Winding Stair (9781101559239)

by Jones, Douglas C.

  “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?”

  “Yeah, about midmonth he come to see me. I don’t know the exact time.” She sat upright on the stand, but somehow beneath her dress she managed to show the lacy hem of at least two petticoats, and her high-button shoes were polished to a bright shine.

  “What do you recall of that meeting?”

  “He wanted to have a good drunk. Then he started telling me—”

  “Objection,” McRoy shouted, raising his hand like a schoolboy wanting to be excused. Judge Parker grimaced.

  “Mr. McRoy, now you know what a defendant has said is admissible. Overruled.”

  “He got drunk,” Lila continued. “He told me he’d been in The Nations. He said him and his bunch—that’s what he called it, his bunch—had got even with this man. . . . You want me to say his words?”

  “Yes, please. Miss Masters,” Evans prompted.

  “Well, he said they’d got even with this son of a bitch who’d tried to keep him away from a girl he’d found. He said his bunch was meaner than the James gang.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “Just that over and over. He talked about always getting even with a man who’d try to keep him away from a girl.”

  “Did he say where this had happened?”

  “He said the Winding Stair. He kept saying that. The Winding Stair.”

  “What did you do with this information?”

  “I got in touch with Deputy Marshal Oscar Schiller and he come over and I give it to him. Just like I told it now. I knew about this big killing over there in Winding Stair from all the newspapers.”

  Watching her, I pondered the question: After at first so vehemently refusing to take any part in the case, why had she finally decided to take the stand? Merriweather McRoy was obviously pondering the same question, in different terms. When Evans released the witness, McRoy sprang to the cross-examination, moving quickly to stand before the witness in that thrust-forward posture of his.

  “May I call you Lila?”

  “Most do,” she said, and her bad teeth showed as she smiled broadly.

  “Lila, where did you meet Johnny Boins?”

  “Where I am employed,” she said, seeming to make a joke of the words. “At Henryetta’s Frisco Hotel and Billiard Parlor. I entertain there.”

  “And Johnny Boins was a regular customer there?”

  “Yes. He always asked for me.” And she was proud of it; it sounded in her voice.

  “On the night you’ve described—I assume your work is done mostly at night.” And McRoy paused to allow the crowd to have its laugh. “Did Johnny Boins call the name of the man he got even with?”

  “No, he never told no names.”

  “He drank that night, you said. He drank most of the time. Isn’t that true?”

  “Mostly, he drank a lot.”

  “Was he a calm drunk?”

  “No, he was a little crazy, mostly.”

  “Drunk and crazy beyond any capability to know right from wrong?”

  “Objection, Your Honor.” And Evans was up, his pince-nez almost falling off his nose. “She’s no expert in such things.”

  “I suspect she might be,” McRoy said, smiling at the jury.

  “Sustained,” Judge Parker said, scribbling on a notepad and not looking up.

  “Lila, you said he was crazy.”

  “Objection!” Evans shouted. “This woman may be an expert in a lot of things, but this isn’t one of them.”

  Parker sustained it again after letting the crowd finish its laughing.

  “Lila, did Johnny Boins ever hit you?”

  “Lots of times, when he was crazy drunk.”

  “Your Honor . . .” Evans said, almost pleading, but Parker waved him down.

  “It’s just a manner of speaking, Mr. Evans. Let’s get on with it.”

  “Lila,” McRoy said, leaning closer to her, speaking confidentially. “Were you afraid of Johnny Boins?”

  “Yes, I always was.”

  “In fact, you told me, Lila, that at first you were afraid to testify here. Isn’t that true?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then why did you change your mind?”

  Lila looked at Johnny Boins, and the young man returned her gaze, smiling, his teeth showing across the pink flesh of his face. After a moment, Lila shifted her eyes, and I thought there was suddenly more color in her cheeks.

  “I thought it was the right thing.”

  “Johnny Boins often talked of other women to you, didn’t he?”

  “All the time.”

  “What did he say about them?”

  “He bragged about how good he was with them.”

  Abruptly, McRoy asked the question designed to fluster the little whore, but she remained unperturbed, even a little haughty.

  “Do you love Johnny Boins?”

  “Yes, I love him.”

  It was becoming increasingly clear to me that Johnny Boins had some kind of incredible way with women, and the thought of what else he was made it sickening.

  “You’re jealous of these other women?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “So despite your fear, you’ve come here to tell this tall tale to get revenge on Johnny Boins for those other women. Isn’t that right?”

  “No.” Excepting the slight flush, she was still calm.

  “Did federal officers pay you for this information?”

  Evans started to rise but before he could speak Judge Parker waved him down.

  “They paid me damned little,” Lila said, and the crowd snickered. She looked up to Judge Parker. “Pardon the expression.”

  “But you made a little money and at the same time found this opportunity to take out your jealousy on Johnny Boins.”

  “No, that ain’t right,” she said, and everyone in the room knew that McRoy would not shake her.

  I heard two newspapermen in the next pew whispering together as Lila swung out of the courtroom, walking its width to the corridor door, her heels clicking.

  “That one’ll have more business than she can handle the next few days,” one said.

  “Yeah, she knows how to advertise it.”

  “I’d take that little chippy who was on earlier, myself.”


  It dumbfounded me that the remark had no power to infuriate me now, as it most certainly would have earlier. I sat and absorbed it and the only thing I felt was a deep sense of disappointment over the bitter things people did to one another. Much of it was self-pity, I suppose.

  When George Moon walked to the stand, everyone in the courtroom could see that he’d just had his hair cut. Across his neck below the hairline was a strip of skin the color of parchment. The Choctaw police chief was wearing a suit with a black silk vest and a shirt without a collar.

  Evans led George Moon through the events of that June day when our posse went from the Hatchet Hill road through the woods and mountains to the Thrasher farm, and the carnage we found there. The dead chickens, the dog under the porch, the milk cow, all shot with a large-caliber weapon. And, of course, the men. Thomas Thrasher butchered against the well curbing, the hired man John Price dead and naked and partly eaten by hogs in the pigpen, Oshutubee found shot dead where he sat with pants down in the outdoor toilet. He told of the search for the two women, Jennie and her stepmother, and of finding the girl in the attic after the storm.

  “Now, Officer Moon, would you describe the wounds you found on Mr. Thrasher’s body?”

  “He was bad cut up here,” George Moon said, indicating his shoulder and chest. “And along both sides. They was deep cuts, right through the clothes. Right through the ribs. Up high on his shoulder, there was bone sticking out through the wound.”

  “Did you find any weapon that would produce such wounds?”

  “Yes, sir, within six, eight feet of Mr. Thrasher’s body we found a single-bitted ax with a curved haft. It had blood all over it.”

  A deputy brought in the ax and George Moon said it was the same one because he recognized three crosshatch marks cut into the metal head with a file, a mark Thrasher put on all his tools. For the moment, Evans did not introduce the ax into evidence but had it marked for identification only. Merriweather McRoy objected to the whole business, but Judge Parker overruled him with some irritation.

  “In your investigation, Officer Moon, did you find anything missing from the Thrasher farm?” Evans continued.

  “All the horses were gone. A black stallion racer with white socks at the rear and a T brand on the left flank where it’d be hid by the fender when the horse was saddled. Mr. Thrasher brands all his horses like that. I mean, he used to.”