Out of the Darkness

by Robert D. McKee

Micah knew the jail time would be difficult. Chester was a man who relished his freedom. He always had, but perhaps even more so now. Every day Chester was spending more and more time on his moto-cycle, riding through the streets of Probity or traveling the rough county roads. Micah often saw him motoring along in his duster, floppy cap, and goggles. Even the local horses and other livestock now seemed accustomed to Chester’s noisy contraption.

  Not so long ago they’d been standing on the boardwalk outside Micah’s office. Chester was on one of his rides, and he had stopped to say hello. They were looking down at the motocycle. It was up on its stand in front of the hitching post, and it seemed tiny next to an Appaloosa tied to the rail. Chester, with pride in his voice, said, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Micah?”

  “Well,” Micah allowed, “I got to admit it’s an interesting thing, all right.”

  Chester smacked Micah on the upper arm with his leather gauntlets. “Hell, man, it’s more than interesting, much more. It represents all that’s new and ahead of us.” He hopped from the walk down to the street, and with the sleeve of his duster, he buffed a spot on the moto-cycle’s fender. “It’s this device and a thousand other ingenious devices that’ll make up the twentieth century. And it’s not merely the devices themselves, but the attitude they promote. There’s a new state-of-mind afoot, Micah. It’s coming with the new century, and we have to be open to it. More than ever before, through his ingenuity, man is in control of the world around him. And all this will mean freedom, a new kind of freedom.” He ran a hand along the handlebar in a gesture Micah could only describe as a caress. “There have been articles running in the newspapers all summer long about how the rail line is going to give a huge demonstration of its newest locomotive. Have you read them?” Micah said he had, but Chester continued telling him about them anyway. “They plan it for this coming New Year’s Day, and they’ve given the locomotive the number twenty in honor of our new century. They claim it’ll be able to travel from Casper to Cheyenne at an average speed of right at eighty miles per hour. Can you imagine that? In some stretches it’ll exceed a hundred miles an hour.”

  “I’ve seen those stories,” Micah said again, “and I don’t believe a word of it. It’s impossible.”

  “No, it’s not. They’re having to rebuild some of the track and reinforce it in places, but it’s very possible. When I was back East in ’93, locomotive Number 999 on the New York Line broke the hundred-mile-per-hour barrier. Of course, it wasn’t close to the achievement this would be.”

  Chester was clearly excited about it. “I tell you, Micah, he went on, the twentieth century promises unlimited possibilities.” He tossed his leg over the moto-cycle and sat down. “She’s knocking on our door. All we need is to muster the guts to let her in.”

  Yes, it would be difficult for Chester to spend a year, or even a few months, locked away in some cell. But before Blythe’s offer, the prospect looming out there of eight, ten, or fourteen years in prison was so horrible that Micah couldn’t allow himself even to ponder it. Now the image was manageable. He could picture it now, and it was painful, but he knew it could be coped with.

  It was likely this would cause Chester to lose his right to practice medicine. But if the state medical board decided to take his license, that too was something with which they could deal. They could argue their case in the district court and even appeal to the state supreme court, if necessary.

  Micah never felt better. He never felt more capable. The potential damage of this horrible situation had been delineated, and he knew they could handle what lay ahead.

  Although he hadn’t said much, Chester seemed as surprised as everyone else when Micah told them of Thomas Blythe’s offer. Now Chester walked to the door, opened it, and leaned against the sill. “It’s a beautiful day,” he said. Micah watched from a chair next to the window. There was a touch of autumn in the air, but as was common in the autumn in central Wyoming, there was also bright sunshine. The sky held only a few clouds, and those scudded along the horizon miles away.

  As Chester looked into the street, watching the traffic and the pedestrians pass, he began to hum an off-key rendition of the chorus to “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away.” He greeted some of the passersby and nodded to others. Ricky Fallon, a friend of Micah and Chester’s dating back to their teen years, stopped, and he and Chester talked baseball for a bit. The season was drawing to a close, but mostly they discussed the new American League that Ban Johnson out of Cincinnati was putting together for next year.

  It would be the first baseball season of a brand-new century.

  As Ricky and Chester visited, Micah explained to Cedra and Polly how nothing would happen with Chester’s case until late December, when Judge Walker came to town for the trial. Now, though, instead of having the trial, Judge Walker would rearraign Chester, and Chester would change his plea from not guilty to guilty. The judge would accept the guilty plea, then sentence according to the terms of the plea agreement. The whole thing would be over in fifteen minutes or less.

  It was, Micah realized, an anticlimactic ending to a frightening ordeal.

  “What do you think of all of this, Polly?” Chester asked. Ricky had gone on about his business, but Chester had not turned around. He still faced outdoors.

  “Well, I think it’s wonderful that you won’t have to go to prison and that the whole thing might well be over for you in less than a year. Yes,” she repeated, “I think it’s quite wonderful.”

  Chester stepped back into the room and closed the door. “What about Sonny?” he asked.

  “Sonny,” said Cedra, who never hesitated to voice her disdain for her stepson, “will go on being Sonny until we get a sheriff or someone who’s willing to stand up to him.”

  “That’s my thought as well,” Chester said.

  Micah didn’t like the expression on Chester’s face. He had seen that look before. Apparently Cedra saw it too, because she asked, “What are you thinking, Chester?” There was a reluctant, uncertain quality to her voice.

  “I was wondering if Polly wanted to miss this opportunity to tell everyone what Sonny Pratt has done to her.” Polly didn’t respond, and Chester continued. “There’s a lot happening around here that I don’t like, and I was beginning to look forward to the chance to get some of it off my chest.”

  Micah, seeing where this was headed, said, “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Yes,” agreed Cedra, “it is.”

  Chester’s and Polly’s eyes were locked. “What do you think, Polly?” he asked. “Do you think it’s ridiculous to want to put a stop to Sonny Pratt?”

  “I don’t want to see you hurt, Doctor,” Polly said.

  “If I refused to plead guilty,” Chester asked, “would you be willing to take the stand at my trial and tell your story?”

  “Stop it, Chester,” Micah said. “I am not going to let you do this.”

  Ignoring Micah, Chester still held Polly’s gaze. “Would you?” he asked again.

  “Micah is right, Chester,” said Cedra. “You listen to him. We can tell the truth about Sonny Pratt without your doing this.”

  Still Chester’s eyes held Polly. “We can tell them,” he agreed, “but no one will listen. You know that yourself. At a trial they have to listen.”

  “Whether they will or whether they won’t,” Micah said, “doesn’t matter. If you go to trial, you’re going to lose, and then you’re going to prison for a long God-damned time. Don’t you understand that? It’s not worth it. We have a way out of this thing, Chester. The hell with Sonny Pratt.”

  Chester, who even now had not released his gaze from Polly, said, “You found your courage earlier, Polly. Would you still tell them what happened?”

  Cedra turned to her daughter. “Tell him no, Polly. Tell him you won’t do it. Don’t let him do this to himself.”

  “Or to you, Polly,” Micah said. “Sonny Pratt is insane. You know what he’s capable of. Before, we had no choice. We had to go to trial. Now, thoug
h, it’s different. There’s no reason to risk your life now.”

  “You know what’s right, don’t you, Polly?” Chester said. “Would you tell them, if you had the chance? Would you tell them, Polly?”

  In a whisper, with her eyes still locked on Chester, Polly answered, “Yes, yes, I would.”

  PART THREE: THE JUDGE’S DECISION

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Christmas Day, 1900 fell on a Tuesday. Earl Anderson and Thomas Blythe assured Judge Walker that it would not take any longer than three days to try Chester Hedstrom’s case, so even if the trial was not begun until Wednesday, it could still be given to the jury by Friday afternoon. The judge, though, being a man with a skeptical nature, brought the jury panel in on Monday morning. “We’ll pick a jury,” he said, “and recess for Christmas.” Micah had heard stories of Judge Walker from Judge Pullum. Walker was a gentleman with a fondness for the intricacies of the law, but he had little regard for lawyers. He assumed they were all, for some nefarious reason, dedicated to wasting his time. “If we do voir dire on Christmas Eve,” the judge had told the attorneys at a pretrial conference held a month before, “I expect it’ll go a hell of a lot faster.”

  Micah sat in the back room of the small house on North First Street, going over his notes. He had eaten Christmas dinner with the others, but as soon as the last of Lottie’s mincemeat pie was gone, he had returned to this room to prepare for the trial that would begin tomorrow.

  Judge Walker had been right. The jury selection went quickly. They had chosen the twelve men by two o’clock yesterday afternoon. Micah suspected it went as well as it did for two reasons. One, because, as the judge pointed out, it was Christmas Eve and no one wanted to be there; and, two, both Blythe and Anderson knew they would get a conviction no matter who was in the box.

  But Micah felt good about the jury. The twelve men selected seemed a reasonable lot. The oldest was a few years younger than the sixty-year-old maximum allowed by statute, and the youngest almost five years older than the twenty-one-year-old minimum. Micah wished he could have empaneled some women on the jury. Pregnancy—the avoidance of it, or the dealing with it once it came about—was a situation with which women were familiar, and Micah believed women would be more sympathetic to Chester and Polly. Wyoming had granted women suffrage twenty-one years earlier. It had been the first government in the world to take that step. In the earliest days, judges in Laramie and Cheyenne had allowed women to sit on juries, but it hadn’t been long before judges in the smaller communities decided it was inappropriate and in time it wasn’t allowed in any of the courts. A situation Micah hoped would someday change.

  Micah snuffed out the butt of his Cyclone. The ashtray was full. He had smoked an entire package today, and his mouth tasted the way the ashtray smelled.

  He stood and crossed the room to the vanity that held a basin of water. He washed his face and rinsed out his mouth. At Thanksgiving, Micah had decided he would stop smoking. He finished his open package of Cyclones but didn’t buy more. At least he didn’t until two days later. “I’ll quit after the trial,” he had promised himself at the time, but now that the trial was upon him he wondered if he would.

  There was a knock on the door and before he could respond, Fay stepped in carrying a cup of coffee. The room contained a bed, a chair, the vanity, and the small table where Micah had been working. She placed the coffee on the table. “I made a fresh pot,” she said. “How are you doing?” When he didn’t answer, she crossed to him and pushed back a lock of his hair that had fallen over his forehead. As always, she smiled when it flopped right back.

  “I’m tired,” he said, and as soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t. He knew the response it would bring.

  “You shouldn’t be staying with us so much,” Fay said. “With the trial coming, you should be at your own place where you can get some rest.”

  He pulled her to him and squeezed. Her body was small, yet strong. “I’m all right.”

  “We don’t need you to protect us night and day, Micah. There’s Chester and there’s Jackson. And you know as well as I do that I can pull the trigger on that shotgun there—” She nodded to the gun leaning against the wall. “—as well as any of the three of you.”

  The truth was she could do it that well or better. Fay, using the very gun in this room, had killed the two Canada honkers they’d eaten earlier for Christmas dinner.

  This was not a new topic of conversation. “If Sonny tries anything,” Micah said for what seemed the hundredth time, “I want to be here.”

  Micah hated the thought of hiding Polly and Cedra at Lottie and Fay’s house, but there was nowhere else. So far, though, it had worked. They had been here for three weeks, and there had been no sign of Sonny Pratt.

  Micah had stalled as long as he could. But finally he’d had to admit to Blythe that Chester would not accept his offer, and he would not plead guilty.

  That had been difficult for Micah. He was furious with Chester. Micah had screamed and threatened. He had begged and cajoled. But Chester was adamant. He would not plead guilty; he would stand trial.

  “Why?” Micah shouted at Chester on the night before he went to Blythe’s office to tell him the situation. “Why?”

  “For Polly,” Chester said. “I’ve told you that. Sonny has threatened to kill her if the truth comes out. I feel he’ll kill her unless the truth comes out.” They were in Chester’s carriage house, and he was tinkering with the moto-cycle. He was always fussing with the damned contraption, and that also infuriated Micah. The temperature was in the single digits, much too cold for Chester to ride, but the only way Micah could talk to him was to stand in the bitter cold of the carriage house while Chester did whatever the hell it was he was doing. “That’s one reason,” Chester added. “There are others.”

  “Right, I know,” Micah said. He paced back and forth, spewing plumes of frosty breath and slapping his arms together in a battle to keep his circulation going. He really hated the cold. “You think it’s a bad law and you want to change it. Let me tell you something, Chester, getting convicted of a crime is not the way to change a law. Felons rotting in prison don’t have a lot of influence with the legislature.”

  Chester was squatted beside the cycle and turning something with a wrench. “I do think it’s a bad law,” he allowed. “Any law that requires a woman to bear a rapist’s baby is a bad law. But there’s more to it than that.” He slid a lamp closer to where he was working. “Do you realize, Micah, I’ve almost doubled the power this engine puts out? I expect I’ve got it well over three horsepower. I plan to write Uncle Oscar a letter explaining all the things I’ve done—”

  Micah bent down and jerked the wrench from Chester’s hand. “I do not give a god-damn about this toy of yours, Chester. You are about to go to prison. Don’t you understand that? Prison for a long time. That’s bad enough, but what makes it even worse is you don’t have to. I want to understand why you are doing this, and the explanations you’ve given so far don’t hold water, not to my thinking, anyway. So if you’ve got something more, I want to hear it, and I want to hear it right now.”

  Chester stood and wiped his hands on a rag. “You’ve become a pushy bastard since your admittance to the bar.”

  “I want some answers.”

  Chester smiled. “All right, all right. I know you don’t understand my thinking, and I don’t blame you. The truth is I have wanted to talk to you about all this,” he said, “but to you it’ll sound foolish, so I haven’t.”

  “Since when did sounding foolish ever stop you, Chester?”

  “I know there’s a lot at stake. I’m about to be taken away for a long time. But it seems to me that’s secondary.”

  “We’re talking about fourteen years of your life here. What the hell could that be secondary to?”

  Chester tossed the rag to the work bench and pulled his coat tighter. For the first time since Micah had come into the carriage house, Chester seemed to notice the cold. “The world’
s about to become a different place—”

  “Oh, shit, Chester,” Micah interrupted, “don’t start in on this new-century stuff. It’s become a joke, a bad joke.”

  Ignoring Micah’s interruption, Chester went on. “The truth is, it’s already changed, but no one’s noticed it yet.”

  Micah began pacing again. “The wolf is at the door, Chester. I do not want to hear this.”

  “We have to be different, Micah. I love the complexity of this new century we’re stepping in to, but because it’ll be so complex, we have to simplify.”

  “Thank you for that insight, Mr. Thoreau.”

  Chester smiled again. He seemed to be having fun. “It does sound a bit Thoreau-like, doesn’t it? But I’ve never had much regard for Thoreau. I’ve always thought not only was his message simple, so was a lot of his thinking.” He shrugged. “I guess I still feel that way. I’m trained as an engineer, and I don’t believe the machinery of modern society is a bad thing.”

  Micah clamped his gloved hands over his ears. “Damn it, Chester, I am not listening to this.”

  Chester went on. “Society’s machinery is now about a hundred times more complicated than fifty years ago when Henry David was sitting around his pond. And soon, very soon, it’ll be a thousand times more complicated.”

  “Jesus, Chester, we are not dealing with abstractions here. There’s nothing abstract about hard labor in a state penitentiary.”

  “Hear me out on this. You asked why, and I’m telling you. I’m saying we can only succeed in this complex environment if we simplify things within ourselves.” He tapped himself twice on the chest.

  “Oh, God.”

  Chester waggled an index finger reproachfully. “You’re not listening.”

  “I’m listening. I’m listening.”

  “The world—maybe Americans more than anyone—has always viewed things in black and white, but things’re becoming grayer all the time. There are no clear lines between black and white anymore. You and Fay should realize that, Micah. But in some instances we need clear lines. It’s our duty to decide where our own personal lines should be drawn, draw them, and refuse to go beyond them.”