The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 1

by Donald Harington

  Strong men who attempted escape that month of March were the especial targets of Fat Gabe’s flagellations. He did not need to fabricate an excuse to whip them; attempted escape was a felony, and, to discourage others from making the attempt, the flogging was made as visible and audible as possible: everybody had to gather in a thick circle around the inverted wheelbarrow over which the body of the man would be held by three trusties while Doc Gode took the man’s pulse and a fifth trusty sponged salt water into the wounds that Fat Gabe steadily inflicted, to a total of one hundred and sixty, if the victim could bear the maximum of forty per day and live through four days of it. No inmate forced to stand and watch that performance through four days would give a lot of thought to attempting escape himself, but it was still an option preferable to death in the flyspeck room.

  Fat Gabe not only kept feeding Nail all he could eat, he also began to let him outside the building. The warm weather made it necessary to open the windows and get as much air as possible into the barracks, and to get as many men as possible out into the Yard. The Yard was only a yard: merely all of the empty space between the brick buildings and the brick walls, a few acres of what had once been grass but was now mostly mud and sand, with just a smear of green here and there. Fifty men at a time, guarded by a shotgun trusty, would be allowed to go out into the Yard for an hour and walk, jump, run, waddle, or crawl—anything except stand and congregate and talk. Nail took advantage of being let out into the Yard to study the walls very carefully, to memorize the length and height and even the brick patterns of every section. He observed that the brick building of the engine room, which also contained Old Sparky and the death cells, was much closer to the wall than the main barracks. He noticed that at one place along the wall a corner of the engine building’s roof obscured the view from the tower. Why, he asked himself, was he making all these observations if Viridis and Rindy were going to make the governor let him go? The answer, he told himself, was that week by week his chance of a pardon appeared slimmer and slimmer.

  The month of March was marching on and he hadn’t had his March trip to the visit room. Surely Viridis had at least tried to visit him. Once when Fat Gabe and Short Leg were making their rounds, Nail forgot that he was never supposed to question them. “Short Leg,” he asked, “you don’t reckon anybody came to see me at the visit room that you didn’t tell me about, did they?”

  Short Leg exchanged glances with Fat Gabe, the two of them astounded that an experienced convict would violate the cardinal rule against asking them questions. Short Leg didn’t know whether to hit Nail or not, but when he raised his hand, Fat Gabe said, “He aint ready yet,” and then he even smiled almost friendly-like at Nail and said, “We’ll let that one go, Chism. Just watch it.”

  After the two sergeant-guards had moved on, Timbo Red exclaimed to Nail, “I tole ye, didn’t I? They’re jist a-waitin till ye git to lookin real peart afore they light into ye.”

  But just a day later, as if Nail’s question had produced some result, he was summoned by Short Leg for a trip to the visit room.

  It wasn’t Viridis. It was Farrell Cobb. Nail complained, “I thought you generally came into the barracks to see me. Now you’re using up my visit room time.”

  Cobb whispered, “They’re shaking down everyone they admit to the compound.” He patted his breast. “I didn’t want them to find what I’m carrying.”

  “A gun?” Nail said.

  Cobb laughed. Nail had never heard him laugh, nor suspected that he was capable of it. “No. A very thick letter. Pages and pages.”

  Nail felt stifling frustration. He swore. He glanced all over the edges of the screen separating him from Cobb, as if there might be some opening the letter could be slipped through. He studied the trusty, Bird, who was just standing there looking bored and blank. He inclined his head toward Bird and whispered to Cobb, “I don’t suppose you could bribe him to let me have it.”

  Cobb shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to try.”

  “Well, shit,” Nail muttered. Then he asked, “Did you read it? I reckon you could just tell me most of it.”

  Cobb cleared his throat. Of course he didn’t want to admit that he had read the letter. “I skimmed most of it,” he said. “There isn’t much news that I couldn’t tell you myself. There’s a very long account of her trip to your hometown and her meetings with the various figures involved in the case, such as Judge Sewell Jerram and the sheriff, et cetera. There’s a long account of her attempts to see the governor. An unfortunate business. A truly lamentable state of affairs. She and the child, Dorinda Whitter, tried for a week to get an audience with Governor Hays. They sat in his waiting-room for three whole days. Yes, three days, and I was there with them part of the third day, when I finally demanded of the governor’s assistant that we get admitted to his private office. Most regrettably, Viridis Monday was very angry by that time and her mood kept her from presenting her case effectively to the governor, toward whom she was openly hostile. In this letter…” (again Cobb patted his breast, where Nail could see a bulge beneath his suit coat) “…she gives reasons for her anger at the governor which are unjustified, I think. She even went so far as to tell the governor that he was responsible for Dorinda Whitter, that he would have to make the child his own ward, a preposterous suggestion, if I may say so, and I did say so.”

  “Go on,” Nail said. “So you’re tellin me the governor didn’t buy none of it? No pardon, huh?”

  “Not necessarily on account of Miss Monday’s rudeness. The governor feels strongly that the whole business would have to go through strictly legal channels, the case would have to be referred back to a lower court, you would need to be retried if that could even be considered acceptable by the court, you would have to follow established procedures, you couldn’t just impose upon the governor’s charity.”

  “Didn’t that governor believe what Rindy told him?”

  “I’m afraid the child didn’t get a chance to tell him her story. The governor insisted that she would have to tell it to a court, not to him.”

  “But didn’t he even take a gander at that petition with all those names that Viridis had got signed for him?”

  “He said he was most curious to know if the petition contained the names of Prosecuting Attorney Thurl B. Bean and Circuit Judge Lincoln Villines. It does not, of course. The governor is of the opinion that Judge Villines must recommend leniency to him, or at least recommend a retrial, and Judge Villines will not. I might add that Judge Villines is, it would appear, an old friend of the governor’s.”

  “It would appear,” Nail echoed. He asked, rhetorically and futilely, “What kind of governor is that man anyhow?”

  “For now, the only one we have, alas,” Farrell Cobb said, the closest he ever came to expressing any sentiment against the governor.

  “So what’s the next step?” Nail asked.

  “Next step?”

  “Yeah, how long does it take to get another trial, or whatever?”

  Farrell Cobb shook his head. “You don’t understand,” he said. “The governor was our last resort.”

  “But didn’t ye jist say something about the governor hisself says that the case has to go back to a lower court and git retried?”

  “Only if Judge Villines recommends it, and he does not.”

  “Well, fuck Link Villines! If a judge does something wrong, he aint likely to ask somebody else to come along and tell him how bad he done. Of course he don’t want a retrial!”

  “That’s the way the law works,” Farrell Cobb said.

  Nail stared at him in disbelief. “If that’s the way the law works, you ought to be ashamed to call yourself a lawyer.”

  Farrell Cobb reddened. Testily he said, “Insults won’t work with me.”

  “Then what in hell will work with you? Tell me that! What have I got to do or say to get some help from you?”

  “Mr. Chism, I’ve given you quite a lot of help,” the lawyer said coldly. “I’ve gone to some extrao
rdinary lengths to appeal your case. In fact, I think it’s safe to say I’ve worked harder on this case than any in my career.”

  “But I’m still going to the chair,” Nail said.

  Farrell Cobb did not deny it. But he didn’t exactly concede it. After a while he just gave his head a slow shake and said, “Quite conceivably.”

  Nail gestured toward Cobb’s breast, where the precious thick letter was. “Did she give me any hope?” he asked.

  Cobb reached for the envelope as if to verify an answer but thought better of it and stuck his hand into his outside coat pocket instead. “As I seem to recall her saying, she said you should not give up. She said something about attempting to attract national publicity to your case.”

  “What does that mean?” Nail wanted to know.

  “The big newspapers and magazines in the East might take an interest in you, and if there were sufficient national publicity, it could pressure the governor into reconsidering.”

  Nail thought about that. Bird announced that the fifteen minutes were up. Nail said, “Jist one more question. The national publicity would have to come before April 20th, right?”

  “One would hope,” Farrell Cobb said.

  April came. Nail worked on his letter to Viridis. He wrote it and rewrote it, trying to get each sentence perfect in his mind before committing it to paper. Paper was scarce; he had only a few sheets left from the penny pad Warden Burdell had given him at Christmas. As a last favor Farrell Cobb had agreed to come back to the penitentiary when he could safely come into the barracks and take the letter out. Nail hoped that Viridis might come to the visit room even before then, but, as he told her in the letter, he didn’t blame her for not coming: it was too painful, for both of them, to realize they couldn’t say anything in just fifteen minutes. He told Viridis he wanted to remember her as he had last seen her: happy, beaming, exhilarated from her trip to Stay More, optimistic, bearing the secret of having brought his accuser to apologize. He said how profoundly grateful he was to Viridis for whatever she had done to persuade Dorinda not only to admit her wrongdoing but to come to him and tell him to his face. Even if he was executed, he would know that there was no greater proof of his innocence than a confession from Rindy herself. He said he was sorry that the governor had not heard Rindy say it. He said the only times lately when he got really angry, mad enough to fight Fat Gabe himself, was when he thought about the injustice of that governor making Viridis sit in the waiting-room for three days before letting her talk to him. He didn’t blame her for getting rude to the governor. If it had been him, he would have been more than rude: he would have clobbered that governor. He confessed he spent a lot of time thinking about killing the governor.

  Then he wrote:

  I reckon you know that if they try to electercute me I aim to kill as many as I can beforehand and I reckon you also know how I aim to do it. But I have been thinking (which of course is what we all of us do too much of around this place) and have decided that if I’m going to die in that way, I might as well make one honest attempt at getting out of here before they even put me back in the death hole, which it don’t look like they plan to do until the week before the electercution date. Before they put me back in the death hole, I think I know a pretty good way to break out of here, and I can do it all by myself if you could find some way to do just one thing for me. I need a little bit of mustard oil, just enough of it to smear on my feet to throw the dogs off my scent when I light out for the country. If there was some way you could smuggle me just a tiny bottle of that mustard oil.

  But if you can’t, and I have to go sit down in the chair on the 20th, I want you to promise me that you won’t come and watch. I couldn’t stand that. I sure would like to see you again before I close my eyes for the last time, and to tell the honest truth I’d like to still see nothing else except your beautiful face behind my closed eyes for eternity, but I don’t want that to be the last thing I see before I close my eyes, I want to imagine it, I want to create you, I want to be able to take your face with me to eternity because I made it up all by myself.

  There is one more request, if you can bear one. Then I won’t bother you with any more of them. When I am gone I hope you will take the trouble that you would ordinarily spend on grief and instead do whatever you can for this boy, Timbo Red. He will make a great artist one of these days. Not nearly as good a one as you, but a great one, still, if he gets the chance and maybe some lessons and enough of those drawing materials. He ought to get out of here on parole before too very long. The only thing he ever done wrong was steal a horse, and they can’t keep him long for that. If you could watch out for him when he gets out, I’m going to tell him a lot of things that I wanted to tell you so that he can go on for a long time telling you those things almost like I was still around to do it myself, and if you want to, you can pretend his voice is mine, just the same way you brought all of those Stay More voices with you so I could hear them.

  If you was with me right now, you would be laughing because what I’m thinking about is, wouldn’t it be funny if you was to introduce old Timbo Red to Rindy and they become good friends? Live happy ever after, and all that?

  On second thought, maybe it ain’t funny. But you, dear Viridis, please live happy ever after. Get me that mustard oil if you can. If you can’t, don’t let it bother you none. You done your best, you done more than any woman or man either could ever have done, and I and the trees will love you for it for ever more.

  Then he could only wait and watch for Cobb, to smuggle this letter out. Every day that passed was a day lost he’d need to work out some way to get that mustard oil; he had the rest of it pretty well planned: getting over the wall at the right time in the right way. He didn’t even tell Timbo Red of his plan, although he considered that the kid himself might need to escape sometime. But he did tell Timbo Red, day after day when they could talk, about Viridis Monday. Timbo Red had to admit he’d never known any female anything like her, and not because Nail was bragging on her or making her out to be better than she was; he was telling Timbo Red exactly everything that Viridis had done that he knew about, and just what she looked like. Of course he didn’t tell Timbo Red to expect that Viridis was going to take care of him when he got out of the pen, but Nail was setting him up for it so he wouldn’t be absolutely flabbergasted when it happened. But he did tell Timbo Red he hoped the boy would meet up with her if anything ever happened to Nail that he wasn’t alive anymore, because then there were a few things he wanted Timbo Red to tell her, if he could remember them.

  Timbo Red could remember them all. He could especially remember the directions to a few spots west of Stay More where you could look down into the valley and paint the most wonderful pictures of it. Timbo Red allowed as how he himself would sort of like to go and see some views like that, and even paint them, if he ever got aholt of some paints and learned how to use them.

  “You’ll git ye some paints, son,” Nail told him. “Jist take my word fer it.”

  One evening at supper Nail was working on his second helping of cowpeas and cornbread when somebody crowded in to sit beside him on the bench, and even before he turned to see the face, he recognized the smell: the barbershop talcum powder of Attorney Farrell Cobb. Nail was both elated and irritated. He didn’t have any more use for Cobb, except as a messenger, but that was essential. Cobb shook hands with him, which he hadn’t done before, and Nail instantly detected something in their pressing palms. “A letter from her,” Cobb whispered. “All folded up into a wad. Hide it. Enjoy it later.”

  As their hands came apart, Nail withdrew his with the precious wad in it and tucked it into his waistband, then took from the other side of the band his letter for Viridis. It was not wadded up, but there were only four pages, folded three times. He kept it under the table and placed it on Cobb’s leg. “Kindly get that to her.”

  “Wait. No. I can’t,” Cobb protested, feeling the letter.

  “Just stick it in your pocket,” Nail insisted.


  “No, really, they’d—” Cobb said, darting a glance around the room. “Sshh! They’re watching us!”

  Nail looked around. Fat Gabe and Short Leg were over at the end of the mess hall, but they weren’t watching. The only one watching was the mess trusty, a black man. But he was watching the two of them intently, and he could clearly see Nail’s hand on Cobb’s leg.

  “Take it, quick!” Nail said.

  “No, take it back!” Cobb said. “Move your hand!”

  The black trusty yelled, “GIT DE WADDEN!” Fat Gabe and Short Leg came over. The black trusty said to them, “Dem two done passed some paper,” and pointed at Cobb. “Marse Buddell he say to watch dat man. Git de wadden.”

  Nail had taken back his letter and thrust it back into his pants band but in doing so had jarred loose the wad of Viridis’ letter so that it fell down into his trouser leg. Fat Gabe said, “On your feet, Chism!” and as Nail stood up he felt the wad of Viridis’ letter slide down his leg to the floor. Without looking down, he covered it with his shoe. Fat Gabe held out his hand, and said, “Whatcha got there? Le’s have it!”

  Nail held out his empty hands. “I aint got nothin.”

  Fat Gabe looked at Farrell Cobb and demanded, “He hand something to you?”

  “Well…no, he…I don’t have anything,” Cobb said.

  “Search ’im,” Fat Gabe told Short Leg, who reached inside Farrell Cobb’s suit coat and searched his pockets and then the pockets of his trousers.

  “He’s clean,” Short Leg announced.

  “Search Chism,” Fat Gabe said. Nail wondered, Am I gonna have to use my knife before it’s time? He hoped Short Leg wouldn’t find his knife. But Short Leg went immediately to his trousers and, knowing that no convict’s trousers ever had pockets, felt inside the waistband and brought out the letter. “Well, well,” Fat Gabe said, snatching the letter out of Short Leg’s hand and holding it up high. “What have we here?” He turned to Farrell Cobb and waved the letter under his nose. “He try to pass this to you? Or did you give it to him?”