Winding Stair (9781101559239) (30 page)

“I've seen two of them before,” Jennie said. Although I had been expecting that answer, when she said it I felt a hard knot growing in my belly, and my heart was thumping so, I was sure everyone around me could hear it.

“Which two, Miss Thrasher?”

She pointed deliberately to Boins and Cornkiller. The muscles along her neck worked almost convulsively.

“Describe how you first saw them.”

“In late April, it was. When I saw Johnny Boins.” Hearing her say the name made me flinch. I thought I'd prepared myself for this, but I hadn't. I wished I was somewhere else, yet there was no question of leaving. “My papa went to Wetumka in the Creek Nation on a building contract. I went with him. He had a wagon fixed so we could live in it. I'd cook for him and wash his clothes. Papa was working one afternoon and Johnny Boins came to our wagon, where I was doing something. Peeling potatoes, I think. He had a little Indian man with him who had a bad eye. It was white. While he talked to me, this Indian looked at Papa's horse, the racer. Tar Baby was his name. After a little while, they rode off.”

“Was that the only time you saw Johnny Boins?”

“No, sir. After Papa finished his work, we went to Saddler's Ford. That's on the north fork of the Canadian, not far from Wetumka. There were some races there. Papa ran Tar Baby in the two races and he won them both. While we were there, Johnny Boins came to the wagon again and we talked.”

“Was that the last time you saw him?”

“Yes, until he was arrested and brought here to Fort Smith.”

“Now about the other man, Miss Thrasher,” Evans said, almost gently.

“About a week later we were home. This other man”—and she pointed once more—“came by the house. Along the McAlester road. He stopped for water and him and Papa talked. He wanted to see Tar Baby and Papa took him to the barn and then they talked some more. Then Papa told him how to get down to the Kiamichi Valley without going the road. Through the woods.”

“This is largely hearsay, Your Honor,” McRoy said, but Parker waved it aside.

“It's all right—it doesn't go to the issue,” he said tartly. “Go on, Mr. Evans.”

Jennie related the events of that terrible day when her father hid her in the attic. She said she heard no voice other than her father's and stepmother's that she could recognize. She told of hearing guns firing and then the silence before the storm, and finally of the posse taking her down from the loft.

With that, Evans completed his examination.

McRoy took his time before cross-examination, pacing to the witness stand and back again to his desk to review his notes. He stared up toward the ceiling, drawing out the tension in the room. When he finally approached her, he did so gingerly, as though he were walking among a brood of baby chicks.

“Miss Thrasher,” McRoy said softly, “I'm sure you understand that I need to ask a question or two. The lives of four men are at stake.”

Judge Parker shifted in his high-backed chair, irritated at the comment. At the arraignment, McRoy had asked for a severance so he might defend Johnny Boins in a separate action, but Parker had denied it. Now McRoy was showing the armor of knighthood for taking all the defendants, even though every person in the room knew his principal interest was Boins.

“At Wetumka,” he said, “and at Saddler's Ford, when these men came to your campsite, why did they leave?”

“They'd finished talking, I guess.”

“Did your father see them when they visited you at Wetumka?”

“No, sir.”

“And at Saddler's Ford, did he see them there?”

“Johnny Boins was all that came to visit me there. Papa saw him there.”

“What did your father do?”

“He run Johnny Boins off. Papa always run off anybody who wanted to visit me.”

“Exactly where did your father find you and Mr. Boins?”

“At the camp. At our wagon.”

“But, Miss Thrasher, where, exactly?”

For a moment then, she looked at me. I could see the pain for an instant in her eyes and a tear rolled slowly down her cheek. The muscles in her jaw worked, making unsightly knots in that unblemished skin.

“Miss Thrasher,” McRoy said insistently, “let me refresh your memory. Didn't your father find you and Mr. Boins
in
the wagon?”

“Yes, sir.”

I couldn't look at her face. The bile was thick in my throat and I studied the floor under Evans's chair, trying to make my ears not hear what I knew must come next.

“Miss Thrasher, on your oath now. On that day, did you have intimate relations with Johnny Boins?”

Looking back, I don't recall having heard her answer. But I knew what it would be before she opened those finely sculpted lips now drawn thin and white.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you had relations with him before that, too, before your father caught you, at Wetumka?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How many times, Miss Thrasher?”

“Your Honor, for heaven's sake,” Evans said.

“No, Mr. Evans,” Judge Parker said, without turning his attention from the witness stand. “Go on, Mr. McRoy.”

“More than once, Miss Thrasher?” McRoy asked.

“I don't know. I can't remember. He said he wanted to marry with me.”

“Your memory has been excellent up to now,” McRoy said. She said nothing, looking more and more like a small child being chastened by the headmaster, softly defiant yet somehow completely defeated and overwhelmed.

“On those days you spent in the wagon with Johnny Boins, did you ask him to come and take you away from your father's farm?”

Down her cheek and along the jaw and neck was the bright snail's path of that one tear, but there were no more.

“He said he wanted to marry with me.”

“You told him where to come, didn't you?”

“I just told him we lived in Winding Stair. That's all. He said he wanted to marry with me before we—” She stopped. McRoy waited, bent toward her, but she said nothing.

“But you asked him to come, didn't you?”

“I never asked him to bring his friends.”

“What friends, Miss Thrasher?”

“That milk-eyed man.”

“And, Miss Thrasher, you don't know if he ever came at all, do you?”

Once more, she sat silently, and although Judge Parker was leaning over the bench toward her, he made no effort to force an answer. McRoy finally shrugged and turned away. There was no smile on his face now. His eyes were hard and his lips set in a hard slash across his face. As he reached his table, he wheeled toward the stand once more, a finger thrust out like a pistol pointed at Jennie Thrasher's face.

“Isn't it true, Miss Thrasher, that you tempted Johnny Boins with your body in Creek Nation, and because your father always ran off young men who came to court you, you asked Johnny Boins to come and take you from that farm, no matter what it took to accomplish it, holding out again all those favors you had been so generous with before?”

“Is he making a final argument?” Evans shouted, on his feet, his cheeks fiery above the flowing beard.

“Sustained. Jury will disregard counselor's last statement,” Judge Parker ruled.

“Let me rephrase,” McRoy said. “Miss Thrasher, isn't it true you love Johnny Boins?”

Jennie's jaw set and there was an instant of defiant light in her eyes.

“Yes, and I loved my papa, too.”

“Do you really think this man, this man who shared an afternoon bed with you, do you think him capable of killing anyone, with all that tenderness and love—”

“Your Honor,” Evans shouted, on his feet again. “That calls for an opinion and I object most strenuously!”

“Sustained.”

“Very well,” McRoy said, moving around his table and sinking into his chair, his face still grim.

The courtroom crowd remained completely still, leaning forward in their seats. Then across that heavy silence one voice cut sharply.

“Little tart!”

Judge Parker jerked upright, as though he might leap across the bench. He slammed the green felt top with both extended palms.

“Arrest that man,” he shouted. “Arrest him, arrest him. Take him to the cells.”

There was a sudden scuffling behind me, feet scraping across the floor, and when I looked back two deputies were pulling a man from the pews, dragging him across the laps of others toward the door, spilling hats and lunch bags and a woman's purse. It was a white man, but I had never seen him before and never learned who he was.

“You'll be brought into this court on charges of contempt,” Parker was bellowing. “As soon as more pressing business is complete. I warn you people, all of you . . .”

He let it trail off as the man was pushed through the door into the main hall, the two marshals handling him viciously.

I have no recollection of having watched Jennie Thrasher walk out of that courtroom. The sensation in my belly reminded me of what Joe Mountain had said: “You puke more'n any man I know.” It was like my first experience with hard liquor, when a college roommate had brought a bottle of brandy to the dormitory and I had swilled down a jigger of the raw stuff on an empty stomach. I tried to block it all off in my mind, Jennie Thrasher's testimony and indeed Jennie Thrasher herself.

Evans had to call me twice before I could respond. As I moved to the railing, I thought for an instant that Judge Parker was watching me with some sympathy. Looking back on that time, I know now it was good that Evans called me immediately after Jennie. It gave me something else to do with my thoughts. I have no idea why Judge Parker had allowed me to sit in that courtroom during another witness's testimony, but I suspect it was part of the plan to convince me once and for all that Jennie Thrasher was not the girl for initials cut into trees or ice-cream sundaes or visits to the Saint Louis Zoo.

I had passed through the railing and was midway to the stand when Merriweather McRoy intercepted me and placed a hand on my shoulder. He addressed the court.

“Your Honor, I object to this witness for the government and anything he might say to the jury.”

“On what grounds, Mr. McRoy?” Parker said. At least once during the Burris Garret murder trial he had lost his temper, and now he was clearly trying to hold it in close control. His voice was calm.

“This young man has been party to preparation of the case, an assistant to the United States prosecutor.”

“That is no bar to his testimony if he has evidence of which he has firsthand knowledge,” Parker said.

“Your Honor,” Evans said, from his usual place behind the prosecution desk, “the government wants only to ask Mr. Pay a few questions dealing with the time prior to his arrival at my office.”

“He can testify to anything he has knowledge of,” the judge repeated.

“Very well,” McRoy said, dropping his hand from my shoulder and smiling. I felt a complete fool standing in the center of the courtroom, and I hurried to the witness stand. “However, I ask an exception.”

After I was sworn and identified myself, Evans asked me to relate the events of my first night in Fort Smith.

“At some point on the train between here and Seligman, Missouri, this man”—and I pointed to Johnny Boins—“boarded the cars. I recall him from his appearance. He was well dressed and a handsome man. When I was waiting for my baggage at the Fort Smith station, he passed me in company of another man.”

“Do you recall the date, Mr. Pay?”

“It was June third, a Tuesday.”

“Describe this other man.”

“He was a short man. An Indian. He had one eye that appeared to be afflicted with cataract in its advanced stages. The eye was white.”

“Did you know this man?”

“Not at the time. I later learned his name was Rufus Deer.”

“Did you ever see him again?”

“Only after he had been shot and killed near Okmulgee—”

“Your Honor,” McRoy broke in. “This was not prior to the time Mr. Pay went to work for the prosecutor in this case.”

“I've said the witness can testify,” Parker said, his voice testy.

“There will be only this last question, Mr. McRoy,” Evans, said, pushing his pince-nez up on his nose. “Now, Mr. Pay, you saw this Rufus Deer after he was killed. On that occasion, in whose company was he?”

“Objection, Your Honor,” McRoy said quietly.

“Mr. Evans,” Parker said, “you know as well as I do that the only reference you can make to a previous case is its result. Any of the details of that case you must present in evidence here.”

“Very well, Your Honor, I withdraw it. It doesn't matter.” And, of course, it didn't. Anyone who had read a newspaper after the Burris Garret murder trial knew of a connection between Smoker Chubee and Milk Eye Rufus Deer.

Merriweather McRoy surprised me with no cross-examination and I was left momentarily on the stand, hesitating. As I walked away McRoy said loud enough for the jury to hear, “My best regards to your father, Mr. Pay, a fine man and attorney.”

The son of a bitch played all the chords. I reluctantly had to give him that.

Lila Masters was dressed as any Fort Smith housewife might have been, but her cheeks were rouged and her full mouth as well. My first impression of her was confirmed. She was a beautiful woman until her teeth showed.

“Miss Masters, do you know any of the defendants in this case?”

“I know him.” She pointed. “Johnny Boins.”

“Can you recall for the court, during the month of June, did you see him?”