Red Grass River (7 page)

“Not as long as he gives me his word he wont try and escape,” Sheriff George said.

“You got it, sir,” John Ashley said.

Sheriff George nodded and said, “Well then, let’s get inside.”

John Ashley looked at his father and Old Joe said, “Go on now. You’ll be out quick enough and we’ll be done with this horseshit.” John Ashley nodded and then followed the sheriff up the walk to the jail. Sheriff George rapped on the heavy front door with its iron knocker and there came the sound of metal sliding on metal and a loud clack and the door swung open.

The entered into an administration room containing a few scattered desks and filing cabinets. There were two uniformed policemen in the room. One was a clerk working at a typewriter, and the other, sitting in a swivel chair with his booted feet crossed on the desk, was Bobby Baker. He was smoking a cigar and grinning at John Ashley.

“That’s Norman,” Sheriff George said, indicating the clerk. “Hang your suit on that wallhook yonder and empty your pockets on Norman’s desk. We’ll give you the suit in the morning for court.” He saw John Ashley staring at Bob Baker and said, “Bobby’s jailer now.”

“Hello, John,” Bob Baker said. “How you keepin?”

“Just fine, Bobby. How about youself?”

“Well hell, never better,” Bob Baker said.

He saw that Bob Baker’s brown boots were new and low-cut in the style that civil engineers favored and each was embossed with a white star on the instep. A portion of wooden ankle was visible under the real ankle crossed over it. He seemed to have grown larger since John Ashley had last seen him—not fatter but thicker through the chest and arms. His face looked harder, his eyes. His hair was thick as ever. He held the cigar in his right hand and the knuckles were freshly skinned. He laughed at John Ashley’s scrutiny of him. “By the way, John,” he said through a blue billow of smoke, “you owe me a gun.”

“Any man loses his gun to another aint never owed it back,” John Ashley said.

Bob Baker’s smile held but his face assumed a rosy tint. Norman the clerk looked over and saw their eyes and quickly looked away.
Sheriff George glanced at them with his brows raised. “Do like I said, John.”

John Ashley hung up his suit and then emptied his pockets on the desktop—some coins, seven dollars in bills, a sack of tobacco and cigarette papers, a box of matches, and a pocket knife. Norman pushed the tobacco and papers and matches back to John Ashley and carefully counted the money and entered the total amount on a property slip and made notation too of the pocket knife. Then he took a large brown envelope from a desk drawer and wrote John Ashley’s name on it in tall letters with a fountain pen and put the money and the knife in it and sealed it and put it back in the drawer.

Sheriff George headed for a door on the other side of the room and said, “Come along here, Johnny.” John Ashley followed and Bob Baker got up from the desk and came behind.

The door opened to the jail’s cell block in the center of which was a single steel-barred cell that looked exactly like a cage about the size and shape of a railroad car. It was illuminated from above by three dangling electric light bulbs and contained a row of double-tiered bunk beds and a two-hole board over low rough-hewn cabinets in which the shitcans were set. In addition there were a half-dozen smaller cells built into the rear stone wall, the door to each one open wide and showing them to be empty. The room smelled of waste and disinfectant and was ventilated only by whatever fitful breezes might come through the small barred windows set high in the walls. At the moment only two other prisoners were in the main cell. The sheriff unlocked the door and John Ashley entered the cage and the sheriff locked the door behind him.

“Breakfast six o’clock, Johnny,” she sheriff said as he started for the door. He paused and looked back at Bob Baker, who was lingering near the cage.

“I’ll be along, Daddy,” Bob Baker said.

“Dont devil the boy, son,” Sheriff George said, and then went out in the front room.

John Ashley stood near the bars with his hands in his pockets and watched Bobby Baker roll a cigarette and light it. One of the other prisoners was standing against the far wall of bars, smoking and gazing at his hand closed around a bar and paying them no attention. The other inmate lay in an upper bunk with an arm over his eyes.

Now Bobby leaned on one elbow against the cell bars and smiled at John Ashley. “Tell me somethin, Johnny: you ever see a man hung?” he asked.

“Yeah I have,” John Ashley said. “Just after, anyway.”

“A nigger, right?”

“Hard to say. By the time I saw him he’d been burned up so bad he didnt look like much of anything but a big chunk of charcoal.”

“That’s a nigger lynchin sure,” Bob Baker said. “I mean you ever seen a white man hung?”

“Guess not.”

Bob Baker smiled and took a drag on his cigarette. “I have,” he said. “Up in Saint Lucie County Jail, about a year ago. They hung a old boy for murder. Killed his partner in a moonshine business—cut his head off with a cane knife—and they gave him the rope. They built a gallows back of the jailhouse and before dawn they stood the fella up there and asked him did he have any last words and he just shook hid head. I’d been told he was a rough old boy but up on that gallows he didnt seem all that tough. Looked too scared to open his mouth—like he might of started cryin if he did. They put hood over his head and you could see the cloth suckin in and out against his mouth he was breathin so hard. His neck was sposed to break when they dropped him through the door but it didnt. They say thats what happens more than half the time, the neck dont break like it ought, and what happens then is the fella chokes to death. You shoulda seen the way he was jerkin and kickin ever which way, just like a damn fish on a hook. Makin sounds all wet and choky like water going down a mostly clogged drain. I bet he was gaggin and kicking for five minutes before he finally give up the ghost. And the
smell
! Lord Jesus! He couldnt help but shit his pants—I’m told they all do. But that aint the half of it, listen to this: the sumbuck got a
hard on
! I aint lyin. He got this boner in his pants you could see from all the way cross the room. They say some of em even shoot off and you can see the stain on their pants. Aint that a hoot? I mean to tell you, Johnny, hanging is just about the most godawful humiliatin way in the world for a man to die.”

Bob Baker leaned closer against the bars and said softly: “When they find you guilty, John, that’s what’s gonna happen to
you
.” He smiled genially, his aspect all bonhomie, then took a deep pull on his cigarette and dropped the butt on the floor and ground it under his heel. “Thought you might wanna have somethin to think about between now and then,” he said through an exhalation of smoke.

“Well dont get too way ahead of youself, Bobby,” John Ashley said, forcing a grin. “I aint hung yet. But I tell you what—even if they
did hang me, leastways I’d still be able to stand up there on my own two legs, which is more than I can say for some.”

Bob Baker’s smile twitched and he blinked quickly several times. He stepped back from the bars—and then suddenly laughed like he’d been told a good joke. He put a fist to the side of his neck and then jerked the first straight up as though yanking on a noose and he crooked his head and struck out his tongue and crossed his eyes. He was still laughing as he went out the door.

The morning dawned hot and humid. To either side of the rising sun low heavy clouds looked streaked with fire. The courtroom filled early and the small room was murmurous with excitement as spectators fanned themselves against the heat. A weakling breeze sagged through the courtroom’s tall windows. A growing line of prospective jurors was already crowding the hallways and many of the veniremen were forced to wait outside in the shade of trees. Now the bailiff announced that court was in session, the Honorable H. P. Branning presiding.

Gordon Blue had informed the Ashleys that Circuit Court Judge Branning had a reputation for no-nonsense legal proceeding, a factor in their own favor. “Gramling’s going to challenge so many of the jury candidates,” Blue had told Joe Ashley, referring to John Gramling, the state prosecutor, “that he’ll use up all his peremptories by tomorrow. In the meantime Branning will get his fill of him for slowing things down so much. By the time the jury’s seated we’ll have them
and
the judge on our side.”

And so did the first day of the trial go. Of the twenty juror candidates questioned, Gramling challenged seventeen and did not seem happy with the other three. Gordon Blue challenged none. Near the end of the day Judge Branning called both lawyers to the bench and asked the state’s attorney whether he intended to continue to weight down the proceedings with still more challenges tomorrow. “The peremptory is not an infinite privilege, Mr. Gramling,” the judge said. Gramling said he was fully aware of that—and aware as well that every potential juror so far, with a single exception, was a friend of the Ashleys, and the one exception was so clearly intimidated by the family he couldnt even look the defendant in the eye and could hardly be relied on to be impartial. The judge looked at Gordon Blue who shrugged in the manner of one baffled utterly by the state’s argument. After warning Gramling not to test his patience the judge adjourned court for the day.

As Bob Baker led John Ashley by an arm toward a side exit, John
Ashley looked over at his family seated behind the defense table. His father nodded to him and his mother and sisters blew kisses and the twin brothers Frank and Ed each showed him a fist of encouragement. Bill was scribbling in a notebook—having been recruited as a secretarial assistant by Gordon Blue. Bob Ashley shouted, “We gone beat em, Johnny!”

Then he was outside and in Bob Baker’s Model T and they were clattering down the road on the short drive back to jail. As when they’d come to court in the car that morning—he in his fresh white suit and Bob Baker in a starched uniform and wearing his holstered and strapped-down pistol on the side away from John Ashley—they made the ride in silence.

The following day was mostly a repetition of the first—one venire-man after another was eliminated from the jury pool by Gramling’s peremptories. Judge Branning’s irritation grew. When he recessed for lunch he brought the gavel down like he was trying to break it. The early afternoon saw still more candidates dismissed by Gramling’s challenges. The judge drummed his fingers.

The sky framed in the windows began to darken with gathering clouds. The wind kicked up and carried on it the smell of the coming storm and brought to the courtroom some relief from the stifling heat. Thunder rolled in the distance. The first scattered raindrops were smacking the roof and the raised shutters when Gramling at last used up the last of his peremptory challenges. The judge heaved a theatrical sigh and said perhaps they could now proceed at quicker pace.

But Gramling then filed a motion for change of venue, citing the pertinent statutes permitting the action. He wanted the trial moved to Dade County, where, he argued, there was much better chance for the state to seat an impartial jury.

Judge Branning rubbed his face with his hands and said he’d take the motion under advisement and rule on it first thing in the morning. Gordon Blue muttered. “Damn!” and the look on his face made John Ashley’s chest go tight. The judge motioned the bailiff to the bench for a private word with him. John Ashley wondered if Blue had considered that the judge might get
so
fed up with Gramling he’d let the trial go elsewhere.

His father was whispering to Bill in obvious agitation as his other three sons leaned in to listen. Blue patted John Ashley’s shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, they cant do this.” He began gathering his papers.
“I’m going to talk with your daddy. I’ll see you in the lockup later.” The judge banged his gavel and adjourned for the day.

In the clamor of voices that rose behind the judge’s exit from the room, John Ashley was suddenly certain the trial was going to go to Dade County—to Miami—to a jury of complete strangers. His mother scowled at John Gramling who took no notice as he gathered his papers. Old Joe was listening to Bill. Bob waved to catch John Ashley’s attention and pointed at Bob Baker who was talking to the bailiff. John Ashley did not understand what Bob was signifying but Bob and Frank and Ed were already hastening from the courtroom.

Bob Baker came over and took him by the arm and said, “Let’s go.”

The rain was coming down hard now and they were sodden by the time they reached the open-sided Ford. John got in and Bob Baker cranked the motor and then got in and adjusted the spark lever and they started back to the jail. The air shook with thunder and the sky was rent bright with lightning. The trees whipped in the wind. They drove along in the jouncing car with mud slapping up under the floor-boards. John Ashley stared glumly at the gray world passing and felt that all matters of import to him had already been decided and none of them in his favor.

With the storm had come an early twilight. Sheets of water swept across the narrow road and soaked them all the more in the open car. The jailhouse came into view, the light above the door already on and glowing hazy yellow in the gloom. John Ashley cut his eyes everywhere but saw no sign of deliverance.

Bob Baker parked the car alongside the fence gate and cut off the motor which chugged for several more revolutions before shutting down. Wisps of steam issued from under the hood covers. John Ashley slid out of the car and scanned the area as Bobby worked a key into the gate lock.

“Come on!” Bob Baker hollered through a crash and roll of thunder, beckoning irritably as he swung open the gate. John Ashley entered the compound and Bobby re-locked the gate and they slogged through the mud up to the jailhouse which loomed now in John Ashley’s eyes like an enormous crypt.

As Bob Baker reached for the iron knocker to summon Norman to unlock the door John Ashley acted on his impulse of the moment and grabbed him from behind in a headlock and wrestled him away from the entry.