by Allen Drury
“Mary,” he said as gently as he could, “Janie doesn’t—doesn’t—have a mind—anymore. You know what the doctors say. It’s a matter of her physical comfort, now.”
“I’m talking about Janie!” she said fiercely. “Janie, I’m talking about.”
“Yes, and so am I!” he said harshly. “We could provide nurses and attendants at the house but I’d rather pay the money to a good institution and be sure the care was absolutely top-notch than take a chance on what we might be able to hire at home. At least we’d know everything was being done right. There are good places near Washington. We can always visit.”
“But I want her home,” she said in the same fierce way. “Not in some ‘good place near Washington.’ Not in some ‘institution.’ Not where ‘we can always visit.’ But home. Home, home, home! I want my daughter home.”
“My daughter, too,” he said, trying to speak more calmly, “and I want her where the care will be best. And I want her there for another reason, Mary.” He took a deep breath, paused, went on: it had to be said if one was a mature individual. He hoped he was.
“I want her there because there is no longer anything we can do for her, other than provide good physical care; and because neither of us, I think, could stand the strain of having her with us all the time in her present condition. There comes a time when mature people, having done all they can, have to go on and live their own lives; and I’m afraid that’s the point where we are now. Oh yes, I know,” he said as she swung back furiously toward him once more. “I’m sure it appalls you, but the whole situation is appalling; and I don’t think we can make it any better by refusing to handle it in the most sensible, realistic, practical sort of way. And that doesn’t mean,” he added, suddenly choking up and almost breaking down, “that I don’t love Janie.”
“Love!” she said. “Love! What do you know about love, Tay Barbour, except love of yourself and love of the law? I despise your law,” she cried harshly. “I despise it! And I despise what it’s done to you. And now what you want it to do to our daughter. The law is a great monster. It has eaten you up.”
“Nonetheless, Mary,” he said, and his voice now was harsh too because he felt it had to be, “we must face up to what has to be done for Janie’s sake and her best welfare.” He stood up abruptly. “I’m going in the bedroom and call my family. I want to hear some kind words from people who really love me. I’ve had enough of this.”
“Call then,” she said more calmly but also unyielding. “Get your solace, if you can. But don’t forget Janie. And don’t forget we have to solve her problem when we get back to D.C. And don’t forget. I want her home.”
“Yes, Mary,” he said as he shut the door firmly behind him. “I won’t forget anything you say.”
Nor could he, even when the loving and anxious voice of Helen and Fred Barbour came over the line from the Salinas Valley, which was basking now, he knew, in the slanting golden afternoon light of California spring as it fell across the level fields and tumbled, tawny hills he knew so well; or when he then called his sister Anne and her husband Johnny Gonzales and his brother Carl and his wife, all living now in nearby Soledad while the folks remained at the home place; or when, on a sudden impulse, he called Erma Tillson in Carmel.
No word of Janie’s condition had been allowed to reach the media: the news hit them with devastating surprise. All the women cried. His father, Carl, and Johnny had difficulty speaking. Love and affection poured to him across the continent. He felt somewhat better, though nothing could take away the terrible ache of his daughter’s misfortune or his wife’s unyielding response.
And nothing, he knew, could take away the terrible responsibility he might soon have to face as a member of the Supreme Court of the United States. After the near lynching and the public mood it symbolized, he was absolutely certain that Earle Holgren, whatever the proof or lack of it, would be convicted and sentenced to death. He was equally sure the sentence would come up to the Court on appeal. How would Taylor Barbour face the challenge? What would Taylor Barbour do?
Decision was coming closer. How did he propose to meet it?
Impulsively, again, he dialed an unlisted number that he had been given along with six others when he took his seat. This time a phone rang in Georgetown, in a comfortable study walled on all sides with books. Reserved but friendly, the Chief’s voice said politely, “Yes?”
“This is Tay,” he said. “Taylor Barbour.”
“Oh, yes, Tay,” Duncan Elphinstone said with an instant concerned cordiality. “My dear friend, how are you? And your daughter?”
“Not—very good, Chief.”
“I don’t have to tell you,” the Chief said gently, “how much sympathy and love there is for you and Mary here… How is Mary? Is she managing all right?”
“No,” he said with a rush of candor that surprised him yet seemed perfectly natural with this decent, considerate man. “She is not managing at all well. In fact, very badly.”
“Tell me about it,” the Chief suggested. “If you feel like it. If it would help.”
“Yes,” he said gratefully. “I think it would.”
There was silence while he spoke. At last the Chief sighed.
“Very difficult,” he observed. “Very difficult … and nothing anyone can do to help, except be sympathetic.”
“That helps… How are things on the Court? I feel very bad about not being able to be there right now, when I know—”
“Nonsense!” the Chief said. “Nonsense! We’re getting along without you very well.” He sounded amused for a moment “I don’t mean that quite the way it sounds, you know. I mean that we are managing quite comfortably without any undue strain on anybody. Except that we all have a constant burden in our hearts about you and Moss, of course. He seems to be bearing up pretty well this week, but he dreads coming down there when the trial resumes. I suppose you’ll both have to testify.”
“He will, I’m sure. I don’t know quite what I can contribute, having arrived after the bombing.”
“Unless I miss my guess about young Mr. Stinnet, you will be expected to testify about Janie.”
“What is there to testify about Janie?” he asked bitterly.
“Exactly,” Duncan Elphinstone said gently. “What do you think of young Mr. Stinnet’s crusade these days? Going rather well, isn’t it?”
“Too damned well,” Tay said in a worried tone, diverted for the moment as the Chief had intended. “It’s frightening.”
“Indeed. But inevitable, perhaps. In a sense I suppose all of us in the law are guilty. We’ve either actively engaged in the law’s delays for purposes not always worthy, or we’ve passively accepted the delays and connivings of others. A heavy reckoning seems to be underway. We’re having silent demonstrations almost every day in the chamber, now; more orderly than the first one, but a lot of Justice NOW! buttons and ostentatious head-shakings, lip-pursings and disapproving frowns. Or approving, as the case may be.” He chuckled somewhat ruefully. “Not so many of the latter, I’m afraid. They seem to want us to set a fierce example.”
“And are we?”
“We are doing exactly what we have always tried to do, I believe,” The Elph said in a firm voice. “Uphold the law. Provide equal justice. ‘Do equal right to the poor and to the rich.’ Keep the system on an even keel. It seems for the moment, at any rate, that this is not enough to satisfy our impatient and angry countrymen.”
“Can we satisfy them, I wonder?”
“It isn’t easy,” the Chief said. “And it particularly won’t be easy when the case of Earle Holgren comes up to us, as I am certain it will.”
“Oh, yes,” Tay said grimly, “it will. I’ve already had a talk about that with the young lady who is handling his defense.”
“Oh?” The Elph said, and Tay hastened to add, “It was her idea. She waylaid me and I couldn’t escape. She demanded that I be fair. I said I’d do my best. But,” he added honestly, “I told her I was damned if I knew wheth
er I could be. And I’m damned if I do.”
“Of course—” the Chief Justice began; then paused, coughed delicately and went on—“possibly there might be a situation in which you might not have to be—put to the test. You might consider that the more advisable thing to do.”
“Disqualify myself? Do you think I should?”
“I’ll admit it has crossed my mind.”
“Oh, mine too. But again, I’m damned if I know what’s best. What do you really think?”
“It would avoid a good many problems.”
“Have you discussed it with Moss?”
“We had a little talk about it. He doesn’t seem to look too kindly on the idea of disqualifying himself. Even though I pointed out that he could under no circumstances be considered objective or disinterested in judging one who is very likely the murderer of his daughter. I said he could make an objective choice and stay out of it. He said Earle Holgren had the choice of whether or not he would be the murderer and he had made his choice, ‘so I don’t see why I shouldn’t feel free to make mine.’”
“Yes, that sounds like Moss, all right. And you see, Chief, I’m just about in the same boat.”
“I know you are,” Duncan Elphinstone said. “I’m not minimizing the dilemma, and I can’t criticize the two of you one little bit. God knows I’d probably feel the same way myself. How could any father feel otherwise? But we’re supposed to give up those human elements when we take the oath here.”
“None before has ever had the problem facing Moss and me.”
“True. As you know, the law says that if a Justice or any member of his family has so much as a single share of financial interest in any case coming before the Court, he must disqualify himself. Absolutely every other kind of case is entirely within his own discretion. All I can do is state my own opinion, which you asked for. I think both of you should withdraw and let the rest of us handle it. But if you won’t, you won’t, and that’s that.”
“I haven’t said I wouldn’t,” Tay said slowly. “I’m still thinking. And I have a hunch Moss is, too, for all the strong talk… Sometimes I wish I’d never gotten involved with the God damned law,” he said with a sudden savagery. “Sometimes I think I should have been out there leading that lynch mob, stringing that worthless bastard up or frying him alive. He doesn’t deserve anything more.”
“But you are involved with the God damned law,” the Chief remarked quietly. “And thereby hangs a difficult decision.”
“Terribly difficult,” Tay agreed somberly. “I don’t know at this point. I just don’t know.”
“Well,” the Chief said in a comforting tone, “you don’t have to decide tonight. Or for some nights to come, so don’t let it bother you too much, if you can help it. Let it work itself out, if you can. Sometimes things do in one’s mind, I’ve found, if one can just leave them alone.”
“Easier said than done,” Tay said unhappily. “But thank you, Chief. You’ve been a help.”
“I hope so,” Duncan Elphinstone said. “How much longer do you think the trial will last?”
“Not long, I imagine.”
“And the verdict there is a foregone conclusion, I suppose.”
“I don’t see how it can be otherwise,” Tay said, “given the public pressure that exists.”
***
Chapter 6
Boomer Johnson was sixteen and it was a great big world out there. His eyes looked twice as large as usual, his normally earnest, slightly worried expression seemed to have grown into a single frightened frown and he appeared to be barely breathing, so tightly was he holding himself in. He was visibly shaking when he walked to the witness stand. A little titter of amusement, not unfriendly, rippled through the room. Regard surveyed him quietly for a moment or two.
“Boomer,” he said suddenly—so suddenly that Boomer jumped—“I’ll bet you had grits for breakfast.”
“Yes, sir,” Boomer said cautiously, though the question was so friendly and unexpected that he couldn’t help but smile a little.
“I’ll bet they were good, too.”
“Yes, sir,” he replied, his tentative smile widening as he began to relax a little. “Real good.”
In the front row of the audience his mother, who had been brought in with him from Pomeroy Station at the state’s expense, smiled encouragingly. Regard gave her a friendly nod.
“Did your mama make them?”
“No, sir,” Boomer said. “Not today. We ate in the hotel. Usually she makes ’em, though. And they’re real good, too. A lot better than the hotel.”
“I’m sure they are,” Regard said, giving his mother another big smile. “Now, Boomer, that nice man alongside you, there, is going to show you a Bible, and you put your right hand on it and repeat after him what he says. Okay?”
“Yes, sir,” Boomer agreed, feeling calmer and more confident all the time. “Goin’ to try to, anyways.”
“Good,” Regard said and paused while the bailiff swore Boomer in. “Now, Boomer,” he said, “you take a look at that man with the beard there and tell me if you’ve seen him anywhere before.”
Boomer looked at the man, who was sitting next to a funny-looking old lady with half-glasses on, and the man looked at him—pretty fierce, Boomer thought, with a big scowl and eyes that seemed to go right through Boomer, or try to, anyways. But Mr. Stinnet was smiling at him with his eyes and so Boomer tried to ignore the bearded man’s eyes and just concentrate on him personally, what he looked like, and all. He knew him, all right, and he knew the man knew he did. The man was trying with his eyes to will Boomer not to say so but Boomer wasn’t scared of him, with Mr. Stinnet and his mama there, and all.
“Yes, sir,” he said stoutly. “I surely have.”
“Good,” Mr. Stinnet said. “Now, you just tell us about it, in your own words.” He shot a sudden glance at the funny-looking lady. “We won’t let anybody interrupt you,” he said, and the lady looked mad for a moment and then shrugged. But she obviously wasn’t happy. Both she and the man, Boomer felt, were just willing him not to say anything. He went right ahead, though. He realized the whole audience was listening very carefully just to him, Boomer Johnson, and he was beginning to enjoy it. He didn’t look half so worried, now, and he had totally stopped shaking.
“Well, sir,” he said, “Mr. Stinnet: I was going up to the big old plant at Pomeroy Station—”
“Just one interruption. You do live in Pomeroy Station, and always have?”
“All my life,” Boomer said. “It’s a good place. We have a nice little old house there, and my mama works in the laundry—”
“So you pretty well know everybody there?”
“Just about everybody,” Boomer said. “I seen him a hundred times, I bet.”
“Good,” Regard said. “Now, just go on with your story.”
“I been to the old plant a lot, too,” Boomer went on. “All us kids been there quite a bit while they building it. And I see him visitin’ there a lot, too. Not doin’ anything,” he added as Mr. Stinnet made as if to ask something. “Just lookin’, just like us kids. That is, until the day of the de-de-”
“Dedication.”
“That’s right,” Boomer said, “until the day they de-di-cate it. Then I see him doin’ quite a few funny things.”
“Let me just ask you,” Regard said. “How come you were able to see him, Boomer? Weren’t you with the rest of the people, down in front there while they were speech-makin’?”
“No, sir,” Boomer said. “I got a independent mind.”
“That’s good,” Regard said with a chuckle as the audience chuckled too, and from the big crowd that had gathered on the outside as if knowing, or expecting, that something climactic would happen, came a distinct sound of amusement.
“Yes, sir,” Boomer said. “I like to mosey about and see things. I like to see what’s really goin’ on.”
“And what was goin’ on with this man here?”
“Well,” Boomer said, “I was
up there on the hill, see, ’cause I could get a good view up there and it kind of give me a different slant, you know? Not like everybody else. I had me my own perch. I like to do things like that, ask my mama. She tan my hide sometimes—used to, anyways, before I got to be a man—’cause she said I find a perch that get me in trouble someday. Well, it didn’t this time. But I sensed they was trouble, even so. Somethin’ funny goin’ on. With him.”
“How so, Boomer?” Regard inquired softly.
“First of all,” Boomer said, “he was up there with one of them bomb-blowin’ things—”
There was a hiss of excitement from the audience and the small press section, a rumbling outside. The pool television camera swung in on Boomer’s face, as candid and open as the day was long.
“—like you use to set off dynamite. They had a lot of ’em around the plant when they was first buildin’ it, you know. Lots of rock they had to move, did a lot of dynamitin’. I don’t know whether this was one they left from that or whether he brung it himself. Anyways, he had it, there he was, big as life, foolin’ around with it.”
“How do you mean, ‘foolin’ around with it’?”
“Oh, fiddlin’ and fidgetin’. You know, sort of feelin’ it and testin’ it, you might say—”
“I object, your honor!” the lady with the glasses said sharply and Boomer gave her a look of blank surprise. It had looked like testing, to him.
“The court will advise the witness—” Perlie Williams began. Then he changed course and leaned forward man-to-man. “Look, Boomer,” he said, in a friendly voice. “When you tell us these things, you just tell us what you saw, okay? You know you’re just kind of guessing when you say this man was testing the bomb-blowing thing, isn’t that so, now?”
“Looked like testin’ to me,” Boomer said stoutly. “‘Course,” he conceded as the judge continued to smile down at him, “that might have been just my idea. Maybe it just looked that way.”
“Now you’ve got it, Boomer,” the judge said encouragingly. “That’s the difference, you see. That’s what we have to stick to, in a court like this one. We want to know what you actually saw, not what it looked like you saw. Okay, Boomer?”
