's chicken by mistake.
But I didn't ask her any questions to begin with. Instead, I ushered her in and offered to make her coffee while she made up her mind to tell me what was troubling her.

“I'm afraid I don't drink coffee, ma'am,” she said. “I don't suppose you have any tea?”

I shook my head. “Nobody here drinks it. Do you mind if I make some coffee for myself?”

“Please do.” She pulled up a chair next to the reception desk, took off her hat, and settled herself while she waited for me to fix the coffee. She studied the yellowing wanted posters on the board beside the desk until I sat down, ready to listen.

“I heard tell the county had a woman sheriff now,” she said, peering at me curiously.

“That's so, ma'am. My husband died and I took his place. Is there something we can help you with?”

She sighed and pulled another paper handkerchief out of her pocketbook. She didn't blow her nose with it, though. She just started picking it to pieces while she talked, staring at it instead of at me. “It's about this execution that's going to take place. I just felt like I had to tell somebody. My sister calls it a jest of fate, and I know what she means, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to believe it. Do you believe in fate?”

“I guess I believe that when things happen to people, most times they bring it on themselves. Maybe you'd better tell me what you're getting at. And you might start by telling me your name.”

She blushed. “I'm Eunice Greer. I've come about that man who flung his wife off The Hawk's Wing. Honestly, I think my sister is gloating because Celia broke the rules and didn't deserve a husband, but she got one anyway. We are the only spinsters left, my sister and I, but I think it's quite tragic that Celia died because of a silly old game, and people ought to know about it. In case that makes a difference, you know.”

She wasn't making any sense. I suppose she was so nervous that she'd been working out her story in her head, and by the time she got to tell it to me she was already in the middle of it, so she just kept on going. I tried again. “Are you saying that your sister thinks the hanging is a game?”

“No, no. Not the hanging. That's a tragedy. Even she admits that. It's what may have caused it that is such a terrible thing. Ever since he killed her, I've worried about whether or not I ought to say anything. I expect most people will think my story is pure foolishness, but I hoped that you'd understand—being a woman and all—because women know there isn't always a straight line between one thing that happens and the next.”