Winding Stair (9781101559239)

by Jones, Douglas C.

  With the last stroke of the clock, George Maledon appeared in the south doorway of the jail, coils of heavy black rope draped on each arm. With him were three men, his assistants, and they quickly made their way across the thirty yards that separated the jail from the gallows enclosure. Every eye followed their progress, and what little conversation there had been among those waiting was now stilled. The four men disappeared inside the fence, leaving the witnesses at the gate. From positions atop the walls and from the trees, it could be seen that the ropes were being attached to the oak beam above the gallows platform, the teardrop loops hanging in the wind, swaying back and forth, the thirteen coils on each knot dreadfully thick, as thick as a grown man’s forearm.

  Inside the jail, the Winding Stair Four had taken their baths and donned the simple black suits the court provided for men going to the rope. They had eaten breakfast and smoked cigars. Now, as they were led along the corridor toward the south door, those waiting in the yard could hear other prisoners calling farewell. As though on a single string, the people in the compound moved away from the walls and to the south end of the building so they might be near enough to see the four men pass toward the gallows. As they began to take their places along the route of this last walk, the enclosure gates were opened and the witnesses quickly ushered inside, to stand near the foot of the machine.

  First came two deputy marshals, armed with rifles. Behind them, in the same order in which they had marched into the courtroom almost six months before, came the condemned four. Johnny Boins was calm, but he was not smiling now. His face was serious and pale in the early light. He wore on his left lapel a small boutonniere of hothouse lilacs. Close around him were more deputies, and walking beside him was a minister from a local church. During the time of waiting for a decision from the Supreme Court, his parents had been back in Fort Smith, and they had been allowed to visit him each day. But they had returned now to Eureka Springs.

  In close order came Skitty Cornkiller and Nason Grube, with their escorts. The young Creek had used pomade on his hair, but the wind loosened it anyway, blowing strands across his face. He walked with his head up, his eyes wide and trancelike, but he showed no sign of fear. Twice in that short walk, he tried to brush the hair back from his forehead, lifting his manacled hands before his face. Behind him came Nason Grube, a Bible held between his hands, his lips moving silently. A Catholic priest moved beside the black man, telling his beads. The scars on Grube’s face were almost invisible in the faint light, and he appeared serene.

  Smoker Chubee looked about the compound as he walked toward the gallows, moving gracefully despite the heavy leg-irons, clearly making an effort to do so. His gaze was impersonal, lacking interest or curiosity, sweeping back and forth. His nostrils flared as he caught the scent of fresh bread coming on the wind, but there was no light in his eyes.

  I stood just inside the gallows enclosure gate, behind a deputy marshal, and as they came, each saw me there. Johnny Boins nodded, and the trace of a smile crossed his handsome face. Cornkiller glanced at me only once and then his eyes went to the gallows rising before him and I saw him swallow hard. I thought Nason Grube’s lips formed my name, but I heard nothing. As Smoker Chubee passed me, he winked again, as he had done that first day in court.

  Mounting the stairs was a difficult task. Their leg-irons dragged behind them, hanging on each step. Deputies at their elbows helped them. No one hesitated. No one held back. As each of them reached the top of the steps and moved onto the platform, he was silhouetted for a moment against the gray sky before moving under the slanted roof. They were then seated on a long bench that ran the length of the back wall, and everyone stood away from them except the Catholic priest, who knelt for a few seconds before Nason Grube. Finally, he, too, moved back, taking the Bible from the old man’s hands.

  On the far right of the platform, where the trap lever thrust upward like a huge locomotive throttle, was the jailer, holding the death warrant. Immediately behind him was Oscar Schiller, his palmetto replaced now with a Russian fur cap. The jailer cleared his throat with a loud rasp, and as he held the paper up to read, a number of spectators removed their hats.

  “On order of the United States Circuit Court for the Western District of Arkansas, the following,” the jailer read, his voice loud and carrying out beyond the enclosure to the people gathered in the compound. “That Johnny Boins, Skitty Cornkiller, Nason Grube, and Smoker Chubee shall be put to death at eight thirty o’clock on this date and at this place, Fort Smith in the State of Arkansas, by hanging, for crimes capital committed in the Indian Territory, having been duly tried before a jury of their peers and found guilty of rape and murder, and having exhausted all appeals for the sentence under the law. Signed, J. W. Mitchell, United States Commissioner for the Western District of Arkansas, February eighteenth, 1891.”

  He turned toward the four seated men.

  “Do any of you have anything to say?”

  “Could one of the reverends say a prayer?” Skitty Cornkiller asked, his voice quavering.

  Now all the hats in the enclosure came off, and heads were bowed as one of the ministers on the platform moved to the front and faced the condemned men. He spoke aloud, but his words were indistinguishable to those immediately below him.

  “Anybody else have anything to say?” the jailer asked.

  “I was born a free man,” Nason Grube said loudly, “and I will die a free man.”

  There was a long pause, with no sound but the wind. Oscar Schiller’s harsh voice cut across it.

  “All right. Everybody onto the trap.”

  The deputies came from the far ends of the platform again to help the four as they rose and formed a line under the oak beam. Two deputies worked with each of them. Handcuffs were removed and the men’s arms pinned at their sides by steel bracelets on a heavy leather belt until now hidden under their coats. Leg-irons were removed, the long links thrown to the rear of the platform with a loud clatter, and replaced by short lengths of rope that secured their ankles tight together.

  “Good-bye, Helen,” Skitty Cornkiller shouted.

  “That’s his sister,” someone among the spectators whispered. The young Creek seemed unable to maintain his balance with his feet tied together, and a deputy had to stand close behind him, holding his elbows.

  George Maledon started along the line, slipping a noose over each head, the knot pulled snug against the neck behind the left ear. He had to reach up and stand on tiptoe.

  Then I saw the old woman. Rufus Deer’s mother. She stood immediately below Smoker Chubee. He was looking down at her, and I heard him say something in Creek. She answered him in kind, holding a shawl about her head and small, stooped shoulders. Smoker Chubee spoke again, this time in English.

  “It’s too bad about Rufus, old mother.”

  “You’ll see him in glory,” she replied, her voice sharp and clear on the cold wind.

  Maledon was going back along the line now, drawing black muslin caps down over their faces. I could hear Nason Grube, praying aloud, his voice strong but muffled under the cap.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” one of them said, and I was sure it was Johnny Boins.

  Then Maledon was at the lever, the jailer standing well back, and Oscar Schiller with him. Using both hands, Maledon heaved and the trap fell with a heavy thump. Three of them fell with a quick lurch and after only a few seconds of jerking were still, turning from side to side, swinging like slow, grotesque pendulums. But Johnny Boins was strangling, and the spectators could hear him. His body knifed upward, bending as the fingers of his hands clawed out, trying to break away from the heavy leather belt about his waist. His knees lifted, almost to his chest, his legs bowing. Gray-faced, one of the witnesses turned and rushed from the enclosure. Johnny Boins writhed, trying to thrust his body up through the noose, trying to throw off the black rope. But after only a few seconds, his choking was stilled and then only his legs moved, still thrashing out to either side, kicking against the body o
f Skitty Cornkiller, who swung next to him. Then the spasms were through, and like his companions Johnny Boins hung limp, swinging in the wind.

  Beneath each hanging figure there was a pine coffin, the lid still on. A man in a long coat and with a stethoscope started along the line, listening for heartbeats, standing on the coffin lids beneath each in turn. He moved quickly from one body to the next, calling up to George Maledon and the jailer peering down through the still-open trap that each man was dead. But at Johnny Boins, he listened for a long time and said nothing. The spectators shifted uneasily, waiting, and the wind seemed to freshen and turn colder. The doctor listened once more to Johnny Boins’s heart, and yet again. Finally, after what seemed an hour but was only ten minutes, he reported that Johnny Boins was dead.

  Quickly, the deputies hurried the spectators from the enclosure, and already the long wagon was pulling up to the south gate of the compound, to haul away the coffins. First to the mortuary and then to the grave. The only body to be claimed was that of Johnny Boins. Before leaving Fort Smith, his parents had arranged that it be shipped to Eureka Springs. But the others would go to potter’s field, on the far side of National Cemetery and well removed from the heroes lying there under gray headstones.

  At first, I had supposed I would stay and see it all through. But as I watched the deputies beneath the gallows platform, lifting Smoker Chubee’s body while George Maledon bent down through the trap to work off the rope, I suddenly sickened and hurried away toward Evans’s office. Later that day, I learned that on the wall of his cell Johnny Boins had scratched a message.

  “Mother dear, I dreamed I was in heaven, amongst the angels fair.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  The lamplighter had begun his ride along Garrison Avenue, standing in the stirrups beneath each gaslight as his mule stood with droop-eared patience. I watched from my hotel window, and as he moved away toward the Catholic church at the far end of the street, each lamp he touched grew into a white gauze puff without shape or definition in the falling snow. With the curtains drawn back, the only illumination in the room came from the street below. On my desk was a copy of the Fort Smith Elevator, an entire column on the front page taken up with the story of Smoker Chubee that I had given one of their reporters. Beside it lay the long-barreled pistol that had arrived in a brown paper bag from the courthouse within an hour after the first edition had gone on the street.

  With the gun had come a note from Evans explaining that Smoker Chubee had asked that it be given to me if the account of his Kansas experience was ever published. Generally, all such weapons were confiscated by the court, but in this case Judge Parker himself had agreed that I might have it, although I had shown no disposition to own such a thing. There was a fascination about it all the same, and it was with considerable annoyance that I realized in myself the same morbid curiosity about such things as I had always thought abhorrent among the court watchers around Fort Smith, I began to understand why some lawyers collected such memorabilia from their various cases, and why George Maledon would likely make a great deal of money someday going about the countryside displaying his ropes and pistols in a sideshow tent.

  I lifted the heavy pistol from the table, and although I was not then nor have I ever become an expert on sidearms, it was obvious that Moma July had been right. This was a finely tuned weapon. The great curved butt fit perfectly into my hand and the hammer came back under my thumb with an oily triple click, almost cocking itself. There was with the pistol a well-used shoulder holster and a half-empty box of .45 cartridges. The surface of the brutal pug-nosed slugs had the consistency of warm tallow under my fingers. I wondered how many men had been the recipient of such slugs. Even now, with Smoker Chubee cold in the grave, he had the capacity to make my skin crawl.

  I had brought up a bottle of brandy from the hotel saloon after a supper barely picked over. It had been three days since the executions, but still I had no appetite. The scene that cold morning was still heavy on my thinking—the men in a single row beneath the beam, the ropes open to receive their necks, the thunder of the trap falling. Twice I had tried to write my father, explaining my feelings. But it had been useless. I had had such a sensation once before, when I was a child and had seen a dog run over in the streets of Saint Louis by a beer wagon. Then and now, it was not pity or loathing but rather some deep anguish unknown at any other time, without name, without measure, but overwhelming.

  When Oscar Schiller came, I was still toying with the gun, and he looked at it and grunted. He was carrying his saddlebags and wore a heavy winter coat reaching to his knees, split up the back for riding, and with a fur collar that tried to match his Russian cap.

  “I see you got it,” he said. “I read the piece in the newspaper.”

  “Yes, I thought we owed him that much,” I said.

  “We didn’t owe him a damned thing. Except the rope. And we paid that off.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed, sighing, the fur hat seeming to settle down over his ears. He pushed it back with a quick movement of his hand. His eyes darted about the room, taking in everything at one glance and then dismissing it. I had come to recognize his moods better than I would ever have thought possible, and I knew now he was here for a purpose.

  “You sit around here every night in the dark?”

  “No. I was watching the snow,” I said, and turned on the desk lamp.

  “Well, it’s about stopped,” he said. “We’ve got some kind of killing over in Cherokee Nation. Evans thought you might like to get out on another case.”

  “I think not.”

  “Suit yourself. Joe Mountain and Blue Foot are down at the ferry now, waiting. I’ve got four good horses, if you want to come. A deer hunter found some bones over near Going Snake.”

  “I’ll stay here,” I said.

  “Suit yourself,” he repeated. He sat silently, unbuttoning his coat to take out the snuff can and a long kitchen match. Below, a streetcar passed, the noise of its steel wheels on the tracks muffled by snow. I waited for him, knowing there was more. I poured another glass of the brandy.

  “All right,” he said finally, as though making up his mind. Reaching into his saddlebags, he came up with a book, well worn and with some of its pages still dog-eared to mark a place. He handed it up to me, his unblinking stare on my face. The book was the second volume of George Eber’s Bride of the Nile, a popular novel of that day. “You remember when all those people went back to Choctaw Nation after the trial last year?”

  “Yes. I recall it was raining.”

  “That’s right. You and Joe Mountain went to Henryetta’s to get drunk.”

  “No, we went there for a drink, but not to get drunk.”

  A hard lump was forming in my chest and I took a long drink of the brandy. It seemed to stick in my throat for an instant before exploding in my stomach.

  “That day I went up and looked around those cells where that nigger boy and the girl had been kept, I found this book there, along with some others. In her cell.”

  “She had precious little else to do except read,” I said. “Zelda Mores told me she took a lot of books up there.”

  “The others don’t matter. This one does. Look at the front end of it.”

  I opened the book and there was no flyleaf, only a brown pastemark along the inner face of the title page where the flyleaf had been torn out. There was something terribly familiar about the paper, the distinctive tooth, the color. And the size and shape of it as well. The realization came suddenly, sickeningly.

  “My God. That note Emmitt got from someone.”

  “Not someone. From her. He sure as hell didn’t know it was her, else he wouldn’t have gone off with her, back to the Choctaw. But she slipped it into his cell. Look at that book under the light.”

  My hands were shaking as I held the open book under the desk lamp so the light slanted across the title page. There were the marks a pencil might make, pressed down hard on the page above, a few scribbled words and the unmista
kable outline of a skull. The death’s-head note had been written on the flyleaf, leaving an indented copy beneath, then torn out—the note that had terrified Emmitt and effectively put a stop to the Eagle John murder and rape case. Gingerly, I placed the book on the desk, still open, the lamplight showing clearly the message: “You talk you die.” I felt the marks with my fingertips, but there was no erasing them.

  “The boy’s all right, of course. She never meant him any harm anyway. She just wanted to scare hell out of him. George Moon has wired me. That boy’s with another family now, somewhere along the Kiamichi.”

  “So now I suppose you’re on your way to arrest her?”

  “Oh shit, Eben,” he said in exasperation, not suspecting that in my muddled state of mind it was impossible to fit the pieces together. “I told you where I’m going. You think I’d have waited this long if I intended to do anything about it?”

  “Does Evans or Judge Parker know about this?”

  “Hell no! If they did, I’d have a warrant in my pocket for her right now. Long before now. I haven’t told anybody. What’s to be gained? So you’ve got the book, and as far as I’m concerned, I never saw it before in my life. Burn the son of a bitch.”

  I was not confused enough to miss the point. He was doing this out of consideration for my feelings, not because of any sympathy for Jennie Thrasher. From the moment he had found the book and realized its implications, and withheld it from the United States prosecutor, he had been an accessory to obstruction of justice. And now he was making me part of it, too. But I knew at that moment, as surely as he had known six months before, that I would never hand it over to Evans or anybody else. I would burn the son of a bitch!