The Choiring Of The Trees (42 page)

John Gould Fletcher

Beneath the fancy ink of that inscription there was written in pencil in Viridis’ hand: “He is the cousin of my ex-boss, and grew up in Little Rock, lives now in London, but has read all the newspaper stories about you, and thinks the world of you.” Beneath that in blacker pencil someone had block-printed:
WRITING STUFF IN BOOKS IS AGAINST RULES OF THIS PRISON.

Nail had been required by his teacher at the Stay More school to read poetry, but he hadn’t particularly cared for it or had time for it. Now that he had a lot of time, he read Mr. Fletcher’s verse cover to back, and then back to cover. There weren’t any rhymes in it, and Mr. Fletcher seemed to get overexcited at times, but he had a good way of putting things, and Nail understood what he was saying. There was one long poem, called “Green Symphony,” that was mostly about trees, and Nail appreciated such lines as:

The trees splash the sky with their fingers,

A restless green rout of stars.

and:

The trees lash the sky with their leaves,

Uneasily shaking their dark green manes.

A good poem, Nail reflected, ought to make you want to see it yourself, and he wanted to see those trees…or any trees. That time Dempsey had taken him to fix the wiring in the warden’s house, Nail had glimpsed the trees on the warden’s lawn, the first he had seen for eight months.

He wanted to watch some trees somewhere splashing the sky with their fingers and shaking their dark-green manes.

Since the painting of the death hole was all finished, they had Ernest build four more cells. They gave him the cement and the concrete blocks and the tools and finally brought him four ready-made barred doors, and all by himself Ernest built four more death cells, each of them only four feet wide by seven feet deep, and he painted those too, making a total of six cells for the death hole, and pretty soon three of the new cells were filled: there was Sam Bell, who had been convicted of killing four members of his divorced wife’s family; and, briefly, two black men who had been convicted of killing their bosses, but they hardly stayed long enough for Nail to learn their names before the governor commuted them to life imprisonment and sent them to Cummins in order to make room for Clarence Dewein and Joe Short, two young white men not much older than Ernest, who had killed a storekeeper together, or one of them had done the shooting while the other robbed the man. The population of the death hole was five. There would have been even more than that, according to the
Gazette,
except for all the publicity about Nail, which had made juries all over the state reluctant to send men to the electric chair, exercising instead their new option for sentences of life imprisonment.

Warden Yeager summoned Nail to his office, had Short Leg unlock the handcuffs, and offered Nail a cigarette, which he declined. “Gettin kind of crowded down there, aint it hee hee?” the warden observed or asked.

“Yessir,” Nail agreed. “I don’t think that hole was meant to hold that many.”

“But we don’t keep you down there. You doin a good job upstairs with Dempsey, I hear hee hee. A good job, he tells me. Learnin a lot.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Are you happy, Chism?” the warden asked. “Is there anything we could do for you?”

Nail thought. “Well, sir,” he said, “you know that empty piece of the Yard on the east side of the powerhouse? Could I put me a mater patch in it?”

“A mater patch?” the warden asked.

“Yeah, and grow…to-maters? It’s a shame to let a piece of land jist go to waste out there in the Yard, that the men don’t walk on or nothin.

“I could grow enough maters on that piece to feed the prison, come August and September, if you could git me the plants.”

“Well, why not?” the warden said. “I’ll get some niggers out there to spade it up for you. You need some fertilizer too. That’s a good idea. How many plants you need?”

“I reckon fifty or so ought to be all it could hold.”

“We’ll sure do it, then, Chism. Would that make you happy?”

“It would help.”

They gave Nail his tomato patch. It was really late in the year to be planting tomatoes, but the plants the warden got were kind of old and leggy anyhow, and Nail planted them deep. While Nail was cultivating them one afternoon, the warden came out there with three other fellows, all of them dressed in suits with straw hats. Nail was wearing a straw hat too, but it wasn’t fancy, and he took it off. One of the men was a black man, and he was dressed the best. The only one Nail recognized was that local sheriff who had arrested Ernest and had come with the governor to his last execution.

“Chism,” the warden said, “these here are some gentlemen would like to talk to you. This is Mr. George Donaghey, who used to be our governor, and this is the Reverend Dr. Alonzo Monk of the
AME
church, and I believe you’ve met Sheriff Bill Hutton. Now these men are gonna ask you some questions. Governor Hays has appointed them a commission to inspect and investigate the prison, and I want you to tell ’em just what you think, okay?”

The three men of the governor’s commission stood around in Nail’s tomato patch and asked him all kinds of questions about life in the prison. Warden Yeager stood there smiling, and his smile got bigger whenever Nail told how much things had changed lately, and how much better the food was, and all.

“Mr. Chism,” said Governor Donaghey, “you have been, and still are, under sentence of death. Don’t you think it’s remarkable that you’re allowed out here on the grounds to work in this garden?”

“Yessir, I reckon it is,” Nail replied.

“Do you know the Reverend Lee Tomme?”

“I’ve met ’im.”

“Do you think there is any substance to the charges he has made against this prison?”

“Well, sir, there was. Things was pretty bad around here before he spoke up. Of course, Warden Yeager was already doin his best to make ’em better, before the Reverend come along.”

Later that afternoon, after supper (everybody got chicken and dumplings), the warden provided a little entertainment for the visiting inspectors: he turned Ernest loose. Nail didn’t see it happen, but later Ernest told him about it. First thing, of course, they told Ernest that he would be pursued…and caught. They gave him a couple of extra pairs of pants (as protection, they said, but possibly also to impede his running) and opened the gate of The Walls and told him to take off, not toward the city but southward toward the swamp out behind the pen. They gave him a half-hour head start, and then, for the benefit of Governor Donaghey, the Reverend Monk, and Sheriff Hutton, they pursued him with the warden’s pack of bloodhounds: Driver, Slim, Gloom, Dopey, Fetch, Nosey, and Lady. They had suggested the location of some telephone poles that Ernest could climb to get out of reach of the dogs’ teeth, but he chose instead a sycamore tree beyond the swamp, a mile out, which was the farthest he could get before the hounds caught up with him, and he was returned, unharmed and unbitten, to the inspectors. The whole business was designed to prove how difficult it was to escape, and every inmate was told about it.

After dark, Nail was called out to help Guy Dempsey give the inspectors the “lighting ceremony,” as Dempsey called it: a new searchlight had been mounted on a motorized swivel atop each of the four guard towers so that the guards could focus them on any spot inside the grounds or within a half-mile radius outside the grounds, and nothing within the reach of those lights remained in darkness. A half-dozen black trusties, dressed in prison stripes, were turned loose on the understanding that they would voluntarily come back after this demonstration. Apparently, the inspectors were greatly impressed and told the warden they would report that it was impossible, between the dogs and the lights, to escape from The Walls.

After the inspectors were gone, Warden Yeager invited Nail up to his office again and thanked him for the nice things he had said to the inspectors. “Is there anything else we could do for you to make you happy?” the warden asked.

“Yessir, there is,” Nail said. “You know there’s a awful lot of grass out there on the west side of the powerhouse. Could I maybe get a couple of sheep and put them out there?”

Warden Yeager laughed. “You used to be a sheep rancher, didn’t you, Chism hee hee?” The warden shook his head in wonder at the idea, but also in refusal of it. “No, it wouldn’t work. We can’t even keep a flock of chickens here in The Walls. Now, if you were down at Tucker…” The warden snapped his fingers. “I got an idea. How about I get the governor to commute you to life and send you down to Tucker to start a sheep farm? I don’t mean no two or even three sheep hee hee but a whole big flock of ’em. How about that?”

“I hear it’s pretty bad down at Tucker,” Nail observed.

“Not since that goddamn preacher, Reverend Tomme, started stirring things up. Hell, ole Tucker Farm is a country club now hee hee.”

“Could you let me think about it?” Nail requested.

“Hee hee?
Think
about it? What’s to think about? I’m offering you a chance at life instead of a fourth chance at the chair.”

“Right now, Warden,” Nail said, “I would have to tell you no, because I’d rather be dead than spend my whole life in prison.”

“Aw, it don’t mean your
whole
life. You’d be up for parole in fifteen, twenty years, maybe sooner if you did a real good job raisin them sheep hee hee.”

“Let me think about it?”

“Better not think too long. I need to send the governor a list of names early next month.”

That night Nail tried to tell Ernest about the warden’s offer, but the other three condemned men in the hole overheard him. Nail and Ernest had no privacy anymore. The others jumped in on any topic that came up for discussion, even if it was the number of cockroaches keeping them company. The guy Sam Bell, who had murdered his in-laws, said he’d a lot rather die than go to Tucker for even fifteen months, let alone fifteen years. The two kids, Clarence Dewein (whom they called Dewey) and Joe Strong, were both of the opinion that a whole life of even eighty years in Tucker would be preferable to the chair, the thought of which gave them nightmares every night—apparently the same ones, because they screamed at the same time in their sleep.

Nail hated the thought of Tucker Farm, but it would have to be an improvement on this crowded death hole. Would Viridis come down to Tucker to see him? It was fifty dusty miles from Little Rock. Would she keep coming for twenty years? No, she had provided him with the means for escape, and he ought to try to escape, even if there was a severe risk of getting caught, as the warden had demonstrated for the inspectors. But maybe Nail would even lose his chance at a life-commute if he was caught trying to escape.

The next time the Reverend Mr. Tomme came to see him, Nail informed him of the choice the warden had offered him and declared he was having some trouble making up his mind.

Lee Tomme nodded. “I know. Yeager told me he wants to send you to Tucker. It would be a feather in his cap if you did a good job on a sheep farm down there.”

“He says you’ve improved Tucker the same way you’ve improved The Walls,” Nail said. “Is it really better’n it used to be?”

“For a while,” Lee said, but sighed. “I’m not optimistic that the improvements will last. That governor’s committee you talked to—Donaghey, Monk, and Hutton—they’ll probably submit a report that things aren’t nearly as bad as I said they were, and then everything will go right back to hell.”

Nail frowned and considered that. “I sure hope I didn’t say nothing to ’em that would make ’em do that.”

Lee waved the thought away. “I’m not blaming you. I’ve got a suspicion these improvements are largely cosmetic: they pretty up the place for the benefit of inspection by the governor’s committee, and as soon as the committee reports on how nice everything is, they’ll take away the improvements.”

“You think Tucker will fall back to what it was?”

“They’ll have to fire me first,” Lee said, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did that too.”

“‘They’ or ‘he’?”

“Okay. ‘He.’ Hays.”

“And one of the first improvements they’ll take away from The Walls,” Nail conjectured, “is me and Ernest having jobs and a little bit of freedom. They’ll try to put us in the chair again.”

Lee looked sorrowfully at Nail. “I hope not. But I’d be a mealymouth to deny it could happen.”

Nail debated with himself whether to tell the preacher he wanted to attempt an escape. He knew that Lee Tomme, who detested snitches would not snitch. And maybe he could help. Or at least give him some spiritual advice. So Nail lowered his voice and said, “Lee, I don’t think I’ll take the warden’s offer. I don’t aim to spend
any
time at Tucker. I reckon I’ll just go over the wall.”

Lee smiled. “I wish you could.”

“I can,” Nail said.

Lee studied him awhile before asking, “Didn’t you hear about that show they put on for the inspectors? This place is escape-proof.”

“Not to me,” Nail said. “I’m fixin to—”

“Don’t tell me how.” Lee held up his hand. “I don’t want to know. I’ll take your word for it. I don’t want anybody accusing me of conspiring with you.” The preacher smiled. “But you could tell me
when
you plan to go.”

“Soon as I figger out a way to get upstairs in the middle of the night,” Nail said. “That’s the tricky part, as they say.”

“Do you want me to let you know if I can figure out something?” Lee asked in a whisper. “Or would that be conspiracy?”

“Yeah, I reckon it would, I reckon you better let me figger it out by myself.”

“Okay. Shall we change the subject, and speak louder? Do you know, when I worked in the Colorado prisons, instead of beating a man they would punish him by taking away his privilege of seeing the weekly motion picture.”

Nail smiled. “That’s nice. I aint never seen a motion picture.”