That Night at the Palace

by Watson, L. D.

  Jesse watched the man who seemed to have nothing but couldn’t keep from smiling.

  “I went in there to tell him about you kids, but I really never got a chance to talk about y’all. That preacher kept making me tell him about myself. I probably talked for the better part of an hour. I told him about everything - Chicago, the market, my wife, my parents dying. I told him how I was about the lowest person on earth.

  “Then he asked me how God felt about me. Well, I thought that was pretty obvious. I was a sinful man and God didn’t like me much. Hobos are always meetin’ preachers. They’re always telling us that God loves us, but we know better. We always say that we know he loves us and we pray with ‘em and take whatever handout they’ve got. Only, this guy didn’t leave it at that, he kept pressin’ and finally I flat out told him what I thought. I said, ‘If God loves me, how come I ended up a drunken hobo living in a ghost town?”

  “Then he said to me, ‘Shakes, you haven’t ended up yet. God started something with you and this life you’re livin’ is part of it.’

  “He didn’t bother tryin’ to save me or anything like preaches usually do. He just gave me an old Bible and told me to prove him wrong. So I tried. Let’s face it. I’m a hobo. I ain’t got nothin’ and I ain’t worth nothin. Why would God want to do anything with someone like me?

  “I read that book cover to cover a couple or three times, and all I could find is stuff that backed him up. Finally one night, all alone in my little room at the Southern, I prayed for the first time in my life. Oh, I’d said prayers before, but this was the first time I’d ever really tried to speak to God. I don’t really know what I said. It was something like ‘if I’m worth anything to you, take me and use me.

  “I think it was that night when I realized that I wasn’t a hobo because of all the things I’d done. I was a hobo because of all the things I could do.

  “Jesse, back when I first met you, I was a loner without a single friend in the world. Now I have friends in every train depot and back alley from here to Chicago. Somewhere along the way I realized that just because I was a hobo, it didn’t mean that I had to be miserable.

  “But I still couldn’t get the night that you and that other boy came to New Birmingham out of my mind. So about a month after meeting that preacher I bought me a rope, and I climbed down that old mineshaft.”

  Jesse stared at the man as a cold chill went through him.

  “It took me all day, but I managed to get that woman’s body out of that hole. I buried her in that little cemetery just past the smelter. I spent over a week workin’ on the marker. There was a pink granite corner stone on the old bank building. It took a lot of work but I managed to get it free and rolled it up to the cemetery. I carved her name on it.”

  Jesse broke down in tears. “We didn’t kill her, Shakes, I swear we didn’t kill her,” he said, trembling.

  “I know. Like I said, I worked for a coroner back in Chicago. Capone was around in those days. I saw a lot of shooting victims. I also saw a lot of suicides too. You’d be surprised at how many people either miss or change their minds at the last second only to shoot themselves in the neck and chest. What happened that night, Jesse? Why’d she kill herself, and why’d you boys try to hide her?”

  Jesse wiped the tears from his eyes and looked at his new friend. “She was Jewel’s mom. You remember the girl who was with us the day we gave you the watermelons? I don’t know the whole story. There was this man in town, two men, really. They had hurt this girl; they beat her up real bad, maybe even raped her. Up in Jacksonville they lynched a black guy for it, but it wasn’t him who did it. It was these other two. Me and Cliff had seen this one guy meet Mrs. Stoker in the alley across from the Palace, so we climbed up on the roof to watch. We saw him beat her. Then one night I followed her into an alley. Both of the men were there that night. She told ‘em that she was pregnant. They just laughed at her. She pulled a gun and tried to shoot one of ‘em, but she ended up getting all beat up. I just sat there in the shadow like a coward and watched. When they left she shot herself.”

  “Are these the same men who killed your friend?”

  Jesse nodded. “I think one of them did it. The other’s dead. He got hit by a train.”

  “Why didn’t you tell that cop about all this?”

  “Before she died, Mrs. Stoker begged us not to tell anyone. She wanted to protect Jewel.”

  “Why don’t you tell anyone now? They’re going to throw you into prison, they may even give you the chair.”

  Jesse wiped the tears from his eyes and looked at Shakes and said, “You remember the girl that came to see me last night?”

  “Gemma?”

  “Her father was the one that got hit by the train. The other man’s her uncle.”

  Shakes sat back on his bunk and thought for a minute and then looked up at Jesse.

  “Have you noticed, Jesse, my hands don’t shake anymore? I don’t know when it stopped. Just one day I looked down, and my hands weren’t shaking. I don’t drink anymore either. I’m still a drunk. If you offered me a swig, I’d probably down the whole bottle. But I almost never take that first drink anymore.

  “I had everything in Chicago, and at the same time I had absolutely nothing. Now I have nothing, but feel like I have everything.

  “Kid, whatever happens in this trial, even if you get sent to jail, you’re more valuable than you will ever know. You haven’t ended up yet.”

  #

  CHEROKEE COUNTY COURTHOUSE

  RUSK TEXAS

  11:45 a.m., December 7, 1941

  When Gemma stepped out of the car, she was a bit surprised at the crowd in town on a Sunday. There wasn’t a single parking spot on the square. She parked a block away on Henderson Street in front of the new laundry and dry-cleaning service. There were mostly men huddled in groups. As she past one group it frightened her to hear some man say, “Somebody’ gotta do somethin’ about that kid before he murders any more people.”

  She felt the stare of angry eyes as she climbed the courthouse steps. When she got to the door, she saw a line of pickups pull into town, circle the square and then head off to find places to park.

  The judge had been very kind to Jesse and Gemma. He had seen to it that Gemma could come and go all she wanted and that she could bring things like food and books. Gemma’s mother had made pot roast, a Sunday tradition at the Crawford house. Normally Gemma would get up and go to Sunday school on a Sunday morning, but the past few weeks had altered her routine to some extent. This morning she waited until the pot roast was fully cooked and packed some into a little Dutch oven to bring up to the courthouse for Jesse.

  When she entered the courthouse, a sheriff’s deputy greeted her with some nervousness. All the deputies had been very nice, and this man was no exception, but he stood at the door looking out at the crowd with obvious concern.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure,” the deputy replied. “They started showing up about a half hour ago. If many more show up I’m gonna have to call for help.”

  “Does this have somethin’ to do with Jesse?”

  “Have you seen the Houston paper?”

  “No,” she replied with growing apprehension.

  “It’s on the desk outside the cells. The keys are there, too. I’m gonna stay up here. You can let yourself in.”

  Gemma carried the pot down the staircase and into the county sheriff’s office. She passed through the office area to a door that led into the jail cells. Just outside the barred door was a desk with the newspaper sitting on it. She put the cast-iron pot on the desk and sat down on a wooden swivel chair to look at the paper. The cover had horrible pictures of Cliff and Jewel. Gemma’s eyes moistened as she looked at the two friends she’d grown up with. Their bodies were all mangled and bloody. Next to Cliff was a dead alligator. She almost broke down and cried as she r
ealized that the stories she’d heard were true. The C.A. had rambled on and on about it in court, and it was as horrible an image as she could possibly imagine, but until that moment they were only images in her mind. These were clear and up close. Suddenly the ugly truth of Cliff’s slow, brutal death became very real.

  Then Gemma looked at the picture of Jewel. Jewel’s face was looking up with her eyes wide open, almost as if she were alive, except there was a sharp tree the size of a baseball bat sticking up through her chest. Her body was suspended there looking back at the camera. Gemma broke down and cried. She and Jewel had never been real close. At one time they started to become friends, but that was the summer that her father had suddenly died. At the same time she began going with Jesse. She remembered how, after her father’s death, Jesse started coming over to the house a lot to help out with chores. One day when they came home from the shop, Jesse had mowed the lawn and trimmed all the trees and hedges. He began coming over almost every day. As a result, Gemma didn’t have much time for other friends. She suddenly regretted not spending more time getting to know Jewel. The poor girl’s mother had run away that same summer.

  Gemma heard a noise from the crowd outside. She instinctively looked up, realizing that this was going to be a bad day. Gemma quickly took a handkerchief from her purse and wiped away the tears. She couldn’t let Jesse know she’d been crying, and sure didn’t want him to know what was going on outside. She quickly grabbed the keys and then opened the door to the cellblock and walked down the hall to Jesse’s cell.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said cheerfully as she opened his cell door. “I hope you’re hungry.”

  “What’s going on outside? We keep hearing noises.”

  “I don’t know,” she lied. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  #

  MCMILLAN’S STORE

  ELZA, TEXAS

  12:50 p.m., Sunday December 7, 1941

  The chief and Corporal McKinney were having another unfruitful day. They started the morning by driving out to Cherokee-One-Leg’s house, but the old man wasn’t home. On the positive side, his truck wasn’t there, which suggested that he had left of his own volition and wasn’t another one of Richard Crawford’s victims. They then spotted Crawford’s red coupe parked next to a shed behind the house. The chief immediately feared that Crawford had gotten to the old man, but McKinney knew better. That old Indian fighter was too crafty.

  As Chief Hightower pulled the prowler into town, they spotted Toad Lowery in front of McMillan’s waving them down. Jefferson feared the worst; the last time he got news from Toad and Hunker on a Sunday morning it was not good.

  When they pulled under the awning they saw that Hunker was holding a rifle cradled in the cook of one arm, and over his other shoulder he had a stick with at least five gutted coons hanging from it.

  As Toad came to the window Jefferson said, “It looks like you boys had a good morning’.”

  Toad shoved a copy of the Houston Examiner in the prowler window and asked, “Chief, you seen this?”

  The chief looked at the cover pictures in dismay and handed the paper to Corporal McKinney.

  “Someone broke into my office. That roll of film was in my desk.”

  While the two officers were sitting in the shade, a long line of pickups drove past on the highway toward Rusk. Both lawmen watched with the interest that only a police officer could understand.

  “Is it normal to see this much traffic on a Sunday?” McKinney asked.

  “No, there’s never any traffic on a Sunday.”

  A second line of trucks passed. This time one of the trucks was a Chevy pickup with wooden sideboards. There were five men standing in the back. Two of the men were holding shotguns.

  “They’re goin’ to lynch ‘im,” McKinney said.

  The chief slammed the prowler into gear and hit the accelerator. As the car sped off, gravel sprayed all over the Lowery brothers.

  #

  CHEROKEE COUNTY COURTHOUSE

  RUSK, TEXAS

  1:15 p.m., Sunday December 7, 1941

  When Irwin and his two companions rolled into Rusk, there were already at least a hundred people out in front of the courthouse. His driver didn’t bother finding a real parking spot; instead he opted to leave his truck in the middle of the street. By the time they got halfway to the front of the building, a dozen more trucks had done the same.

  When they reached the front steps of the courthouse, one of the men with Irwin shouted, “This is the father of the poor little girl that kid butchered!”

  In a moment’s time the entire crowd, which previously had been composed of little groups, gathered into one large, angry, shouting mass. All the while more and more trucks pulled into town to the point that the streets were no longer passable.

  The men with him kept urging Irwin to speak, but he really didn’t know what to say. Suddenly, for reasons that he no longer understood, he was now the center of a lot of attention. In all honesty he didn’t know if he wanted that Rose kid to pay for Jewel’s killing or not. The fact was that he had no idea who killed her or why. Everyone said Rose did it, but he didn’t know why they seemed to be so sure. The truth was that he still had a terrible headache and really wanted to be home with his four bottles of Old Crow.

  Before he realized it, he was standing on the top of the courthouse steps, and the angry crowd quieted, waiting for him to speak.

  Irwin looked around at the crowed and said, “I don’t know what to say. All I know is that my little girl is dead.”

  “And that judge wants to let the kid who done it go free!” Shouted someone from the crowd.

  It took nothing else to light the flame. The mass of angry men rushed up the steps past Irwin and into the courthouse. The deputy tried futilely to hold the door shut and get it locked, but it was way too late, as he was no match for the power of the mob pressing against him. Within seconds they had rushed into the building and down the staircase to the jail.

  Jesse and Gemma and Shakes had just finished their lunch. The day before one of the deputies had shown Gemma where they kept metal plates and flatware for the prisoners. At first she was afraid of the man in the cell across from Jesse, but there was something kind and gentle about his eyes. The night before Jesse had told her how he was a nice man who had fallen on bad luck during the depression. Jesse suspected that Shakes had gotten arrested on purpose to get a few good meals. Her mother always made way too much pot roast anyway, so it was no problem to bring enough for three. She even opened his cell, so he could sit with her and Jesse.

  They actually had a nice time. Shakes led them in a blessing, and then as they ate he told funny stories about life on the rails. Gemma had almost forgotten all about the newspaper and the angry crowd outside. She finished washing their plates and had just walked back into cellblock when she heard people coming down the stairs and bursting into the sheriff’s office. There was really nothing she could do. The entire area was suddenly packed with men. She found herself pushed back into a corner of Jesse’s cell. All she could do was watch while the throng poured into the cellblock. A moment later she caught a glimpse of Jesse as the mob carried him out of the building.

  When she stepped out of the cell the area was eerily quiet. Shakes rushed to her side, “Are you okay?”

  She simply nodded.

  The prowler came to a screeching halt a block from the courthouse square. Jefferson had done a masterful job racing into Rusk. For the first time in his career he got to use the siren and lights, which made it easy to get past many of the cars and trucks headed into town. But the highway was narrow and it was difficult to pass more than just a few trucks at a time. Even worse, a number of the trucks seemed to purposely try to keep them from passing.

  When they got to the square the streets were blocked with cars and trucks.The two law officers got out of the prowler and began running tow
ard the square. When they got to the lawn surrounding the courthouse, a line of trucks came rambling into town from behind them. These trucks made no effort to stop. Instead, they drove up onto the sidewalks, plowing past anyone in the way. The lead truck was a large pulpwood hauler that simply shoved aside anything in its path.

  Irwin was dumbfounded as he watched the mob come out of the courthouse shouting and dragging Jesse Rose. The boy looked terrified, but Irwin didn’t really care.

  He must have done it. Everyone seemed to know that the Rose kid was the one who killed Jewel.

  The crowd carried Jesse to the street corner where someone had already thrown a rope over a streetlight. They had punched and kicked him over and over all the way from the cell to the street. His ears had been boxed so many times that he couldn’t hear. When they got to the light pole, Jesse was hunched over on his knees with bruises and cuts all over his face and blood streaming from his nose and mouth.

  The two men who had driven Irwin to Rusk, whose names he still didn’t know, grabbed him by the arms and led him to where Jesse was kneeling.

  “Is this the one who murdered your daughter?” one of the men asked.

  The crowd quieted.

  Irwin looked at Jesse.

  The kid had to have done it; even the newspapers seemed to know it.

  Irwin looked at the crowd and then back down at Jesse and then nodded.

  Gemma followed Shakes out of the courthouse and stood in horror as the angry mob put a noose around Jesse’s neck. Across the street Judge Buckner was fighting his way through the mob.

  “Stop this!” he yelled over and again to the mob that seemed to neither listen nor care.

  Shakes leaped from the courthouse steps and ran into the mob and grabbed the rope just as the crowd began pulling Jesse up off his feet. One of the men in the crowd hit Shakes with a club, but he held on, keeping Jesse from being pulled up. Then more men began clubbing and hitting Shakes until he lost hold of the rope and fell to his knees.