Part 4 (2/2)
”Do you mind?” she said. ”He's not going to feel free to talk with everyone standing around like this.”
”Well, I aint gon let y'all use the visit room,” Burdell told her. ”We don't let condemned men use the visit room.”
”He isn't condemned anymore, is he?”
”He aint been pardoned, Miss Monday. He's only been reprieved.”
The lady gestured at the witnesses' chairs, two rows of wooden folding chairs at one side of Old Sparky's room. ”Couldn't we just sit here a few minutes?” she asked.
Again the warden needed time to make up his mind. His brains is real slow, Nail reflected. ”Well, okay, I guess,” he said finally. ”I'll have to leave Gabe here with y'all, and let me remind you, ma'am, this person is a convicted rapist and is dangerous. I ought to hang around too, but, h.e.l.l, I'm late for my supper already.”
”Mr. McChristian can handle it,” the lady said, calling Fat Gabe by his proper name.
”Mister McChristian, huh?” the warden said, as if he'd never heard n.o.body call ole Gabe that before. ”Well, Mister McChristian, you watch 'im, and if he tries any funny stuff you beat the everlastin sh-horse hockey out of him.”
The warden and the others left the room. Nail sat down in the same chair he'd sat in to watch Skip get electrocuted, and Miss Monday sat in the same chair where she'd been sitting. Fat Gabe watched them as if they were getting ready to pull something funny. A sudden inspiration occurred to Nail: he could reach inside his jacket, take his blade, kill Fat Gabe with it, then take the woman hostage and break out of here. He would have to handle it carefully: right now Fat Gabe was far enough away to pull his gun beforehand. Nail would have to get him closer. But with these handcuffs back on his wrists, he wasn't sure that he could handle it, even if he got Fat Gabe close enough and moved fast enough. He hadn't even had a chance when he'd tried to reach his blade as Fat Gabe and Short Leg were putting him into the chair. They hadn't even given him enough time to- ”h.e.l.lo.”
The lady had spoken to him. He realized he wasn't paying her much attention. He looked at her. She had her notepad out, and a broken piece of charcoal pencil, which was all she had to write with, the same pencil she'd made that mark on his hand with before, the same pencil she'd used to draw that portrait of him that made him look so awful, the pencil now broken. ”Howdy,” he said.
”How does it feel?” she asked. ”Or is that a stupid question? Were you all prepared to die?”
”No, ma'am,” he answered her. ”I'll never be prepared to die, until I'm real old and there aint nothin to live for no more.”
She wrote this down, or tried to, the dull charcoal pencil making big clumsy letters, with few to a sheet before she had to turn the page over. Then she asked, ”Did you really think it was going to happen? The execution, I mean. Did you still hope you might get a reprieve at the last minute?”
”Yeah, I guess,” he admitted.
”Could you tell me what was going through your mind during those last minutes?” she asked, and added, ”If it's not too hard.”
”Well,” he said. He thought. Both of them were looking not at each other but at Old Sparky sitting there forlorn and cheated but vengeful. He did not know quite how to say it, or even whether to try to tell her. Would she think he was nuts? Or just misunderstand? ”I wasn't really thinkin,” he said. ”I was just listenin to the trees singin.”
Her mouth fell open. She thinks I'm crazy, he said to himself, and cursed himself for having tried to tell her. She asked, very quietly, almost whispering, ”What did you say?”
”Never mind,” he said.
”No, tell me. Did you say-?”
”Forget it,” he said. ”I didn't know what I was sayin.”
”You said,” she said, ”didn't you? that you were listening to the trees singing? Did you say that?”
”Maybe,” he admitted. ”I been feelin awful, tell you the truth, I don't know what I was sayin.”
She laid a hand on his arm. ”That's strange, because-”
”Don't touch the prisoner!” Fat Gabe hollered. ”No con-tack allowed!”
She removed her hand and continued her sentence: ”Because I was hearing the same thing. Trees. I heard trees singing. I swear.” She laughed, and observed, ”I didn't even know trees can sing.”
A strange lady. He smiled at her and waited for her to ask something else.
”Can they?” she asked.
”Can who what?” he said.
”Trees. Sing.”
”These were.”
”What kind of song?”
”Want me to play it for ye on my harmonica?”
”Yes! Would you?”
”Fat Gabe, would you fetch my harmonica?” he asked, grinning so Fat Gabe would know he was just funning.
Fat Gabe snarled, ”I'd like to shove that mouth organ up your-Listen, Chism, why don't y'all jist shut up this love song and git your G.o.dd.a.m.n talkin finished?”
”Do you really have a harmonica?” the lady asked Nail.
”Yes'm, I do,” he said.
”I hope-” she said. ”I hope sometime I can have a chance to hear you play it.” Then she held out her hand. ”My name is Viridis Monday.” He did not take her hand, and then she must have remembered that Fat Gabe had forbidden their touching, for she withdrew her hand.
”I reckon you know my name,” he said. ”Pleased to meet ye. And you know, don't ye? that I wouldn't be alive right this minute if you hadn't drew that pitcher.”
She smiled. She had such a nice, pretty, clean smile, teeth real good and straight and white. She didn't use a whole lot of lip-rouge either, the way most women did these days. She said, ”Mr. Chism, I'd like to help you. I'd like to do some investigating. I'm not really a reporter, I suppose you know. I'm just an ill.u.s.trator. But I know how to do what reporters do, such as checking into facts. There's one fact I'd like to determine: whether or not you...you actually did what they said you did, to that thirteen-year-old girl.”
n.o.body had made any reference to Rindy in a long time, and at the mention of her Nail clenched his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and took an involuntary deep breath. ”Lady,” he said, ”there's only three people on this earth who honestly and truly believe that I'm innocent. One of 'em is me, of course. The other'n is my mother. And the third one-” he paused, and gritted his teeth to p.r.o.nounce her name: ”is Miss Dorinda Whitter, the so-called victim.”
”I would like,” Miss Monday announced, ”to talk to all three of you. Right now I'm talking to you. Why do you think the girl would have falsely accused you?”
”Now, that's a real long story,” he said. ”Fat Gabe aint et his supper either, and he aint gonna want to hang around and let me tell it to you. Right, Fat Gabe?”
”Boy,” Fat Gabe snarled, ”I've tole you before: you don't never ask me no questions. I do the askin, you hear me?”
”Yes, boss,” Nail said, knowing that Fat Gabe was going to get real mean with him as soon as this lady left. Again he flirted with the notion of killing Fat Gabe now and taking this lady hostage, but this lady, he decided, was too nice to have to be subjected to something like that.
”The first thing I'm going to do,” Miss Monday declared, ”is find out the status of your reprieve. If Governor Hays did it himself, on his own, it's probably got some political motive and is very temporary. If the Supreme Court made him do it, it might be permanent.” She stood up and stuck her notepad into the pocket of her coat, then pulled the coat tighter around herself. The sun had gone down; the room was very cold now. But Nail, despite the thinness of his cotton jacket, did not suffer the cold. The kindness of this lady warmed him.
He stood up too. ”Lady-” he began, but decided that wasn't polite enough. ”Miss Monday, why are you doing this for me?”
Again that pretty smile. ”I don't know what song the trees sang,” she said. ”But somehow it told me that the trees would be very sad if you were killed for something you didn't do.”
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